Текст книги "A Turn of the Screwed "
Автор книги: Tymber Dalton
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two weeks after their collaring, the first test of their new formal dynamic hit.
They were awakened by Noel receiving an early morning call from her mother that Noel’s father was being taken to the hospital via ambulance for what appeared to be a heart attack. Less than an hour later he was in surgery, and Keith was already on the computer, checking flights for the three of them and arranging for a rental car.
Noel asked that Keith go with them.
He couldn’t deny her, especially when he could tell how shaken up she was by this. Considering what she’d told him about her family it likely wasn’t the greatest idea in the world, but his main concern was Noel and her well-being, not a bunch of conservative pricks he couldn’t give a shit about.
It was a blustery early fall day in Indiana, and late in the evening when they arrived at the hospital and found their way to the waiting area at the cardiac ICU where her father was now recovering. Noel’s mother and siblings, as well as some other family members, were gathered there. When they entered, Keith faded back, letting Scott stay close to Noel as she tearfully greeted her family and received the latest update.
Her father’s condition was critical, and the prognosis was uncertain at that time.
Keith had instructed them to introduce him as a friend from there in Indiana, who’d picked them up at the airport and was letting them stay with him. That whatever lies they needed to tell to keep the peace were fine. He didn’t want their relationship to cause a distraction from the main issue or create drama. He’d tried to remain downstairs in the main waiting area, but Noel had tearfully begged him to come upstairs with them and he found he couldn’t refuse her.
Unfortunately, his two headstrong pets didn’t follow instructions very well. He’d quietly taken a seat near the doorway after giving silent head nods to everyone without him having actually been introduced. He’d hoped his presence would go mostly unnoticed.
It didn’t take Noel’s mother longer than thirty seconds to start taking thinly veiled potshots at her for not living closer, despite the fact that two of her siblings had also flown in from out-of-state. Her siblings, of course, piled on.
He listened quietly, the magazine he’d picked up going unread even though he slowly flipped through the pages as if he was. Instead, his attention was on Noel, on Scott, on fighting the urge to tell the self-righteous prigs to quit picking on them.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he watched Noel as she looked around, her focus falling squarely on him. He didn’t look up to meet her gaze. He knew if he did he would likely insert himself into the situation and make a mess of things. These were the two people he loved being poorly treated, and he knew he couldn’t just take care of it without leaving a lot of emotional carnage behind.
“How long are you going to be able to stay?” her mother asked. “Did the school give you time off paid or unpaid?”
“I’m not teaching anymore.”
Oh, shit. Keith winced. One of their rules was no lying. But that was between the three of them. He’d specifically told Noel and Scott to say whatever was necessary to keep the peace, including lying about her job, if necessary.
“What do you mean you’re not teaching?” her mother demanded. “Since when? What are you doing now?”
“Keith got me a job working at the marina. I love it there.”
He hoped his groan was silent, not out loud. Yes, Noel loved working at the marina. She was also loved by the owner, who had given her free rein to redo all their office procedures. As a result, the place ran like a well-oiled vibrator, far better than it had since Maria was there.
“Keith? Who’s he?” He felt every eye swivel onto him and he risked glancing around.
So much for me being a friend from Indiana.
“He’s our partner,” Scott said.
Keith softly sighed in resignation, closed the magazine, and set it aside before standing up as her mother made a noise.
“Your partner?” she asked.
Obviously, staying out of it was no longer an option. “Hi,” he said. “Keith Knepp.”
“Who the hell are you?” one of the brothers asked.
Keith stared him down, the guy taking a step back after a moment. “Like Scott said, I’m their partner.”
He’d drawn close enough that Noel was able to snag his arm. She pulled him up against her. “He’s with us. We’re a family.”
Every voice in the waiting room fell silent, both Noel’s clan and others who were now more interested in watching this drama play out than focusing on their own loved ones’ troubles.
“This isn’t some twisted sex thing, is it?” the youngest sister asked.
“How would you know?” Noel shot back, an uncharacteristic steel edge to her tone. “Your metrosexual hubby’s probably got a few kinks in his own closet he hasn’t fessed up to, and everyone in this family knows it.”
Oh, holy shit.
Scott tried to rein her in, bless his heart. “Honey, this isn’t the time to discuss—”
“No, fuck this shit, it totally is.” She took in all her family. “You all have picked on me for as long as I can remember. I was never good enough for any of you. I spent a lot of years worrying about how to make all of you happy, to make you like me, and I’m done. I’m happy, I’m in love, I’m loving my life for the first time in I don’t know how long, so back the fuck off!”
If it’d been quiet in the waiting room before, it was tomb-dead silent now. A nurse sitting at a desk behind a sliding window to the side of the ICU door looked up from her computer.
Noel wasn’t finished venting her pent-up emotions. “I’m only here for my father. I love him, but he wasn’t any better than the rest of you have been to me. So here’s the truth—I’m married to Scott and I’m in love with him, and we both are in love with Keith, and he’s in love with us. Deal with it. We’re adults and we’ll do what we want. My relationship isn’t up for discussion. Now I’m going to go in there and see my father. When I come back out, if you want me to leave, I will. But I’ll be damned if I’ll sneak out of here like I’ve done anything wrong.”
She spun on her heel and stormed toward the door. She spoke with the nurse at the desk and was buzzed through, the doors swinging shut behind her.
Meanwhile, Scott had—likely unconsciously—sidled closer to Keith as the entire family turned on the two of them.
Okay, enough’s enough.
He edged between Scott and Noel’s mother. “Mrs. Jameson,” he quietly said, “I apologize for Noel’s outburst. She’s very upset, obviously.”
But Noel’s mom stepped to the side and focused on Scott as if Keith wasn’t even there. “She said you both are in love with this guy. This is your doing, isn’t it? I knew you were wrong for her from the moment I first met you. Even my husband has always hated you, but I tried to keep the peace. I tried to—”
“Enough,” Keith firmly said, taking charge and dropping into full-on Dom mode. Obviously, tact and diplomacy weren’t going to work in this situation.
Not after Hurricane Noel dropped a whirling shit-bomb of truth right into the middle of the spinning turbine of stress and drama.
“I’m not asking you to like or approve of our living arrangement, Mrs. Jameson,” Keith said as he edged between her and Scott again. “And I wish that our meeting had been under better circumstances. Honestly? I thought Noel and Scott were exaggerating the dysfunction in this family. I can see that they weren’t.”
Now the woman looked huffy. “Dysfunction? There is nothing dysfunctional about this family! Noel has always been high-strung and difficult, all her life. Insisting on being contrary and nonconformist just to cause trouble. I should have known she’d do something stupid like this. She was never easy like the rest of my chil—”
Keith held up his palm. “Stop. Right now. You’re done.” When one of the brothers tried to step forward and intercede, Keith turned his palm toward him and closed his thumb and fingers together in a universal shut-up gesture without taking his focus off Noel’s mom.
“Once Noel’s done,” Keith said, “we’ll leave and go back to the hotel for the night. We’ll return tomorrow and check on her father. Either you pull your heads out of your asses and play nice and put aside whatever petty, stupid family squabbles you’re going to use Noel as the scapegoat for, or we’ll take her back home to Florida.” He’d actually booked the trip for them to be up here a week, so he’d have to change the flight.
But he wouldn’t tell her family that.
One of the sisters looked a little conflicted. “Mom, he’s right. This is about Dad, not about—”
The other brother reached out and grabbed her shoulder, scowling at her.
The sister’s face reddened, but she went silent.
“Oh. I see how it is,” Keith said. “Rule by dictatorship instead of honest, adult relationships based on mutual respect and understanding. Gotcha. That’s your definition of a ‘functional’ family.”
“How dare you!” her mom said. “You don’t know us at all.”
“Exactly. I can tell I don’t want to know you, either. Not if you’ll treat Noel and Scott this poorly during a situation as grave as this.”
An announcement went off over the loudspeaker, a code blue page. Ten seconds later, two doctors bolted through the waiting room and were immediately buzzed through the ICU doors.
Everyone fell silent. Scott felt for Keith’s hand, Keith taking and squeezing it.
Noel didn’t return.
Thirty minutes later, Noel, with a nurse helping her walk and led by a doctor in scrubs, emerged from the ICU.
“Mrs. Jameson?” the doctor asked.
Noel’s mom covered her mouth with her hands.
Keith and Scott went to flank Noel, taking over from the nurse, who appeared to actually be holding her up, not just helping her walk.
From the look on Noel’s face, Keith immediately knew what had happened. He didn’t even need to ask.
She softly wept against them as the doctor ushered the family into a conference room just off the waiting room to break the news.
Keith ignored everything except Noel and Scott.
They were his focus, his priority.
The other siblings and their spouses comforted her mother and each other as the doctor explained what happened.
“I want to see him,” her mother demanded. “Take me to my husband.”
The doctor escorted her out while the nurse stayed behind. Keith heard her say, “We’ve called the hospital chaplain for you.”
“I want to go,” Noel quietly said to Keith. “I want to leave now.”
Keith exchanged a glance with Scott, who looked as heartbroken as Keith now felt.
“Honey,” Scott said, “we can’t leave right now. We have to—”
“I want to go. I don’t have any reason to be here,” she said, pulling away from them and wobbling to her feet. “This isn’t my family anymore. I kept hoping they’d change, but they haven’t. I’ve changed. I’m happy now. I’m done.” She headed for the conference room door on unsteady legs.
Scott looked to him for confirmation. Keith shrugged and rose to his feet, quietly following Noel, catching up with her and opening the door for her as Scott slipped an arm around her waist.
Downstairs in the car, she had her meltdown, sobbing between the two men in the backseat as they sat there with her between them.
“He opened his eyes and looked at me,” she whispered. “The nurse who took me back there told me he was sedated, but he opened his eyes when I talked to him. I said, ‘Hi, Daddy. I love you.’ And he opened his eyes and looked at me. Then they closed again and alarms went off and I sort of got shoved out of the way and then there were all these doctors and nurses working on him.”
Keith had his arms both around her and Scott, Noel pressed against his chest and Scott holding her from behind. “Honey, we can’t leave things like this,” Keith said. “That’s your mom, your family. There’s going to be a funeral. I’ll sit out in the car while you and Scott go to it and—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to look at them.”
He tried again. “If you leave things like this, there’s a chance you’ll never be able to fix them. I speak from experience.”
“There isn’t anything to fix. The problem is for years I thought there was. I thought if I tried hard enough, they’d like me and accept me, but the truth is they won’t. I don’t know what was so different about me that they couldn’t in the first place. I got decent grades, but I was always different than my brothers and sisters. I liked to read all the time, fiction. I was a dreamer. I was liberal. They never really accepted me once I was old enough to form my own opinions and then defend them without backing down. I’m done beating my head against that wall.”
“Hold on,” Scott quietly said.
He slipped out of the car, closed the door, and then Keith watched him take his cell phone out of his pocket and make a call. While Keith continued to soothe Noel, Scott walked away from the car. In the glow from the parking lot security lights, Keith could see Scott talking to someone, running a hand through his hair, staring down at the ground as he paced slow, small circles. Ten minutes later, he nodded, ended the call, and rejoined them.
“We’ll fly into Grand Rapids tomorrow,” Scott said. “I told my parents we’d call them as and give them an ETA as soon as we change the flights. We don’t have to get a hotel room. They said we’re welcome to stay with them.”
“We?” Keith asked.
Scott nodded. “All three of us.”
* * * *
It was late in the afternoon when Keith finally pulled their rental car into the Gilroys’ driveway. Mike and Danica Gilroy stepped outside before they’d even emerged from the car. As soon as Noel spotted Danica, the woman held her arms open to Noel and Noel ran to her, crying. Danica shuttled her into the house.
Mike Gilroy looked somber as he walked over to Keith and Scott, who were getting their bags out of the trunk. “You must be Keith. Sorry this meeting had to be under such depressing circumstances.”
He stuck out a hand to Keith.
Keith shook with him but glanced at Scott.
“I told him on the phone last night,” Scott said. “I told them everything. Well, the short version.”
“I’m still confused,” Mike said after hugging Scott, “but he said you three would give us the long version. I think it’s more important to take care of Noel right now. I never did have much use for that bunch of assholes she’s genetically related to.” He looked at Scott. “Didn’t I tell you that then?”
“Yes, Dad. You did.”
“What?” Keith asked.
Scott smirked. “Dad told me Noel was welcomed into our family, but if I ever tried to force the rest of those jerks on him he’d disown me.”
“Mr. Gilroy,” Keith said, “I think you and I will get along just fine.”
The older man smiled. “I think you’re right. Call me Mike. Or call me Dad. I don’t care. Either’s fine.”
Keith felt peace settle around him. “Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that.”
* * * *
If it’d been the plot of a clichéd romance novel, the contrast in the two families couldn’t have been more blatantly different. It was obvious that the Gilroys didn’t understand why Scott and Noel had opened their marriage, and the three of them avoided the topic of BDSM while Scott admitted he thought he was gay, but they were withholding judgment.
Noel had curled up on the couch, her head in Danica’s lap as the woman stroked her hair while the three men sat around the coffee table.
“If you three are happy,” Danica said, “then that’s what matters. I’m sorry you’re going through such a rough time now.”
“We are going to ask for one concession,” Mike said.
“What’s that?” Scott asked.
Keith was expecting a request for them not to have sex under their roof, or to have separate bedrooms for himself from Scott and Noel, which he would have honored.
But he was pleasantly surprised.
“Let’s not tell your grandparents about any of this,” Mike said. “As far as they need to know, Keith’s a friend of yours.”
Keith relaxed. “Agreed,” he said before Scott or Noel could rebel.
Hell, the two of them still owed him twenty cane strokes each for blurting out the truth in the hospital, but that was something he’d collect later, after they’d returned home and talked about it first.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try calling your mom?” Danica asked Noel.
“No,” she said, sounding lost. “You’re a better mom than she is. I just finally found the nerve to stand up to everyone.”
Keith still wasn’t sure allowing Noel to back out of the funeral and flee was the best option, but he wouldn’t overrule her and force her, either. He hadn’t grown up in her household, although both she and Scott had related plenty of incidents that demonstrated the family had an asshole gene that ran deep over the years.
How it skipped Noel baffled him, but he wouldn’t question it. Not when he was the benefactor of her love.
* * * *
A sense of relief filled Noel that night when they settled into the tight quarters of the guest room. The queen-sized bed wasn’t as large as their king-sized bed at home.
Snuggled safely between Scott and Keith, she felt a peace the likes of which she’d never dreamed possible.
“Thank you,” she softly said.
“Who was that to?” Scott asked from behind her. She lay on her side, her ass wedged firmly against Scott, her face pressed against Keith’s shoulder.
“Both of you,” she said.
“Why?” Keith asked.
“For letting me rage back at the hospital.”
“I still don’t agree with how you handled it,” Keith said. “And there will be discussions when we get home about following orders.”
“I know, Sir,” she said, finally able to call him that. Keith had ordered that, around Scott’s parents, they wouldn’t call him Sir, that they’d let Mike and Danica think it was an even partnership. “But if it makes any difference, it was a long time coming.”
“I don’t know them the way you two do, so I can’t guess that. I know it was a stressful situation that wasn’t made any easier. I should have insisted on staying downstairs.”
“I didn’t want you downstairs,” she said. “I needed you upstairs. And, thankfully, you were. Because that’s when I really needed both of you. I’m not happy how things happened, but honestly? I really do feel free for the first time in my life. I no longer give two fucks what any of them think.”
“That’s fine, but this wasn’t the best way to do it.”
“I know. I won’t, however, apologize for it. Maybe that makes me a shitty daughter and sister, and they’ve been right about me all these years. Or maybe it means I had my fill of being the punching bag for them all these years, the ‘jokes’ and ‘just kidding’ comments I tolerated and kept my mouth shut about, because when I protested I was always told to lighten up. Maybe if I’d blown up at them years ago, it wouldn’t have come down to this. I’m not going to change who I am or who I love. The only time I saw them was at Christmas, anyway. Counting yesterday, I’ve seen them eleven times in the past ten years. Other than my birthday, which half of the time most of them forget anyway, I get no acknowledgements from them. So…I’m done.”
“Okay,” Keith said, kissing the top of the head. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She pulled Scott’s arm more tightly around her. “I have Scott, I have you, and I have Scott’s parents. And a shitload of good friends who’ve been supportive, loving family to me. I don’t need my blood relatives. I don’t want them. They obviously haven’t wanted me for years. It was just the final…”
She swallowed back the rest of the comment. It was too macabre even for her to say, under the circumstances.
“I finally just had enough,” she quietly said, instead of the reference to the final nail in the coffin.
“Love you, girl,” Keith murmured in her hair.
“Love you, too, Sir.”
He reached across her to Scott, to stroke his arm. “Love you, too, boy.”
Scott let out a content-sounding sigh. “Love you, too, Sir.”
She turned her head and kissed Scott. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. So much, you have no idea.”
“I’m just glad we finally got this right and figured out what we needed,” she said.
“Me, too,” Scott agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was a beautiful June day, sunny, gorgeous, perfect. The night before, they’d checked into their hotel room thirty minutes away. Close enough to drive, but not so far away it would make their argument for a hotel improbable. They preferred the neutrality of the hotel, a place they could retreat to if things went badly.
Noel noticed how Keith had grown quiet during the drive, until he wasn’t answering questions in anything more detailed than monosyllabic grunts and head nods.
In the backseat, Scott was doing his best to keep up a hint of a conversation, but Noel could see the way Keith’s knuckles grew increasingly white as he gripped the steering wheel more and more tightly with every mile of blacktop rolling beneath their wheels.
She finally reached over and laid a hand on his jean-clad thigh. “We don’t need to do this,” she said. “We can turn around and catch an earlier flight home.”
He didn’t respond, but in the backseat, Scott fell quiet.
Noel had sent a Christmas card to Keith’s little sister, Aubrey, from the three of them. She’d located the woman via Facebook.
From there, it’d led to some discussions via chat, then phone.
And only then had Noel broken the news to Keith.
Which had first earned her a spanking for going behind his back, and then a long, hard cuddle with his face buried in her hair after he whispered, “Thank you,” in her ear.
Keith’s two sisters and brother didn’t share their parents’ views, and Aubrey was getting married tomorrow.
Aubrey had invited them to come over to Keith’s parents’ house today for a family dinner. Aubrey and her fiancé, along with Keith’s older sister, brother, and their spouses, would be there early, before the rest of the guests, to help act as a buffer between Keith, Noel, and Scott and Keith’s parents.
Aubrey really wanted Keith at her wedding. And hadn’t told her parents about his arrival. The siblings had agreed that they loved their brother and wanted him—and his significant others—to be there.
But none of them wanted a repeat of Indiana.
The question was if the Knepp siblings ganged up on their parents, would their parents relent and at least play nice for the day so Aubrey could have the wedding of her dreams with her entire family by her side?
Keith also had two nieces and two nephews he’d never met. They wouldn’t be there today for the initial reunion, no one wanting to subject young children to any tempers if their father and mother unleashed. They would be brought over later by other family, closer to the time everyone was scheduled to gather.
Noel was used to the vast, rolling farm landscape from having grown up in Indiana. Scott, who’d never lived anywhere other than Florida and had rarely ventured outside the state by car, was fascinated by the open miles of farmland.
As they drew close and the tablet they were using as a GPS chirruped they were nearing their final turn, Keith pulled over onto the shoulder.
When Scott tried to ask something, Noel waved him silent.
Keith stared up the desolate country road at the driveway a few hundred yards ahead. It disappeared into a tree-lined avenue separating two fields, one holding cattle, another appearing to be growing corn or something, Noel wasn’t sure.
He finally shifted the car into park and sat back, flexing his hands after peeling his fingers from the wheel.
“You know,” he finally said, “you’d think this would be easier for me than this.”
“You can do this,” Noel softly said. “We’re right here with you. Remember what you told me when we went to Indiana? It doesn’t matter what they say, because they’re viewing the world through their own skewed lens. It doesn’t mean shit in terms of our lives together. It doesn’t change how or what we feel for each other, and it doesn’t invalidate our relationship.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “That’s not fair, using my own words against me. Besides, look what happened in Indiana.”
“We’ve hit both ends of the spectrum already,” Scott said. “Her family being assholes, and my family accepting this. What’s the worst they can do, cut you out of their lives again? Well, their loss. My parents love you. We love you.”
Keith reached back between the seats. Scott took his hand and Keith squeezed. “Thank you,” he softly said. “I love you both, too. I never dreamed this was where my life would end up, but I wouldn’t change a thing if it means I get the two of you again.”
Then he reached over and squeezed Noel’s hand. “I have to hand it to you, sweetheart. If you were a fraction as scared as I am right now when we went to Indiana, you have bigger balls than I ever suspected.”
She laughed. “I was terrified. But I knew with the two of you next to me, what they said and thought didn’t matter. It was simply a final closure on something I’d long suspected, that they were more concerned with some fake family mythos than me as a human being.”
“They worst they can do is throw us out, right?” Keith asked.
“Right,” Scott and Noel echoed in unison.
“And the best that can happen,” Noel said, “is that you get to see your siblings again, and meet your nieces and nephews. If your parents decide to play nice, all the better.”
* * * *
When they’d pulled into the yard, which was already filled with several cars, a woman Noel knew was Aubrey from photographs rushed out the front door and flung herself into Keith’s arms as soon as he emerged from the car.
Noel rounded the car to stand next to Scott as the two siblings reunited, Aubrey softly crying against Keith’s shoulder as he softly talked to her.
Other siblings and their spouses appeared, walking across the yard to join them, waiting a few steps away until Keith and Aubrey finished having their moment.
When Aubrey finally let go of him, wiping at her eyes and sniffling as she did, she turned to Noel and gave her a crushing hug.
“Thank you for bringing him back to us. Thank you so much.” Then she hugged Scott. “It’s good to finally meet both of you.”
“How are they?” Keith asked, nodding toward the house. “They know anything yet?”
“Not yet. We’re ready for the showdown,” Aubrey joked.
Keith quickly made the introductions as an older couple appeared on the front porch.
His parents.
Keith took a deep breath and crossed the yard, stepping up onto the porch to speak with them, giving them both hugs. Although the hug with his father looked stiff and strained on both ends.
With all the siblings and in-laws flanking Scott and Noel, Keith motioned for his partners to come join them.
Noel knew she was squeezing Scott’s hand tightly, almost painfully, but she was nervous about how this would go down.
Keith drew them close, his arms around Noel and Scott’s shoulders. “Mom, Dad. This is Noel and Scott.”
“Thought you said you were gay,” his father said.
“Well, that’s…complicated.”
His mom looked terrified and hopeful at the same time, a combination of expressions Noel had never seen on anyone’s face before, but she could sympathize.
Aubrey stepped forward. “I invited them, Dad. We all know about them. It’s not a big deal for any of us. I want Keith at my wedding, and we all want the three of them here. Now, I know this might be shocking to you, but there’s a lot of nontraditional relationships out there—”
“Stop,” the man said, still staring at his son. “So are you gay or not?”
“I guess technically I’m bisexual, Dad, if that’s your question. Although I fell in love with Scott first.”
“And Scott and Noel are married? To each other?”
“Yes.”
He glared at Noel. “And you’re okay with this?”
She started to answer but Keith shifted position to stand between them. “Is this going to be a problem?”
She put her hands on Keith’s shoulders, peeking around Keith. “Yes, sir. I’m okay with this. Scott and Keith love each other, and they both love me. I consider myself very lucky.”
His father seemed to be considering it. “So you’re not totally gay after all?”
Noel finally realized the concession the man was looking to hear out of his son’s mouth, likely so he could claim some personal perception of victory over allowing his son back into his life without having to go back on his previous objections.
“No, Dad,” Keith said, sounding aggravated. “I guess I’m not totally gay after all, if that’s what you want to hear.”
He nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He looked at Aubrey. “If you want your brother here, your mother and I are fine with that.”
“What about his partners?” Aubrey asked. “I want them there, too. We all do. We all know about this.”
“Then I guess it’s okay with me.”
Noel fought the urge to burst into happy tears. If only her family had been like this, life would have been so much easier.
When Noel hugged Mrs. Knepp, she whispered into Noel’s ear, “Thank you, dear. I’ve missed my son.”
By the time they returned to the hotel late that night, they were exhausted, but happy. Keith had fun playing with his nieces and nephews, and his mom, Eloise, had quietly confided to Noel in the kitchen that she wasn’t as pigheaded as her husband, and that she even watched cable TV, but she had to live with the man.
She also made sure to give Noel her e-mail address.
It was a bittersweet win Noel would cherish.
Especially since none of her family had even sent Christmas cards. Not that she’d expected it.
She’d tried calling her mom on Thanksgiving, but reached her voice mail.
After three more tries over the next three days, with no calls being returned, Noel gave up until Christmas.
With similar results.
She’d written off her family permanently, but at least she had Scott’s parents and now the Knepp kin.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Keith said again as they were cuddled in bed and preparing to fall asleep after making fairly vanilla love, by their standards. “You were right.”
“You’re welcome, Sir.”
“I’m glad I get to see her get married.”
“Me, too.”
Scott chuckled. “I think your brother’s wife was still a little confused about everything.”
“Yeah, but at least she was polite about it,” Noel said.
“I don’t care,” Keith said. “Polite I can deal with. But…” He raised his head. “Tomorrow, please. Follow my directions. My dad is tolerating this situation. Let’s handle it like we did today, casually. Okay?”
Scott and Noel nodded. “Yes, Sir,” they echoed.
