Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (44 page)

Tessa’s hand flew to her chest. For her, it had never been about whether Skylar took the test, not really, but rather, whether or not Skylar came to the decision on her own.

“To be honest, I of course still do really want to know,” continued Skylar, “and I’ll probably change my mind one day. But for right now, I want to live my life. I’m not going to waste my time worrying or being angry and sad as much anymore. I want to do the opposite—help more and get involved too like my Uncle Connor and Tessa do. As much as I can.”

Her gaze spanned the yard, loving looking at all the people in her life. “Also, I really, really want to fall in love one day. And not just because driving my dad crazy when I start dating will be super funny.”

Brian groaned, while everyone else laughed. But even so, there was still a smile on his face. And profound pride in his eyes.

“So anyway, that’s all. Just wanted to share my decision with all of you because you’re all why my life is so happy to begin with. Okay, let’s eat!”

A burst of applause sounded around the yard and Tessa just looked around at it all.

Brian wrapped his arms around her middle. “You did this. You helped her get her life back; you helped me get my daughter back.”

“No. She did it all on her own. That is one special, amazing little girl you have there.”

BRIAN LOOKED OVER at his animated daughter, watched as she walked around to greet everyone. This was the happiest he’d seen her in months.

And for the first time in a long while,
he
felt like he could breathe again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he finally noticed that Tessa had a big casserole skillet and a tiny little cooler on the ground beside her so he quickly moved to grab it. “I’ll go put these on the table for you.” He peeled back the foil and stared down at it. “What is it?” It looked like a cinnamon rolls, but he swore he smelled garlic.

Tessa smiled. “It’s one of my specialties. Sweet garlic French toast roll with shiso ice cream.”

A slow, cricket-friendly silence unrolled across the yard.

“Garlic
what
with
what
kind of ice cream?” asked Skylar, peering down at the dish in something akin to fear.

“I make a sweet dough similar to a cinnamon roll, but instead of cinnamon, I use ground garlic with the sugar and butter. Then I roll it, bake it, and let it sit in a French toast batter,” explained Tessa. “After that, I transfer the whole thing into a square skillet and bake it again—so it almost comes out like a bread pudding on the bottom half. Dust it with powdered sugar and a bit of garlic powder. Then I usually serve it with my shiso ice cream drizzled with honey and caramelized condensed milk.” When everyone continued to stare at her, she chuckled and reassured them, “It’s good, I promise.”

“Okay, I have to try that,” said Abby. “Bring it here.”

The skillet was swooped out of Tessa’s hands by Skylar, and the small cooler at Tessa’s feet was liberated from her as well, this time by Becky.

“But…it’s dessert,” protested Tessa. She looked at Brian. “I swear, it’s a sweet dish, not a savory one. It’s not like garlic bread.”

He chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. They get that. With Becky here, the sugar twins become three-prong-strong as the sugar triplets. They can eat dessert before, during, and after meals.”

Everyone silently watched as Abby put a huge forkful of the roll and the accompanying green ice cream, all covered with the gooey caramel and honey in her mouth. A few slow chews later and the groan of culinary bliss that split the air had them all rushing forward to grab bowls and heap on servings as well.

Tessa, meanwhile, just stood there staring at the crazy activity going on all around her, blinking in wonder.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked her, brushing a gentle kiss on her cheek to break her from her trance.

“I’ve never had this before,” she murmured quietly.

Brian smiled. “What, a rabid clan of folks fighting for the last piece of food?”

She laughed and shook her head. “A family.” Gazing at Skylar, she added almost reverently, “Skylar is so lucky to have a family like this. HD gene or not, she’s going to be just fine.”

He wrapped his arms around her, wanting to ask her then and there if she wanted a lifetime membership to join their crazy family…when suddenly, they heard an ear-splitting scream from Skylar. They both spun around and saw Abby clap her hand over her mouth.

Tessa rushed forward. “Ohmigod, is something wrong with the dessert?” She was already grabbing the paper towel roll so Abby could spit it out.

“No, no,” cried out Skylar, jumping up and down as she turned to Abby and nodded vigorously. “Tell them.”

“Honey,” said Abby quietly, “today was
your
big announcement day.”

Skylar rolled her eyes. “OMG, if you won’t tell them, I will!”

“Tell us what?” broke in Brian, his expression caught between concern and confusion.

Abby sighed, even though her eyes were dancing with excitement. “Skylar overheard me saying to Connor that I’m probably going to be asking him to haul Tessa over here to make this for me when I have my three a.m. pregnancy cravings.”

Stunned, Brian’s head whipped between Connor and Abby. “Pregnancy?”

Connor nodded, his expression that of pure proud-papa joy.

Brian rushed over to scoop Abby up in a huge python squeeze. “Holy shit! Congratulations, you two!”

With a quick look of concern, Connor stepped forward. “Careful, man. Easy with the incredible hulk hugs.”

Plopping a kiss on Abby’s forehead before turning to his brother and yanking him up into a big bro-hug, Brian chortled, “Dude, it’s not like I can shake the baby out of her.”

“He’s been like this for months,” complained Abby, with an adoring head tilt in Connor’s direction.

“
Months
?” bellowed Brian then. “How far along are you?”

“About four and a half months.”

The timeline immediately made him think of Abby’s first pregnancy. Looking over at his brother, Brian asked quietly, “Is everything…”

“Great so far,” confirmed Connor. “The baby is growing like crazy. Abby’s HCG levels and everything have been great so her doctor is optimistic so far about the viability. Plus, we have specialists who’ve talked us through the different ways we can help the pregnancy along. There’s so much more technology now that wasn’t available when Abby was a teen, so we’re doing everything we can to monitor her and the baby.”

“And Connor has, of course, been treating me like I’m made out of glass the entire time. I can’t even lift a finger without him having a fit.”

Relieved over the reassuring news, Brian eased back into his teasing and gave his brother a horrified expression. “Bad idea, man. Abby and pampering do not mix. I made that mistake once when she got the flu in college. It was diva city for the next month,” he lied, chuckling at Abby’s indignant scowl, which was no doubt because the exact opposite had been the case.

“Connor, honey. Can you come over and lift my middle finger for me please?” asked Abby prettily.

Brian burst out laughing and gave the happy parents-to-be another round of hugs before letting everyone else get in their hugs and congrats in as well.

It didn’t register for Brian until a short while later that the
SilverHawks
theme song had been ringing in the air during the loud merriment that had followed Abby’s announcement.

And that Tessa was no longer in the yard with them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CONNOR WINCED as he looked out his office door and saw Brian storming down the hallway. He immediately hit his intercom button. “It’s fine, Laura. You can let him in.”

Brian barged into Connor’s office and slammed his hands down on his desk. “Where the hell is she?”

“For the last time, I still don’t know, man. Honest to God.”

“Why aren’t you worried? If it were Abby that was missing, you’d have had Jay and your firm’s entire investigative team on it from the second you noticed her gone.”

True.

“Brian, Tessa isn’t missing. She’s been contacting you. Hell, she’s been in contact with all of us.”

“She hasn’t been at her apartment in days!” Brian roared. “It makes no friggin’ sense. She’s getting all her work done online but no one knows where she’s staying. And the only thing she keeps telling everyone, me included, is that she needs a little time to take care of a few
important
things. I swear to God, that woman is a walking flight risk. When I find her, I’m going to chain her to my damn bed for good.”

Holy shit. This was
not
the calm, easygoing brother he’d known all his life. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“She has! Not that I can say the reverse is true. The woman refuses to let me in, to let me help her.”

“Brian, maybe she doesn’t need your help.”

Suddenly, the anger just fizzled right out of Brian like hot air out of a balloon. “Then what good am I to her?”

“
What?
”

“Beth and Abby, they had always needed me. Tessa just plain doesn’t. She’s proven it to me time and time again. She’s been doing everything on her own for more years than I’ve even been responsible enough to take care of myself. She’s survived more loss than I have, overcome more hardships, and achieved more feats—all without a family, without a home, without even friends, really. So what good am I to her? I may as well just be a casual fling for all the effect I have on her life.”

Connor sighed. The nonsensical ramblings of a man blinded by a woman were always hard to listen to. “Do you love her?”

“I love her past sanity. It defies reason or caution. It trumps…everything. She thinks, and I know you do a little bit too, Connor, that she’s everything I should avoid. Just because she has HD. Because of my past and her future. But what everyone fails to understand is that Tessa is everything I can’t live without. Everything I
refuse
to live without.”

Surprised—or stunned, more like—Connor sat there and studied his brother’s turbulent expression. Brian looked positively savage, like a man willing to go into battle. Hell, he looked ready to wage a war if need be.

For Tessa.

“Well then…go get her, man.”

* * * * *

“I HAVE A SURPRISE for you!” cried Jilly, clapping excitedly.

Grinning, Tessa went over to sit next to Jilly’s bed. Since her flight back had been delayed four hours, she’d only had a quick minute to shower off the travel grime before booking it over to make sure she could get over to see Jilly before dinnertime—she’d already missed her normal half-day visit earlier in the week.

Helping to sort through the pile of things on Jilly’s activity tray, she ventured a guess. “Did you draw another picture of me in the circus? Because I don’t know if you’re going to be able to outdo the one of me as a lion tamer—”

“Nope!” Jilly interrupted excitedly. “It’s this!” She used her thumb to slide open her nightstand drawer and did a flamboyant
ta-dah
motion.

Tessa peered inside and found what looked to be a little cosmetic compact, except instead of a translucent powder within the normal human skintone range, it was bright, neon green.

“There’s a note, too! Openit, openit!” buzzed Jilly in one long excited breath.

Puzzled, Tessa flipped open the note taped to the back. The note was in Brian’s handwriting—or at least it looked like his handwriting, but it was actually legible.

It’s hair dye chalk. Skylar told me about it. I went searching for the safest one on the market and checked with the nurses. They said this one is perfectly safe for Jilly to use. This way, both of you can color your hair neon green for the day.

I also included a disposable camera. Just in case you want to start collecting memories again. Figured a photo of you and Jilly w/ your green hair might go great with the one of you and your sister w/ your pink hair.

I really hope you do want to start collecting memories again, sweetheart, because I want to start collecting a lifetime of them with you.

I miss you.

“Do you like the surprise?” asked Jilly.

Tessa wiped a wayward tear from her eye. “More than you can possibly imagine, Jilly.”

“Yaay! Then you’ll LOVE all the others!” she squealed, pointing over at the window seat behind the TV cabinet. Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. “Can we play with them later?”

Tessa turned around and just stared in shock at the sight before her. It looked like a convention of ‘80s cartoon characters. An
Inspector Gadget
lunchbox, a whole bunch of stuffed
Care Bears
and
Smurfs
, a
Jem and the Holograms
dvd set, a
Rainbow Bright
coloring book, and the complete
SilverHawks
and
ThunderCats
action figure sets.

Good lord, she was hopelessly in love with that man.

“Brian brought all that for me?”

Jilly nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh! He came every day this week with a present for you.” Then a scolding look passed over her face. “He was
not
happy when you weren’t here. I think you made him sad, Tessa.”

Ouch. Leave it to a six-year-old to put her in her place. “Yes, I think I did, too. Do you think he’ll forgive me?”

Jilly sat and thought about that seriously for a moment. “I think if you go over there and apologize nicely, and give him a big hug
maybe
he’ll forgive you.”

Sometimes the classics really were the best.

The ‘maybe’ did have her a little worried though.

She leaned over and gave Jilly a loving peck on the forehead. “You are a genius. We’ll color our hair green this weekend, okay? And take some pictures?”

“Okay,” agreed Jilly cheerfully. “Remember now,” she reemphasized as Tessa was leaving, “a BIG hug.”