Epilogue
Tori leaned against Les as they walked through Mission Run. They made love and ate and made love again in the vineyard until the sun began to set before returning to the house.
They headed toward the large dining area, since they said they would return for dinner. Even if Connie didn’t have plans on a celebration dinner, whatever she made there would be more than enough for Les and Tori also.
Tori gasped as they walked into the room. Someone had hung streamers and gotten balloons. There were two handmade signs hanging on the wall.
One said ‘Happy birthday Tori,’ the other exclaimed, ‘It’s a boy! Congratulations Remi.’
“Are you okay with that?” Tori asked quietly.
“I’m okay with that,” Les said as he nodded.
People started to pour into the room.
“They’re already here,” someone complained. “So much for the surprise.”
Suddenly the room was full of people, and little kids. So many little kids.
“You have a big family, Les,” Tori said.
“Yeah? You wait until Hank’s wedding, and you meet the Hernandez half of my family.”
“You must be Tori,” a smiling woman approached them carrying a angel of a baby, all big eyes, and a whisper of hair on her little bald head.
“Roxie Roller!” Les reached out and took the baby girl. “Tori, this is Geena, and this is my girlfriend, Roxie. I should have realized you were Roxie’s mom.”
“You didn’t know she was mine and Dante’s?”
“The last time I was here, there were so many little rug rats crawling around, I didn’t know who belonged to who.”
“Are you…” Tori started.
Geena shook her head. “I’m married to Dante, that’s him over there. The dark haired one talking to the tall ginger man. Dante is Les’s cousin.”
“Morgan’s brother?” Tori asked.
“Another cousin. Let’s see, have you met Honey?”
Tori nodded.
“Honey is married to Morgan. They have twin boys, Cas and Pol. Morgan’s sisters are Caro and Julia.” As Geena gave Tori a rundown of who was related and how, she pointed to everyone. Almost everyone. There were definitely more people in the room than names Geena said. It didn’t matter much. Tori couldn’t remember who was who. All she really got was that the Palatine family was excessively good-looking, and everyone was related somehow.
“Don’t worry, it’s taken me a few years to figure it all out.”
“Why are we having a party?” A sharp dressed woman called out.
“And that’s Julia, Morgan’s sister.”
“Who is Tori?” Julia asked.
“Julia.” Geena lifted her arm and waved Julia over. “This is Tori, she’s Les’s girlfriend.”
“Fiancée,” Les said as he danced past while making baby noises at Roxie.
“What?” Julia asked rather sharply.
“You’re getting married?” Geena asked.
Tori let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, that kind of happened, and Les said yes, so I guess so.”
“Wait, you asked Les to marry you?”
“She asked me months ago, it just took me a while to finally agree. She wore me down,” Les popped back into the conversation.
“That’s not what happened,” Tori complained.
“It’s totally what happened,” Les said. “Hey, Julia.”
“You and Les are getting married, it’s your birthday, so why does that poster say congratulations Remi?”
Les handed Roxie back to Geena. “Because today I found out that Remi is my father. I finally had a DNA test done.”
“Congratulations, I guess. Actually, that’s why I’m here,” Julia said. “We got another test result that looks like the guy Geena and Dante found up in the mountains. Only there’s something a little different going on. Morgan needs to send someone to check it out.”
Tori looked at Les, she didn’t know what Julia meant.
Les leaned in close. “The ability to shift shows up in those DNA heritage tests like the one I got back today. We’ve only known about wolf shifters, but they recently met a guy who is a bear shifter.”
“Wait. There are bear shifters?”
Les nodded. “We didn’t know either. Julia’s partner owns a genetic lab, it’s pretty big science. Morgan seems to understand it, and it’s important to him. It’s why he pushed for me to take the DNA test, database stuff. Learning who my father is was actually secondary.”
“You weren’t joking when you said your family was a lot,” Tori teased.
“You still want to be part of it?”
“You already said yes, no take backs.” She leaned in and kissed him. “Te amo.”