Page 27 of Cupid
An amusing image of me chomping down on a baby reindeer hoof made me chuckle. Unfortunately, it also startled Archer enough that he popped one eye open.
“Sorry, baby. Don’t you get distracted by me. I’m just being silly. You finish your dinner so you can sit with me and Daddy while we have ours.”
EPILOGUE
ARROW
It was March before Jude and Archer were ready to travel all the way back to the beach house. For Jude, it had been almost an entire year away from his home on the ocean, but Orion had kept it rented for most of the time we were gone, building up quite a nest egg for Jude. Enough so that all of the taxes and maintenance expenses on the home would be covered for the next few years.
Of course, we hoped to spend many months out of each year there with our family too, but Jude was adamant that Archer be raised primarily in Santa’s Village. He wanted to make sure our son fully understood the gifts that he was bringing to the world and was trained from a young age on exactly how to use them.
Orion planned to pick us up at the airport, anxious to meet his baby cousin.
“Do you see him yet?” Jude tried to climb me like a ladder, tugging on my arm to get some extra height as we were slowly herded through the security checkpoint beyond customs.
I tried to look at the faces on the other side of the barrier, looking for the man responsible for making all my dreams come true, but Orion wasn’t anywhere that I could see. “Not yet…” Then I noticed something else that I needed to deal with. There was a green haze floating above the crowd, and I felt guilty for cringing inside. “Dammit. I see a bond.”
“Oh… Who is it?” Now Jude was looking for an invisible bond that he would never be able to see. “I can’t believe you’re making a match this quickly after landing. And in an airport, no less. What if you weren’t here and they missed each other forever?” He held his right fist over his chest and clenched his shirt. “Talk about a tragedy in the making.”
“Hold on. I see one person walking toward the exit, but there are too many people surrounding the other person for me to know where the connection ends.”
Jude reached for the baby carrier in my arm. “Then you need to hurry up. I’ll take Archer. Run through this crowd and get out there. You can’t let them miss each other.”
I knew he was right, and I had a previously unimaginable appreciation for the importance of bonded mates finding each other. Reluctantly, I handed over the baby and pushed my way through the crowd, mumbling something about an emergency to those people who tossed dirty looks in my direction.
By the time I caught up with the guy heading toward the doors, he was already standing outside, tapping through a rideshare app on his phone.
Now for the hard part. Coming up with an excuse on the fly to stop people and get them to meet a complete stranger wasn’t always easy. “Um, excuse me, sir.”
The man didn’t respond, so I stepped closer, waving my hand between his face and the screen of his phone. “Excuse me, but I think you dropped something inside.”
“I did?” He looked around at his roller bag and carry-on, then patted his pocket, presumably for his wallet. “I think I have everything.”
“Are you sure? I think it’s important. Could you just follow me inside to double-check? I would feel terrible if you got all the way home and realized you were missing something important and had no way of recovering it.”
The man seemed annoyed at the requested delay, but he slipped his phone into his coat pocket and sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”
With one half of the happy couple-to-be on my heels, we walked back inside the airport to find the other half. The green glow got brighter with every step closer we took, and my heart stopped for a moment when I realized the other end of the connection went straight to my husband.
But before I could panic, Jude took a step back and I was able to breathe again. The connection that was practically a neon light now went just beyond Jude and stopped at his cousin Orion.
Orion looked up at that moment and saw me approaching. “Arrow, it’s so good to see you again in person. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it for the wedding, but I’m so happy you guys made it work out. And thank you for giving me such a cute baby cousin. I’ll babysit for you guys anytime you want.”
“It’s good to see you too.” I wrapped my arms around Orion and gave him a hug before stepping aside to make sure my new friend didn’t take off.
I turned to the stranger and held out my hand to him. “I didn’t catch your name out there, but I’m Arrow.”
“Darren.” He shook my hand, but his eyes were glued to Orion.
When I glanced at Jude’s cousin, he was clearly interested in Darren as well.
“Darren, this is my husband, Jude, and our son, Archer. And this good-looking guy over here is Jude’s cousin, Orion.”
Darren swallowed hard and then held his hand out to Orion, completely ignoring Jude. “It’s nice to meet you, Orion.”
I’d been on countless video calls with Orion and met him in person twice last year before Jude and I left town, and I had never once seen him speechless. But as he ran his tongue across his lower lip and then bit the corner, I knew this was going to be an easy connection.
“Jude, is Darren the person you thought dropped something?” I raised an eyebrow, letting him know I couldn’t come up with anything better in the moment.
