“Like chocolate, huh?” Lynda responded with a laugh. “You’re pretty, too.”
“I swear I didn’t tell her to say that,” Tessa joked. “But points to you, Double O.”
She’d magically broken the tension and a few minutes later, they all sat at the kitchen table, talking while Olive ate a chopped ’nana and Wingo’s foot.
Following a checklist she didn’t really need, Lynda asked about routines, about phone calls with Morgan, about theconstruction timeline. She occasionally got up and looked around, not asking for permission, but it seemed fine.
Tessa told her about her flexible hours at her small event-planning company, and Dusty showed her his office, and finally, the conversation turned to the storm.
“I assume you have an evacuation plan in place for the beast they’re calling Norman,” she said. “Because this house is horribly vulnerable.”
“We do,” Dusty assured her. “I’ve already made reservations at three hotels and will choose depending on the path of the storm.”
She nodded. “Good. Because you will not, under any circumstances, stay in this house with Olive even if this beach is a hundred miles from the eye. Not negotiable.”
“Understood,” Dusty said.
She closed her folder and smiled at Olive. “What is your favorite part about living here, Olive?” she asked with a sweet, toddler-friendly voice.
“Bu-berries,” she said without hesitation. “And Tess-Tess.”
Tessa’s heart folded in half. “I paid her to say that,” she teased, tapping Olive’s nose. “There’s extra bubbles in your bath tonight, love bug.”
Lynda smiled at the exchange and stood, ending the meeting. Dusty took the job of getting Olive safely down from her booster chair while Tessa walked Lynda to the door.
“We’ll watch the storm closely,” Tessa assured her, the “not negotiable” comment still echoing. “And when can we expect to hear from you?”
“When you least expect it,” Lynda replied, tempering the comment with a smile.
“Gotcha.”
On the front step, Lynda paused. She looked at Tessa for a long beat with an expression Tessa couldn’t quite read.
“I want this to work,” Lynda said.
“Oh.” Tessa felt her eyes sting. “So do we.”
“I don’t see any red flags, Tessa. The two of you are good with her. She’s attached. The dual-relationship piece is real but it’s addressable.”
“But?”
“But anything can go wrong,” she said flatly. “Morgan can change her mind tomorrow. Florida adoption courts are not bound to anyone’s timeline. The judge could decide that a fifty-year-old couple in a half-finished beach house in hurricane season needs a longer evaluation, including a structural inspection and a review of your insurance. The next home visit could turn up something I didn’t see today.”
Each warning hit like a bullet to her heart. “Okay,” Tessa said, feeling weak.
“You just take care of that little girl,” Lynda concluded, her voice much softer. “She obviously loves you.”
Clinging to the statement, Tessa stood in the open doorway and watched her go.
Behind her, in the kitchen, she heard Dusty say, “Sure, you can have Cheerios. And then we’ll have a family trip to Publix to buy blueberries and the last bottle of water on the shelf.”
Good heavens, she couldn’t love him more. Or Olive. Or this life she was trying so hard to build.
She stared at the horizon, thinking of all the storms that threatened.
“Please, Norman,” she said softly. “Please stay away.”
Jonah heard the RAV4 pull up before he saw it, deeply grateful Pepper Broussard was early for her first day at work so he could be early for his.
