AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The first few months of her new job, we traded off weekends, but lately, she’d decided to just come back every week.
She spent Monday through Thursday outside Detroit at her job with William but drove back to Traverse City on Thursday afternoons so she could be home in time for dinner. Once my sister and the kids moved into town, Charlotte said she had way too much time to make up with my family and didn’t want us both gone on the weekends.
Family dinners, as it turned out, were now the very best kind of chaos that either of us could imagine.
Richard was teaching Ford how to bake bread. Daphne was giving Felicia tips on her artwork. Tansy, despite the massive shift in weather, was in heaven.
Somehow, out of the remnants we both had in our lives, we’d built a loud, crazy, amazing family.
“Charlotte,” Felicia yelled. She was hanging upside down from a tree branch, her brown hair almost brushing the grass. “Look what Richard taught me to do.”
“Show me,” Charlotte called back.
Richard stood back, giving my niece an encouraging nod. She flipped her legs around, landing neatly on the ground, arms raised.
She beamed at the yells and whistles that her little audience sent her way. Then she ran to Richard, and he swung her up in his arms for a hug. From the woods in the backyard, Ford emerged with a leaf stuck in his hair and a giant stick in his hands.
“My turn,” he shouted, tossing the stick and scrambling up the tree trunk.
Tansy caught my eye, and she winked. I smiled.
I motioned toward the door.
She glanced over. “You going?”
I nodded. “We have a few things to do yet.”
Tansy hugged Charlotte first, then me, giving me a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for coming back here, brother. I kinda like these people.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Me too,” I murmured.
Daphne and Richard decided to order pizza for Tansy and the kids, so we said our goodbyes and told them we’d see them tomorrow.
By the time we got back to our place, Charlotte was watching me through heavy-lidded eyes. Our hands were intertwined, and I lifted them up to my mouth, kissing the skin on her knuckles.
As the car turned down the long driveway, I stared up at the tunnel of trees and said a small little prayer of thanks.
I wasn’t sure how any of this had come about. I couldn’t think about it too hard—what I had to lose in order to find this kind of happiness. What Charlotte had to lose too. All I knew was that as long as my heart beat in my chest—this was it for me.
This was my dream.
To be able to build a future with the best person I’d ever met, a future where everyone I loved was happy and safe and taken care of. It was more than any man could ask for.
I parked on the long roundabout we’d added after the house was complete, and Charlotte waited for me by the front of the car, reaching her hand out for me when I got close.
“We need to check those lights once it’s dark,” she said.
“If you think we need any more, then your ass can climb up on the ladder and do it.”
She laughed. “You would never let me do it. I saw you redo the lights on the bush next to the landing last week.”
My neck felt hot. “The lines of the lights didn’t match the shrubs on the other side.”
When she arched her brows knowingly, I smacked her ass as she preceded me up the front steps. Charlotte’s laughter echoed in the entryway when we walked into the house.
The door closed behind me. I set my keys and wallet in the yellow bowl by the door and toed off my shoes. She kicked off her boots, and I bent down to line them up.
She grinned.
