Camille cleared her throat. “Savannah helped me and so did her mom and dad.”
Gentle fingers tripped over the images within the bound book and she breathed, “Wow.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Camille mumbled a touch awkwardly.
Tear-drenched eyes caught Camille’s, right before Star hurled herself at the younger woman.Beavis and Butthead, Conor’s dogs, immediately leapt into the chaos, but Star didn’t stop them as they tried to lick her face once she released Camille from her hug. If anything, she hid in Butthead’s fur.
Even Conor looked surprised at the outburst, but I found Camille was the best prepared for emotional explosions.
While they were otherwise occupied, Aela grinned at Savannah and handed her a box. “There you go, Savvie.”
My eldest’s wife beamed and tore open the wrapping paper on the thin but somehow fat box. Savannah gasped. “Aela, it’s beautiful!”
She tilted the gift to reveal a glass-blown ornament—a “3.”
“It’smeeeeeeee,” Aidan squeaked, and her father had to hold her hands to stop her from toying with the delicate ornament.
“I remember when I had a tree full of Aela original decs,” Conor muttered with a gimlet stare at Shay, whose shoulders hunched.
“Sorry, Uncle Con.”
Ignoring them all and shaping the ornament’s curlicues and fancy additions with a delicate touch, Savannah sighed happily. “I love it. Thank you, Aela.”
I tutted. “I still don’t agree with calling a little girl ‘Third.’”
“Good thing it has nothing to do with you, Ma,” my eldest intoned with a narrow-eyed look. “If I’m a Jr. in my goddamn forties, then she can be an Aidan III as a little girl.”
“Yeah, don’t be sexist, Nana,” Shay rebuked.
“Shay!”
“What? It’s true! You said it yourself. ‘A little girl’ shouldn’t be called Third. So if Aidan were a boy, it’d be okay?”
I knew it wasn’t fair, but I still glowered at Katina. Ever since she’d wrapped my boy around her finger, he’d grown even more outspoken!
“She’s so delicate?—”
Inessa coughed and I immediately let the subject drop. After my dinner, I didn’t want to rile up Eoghan again.
“Camille?”
Surprisingly, Star was still tucked into Camille’s side, gently peeling past the paper that separated the pages to reveal pockets of memories from her childhood.
“Nessie?”
“I hope you liked your office?”
Camille blinked then beamed at her baby sister. “I should have known you two were plotting behind my back!”
Brennan couldn’t have looked smugger if he tried, and Inessa blushed. “We can change it?—”
“No way! I adore it! Thank you,” Camille breathed. “It’s beautiful.”
“What happened?” I insisted, utterly in the dark. “What office?”
“I decorated Camille’s new office,” Inessa answered, flicking me a smile. “I overheard Brennan and Eoghan discussing safe rooms.” She rolled her eyes. “So I got involved or Camille would have been greeted with concrete walls and steel bars!”
“Makes sense,” I informed Paddy as Camille began itemizing every single thing she adored about the gift. “She’s studying it, you know?”
