Paper Wedding, Best-Friend Bride

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  She opened the first page: the depiction of Tokoni and his family on a sunny day. She used an orange crayon and added more rays to the giant sun, giving it an extra pop of color. That seemed safe enough.

  Tokoni grinned. What Max had told her about the boy was true. He smiled all the time.

  “Do something else,” he told her.

  She put grass beneath the people’s feet and glanced across the table at Max. He shot her a playful wink, and her pulse beat a bit faster.

  Returning to the picture, Lizzie drew multicolored flowers sprouting up from the grass. “How’s this?” she asked Tokoni.

  “That’s nice.” He turned the page for her. “Do this one.”

  It was the ocean scene. She embellished it with bigger waves and a school of fish. She added sand and seashells, too.

  Tokoni wiggled in his seat and went to the next page, where the family was going out to dinner. He said, “Make the mommy look more like a girl.”

  Lizzie contemplated the request. She certainly wasn’t going to give the female a bust or hips or anything like that. So she detailed the mommy’s dress, making it more decorative. She also gave her jewelry, a gold necklace and dangling earrings.

  “That looks pretty,” Tokoni said.

  “Thank you.” She drew high heels onto the mommy’s feet.

  But the poor woman looked incomplete, all dressed up with her bald head, so Lizzie included a hat with a flower poking out of it.

  “Put stuff on her mouth,” Tokoni said.

  “Lipstick?”

  He nodded.

  She reached for a pink crayon. “How about this?”

  “Okay.” He moved even closer, eager to see the transformation.

  She reshaped the mommy’s lips, making them fuller but still retaining her smile.

  “I think the mom needs some hair coming out from under her hat,” Max said. “The dad could use some, too. Unless he’s the shaved-head type.”

  Seriously? Lizzie could have kicked him. With all the months he’d spent here, getting close to Tokoni, he should have known what the hairless parents were about. But sometimes men could be downright clueless, even the sensitive ones like Max.

  And now poor little Tokoni was mulling over the situation, looking perplexed. “What color?” he asked Max.

  Realization dawned in Max’s eyes, and Lizzie squinted at him, wishing he hadn’t opened this can of worms.

  After a beat of outward concern, Max said, “Any color.” He quickly added, “Blue, green, purple.”

  Tokoni laughed. “That’s silly.”

  Max laughed, too, recovering from his blunder. “Not as silly as you think. There are people where I live who dye their hair those colors.”

  “You should do yours,” the boy said to him.

  Max ran his fingers through the blackness of his hair. “Maybe I will.”

  Tokoni laughed again. Then he said to Lizzie, “But not you.”

  She tapped the tip of his nose. As cute as he was, she couldn’t seem to help herself. “You don’t want me to dye my hair a funny color?”

  “No. I want it to stay red.”

  The hair discussion ended and the mommy and daddy in Tokoni’s booklet remained bald.

  A short while later, Losa returned. Tokoni didn’t want to go with her, but he didn’t have a choice. It was naptime. All the younger kids had to nap in the middle of the day. Or at least rest their eyes and stay quiet.

  “Will you and Max come back tomorrow?” he asked Lizzie.

  “Yes, absolutely,” she replied. “Maybe we can volunteer for the rest of the week and see you every day, if that’s all right with Losa.”

  The older woman readily agreed, and Lizzie’s heart twirled. She wanted to spend as much time with Tokoni as she could before their trip was over. She was certain that Max did, too. He seemed pleased with her suggestion. But he’d already told her that he missed volunteering there.

  “See you soon, buddy.” Max got on bended knee to say goodbye to the boy, and they hugged.

  Lizzie was next. Tokoni held her so warmly, so affectionately, she nearly cried. This child needed a family, and she was going to do everything within her power to help him get one.

  Four

  While dusk approached the sky, Lizzie and Max walked along the beach at their resort. Collecting her thoughts, she stopped to gaze at the horizon.

  Reflecting on the day’s events, she said what was on her mind, what she’d been consumed with since they left the orphanage. “I want to help Tokoni get adopted.”

  An ocean breeze stirred Max’s shirt, pulling the fabric closer to his body. “You’re already going to try to do that with your blog article.”

  “Yes, but I want to do more than just write an article that might help. I want to actually—” she stalled, trying to make sense of what it was she thought she was capable of “—find the perfect parents for him.”

  “How?” he asked. “How would you even begin to go about doing something like that?”

  “I don’t know.” All she’d ever done was raise money for children’s charities. She’d never set out to find an orphaned kid a home. “But with all my resources, with all the people I know, there has to be a way to make it happen.”

  He looked into her eyes, almost as if he was peering into the anxious window of her soul. “You’re really serious about this.”

  “Yes, I am.” She couldn’t help how eager she was, how attached she’d already become to Tokoni. “You were right about how special he is. And I want to make a difference in his life.”

  His gaze continued to bore into hers. Did he think that she was getting in over her head?

  Then he smiled and said, “I’ll help you, Lizzie. We can do this. Both of us together. We can find him a home.”

  Her pulse jumped, her mind raced. Suddenly the beach seemed to be spinning, moving at a dizzying pace.

  She pushed her toes into the sand, steadying herself. “Thank you, Max.” He was the one true constant in her life. The person she relied on most, and if he was onboard, her quest seemed even more possible.

  He kept smiling. “I loved watching you with him today. You were amazing the way you interacted with him.”

  She breathed in his praise. “I can’t wait to see him again. But at least we’ve got the rest of the week.”

  Max’s smile fell. “I can’t believe how I screwed up, saying what I did about his drawings. I should have been aware of the hair thing before now.”

  “It’s all right. When he gets adopted by his new mommy and daddy, he can add their hair and anything else that will identify them to him.”

  “He was certainly fascinated with your hair. But I figured he would be.”

  “That made me uncomfortable at first.”

  “I know. I could tell.” His voice went a little rough. “It sure looks wild now.”

  “It’s just the wind.” She tried to sound casual. But it wasn’t easy. Before they’d ventured out to the beach this evening, she’d removed her ponytail, and now her hair was long and loose and blowing past her shoulders, probably a lot like Lady Ari’s in the painting he’d bought.

  Before the moment turned unbearably awkward, she redirected his focus and hurriedly said, “We’re going to have to talk to Losa about our plan, since she’s the one who will be approving Tokoni’s prospective parents.”

  “In a way, we will be, too, with the way we’ll be searching for them.” He stooped to pick up a shell at his feet and study its corkscrew shape. He returned it to the beach and asked, “Are we really going to know, Lizzie?”

  “Who’s right for him? I think we will. Besides, we have the guidelines his mother set.”

  A hard and fast frown appeared on his face, grooving lines into his forehead. “A young ro
mantic couple, devoted as deeply to each other as they’ll be to him? That’s out of our league.”

  A heap of concern came over her. “You’re starting to sound as if you don’t want to do this. Are you having second thoughts?”

  “No. But I don’t want to choose the wrong people. Or send the wrong applicants to Losa or whatever.”

  “I agree, completely. We’re not going to run right out and grab the first wannabe parents who come along. Besides, we haven’t even figured out the best way to approach this yet.”

  “You’re right. Once we research the possibilities and explore our options, I won’t be as worried about it.”

  “Whoever his parents are going to be, they need to encourage his artwork. I think he’s going to excel at art. His cognitive skills blow me away, too, with the way he analyzes everything. I doubt many five-year-olds are as advanced as he is.”

  Max grinned. “That’s exactly how I felt when I first met him. And with as happy as he is all the time, he makes everybody around him smile.”

  She laughed. “Gosh, do you think we’re biased?”

  He laughed, too. “With the way we’re both singing his praises, you’d think he was our kid.” His mood sobered, his handsome features going still. “But he’s not.”

  “No, he definitely isn’t.” She couldn’t get over the loss of her own mother, let alone become one herself. “But that isn’t something we need to think about. No one is going to suggest that we adopt him.”

  “We couldn’t even if we wanted to.”

  “No, we couldn’t.” They weren’t married or in love or anything even remotely close to what Tokoni’s mother had requested. “Not that you wouldn’t make a great dad. It’s being a husband that you would fail miserably at.”

  “You’ve got me there.” He shrugged, reaffirming what they both already knew. “I definitely couldn’t handle that, any more than you could cope with being a wife.”

  “That’s for sure. I’ve never even dated anyone for more than three months, which is weird, when you think that someone could actually adopt Tokoni within three to six months.” She added, “But that should help our cause with a couple who’s eager and ready to adopt.”

  “You’re right, Lizard.” He turned playful, kicking a bit of sand at her ankles. “It should.”

  She kicked a bigger pile at him, some of the grains making it all the way to his knees. “Don’t mess with me, Mad Max.”

  “Ooh, check you out,” he teased her. “I should dunk your ass in the water for that.”

  She shot a glance at the ocean. Dusk was still closing in, painting the sky in mesmerizing hues. Bracing to get wet, to splash and frolic, she said, “If you do, I’m taking you down with me.”

  Yet when she turned back to gauge his reaction, a look of common sense had come into his eyes. He’d obviously thought better of it. Then again, why wouldn’t he?

  The only way for him to dunk her in the water would be to pick her up and carry her there, and that wouldn’t be a good idea, not with how intimate it could get. Goofing around was one thing; creating intimacy was quite another.

  Foolish as it was, she actually wished that he would lift her into his arms and haul her off to the sea. But that was just a side effect of the yearnings between them. Lizzie knew better than to want what she shouldn’t have or push the boundaries of their attraction. But darned if he didn’t affect her in ways she was struggling to control.

  “You know what I could use about now?” He gestured in the direction of the resort’s palm-thatch-roofed restaurant. “A pineapple smoothie at the bar. Do you want to join me?”

  “They serve smoothies?”

  He nodded. “Along with the usual spirits. But I’d rather skip the alcohol and have a smoothie.”

  “Then I’ll have one, too.” A sweet, frothy concoction that would go down easy—and help her forget about the troubling urges he incited.

  * * *

  The bar was dimly lit, with a tiki décor and a spectacular view of the ocean. Music played from an old-fashioned jukebox. Pop tunes, mostly, from eras gone by.

  Max drank his smoothie in suffering silence. Being sexually attracted to his best friend was a hell of a burden to bear. But at least the feelings were mutual and Lizzie was suffering right along with him. They’d been dealing with this for years, so tonight was just more of the same—except for their pledge to find a family for Tokoni.

  “Did you really mean what you said about me making a great dad?” he asked, breaking the silence with an emotional bang.

  “Yes, I meant it.” She stirred her smoothie with her straw. “You’ve always had a natural way with kids. It’s a wonderful part of who you are.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve never actually considered being a father, not with the loner life I’ve chosen to lead. Now it seems sort of sad to think that I might never have kids.” He glanced out the window at the darkness enveloping the sea. “But I guess being around Tokoni is making me feel that way.”

  “You could still have children someday if you wanted to.”

  “Yeah, right.” He struggled to fathom the idea. “And who am I supposed to have these kids with?”

  “You could adopt and become a single dad.”

  “I don’t think that’s very common.”

  “No, but it’s still possible in this day and age, depending on the circumstances. Now, me...” She heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m not cut out to be a mom.”

  “You could’ve fooled me, with how beautifully you engaged with Tokoni.”

  “I’d be scared to death to be responsible for a child, to give him everything he needs.”

  He knew that she was referring to emotional needs. “You’ve always been there for me when I needed someone to lean on.”

  “I’m your friend. That isn’t the same as being someone’s mom.”

  “No, but it’s still a testament to who you are. And so is your commitment to Tokoni. Truthfully, I’m starting to think you’d make an amazing mom.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She shook her head. Her hair was still windblown from the beach, as gorgeous as ever. “But thank you for saying it.”

  “I meant it.” He honestly did. “Of course all that really matters is for Tokoni to have the parents he longs for.”

  “Does he know that you were once eligible for adoption?”

  “No. I’ve never told him anything about my childhood, and thankfully he’s never asked. But I was just one of many. About half the kids who enter the foster care system are eligible for adoption. Even now there are over a hundred thousand children in waiting.” Max knew the numbers well. He helped run a foster children’s charity that he and his brothers had founded. “Typically, foster kids are adopted by their foster parents. Or by extended family. That’s the most common scenario.”

  She sighed. “Not for you, it wasn’t.”

  Max nodded. His extended family had been as bad as his mother. He’d even had a bitter old grandmother back on the reservation who used to call him an iyeska, a breed, because she believed that he was half-white, spawned by one of the Anglo men Mom used to mess around with in the border towns. Mom, however, had insisted that he was a full-blood and his daddy was a res boy. Till this day, he didn’t have a clue who’d fathered him. He’d never been accepted by his grandmother, either. She’d died a long time ago.

  “I never wanted to be adopted, anyway,” he said.

  “Not even by any of your foster parents?”

  “I preferred being left alone. Besides, I got shifted around so much in the beginning I never got close to any of them. Of course when I met Jake and Garrett, things got better.” Two other misplaced foster boys, he thought, who’d become his brothers. “But you already know that story.”

  “Yes. I do.” She relayed the tale. “Jake was leery of you at firs
t because he thought you were a dork. Garrett, however, was your protector from the start and would fight off the kids who bullied you.”

  “Garrett saved my hide more times than I can count. But Jake came around, too, and accepted me.”

  “It’s strange how I don’t know them very well, even after all these years. I see them at fund-raisers and whatnot, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  Max had never considered how superficial her relationship with his foster brothers was. Was that his fault for not bringing her together with them in a closer way? Probably, he thought. But he wasn’t good at family-type ties. Sometimes he even shielded himself from his brothers. He’d cut everyone off during his sabbatical, including Lizzie.

  “I missed you,” he said, blurting out his feelings.

  She blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was gone. When I was traveling.” Was that a stupid thing for him to admit? Or even think about now that she was here with him?

  She gazed at him from across their rugged wood table. “I missed you, too. It was a long time for us to be apart.”

  “I needed to get away. It was just something I had to do.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t feel abandoned by you. I knew you were coming back. And look how it turned out. You found Tokoni on that trip.”

  “And now we’re going to work toward finding him the parents he dreams about,” he said, confirming their plans once again.

  And hoping they could actually make them come true.

  * * *

  Lizzie and Max’s week of volunteering at the orphanage went well. And now, on their very last day, Lizzie was making banana pudding, Tokoni’s favorite dessert, for all the children to enjoy. She was using a recipe that Losa’s oldest daughter, Fai, had given her. Fai was the primary cook at the orphanage, but she was staying out of the kitchen today.

  Nonetheless, Lizzie wasn’t doing this alone. Max and Tokoni were helping her. She’d put Tokoni on banana duty, sitting him at a table where he could peel the ’nanas, as he called them. Max was seated across from him, slicing the fruit and dumping the pieces into a bowl. Later, they would be layered into casserole dishes.