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THE GUINEA FOWL LAY untouched in the pan. The wine stayed corked. The sweet potato pie sat forgotten on the counter.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Greta Mae leaned precariously across the table, her aerosol curls dipping dangerously close to the tall candles, “I must have misheard.”
Tommy’s spine stiffened like someone had poured freezing water down his back, but he took a deep breath and stared his mother right in the eyes.
“I said...the baby is mine. This is Theo.” There was a brief pause. “He’s my son.”
His voice was quiet but strong—both compelling and decisive all at once. So much so, that for a second, I thought he might actually get away with it. Then—
“He’s WHAT?!”
Bits of stuffing and carrot went flying over the table as Greta Mae banged her fist down on the pressed linens.
“Tommy—please tell me you’re joking.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a command.
She got up in one swift movement and circled round to his chair. Like Dylan, she refused to look at the child. Like if she didn’t see him, he would simply go away.
“Tell me this is another one of your childish pranks, and we’ll settle the matter right here and now.”
Tommy’s eyes flashed at the accusation, but he kept his calm. There was more truth behind it than he was willing to admit, and now was not the time to lose one’s temper.
“This is Theo,” he said again, accentuating the name. “Your grandson. I didn’t know about him until just a few days ago, and his mother is...out of the picture.” His hands tightened around the baby and he pulled in another deep breath. “I understand it’s a shock, Mom. And for that, I apologize. I understand if you want to be angry with me for being reckless or impulsive or whatever else you’d like to say. But when you’re finished being angry, please remember that this is your grandson. Like it or not, he’s here to stay.”
“Who is the mother?”
Tommy gave a quick explanation, and then apologized again.
Greta Mae’s eyes dilated in rage. “You think you’re getting off the hook that easily?! I don’t know what alternate reality you’re living in, but this is a baby, Thomas! It’s going to take more than a little speech to make this all okay. And if you think for one second that—”
But at that moment, a little hand reached up and swatted at her bracelets.
She stopped cold as Theo’s bubbling laugh bounced around the suddenly quiet room. The child was delighted, stretching up in Tommy’s arms and reaching for the dangling bangles as if playing some sort of game. His finger caught the edge of one of them and he squealed again.
“Tommy...”
It was Tommy again, not Thomas. Her eyes widened for a moment, then she slowly reached out her arms.
“...let me hold him.”
Tommy shook his head, probably afraid she would drown poor Theo in the mashed potatoes in a fit of rage. Then I kicked him under the table, and he offered him out, watching with an almost critical eye as his mother rocked the child gently back and forth.
It was a bizarre image. Obviously, I knew that Greta Mae had to have a maternal side. She had raised Dylan and Tommy, after all, that part of her had to exist. But since I could remember, I’d never seen it. The Greta Mae I knew now existed only beneath a sea of hairspray perfection and a pair of velvet gloves. I would have thought a baby was too...disorderly for her to love.
I could not have been more wrong.
The room went dead quiet as the two of them stared deep into each other’s eyes. The perpetual lines around Greta Mae’s mouth softened into a tender smile, as her fingers squeezed tighter around his little chest. His tiny shoes kicked gently against her silken dress, and acting on instinct, he nestled his head into the hollow of her neck.
It was the perfect moment, it really was. A generational coming together that would warm even the coldest of hearts.
Yes, it was the perfect moment. Until Theo did something that everyone sitting around the table had always, always wanted to do.
He messed up Greta Mae’s hair.
“Baby—no!”
I wasn’t sure who’d yelled it. Tommy leapt to his feet in horror, as Lily lunged across the table wielding a corkscrew—both of them half-proud, half-terrified that little Theo’s life was about to end as quickly as it had begun.
But to the shock of everyone present, Greta Mae threw back her head and laughed.
“This...right here...” she held up the child and beamed at Tommy, “may be the very best thing you’ve ever done, my dear.”
The entire table relaxed as Lily and Tommy slowly sank back down onto their chairs. The wine was popped and the food began to make its way around the table, but Greta Mae was still transfixed—staring at Theo like he was the fresh start she’d been waiting for.
In fact, she was already starting to make plans...
“Well clearly the child can stay with us for the time being,” she muttered, half to herself and half to the table. “Tom’s place isn’t equipped for such a thing, and to be honest, another baby running around the grounds may be exactly what the doctor ordered.”
Tommy set down his wine glass with a frown. “Mom, what are you—”
“—could even convert the back den into a nursery. Plant a little flower garden right outside.”
“Mom, stop!”
“In a lot of ways, this could be a wonderful new beginning.” She bounced the baby up and down, staring almost hungrily into its eyes. “Both my sons have disappointed me, perhaps this could—”
There was a blur of color, and the next second, Theo was back in his father’s arms.
“Thomas!” Greta Mae exclaimed in shock, still trying to make sense of what had happened. “What are you doing?”
“I’m raising this child, Mother. Not you. ME.”
His blue eyes were blazing, and I had never heard him speak in such a way before. There was a tone of authority in his voice that caught me completely off guard. A tone that I think settled secretly upon him the first second he’d held Theo in his arms.
“You can’t raise a baby,” she said. “You can’t even pay your bills.”
“I can do this. I have to do this. For Theo.”
“By yourself? Honey, you need my help. This baby can’t be one of your little projects.”
“This isn’t another one of my projects. This isn’t something that you need to bail me out of. This is not a mistake at all. It is what’s happening. I turned down a million dollars.”
She cocked a brow. “What?”
“That’s right. I picked my own flesh and blood over a million dollars. That’s what Rose offered me to marry her. And if that doesn’t show responsibility, I don’t know what else would.”
His handsome face was hard as a statue as he stared his mother down.
“Do I have any idea what I’m doing? No, I don’t. Am I scared out of my mind? Yes. But do you know the one thing I’m sure of? I’m going to be a good father.”
His eyes flickered around the table as he finished, holding each one of us accountable.
“Now, if you think you can support that, I’ll be eternally grateful. If you don’t, then I would kindly ask that you sit down, eat your dinner, and then I’ll leave.”
No one at the table moved.
Greta Mae had tears in her eyes, but I don’t think she had ever been prouder. Behind her, Dylan and his father shared a secret smile that even Lily had to share.
“I’ll be here for you if you need me, son,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“We’ll have to go shopping tomorrow and get some things Theo will need.”
“Again, thanks, Mom.”
I, for one, was beaming at my best friend like my life depended on it—heart dancing in my chest as I watched him take these first few steps at a run.
It was truly one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen...
...until he stabbed me in the back with his next comment.
“Changing the subject—I didn’t marry Rose...Dylan did.”
With that, Tommy helped himself to a large serving of mashed potatoes.
Oooooh, he was such a jerk sometimes!
Nothing short of an actual baby could have possibly distracted Greta Mae Murphy for so long. But now that the question of little Theo was settled, she turned her eyes again to her eldest son—the one she hadn’t seen except on the cover of Forbes and Newsweek in over seven years.
“Dylan, is that true?” she asked. “Is Rose family now? I mean, she always was, but is it official on paper?”
“Tommy’s ex came up and dropped off the baby in Vegas, so Tommy couldn’t go through with his intended plans, so I stepped in.”
“Musical grooms?” Dylan’s dad said.
“Something like that,” Tommy said with a chuckle.
“Dylan,” his mother said.
The name came out as almost a whisper, cast over an abruptly awkward table. I tried to scoot my chair away, but his hand latched onto the wooden leg, keeping me close as he forced himself to meet his mother’s eyes.
The second he did, the celebrity billionaire washed away. The titles meant nothing now. Neither did the board memberships, the stock portfolio, or anything else by which the rest of the financial world chose to measure their success.
He was just a kid again. A wayward teenager staring into the eyes of his mom.
I lifted up a hand and waved. “Meet your new daughter-in-law.”
I’m sure in his sporadic imaginings this moment had gone very differently. But this night was turning out to be nothing if not spontaneous.
For perhaps the first time in her life, Greta Mae was incapable of speech. Her mouth had fallen open, preparing to deliver the lecture of a lifetime, but the rest of her was frozen in place seven years ago—trying to reconcile the boy who left, with the man sitting in front of her now.
Dylan’s eyes shot to Tommy for help, but his brother was busy trying to shovel tiny bits of applesauce into Theo’s stubborn mouth. He looked to his father, but Samuel Murphy had always been a man who preferred to let his wife do the talking.
Finally, his eyes rested on me, silently pleading for an escape hatch—any kind of plausible excuse that would get him out of there.
On that point, I stubbornly refused. I did, however, provide a different sort of assistance.
After steeling myself with a deep breath, I dangled my hand gently over the table, letting the Rose Diamond sparkle around the room with all its mesmerizing brilliance.
“I told you it was going to be Tommy,” I said carefully, bolstered with the sort of bravery that only came when you were speaking for anyone other than yourself, “but...obviously our plans changed.”
As if on cue, Theo spat applesauce all over Tommy’s leather jacket.
“Dylan stepped in instead, like my knight in shining armor,” I continued, ignoring the frantic clean-up effort underway on the other side of the table, “to help me out with the lawyers. He...he saved me.”
I thought it was a rather generous way to paint the situation—cloaking him under the guise of a white knight to ingratiate him with his mother. But Greta Mae had always been hard to impress. And to be honest, it didn’t look like she was in the mood to entertain anyone other than herself and her son.
Despite my poignant speech, her eyes traveled right over me and fastened on Dylan, taking in every inch of his face, every fresh detail before she finally leaned back in her chair.
“Well, welcome to the family...daughter-in-law,” Greta said. “Feel free to call me Mom.”
“Don’t get too attached,” Tommy said, eating a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “She only has the title for a year. Then they’re off to the divorce court.”
She looked at Dylan puzzled. “This doesn’t seem like your style at all.”
“It’s not. It just happened, Mom.”
“So you’re just friends?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You know you have to live with your friend for a year, right?”
Dylan nodded.
“And how’s that going to work?”
“We don’t know yet. Everything happened so fast.”
“And you didn’t talk about this beforehand?”
“They were too drunk, Mom,” Tommy said.
I let out a long breath as she shot me a long look.
I’m going to kill Tommy!
I cringed. “The truth is, we didn’t even remember getting married until we saw the video the next morning.”
She clutched her chest. “Do not mock marriage like this.”
“C’mon, Mom,” Tommy said. “You were fine when I was gonna shack up with Rose. You didn’t see a problem with it at all.”
“You and Rose planned it. Dylan and Rose got married while wasted!”
Tommy stuck his fork into a piece of his chicken. “And I paid for the wedding.” He looked at Dylan and me. “I got you the best Elvis package Las Vegas had to offer!”
“I’ll pay you back,” I said.
“Nope. It’s my wedding present to you and my brother. Plus, you’ve done so much for me, it’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you,” I said, followed by Dylan, who also thanked him.
His mom gazed at Dylan. “Rose is a family friend, so you better treat her right. I know you did her a huge favor. And that was very sweet of you.”
“I’ll treat Rose good,” Dylan said.
Greta nodded, then turned toward me. “Is he treating you good?”
Thoughts of his naked body crashing into mine flooded my mind as I screamed in pleasure.
“Um, yes, he’s treating me really good,” I said.
Dylan winked at me and I smirked.
“Good.” She looked down. “You boys sure know how to shock me. My mind is pacing. Tommy comes home with a baby, and Dylan comes home with a wife. What a night!”
The whole thing came across as almost a sigh, and her voice was so tight, she could hardly get the words out. They seemed to take all her strength with them, and as she casually crumbled against her chair, an errant tear ran down her cheek.
Dylan didn’t need my whispered advice to know what to do next. Natural instinct kicked in, and he found himself moving of his own accord.
Before my eyes could even adjust, he was out of his seat and around the table, kneeling silently beside his mother’s chair. She reached out and put both hands on his cheeks, and he reached up to kiss both of hers.
It was that simple.
The whole mess. Seven years. Sorted in a single, all-encompassing moment. One could argue that Theo had paved the way—softening hearts and pre-emptively cooling tempers. But I didn’t think so. From the second these two had split apart, I think both of them were ready for a reunion.
“So,” Greta Mae said briskly, wiping her face as Dylan finally returned to his chair, “this is a fine mess the two of you have gotten yourselves into. I hope you have some sort of plan.”
Tommy set his drink down. “It’s simple. They stay fake married for one year. Rose gets the money; Dylan gets his divorce. Easy peasy.”
The rest of the dinner passed in fine fashion.
The food was bested only by the conversation, and the quiet manor halls were long overdue for laughter. We talked about anything and everything under the sun—filling any occasional touchy silences with enough hilarious anecdotes to write a short play. Of particular interest was our cross-country road trip. More specifically, the role of the lonely truck driver.
“So you just climbed in with him?” Greta Mae was scandalized, one hand pressed over her heart as the other played with what was left of her dessert. “He could have been a serial killer.”
The boys shared a quick look while I covered gracefully by offering everyone more wine. “My thoughts exactly...”
Finally, when the candles were burning low, Tommy got to his feet—Theo fast asleep in his arms. “I’ve got to get this one into bed,” he said quietly, his lips curling up in a smile as Theo pressed his face against his chin. “It’s getting late.”
I glanced at the clock and pushed to my feet as well, followed immediately by Lily and Dylan. Ten o’clock. It had to be some sort of dinner party record. Usually, we left at two or three.
“Do you even have a bed?” Lily asked suddenly, probably hoping Tommy would renege on this whole ‘good parent’ thing and surrender the child to her once and for all.
“He can sleep with me tonight,” he answered, planning on the fly, “and then maybe tomorrow...”
“Tomorrow you and I can go shopping,” I interjected helpfully. “We’ll get anything and everything baby.”
“I’m coming too!” Greta said.
“Sounds good.” He shifted the sleeping child to shake his dad’s hand before kissing his mother on the cheek. “Thanks for dinner, Mom. We’ll see you soon.”
“Glad you all got home safe,” she answered, gently stroking the strands of Theo’s golden hair. “Swing by tomorrow, Tom. I have a cradle in the attic I think you might want to use. But it has to be cleaned up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Lily and I filed out behind him, but as I was passing, Greta Mae squeezed my hand.
“That’s a lovely ring, Rose. Looks like a natural fit.” If I didn’t know her better, I could have sworn I saw her wink.
I stared at her curiously before slowly extracting my hand. “Um...thanks.”
Before I could say anything else, Dylan came up behind me for his own goodbye, and I hurried out into the balmy Tennessee evening. Tommy and Lily waved a quick farewell, but I lingered there beneath the trees, trying to take in everything that had happened the last few days.
No matter which way I looked at it—I couldn’t fail to see the irony.
The entire purpose of the road trip was supposed to be casual. To have a casual drive to Nevada. To get casually married to my casual best friend who didn’t happen to have a care in the world.
Now, Tommy was a father. Lily was trying to be a mother. And I had ended up marrying the only person on the planet I had ever imagined standing in a tux at the end of the aisle.
Call this week what you like...it was anything but casual.
“Hey.”
A soft voice sounded behind me, and I turned around as Dylan walked slowly toward me beneath the gently swishing trees. His eyes were wider than usual, full of an emotional Greta Mae farewell, and a shade of bright pink lipstick was shining on his cheek.
I smiled and gestured him forward, wiping it clean. “So, was that as scary as you thought?” My fingers lingered on his face for a moment as we stared into each other’s eyes.
“No,” he answered quietly, hand coming up to take mine. “The scary thing is what happens next.”
My head tilted curiously to the side. “You mean with Tommy and the baby, or—”
“I have to go back to New York, Rose. I’m in the middle of some big deals. I’ve been working on one deal for over a year.”
Go back to New York? Of course he did. It had been ridiculous of me to imagine otherwise. What the hell would he do here in Wessler? Learn to crochet?
He was picking work over me.
Dag, that hurt.
Did our lovemaking mean anything?
Not enough if he was leaving.
“Yeah,” my head tilted down, spilling my hair protectively between us, “I know you have to leave. I mean, I didn’t think you could just stay here. I was hoping...”
My voice trailed off, and I found myself suddenly unable to articulate the words.
Come on, Rose, you’re being ridiculous. You said it yourself—it was never supposed to be Dylan. Did you think there was any set of circumstances in which he might actually stay?
But Dylan hesitated nervously beneath the trees, seeming as reluctant as me.
“Do you need me to stick around tomorrow and meet the other lawyers, or—”
I shook my head, quick to interrupt him. Quick to shut this thing down before it got any further out of hand. “No, I don’t think so.”
His face tightened, and he paused again.
“Rose...even if I wanted to stay, there’s just no way I could. I should’ve told you that before we got married.”
“How could you? You were wasted.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Hey,” I finally looked up, taking both his hands, “under no circumstances do you have to explain yourself to me. You did me a huge favor—doing what you did. You had no reason to step in for Tommy, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s the thought that counts.”
He still looked doubtful, and I tried to crack a joke.
“That is unless you’d like the million dollars I promised Tommy. In which case—”
A sparkling laugh filled the night, lightening my heart before settling in his eyes.
“No, you can keep your million dollars. But it was an adorable offer.”
I chuckled, shoving him playfully in the shoulder. “Shut up. A million dollars isn’t adorable, you snob. It’s a lot of money.”
“A statement which makes you even more adorable.”
We laughed until we lapsed into silence, the smiles fading slowly from our faces. At this point, neither one of us knew what to say, and when the silence had finally gone on too long, I took a step back, folding my arms protectively across my chest.
“So, when do you leave? If you like you can—”
“The jet’s already fueled and ready.”
“—stay the night at my place,” I finished, wishing like hell I’d just kept that last thought to myself.
His lips parted uncertainly, and his hand reached automatically for his phone. “Well, that’s...sorry, I didn’t...” He twirled it nervously between his fingers. “I can call them right now and tell them to postpone.”
“No,” I said quickly, “don’t.”
Our little fairytale had come to a close, and I had suddenly never been so eager to see the inside of my own room. Alone.
“It was really great of you,” I said again, backing away toward the road. “I’ll have my lawyer send over any papers you might need, and I’d be more than happy to sign anything that your office draws up for us. Just...let me know.”
“I don’t know if we can keep up the charade if you’re in the big city and I’m here.”
“We can figure something out.”
“I’ll think about it and get back to you on how we should proceed.”
“Rose?” he asked curiously, watching my retreat.
I gestured behind me casually. “I’m just going to take a cab. But you have a good flight.”
His lips twitched, but he kept a straight face.
“Rose...we came here in your car.”
“Right,” I laughed lightly, reversing course and heading back to the driveway, “well, in that case, I’ll just drop you off at the—”
“I’m going to call my driver. He can pick me up here.”
I froze in my tracks, staring up at him.
He didn’t look angry or in any way uncomfortable. This was something he was doing for me. Giving me an out. Allowing me to say goodbye here, in a place I’d known all my life, as opposed to an airstrip in the middle of the night.
“I don’t mind,” I said half-heartedly, but in my head I was already walking to the car.
He gave me a quick grin. “No, it’s fine. You’ve already done more than enough. Helping me through tonight and everything.”
So this was it. No more excuses.
“Okay...well, goodbye then.”
“Goodbye, Rose.”
We both lifted our arms to embrace, but it was one of those tragic ones where everyone seems to go the wrong way. After a moment of awkward throat-clearing and adjusting, we finally got it right and said goodbye. With a hug.
You have got to be kidding me, I thought, pressed up against his jacket. Just a few hours ago he was pounding into me from behind...
We both pulled away a little quicker than was necessary, and the next thing I knew, he was walking back through the trees to the house.
Yep, the fairytale had officially come to an end. Which meant that I was going to do what every other forsaken princess did after the book closed.
I was going to get a drink...