“I didn’t mind.” When he smiled at her, she gathered her courage. “Hey, uh, Jeremy?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you worry so much?”
“I guess I got scared. I let all the crap that I was worried about in my head get the best of me. I started thinking that maybe you’d get smart and would want someone better.”
Now he was starting to confuse her. “What do you mean by better?”
“You know. A guy who isn’t a foster kid with no parents and not a lot of money.”
“Stop. You’re not that.”
“That sums me up, Bethany.”
“You’re more than that. And you can’t help either of those things.”
“Maybe not.”
“I know you can’t.” Before she could stop herself, she added, “And one more thing. I don’t care that you’re ‘just a foster kid.’ You think about things more than most other boys. You are more mature. You don’t do stupid stuff either. I like how you are, Jeremy. I don’t want you to change.”
“I’m going to get adopted soon.”
“When you do, I’m going to go to the ceremony with you. It’s going to be great.”
He chuckled then smiled at her. “If we weren’t dancing in the middle of the whole school, I’d kiss you for saying that.”
“Maybe you should kiss me anyway.”
“You won’t get mad?”
“Why don’t you kiss me and find out?”
And so he did. Right there during the last dance of the night.
CHAPTER 38
“Without love and laughter there is no joy;
live among love and laughter.”
—Horace
Months later
After much discussion, they’d decided to keep the meeting to the three of them. It felt right—like how they’d started. Sitting in the living room of Kimber’s house, the beautiful, modern house that Gunnar had built for someone else but later married Kimber in, Shannon giggled.
Kimber shared a smile with her. It was a fact. Traci Rossi was hopeless at opening champagne bottles.
At last, on her third attempt, the cork went flying through the air.
Shannon clapped and cheered, which had earned her a put-upon glare from her sister.
“You know, for a know-it-all cop, you sure can’t open a bottle of champagne too well,” Kimber said.
“Ha ha. I didn’t grow up drinking fancy stuff like this. A beer has always been good enough for me.”
“We could have split a six pack, Traci,” Shannon said. It wasn’t like any of them were big drinkers anyway.
“No, I agree with you. This is a special occasion,” Traci said as she carefully poured the sparkling wine into the three flutes. Picking up her glass, she raised it high. “It’s not all that often three sisters get to celebrate two years of knowing each other.”
“Amen to that,” Kimber said as she reached for her own flute.
Shannon picked up her own, thinking Traci had, indeed, made a very good point. Tonight marked the second anniversary of the first day that they’d met.
She’d had every intention of making a big deal about their first anniversary the year before, but life had gotten in the way. She’d still been all moony over her newlywed status. Then there had been Gwen, her baby Bridge, Traci’s adoption of him—and then her engagement and quick marriage to Matt.
In the midst of it, Kimber had been working nonstop, taking just “one more modeling job” again and again. Now, here they all were, married, and Kimber was a perfectly happy stay-at-home mom to Jeremy. It turned out that she loved carpooling, helping with homework, volunteering at the dance studio, and Jennifer’s cooking lessons.
They were all doing really well.
Kimber cleared her throat. “Ah, Shannon? I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re all sitting here, waiting to say cheers.”
“Sorry. I was just thinking . . . well, never mind.”
“Take your time,” Traci said. “I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing myself lately.
Taking a deep breath, she began. “I wish I could think of the right words, but as far as I’m concerned, there are no words to sum up how I feel about these last two years. All I can say is that I love you both dearly and you’ve made my life better. Cheers.”
“I love you both too,” Traci said. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Kimber said. As usual, she was the least demonstrative but also the one who was fighting back tears.
After taking a sip, Shannon smiled. “Oh, my goodness, this is the expensive stuff. Where did it come from?”
“Where do you think? Bev,” Traci said.
The house mother who took in Traci at the group home in Cleveland had visited them two weeks ago, saying she needed to see just how they’d all turned out.
It had been a great visit, and now Shannon felt like Bev was yet another relative into their already large and varied family. She, Traci, and Kimber had laughed that between Kimber’s parents, Shannon’s parents, Traci’s Bev, and all of their in-laws, they now had more family than they knew what to do with.
Reflecting on that, she said, “Sometimes I feel like I went from being an only child with two doting parents to having two sets of parents, a fairy godmother, a husband, two new brothers—among other people.”
“I feel the same thing,” Kimber said. “So much in my life has changed. I went from living with a bunch of models and focusing on my career to being a wife and mom and . . . well, everything.”
“I’ve learned a lot from both of you,” Traci said quietly. “You taught me to trust myself and other people. And now I have Matt and Bridge and Gwen.”
Shannon smiled. “I love how much you love Gwen.”
“She would be hard not to love.”
Looking at both of her sisters, Shannon wondered if she’d ever felt more at peace. Yes, she loved her parents, and her husband Dylan was everything she’d ever dreamed a husband could be. He loved her for everything about her, flaws included. She never felt that he loved her in spite of them.
But as she gazed at her two sisters, she decided that there was something special about sharing blood. There was something in their genes that was irreversible, that was meant to be. And somehow, they’d manage to find each other.
Putting her champagne flute down, Kimber said, “What’s going on, Shannon? You got quiet all the sudden.”