“We were very discreet and didn’t gossip about you and Scott.”
Tess chuckled. “I appreciate that.”
“She did, however, make it clear that the family approves of you and Scott dating.”
“They seemed okay with it at the party.”
“More than okay, I think. They think you and Scott are a good match.”
A good match. A great team. Inevitable. The labels echoed through her mind.
Their relationship sounded so ordinary when described that way. Unexciting. Even calculated. Was that how their friends and families saw them? The way Scott saw them?
“I’m glad to hear they approve,” she said, keeping her tone steady.
“You’re okay? You sound a little funny.”
“I’m in my car in a parking space. Just finished running some errands and buying groceries.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you at a bad time. We’re going to have to get together soon, right? I want to hear details of how things are going with you and Scott, of course. And we need to talk about Stevie. I’m getting a little worried about her.”
So Tess wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that Stevie hadn’t quite been herself lately. “I’ll call you to set something up,” she promised.
“Great. Gavin has three days off, so I’m planning to work here until three or so this afternoon and then he and I are heading up to the cabin until Monday evening. We’re looking forward to a few days away. But as soon as I get back, you and I are making plans, okay?”
“Absolutely.”
She put her phone in the console after disconnecting the call and backed out of the parking space. Her errands were done, so her intention was to head straight home and rest awhile before the party. Tonight was going to be a more emotionally stressful event than the previous ones. She expected her family to be much more nosy and critical than Scott’s had been. Would her sister be able to tell by looking at them exactly how much had changed in the past couple of weeks?
Her concerns about the evening were driven from her mind a few minutes later when a car ran a stop sign in an intersection near her condo and crashed into the back-passenger side of her car. Her seat belt tightened, holding her in her seat, and she gripped the wheel with white-knuckled fists as she brought the car to a stop. The jarring, sickening sound of the impact rang in her ears, her heart pounded and her knees shook beneath the steering wheel. After a quick visual self-exam that told her she was still in one piece, she opened the door with trembling hands to assess the damage to her car and the other driver. To her relief, she could see that he was already out of his car and seemed unharmed.
She was grateful no one was hurt, but really she hadn’t needed this today, she thought with a groan. As she leaned back against her dented car, one thought rang through her mind: Was this an omen for how things would go tonight?
* * *
“So meeting her family tonight, huh? The big audition.”
Standing on a ladder outside his parents’ home, Scott looked down at his older brother, who stood below him, steadying the ladder. “I’ve met Tess’s sister before. They don’t have much family left except for a cousin I’ll meet tonight.”
“You’ve met the sister as Tess’s boss, not her boyfriend,” Eli pointed out. “That’s different.”
“True.” It was still a bit odd to hear himself referred to as Tess’s boyfriend, but he supposed that was a close-enough description outside the office. For now. “Okay, the bulb’s replaced. Mom can quit fussing now.”
He and Eli had both just happened to drop by that afternoon. Taking advantage of their presence, their mother had talked them into replacing a burned-out bulb on the strand of Christmas lights strung over the portico entrance. That dark bulb had been driving her crazy for the past week since they’d paid a neighborhood teen to hang the strand. Scott’s dad had wanted to take care of it, but only three months past knee-replacement surgery, he’d been forbidden by his wife and sons to climb the ladder.
Scott descended the rungs, then jumped the last couple of feet to the ground. He brushed off his hands on his jeans and reached for the ladder. “Grab the other end and help me carry this around to the shed,” he ordered his brother. “Then I have to get out of here and get changed into my party clothes.”
Eli chuckled and gripped his end of the ladder. “If you’re anything like me, you’re already tired of Christmas parties. I’ve lost track of the number of invitations Libby has accepted on our behalf. And that doesn’t even count the open house we’re hosting at the clinic next weekend.”
“Know the feeling. Tess and I have already been to several.”
“So the family’s still trying to figure when and how you and Tess got together. It’s as though one day you were business associates and the next day you’re a couple. Unless it’s been going on awhile and you’ve been keeping it quiet for some reason?”
“No. It’s a recent development.” He’d found himself using those words a lot lately. Maybe he should think of a new phrasing.
“Mom’s a little worried.”
Frowning, Scott stopped walking, causing his brother to stumble at his end of the ladder. “Why is she worried? I thought Mom liked Tess.”