Finally (Neighbor from Hell #12) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,25

us explaining that having a Christmas tree was a rule. After a brief glaring match, she went into her garage and started pulling out the fake Christmas tree that she hadn’t put up in years along with all the decorations that she could find before she finally gave up and dragged everything inside. That was followed by us making a huge mess decorating her living room while she made us a fresh batch of sugar cookies so that we could have something to leave for Santa Claus.”

“And after that?”

“She didn’t have any choice but to keep us,” Charlie said, unable to help but smile as she thought of Grandma Bea. She’d been the closest thing that Charlie had to a mother, her best friend, and there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t miss her.

“What happened to your parents?” Devin asked the question that she’d been wondering about most of her life.

“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging it off. “My mother ran away when she was fifteen and five years later, I was dropped off on my grandfather’s doorstep in the middle of the night. He took really good care of me, but it was too much for him. He ended up having a heart attack when I was three and had to put me in foster care. He tried to find my mother, hoping that she would come and take care of me, but they couldn’t find her.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Devin said, giving her hand a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t be. I had a wonderful childhood and grew up with my best friend,” Charlie said as she found herself wondering about something, but…

It was none of her business.

“Their mother’s name is Heather,” Devin said, correctly guessing where her thoughts had gone. It was something that she’d been wondering about for a while now. Granted, everyone at work was wondering the same thing, but as far as she knew, nobody had asked.

“What happened to her?” she asked, opening her eyes to find Devin watching her.

“Nothing,” he murmured with a slight shake of his head.

“Then where is she?” Charlie asked, wondering why the kids never mentioned her or why there weren’t any pictures of her around the house.

“When she found out that she was pregnant, she was twenty-four years old, in her second year of law school, and wasn’t ready to have children, but I was. She knew how much I wanted them and that I would love them more than anything. I thought that she would change her mind when the twins were born, but she’d made her peace with waiting until she started her career before having a family.”

“Are you mad at her?” Charlie asked, worrying her bottom lip as she thought about Dustin and Abbi growing up without a mother.

“Not even a little bit,” Devin said with a warm smile.

“Does she ever see the kids?”

“No, they don’t see Heather as their mother. They see her as the wonderful woman that made it possible for us to be a family,” he said, shaking his head ruefully as he watched his thumb slowly move over the back of her hand as she felt her eyes starting to close again and-

“I’m hungry,” came the softly spoken announcement that had Charlie opening her eyes and wondering what she was doing in Devin’s living room as she looked over to her right to find Dustin once again in his tighty-whities, sitting on the other part of the sectional couch, hugging the teddy bear that he’d given her in one arm while he took his time coloring the large coloring book on his lap.

“How did I get out here?” Charlie asked, rubbing her hands down her face as she struggled to wake up and make sense out of what was going on. The last thing that she remembered was lying on her bed, waiting for the painkiller to kick in.

“Daddy brought you out here so that we could keep an eye on you,” Abbi said, drawing her attention to find the little girl who really seemed to enjoy tormenting her father, sitting at the end of the couch on the other side of the stack of pillows where Charlie’s foot was propped up next to two large booted feet that definitely weren’t hers and neither was that hand gently caressing her stomach.

“You were crying in your sleep,” Dustin said.

“What?” Charlie asked as she slowly tilted her head back to find Devin watching her.

“Daddy got really upset because you wouldn’t stop crying. We tried waking