wrong code for the alarm a few times, setting it off.”
“Why?” I say, disbelief sizzling.
“Because I wanted you to tell me in your own time,” she says. “Whatever this is … Dad, you’ve spent so long on your own. I’ve never even seen you look at another woman after Mom left. And that’s always seemed weird to me. I mean, no offense, but it’s not like you and Mom had this fairytale relationship. Even when I was a kid I could tell how distant you two were. But when I caught you in the study, you looked so damned focused on Sadie. And afterward, the little looks you were giving each other …”
“You saw those?” Sadie whispers.
“Goldilocks,” Fiona says, rolling her eyes, smiling now in a way that tells me perhaps this is all going to be okay. “It was hard not to see. I did try and give you a chance to tell me in the cab on the way to the airport, remember?”
“I thought I might be imagining it,” Sadie says.
“Pfft,” Fiona laughs. “You know me better than that. When you didn’t tell me, I just thought, hey, she’s going to do it in her own time.”
“I thought you were going to go crazy when you found out,” Sadie says, rising from her chair – the blanket falling away – and walking over to Fiona. She sits down next to her, tentatively taking her hand. “I thought you were going to freak big time, honestly.”
“Me too,” I admit.
Fiona mock glares at us, first Sadie and then me. “Is that really how you see me?”
“Well, yeah,” I smirk, testing the waters.
“I love you both,” Fiona says. “I want you to be happy. Sure, it isn’t exactly conventional. But if you’re both happy if you really want to try and have a relationship, then who am I to get in the way?”
“Jesus, Fiona,” I say. “Do you have any idea how proud of you I am right now? You sound so goddamned grownup.”
“Newsflash, Dad,” she says. “I am grown up. I’m definitely more mature than you little lovebirds, sneaking around like a couple of teenagers.”
“Okay, okay,” I laugh. “I didn’t realize we were at the joking stage already.”
“It’s real, Sadie?” Fiona asks, turning to her friend. “You really feel something for him?”
Sadie bites her lip, nodding. “At first I tried to explain it away. I mean, it’s only been a few days. It makes no sense. But then I realized that something that feels as magical as this doesn’t have to make sense.”
A gust of wind blows against the house, causing it to creak. We all pause as the power of winter passes over us. Jasper cocks his head back and lets out a short howl, but not mournful, more like a celebration. Like he, too, knows that everything is going to be okay.
“Fi, I don’t know how to thank you,” Sadie goes on. “I thought this might be the end of us. I had a whole freaking speech prepared and everything.”
“Well, we’ve got to hear it now,” Fiona says teasingly. “I wouldn’t want you to have wasted all that effort.”
“Nah uh,” Sadie says, her smile causing my own lips to tic upward.
“No, I agree,” I say, leaning forward with a cocky smirk.
Sadie mock pouts at me, a sight that sends another surge of lust straight to the beast within. I have to keep him tamed, though, at least for this evening. My body is still sore from all the times I’ve had the absolutely fucking heavenly privilege of exploring the curvaceous landscape of her body these past couple of days.
“You two are pretty evil, you know that?” she says.
Fiona leans back, folding her arms in an exaggerated I’m-waiting gesture.
“Fine,” Sadie says, but her cheeks are glowing fire red and her smile is inexorable, a gorgeous sight that captivates me afresh each time I look at her. “I was just going to say that ever since Mom and Dad, I never felt like I belonged. Maybe even before that—no, not maybe. Definitely, before that, I’ve always felt like I was on the sidelines of life, watching things happen to other people and wondering why they weren’t happening to me.
“That changed a little the day we met, Fi. When I’m with you, I feel seen. But when I met Saul, when we sank into all this craziness, it really hit me. It hit me hard. It was like a freaking truck just barreled right into me. When I’m with you…”
She turns