"Ten minutes," Lola warned him. "The world's shortest statue contest. Or all of us old people will freeze."
Noah giggled. "I'll be the world's shortest statue in this contest! Okay! The rules are, everybody hold as still as you can and I'll judge your stillness!"
His mother groaned. "Noah…"
"It'll befun!"
His mother mouthedI'm so sorryat Sam, who shook his head and smiled. "Lola's right. How many people have a statue contest at their wedding? How about we do statues by family, Noah? That way people will be grouped together and you can judge them as a whole more quickly?"
Noah beamed. "That's good! You stand with your son and daughter and I'll stand with Mom—" A frown appeared between his eyebrows as he realized that wouldn't work, but people started grouping up anyway as Sam chuckled and said, "These are all my sons and daughters. Well, not Jennifer," he added with a nod toward Lola's daughter, a pretty woman in her forties who looked a great deal like her mother.
"Oh. Well, you look like her and he looks like you." Noah waved his hand at both Lola and Jennifer, and, to Sam's surprise, at himself and Chase, then went on, "So you all stand together with your families and be statues, and Mom, you and Dad can stand together, and Judge Owens you can go stand with Robin and—" He marched off, giving orders that people obligingly followed, while Sam's heart knocked around in his chest so hard he felt dizzy with it.
His daughter Ellen was smirking with amusement at her brother Chase and Sam himself. "You two do look alike. More now that Chase is getting ooooooold than you used to, and I wouldn't have noticed it, but the kid's not wrong."
"You're only two years younger than me," Chase said, offended.
"Yeah, but I dye my hair." Ellen tossed her hair, which did not, Sam admitted, have a single streak of grey in it. Chase made as if to ruffle it and Ellen shrieked obligingly, while Tony snickered and Stephanie rolled her eyes, just like they were all kids again.
But Sam's eyes were mostly for Chase in that moment, trying to see if Noah was right. His hand found Lola's, and then his gaze did. Her eyes were as huge and wide as his were, and she shook her head a little, as if denying the possibility they both suddenly saw. Sam, almost voiceless, said, "Heisa fox shifter. The first one I ever fostered."
Lola's knees cut out and Sam caught her weight, holding her close as they both studied the man goofing around with his siblings. Lola's daughter Jennifer was grinning hugely as she watched them, her arm tucked around her own daughter Charlee's waist. Sam could so very easily seem the family resemblance between the three of them: the large brown eyes, the sweetness of their smiles, the shape of their jaws and noses. Charlee had a heavier bone structure than her mother or grandmother, and carried more weight, but they looked very much like a family.
And Sam, heart beating so hard his whole body shook with it, thought maybe there was some of that same family resemblance between Chase and Jennifer. Mostly in the shape of their smiles, and maybe through the cheekbones, which reflected the apples of Lola's own cheeks. She whispered, "He can't really be…?" and Sam, shivering, shook his head.
"I don't know. What would the odds be, Lola? I know there aren't that many people who foster shifters, but…"
"Lola and Sam arealready winning!" Noah yelled from the plywood surrounding the gazebo. Snow was falling faster, thick white flakes that landed in the little boy's hair and eyelashes only to be wiped away impatiently. "Look at them! They're FROZEN! And you guys are all wiggly!"
His purple-haired mother, glancing upward at the rapidly-falling snow, said, "And you know what? I think that means they win! Congratulations, Sam and Lola! You win the statue contest! Now everybody needs to get inside before they freeze to death!"
Noah's jaw flapped a couple of times as the reins of the contest were taken away from him, but at a warning look from his mother he relented, yelling, "Yay Sam and Lola! The next statue contest will be at thefairand everybody can practice until then!"
Someone nearby laughed. "There's never been a 'statue contest' at the fair, Noah. You have to get in touch with the people who run the fair to organize something like that."
Noah said, "Okay," with casual confidence, and bounced off with his mother, leaving the original speaker to mumble, "I bet we'll have a statue contest at the fair," to the general agreement and laughter of those around them as the crowd began to break up. A number of people came up to congratulate Lola and Sam, both on their wedding and winning Noah's impromptu contest, and then they were on the way to the gastropub, with no time to discuss the idea that had left them reeling.
It wasn'timpossible, Sam thought. Just unlikely…
The world is made of unlikely things,his fox said easily.Shifters, for example.
I know, but…It was too much to hope for. Still, as they shuffled into the warm pub, breathless and smiling, Samdidhope, and from the shine in Lola's eyes, he knew she did too.
Still, for a while, they couldn't help but be distracted, both by the reception party and by each other. Sam remembered the last time he'd danced with Lola so vividly. The idea that he could again took his breath away. He called a glowingly excited Charlee over, murmured to her, and let out a startled grunt when she hugged him enthusiastically and scurried off to behind the bar. A moment later she was on a stool or something behind it, getting above the crowd so she could call, "We need a dance floor, folks, let's clear a space for the bride and groom!"
Lola gave him a startled look as the floor did clear—completely with several people moving tables and chairs out of the way—and then laughed, a shy sweet sound as he offered his hand. She stepped out onto the impromptu dance floor with him as the first strains of Nat King Cole's 'Unforgettable' began to play, and though tears filled her eyes, her smile was the brightest thing Sam had ever seen. Those tears spilled over as Natalie Cole's voice joined her father's in the famous duet, and through a tight throat, she whispered, "You couldn't have chosen a better song. You always were, Sam. Unforgettable."
He whispered, "In every way," and tucked her close to sway to the music, finally together, as they'd always been meant to be.
CHAPTER15
It wasn'tuntil the next morning that Lola said—or eventhought—"This is bonkers."
She was comfortably nestled in Sam's big bed, buried under fluffy comforters and quilts: warm, content, sleepily amused as it struck her that this was—well—bonkers. "All my stuff is in Detroit!"
"Detroit?" Sam lifted his head, white hair sticking up every which way. "You live in Detroit?"
"I did until yesterday!"
