And yet, even as excited as the puppy was to see him, she kept looking around and whimpering between licks.

He knew why. She was looking for her friend, Atlas.

And for Heather.

The four of them had been such a tight unit that the puppy couldn’t possibly understand where everyone had gone.

Or why only he had returned.

“Fine,” he growled, “I’ll keep her. Where’s the baby?”

Gabe and Megan shot each other a look before gesturing over their shoulders. Chloe was sitting with the baby on her lap. She looked exhausted and radiant all at the same time.

Zach put Cuddles down and the puppy immediately, frantically started jumping up on his leg. “Down!” The puppy put her front feet down and waited for his next command. “I’m just going to wash your slobber off my face and hands. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. You’ll be coming back home with me later.”

He could have sworn the little Yorkie nodded at him as if she understood precisely what he’d said. Just the way, he found himself thinking, Atlas had always been so perfectly in tune with Heather.

In the kitchen, he shoved the faucet up so hard that water sprayed all over him. He pumped half a bottle of soap into his hands, then stuck his hands and face under the water, before yanking a clean kitchen towel out of a drawer and drying off with it.

Cuddles trailed after him as he headed toward the baby. Chloe smiled up at him. Chase’s wife was the only one who didn’t seem disgusted with him.

He sat beside her and took the baby into his arms. Big blue eyes blinked up at him and chubby little legs kicked. Zach dropped his mouth to the super-soft skin on her forehead. “Pretty girl. Your Uncle Zach is going to spoil you rotten.”

He heard Chloe laugh. “Look at her, she already knows it, doesn’t she? I think she’s even giving you her first smile.”

And it was true—baby Emma’s lips were curved up at she gazed at him and gave a little gurgle of happiness.

“Either that,” he heard Chase say, “or she’s going to give Uncle Zach his first lesson in changing a diaper.”

To reinforce her father’s prophetic words, Emma’s face scrunched up and she grunted a couple of times while squirming in his hands.

Chase laughed and said, “Here’s the diaper bag.”

But Chloe was already standing up and taking the baby out of his arms. Zach watched the two of them walk away as Chase said, “Sounds like you’ve been screwing up big time lately. Crashing cars. Losing women.”

“You guys have been waiting long enough for me to blow something. Figured I’d finally come through for you.”

He and Chase were close enough in age to get into it plenty of times over the years, but this was the first time he’d ever seen true concern in his brother’s eyes.

“You know what makes you such a good mechanic? There’s nothing you can’t fix.”

Wrong.

“Congratulations, again,” Zach gritted out to his brother. “I’ll be by to see you guys in a few days.” When there were a half-dozen fewer pairs of eyes on him. And when he had drunk enough booze to forget how badly everything he’d touched had gone wrong.

He grabbed Cuddles and they were almost to the front door when his mother intercepted him. She was fine-boned and delicate looking, but he knew firsthand that she had a spine made of steel.

“Zach, honey.” Her arms came around him and the puppy and he breathed in her familiar floral scent. “I’m glad you’re finally here. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to give to you.”

She turned and headed down the hall to her bedroom and he had no choice but to follow her. Family pictures lined the walls. Ryan in his first Little League uniform, taking it easy on the pitcher’s mound a beat before he struck out another seven-year-old. Chase and Marcus heading out on windsurfers on the Bay at sixteen. Lori in her first ballet recital, just like Emma would be in a handful of years, so pretty it almost broke your heart to look at her. Sophie with her head in a book, lost in another fantasy world, another adventure. Gabe climbing the tree in their backyard in cut-off shorts with a hammer in his hand to finish building the fort. Smith as the star of the high school musical, his future already crystal clear. Zach’s own cocky grin as he sat in the window of his first race car, certain the whole world was waiting at his feet.

Their mother had been behind the lens each and every time, had taken the picture of his father out on a hiking trail, a baby on his back, a toddler’s hand in each of his. Jack Sullivan was looking over his shoulder at the camera with that same grin that Zach had seen a million times in his own mirror.

All those good times still to come, so much family to watch grow up...and life had still ended for his father in the blink of an eye.

Zach got to the bedroom door just as his mother opened the top drawer of her dresser. She didn’t pull anything out of it right away. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a breath, her pretty face crumpling for a split second before she finally reached for something.

She turned and held out a small black box wrapped in velvet. “I think you should have this.” She corrected herself. “I know you should have it.”

Zach had never run from anything. Not a fight. Not danger. But the thought of opening up the box his mother was holding out to him had him wanting to run as fast as his legs would take him.

“It’s okay, honey.” She held it out so he had to take it. “He would have wanted you to have it.”