Page 129 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

On a civilian plane as it pushed through a westward-moving storm? Not so much.

After half an hour, his stomach finally settled, and it stopped feeling like he was tilting.

The medicine staved off the sickness, but it sure as hell didn’t do anything for the buzzing in his head.

He’d trained himself to lower the volume of that chatter, the whispers of worry and worst-case scenarios, but sometimes it got a little loud.

While several thousand feet in the air, for instance.

“Do you remember when Aidan and Sean got stuck in that goat pen?” Nick asked.

“I’m still sad I missed the whole thing,” Nick sighed. “Too busy trying to keep the perimeter.”

Matt chuckled. “You really missed out. It was the first time I’d ever seen Aidan lose his mind. But then again, the goats seemed to hate him...or like him, we never did figure out which.”

Matt wasn’t exactly well-versed in goat behavior; apparently, neither was anyone else.

The closest they had to an expert was Nick because, apparently, they didn’t have goats in Kansas, and Sean had been just as confused.

Aidan had sworn up and down that the ram was trying to fight him, and it had looked like that to Matt.

Upon hearing about it later, Nick had sworn the ram had, in fact, been trying to mate with Aidan.

“I still remember that, that…” Matt gasped, trying to hold back his laughter. “That fucking squawk he made when it pinned him.”

“Sean’s cursing almost alerted the farmer we were there,” Nick pointed out.

It had been a good night, even if Aidan hadn’t agreed with their assessment.

Matt couldn’t help but rehash every detail.

Nick had already heard the story, and he’d been able to listen to the comms just fine.

But Matt had been the one to witness the entire thing through high-powered, night vision lenses from his perch.

It wasn’t until he found himself launching into another story, which Nick would know all too well, that he realized what had happened. Without tipping his hand, Nick managed to trick Matt into rambling rather than focusing on being stuck in a plane.

Nick raised a brow. “Is this the story of when we had to steal some kid’s wagon to cart Sean back to the pick-up spot?”

Matt blinked, giving his friend a wry look. For his part, Nick waited patiently, knowing damn well Matt wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to launch into the story with all the details lovingly rendered.

“And he kept bitching about the squeaking wheel for three hours, never realizing the noise was coming from him,” Matt continued.

Nick smiled, squeezing Matt’s wrist as they sat, ignoring the looks of other people around them.

Whether it was because Matt might have been a little too loud and enthusiastic in his retelling or because they were practically holding hands, he didn’t know.

Quite frankly, he didn’t care either. There were a multitude of stories he could regale Nick with for the next several hours if need be.

And best of all, he knew Nick would not only listen but egg him on, eager to hear more.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip didn’t throw any further difficulty at Matt. Nick had kept him talking and, more importantly, laughing. They disembarked, still chuckling as they entered the terminal.

Matt pointed down a hallway. “We can get our luggage down there. And your mom said she and a couple of people will be picking us up.”

“Uh,” Nick said, raising a brow. “How many?”

Matt checked the phone, shrugging. “A couple.”

“Ah, shit.”

Matt shot him a confused look. “What?”

Nick continued walking, shaking his head. “If you haven’t learned about my mother or family after all this time, I won’t tell you. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Matt frowned, jogging to catch up with his friend before he got out of sight.

He honestly had no idea what Nick was talking about.

Normally, he hated it when someone acted mysteriously.

He’d never been good at nuance, and hints tended to sail right over his head.

Some people found that hilarious and liked to use it against him, making him the butt of the joke.

When it was his team, that was okay. He knew they didn’t mean anything by it. That was just how they were

Nick wasn’t like that, though, never had been.

Yeah, Nick teased him, but Matt always knew when he was the butt of the joke, and he knew Nick would sooner throw himself off a cliff than intentionally hit a tender spot.

If Nick was vague, it wasn’t because he was irritated with Matt or wanted to make a fool of him.

Matt could take Nick at face value, and he would learn what he meant soon enough.

“Oh,” Matt muttered as they entered the baggage pickup area.

Nick only sighed, raising his hand to greet the clan of people waiting beside the conveyor belt. Matt counted at least a dozen, and they made the noise of double that when they spotted them.

“Shit,” Matt grimaced, raising a hand in greeting.

“You always forget,” Nick said companionably beside him as they approached.

It wasn’t that he forgot necessarily. He remembered how Nick’s family could be. He just sometimes didn’t believe they would always be as exuberant. It was impossible to remember they also had the same reaction when it came to him.

The crowd waiting for them looked so much like Nick.

The same pale skin, some with freckles, others without, and none had dark hair.

Eye color varied, but some had the same brightness as Nick, while others had the same shape.

Some of them even had that same crooked grin, different in how they showed it, but somehow the same one he’d seen spread over Nick’s face.

From the crowd of mismatched doppelgangers came a woman Matt knew all too well.

Kimberly Engel looked so little like her oldest son.

But Matt had seen the identical shape of their eyes and learned enough about her to know the surface was where all the differences lay.

Nick may look more like his father, but he had his mother’s steely resolve, observant nature, and giant heart.

“Well, there’s my boys,” she called loudly.

Matt winced, glad Nick had not inherited her big mouth. “Hi, Mrs. Engel.”

She scowled. “You don’t have to call me Mom, but you know, ‘Mrs. Engel’ is for the man at the DMV, not you.”

Before he could reply , he was yanked into her firm grasp.

She was a head shorter than Matt, which meant Nick towered over her.

That didn’t alter how absurdly strong the woman was.

Petite and frail-looking did not a weak person make, and Matt knew better than to argue with her.

As much as her slight frame did little to betray her physical strength, it showed even less of how little Kimberly Engel was willing to put up with.

“God in heaven, it’s good to see you two,” she whispered fiercely, squeezing Matt’s neck.

His eyes prickled as she gave him a wiggle before pulling back and holding onto his face.

She was not a woman to be crossed lightly, bearing the air of command and the force of personality behind it.

Yet she wasn’t a woman given to barking orders and snapping at people, not coldly anyway.

She had a heart as big as Nick’s, though she was far more open about it.

“It’s good to see you too,” Matt muttered, hoping no one but she and Nick heard him.

“Oh, honey,” she said, giving him another squeeze.

Matt was at a loss for words, suddenly realizing just how much he missed this forceful, sweet woman. He was spared fumbling over his thoughts and converting them into words by Nick’s timely intervention.

“Am I getting a hug?” Nick asked dryly.

She turned to him, grabbing Nick’s elbows and gazing up at him. “Just so long as I get a good look at you first.”

“I’m in one piece, Mama,” he murmured softly.

The gentle affection, in tone and nickname, was enough to take the wind out of Kimberly Engel’s sails. Even Matt could see that. Her shoulders sank, her features softened, and she bent forward to hug her eldest. Nick smiled gently, wrapping his thick arms around her and holding tight.

The sweetness lasted only a moment before another voice cut through. “And where’s my hug?”

Matt had only a moment to realize who the voice belonged to before an impossibly small woman barreled into view and wrapped herself around him. Matt stumbled, wondering how the hell the Engel women could be so small and yet so strong before Nick’s sister peered up at him fiercely.

“And just where the hell have you two been for the past couple of years?” Maria demanded.

Matt couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t exactly have control over when we can show up. Your brother’s the one with more pull than me now.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Nick muttered.

Matt winked at him, not ashamed that he’d thrown his friend under the bus. He would gladly take a bullet for Nick and had. But when choosing between one of them having to deal with the Kimberly and Maria tag-team duo, Matt would happily scuttle for cover and leave Nick to deal with the fallout.

Sure enough, Maria released her grip on Matt to turn to her older brother. “Don’t try to blame him because you’ve been too busy to come see us too.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Nick sighed.

Matt quietly stepped aside, hoping to stay out of the fire.

From the crowd of Nick’s relatives, Matt spotted his other two sisters approaching.

Nicole was next in age, followed a year later by Emily.

Both were more sedate than their elder sister, though Matt didn’t think that was saying much.

They resembled twins, even swapping the same hairstyle and clothes now and then.

Their grins were wide as they approached, squeezing him tight as they waited for their other sister and mother to stop harassing their brother long enough to get a word in.

Once Nicole and Emily squeezed their way in and greeted Nick, the rest of the family began to crowd in. Matt didn’t immediately recognize anyone else and remembered Nick had said Christmas would be a larger gathering than before.

“Where’s Dad?” Nick finally asked, still sticking out among the crowd of people swarming him.

“Oh,” Kimberly said, waving a hand. “He’s at the lodge. Said he wanted to get a head start with everything and make sure the boiler is working right. It’s been getting tricky the past couple of years.”

Nick frowned. “He still hasn’t replaced that thing? It’s as old as he is.”

Kimberly snorted. “I told him much the same, but you know your father. Until the damn thing blows us all sky-high, he’s not replacing it.”

Matt raised a brow, not willing to risk the attention by asking if the boiler was going to blow up. The rest of the team would be pissed if they got themselves blown up by an ancient boiler after everything they’d been through.

As if summoned, Nick appeared at his side, squeezing his elbow.

Matt glanced up, flashing a grateful smile and nodding to tell his friend he was alright.

Huge crowds weren’t his thing, especially when he knew that, eventually, he would have to deal with some of these strangers.

But for Nick and his family, Matt would be okay.

“Then let’s go make sure he hasn’t blown himself up,” Nick said to the crowd.

“Well, I hope you boys are in for a nice car ride,” Kimberly said brightly.

At that, Matt looked around the crowd and felt his stomach sink. God, would he be stuck for hours in a vehicle full of people he didn’t know? Nick’s family or not, the idea filled him with dread.

Nicole saved him, hooking her arm through his. “You will be riding with Em and me. Nick gets to suffer through a car ride with Mom and Mar.”

Nick snorted as Maria scowled at their younger sister, releasing his hold on Matt’s elbow to let Nicole take over for him. “Well, no time like the present. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Matt groaned. “Don’t.”

Nicole pulled him toward the door. “C’mon, we’ll get you some nice junk food on the way where Mom can’t see us.”

Emily appeared on his other side. “And you can pretend to fall asleep, so you don’t have to talk to anyone.”

Matt laughed softly. “I knew you two were my favorite Engel siblings.”

“Pretty sure Nick still has that title,” Nicole quipped as they stepped out into the cold.

Well, Matt couldn’t argue with that.