Serious Fun

by Jessie Gussman

  “You’re doing great,” Harris whispered in her ear.

  The scenery was set, and the stagehands jogged off. A hand gripped her shoulder.

  “You hate me?” Turbo whispered in her ear.

  She jerked around. Taking him in, breathing a cool sigh of relief, even as her brain noted something was out of place.

  “Your hair?”

  Turbo’s mouth moved up in a slow grin. “Quincy cut it. Gave me an idea.”

  “One of your crazy ideas made you late?”

  Camila grabbed Sandy and walked out onstage.

  “It was the best one I ever had.” He grabbed her arm, pulling her to him and pressing his lips on hers. “I love you. Break a leg.”

  She didn’t quite get her big grin schooled into the appropriate expression before she walked out onstage.

  The rest of the play went by in a blur. She had no trouble giving Turbo heated glances. The chemistry between them almost crackled. He stumbled over his lines during the car scene, and she missed a couple of notes in the song at the end.

  Turbo had never kissed Mia during practice, although Ransom and Mia had shared a sweet, closed-mouth smooch when they practiced together. He surprised her when he kissed her full on the lips at the end.

  She still hadn’t recovered from the kiss when Cassidy walked out onstage before the curtain closed.

  Turbo held Camila’s hand on one side and Harris’s on the other. He squeezed her hand. “Listen.”

  Cassidy held a mic. “I hope everyone enjoyed the show. Tomorrow is the first actual scheduled performance. However, I want to say, before you leave, that Turbo Baxter, who played Daddy Warbucks tonight, pulled an actual Daddy Warbucks today.”

  She paused to let her words sink in. “He had been called to work, but instead of going, he went around to the doctors at the pediatric cancer unit—where the money from this play is going to fund books for a library—and asked for the kids in the unit to be allowed to come.”

  People started clapping, and Cassidy waited for them to stop before she continued. “Of course, it’s highly irregular. The kids are susceptible to germs, and many of them are hooked to monitors constantly. It is absolutely unheard of for these children to be able to leave. But Turbo has a way of figuring things out, and although some of the sickest children were not able to be here in body, we’ve been livestreaming the performance to them.”

  She moved the mic to the other hand and turned to the side a little. “Turbo rented a bus and brought the rest of the children over, along with several doctors and nurses and parents. They’re going to hop up onstage for a minute and say ‘hi,’ then Turbo needs to get them back to the hospital. But we wanted you to see why they’ve done all this work. Every penny of every ticket goes toward the library for these kids. Come on up, guys.”

  Cassidy moved her arm in a “come here” gesture, and about fifteen kids, monitors and IV lines trailing behind, as doctors and nurses helped them along, moved up and across the stage. Most of them were just as bald as Turbo, and all had huge grins on their faces.

  Turbo leaned down beside Harris. “That’s why I was late.”

  “What am I going to do with you?” she asked with a shake of her head.

  “Marry me,” he replied.

  She gasped. “Is this another of your pranks?”

  “The timing’s all wrong, I’m doing it badly as usual, but I’m dead serious. Would you marry me?”

  She didn’t have to think about it twice. “Yes.”

  He grinned, but there was still a cloud behind his laughing eyes.

  “What?”

  He looked out at the line of kids. The audience was on its feet, and the applause shook the rafters in the old theater. “I was going to bring DeShaun, too. But the police were there to arrest his father and the woman who just moved in for armed robbery. Social services was there taking the kids. It was a mess. I left, but...”

  “We’ll go see. Actually Cassidy might be able to help us. Or Kelly.”

  “I wondered if we might be able to move our marriage up and become foster parents pretty fast or...” He paused, studying her face. “Or adoptive parents.”

  “Let’s try.” She could hardly believe it. It wasn’t very long ago that she thought about everything she did for days or longer, and here she was making two life-changing decisions on the spur of the moment. But nothing had ever felt more right.

  Harris squeezed Turbo’s hand. “After all, DeShaun is kind of the one who started this all.”

  Epilogue

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  Turbo balanced a bottle in one hand and his soon-to-be daughter in the other arm. Kerrigan. That’s what they’d named her. Not that he could barely remember his own name when she smiled up at him like she was doing now.

  “You two are just staring at each other. Doesn’t she want her bottle?” Harris walked over and slipped an arm around him.

  Turbo turned his head and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Thought you and DeShaun were making cookies for me?”

  “We did. I came to get the baby so you could eat with both hands.”

  Turbo stared at his wife. “You’re making fun of me.”

  She took the bottle from him. “I was making a joke. You said you like it when I laugh. Well, I like it when you laugh, too.”

  She couldn’t have said that better. One of his favorite sounds in the world was his wife laughing. He handed the baby to Harris, kissing his wife sweetly before straightening and looking out over the backyard. “This warm weather probably isn’t going to last.”

  “No. We’ll have more cold weather before things warm up for good.”

  “And I’ll be out of school for the year.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “I look forward to it. I get your undivided attention.”

  She balanced the baby in one arm, holding the bottle with the same hand, and handed him a letter he hadn’t seen she had.

  “I think you can read this for yourself.”

  Turbo gave her a look. He would live with his attention deficit disorder for the rest of his life, but eye tracking exercises and a few other magic tricks, as he called the brain exercises Harris had researched for him, had put his learning to read on the fast track. He still wasn’t confident, and when he hadn’t slept for a while, his eyes would jump all over the page, but he’d made huge progress in the last few months. He’d spent most of his spare time over the winter working on it, though. He didn’t want Harris to ever be embarrassed of her husband, although she insisted it wasn’t possible.

  He looked the envelope over. An official state address was in the upper left corner. His lips slowly turned up, even before he opened the envelope.

  He read, taking a little extra time because a few of the words were long and unfamiliar, but his smile never dimmed. It got bigger.

  “This means they’re ours.” He said it as a statement, but he lifted his brows at her, still wanting her to confirm that DeShaun and Kerrigan were, indeed, officially adopted.

  “It’s unprecedented how fast it happened.”

  “That’s what happens when a man has a wife with lawyers and social workers as friends.”

  “You know, not to change the subject or anything, but you never mentioned your older brother.”

  “Torque and Tough. You know them both.” He was being deliberately dense, because he didn’t really want to talk about...

  “There’s another brother.”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “His name?”

  “That’s a sore spot.” Somehow the older brother who had left as their mother died of cancer had been the only one in the family who had gotten a decent name.

  “Ben.” Harris handed him the bottle with a lifted brow. “His name is Ben.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I think we ought to look him up.”

  “No. After knowing how my dad was. And after he left just when the family really needed him, I’m not interested.”
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  “He’s your brother.”

  Turbo’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He gave Harris the darkest look he could muster before answering. “Torque. What’s up?”

  “Gram’s in the hospital. You probably ought to come. Mercy Hospital.”

  “We’ll be there.” He swiped the phone off. “Gram’s in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  Turbo paused as he gathered the baby’s blanket and carrier. “Don’t know. Didn’t think to ask.”

  Her eyebrows stayed pinched in concern, but she shook her head with a smile on her face. “I can call Quincy and see if she’s available to keep an eye on the kids.”

  Turbo followed Harris inside, greeted by the smell of fresh-baked cookies. “Has she heard about the publisher?”

  Harris turned to smile with real pride. “She’s going to self-publish it. She and Elsie are going to go together. They’ve already raised money by selling cookies and babysitting. Anything they make after costs is going toward the library.”

  “There’s not too much the hospital library needs. Your play outfitted it with a ton of books and a bunch of iPads.”

  “No. They’ve adopted a library in Mexico. I thought I told you they were taking a trip down to Guadalajara in the spring.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “No more dangerous than cancer.”

  He pulled her toward him, Kerrigan and all. “Maybe it was your cancer that gave you the courage to take a chance on me.”

  She smiled.

  “And I’m happy with black-haired, black-eyed babies with chubby cheeks and sparkling grins.” He shrugged. “Red hair is overrated.”

  “Well.” Harris bit her lip. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “You want to dye your hair?” He couldn’t stop the alarm that ran through his chest. Of course he’d still love her if her hair were blue, but...could one dye red hair blue? She’d made him watch Anne of Green Gables, on their wedding night if he wasn’t mistaken, and Anne’s attempts at dyeing her red hair had not turned out well. He’d have to think of how to console Harris when her hair turned green.

  “No.” She patted Kerrigan’s back. Kerrigan let out a polite little burp. “Actually, I’m pregnant.”

  “Holy frig.” He was worried about Gram and wanted to get to the hospital as soon as possible. But... “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t believe it myself until I made an appointment. The doctor did an ultrasound right there in the office. Her heart is beating.”

  “Her?”

  “I’m not sure I can handle a miniature Turbo hurricane.”

  He laughed. “I’ll help.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  DeShaun stepped out from the kitchen, an apron tied around his thin waist, a cookie in each hand.

  Turbo waved the envelope. “This says you and Kerrigan are officially ours.”

  “Really? Awesome, dude.” He gave a shy grin. “I mean, Dad.”

  Right there, Turbo’s heart burst. As long as Gram was okay, there was no possible way he could be any happier.

  Thank you so much for reading!

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  Keep reading for the first chapter of Bring Me Back, the next book in The Baxter Boys series!

  Chapter 1

  Riley Coleman’s phone buzzed. She kept her hands folded in her lap and didn’t move.

  “That terminal is sitting at the confluence of the turnpike, I80 and I99, right in the middle of central Pennsylvania. We’re perfectly positioned to be everywhere and go anywhere.” Her dad’s booming voice filled the corner office of Coleman Trucking, Inc. in Rutlege, Maine.

  Her phone stopped buzzing. Riley didn’t twitch.

  “It should be our top performing shop. It should be number one in the country. We have state-of-the art computer systems and mechanics from the top schools anywhere.” His face brightened like the red of her mother’s old counter tops. “But it’s not. It’s the worst performing diesel garage we own. The bottom in just about every measurable area.”

  He stood, tall, as always, with a slightly larger waistline than when Riley had last seen him at Christmastime. “It’s not just because you’re my daughter. It’s because you’ve made this shop, in Nowheretown, Maine, the best-performing shop in the country. The job in Pennsylvania is yours by rights.”

  Riley rose as well. Only his old office desk, ponderous and glowering, stood between them. “I can do the job.” Her voice sounded capable and bold. A direct contrast to the timorous skittering of her heart.

  “Bold as brass. That’s what you’ve always been.” Her dad smiled, a pleased I’m-proud-of-my-daughter smile. The kind she lived for.

  She gave him a cool, confident smile in return. The smile she’d perfected over the years of demanding confrontations when her father insisted on and expected almost super-human effort from her. But everything she’d worked for was almost within reach: make the shop in Pennsylvania successful, get the corner office, see her dad’s approval.

  “I need you down in Brickly Springs by the end of next week.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said, her confident tone covering her chaotic thoughts. Less than seven days to wrap things up at the shop in Maine, move out of her apartment and find somewhere to live. No problem, Dad.

  He nodded, pacing behind his desk. His boots made a soft clomp on the tile floor. Outside the large windows, the late Maine spring was just turning the grass at the edge of the big truck parking area a happy shade of green. A direct contrast to the dark paneling and neutral colors of what used to be his office. Until ten years ago when he expanded his company and moved with his family to Pennsylvania. Riley had come back to Maine six years ago, fresh out of college. She’d worked her way up quickly and had become the manager four years ago.

  The same time Ben Baxter had been made shop foreman.

  Riley’s control slipped and she pulled both lips between her teeth before she forced the tension out of her body and smoothed the features of her face. She wasn’t going to think about Ben Baxter.

  Except, if she wanted the shop in Pennsylvania to be successful, she didn’t have a choice. Not only would she have to think about him, she’d have to convince him to move to Brickley Springs.

  BEN BAXTER SET THE last injector carefully on the plyboard and sawhorse make-shift table. He pulled the blue rag out of the back of his pocket and started wiping his hands, looking around at the almost deserted shop.

  “Hey, boss. I’m leaving.” Fred Tomlin, his gray hair sticking out from under his ball cap in wispy strands, stopped beside the gutted Peterbilt Ben had been working on.

  “Thanks for staying and giving me a hand with that core,” Ben said. He shoved the rag back in his pocket.

  “You still have a meeting with the fancy lady?” Fred asked with a smirk.

  Riley Coleman wasn’t hated around the shop. She was a fair manager and nice to look at, but with her business suits and perfectly shiny hair and nails, she would never be on their level. Which made her an outsider. Ben never bothered defending her. Not after what she’d done to him.

  “Yep.” Ben wiped the last of his wrenches off and set it back neatly in the drawer with the rest of the set. “She should be here any minute.”

  Fred paused in the act of raising his hat and rubbing his mostly bald head. “She’s coming here?” he asked incredulously, hooking a finger in the pocket of his jeans. Most shops had a uniform policy. Ben had done away with it first thing when he’d become foreman. That wasn’t the only change he made, but by the time the higher-ups had realized what was going on, they couldn’t argue with his improved output numbers. Riley couldn’t argue. This wasn’t their first meeting.

  “Said she was.” Ben carefully wiped off his three-quarter inch socket.

  This was their first meeting, how
ever, in the shop. Every other time he’d been called on the carpet, he’d had to stand like a bad little school boy hanging his head in front of the principle’s office. Never again. His sisters had graduated from high school and had several years of additional training under their belts. He could finally afford to take the risk he’d always wanted to take.

  Fred’s eyes swept over him, taking in the grease on his tee shirt, arms and face. It mixed with the blood he’d wiped there when his forearm had clipped a jagged piece of metal after cutting off a stubborn bolt.

  “Ain’t you gonna clean up at all?”

  “Nope.” He gave Fred a grin. “Won’t hurt the woman to see what a working man looks like.”

  Fred returned his grin and shrugged before turning. “See ya tomorrow.”

  “Flip the lights out for bays one and two before you go.”

  Fred didn’t answer, just hit the switches on the way out the door.

  Maybe he should have cleaned up, at least washed his hands and arms. But, with his sisters raised, he had a hard time caring about impressing the snotty daughter of the owner of one of the biggest trucking companies in the country.

  Riley could come to him. He didn’t give a flip, because he was quitting.

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