Ethan leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Her husband once told me that resistance is futile. To go with the flow. It’s the best advice I’ve ever gotten.”
But that was a problem. Megan didn’t want Pete to grow up getting everything he wanted. She wanted him to understand the value of hard work and sacrifice, but the look on Deb’s face told her that argument would have to wait. She followed them out of the chapel and into the garden.
.
CHAPTER 6
BJ poked his brother Riley and pointed. “Mom’s picking the flowers. Did this week’s situation send her over the edge?”
Riley poked his brother Knox, who poked his brother Quinn, who reached up and smacked his brother Shane upside the head.
Damn, it sucked to be Shane.
“Do you think we need to book the room next to Aunt Sandy for her?” Knox asked.
“Quinn’s going to need to book a room in the fucking hospital if he hits me again,” Shane groused.
That BJ would pay good money to watch.
“I would still be grounded if I’d picked any of those flowers,” Riley lamented.
“Oh, man, that little kid pulled up that yellow flower, bulb and all,” Shane said.
“You moron, it’s a daffodil. Don’t you know anything?” Quinn’s voice dripped with derision.
“One thing I do know is that kid is about to get his ass whooped,” Shane responded.
“That kid’s name is Pete, and he’s Ethan’s nephew. His mom, Megan, is going to be Kegan’s godmother. Holy shit. Will you look at that?” BJ couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His mother delivered a kiss on Pete’s chubby little cheek instead of a swat on the butt. Her face nearly glowed as she took the daffodil from him and included it in the bouquet in her hand. Dirt-dripping bulb and all.
Wow, she was so gone on that kid, BJ was almost jealous.
“Do you think she loves him more than she loves us?” Knox asked.
“Maybe more than you fools, but not more than me,” BJ answered. “I’m her favorite.”
“You have got to be kidding!” Quinn roared. “You damn near killed her twice. How does that make you her favorite?”
Riley looked over at Knox. “He has a point, and for once I’m not referring to the one on top of his head.”
“Yeah, but he still has a pointy head.”
“Very pointy. But it’s not as noticeable as it used to be since his stylist has been cutting his hair to hide the bald spot.” Riley grinned like the damned Cheshire Cat.
“Shit! Bald spot? What bald spot?” Quinn pulled a mirror out of the breast pocket of his jacket and inspected his hair.
Riley’s grin grew as he held out his hand. Knox slapped a bill into it. “I should have known the narcissist would take the bait.”
Quinn shoved the mirror back into his pocket and growled, “Asswipes.”
Knox groaned as he handed Riley another bill. “I was sure he would have called us fuckwads. Asswipe is more of a Shane term.”
“Speaking of Shane,” Shane said, “I’m the baby, that makes me her favorite.”
BJ should have put Shane in a headlock for that, but he couldn’t reach the kid’s head. The freak had seven inches on him. But since Quinn was only one inch taller—much better odds—BJ took him down instead. Why watch someone else have all the fun when he could enjoy doing it himself?
“What the fuck? What did I do?” Quinn grunted between punches.
“You exist, asshole.”
Shane made eye contact with his other brothers. “That’s a good enough reason for me.”
“Yup,” Knox agreed.
“Any reason I have to beat on Quinn is a good one.” Riley shucked his jacket and joined the fray.
Sides? Who needed sides? The best kind of fights—and this one was going to go down in Tobin Family history as a stellar battle—had always been free for alls. Besides, five was an odd number. It was every man for himself.
CHAPTER 7
Nana Deb handed the bouquet to Pete. “Give the pretty flowers to your mama.”
He took the flowers and thrust them toward Megan, beaming proudly. “Wuv ooo!”
Megan bent to accept his gift and kissed him on the head. “Thank you, Sweetie Petey, the flowers are beautiful. I love you too.”
A butterfly flitted by, drawing Pete’s attention. Megan discretely pinched the bulb from the daffodil and shoved it back into the ground. “You’re spoiling him.”
Nana Deb watched Pete zigzag through the flower beds in hot pursuit of his latest obsession. She turned to smile at Megan. “I’m his grandmother; read the job description. You can’t give a child too much love.”
And that was the bottom-line. Megan couldn’t deny Deb, Pete’s honorary grandmother, loved him unconditionally. That was something that had been sorely lacking in her childhood: love and acceptance from adults. She swallowed hard to push the lump in her throat down.
“Looks to me like some overly-loved children are having issues with each other.” She pointed toward the pile of five grown men rolling around on the lawn a few yards away.
Deb shook her head and sighed. “My boys have always been competitive. Especially Junior and Quinn. It seems those two have been at odds since the day Quinn was born. Thank God the dirt and grass stains on their clothes aren’t going to be my problem today. I can’t tell you how many times I had to send perfectly good clothes to because the housekeeper couldn’t get them clean.”
And those clothes usually ended up on the backs of foster kids like her. Megan forced down another lump.
“In damn near every family photo we have, someone, or everyone, is dirty or stained or has ripped something.” She put her hand on Megan’s shoulder. “Welcome to the Mother of Boys Club. Hopefully, the photographer can make them look presentable.”
Yet another lump formed in Megan’s throat; this one threatened to choke her. If anyone had ever taken her picture, it had been lost in the shuffle between foster homes. It was almost as if she hadn’t existed.
A shrill whistle shattered the garden’s serenity. Stephanie stood at the chapel door, motioning them inside. It was time to get the show on the road.
CHAPTER 8
Bouquets of pink roses, sugar blue irises, white orchids, and one eclectic conglomeration of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths filled the inside of the chapel. There were more bouquets than people. The chairs had been arranged in a semicircle to eliminate the aisle, something Ethan had insisted on. He wanted a blending of the families even though his side of the family consisted of Megan, Pete, and his personal assistant, Nicole.
BJ’s father, Brian, sat in the second row with Riley, Quinn, and Knox. Brian scowled as he reached over to pick a stray blade of grass out of Riley’s hair. Riley smiled at his father sheepishly. Something told Megan this wasn’t the first time the senior Tobin had done that.
Shane had opted to sit as far away from his father and brothers as possible, in the back row where his mother and Nicole worked hard to keep the rambunctious Pete from destroying everything within his reach.
Her little guy bounced from lap to lap, alternately pulling Shane’s ponytail—and calling him horsie, tugging on Nicole’s necklace, and grabbling at Deb’s glasses. Judging from the look on her face, Deb was in Grandma Heaven. Pete could burn the church down around them and her response would probably be, “Do you want to roast some marshmallows, sweetheart?” Yep, it was all in the job description, and Nana Deb was gunning for employee of the month. Year. Decade. She had Megan’s vote.
Megan quirked a questioning shoulder at Shane.
He shrugged back. “I don’t mind taking turns distracting the little goober,” he whispered. “It’s better than sitting near the old man and my dipshit brothers. I kinda like it.”
Even though rumor had it that Shane was the Tobin family bad boy, the way he smiled at Pete filled her with a warm glow.
Hmm, this brother might be more her speed. Taller, blonder, younger, hot, but not nearly as scorchin
g as BJ. She brushed a spot of dirt off his suit jacket and paused. No spark. She straightened his tie. Nothing. She finger-combed his hair. Nada. Well, so much for that little experiment.
“There,” she said. “Now the photographer won’t have to fix anything in your picture.”
Nana Deb approved of her fussing over Shane. “See, baby, there are nice girls out there. You should start looking for one to settle down with.”
Shane rolled his eyes and grunted. Okay, that was her cue to ease herself out of this little conversation. No harm, no foul, and no one the wiser that she had tested the water with Shane and come up dry.
So much for Stephanie’s claim that all of her brothers could charm the panties off a woman with a single look. Megan’s awakening sexual awareness wasn’t interested in any man. She craved a specific man. The most dangerous one.
“Megan, will you hold Kegan for me while I...do something?” Stephanie asked. What was that look for? It bordered on a leer, akin to a drug dealer holding out a bag of meth to entice a former client to give up her clean living and return to the dark side.
The ray-bows must be clouding her vision. But hold the baby? Like she was going to say no to that. She took her niece from Stephanie’s arms and tucked that precious little head under her chin.
And inhaled.
The sweet scent of clean, pure, innocent baby nearly drove her to her knees. Granted, babies didn’t always smell this good, but when they did, it was seductive. No wonder women developed pregnancy amnesia, forgetting the discomfort and downright pain, and yearned for another child. Suddenly, the drug dealer simile wasn’t so far-fetched.
She’d been robbed of those first precious weeks with Pete...wait...did she want another baby? That couldn’t happen. Short of immaculate conception or in vitro fertilization, more babies were not in her future. She would have to make do with being an awesome aunt to the baseball team Ethan and Stephanie were planning. They were hell-bent on filling every bedroom in that mammoth house of theirs. Given that Kegan’s fraternal twin had been ectopic and destroyed one of Stephanie’s fallopian tubes and ovary, IVF was probably in their future. Not that they’d stopped trying the old-fashioned way, but the fifteen grand per cycle was merely pocket change for them.
Was she jealous? Maybe. Probably. Hell, yes. With an arm full of baby, she mentally crossed herself for that. She’d have to remember to light a candle before she left the chapel.
Megan took her seat next to BJ in the front row with Ethan and Stephanie. She would reclaim Pete when it was time for his baptism, but for now, she’d get her baby fix from Kegan.
Damn it, she did want another baby. And that wasn’t going to happen.
* * *
BJ scooched his chair closer to Steppie to give Megan more room. Oh, who was he kidding? He wanted to be closer to Megan, way closer, but not with that baby in her arms. BJ was a ladies’ man, no doubt about it, but one as tiny and fragile as his soon-to-be goddaughter scared him shitless.
And that smell. It was sweet and fresh and made him want to hurl. A vague flash streaked through his mind, but like so many of the notions bombarding him lately, it barely had time to announce itself before dissolving into nothing. Thankfully, there was an open bar in his immediate future to numb his brain because this shit was going to drive him insane.
A sudden ray of sunshine split the stained-glass window into a shower of color. The jewel-toned explosion half-blinded him, pushing a forgotten memory front and center, almost as if it was playing across his brain like a Saturday morning cartoon. Time bent. He knew where he was, but he wasn’t sure when he was.
Every Tobin born in the US, from his great-great-grandfather Liam to his youngest brother, Shane, had been baptized here. The same chapel. The same windows. The same smell.
Damn, Kegan smelled like his brothers. His infant brothers. Panic blanketed him. Not the fear he’d experienced in the church, but an older, more primal angst.
A baby’s essence; lotion, powder, and Dreft laundry soap. How the hell he’d remembered that bit of information was lost to history.
What he did remember was a young boy’s terror that his mommy was going to die. He couldn’t stop himself; he glanced over his shoulder to make sure his mom was still there. His racing heart calmed as they exchanged smiles.
Suddenly, he wanted to be anywhere else, but it was too late to back out now. Damn, he should have jumped at the chance when Steppie had offered to let him off the hook, suggesting one of his brothers could have the honor, but his stupid mile-wide, mile-deep competitive streak had kicked in. His pride couldn’t let that happen. So he sat there, nearly catatonic. Being a godfather was way too close to being a groom. And that was never going to happen.
Steppie nudged him as Father Sean emerged from the sacristy. They stood, Megan handed him their goddaughter, and they followed Steppie and Ethan to the baptismal font.
Good Lord! BJ barely kept his jaw from hitting the floor. She’s an Amazon. Megan stood a good two inches taller than him. When had that happened? But he couldn’t dwell on that, he had a baby to hold. And that scared him more than the prospect of being a groom.
Why had he let Steppie talk him into this? The mother was supposed to hold the baby while the godparents watched, but his dad had held Steppie for her baptism, and she wanted to continue their own special tradition.
The fact it freaked him out added to her enjoyment. BJ loved Steppie, but man, she was racking up one hell of a payback bill, and that bill was coming due soon.
Every minute he held his goddaughter felt like an hour, and when the ceremony was finally over, BJ had never been so happy to see his mother in his entire life. She walked toward him with little Pete, handed the child off to Megan, then took the sleeping baby from his arms. He felt a hundred pounds lighter as he walked back to his seat. But he couldn’t shed the look on his mother’s face.
She loves babies. As the oldest, he should be the one to give her the first grandchild. But that was never going to happen.
Lost in thought, he missed Pete’s baptism. If not for his dad’s gentle tap, he might have missed the blessing of Steppie and Ethan’s civil marriage.
At the final amen, he stood and bolted for the door. With shaking hands, he ripped off his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt as he went. Once outside, he tilted his face to the sun and gulped in fresh air like a prisoner set free from the deep, dark hole of solitary confinement.
With his official duties behind him, all BJ could think about was that open bar.
CHAPTER 9
Megan stretched out in the back of the limo. Pete had finally been baptized. It was a nice but short ceremony sandwiched between Kegan’s baptism and the blessing of Ethan and Stephanie’s hastily arranged Las Vegas quickie wedding. The one they’d orchestrated to rescue Pete from foster care. The one that was supposed to have lasted three weeks.
She was still grappling with what Ethan and Stephanie had done. The past year had been...what? Interesting? That was lame. Exhausting? No doubt. Gut wrenching, soul crushing, heartbreaking, trust shredding? Still not exactly right, but a little closer–if you squared it and multiplied it by infinity. But she’d survived.
Well, sweetheart, I hope you’re looking down on us and smiling today. She still talked to Pete’s father as if he could hear her, usually out loud, but because she wasn’t alone at the moment, she kept her comments in her head. Where he still lived. Where they still loved. Where they had formed a family.
Okay, so she still had some work to do.
She had to let Smitty go, she knew that, but knowing and doing were two vastly different things. The emotional roller coaster of the past had drained her, but today wasn’t about the past. Ethan was right. As usual. It was time to move on, and she was finally ready, if for no other reason than to give Pete the life he deserved.
Somehow, she’d felt Smitty standing next to her during the baptism, between her and Stephanie, Smitty’s other wife.
Finding out about Smitty
and Stephanie had driven Megan over the edge. How could she have been so stupid? She should have known something was wrong when they’d wheeled her into the delivery room with her brother at her side instead of her husband, but by then it had been a little late. Pete had been a difficult pregnancy, culminating in a long, painful delivery. She’d battled to hold on as long as she could in the hope Smitty would make it to her side in time to see his son born. But Smitty was already dead, and it was Ethan who’d pulled Pete into this world because once her doctor had discovered who was wearing that mask and gown, he’d insisted Ethan catch Pete and cut the cord.
Having the city’s most notorious personal injury attorney for a brother did have a few drawbacks.
Being a single mom hadn’t been easy and probably never would be, but Deb Tobin seemed more than willing to fill the void. She was keeping Pete occupied on the other side of the limo to give Megan a short break from the little man she loved with all her heart.
Poor Deb. If ever there was a woman cut out to be a grandmother, it was Deb. But not one of her five sons was anywhere near giving her the daughter-in-law and grandchildren she claimed to pray for every day. To compensate, Deb had done the next best thing; she’d adopted Megan and Pete.
How would Megan’s life have been different if she’d had a mother like Deb? Loving, kind, supportive, instead of the mother she’d had, or more specifically, not had. Would her sixteen-year-old mother have been able to handle two children born fourteen months apart, or would she have eventually abandoned them anyway? Maybe it was better Megan had never met her mother, or father, at all.
Megan readily admitted she didn’t know squat about raising a baby in general, and a boy in particular, but Deb was eager to let Megan tap into her more than thirty years of experience mothering boys. Yes, she was going to need help raising her son without his father, and Deb was perfect for the job. Megan would have been thrilled to have any older woman to lean on, but she’d hit the jackpot with Deb.
Fly Boy: A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance (Tobin Tribe Book 2) Page 3
