The Mommy Quest
Page 20
“Who is it?” Brian asked.
Dean didn’t answer as the car stopped, and Stella’s parents climbed out.
“Oh,” Brian said, and drifted away.
“Sir.” Dean nodded stiffly.
George O’Connell returned the nod. His wife, a slim waif of a woman whom Dean had never formally met, gave her husband an elbow in the ribs.
“Ahem.” O’Connell cleared his throat. “I came to bury the hatchet.”
“In my head?”
“Uh. No. Make the peace.” He held out his hand. “For Stella’s sake.”
Dean was so shocked he didn’t take the hand right away and O’Connell kept talking—after his wife stomped on his foot.
“I apologize for how I behaved. I was wrong.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Dean murmured. “If I found my daughter with a guy like me, I’d have gotten the gun.”
O’Connell’s lips twitched. “It did cross my mind.”
STELLA WAS JUST ABOUT to put on her wedding dress when she glanced out the window, then she ran out of the house.
“Father!”
Everyone glanced in her direction. Dean slapped his hands over his eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m not supposed to see you before the wedding.”
She tugged on his fingers. “You aren’t supposed to see me in my dress.”
He opened his eyes and smiled at the sight of her in his robe. Ever since that day at his house, she’d refused to give the garment back. It was hers now, and so was he. Or almost.
Stella placed a kiss in the center of Dean’s palm. His eyes gleamed. He couldn’t wait for tonight, and neither could she. But first they had to get through today. Keeping Dean’s fingers linked with hers, she faced her father.
“Don’t ruin this for me.”
“He came to make peace,” Dean interjected.
“He did?”
Stella and her father hadn’t spoken since the day she’d thrown him out of her office. She didn’t regret it. He’d been wrong. But she had wanted to smooth things over since they were going to be living in the same town.
The wedding invitation she’d sent had gone unanswered, and she’d figured any chance at reconciliation had vanished with her angry words. The lack of her parents had been the one shadow on an otherwise crystal-clear horizon.
“Your mother told me I made peace, or I packed my bags,” her father said.
Stella glanced at her mother. “You did?”
“I did.”
“What got into you?”
“My daughter’s going to be with the man she loves for the rest of her life. I wanted that, too.”
Stella turned her attention to her father, who shrugged.
“I have to revert to the man she married or she’ll divorce me,” her father said, but he was smiling.
“Pod person,” she muttered, and Dean snickered.
“You took the principal’s job?” her father asked, though as a school-board member, he had to already know the answer.
“George!”
“I just want to congratulate her.”
“All right. But be nice.” Stella’s mother moved off to greet Dean’s mom, who had insisted Stella call her Ellie.
“You don’t mind that I’m a nose wiper?” Stella couldn’t resist asking.
“I doubt you wipe many noses in the principal’s office.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Her father rocked back on his heels.
“What?” she asked, knowing he had something else to say.
“You ever consider being a superintendent?”
Stella tilted her head. “Not until just now.”
Her father’s smile widened. Tim ran up and tugged on his trousers.
“Are you my grampa?”
Everyone stilled. Stella took a step forward, but Dean put a hand on her arm and shook his head. He was right. Here was the test. Had her father truly changed or was he merely pretending?
He scowled at Tim, chewed his lip, and Tim grinned, exposing his missing teeth. George O’Connell’s scowl melted, as did his heart. He lifted Tim into his arms. “I guess I am.”
DEAN AND STELLA WERE married in the gazebo with all of the Luchettis and her parents looking on. Stella couldn’t have imagined a lovelier wedding or a better present than her father’s blessing. Until John and Ellie pulled them aside.
“Here.” John handed Dean a long envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Wedding gift.” Dean’s parents shared a smile.
Dean opened the flap, took out legal documents, glanced at them and shook his head. “Dad—”
“It’s time.”
“What is it?” Stella asked.
“They’ve given us the farm and the house.”
“We’ll move into the thresher’s cottage next week,” Ellie announced.
“Oh, no,” Stella protested.
“Oh, yes. I’m getting too old to keep up such a big place, and from the looks of you two, you’re going to need more rooms.”
Stella smiled. Her motherin-law had babies on the brain, as did Tim, who had made it his mission to nag her daily for a sister. He called it the sister quest.
“Are you going to be okay living on a farm?” Ellie asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you were allergic to hay?”
Stella blinked. “I thought I was, too.”
However, she hadn’t sneezed once since she’d returned to Gainsville. Maybe she’d grown out of it, as her allergist always insisted she could. If the problem came back, she’d just take a pill. Everyone else did.
Her fear of shadows in the dark had waned. Probably because the darkness now held Dean. With him at her side, she didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore, and knowing she wasn’t going back to L.A. didn’t hurt, either.
“What about the dogs?” Ellie continued.
Stella’s gaze went to the back fence where six of them, plus a pig, stared at the crowd hopefully. She’d been here so much in the past month, they’d kind of grown on her. In fact, when she told them to be quiet, sometimes they even listened.
“I think I’m going to be all right,” Stella murmured.
“I think we both are.” Dean put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead.
The rest of the day was the best of Stella’s life. She liked all of Dean’s brothers, but then she always had, and each of their wives was perfect for the Luchetti they’d married.
Aaron, the almost priest, had married Nicole, an ex-stripper. Together they managed a halfway house with help from their daughter Rayne. Rayne in turn helped them manage their brand-new daughter, Faith.
Colin had married Bobby’s girl, which had caused a general ruckus. However, Stella couldn’t imagine sweet, affable Marlie married to “damn the torpedoes and give me a gun” Bobby.
Marlie was hugely pregnant with her and Colin’s second child, and she was in her element, mothering everyone while Colin dandled their son, fourteen-month-old Robbie, on his knee.
Bobby was more suited to his wife, Jane, a doctor who ministered to the poor in Mexico. Jane’s mother was a wealthy senator, but you’d never know it to look at her. She fit right in with the loud and loving Luchetti clan as if she’d been a member for years rather than months.
The youngest brother, Evan, who had been quite the ladies’ man in his day, now had eyes only for his own very pregnant wife, Jilly. Evan was Jilly’s fifth husband, but the first one under sixty.
The two of them had found love in a haunted Arkansas inn, and now Jilly had given up her gold-digging ways to help Evan run the bed-and-breakfast they’d opened there.
Stella gazed at the group. Everyone was happy, even her parents. Thank God for huge miracles.
Her eyes turned to Dean. And speaking of miracles…
Stella brushed her palm over her stomach. She had a little one of her own to share with him tonight.
THE MOMMY QUEST
Copyright © 2006 by Lori Handeland.
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*The Luchetti Brothers