Part 31 (1/2)
There were so many things to sort through. So much more than what brand of shampoo to buy. ”But where is home for you, Sam? It never occurred to me to ask.”
”My family's in Wyoming still. But I haven't had a home-home in a long time. So it can be wherever you and Penny are, with lots of visits to my parents. They'll eat her up. Promise,” he said on a lighthearted grin.
”I know this is going to sound crazy, but I'd like to be near Nina and the others. Mark, too.”
Sam pulled her closer, fitting her to the tight ridges and planes of his body. ”You fought hard to have them in your life. I don't see why you shouldn't reap the benefits of the battle.”
”Really?”
Sam wisped his lips over hers. ”Really-really.”
And so it was.
Really-really.
EPILOGUE.
Eight Months Later-Six and Counting Freaky-Deaky Paranormal Accidents, Two Super Vampires, One Doting Grandmother, Three Aunties Who Didn't Understand the Words Spoiled and Rotten, Four Uncles and a Demon Who Were Determined to Teach Penny Football, and an Auntie Nina in a Pear Tree ...
Lou pushed Penny in her wheelchair outside in the suns.h.i.+ne of the backyard at Phoebe and Sam's new brownstone. Penny reached up to pat Lou on the face, and Lou's weathered hand gripped her granddaughter's. She planted a kiss on it and laughed, pulling Penny in for what must be her millionth hug since she'd met Lou. Mark blew bubbles for her in the late afternoon sun, smiling at her when she blew some back at him and they popped on his nose.
Phoebe pressed her forehead to the gla.s.s, pus.h.i.+ng her sungla.s.ses up on her nose. Lou and Nina made Penny so happy. Penny made them happy, too. She ate pot roast and watched the Game Show Network with her grandmother every Tuesday, and on Thursdays, Nina picked her up to take her for her favorite dinner at McDonald's and a movie of her choice-or sometimes they just colored in the mult.i.tude of coloring books Nina bought her. They painted, too, while they laughed out loud.
Penny went to a rec center Aunt Marty had found, where she was able to play with adults who had similar disabilities, and at least once a month, she never missed a shopping date with Marty and her toddler, Hollis. She also never missed coming home with more discount designer clothes than one closet and three dressers could handle. Auntie Marty's defense was simple-all the pretty girls were accessorizing with their wheelchairs these days because wheelchairs were tres chic.
Auntie Wanda taught her to knit and needlepoint, hanging her creations in frames all around her new bedroom while they read from Penny's favorite series they'd found together on Visit the Library Sat.u.r.days.
But Uncle Darnell was the bomb, if you asked Penny. He took her to their favorite amus.e.m.e.nt spot and taught her how to play miniature golf and ride the carousel, and how to not throw up after she'd eaten too much cotton candy. He'd also taught her to tell people who pointed at her to refer to the T-s.h.i.+rt he'd had made just for her. MY OTHER WHEELCHAIR'S A MASERATI.
In the last eight months since that night at O-Tech, both Phoebe and Penny's entire world had changed.
For the better. It was rich, full, more alive than it had ever been when she'd still had a beating heart.
It hadn't been easy. She and Sam had hit several rough patches as they'd struggled to get to know one another under their unusual circ.u.mstances. Phoebe had learned that this Sam wasn't exactly as communicative as Sam the Bug guy had led her to believe. His words didn't flow quite the way the charming entomologist's had, and in the beginning, she'd struggled to get through to the sullen, moody half of Sam. However, when the floodgates finally opened, they each learned how and when the best time was to approach each other.
FBI Sam was also a total slob.
In an all-out war of verbal a.s.sault Nina would have been proud of after she'd tripped over that straw that broke the camel's back pair of discarded cowboy boots, Phoebe'd threatened to burn his Stetson and dump the ashes on his pile of dirty man panties in the corner of their bedroom.
But Phoebe, if you listened to Sam, was no picnic, either. He complained that she had more jewelry than the store he'd shopped in when he was looking for accessories to his Halloween costume. ”How many pairs of hooker earrings can a woman have?” he'd asked her just before she'd lobbed a bottle of her favorite ma.s.sage oil at him.
But they'd learned, too. They'd learned they had a great deal in common. Like the love of a good board game and most especially a rousing game of Uno. They'd learned that marathons of The Real Housewives of New Jersey were best watched cuddled together on their bed.
They'd learned they both loved to sing badly in the shower-together. After they'd bought their brownstone, they'd learned that gardening at night by flashlight sucked, and if you trimmed your hedges at one in the morning, the neighbors weren't likely to invite you to their block party.
Sam learned that Phoebe loved flowers, and without fail, he brought a bouquet of them on their official date night. One day a week when they left Penny to bake cookies and watch DVDs with Archibald, who'd moved in with them to help Penny in the daylight hours, giving them time to just be a newly mated couple.
Phoebe learned that Sam really did love detective shows-even though they were mostly all just c.r.a.p and as far from the real thing as you could get. She'd also learned that his pa.s.sion for ice hockey superseded even her love of clothes and makeup. So she'd bought him a season pa.s.s to the Rangers games and sat faithfully with him through each game-even if, in her opinion, the only good part about chasing a black piece of plastic around the ice was when they got into fistfights.
The absolute seal on their forever thing was when Sam had finally revealed why he'd kept putting off picking out furniture for their soon-to-be-closed-on brownstone. He'd spent several weeks pooh-poohing her, and teasing her that she just wanted to shop while he, Greg, Heath, Clay, Keegan, and Darnell had built ramps and various wheelchair-accessible gadgets for Penny.
Yet, out of everything they'd learned, they'd learned they loved each other-deeply, madly-and neither would consider the idea that their differences couldn't be worked out.
Eventually.
Sam had decided to start up his own surveillance consulting business, and with the help of a good deal of the money he'd packed away doing FBI undercover work, the plan was set in motion. Mark continued to run his and Phoebe's business by day, doing the legwork so she wouldn't have to go out in the sunlight while she handled coordinating clothing and makeup from home. She only handled shoots or appointments that occurred at night, turning her into a bit of a celebrity with a rather Greta Garboaesque reputation, and garnering them more clientele than they could handle.
She and Nina had also grown quite close through their love of Penny. Though they b.u.t.ted heads often, someone always ended up apologizing. Sometimes that someone was actually Nina. Okay, most times it was Phoebe, but every tenth fight or so, Nina gave in and called her to say, ”Look, Wrong Almost All the Time Barbie, fighting isn't good for the kid. We're all she's got. So I'm f.u.c.king sorry we argued. I'm not sorry I told you your a.s.s is fat. I'm just sorry you got so p.i.s.sed about it.”