Beginning of Forever (Heaven Hill #7) (13 page)

Addie’s mouth hung open, much like it had the night before on the Ferris wheel.

“I think we are totally rocking her world,” Tyler whispered, holding his hand up for a high-five.

“We’re high-fiving this?”

“Hell yeah! Anything that makes her speechless is high-fivable in my book.”

She giggled, slapping her hand against his.

They walked further into the aquarium, testing out how things were going before they’d fully show Addie what there was to see. It seemed like the more colorful the fish, the more she loved it. At one point, Tyler walked up close enough so she could touch the glass. When a school of brightly colored fish swam by, she squealed and slapped her hand against the glass, trying to catch one.

“I guess she likes it.” He smiled over at Meredith, who at that moment took a picture. It promised to be one of her favorites from this trip.

There was something about the way Addie could make Tyler smile. Not even she was able to make him smile so wide. Something about pleasing their daughter pleased him on such a different level than anything else did. She loved it and was happy they’d been blessed with the chance to experience this. Above anyone, she knew that it had almost never happened, and wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been meant to be.

“She does. Let’s go check out the sharks and see how she does with that,” Meredith suggested.

As they made their way to the conveyer belt that would take them through the glass enclosure, Tyler switched her over to his other hip.

“You okay carrying her? We can go get a stroller if she’s getting heavy.”

“Nah, just had to readjust. She don’t weigh anything.”

They stepped onto the conveyer belt and pointed out the animals to Addie. As a shark came towards them, her eyes got big, and she shrieked, burying her face in Tyler’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked her, trying to bite back a laugh.

Moving her face from his shoulder, she looked again as another one came towards them.

“He ain’t gonna hurt ya,” he said, close to the little girls ear. “I got ya.”

This time, she didn’t look away until the very end, and there was no shriek.

“She’s getting brave.”

“She’s not getting there, she is brave. Watch,” he told his wife.

Again, another shark came at them. This time, she didn’t even flinch. She followed it with her eyes as it swam above them.

“Look at her. She gets that from you,” Meredith told him, as she, herself, watched one of the larger sharks swimming above their heads.

“Nah, babe.” He reached out for her hand. “That is definitely all you. I’ve never known anyone in the world braver than you are.”

Again, she felt emotional and had to blink back tears. Those words meant more to her than he could ever know, and she appreciated them more than he would ever know.

*

“You hungry?” Tyler asked her a few hours later as they walked along the shops that Gatlinburg had to offer. They’d already been in a few of them and bought touristy souvenirs to take back to their friends.

“I’m getting there.” She shielded her eyes and looked for a spot for them to eat where they could sit.

Addie had been walking on her own for a little while, and they could both tell she was getting tired. They were tired too; the heat of the afternoon was beginning to take its toll on them.

“How about over there?” Tyler pointed to a place that had seats on a covered patio. The sign promised corn dogs, French fries, and fresh-squeezed lemonade.

“Sounds amazing,” she told him as they went to the next crosswalk and crossed the street.

As he situated the two of them at a table that was completely covered by the shade, he leaned over on the table. “What do you want? I’ll grab it and you can stay here with her.”

“I’ll take all of the above that was on that sign. I’m starving.”

That sounded good to him too. “What should I get her?” He was never sure what he should feed Addie. It was the one thing that he questioned, besides fixing her hair. He always deferred to Meredith on that subject.

“Grab her a corndog too. If she doesn’t finish it, then you can. She’s never had lemonade, so get a kid-sized one to see if she likes it. Grab a bottle of water though, in case she doesn’t. I wanna save the juice I have in here for later, in case she gets hot. She’s drunk way more than I thought she would.”

“Alright, be back.” He leaned down, kissing first one and then the other on the forehead, before making his way over to place their orders.

Addie waved as he walked away.

“He’ll be right back, baby girl,” Meredith told her as she used a baby wipe to wipe off Addie’s face and hands. “Before we go back to walking around, we need to put some more sunscreen on you. You’re getting a little pink.”

Addie nodded, like she understood exactly what Meredith said. When she finished, Meredith balled up the baby wipe and set it aside for trash before leaning back against the chair. It’d been a long morning, but as she glanced at Tyler, who stood at the counter like he owned the place, she knew there was no other place she’d rather be.

‡
Chapter Fifteen

“W
elcome back from vacay,” Christine greeted Meredith with a huge hug as she walked into CRISIS a few days later.

“Thanks.” She smiled ruefully. She already wished she was right back there. “Go ahead and fill me in. What have I missed?”

“Nothing huge. We didn’t really have any excitement while you were gone. We took in a couple of girls, a couple of girls left. Same old, same old.”

There was something that nagged at the back of Meredith’s mind. Nobody had mentioned Stephanie to her, there hadn’t even been a text from Travis when she’d turned her phone on and started to wade through the things she’d ignored while on vacation. “What about Stephanie?”

“She packed her stuff and left.” The way Christine said it was no-nonsense. She didn’t need to tell Meredith that the girl had made one hell of a scene and threatened everyone from the Pope to the President of the United States.

“There was no issue with her?” She wasn’t sure if she believed that or not, there was something in the way Christine had mentioned it.

“No issue at all.” Christine just knew God was going to strike her dead for being a liar.

For a long minute, Meredith held her gaze and studied her, much like she’d seen Tyler study people. Finally, she dropped her gaze.

“Okay, if you say so. What do we need to do today? Where do I need to start?”

*

Travis stood at Walker’s Wheels and watched Tyler pull into the parking lot. His heart beat double-time. He was going to keep a secret from the big man, and he just wasn’t sure he could do it. Tyler had already texted him three times since he’d been back from vacation.

“Stay strong, cuz,” Rooster told him as he came up beside him and slung an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t let him intimidate you into telling him something you don’t want him to know.”

“That’s easy for you to say. When he stands in front of you, you’re not in his shadow,” Travis mumbled.

Rooster chuckled—Travis had gotten the shorter end of the stick in the family genes, so to speak. “Remember, this is for the good of a young family, it has nothing to do with keeping secrets from people. It’s a need to know thing, and right now, Tyler doesn’t need to know. We’ve got the okay from Liam. This is going to be all good.”

This most definitely was
not
going to be all good and Travis knew it, but he was feeling the pressure from everyone else to make it seem as if it were. The information he’d managed to dig up on Stephanie was damning, and he wanted nothing more than to let the Blackfoot family know, but Stephanie had disappeared without a trace the night Christine and another worker at CRISIS had confronted her about the drug use. It was then that they’d all decided to let it go. “Whatever you say, but when this goes to shit, I’m going to be sure and let him know that I wanted to tell him the truth,” Travis hissed as Tyler made his way into the bays that housed the cars they were working on.

“Mornin’,” he called out as he approached the two men.

“Hey, my man, you look refreshed.” Rooster stepped forward, offering his hand to the man who had become a close friend. There was one thing that was a given about Tyler. You couldn’t know him and not come to care for him deeply. He wormed his way into everyone’s hearts, and that was exactly why all of them wanted to keep him happy.

“I am.” He nodded, a small smile covering his face. “It’s amazing what a little mountain air can do for your soul.”

“Did Addie have a good time?” It was important to keep him talking, to give Travis a chance to get his shit together; otherwise Rooster knew his little cousin would talk like a parrot.

“Oh man, she loved it.” Tyler became animated as he told them about taking her to the aquarium and taking her in the Ferris wheel. One night they had done the lazy river at the condo, and she’d had her first taste of funnel cake.

“I’m gonna have to see what Roni thinks about us going and taking Carter when he gets a little older.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait to take her back in a year. She’ll be able to talk more and tell us more of what she wants to do, but I know she had a good time, and that’s all that matters. Hell, I had a great time, and so did Mer. It was exactly what we needed.” He ran a hand through his hair.

Anyone looking at him could tell that he had used the time to refresh and recover from the daily things he did for the club. His face didn’t hold any lines of fatigue, and there were no dark circles there.

“It looks good on ya,” Rooster complimented. “I’m gonna go see what I need to do.” He hitched his head, indicating a car that sat in a bay. “C’mon, Trav, you can help me.”

“No wait.” Tyler held out his hands. “I meant to ask, actually I texted you a few times, but you never answered. Did you find anything out about that license plate that Meredith had you run?”

“No,” Travis answered, but his voice was weak, even to his own ears. He hated lying to Tyler. Man up, he told himself. Clearing his throat, he answered again. “No, she was just being safe. Better to be safe than sorry and all of that.” He nodded before turning around and following Rooster over to the car. The faster he got away from the probing look of the big VP of the club, the better off he would be.