Between Heaven and Earth

by Michele Paige Holmes

“Wasn’t my doing.” She held her hands up, rejecting all responsibility. “Some kind of special order.”

  The boys set the box down with a thud in front of Cassie.

  “Open it.” Noah hovered by Cassie’s shoulder.

  Cassie looked to Matt for an explanation, but he was leaning back in his chair, one arm around Austin and the other around Asher. “Opening it sounds like a good idea.”

  She saw right through his feigned disinterest. Something was definitely up. “Is a snake going to jump out at me?”

  Asher giggled as she untied the ribbon and slid it from the box.

  “You’d better help me, Noah.” She needn’t have asked. His little fingers were already prying up the side closest to him. She lifted the other, revealing a parchment with writing printed on it.

  Cassie and Noah

  “I’m glad we’re supposed to share these,” Cassie said. “This box must weigh five pounds.”

  “Two and a half,” Matt said.

  Noah lifted the paper, revealing rows of perfectly arranged chocolates, each bearing a frosted letter, spelling out a question.

  Will you be a part

  of our family?

  “Read it, Mom,” Noah urged.

  “Maybe you should,” Cassie said quietly, her heart alternately pounding and soaring and melting. Matt asked Noah as well as me.

  Noah started. “Will you be a—”

  “Part of our family,” Austin and Asher chorused together, their looks of expectation no less intense than Matt’s.

  “We voted, and we want to keep you both,” Asher said.

  “That was my wish,” Noah said. “My fortune cookie said it would come true.” He launched himself at Matt. “I wanted you to be my dad.”

  Matt circled his arms around all three boys. “Me, too, but we have to see what your mom says about all of this.”

  Three boys and a husband. A noisy, family-filled home. It almost seemed too good to be true, but it also felt so right.

  “Mom?” Noah asked. “Please?”

  “Yes,” Cassie said, meeting Matt’s tender gaze with one of her own. “Of course!” She opened her arms and the boys ran to her, embracing her with sticky fingers. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that she and Matt and their boys should be a family together.

  She cried, and they laughed and talked over one another as the couple at the next table looked on curiously.

  “My daughter and her son have just been proposed to,” Cassie’s mom said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a napkin.

  Matt cleared his throat loudly, and the boys dispersed. He held a small jewelry box out to Cassie. “I know this is fast, but we don’t have to go fast from here. We can take as long as you’d like or need to start our lives together.”

  Cassie wanted their family to begin today, right now, but she supposed there were some practicalities that would have to be arranged. A new ring on her finger seemed a good place to start. She took the box and opened it, only to find a familiar diamond staring up at her from a different setting.

  “Your mom told me how hard it was for you to take off Devon’s ring, so I thought maybe you shouldn’t have to. He was part of your life, and he always will be.” Matt took the ring from the box. “I had this new band made to fit around your original engagement ring.” He separated the rings, showing Cassie the outer circle with five smaller diamonds. “One for each of us,” he explained, “starting our life together, built around the life you had before. The diamonds are clustered together on this side, so more can be added later, if you’d like.”

  More, as in more children, that big family she wanted while she’d still have the reminder of the little one she’d started with. It was perfect in every way, and she adored Matt even more for thinking of it. Cassie held her hand out, and he slipped the joined rings onto her finger.

  “It’s beautiful,” Cassie said. “I love it. I love you. I love us.” The boys crowded closer, and Cassie and Matt wrapped their arms around them, linking hands to form a circle that enclosed their children. Our children. Our family. Our future.

  Outside the sun sank lower, filtering through the window, casting its last shadows of the day.

  “Cassie, there’s someone I’d like you to meet before you leave.” Her mom touched her sleeve as the last dance of the evening ended.

  “Sure. Be right there.” Cassie kissed Matt on the cheek and reluctantly turned away from him. Their reception in his parents’ backyard had been everything she could have dreamed of, from the temporary dance floor Matt and Mark had laid, to the twinkling lights his sister and mother had strung between the trees, to the fabulous sunset and the sound of the crashing surf. She hated the night to end.

  “I’ll come with you.” Matt linked his hand through hers, and they followed her mom beneath the lights out to the sea wall.

  “I want you to meet the friend who came down with me,” Mom said. “She had to work and wasn’t able to be at your wedding this morning, but she wanted to wish you well before you leave on your honeymoon.”

  “That’s kind,” Cassie said. She’d been relieved when her mother had told her she had someone to make both the trip up and back with.

  “Cassie and Matt, I’d like you to meet my friend Pearl.” She emerged from the shadows and climbed the stone steps to the backyard. “Pearl, this is my daughter and her new husband.”

  “How?” Cassie looked from her mother to Pearl, standing at the edge of the Kramer’s lawn, with that same serene, mystic expression she’d worn the last time Cassie had seen her.

  “Hello, Cassandra, Matthew.” Pearl nodded at each. “It’s lovely to see you again, to see you together finally.” Her smile blossomed, taking years off her face.

  “I don’t believe we’ve formally met.” Matt extended his hand while Cassie continued to gape.

  “Not formally,” Pearl conceded, “but we spoke at a soccer game last year and later at the care center on Halloween. Eye candy,” she added with a smile as she inclined her head, revealing the luster of the pearl comb tucked in the side of her hair.

  Matt actually blushed.

  “But how— wait. You two know each other?” Cassie looked from her mother to Pearl once more.

  “For a few years now,” Pearl said. “A chance meeting at a Bunco night led to a discussion of Janet’s lovely and lonely daughter, whereupon I agreed to help when the time was right.”

  Cassie’s mom jumped in the conversation. “Oh, it was so difficult to be patient. Especially after you met Matt, and I knew.”

  “Knew what?” Cassie asked, still perplexed as to how Pearl had come to be entwined in all of their lives.

  “That he is your love match,” Pearl said, “that you were meant to heal each other’s hearts and live a lifetime of happiness together, to live the life you love,” she added with a knowing smile.

  Cassie gripped Matt’s hand a little tighter as her senses reeled, just as they had that day two months earlier when they’d stood beneath the tree at the park and first realized the coincidences that had led them to each other. They weren’t coincidences at all.

  “Remember what I told you at the care center,” Pearl said, speaking once more as if she’d gleaned Cassie’s very thoughts. “Sometimes it is best not to try too hard to figure everything out.”

  No kidding because this had to be some sort of magic, like in the fairy tales she read Noah sometimes.

  “Love is magic,” Pearl continued, “and all that you both need to know, you do. Between Heaven and Earth are many connections, most of all in here.” She placed a hand over her heart. “That you have glimpsed some of those is a great blessing. That you have love in your life again is Heaven’s gift. Cherish it.”

  “We will,” Matt promised.

  “We will,” Cassie echoed, then stepped forward impulsively and hugged Pearl. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything. For Matt.”

  “It has been my pleasure and happiness. Now go and enjoy yours.”

 
; Austin pushed a button on the low, sloped ceiling above his seat. “What’s this do?”

  “Blasts kids who play with it,” Matt answered as he pried Asher’s hands from the iPad. “This has to be stowed until after takeoff.”

  “But we’ll lose our score,” Noah said.

  Matt worried he might lose his mind. He probably already had, bringing the boys on their honeymoon. In addition to feeling wedding night jitters, he had three children grating on his nerves. But, he reminded himself, this was about more than him and Cassie. It was about the five of them forming a new family, starting a life together.

  Her eyes tracked him as he finished settling the boys in the seats across from them then took his own beside Cassie. “Ready for this?”

  “For what?” she asked coyly. “I have no idea where we’re going.”

  “Nice try.” He leaned his head back against the headrest and stretched his legs out, remembering and enjoying the luxury of flying on a corporate jet. That he’d been able to call on old friendships and favors owed from his former life seemed somehow a fitting start to his new one as did the fact that this flight would be far happier than his last trip on a private jet.

  Cassie started running her fingers slowly up and down his arm, not quite tickling, but driving him a bit mad nonetheless. “Not even one tiny little hint?”

  He pretended to consider a moment. “Nope, but I did forget the blindfolds, so maybe you or the boys will guess before we get there.”

  “Hmm.” She ceased her soft touch and pinched him instead.

  “Hey.” Matt grabbed her hand. “I’ll have to ask you to behave yourself on the flight, Mrs. Kramer.” He loved this side of Cassie that had emerged since their engagement. On top of her usual confidence, she’d added playfulness, attitude, and a hefty dose of flirting.

  “Of course,” Cassie agreed demurely. “But no promises for later.”

  “It’s not a cruise or a resort on the beach.” Cassie sounded a little disappointed that he’d ruled out each of those venues after landing in San Diego. “But you said there will still be dancing and kissing.”

  “Yuck,” Austin said, making a face that Matt caught in the rearview mirror. “That doesn’t sound fun, Dad.”

  “Kissing and dancing are what people do on their honeymoon. You’re going to have to deal with it.” Matt wasn’t too worried about the crew in the back seat being happy this week, but he was starting to worry what Cassie would think of his plan. He’d geared this trip toward the boys, believing that any experience with Cassie was going to be golden, particularly if the boys were happy and in their element. For what he’d paid for this place, they’d better be.

  “I know where we’re going!” Noah practically jumped from his seat in the back of the rented SUV. “I see it. Up there!”

  “Legoland,” Cassie finished with him as Matt turned into the drive for the Legoland Hotel. She looked at Matt. “Really? We’re going to Legoland?” She leaned over and kissed him. “That’s brilliant. You’re amazing, you know that?” Twisting in her seat to face the back, she said, “You boys have the best dad on the planet.”

  The chorus of cheers relieved the stress Matt had been feeling for the past couple of hours. “You’re really okay with this? I mean, it doesn’t exactly make the list of top honeymoon destinations.”

  “For me it does.” Cassie inclined her head toward Noah, who’d yet to cease bouncing. “I’m better than okay with it.” She rolled down her window and leaned out to peer at the giant Lego dragon coming out of the front of the hotel. “This is fantastic.”

  If Cassie was happy about it, Noah was ecstatic, spouting facts about everything they were going to see and do. It was payoff enough for Matt already, and they hadn’t even set foot inside the hotel or park.

  The lobby lived up to everything he’d read about, and the boys dived into the Lego building island while Matt and Cassie checked in. When it came time to go up to their room, it took promises that tomorrow morning— bright and early before breakfast— they would return to the lobby to explore and play.

  With reluctance, the boys pulled their child-sized suitcases to the elevator, but when it opened, the smiles and exclamations were back.

  “What is that, Dad?” Asher pointed to the disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

  “You’ll see.” Matt pulled Cassie into the elevator and his arms. “This is the dancing part.” The doors slid shut, the music started, and the ball came to life, spinning colors around them.

  The Bee Gees “Stayin’Alive” piped through the speakers, and Matt put on his best disco moves.

  “Da-ad,” Austin said, clearly embarrassed. The other boys giggled, and Cassie laughed so hard she was holding her stomach by the end of the ride.

  Enjoying this more and more, Matt led his family to their pirate-themed room— a dream come true for any kid, from the Lego models all over the place to the murals and the furniture designed for kids.

  “This is your space, boys.” Matt leaned over to pull out a trundle beneath the set of bunks. “There’s a treasure hidden somewhere in here, a bin of Legos for you to play with, and every kid channel you can imagine. Get your pajamas on and you can play for fifteen minutes. Then it’s lights out because we have a big day tomorrow.”

  Matt led Cassie through a second doorway into their room. “And here, my winsome wench, be our cabin.”

  “So I’m a wench now, am I?” Cassie batted her eyelashes as she looked up at him. “Is this some fantasy I was unaware of? Will you be wearing an eye patch tonight as the bed rolls with the swell of the sea?”

  “I’m pretty sure an eye patch came with the room, and the bed will definitely be rolling.”

  Her brows rose at this. “With three little boys ten feet away? Don’t count on it.” She fell back on the pirate bedspread, then leaned up on her elbows. “But just because there won’t be a tempest doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the ocean view.”

  “I love it when you talk pirate to me.” He read between the lines of her teasing, that she was as nervous as he was and wanted to take things slowly. It was one of the reasons he’d decided to include the boys and make the trip more about family than just the two of them.

  “The view right now is perfect.” He sat beside her on the bed and took her hand in his.

  “I know this is an unorthodox kind of honeymoon, but there’s a reason for that— on top of wanting to include the boys. I want to keep comparisons to a minimum.”

  “Good idea.” Cassie looked down at their joined hands instead of meeting his eye. “I don’t want to think about Devon tonight, or our wedding night. And I don’t want you thinking about yours.”

  He couldn’t have agreed more. But he hadn’t been certain how to stop that entirely. He’d only ever planned on having one wedding night, and he imagined that Cassie had, too, so to be facing a second one with a different spouse felt more than intimidating. It was probably only natural that their thoughts stray to that other night and person.

  It was also likely that they’d end up with at least one little boy in bed with them sometime during the night— probably Asher. That was definitely not a typical marriage bed experience and probably guaranteed to keep thoughts anchored in the present, as in— We are sleeping with an octopus.

  But until the wild things woke them in the middle of the night or early tomorrow, Matt simply wanted to hold Cassie in his arms and wake to find her still there. When they returned home in a few days there would be time enough to love her so thoroughly and so well that she would hardly be able to think of anyone or anything else outside the two of them.

  With these goals in mind, he leaned over Cassie on the bed and got down to honeymoon business. Three intoxicating kisses later, Asher appeared in the doorway.

  “What?” Matt growled.

  “We need to brush our teeth.”

  “Always with the teeth.” Matt rolled away from Cassie and hung his head, exasperated. “You’ve got to brush them every night, then half of them will f
all out anyway, and you have to get them checked every six months.”

  “Such a hardship.” Cassie slapped his leg as she sat up, then scooted off the bed. “At least your kid has a full set to brush.”

  “Our kid,” Matt corrected. “He’s half yours now.”

  “I’m glad.” Cassie smiled at Asher. “Go get your toothbrush ready. I’ll be right there to help.” She turned back to Matt. “No worries. I’ve got this.”

  “Really? You’ll help with their teeth tonight?” He felt like she’d offered him the moon.

  “Every night if you want,” Cassie said, “But you have to handle immunizations, stitches, and any broken bones. Oh, and we split barfing duty fifty-fifty. Half the time I’ll get up with the vomiting kid, half the time you get up.”

  “You have so got yourself a deal.” Yep. Typical honeymoon talk right here. This conversation was oozing with romance.

  But she wasn’t through yet. “And someday, when it’s time for the talk, you agree to be an active participant and not sit there like you know nothing.”

  “What if I do know nothing? It’s been a while, so I might’ve forgotten.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “I’ll remind you.”

  “Often?”

  She laughed. “Often. I can already tell who the neediest kid in this household is going to be.”

  She didn’t sound like she minded too much.

  Matt held his hand out to strike the deal, but Cassie leaned in and kissed him on the cheek instead. “This is how we make promises, remember?”

  “Yeah. I do.” Overwhelming gratitude hit him along with the memory of their day in the city last January, a day of fortunes then unfulfilled. It terrified him to think that things might have gone any differently. Matt caught Cassie around the waist, pulling her onto his lap. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Matt.” She smiled sweetly. “Now go brush your teeth.”

  At the end of their second day at Legoland, Matt gave the boys fifty dollars each and turned them loose to shop. He and Cassie shadowed them as best they could around the bricksters’ paradise, though Cassie felt like she was doing most of the supervising. Matt was as big a kid as the boys. She was pleased when Noah and Asher decided to pool their money and go together on a train set, but twenty minutes later Austin was still deciding, and she’d followed him over to the Lego City section, adjacent to a literal Lego pink paradise.