Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“Where’s Mama Jess?” Kerris looked back out into the street behind Jo.
Kerris saw Meredith and Mama Jess climbing the short flight of stairs up to their door, with Uncle James pulling up the rear. She had been ecstatic when they agreed to come to New York for Christmas. They were all staying with them in the town house for the next week, and Kerris could barely contain her excitement.
She was happiest of all when Martin Bennett arrived, gift bags in hand. Walsh hugged him. To see his father sitting at their table for Christmas dinner, laughing and at ease with the people who meant the most to them, swelled Kerris’s heart. The tenuous bond the two men had forged since Kristeene’s death had continued to deepen. Kristeene would be pleased.
They dug into dinner, the whole house humming with the sounds of cheerful reunion and Kerris’s holiday playlist. There were hugs all around with everyone dragging gifts out from under the huge tree Kerris had insisted on. They exchanged gifts with one another, bathed in the glow of the fire Walsh had lit. The peal of the doorbell barely carried over the buzz of their merriment and conversation.
“Could you get that, Jo?” Walsh leaned back on the couch with his arm around Kerris’s shoulder. “I’m too stuffed to move.”
“Lazy boy, you weren’t too stuffed to go back for your third helping five minutes ago.” Jo opened the door, and her mouth fell open when she saw who was on the doorstep. “Cam!”
Kerris stiffened in Walsh’s arms.
“Hey, sweetie.” Cam’s deep voice rumbled into the room. He pulled Jo off her feet and whirled her around twice. “It’s been forever. You look…damn, you look good, Jo.”
Kerris watched Jo lift her hand to her hair, smiling uncertainly into the sharp masculine beauty of Cam’s face.
“He knows I’m coming.” Cam grinned, reading the question on Jo’s face. “You don’t have to run for cover.”
Walsh walked into the foyer as if Cam showed up on their doorstep every day.
“I was hoping you’d actually show your ass up.” He extended his hand to Cam.
“When have I ever turned down food?” Cam offered his hand, but kept the guard over his smile.
Kerris glanced between the two men she loved so much and so differently. They seemed to be watching each other with wary gladness. Maybe they were ready to try.
“Did we move the party out here or something?” Kerris walked to the foyer, wading into the conversation. She shot a quick, exploratory glance her husband’s way, returning his slow smile with one of her own.
“This is another Christmas gift for you.” Walsh grabbed her hand and walked with her, pushing her in Cam’s direction, watching their quick, awkward hug.
“Cam?” She looked up at her ex-husband, once Walsh’s best friend. She wasn’t sure what he was to them now, or who had reached out to whom, but she sensed a definite shift since the last time they’d been in the same room together.
“We’ve kind of been talking a little.” Cam slid one hand into the pocket of his black leather sports coat.
“A couple of times by phone,” Walsh chimed in, reaching for Kerris’s hand. “At first, more for the promise my mom had you make than anything else.”
“Yeah.” Cam’s smile slipped a little. “Speaking of which, I left something in the car. Be right back.”
He dashed back out the door and down the steps. Kerris turned to Walsh, raising her brows before she voiced the question.
“Are you okay?”
“Hey, I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same between us,” Walsh admitted with a rueful smile. “It’s still a little awkward. How could it not be? But we both want to try. Are you okay with it?”
“Walsh, this is the best gift you could’ve given me.” She twined her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. When Cam came back through the door, she jerked her head up, stepping away.
“It’s okay, Kerris.” Cam laughed, his eyes more serious than his smile. “I do know you guys are married now. We have a lot to put behind us, but it’s behind us. Okay?”
“Okay.” She split a smile between the two men who had been the most special in her life. “Then I want my gift.”
Cam waved her back into the living room, where Jo had returned and the others were waiting. Jo had obviously apprised Martin and Mama Jess of the situation because they all watched the three of them coming through the door with varying degrees of skepticism and fascination.
“Hey, everybody,” Cam greeted casually, as if he hadn’t been the eye of the three-way storm he, Kerris, and Walsh had lived through over the last few years. Everyone greeted him easily enough, eyeing him with guarded hospitality.
“Well, ain’t you a sight,” Mama Jess said, crossing her hands over her midriff and her feet at the ankles. “They ain’t got barbers in Paris?”