To the Max (45 page)

“Hey, baby girl,” he whispered to their daughter through the baby monitor. “What’s wrong? You’re going to wake up Mommy.”

Lizzie went silent, as always when he talked.

“She just wanted to make sure someone was around,” Max said against her neck after getting back into bed.

Lizzie would never be alone. She had a father and a mother who loved her. And she was a Bowen. For the Bowens, family always came first.

Epilogue

Five years later…

“Come on, Daddy,” Lizzie said impatiently from the side as Max secured the hammock to the trees. “It’s about to start.”

“No, it’s not,” he replied with a laugh. Outdoor movies always started late. Always. They kept running somewhat cheesy marathons, but this year it was a fantastic one. Plus there was almost an hour of cartoons before every movie, which put their two spitfires straight under. Win-win. “Okay, jump in.”

He hadn’t needed to say it because Lizzie was already running up and jumping, headfirst, the hammock bouncing left and right like crazy, while he did his damnedest to steady it so that she didn’t bounce right back out. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d ended up on the grass. It didn’t bother her; she’d get up, clean her palms on her pants, and dive back in. The safety net for the trampoline in their backyard? He’d had to lift it three feet after she made a habit of flying out of it, screaming “
Banzai
!”

Lizzie was a daredevil. A gorgeous little daredevil with dark hair and hazel eyes who called him Dad and melted his heart every single time.

She loved her girly things, but when it was time to roll up her sleeves and leap off a cliff, she was the first person there.

That he was the one now worrying about knee pads and helmets and security measures was an irony not lost on him.

She was asking Max, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and whoever would listen to her for a roller coaster in the yard. Max had considered building it for her, with seat belts and all, but Annie had vetoed that. Cole and James had too, on the basis that they didn’t want their kids flying from ten feet high into the lake.

He had to admit they had a point. Whatever wacky thing his oldest daughter did, the whole Bowen gang followed.

Shaking his head, Max lay beside Lizzie, who right away rolled over him.

“Daddy, can we go fishing tomorrow with Uncle James and Jonah?”

“Tomorrow is Grandpa Nate’s birthday, sweetie.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yay. That’s even better.”

“You got him a present?”

His daughter snorted. “Please, Daddy. I’ve had it already for a month. Grandpa Larry helped me build it.”

Oh God. He didn’t want to know what it was. Lizzie had taken to survivalism and prepping as if they were the most natural things in the world. Her presents were famous in the whole Eternal Sun Resort, where nowadays they had, along with salsa classes and bonsai trimming, several workshops on how to survive zombies and whatnot.

One thing was undeniable: birthdays and other family occasions were extremely interesting, with Larry and Alice on one side, the Vaughans on the other, and the Bowens in the middle.

Jonah and Nate, James’s and Cole’s firstborn sons, five and four years old, came trotting, one holding a bucket of popcorn, the other three ice-cream cones, one of them for Lizzie as a payoff. Not that they needed any payoff to earn a welcome.

“Dive in, boys,” Max told them. The hammock was the star of the outdoor cinema night for the Bowen kiddos.

They’d learned their lesson last time, when half the bucket had ended up on the ground and the rest all over him and Lizzie, so Jonah handed it to Max, along with the ice-cream cones, and both boys climbed in.

“I see you’re overbooked again,” Annie said as she approached, their one-year-old daughter Jules in her arms. The baby was already fussing and trying to reach him and the pile of kids.

“Nah, I’m never overbooked. There’s always space for her,” he said, taking the baby and placing her on his chest, side by side with Lizzie.

Jules grabbed his beard and gave him a smack on his lips.

They were one kiddo short, and as if on cue, there came her squeals. Christy was coming with Nicky, Cole’s one-and-a-half-year-old baby girl, the bane of Cole’s existence. His oldest brother knew how to deal with boys. Girls? He was lost. Totally in love with Nicky. And equally terrified.

“Hamma, hamma,” Nicky chanted, pointing at the hammock.

It was already a tradition, him and all the Bowen kids on the hammock, so Christy handed Nicky over, and the girl went, happy.

“Need help?” Annie asked.

“No, don’t worry. You guys go with James and Cole to get the drinks and the food; I’ll be here holding down the fort.”

She leaned over, and Max kissed her on the lips, earning a collective
eew
from the older children.

“They kiss a lot,” Lizzie said to Jonah, resigned, rolling her beautiful hazel eyes the same way her mom did, which got Max to bark out a chuckle.

The two youngest ones, Nicky and Jules, started giggling, probably from the rumble in his chest, and soon all the other kids followed.

Jonah’s and Nate’s ice creams were safe. Sort of. The one in Lizzie’s hand, within reach of Jules and Nicky, wasn’t. This evening Lizzie had had time to eat some of the treat and feed Max a big chunk of it before the babies came, so it seemed he wasn’t going to find himself covered in chocolate ice cream and coated in popcorn. It wouldn’t have been the first occasion. And he wouldn’t have minded too much either.

He loved outdoor movies, and this was the main reason. Lizzie and Jules were his priority, but he adored his nephews and niece. Cole and James were always around the kids, which was great, but hammock time was Uncle Max’s time.

“Uncle Max,” Nate said, dipping one kernel of popcorn in the ice cream, “are you in this movie?”

He laughed, making the hammock shake and all the kids giggle some more. “Nope. It’s a bit before my time. But there’s a lot of action.” This year they were having a Bud Spencer and Terence Hill marathon. Compared to Alden’s last ten movie marathons, this was by far the best. He loved spaghetti Westerns.

“Ready?” Max nodded, and Jonah threw popcorn at Max’s mouth, making the shot. “Yay! Three points!”

Nate and Jonah took turns throwing popcorn for him to catch, while the girls tried to snatch the kernels with their hands.

At some point, Jonah asked, “Why can’t we watch any of your movies?”

Because they were, for the most part, full of blood, violence, and mayhem?

Before he could find a child-friendly way to explain that, Nate chimed in, “Can we go with you to Hollywood next time?”

“Is it on the way to Alaska?” Jonah inquired.

Lizzie’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “We could go to Hollywood
and
Alaska.”

Jonah and Nate cheered her idea.

Taking her to Alaska for the Arctic Man last spring definitely hadn’t been one of his brightest ideas. They had all gone as a family, with Max competing only in short exhibition events. He’d been too busy watching Lizzie otherwise. She’d had a blast. She hadn’t stopped talking about it for months, and as a result, both Jonah and Nate were begging their parents to let them go to Alaska next April.

“Please, Daddy.”

“You guys wouldn’t rather go to Disneyland? I could take you there.”

Nate, Jonah, and Lizzie looked at each other and scrunched their noses. “Nah.”

Even the small kids were grimacing.

It figured.

Wait until this crowd grew up and discovered Pamplona and the running of the bulls. He didn’t even want to think about it.

“We should wait until Jules and Nicky are older so that they can come too.”

His suggestion was met with a different array of complaints. Then Lizzie’s face changed, as if a lightbulb had gone on. “You’re always saying how big Jules is. By next Arctic Man, she’ll be even bigger, right?”

“Well, she will, but—”

“Yay!” all the kids exclaimed.

“I want to ride a snowmobile like the one Lizzie had,” Jonah stated.

“It was fantastic. I’ll teach you. And you,” she said to Nate, who nodded enthusiastically.

“Can we see how they film a Western?”

“Or a comedy? Can we? Can we?”

Max’s head was spinning. Thank God Tom and Jerry came to his rescue. “It’s starting, guys.”

In spite of the initial excitement and constant chatter, by the time the cartoons finished, they were all sleeping except for Jonah and Lizzie, the oldest, who were holding on for dear life. Lizzie would rather eat snails than come second to anyone, and that included competing to stay awake.

“You know,” Max said. “Both Bud Spencer and Terence Hill are Italian.”

“Italian from Italy or from the North End?” Jonah asked, who, thanks to his aunt Elle, was mighty familiar with Boston’s Little Italy.

“From Italy. Like your Great-Grandma Rosita,” he explained. “In some of their old movies, it’s not even them speaking in English.”

“Auntie Elle speaks Italian to us. She said Uncle Jonah would have taught us, but since he can’t be here, she’s doing it.”

“Yeah, she’s doing it.”

She was teaching all the kids, Cole’s and Max’s too. She had all of them mumbling to themselves in Italian and gesticulating wildly. Max and James had laughed their heads off one day when Cole had asked Nate to tidy up his room before going out to play in the yard and the kid, making a typical Italian hand gesture, the one with all the fingertips pressed together, muttered,
“porca miseria”
while he dragged his feet to his room. Cole held on until his son was out of earshot and then barked out a laugh. Unfortunately, the habit had spread like fire among the kids, and nowadays all of them were gesticulating like nuts and saying
“porca miseria”
and “
Madonna
” and God only knew what else.

Life had continued, but in spite of everything, Elle was still a force to reckon with, a fact her husband knew pretty damn well.

They had time to watch about five minutes of the movie before both Lizzie and Jonah fell asleep. He wasn’t 100 percent sure, but he could have sworn he saw Lizzie smiling in satisfaction as Jonah closed his eyes two seconds before she gave in. Resilient little thing, their Lizzie.

“I don’t know how the heck he does it,” he heard Cole say. “It takes a century for me to get Nate and Nicky to fall asleep.”

Lizzie and Jules were snoring softly on his chest. Nicky was drooling on his left arm. Nate and Jonah lay on the hammock beside his legs, also totally under.

“All this damn racket around, Bud and Terence kicking ass, and they’re snoring. Every single one of them.”

“I’m a very Zen, relaxation-inducing person,” Max said.

James, holding three-month-old Kev in his arms, laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“I think it’s the beard,” Tate chimed in, pointing at his face. “Both Nicky and Jules are touching it.”

“Beard is nice,” Annie assented, smiling at him.

His heart somersaulted. Like always. They’d been married five years, and her smile got him every single time. It made him feel ten feet tall. It filled something inside him he hadn’t known was empty until he’d met her.

“There’s a thought,” Christy said and studied her husband, who of course was as clean shaven and buzz-cut as always.

Cole cupped his wife’s face and kissed her. “Sorry. Not happening.”

“Spoilsport. I could make you a deal. You get a beard, and in exchange, I’ll let you…you know,” Christy said, wiggling her eyebrows. “That thing you’ve been talking about.”

Whatever she was offering, it must have been huge, because Cole’s eyes flashed and he turned to Max. “How long does the fucker take to grow?”

James barked out a laugh. “Man, she has magical powers.”

Yes, she did. Cole would always be a tough son of a bitch, but now he was a happy, smiling, tough son of a bitch. A great improvement.

“By the way,” Max started, glancing at his brothers, “it seems I’m taking the kids to Hollywood via Alaska next year.”

“Which kids?” James asked.

“All of them, apparently. They tricked me.”

Cole scowled at him. “A bunch of little ones who still can’t tie their shoes tricked you?”

“What? They’d been feeding me massive amounts of ice cream and caramel popcorn. I’m totally high on sugar. It’s a miracle I can still talk coherently.”

James snorted. “Your wife runs a candy shop. You should be immune to sugar by now.”

Nope, he wasn’t. Annie smelled like marshmallow and caramel apple. He would never be immune to that smell. His brain melted at it.

When Annie had turned forty, he’d feared she was going to freak out, with him being thirty-two—well, thirty-one, technically—but she hadn’t. She didn’t get worked up about their age difference anymore.

“They may forget,” Max suggested, knowing very well they wouldn’t.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Christy said. “I’ve never been to Alaska, and I miss my LA weirdos. I’m in.”

Cole scowled at her, but, well, if she was in, he was in too. Everybody knew that.

“We’re always in for a road trip,” James added. “Right, princess?”

“Road trip, my ass,” Cole shot back with a grunt. “We’re flying there. No way are we crossing the whole damn country by car with six kids.”

He might have a point there.

One by one, his brothers and their wives collected their offspring. Cole and Christy stayed for the movie, lying on a quilt on the grass. James and Tate, with Kev being so little, picked Jonah up and headed home.

“I’m on a date with two beautiful girls, but I can accommodate you too,” Max suggested to Annie, wiggling a finger at her.

She rolled her eyes. “You sticky?”

“Which answer will get you here in my arms faster?”

“Actually? Any answer.” Annie lay beside him.

That was his girl.

Jules was on his chest, Lizzie on one side, her little arm thrown over him. Annie was tucked against him on the other side. He had on this hammock the three most precious things in the world to him.

“They’ve fallen asleep on you.”

“They take after their mother.”

She smiled. “We have your dad’s birthday party tomorrow, right?”