Page 40 of Never Too Late

One year later

“But you have to be sure it’s the right moon before you do it.” I came in the living room to hear the last words that Mrs. McConnell said to Zara’s astonished face.

“And how will I know if it’s the right moon?” she asked. Thankfully, she grew out of her shrieking phase.

“I’ll teach you.” Mrs. McConnell touched the tip of Zara’s nose with her index finger. “You also have to do it when it’s the right time, otherwise it won’t come true.”

“How will I know it’s the right time?” Zara’s eyes were now big. I could tell the signs of her getting frustrated now.

After almost a year of living with her, I learned how to tell all the signs of her quickly changing moods.

I smiled a soft smile at them, then looked around the living room. The tree was done, the last ornament placed in its place.

And the steaming cups of hot chocolate sat on the coffee table, waiting to be cool enough so we could start drinking them.

I loved every second of it, it was a blast.

It was almost as I imagined it.

My Hallmark scene.

The slight difference was, I was the one sitting in the armchair, bossing everyone around and telling them where I wanted what as I was seven months pregnant and couldn’t stand longer than five minutes. Those five minutes were spent walking to and from the bathroom.

It was a little confusing for Zara the fact that I suddenly became a woman who was someone important to her dad. But she did as Dylan said she would. She went right with the flow.

It helped that Vivian was staying with them and was able to explain the things neither Dylan nor I could since she didn’t ask us.

After Christmas, we tried with sleepovers. She didn’t bat an eyelid when she saw me that first morning standing in the kitchen making breakfast. The fact that I took her shopping or taught her how to bake or helped with her homework or did her hair and did dress-up with her probably helped.

Dylan said I had her wrapped around my finger.

It was the other way around.

Two weeks after that first sleepover they moved into my house.

We waited for some kind of tantrum from Zara, it was all moving quickly, but it never came.

Dylan said she missed her mom and was probably just smitten she had one now.

We never heard a word from her mom. Dylan would call her sometimes, giving her updates on her child, but she had never shown any interest. After all that calling and begging Dylan to give her a chance, she never took him up on any of the offers he extended. I knew he was ready to give up on her, but I urged him to keep trying.

It was heart-wrenching knowing there was a woman who would never get to know how amazing her child was.

I did my best to never give Zara a reason to miss her. It wasn’t hard to do as she was a really good kid.

“Are you ready?” Dylan came into the living room asking the question for the fifth time, trying to get us to move on and go to the decorating of the well ceremony.

It was cold and my feet hurt. An arm wrapped around from behind me, pulling me back.

I came in contact with a solid wall of muscle, a scent of forest that still clung to his body from that morning when he went to cut our tree, enveloping me. “Just a little bit longer, baby,” Dylan murmured in my ear. His gloved hand came to lay on top of my big belly.

“It’s okay, I can make it.” I turned my head to say into his ear so he could hear me and pecked the soft skin behind his ear as I finished.

He didn’t say anything he chuckled in response because he knew I was full of it. I needed our couch. Or bed.

The bed would be better because then he could wrap his whole body around me, and make me feel safe, cherished.

Mrs. McConnell came up to me holding a pot. The Christmas flower. It was time to put on the finishing touch.