There was a brief quiet from them.“We hadn’t decided,” Callum said.“We wanted to wait to meet her.”
“We had narrowed it down,” Bryn added.“But even then, we weren’t sure if we’d use one of those names or choose a different one.The list kept changing.”
“What was your favorite?”Ken asked.“Do you remember?”
There was a hesitation.“I really liked Eliza,” Bryn quietly said.“I was hoping that was a name which would suit her.”
Ken sobbed and clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes tightly squeezed closed.
“Son, are you there?”Callum asked.
Dewi squeezed Ken’s hand, but he couldn’t open his eyes.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Dewi solemnly said, “but before we left Idaho and returned home, I’d just gotten pregnant.And… Well, I’d asked Ken what he thought about naming her Eliza Bryn.”
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Ken
Ken couldn’t stop bouncinghis leg, his nerves stretched to the breaking point.
At least Dewi wasn’t hovering.She’d asked one time, just after takeoff, if he needed her help staying calm.He’d gently refused, and she said the offer remained open.
He was close to accepting now.
He hadn’t slept at all during the trip, despite the well-apportioned private jet being a nice touch.
Despite everything, it was the final point that hammered home in his brain that they were…
Well,rich.
A charter plane across the continental US, okay.
But for some reason, a luxury corporate jet crossing the Atlantic slapped harder.
It was a rental, but still, it was… something.They even had flight attendants and an unexpectedly broad menu to choose from—freshly prepared.Upon boarding, Dewi had a quick and friendly Prime chat with the full flight crew that they wouldn’t hear or remember any of their private conversations and just go about their business as usual.
Meaning they didn’t even have to watch what they said.
Lyssa was asleep in her carrier, strapped into the airplane seat.Her first trip across the ocean, to meet…
Her great-grandparents.
On the same trip he was meeting his grandparents for the first time.
“I hope Tam’s okay,” Carl said from across the aisle.Like Ken, he hadn’t slept on the way over.At one point the two of them joined Hamish at one of the small tables toward the front of the cabin and played several rounds of cards with a deck they had on board.
“Tamsin will be okay,” Ken confidently said.“Between Brianna, Nami, and Duncan pitching in, they won’t have any trouble.I understand why she didn’t want to come.She’s not ready to return to the house yet, and she doesn’t want to be in the same country as her mother.A lot of trauma there.”
“No, I get why she didn’t come,” Carl said.“I just worry.I feel protective of her.”
“Same,” Hamish said.“I hope Callum and Bryn don’t hate her just because of who her father was.”
“When they meet her they’ll love her,” Mateo said.“Just because Donnel turned out to be a psychopath doesn’t mean they’ll blame Tamsin for anything when she was as much of a victim as everyone else.”
“I wonder if Aisling will fly home with us?”Carl asked.
“I think so,” Ken said.“She wants to get back to Tam, and they really don’t need her over there now.Her part’s done.”
