Epilogue
“Jack, thanks for hosting again,” Mason said.
“It’s our pleasure,” Jack said, tipping his head toward Beth. “This was part of the reason she insisted on buying such a huge house; she wanted to play hostess.”
Dare snorted into his beer.
Jack shook his head as he turned the ribs over on the barbeque. “Spit it out, Dare.”
“I thought it was because she wanted to populate half of San Diego.”
“You’re one to talk,” Jack said without heat. “We stopped at five kids. Rylie met you with three, and then you adopted two more. I heard a rumor that you guys were thinking of fostering again.”
Dare’s eyes got wide, and Mason could tell he was seriously surprised. “Nobody’s mentioned it to me. Who did Rylie say that to?”
“Actually, your daughter Tanisha told my Gracey that you were going to adopt one of the girls from their class.”
“What the fuck?” Dare stood up from where he had been sitting and put down his beer.
“I adore my daughter, but I’m not going to be fostering another child on her say so.
” He started down the stairs of the deck to where the majority of the kids were playing around the pool, the ladies watching over them.
Jack was laughing pretty hard.
Mason raised an eyebrow. “Did you just hand him a line of shit?” Mason wanted to know.
“Nope. Though that would have been pretty funny, come to think of it. But the way my Gracey tells it, there’s this girl, Loretta, who has been placed twice in this same school year and neither of them worked out.
She is now with a temporary foster family.
Tanisha told Gracey that they were going to bring her home and make her their sister. ”
“Holy fuck,” Drake breathed.
Finn looked into the mouth of his Pacifico beer bottle, like he could see into the future. “I bet even money that Loretta will be living with them by the time the next school year rolls around. Any takers?” Finn asked.
Mason looked around the group of men who had once been his teammates and would always be his brothers. Every one of them shook their heads.
“So, Dare is going to adopt another child, you’re a Lieutenant Commander,” Jack said, tipping his head toward Mason, “and I’m not moving to Texas despite my retirement because I’m afraid of my sister-in-law. What else is happening?”
Everybody was quiet.
“Yeah, Drake, what else is going on?” Finn asked.
“My application finally came back approved. In one month I’m going to be working for the VA as a psychologist.”
Mason felt a surge of admiration and wonder course through him.
Wonder, because thinking of the journey the man who had been his best friend for twenty-five years had been on to get to this point, blew him away.
The Drake Avery he had first known was the least tactful man he had ever met.
He inevitably was shoving both of his size fourteen feet into his mouth on a continuous basis.
But he had the biggest heart imaginable.
Then there was the fact that his parents were two of the worst human beings in the world.
Mason realized just how hard Drake had had to work to become the man he was.
And now, he had a master’s degree in psychology, and would be helping men and women at the VA.
“That’s amazing, man,” Finn said. “Which VA?”
“Knoxville.”
“Tennessee?” Clint asked. “You’re moving to Tennessee?”
“Yeah. Jasper Creek. I’ll be working in Knoxville.”
“Well hell,” Mason muttered.
“Are you telling me you didn’t have an idea?” Drake asked him seriously.
Mason sighed. “I had an idea. After all, there is a kid named after you in Jasper Creek, so it was bound to happen.”
Everybody laughed.
Mason turned to Clint. “You?”
“I’m staying in. Cyber-security.”
Again Mason nodded. That made total sense. The papers hadn’t crossed his desk yet, but they would.
Dare jogged back up the stairs, snagged his beer, and sat back down in one of the deck chairs. “What’d I miss?”
“Everybody’s just discussing what their next plans are since Midnight Delta is breaking up,” Finn explained.
“I’m retiring and becoming a househusband. Rylie is in charge of going on all of the missions.”
“Are you going to adopt another kid?” Jack asked.
Dare scowled. “We’ll see. How about you, Aiden?”
“Well, I’m the oldest of the bunch of you. I should have retired ten years ago, so I’m retiring now.”
“What kept you so long?” Jack asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“I don’t think I was ready to move full-time to Tennessee. Now I think I can handle being away from the ocean.”
“What the fuck, Aiden? When were you going to tell us?” Clint sounded angry.
“Today.”
“Do you know how pissed Lydia is going to be when she finds out that Evie is going to be moving permanently to Jasper Creek?”
“She already knows.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Clint said. “You should ease into these things.”
Aiden shrugged and took a sip from his water bottle.
“Drake, maybe you should start practicing meditation,” Finn suggested.
“What about you, Finn? You’re not retiring. You’re getting pretty old to stay in the teams.”
“What are you talking about? In SEAL years, I’m one-hundred-and-five,” Finn laughed. “I’m going to go teach at sniper school. They’ve been trying to get me over there for years. But I’ll have you know, I’m not that old.”
“Bullshit, you’re a year older than me,” Drake teased.
“I’m telling you, I can’t be that old. Angie’s pregnant.”
There was a long pause.
“Are you shitting me?” Drake asked.
“Would I shit my favorite turd?”
Drake burst out laughing. “Well, when you put it like that, no you wouldn’t. So you’re going to be a father again. To an infant.”
“Yep.”
“That’s a young man’s game,” Jack said.
“Yeah, like that one down there,” Dare said, pointing to Mason’s brother-in-law, Billy Anderson, who was sitting next to his sister, Sophia. “Now, he’s young enough to start a family.”
“He still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do with his life since he got out of the teams,” Jack said.
“He was just in Jasper Creek,” Drake said. “He might have figured something out.”
“It sounds like we all have.”
Mason looked around at the men seated on the deck.
Clint Archer.
Jack Preston.
Drake Avery.
Dare Stanton.
Finn Crandall.
Aiden O’Malley.
His brothers.
He lifted his beer. “A toast.”
They all lifted their beers.
“To Midnight Delta. And to the people who waited for us.”
I want to thank all of you who stuck with me on this Midnight Delta Journey that began in 2015. I have enjoyed every minute of writing this series, and it wouldn’t have been possible without all of my readers.
I took some artistic license with the ages of some of my characters to end this series the way I thought would be satisfying. For those characters, and specifically their children, who will be playing a strong role in further Jasper Creek books, those ages didn’t change much.
Look for Billy’s book that will be coming out next year in a new series called Onyx Security, Jasper Creek Alliance. My Book