“Actually,” I said, grimacing, “I’m pretty sure I can help with all of this. The thing is… I changed my last name to Björn about three years ago, after I was made and before I joined the RCMP.…”
With that, I finally unshielded the one thing I’d hidden from them. From everyone in Bear Mountain.
A beat of stunned silence. Then they all exploded with questions.
“You used to be the billionaire vice president of a major corporation?” Takoda asked. "And now you're myconstable?
“We’ve been dominating a motherfucking Barrington?” Hawk realized out loud.
“Like a Barrington-Barrington? My favorite grocery store-slash-supercenter place, where I get 5% back on all my purchases because I shop there so much I decided to get the store credit card?” Holly blurted.
Their questions hit me all at once, but I answered the best I could.
“Canadian billions, but yeah, pretty much,” I told Takoda, my first-ever real boss. “And the vice president thing was more like a title gift for graduating from B-School at UBC.”
I turned to Hawk. “Yeah, being a Barrington’s probably why it took me so long to figure out what was really going on with my sex drive.”
And I threw Holly a sheepish grin. “If you think that 5% is great, wait until you all start shopping with the family discount.”
Hawk shook his head. “No wonder you said you’d handle the ring.”
Holly blinked at her wedding ring finger. “Oh, my God. How much did this cost?”
I still wasn’t great at understanding what my half-siblings referred to as “real-world money.” Was high five figures too much or too little for an engagement ring? Either way, I shielded the answer from her, sensing she didn’t really want to know.
Luckily, Hawk had another question. “Wait, isn’t your mom that Swedish swimsuit model? The one with huge…?”
Unluckily, it wasthatquestion.
He cupped his hands in front of his chest in the universal sign for big tits. “I remember thatBleachers IllustratedSwimsuit Edition cover from back in the day. Blondes aren’t my thing, personally, but that mag got passed around by a few of my friends’ older brothers and?—”
I groaned, rubbing my face. “Can you not finish that story?”
I turned back to Holly before he could answer. “Point being, I’m pretty sure I can help.”
25/
a beary special valentine wedding
holly
Less than a week and two easily arranged (for Leif) emergency court dates later, I got married on Valentine’s Day to the loves of my life.
At Barrington Manor.
By yet another (and hopefully last) judge.
This one asked even fewer questions than the immigration and family court judges who had respectively approved my still-pending permanent resident application (so I could renew my midwife license) and suspended the enormous monthly alimony payments I’d been ordered to make for four more years.
In fact, Corey might have to paymeback. His claims were officially under investigation, with his male factor infertility admission now stamped across all related case files.
Thanks to Leif Björn (née Barrington), Corey could no longer hurt me—or squeeze another loonie out of me. (That’s what Canadians call their dollar coins, by the way.)
And thanks to Leif, an utterly unfazed judge oversaw our three-way vow exchange in the trophy room of Barrington Manor with just as much gravitas as if it had been a regular one-on-one ceremony.
I’m not sure what technically makes a place a manor instead of a mansion, but the trophy room was stunning—ornate crown molding, massive crystal chandeliers, and an arched window spilling golden light into a 1,500-square-foot space.
I could have done without the many animal heads staring down at us from the dark wood-paneled walls, though. Also, the three standing, fully taxidermied moose—one from each century of the family’s grocery empire, which dated back to the late 1800s. Their first store, still standing in Quebec, had narrowly lost the title of North America’s oldest grocery store to Épicerie J.A. Moisan by just a couple of years.
