“I will in a bit. After we get settled.” Ryan took his Oscar out of the felt pouch that it was wrapped in. “I’m going to put this in the office.”
“No!” I quickly yelled. “Put it on the fireplace mantel where we can appreciate it.” He smirked.
“No one ever goes in your office, honey. Put it up here.” I moved a few of our wedding pictures, making a place for his statue.
I sat down on the couch with the baby, showing him the picture of all of us on our wedding day.
I smiled at the big grin Pete wore on his face when the picture was taken. The trip was a second honeymoon for Pete and Tammy, and sometime during that week, Tammy got pregnant. Their daughter, Madison, was six months old now.
We all joked that maybe our son and their daughter might get together one day. You never know which way the wind is going to blow. Anything is possible.
I had spent all that time worrying about what I would do with my life, only to have it all work out on its own. Wife, mother, partner, lover . . . it was all very fulfilling.
Ryan joined me and the baby in the sun-room that overlooked the lake. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and tossed the box he had in his hands onto the floor.
“Let me hold him now,” Ryan whispered, slipping his hands around our tiny baby boy.
“Come here, little guy. Come to Daddy,” he crooned.
Seeing my husband so in love with his son filled me completely.
“What’s in the box?” I asked, watching the sun set over the tops of the evergreens.
Ryan chuckled. “Scripts. More scripts.”
“Well, you know, honey, you only have one Oscar. If you had two, we’d have matching bookends.”
He grinned at me. “Nah, I already have one. Maybe you should work for the second one?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’m not an actress.”
“But you could be, if you try. After all, you’re the one who keeps saying that anything is possible if you point yourself in the right direction.”
So he’d been paying attention.
I slid my leg down the table and kicked him in the foot.
Bonus Chapter While I was developing the story line for Love Unrehearsed, I had the following pas-sage in the beginning as the original dream sequence. I chose to cut it because I didn’t want to give too much away up front. I wanted Taryn’s adoption to be a surprise.
While developing Taryn’s character, I wondered what Taryn’s last memory of Joey might be that caused her to have those recurring nightmares of the “boy with the black hair” and what caused the division on her mother’s side of the family.
I have fond memories of being my father’s “beer fetcher” while he and the other men in the family played horseshoes, so this scene partially comes from my childhood.
We went to the same place to have a family picnic every year and the gray cinder-block garage on the property always seemed to be a few degrees cooler than the blistering heat outside.
The little blond-haired girl sneaking ice cubes with a Barbie in one hand? That was me.
Enjoy.
Grandfather’s Fishing
Shack
July 4, 1986
“Whoa! Careful there, sweetheart!” Daddy’s big hands latched tightly under my arms and he spun me up into his arms.
The big metal U that Uncle All threw tumbled right past Daddy’s foot and fell softly like a whisper in the grass.
“Taryn, you know better. I don’t want you to get hit with one of those horseshoes. It will hurt.” His bottom lip stuck out like a big fat worm. It looked funny. I wanted to grab it and squeeze it.
I sat perched in my daddy’s arms and watched Uncle All make funny faces as he swung his arm, aiming for the rusty spike sticking straight up from the ground. The clanging noise was kind of frightening. I imagined that the horses that wore those big shoes had to be enormous. Like elephants.
Or even bigger. Like houses. I wished I could ride one.
“Your cheeks are red, Daddy.” He placed a few kisses on my face. “So are yours, peanut. Mommy has to put more lotion on you. Who do you have here? Who’s this bum?”
I waved my dolly’s arm to say “Hi.” “This is Ken. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” He raised his brow, giving me that one-eye look. “What happened to his pants?”
I pointed over to my tiny splash pool, where they were floating. Barbie was still in the water.
“Do I need to have a talk with him about showing his heinie in public?” I giggled. “Can you take me in the big water now?”