Handle With Care (Special Delivery Book 3)

by J. A. Armstrong

  “No one is choosing, Dani. Brooke loves you and so do I. And, we both want you to be with us. You’re our daughter.” Tess closed her eyes as she said the words. Our daughter? Is that how you see it too, Brooke?

  “I am?” Dani asked sheepishly.

  “Yes, you are,” Brooke’s voice echoed through the room. “At least, I hope so,” she said softly as she looked at Tess.

  Tess’s breath caught in her throat. Tess closed her eyes against a rising tide of emotion. “Brooke,” she whispered aloud in near disbelief.

  Brooke pulled a chair out and placed it in front of Tess and Dani. She turned to Davey, who was standing in the doorway, reluctant to enter. “Come here, D.,” she told him. Brooke waited for Davey to make his way to her side. She gently coaxed Dani to look at her and gestured to Davey to take a seat beside his sister. Brooke took a deep breath before addressing the twins.

  “I’m sorry,” Brooke said. Three sets of eyes fell on Brooke in confusion and disbelief. “Well, I am,” she said. She looked at Dani and Davey. “By the look on all of your faces,” Brooke stole a glance at Tess. “I think I can guess that I haven’t made myself clear about some things.”

  “Brooke,” Tess said softly.

  Brooke continued. “I love your mom,” she told the kids. They both smiled. “I also love you, both of you. I know that is different in a lot of ways. I haven’t always been here. Mom has. And so, that makes me kind of an accessory, something that helps but sort of tags along.” Brooke avoided Tess’s gaze and stayed focused on the twins, needing to express her thoughts and feelings before anyone could interrupt or protest. “The thing is, I may not have always been there, but I promise you I will be here from now on. That’s what this wedding is all about,” she explained. “I don’t want you to ever think that I could choose between you. And, I would never ask you to think of me as your mom. You have the best mom already. But,” Brooke hesitated and sucked in a nervous breath. “I do think of you as my kids. I hope that is okay because I am really proud of both of you. I’m sorry if I ever made you think anything else. I want you both to be with me tomorrow—with us. And, all you have to do is tell Mom and me what it is that you want and I promise I will make that happen.”

  Dani looked at her mother. Tess smiled in encouragement and Dani turned her attention to Brooke.

  “Can…Maybe…Could I maybe…”

  “Can you what, Dani?” Brooke prodded gently.

  “Well, could I maybe walk with you? Davey can walk with Mom and then I could stand with Mom and Davey can stand with you?” Dani asked in one full breath.

  Brooke was momentarily stunned. She had never considered anything other than watching Tess walk to her. It was her private daydream. Marriage, weddings—these had been things that for most of Brooke’s life she had dismissed as just that—daydreams. And, Brooke was certain that the woman beside her was the only person who could have ever changed that. Brooke never envisioned herself walking to meet Tess. And, she had never anticipated that either of Tess’s children would feel this way. Brooke knew that Dani and Davey loved her, at least, in their own way. She had caught herself several times recently about to refer to one of the kids as her son or her daughter. So far, Brooke had managed to catch herself before she made that statement. She had never verbally expressed her feelings about the twins being her kids to Tess, mainly because she never wanted to overstep her boundaries where Dani and Davey were concerned. Brooke felt Tess’s hand on her back and snapped to attention.

  “It’s okay,” Dani said sadly.

  “What?” Brooke asked in confusion. She looked directly at Dani whose watery eyes had fallen on the kitchen floor again. Brooke sighed and reached out to touch Dani’s knee. “No, Dani…I just never thought you would want to, really. I mean, I kind of figured you’d both want to be with Mom. I sort of thought Davey would be disappointed when I asked him to stand with me,” Brooke admitted.

  Dani looked up at Brooke. “But you’re like our mom too,” she said without hesitation.

  Tess immediately took note of the tears in Brooke’s eyes and rubbed her back gently. Brooke was at a loss. Tess had the immediate thought that no matter how much anyone could express emotion in action, sometimes words were needed. People had a need to know where they stood in a family, and not just children. Tess had never wanted to pressure Brooke. In one instant, hundreds of instances of times when Tess had clearly thought about her children as “their” children invaded her consciousness. She had never expressed those thoughts directly to Brooke. Right now, she regretted that. Listening to Dani, observing the expression on both of her children’s faces, Tess realized that neither of her children gave the reality much thought. They had just come to accept Brooke as a parent. She had the fleeting urge to ask them if they had ever told their friends that Brooke was their mom too. It made her smile. Something told her they probably had. Tess continued to rub small, soothing circles on Brooke’s back while she intervened on Brooke’s behalf.

  “I’m sorry too,” Tess said. Brooke turned immediately to Tess and looked at her in alarm. Tess smiled. “Well, I am,” she took a deep breath. “I think your idea is a great one, Dani,” Tess told her daughter. “I think you should know—all of you,” Tess looked at Brooke momentarily. “That it makes me so happy that you all feel that way.”

  “It does?” Brooke asked without thinking.

  Tess kept smiling. “Yes, it does. So? Brooke? What do you think of Dani’s idea?”

  Brooke turned to look at Dani. “I’d be honored. Just one thing, though,” she added. Everyone waited curiously for Brooke to continue. “Can we go first?” Dani smiled brightly and nodded her agreement. Brooke let out a small sigh of relief. “Good,” she said.

  Tess could feel Brooke’s trembling beneath her hand. “Why don’t you two go find a DVD you can agree on? I’ll get breakfast ready. Maybe we can all eat in the family room as a treat for our first breakfast in the house.”

  Davey and Dani needed no further encouragement and ran off. “No princess stuff!” Davey exclaimed.

  “Yeah? No Transformers either!” Dani told her brother.

  Tess snickered and then pulled Brooke to face her. “You okay?” she asked. Brooke nodded dumbly. “Brooke?”

  “Do you really feel that way?” Brooke asked.

  Tess leaned in and placed a light kiss on Brooke’s lips. “More than you know. And, I am sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Sorry that I haven’t said it,” Tess explained. “I never wanted you to feel pressured, Brooke. But, the truth is I’ve felt that way almost since the beginning. I mean, you would walk in and the kids would light up. They asked for you when you weren’t there. At first, it scared me a little.”

  “Why?” Brooke asked.

  “We weren’t even together and they were in love with you,” Tess said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And, I was in love with you. I wanted you to be,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I wanted this. I guess part of me was afraid it would be too much to ask.”

  “Do you still feel that way?” Brooke wondered.

  Tess shook her head. “No. I don’t. Sometimes, Brooke….Sometimes, I find myself wishing they were yours…I mean ours. I find myself wishing that….”

  Brooke smiled. “I think I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “I think so. I wish I could have been there with you. Maybe that sounds ridiculous. I wish I had been there for all of it. That we had done it together. I know that they aren’t my kids…”

  “Brooke…”

  “No, listen—they aren’t. I don’t think I could love them any more if they were, though.”

  “Well, you might not have been there the whole time. You have been there more than anyone else ever has in their lives,” Tess observed honestly.

  “Except you.”

  “No, like me. You just found us later,” Tess said.

  “Tess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want more? K
ids, I mean?”

  “With you?” Tess tried not to smile.

  “Well, I…I would understand if…I just…”

  Tess laughed. “Do you, Brooke?” They had made mention of children many times, but neither had ever directly raised the point.

  “Yeah, I think I do,” Brooke told Tess.

  Tess smiled, leaned in and kissed Brooke. “You will be adorable pregnant.”

  “What?!” Brooke gasped. Tess started laughing. “Me? Why me?”

  “Why not you?” Tess countered. “You told me you always wanted to have kids.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to birth them!”

  Tess kept laughing. She stood up, shrugged and headed to the refrigerator.

  “Tess!” Brooke called over. Tess was laughing softly. “Tess?”

  Tess turned around and shook her head. “How about we get through tomorrow first?”

  Brooke pursed her lips in consideration. She crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Tess’s waist. “You really think I’d be adorable?”

  “Yes,” Tess replied. “Until you went into labor. Then, I might have to hide.”

  “Why? I deliver babies every day…almost anyway.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are you saying? You think I’m a wimp?”

  Tess patted Brooke’s cheek. “Not at all, love,” she placated her lover and turned back to her task.

  Brooke huffed slightly. “I’m not a wimp,” she mumbled. “I’ve climbed mountains for God’s sake!”

  Tess laughed quietly as she started preparing their breakfast. Never a dull moment in this house. Why do I think that will never change?

  Chapter Five

  “Thanks for coming with me,” Tess said to Rachel.

  “Miss this? No way,” Rachel replied.

  “I can’t believe she did this,” Tess confessed. “She really didn’t tell you?”

  “Not until the other day,” Rachel said. “She certainly was determined to make it a surprise,” Rachel laughed.

  Tess shook her head. “I swear, she surprises me constantly.”

  “So? What are we looking for—exactly?” Rachel wondered.

  Tess smiled as they walked through the jewelry store door. “Well, it seems she has everything covered, including our wedding rings.”

  “Not what you wanted?” Rachel asked.

  “No,” Tess chuckled. “Exactly what we had decided on a couple of months ago.”

  “Okay?”

  Tess shrugged. “I guess I just want her to have something from me.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Yes, actually,” Tess replied. “I just thought that I would have more time to pull it together. Twenty-four hours is not all that long.”

  “At least, you got shoes,” Rachel joked.

  Tess laughed. “True. That was a good excuse, wasn’t it? I mean to go shopping without her?”

  “Yep. No way would she have argued with you anyway,” Rachel said. It continued to amuse her, the way that Tess Sinclair held Brooke Campbell in the palm of her hand. Tess nodded her agreement. “So? This is a wedding gift?”

  “Of sorts, I guess,” Tess said.

  “Now, I really am intrigued,” Rachel said. Tess wandered past several cases, browsing casually. She stopped abruptly and smiled. Rachel followed Tess’s eyes downward and smiled. “You really are something, Tess,” Rachel commented.

  Tess looked up at Rachel. “Think she’d like it?”

  “Like it? She’ll ball like a two-year-old.”

  Tess smiled. “I just want her to know,” she said softly.

  “She knows,” Rachel assured her friend. “Believe me, Tess, she knows.”

  “Rach?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks,” Tess said.

  “For what? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yeah, you have—more than once,” Tess replied.

  Tess was grateful for Rachel’s friendship. Rachel was Brooke’s best friend and the closest thing that Brooke had to a sibling. Over the last year and a half or so, Rachel and Tess had forged a strong bond of their own. That friendship had become a safe harbor for Tess. Tess adored Rachel. Rachel understood Brooke as well as anyone, and Brooke loved her best friend. At times, Brooke’s mind raced faster than a freight train. When that happened, it sometimes took a village to slow Brooke down. Brooke was one of the most intelligent and confident women Tess had ever met when it came to work, to adventure, and to matters of the mind. Matters of the heart sometimes presented a greater challenge for Brooke. Not that Brooke had difficulty showing affection, quite the opposite. This wedding was another example of how Brooke constantly showered Tess with thoughtful attention. But, when Brooke allowed doubt to seep into her thoughts, she would sometimes drift away. It took Tess time to understand that what Brooke feared was losing Tess, just as Tess never wanted to imagine her life without Brooke in it.

  Loss had colored both Brooke and Tess’s lives, albeit in different ways. For Tess, the death of her brother had been her first lesson in grief. That had been followed by distance from her parents, and the abrupt endings of the two most significant relationships Tess had been in. All of it had left Tess with a fear of abandonment. It was a fear that had kept her from considering any type of romantic involvement for several years. Brooke had changed that in what seemed like an instant to Tess. Tess had quickly accepted that her life would be empty without Brooke in it. And, she had come to trust Brooke far more quickly than she ever would have imagined possible.

  Brooke, Tess had learned, also struggled with the same fear of abandonment. For Brooke, her anxiety stemmed from her parents’ divorce. Somehow, Brooke had managed to convince herself that medicine was the sole cause. That had led Brooke’s mother, Rebecca to accept a job on the opposite coast from where Brooke’s father’s medical practice was. Brooke saw her mother’s change in career from practicing surgery to teaching surgical techniques as somehow her fault. Medicine had broken Brooke’s family. In a way, her father had abandoned his family preferring the challenge of his work to time with Brooke and her mother. In Brooke’s mind, her father’s absence had forced Rebecca Campbell to abandon medicine so that she could raise Brooke. Brooke’s young mind made the decision that a life in medicine was best left without family to compete with. Like Tess, Brooke had avoided any serious attachments romantically.

  Abandonment, Tess had come to believe, was everyone’s greatest fear. Loss was painful. It conjured sadness and guilt, and worst of all insecurity. Fear, loss, and grief were an inevitable part of the human experience. Part of building and maintaining a loving relationship was learning how to love through insecurity. That meant endeavoring to reassure the person who shared your life in the simplest, and sometimes grandest ways that you would stand beside them no matter what came to pass. Brooke often showered Tess in grand displays or, at least, Tess thought they were grand. It had taken time for Tess to accept Brooke’s need to display her affection through gifts. Tess had always struggled to keep her head above water financially. She had to save for months for small trips and extravagances. It sometimes bothered her that she could not give to Brooke the way that Brooke gave to her and to the twins.

  Tess had been tucking away a few dollars every week for months, placing it in a separate account for Brooke’s wedding gift when the time came. She had not expected the time to come so soon. After Dani’s mini-breakdown and the family discussion that followed, Tess was determined to find the appropriate gift. Tess leaned over one of the jewelry cases and smiled at one of the rings.

  “Would you like to see it?” the saleswoman asked.

  Tess nodded. “Please?”

  The woman retrieved the ring and began describing it to Tess. Tess turned it in the palm of her hand to look at the price tag and let out a nervous breath. Good thing I made some money on the house.

  “Tess?” Rachel took hold of Tess’s arm. Tess smiled uncomfortably.

  “What size is it?” Tess asked.

 
; “It’s a seven.”

  “I’ll take it,” Tess said, handing the woman the ring.

  Rachel smiled, noting the slight wobbliness in her friend. “You okay there?”

  “I think I might throw up,” Tess admitted. She giggled nervously. “I have never spent that much money on anything in my life except my house and my car.”

  Rachel chuckled. “Tess, she doesn’t expect you to get her anything.”

  Tess smiled. “I know that. Rach, she gives me everything.”

  “I think she might disagree with that assessment. You know Brooke, she’d give you the world on a string if she could.”

  “Exactly. This is…Well, I want to. I can’t even imagine what she has up her sleeve for tomorrow.”

  “Oh, don’t look at me,” Rachel put up her hands. “She’s all CIA with this wedding,” she laughed. “Top Secret! Need to know only,” Rachel declared. Tess snickered. “All I do know is that I am supposed to be there at eight in the morning tomorrow to help. ‘Bring your clothes and shower here. And, be prepared to get a little dirty.’ That’s all she said. Eight on a Sunday! Good Lord!”

  Tess laughed. “Well, I think I can solve that issue. Why don’t you spend the night and keep Brooke company?” she suggested.

  “Keep her company?”

  “Yeah. I am going to stay in Rebecca’s hotel suite with the kids.”

  “Does she know that?” Rachel asked. Tess grinned. “Oh, no! She is going to freak!”