Summer shook her head. Impossible. Now she knew where Raeg and Falcon had gotten the habit of driving her completely crazy.

"This is not solving the problem at hand, Roberto," Maria reminded him, her voice hardening. "I grow weary of this fight between you and our sons. Because you were too stubborn to listen to reason, they punish us. Now fix it."

He grimaced at the demand. "What do you think I am attempting to do, my love?" he questioned her, frustration evident in his tone. "They refuse to cooperate with my efforts. This is their fault, it is not mine."

Summer saw the two women staring at him with the same look of disbelief she knew was on her face.

"God, I know where they get it from now," she muttered, brushing the curls that escaped from the braid, back from her face. "It's obvious insanity runs on the paternal side."

Maria shot her an amused look. "Not insanity, my dear, they simply become spoiled far too easily. It makes them difficult to handle."

And Roberto looked far too satisfied at the accusation that he was indeed spoiled.

"Well, he's yours." She shrugged. "As are Falcon and Raeg. You can deal with them, my part in this is finished."

"Summer, do not be difficult," Roberto admonished her, the look on his face similar to the one her father used when he accused her of being too hard-headed. "We will explain things, and they will see they are being stubborn, nothing more. Everything will be good then. I promise you."

"Explain?" She propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. "You don't understand, Roberto. When they let me walk down those stairs tonight, they were letting me walk out of their lives. This is over. I will not beg and I so don't need two men who have to have things explained to them by their parents as though they're children. If they stay, and if we have children, I want our babies to have fathers strong enough to be adults."

"Babies?" Selena seemed to latch onto that word, her expression suddenly softening. "You want babies, Summer?"

"How many?" Maria's voice was somehow softer, almost dreamy.

Roberto was no better. His expression filled with such male hope it was pathetic.

"She has told me she wants five babies," he told his lovers then, his voice soft as each of them gripped his shoulder, their fingers clenching in the fabric of his shirt. "I did not tell them of your desire for babies, Summer, forgive me. They are mothers who long to hold their grandchildren to their hearts. Just as I do."

When had reality become this warped? A woman should get a warning before having her lovers' crazy parents explode into her world in this way.

"This is crazy." The two women looked like her own mother whenever anyone mentioned grandchildren.

"We would be excellent grandmothers," Selena stated almost regretfully. "Can you not try? Just once? Reason with them..."

"Explain the impossible, Summer." Raeg spoke behind her. "Go on, reason with us. Make murder seem just, and the threat of future bloodshed understandable. Go on, I'm waiting."

Uh-oh.

Summer lowered her arms as she looked toward Raeg and Falcon's mothers and father.

Selena and Maria watched their sons with hope and pain. Roberto was less easy to read, but Summer could sense his waiting silence as he tried to choose his words carefully.

She, however, wasn't waiting.

She turned on them, her hands going to her hips once again as she stared at him furiously. They actually seemed surprised that she was angry.

Go figure.

"Summer..." Raeg began warningly.

"Oh be quiet, Raeg," she snapped, watching as his eyes narrowed on her, his arms going over his chest, his feet shifting until his legs were braced solidly beneath him.

"Summer, if you would await us upstairs," Falcon suggested.

"Like hell. Here's what I'm gonna do," she told them, making her mind up in that second. "Since the two of you refuse to see sense, I'm goin' to Momma and Daddy's. I won't be coming back until you leave. And when the weekend comes, I'll be choosing a partner I can trust to put love and family before pride and a request for explanations. I will marry, have my babies, and regret every day of my life that the men I love don't have the balls to live in the present rather than the past. That's what I'm gonna do."

Raeg caught her as she tried to pass them.

Hooking his arm around her waist he pulled her to a stop before she could flounce past and cause him to murder some son of a bitch in a week.

He knew that tone of voice, and he knew Summer. She was not above getting pissed enough to do something just that stupid when her pride or her beliefs became ruffled.

"We were coming for you," he growled. "But just because our anger has cleared enough to realize that murdering bastard wouldn't hurt you, doesn't mean we have to deal with him. If you'll just go upstairs..."

Disappointment and uncertainty flickered across her face. "But Raeg, that's your momma," she whispered. "And your daddy. If there's any way to fix this, you fix it."

"There's no way." Surely she couldn't believe there was.

"Those would be my babies' grandparents," she reminded him softly. "Would you hurt our babies by denyin' them the chance to know grandparents who would love them and protect them, no matter what? They've proven they'll do whatever it takes to protect those they love, no matter the consequences. Would you take that from our babies? From us?"

Babies?

He swallowed tightly, his gaze jerking to Falcon only to see the soft bemused expression on his face that proved he was having just as hard a time processing what she was saying as he was.

Babies.

Summer growing round with their children, cuddling them to her breast as she had cuddled her cousin's infant, humming lullabies, and filling their lives with things they'd never known they could have and were too wary to wish for.

"Raeg, would you do that to us?" she whispered, her voice gentle, dreamy. "I don't want our babies sad because we deny them their grandparents. Do you?"

He swallowed tightly.

Glancing at his mother, he saw the tears in her eyes as she tried to hide them, just as Maria was. Roberto looked completely devastated. Raeg had never seen him look anything but arrogant and snide after he'd killed the agent Raeg was sleeping with.

"Summer," he whispered.

"Whatever you want." Falcon interrupted him, the words taking a moment for Raeg to process.

"Dammit..." he tried to protest, his gaze jerking to his brother.

"Whatever she wants," Falcon bit out, his teeth clenched, his pale blue eyes filled with a demand so intense it took Raeg by surprise. "She will have what she wants in this. We will discuss boundaries." He looked down at Summer, his look softening. "Perhaps. If she wishes it."

If she wishes it.

She was perceptive, Raeg thought, intelligent. It was hard to fool Summer. And she would listen to them, just as she expected them to listen to her. She would never take Roberto's side against them, as long as they discussed it with her. As long as they trusted her.

"Whatever she wants, Raeg," Falcon repeated firmly.

Raeg nodded slowly, unable to help himself. The word "babies" was still whispering through his mind.

"Boundaries," he almost begged, his voice low. "He's like a child himself. Give him an inch and he's miles away."

The smile that lit her up, filled her eyes, and flushed her face seemed to reach inside him as well and fill him with warmth.

"I'm a damned good negotiator," she reminded him. "And I have a feelin' Momma and Daddy know those three better than we think. Trust me, he won't get by an inch, let alone miles."

"They can come back later..." He tried, he really did try to get rid of them, at least for the night.

"We have time." Lifting her hand she touched first his cheek, then Falcon's. "Your mommas have missed you and I need to go reassure my own that everything's fine before she and Daddy-"

The doorbell rang imperatively even as a heavy fist landed on the front door.

Dammit.

Falcon cursed, in Italian.

"Show up," she finished, grinning. "I love the two of you, until nothing or no one else matters. But now is probably as good a time as any to learn about family..."

Family.

She was their family, Falcon thought, staring into her beautiful eyes, feeling the love, the dreams he didn't dare have until Summer.

She was their future, they'd cleave to her and let her lead the way where family was concerned. They'd love her, and be loved, raise the babies they gave her, and protect her and their children against anything or anyone who would threaten them.

They were home, he realized, watching her move to the door and open it to admit her family. Her parents, her brothers.

And their Summer.

"You did good," his father murmured as he passed them. "Both of you. You did very good."

EPILOGUE.

The place was a madhouse.

Outside, a heavy fog surrounded the house, hiding the landscape and giving it an otherworldly appearance that became irresistible. It beckoned him out, teased him with the promise of hidden places and sheltered peace until Raeg found it impossible to resist.

Summer's entire family was gathered in the living area with his and Falcon's parents with Summer, her mother, and Aunjenue keeping sandwiches and coffee flowing as everyone talked. Roberto, Cal and his wife, as well as Davis Allen and Margot Hampstead, had gone through the CIA at the same time, and worked together often.

After Roberto, Maria, and Selena had begun their relationship, and their sons were in their late teens, Roberto's identity as Cyclops, the CIA assassin, and his lovers' identities as his partners, were betrayed by another agent to Roberto's enemies in Spain. That betrayal had nearly cost all of them their lives. Raeg and Falcon had been in California at the time, supposedly unaware of their parents' locations.

For two years Roberto had searched for the enemy threatening them while Maria and Selena stayed behind to protect Roberto and Maria's daughter, Hailey Anne. Not long afterward, Raeg had met Marilyn Dempsey, a college student, he'd believed. She'd played the shy, sweet little co-ed perfectly for months before he'd moved in with her, certain he was in love with her, ignoring the loss and longing he'd felt when he realized the woman he'd taken as a lover was adamant about not sleeping with him as well as Falcon.

A young man's adventurous nature, Marilyn had excused his need for it. Something he would grow out of. The truth was, she'd known she could never hide the fact that her motives for being with Raeg had very little to do with love. She was monitoring his phone calls, his emails, searching for any contact by his parents that would lead to their location.

When she and her handlers had realized they weren't going to learn a damned thing, they'd planned to kill Raeg after he returned from his meeting with his brother, then they'd go after Falcon.

Roberto had learned of the agents' plans nearly at the last minute, certainly not in enough time to warn Raeg. He'd arrived at Raeg's apartment, intending to incapacitate Marilyn and have her waiting for a confession when Raeg arrived. Her handler had arrived earlier than Roberto had been told he would and caught him unaware. In the ensuing fight, the handler escaped, and Marilyn had died just as Raeg walked in the door to see his father kneeling next to her, the knife he used in his hand, still dripping with Marilyn's blood.

"What have you done?" Raeg had stared in horror at the scene before him. "What have you done?"

Roberto rose slowly to his feet, his gaze completely devoid of expression.

"She would have killed you, you young fool," his father snarled. "I warned you about the agents they would send to find your family, but did you listen? You do not listen. You and your brother, so certain you know it all ... She's your lesson." He stabbed his finger at Marilyn's dead body. "If you cannot choose wisely, then you won't choose at all. Each time you make this mistake I swear to you, Raeg, I will make certain they die..."

It was simply too soon, those memories too stark, for Raeg to handle too much time in his father's presence.

Raeg slipped from the house with the whisky decanter and a glass to the relative silence of the back porch with its little enclosed seating area and collapsed onto the padded sofa placed in the darkest corner. Placing the glass on the table in front of him, he uncapped the decanter and poured himself a healthy amount of the dark amber liquor.

Recapping it and placing the decanter on the floor next to the sofa, he leaned back, swallowed a mouthful, and let it burn its way to his belly before closing his eyes and tipping his head back to rest against the cushions behind him.

The fog surrounded him, steamy and warm, faintly scented with the smell of the water it rose from and the earth it hugged so closely. The faint dampness was barely felt, though the concealing tendrils enfolding him were welcome.

How long had he fucking wasted? He and Falcon could have had Summer years ago, even before she'd joined the security agency. They could have already been raising those babies she dreamed of, living in this house, surrounding her at night. Because he'd been too damned stupid to understand what Roberto had been trying to tell him. Too stubborn to see that it wasn't just any lover his father would kill, or even any other lover who was an agent as well. It was any lover attempting to betray him or his family.

He barely knew his sister, hadn't seen her in years. He and Falcon had refused contact with their mothers, had isolated themselves from their families, because Raeg hadn't heard exactly what his father had been trying to say.

Not that Roberto or their mothers had tried to explain anything afterwards.

Stubbornness. They were all cursed with it. Except Falcon, he thought.

How many times had Falcon railed at him to go to Roberto, to find some middle ground, to come to terms with their father and give them a chance to have their own futures with Summer?

And he'd refused.

Like a fool. He'd refused.

"You take too much on your shoulders, son." Roberto's statement had a sigh slipping from Raeg.

He didn't want to deal with his father right now.

Maybe if he just kept his eyes closed and ignored him, then he'd go away.

Instead, Roberto settled into the chair next to the sofa and Raeg heard him uncap the decanter.

Surely to God he wouldn't drink out of it?

Opening his eyes, he watched as the other man poured the whisky into a glass he'd obviously brought out with him.

"Go away," he sighed, lifting his head to take another drink of his own whisky. "I came out here to escape, you know."

Roberto grinned back at him as though he expected nothing less.

"Wasn't your fault, you know," he said then, his blue eyes, so like Falcon's, staring back at him intently. "I was enraged. Terrified I wasn't going to make it to you and Falcon in time, furious I hadn't dug deep enough, fast enough, into her past to know what she was, and there you stood, those eyes of yours, so like your mother's, staring at me as though you didn't know me." He shook his graying head, his expression turning somber. "I guess, like a fool, I was punishing you because all I could think was, what if I wasn't fast enough the next time?" He tossed back his drink and poured another before lifting his eyes and staring back at Raeg once again. "And there was a next time. About a year or so later. She targeted Falcon. The two you were just too wary at that point to allow her into your lives."