Page 97 of Into the Storm

Now Forks was Forks again. She loved her small town and was glad they got to profit from the wildly popular books and movies while there was gold to mine. But she still didn’t quite fit in her hometown. She was more comfortable in Port Angeles and most comfortable in her park.

But she did have Undine and Jae, and a few other friends in her adopted peninsula town.

She slipped on the wet ground and landed on her knees, her gloved hands sinking into the soft earth. “The ground is really saturated from the rain. We’ll need to watch out. Mudslides could occur on the steeper slopes where water has pooled.”

He nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. We’ll need to avoid the steeper section George suggested. It might be unstable.”

That route would save them a half mile, but she had to agree. Better to lengthen the hike than to have regrets.

They adjusted their trajectory up the slope to avoid the worst of the steep section.

The hike was more grueling than she’d expected, but then, she never hiked in these conditions and never before had so many lives depended on her success.

“What about your parents? Are they going to give me the side-eye for trapping you with a baby?” she asked when they were moving again.

“Are you kidding? My mom is going to be thrilled. She’s been on me about grandkids ever since I stopped going on ops. I’m forty and my brother is forty-two. She’s complained about the long wait.”

She felt a flush of warmth. It hadn’t even occurred to her that her baby could have doting grandparents—another thing Audrey’s childhood had lacked.

“And your dad?” she probed.

“He’ll be thrilled too. He retired last year and wants to do the RV-living thing, which my mom has been resisting because she wants to be close to the grandkids, but once she has a grandbaby up here, she might be agreeable, knowing having an RV would mean being able to visit the Olympic Peninsula for longer periods of time.”

Wow. Xavier had really thought about this, and he really had gone all in. Once again, the damn pregnancy hormones made her eyes well with tears. Her baby was going to have a real family.

And maybe, just maybe, Audrey would have a family too.