Meant To Be Family (Meant To Be Series Book 3)

by Amelia Foster

  She sniffed and wound her arms around his neck. “What are you trying to do there, Picasso, get a second career writing poetry?”

  Connor winked and gave her a broad grin. “I have a few gems I can pull from.” He sat up, straightened his back, and cleared his throat. “A favorite of mine is…there once was a man from Nantucket—”

  She clamped her hand across his mouth. “Try to keep this shit PG. And watch your mouth when the caseworker is around. They are going to think we will corrupt these poor kids.”

  He quirked a single brow. “Corrupt, enlighten. Tomato, tomahto.”

  The upbeat pop tune that Kelsey had set as her ringtone chose that moment to blare out in the quiet of their living room making them both jump. She grabbed the device from the end table, and her gaze quickly jumped from the screen to Connor. “It’s the caseworker.” He gripped her free hand as she slid a finger across the screen to connect the call then pressed the button to put it on speaker for Connor to hear. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Carlisle,” the woman’s firm voice echoed across the line, and a small, involuntary tremor snaked down Connor’s spine. Heaven help the person that crossed Etta Ross. The woman was a force wrapped up in a small package. A rabid protector of the children under her charge. “I’m pleased to inform you that your request to take the children for the weekend has been approved. Pending a quick home inspection from yours truly this afternoon.”

  Kelsey’s brows drew together. She opened and closed her mouth several times. “That’s…wonderful news. We look forward to seeing you.”

  “We just had a home visit a few weeks ago,” Connor grumbled once he was certain the call had ended and the older woman couldn’t hear him. Just the thought of her death glare was enough to frighten him into submission. “But I guess they have reasons.”

  Kelsey jumped to her feet and propped her hands on her hips. “You do realize what this means, don’t you?”

  Connor dipped his chin, recognizing the familiar gleam in her eyes. “Dammit. Yes. It means you’re about to go from normal OCD Kelsey to ‘white glove every damn surface of this house’ Kelsey.” He stuck his lower lip out on a pout he knew didn’t have a chance in hell of getting him out of cleaning duties. “And you’re going to drag me along with you.”

  She bent at the waist and patted his cheek. “And who said you’re just another pretty face?”

  ***

  Kelsey

  Present Day

  Her hands were shaking as she opened the front door. Realistically, logically, she knew she shouldn’t be concerned. Etta Ross had already done a thorough inspection of their home weeks ago and given it her stamp of approval. This was some sort of additional hoop, but nothing had changed in the handful of days to make their house decline, so it was unlikely there was an issue.

  But with so much riding on this woman’s opinion and allowances to take the kids for occasional visits away from the group home, she couldn’t manage to focus on reality. Instead, an avalanche of worst cases tumbled through her mind.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle.” The older woman inclined her gray head toward the couple. “I appreciate your willingness to have this visit on such short notice.”

  Connor made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “You’re more than welcome here anytime, Ms. Ross, but please call us Connor and Kelsey.”

  She crossed the threshold and nodded. “When the children are here full time, I will be making periodic unannounced visits. I’m sure they reviewed that in your parenting classes, did they not?”

  Kelsey nearly stumbled as she followed the woman into the living room and sank onto the loveseat angled diagonal to the couch where Etta seated herself. “W-w-when the children are here?”

  Traces of a smile cracked the stoic veneer of Etta’s face. “Yes, Mrs. Carlisle. You’ve both completed your parenting classes, passed your initial home study, and even managed to pass my own personal test by allowing me back in for another completely unnecessary and unmandated inspection easily.”

  Beside her, Connor broke into a small chuckle that dissolved into a deep, booming laugh. “This was a test?”

  Her smile spread into a broad, self-satisfied grin. “I have been in this position for nearly thirty-five years, and I have to say, I’ve never had quite that reaction before, but yes, Mr. Carlisle. This is my own personal test.” Her expression melted into something resembling empathy. “I had my concerns about you. You’ve been married for such a short time, and your relationship with the children is…unique.”

  When the woman paused, Kelsey’s stomach clenched into a tight ball. Despite the characteristic—and slightly disarming—jovial expression on Etta’s face, she wasn’t inciting much confidence in Kelsey.

  “But you clearly care for these children. And Logan and Cassidy have had an impressive change in their moods since you’ve begun visiting.” She clasped her hands together in her lap and nodded. “They will do well with you. You are obviously approved for the weekend visit here, and following that we will schedule a couple more before they move in.”

  “No.”

  Both women shot their eyes over to Connor. His own gaze had been focused on his bouncing knee, but he brought the dazzling sapphire eyes up to lock with Kelsey.

  “No. We need to ask them if this is what they want. The weekend, the move, everything.” His fingers flexed around his kneecap several times before he ran his palm up and down his thigh. “They’ve had major changes in their lives that they’ve had no say in. This time they get to choose.”

  Every time Kelsey was certain her love for the man beside her couldn’t grow any further, he threw a curveball that changed everything and her heart swelled more. She swiped at a tear that managed to escape and turned back to Etta Ross. “If he didn’t leave balled-up socks all over the house, he would be perfect.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Two

  Connor

  Present Day

  Without the hesitation that laced their first few visits, Logan and Cassidy barreled into the visitation room and threw themselves into Connor and Kelsey’s arms freely. They both started chattering immediately, creating a high-pitched cacophony of childish delight that made Connor laugh.

  He sat down on one of the hard plastic chairs he definitely would not miss once the kids were living with them. If… “I really want to hear everything that happened this week, and we can absolutely talk about it later, but first, Kelsey and I need to ask you something.”

  She took a seat beside Connor, and almost immediately, Logan climbed into her lap, clearly having a favorite from their first meeting. “This is really important, but you both need to know first that no matter what you decide, Connor and I love you, and we would love to be part of your lives in whatever way works for you.”

  Cassidy took two steps back from where she had been hovering close to Connor. “You’re leaving too.”

  He gripped the young girl’s hands in his much larger ones and shook his head. “We aren’t going anywhere. But we’ve been approved to be foster parents. To be your foster parents.” His nerves heightened, and he fought to control the icy tendrils of anxiety that held his stomach in an iron grip. “We’d like to take you guys for a cookout at my parents’ house today. They just opened their pool for the summer, and my niece and nephew will be there, and you’ll have a lot of fun. And you can spend the night at our house.”

  Connor swallowed back some of his concern. He knew giving them this chance to make the decision and not making it for them was the right way to handle it. “If you feel comfortable, if you like us…we can start working on getting you moved in with us full time.”

  Logan’s head popped up from Kelsey’s shoulders for the first time since he’d taken up residence on her lap. “You mean we’d never have to come back here again?”

  The innocence of his question brought a grin to Connor’s face. “Not unless you want to.” His eyes landed on Cassidy, still standing a foot away. “You don’t have to
decide everything right now. You can just let us know if you want to come hang out at the pool and think about the rest later.”

  The young girl twisted her fingers together in front of her. “You want both of us?”

  Her raw vulnerability tore at Connor’s heart. He couldn’t possibly make a ten year old understand what he couldn’t himself, that he couldn’t imagine loving them more if he’d been in their lives since day one. That in a short period of time, they’d come to mean the world to him. That he believed, deep down, he was meant to be their father. That they were meant to be a family.

  He slid from the chair to the floor to kneel in front of her, fighting to hold back a wince as a familiar pain shot through his leg. “More than anything. I want you and Logan to be part of our family more than anything, but this isn’t about me, Cas. You deserve to make the choice. If you think you could love us one day, maybe it would be worth giving this a shot.”

  She stood before him in silence for one, then two, then three agonizingly slow beats, but he refused to move. Even when the ache in his leg became nearly unbearable, he stayed exactly where he was.

  When she finally threw herself into his arms, a weight he hadn’t even realized he was carrying vanished from his shoulders, and he wrapped her in a tight embrace.

  “No one has called me Cas since my mom died,” she whispered against his ear in a watery tone. She laid her head on his shoulder and quietly cried, soaking the thin cotton material of his shirt.

  From his place still firmly in Kelsey’s lap, Logan piped up. “Do you have a dog? I think it would be a lot easier to decide if you had a dog.”

  Connor chuckled and gingerly lifted himself back into his seat to offer his legs some rest, keeping Cassidy pressed closely to his side, unwilling to let her go. “Sorry, buddy, no dogs, but my brother Wyatt has horses.”

  The little boy pressed his lips together and huffed a small sigh. “Well, I guess that’ll do.”

  ***

  Kelsey

  Present Day

  After a distant and slightly awkward introduction, Logan and Cassidy made fairly fast friends with Tanner and Izzy’s twins, Ava and Noah. As soon as they were all given permission, they leapt into the pool and had moved from one game to another.

  All of their antics were not only tolerated, but encouraged by almost all four of the Carlisle brothers. Tanner attempted, for a while, to maintain some order but failed miserably, and he joined in. Dean embodied every cliché for a youngest sibling and was easily the favorite of all the children for his less-than-mature behavior.

  After one particularly epic cannonball, Kelsey propped her hands on her hips and threw him a dirty look from the side of the pool. “Did you seriously just splash me?”

  He tossed his head and slicked back his brown hair, nearly the identical shade as Tanner’s. “Everyone is fair game at Casa Carlisle. You know that, Kels.”

  “Speaking of the normal crowd, where is Jillian?” Kelsey threw her brother-in-law a teasing grin, knowing any mention of his childhood best friend—that apparently everyone in the Carlisle clan strongly believed he would marry one day—would make him squirm.

  Izzy’s light tinkling laughter approached from her left side, and Kelsey couldn’t help but smile at the other woman. “Yeah, Dean, I haven’t seen Jillian for a long time. Maybe she found Mr. Right out on the wild terrain.”

  Kelsey suspected the ruddy tint to his cheeks had little to do with the late May warmth from the sun and everything to do with the topic at hand. Especially when his brothers joined in on the teasing.

  “Hey, look,” Dean called to the kids splashing in the water near him, “Kelsey has some weird bug on her nose!” As soon as all four children spun around to see the completely fabricated creature supposedly crawling on Kelsey, Dean flipped off his brothers and dove beneath the water.

  The rest of the event passed by with lots of laughter, a little good-natured fun, and multiple hypotheses of what Wyatt and Georgia would name the baby due in only four short months.

  When they had arrived, Kelsey had steeled herself against the ache she was certain the other woman’s growing belly would incite. She didn’t begrudge Wyatt and Georgia their happily ever after in the slightest, and in some ways, she was grateful for the path that led her and Connor to be the family Logan and Cassidy needed.

  But there was still a lingering pain she wasn’t sure would ever fully disappear. A life she’d never be able to experience. As she sat around the fire with the rest of the family, she was shocked to realize that the twinge she was so used to feeling around expectant mothers had faded into only a slightly perceptible pang.

  Logan chose that exact moment to climb into her lap and dig his fists into the corners of his eyes before laying his head on her shoulder. Her arms immediately wrapped around him without any input from her brain. Instinctively. Protectively.

  She pressed her lips to the crown of his blond head. “Getting tired, buddy?”

  He nodded against her. “Yeah, can we go home now?”

  Connor was a few feet away but close enough to hear the completely innocent question that managed to mean the world to both of them. He locked eyes with Kelsey, and they both smiled. “Yep. Let’s go home.”

  Epilogue

  Kelsey

  Christmas Day

  “This is never going to work.”

  Connor grinned up at her from his position kneeling on the floor. “Have a little faith in me, gorgeous.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I have all the faith in the world in you. What I don’t trust even the tiniest bit is that.” She wrinkled her nose and stuck one finger out at the brightly colored box Connor was adjusting the bow on.

  He stood and stretched with a loud yawn. “How the hell do parents do this holiday shit? I’m freaking exhausted.”

  Kelsey collapsed onto the bed and groaned at the digital clock on the bedside table that read well after two in the morning. “Me too. We need to try to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before they wake up.” She climbed between the covers but held up a hand when he tried to join her. “That was your idea. You are responsible to put it away before you’re allowed to join me.”

  Connor grumbled but slightly disassembled the trap door he’d created on the package and secured everything safely in their oversized walk-in closet. In less than a minute, he was beside her, arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to the front of him. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t listen when you said the closet was far too big? It has been the perfect place to hide all their gifts.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re a genius.” She yawned and wiggled more firmly into him.

  Their eyes had barely closed when an earthquake shook their bed, startling them both awake. Connor and Kelsey shot up nearly immediately to be greeted with the source of the jostling, which had nothing to do with tectonic plates getting stuck on each other and everything to do with two overly enthused children.

  “What time is it?” Kelsey rubbed the grit that had formed in the corners of her eyes and looked at the clock. She fell back against the pillows when it informed her that it was barely six.

  Logan jumped a few more times on the mattress. “It’s time to open presents, duh!”

  Cassidy pulled on Connor’s arm. “Come on, we’ve been waiting forever.”

  With only minimal grumbling and complaining, mostly from Kelsey, since Connor was nearly as excited as the kids, they allowed themselves to be dragged out into the living room. The dual gasps as Logan and Cassidy spied the avalanche of gifts spilling out from beneath the tree was enough to bring a smile to Kelsey’s face in spite of the early hour and lack of meaningful sleep.

  “First rule.” Connor held up a finger. “Kelsey gets coffee before we start or she will be a miserable Grinch.”

  She smacked his arm as he disappeared into the kitchen. And then fought a grin when he returned with a steaming mug shaped just like the Grinch’s head. “You’re lucky I
have a weakness for artists there, Picasso.”

  Connor winked and sat on the floor beside the tree to hand out gifts, looking for all the world like an overgrown child. The simple act managed to tug at her heart. Last Christmas he was still in the hospital. They were still apart. She was miserable and lonely and terrified of what the future would hold for him.

  Never in a million years could she have predicted the worst event of their lives could end this perfectly.

  It took more than two hours to open and appropriately gush over every gift. When the last item from beneath the tree had been dispensed, Connor got to his feet and began exaggeratedly looking around.

  “What’s wrong?” Cassidy looked up from her new wooden art box long enough to frown at Connor.

  He threw his fists on his hips in such an utterly theatrical way, Kelsey had to fight the urge to laugh, although knowing the secret he held was nearly enough to make her throw up from nerves.

  “There’s a present missing.”

  That brought Logan’s head up from the blocks he was already pulling from their box. “How do you know there’s a gift missing?”

  Connor lifted his brows and dipped his chin. “I know that there was another box under this tree.” He curled his lips into a mischievous grin. “Wanna help me look for it?”

  Both kids leapt to their feet and shot off on a scavenger hunt through the house with Connor in the lead. Kelsey trailed behind, gnawing on her lower lip. The kids seemed happy with Connor and Kelsey, but that didn’t mean…

  “I found it!” Cassidy shrieked as she pulled back one of the folding doors leading to Connor and Kelsey’s closet.

  Kelsey wrapped her hand around Connor’s bicep and lifted onto her toes to reach his ear. “We can never hide another gift in there. You know that, right?”