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I wince back as Merrick reaches for the serving dish, pulling it toward him. “Sorry, I should have told you when I called this morning, Kezia has an allergy to poultry…chicken…turkey. Also eggs. We need to be very careful.”

  Margaret goes silent, her face dropping, and I’m immediately uncomfortable again.

  “I’m sorry. It’s fine. I usually eat lots of vegetables and rice.”

  “It’s okay,” she says, but her voice is strange and even her daughter looks at her questioningly.

  “You okay, Mom? That’s so odd…” Summer adds giving me a quizzical look but before I can ask what’s odd, her mom pushes her chair back and I’m suddenly embarrassed.

  “Yes.” She says the word but it’s clear she’s not okay. “Can you excuse me for a minute?”

  “Anyway,” Summer looks at me. “As I was saying, it’s a coincidence…my mom and I are both allergic to poultry too. What are the odds?” The chirpy goth unicorn girl smiles on a shrug, then passes me a bowl of salad.

  Her sudden departure does nothing to dampen everyone else’s mood, so I take scoops of the green beans and a large serving of salad to start. As we eat, Margaret returns, but she’s quiet and keeps glancing my way when she thinks I’m not looking.

  “I’m so full.” I finally put my fork down as Merrick and his parents have a heated debate about the latest need for a new stop light a few blocks up Main Street.

  “Where’s the rest room?” I lean over, whispering to Summer, who points to the back left corner of the now-packed diner.

  Merrick grabs a handful of my rear end as I stand and I turn red, looking around the table, but no one seems to care. “Kiss me first.”

  “Do you hear everything?”

  “Yes. Now kiss me.”

  I lean down and do as he says, my heart feeling as full as my belly as I work my way through the crowded diner. Everyone eats and laughs, and this is the world I was never a part of before, but finally, I have hope.

  I feel a part of it, like it’s a life I deserve and a confidence builds in me that the dreams I never dared to dream, maybe will come true.

  Chapter 13

  Merrick

  My pager goes off as my cell phone rings, and I look down to see it’s Malcolm calling and paging at the same time, which means something is urgent.

  I look across at my mom, then at the others at the table. “I have to go out and take a call. Make sure you take care of Kezia when she comes back.”

  “I’ll treat her like my own daughter.” My mother smiles.

  “Good, because that’s who she’s going to be as soon as I can get a ring on her.” I surprise myself with the admission but ignore the gasps and laughter from the table.

  It feels right. I’m marrying her as soon as I can, I just need to get things arranged.

  I take a look back toward the hallway with the restrooms, but the diner is so full I can’t see past all the standing patrons waiting for tables as I head out the front door.

  I tap the screen as the warmth of the summer afternoon envelops me.

  “What’s up?”

  “We have a situation. I just got a report from one of the workers at the fair out there on Baldwin Road. You need to come in, man. I hate to have to tell you this, but the girl you’ve been with the last couple days…her name is Kezia, right?”

  “Yeah, what about her?”

  “Her father says you kidnapped her.”

  “What? Jesus…” I shake my head, holding my temples with my fingers. “That’s bullshit and he knows it. She’ll confirm.”

  “I figured as much, but still this is going to have to be handled delicately because that’s not the worst of it.”

  My head is already pounding and I can’t imagine what could be worse.

  “She’s only sixteen, man. I know you probably asked, and maybe she lied, she looks older or you didn’t ask and just assumed…but the father says she’s underage. Says he has a birth certificate to prove it.”

  I feel the forever I wanted with Kezia evaporating into the ether. She said she was nineteen.

  Fuck, yeah, she looks a little younger, but what the fuck? Not sixteen.

  I know she wouldn’t lie about that. I know it. Something else is going on here, I just haven’t figured out what yet.

  “I’ll be on my way in a few minutes.” I look down at the screen and tap on the tracking app that pings Kezia’s anklet charm I gave her, seeing it moving outside the back parking lot of the diner just as Malcolm’s voice comes through the speaker.

  “You should probably get a lawyer…”

  I’m already barging through the diner, headed to the back hallway and rear exit when my father sees me.

  “What’s wrong?” His decades of law enforcement instinct are still sharp.

  “It’s Kezia.” I look around the table, her seat still empty.

  “She hasn’t come back yet,” my mother says, her eyes searching the crowd.

  “Something’s wrong. Go out front, around the sides of the building…I’m going out the back…”

  Out of my peripheral vision, I see my friends and family racing for the front door, no questions asked.

  My stomach knots, bile stings the back of my tongue as alternatives tumble in my mind. Either I’ve been set up or, fuck, I’m a child predator…if it’s true, my life is over and I’ll never forgive myself.

  I barge through the back hallway, the little red dot on the tracker moving just outside the rear of the building, so I don’t bother checking the ladies’ room before I slam through the rear door and scan.

  There’s a black, older model van parked on the street and I hear a door slam shut and the engine start. I’m bolting in that direction, my hand on my gun as I move around to the side of the van, just as the side doors are sliding shut.

  It’s Kezia’s ‘father’.

  “She’s my daughter. I’m taking her back. You will be in prison for a very, very long time, Sheriff.”

  I aim at his head, my finger twitching to tug at the trigger, but he’s secondary right now. My head is spinning, but I need Kezia out of that vehicle. No matter what happens, she’s not going back with him. The vehicle is started which means someone else is in the driver’s seat and they could take off at any moment.

  “Move to the front of the vehicle and put your hands on the hood,” I order as my mother, father and Margaret come down the sidewalk, then Summer comes running, breathless, from the back parking lot.

  “Do as he says.” My father pulls his gun as well, backing me up like he always does.

  “You’re only digging your grave deeper.” Her father smiles, raising his hands and placing them on the hood of the running van as I look behind the wheel and see one of the other men from the troupe.

  “You.” I point my pistol though the windshield and it holds his hands up. “Turn off the vehicle, put the keys on the dash and exit the van, hands on the hood next to your partner here.” I look at my dad. “Cover him.”

  He nods as I shift to the side doors, keeping my pistol aimed as I push the button on the handle and ease the door open.

  The back is empty except for Kezia, a red handprint on her cheek but her eyes are defiant and there are no tears.

  “You okay, baby?”

  “I am now,” she answers, scooting across the bare metal floor of the van interior and stepping out beside me. “I tried to get away, but with two of them I couldn’t.”

  “It’s okay. You did your best.”

  I pull her behind me, the turmoil raging inside me that her age is in question. But right now, her safety is paramount. I’ll deal with my own problems later.

  “You have violated my daughter, kidnapping and more, I’m sure. Your life and career are in ruins and you cannot take her from me.”

  “You’re full of shit,” my father interjects.

  “Her birth certificate is in my back pocket. See for yourself.”

  I nod toward my father, giving him the go ahead to retrieve the piece of paper on which my ca
reer, life and reputation hang. What’s printed on there will be entered into evidence. I’ll have to stand in court while they read it out.

  My father slips out an aged, white folded paper, my mother, Margaret and Summer all gathering around him while I keep my gun on the two men and Kezia moves next to the group, taking the paper from my father.

  “I’ve never seen this,” she says. “No one ever told me where exactly I was born, or my birthday… And anyway, I’ve counted sixteen summers, I’m positive. How can I remember sixteen summers if I’m only sixteen years old?”

  “Exactly,” her father says with a laugh. “Sixteen summers. Sixteen years old.”

  “No way. I didn’t start counting before I was one!”

  “Look at you?” Her father sneers. “You’re a mutant, but I was going to get top dollar for you, Marco was prepared to pay, but only after he confirmed you were still intact.” Intact. He says it like she’s an animal. “But you’ve ruined yourself. You’re soiled now, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  My father shoves the barrel of his gun right up against Thadius’s nose and he falls silent, shrinking back, as Margaret moves closer, pulling the paper to one side, leaning down while her other hand covers her lips.

  Her eyes dart to me, then the men, then at the paper, and finally at Kezia.

  “She’s not sixteen.” Margaret snarls at the two men, then fixes her eyes on me. “She’s not sixteen, Merrick.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  “Because, she’s my daughter.”

  * * *

  It’s pushing mid-night as I sit, looking out at the moon, stroking Kezia’s hair as she sleeps with her head on my lap.

  I don’t have the heart to move her and possibly wake her because she’s had one hell of a day. I have too, and Margaret and Summer…

  Life is stranger than fiction, for sure.

  After I called for back-up and we took Thadius and his side-kick Marco into custody, we got down to figure out what the fuck was really going on.

  We pieced things together the best we could.

  With info from Margaret and Kezia, it looks like Margaret was right. Kezia is her daughter. Summer’s fraternal twin.

  The allergies were one clue, but Kezia’s unique brown/blue eyes apparently were her biological father’s genetic anomaly as well.

  Those things could have been coincidental, but then Margaret laid out the facts surrounding the home for unwed mothers where she gave birth, and the name of the doctor, which matched the information on Summer’s birth certificate.

  When the doctor falsified Kezia’s birth certificate, he didn’t think to change the fact that Kezia was a fraternal twin. The birth year was changed in another forgery attempt by her family in order to try to frame me, but in the end there was more proof to show they were the criminals and when the district attorney gets finished with them, they won’t be moving around and playing their games for a very long time.

  The list of crimes committed since the birth of Summer and Kezia went on and on and the people Kezia was sold to by the doctor do this for a living, so after some investigating, there wasn’t much doubt.

  What I do know for certain, is my babygirl is here to stay. I’ll do everything in my power to help her adjust to the changes and new information about how her life began and, in the end, I know it was all meant to be.

  Some cosmic plan set in motion long ago to bring us all here to the same place and settle each of our souls in its own way.

  The last thing we talked about before she fell asleep was the dark-haired girl back at the festival. It’s her ‘sister’ of sorts. She made me promise I would do what I could to get her away as well, and I can’t say no to my baby, so I’ll get to figuring that out as soon as I can.

  Tomorrow, Kezia will be wearing an engagement ring. She asked me how I knew they had taken her, so I had to admit the little gold ankle bracelet and charm I gave her was also a GPS tracker.

  She twisted up her face for a second, pretending to be mad pointing a finger at my nose. It didn’t last. I told her I would keep her safe, and that is what I’ll do.

  My little sprite. She will finally have her home.

  And so will I.

  Chapter 14

  Kezia

  “I still feel like I’m dreaming.” I look up at the gazebo covered with lilacs and peonies, the sweet scent of the flowers still hanging in the air hours after we were married inside the white structure in the center of the town park. It’s only been less than two weeks since the day we met, and now we are husband and wife.

  “Then let’s never wake up.” Merrick pulls me next to him. I haven’t been out of his sight since the day at the diner and I wonder how he’s ever going to go back to work and leave me.

  He’s talked about hiring me a bodyguard, but with the way he and his friends and family have rallied around me, I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.

  I reach up and put my hand on his hard jaw, the enormous ruby and diamond ring making my fingers look more doll-like than ever before. The sun is casting a pink and orange glow on the clouds as we walk back into the gazebo.

  I think back just a few hours ago, Summer and Genevieve stood by me, each holding onto a pink leash so Rosy and Eleanor could be my maids-of-honor as well. Merrick went back to the fair the day after everything happened along with five other deputies and plucked Genevieve out of the mess.

  He offered her a place to stay, a new life, and although she was conflicted, she came with us and her life is evolving as well. She’s staying at the house and will watch the dogs while we’re on our honeymoon.

  “I just wanted to see you in here one more time. I’d marry you a million times if I could. Today was the happiest day of my life. You’re mine in every way, Kezia, little one.” He kisses my forehead and even that simple gesture sends a shiver over my skin and a pulse into my girl parts.

  “I love you a million, trillion, bazillion times.” I look up at him, my hair blowing in my face as my bare feet peek out from under the ruffled hem of my wedding dress.

  “You are my everything.” Merrick licks his lips and his eyes have that far off look they get sometimes.

  “What is it? Are you happy or…”

  “The happiest I’ve ever been. I just…” He pauses, looking up at the twinkling lights in the structure. “How this all happened, you, me, us, your life…no one could have written that.”

  “Like I said, it feels like a dream.” I smile, the flash of everything that’s happened winding through me. “I mean, finding you was one thing, but finding my birth mother? A twin sister? What are the odds?”

  “Like you said, a million, trillion, bazillion to one.”

  I’d always known I was born in Roscommon County. I was told my mother was single, underage, and had given me away, but any other details were always vague.

  It was more than a shock to process that I’d found my birth mother and my Daddy all at the same time and in the same place.

  Margaret is still processing as well. She’d grieved for nineteen years because the doctor and nurse told her I had died shortly after delivery. She had no power, she begged to see me, but they refused.

  I was sold.

  I shiver, then Merrick wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me against him and I feel safe again. I feel the hard length of his nearly-constant erection pressing into my hip.

  Resting my head on his chest, I listen to his slow, even heartbeat. I have a husband, a man I’m still getting to know in so many ways, but one I feel like I’ve known forever.

  I have a mother, a sister and a family. A real family. And I’ve been more loved in the short time since I went to get that coffee with Merrick than I have in my entire life.

  “Are you ready to start our life, Mrs. Merrick Webster? The limo is waiting to take us to the airport.”

  Merrick has a two-week honeymoon planed for us on a private island, just off the coast of Belize, somewhere I’ve always dreamt of going.


  “Yes, but I want to do something first.”

  “What’s that, baby? Anything, I’ll give you whatever your sweet baby heart desires.”

  I reach down between us, wrap my fingers around his cock and squeeze, giving him a coy look, biting into my bottom lip as he smiles, brushing my hair behind my ear.

  “What do you say, little one?”

  My heart patters in my chest. “Please, Daddy…” The desire I feel for him snakes inside of me. Coiling and slithering like a predator until it’s centered down deep inside me, ready to strike.

  I’ve learned I have my own power, especially when it comes to teasing and making him salivate for me. I’ve still come into my own under his love and wisdom, understanding I have a voice and knowing he will always be there to hear it.

  “Good girl. Now, come with me, I have a surprise for you in the back of the limo.”

  We walk down the steps of the gazebo, toward the stretch black Lincoln that waits on the street in front of the restaurant, where we just celebrated with half the town.

  “What’s the surprise?” I ask, because we were in the limo earlier and there wasn’t anything in the back seat—at least that I saw.

  “So impatient.”

  I screw up my face and pout. “Little girls aren’t supposed to be patient.”

  “True.” He gives my rear a smack as he opens the door and I crawl into the back seat, pulling my long dress around my feet and waiting for him to follow. “Come here, little one.” He pats his lap and I crawl on top as he reaches forward and raps his knuckles on the dark partition separating the driver from the back, and a second later, I feel the vehicle start moving forward.

  Merrick kisses me, soft and warm, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of his kisses.

  He pulls a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his tuxedo and hands it to me. “Read it.”

  I unfold the document and concentrate on the words. My so-called home schooling was a bit lacking, so sometimes I have to go slow and sound out bigger words, and other times, I have to ask Merrick what they mean or how to pronounce them. He’s going to help me. He will teach me everything I’ve missed and maybe I can get extra credit if I’m a very good student…