The judge looked to the disgruntled social worker. “Your issue with this is?”
“They lied,” she repeated, as if that outweighed everything else.
“About the length of their relationship. Were the intimacies of that relationship conducted in front of the child?”
“No! Of course not,” Pru said.
“Then the child is endangered by this how, exactly?” Judge Moseley asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, I see a man who has turned his life upside down for love of them both. I hardly think that’s a poor environment to raise a child in.”
“What kind of a person gets engaged after a matter of days?” Lydia demanded. “How is that proof of a solid relationship?”
“I met and married my wife in a month, Miss Coogan,” Judge Moseley said. “We just celebrated our fortieth anniversary. Sometimes, you just know.”
The woman began to sputter. “But…the rules. They exist for a reason.”
Judge Moseley looked at Ari and winked. “Sometimes the rules are stupid. Injunction denied.”
The slamming of his gavel was the best sound Pru had ever heard.
Everybody in the courtroom cheered. Ari leapt up and threw her arms around Kennedy.
Flynn closed the distance between them and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made you cry.” He wiped away her tears. “But it’s over. We won.”
“You were going to leave.” The truth of that, even now, had her wanting to crumble.
Regret streaked over his face. “It would have killed me. But I didn’t see another choice.” He stroked her cheek. “Forgive me?”
“Partners,” she reminded him, taking a fistful of his shirt and giving him a shake. “That was the deal we made. That means no more self-sacrificing decisions that don’t include me.”
“Never again,” he promised.
As pressed his lips to hers, Pru felt her world shift back to its proper axis.
“Thankfully some of us were a little less extreme in our planning,” Kennedy said, arm hooked around Ari’s shoulders.
Head resting against Flynn’s chest, Pru smiled at her sister. “Thank you.”
Athena and Maggie clustered around them, each adding an arm to the family chain.
“I’d say a celebration is in o
rder,” Maggie said.
“What’s an appropriate celebration for aversion of epic disaster combined with an engagement? Athena asked.
“I’d say Ari gets to pick,” Xander added, coming to stand behind his wife.
“There is only one right answer to this question,” Ari said, meeting Flynn’s gaze. Grinning at each other, they shouted, “Pizza!”
Epilogue
“I’M SO GLAD YOU could make it!” Pru gave Mae a careful hug.
The older woman squeezed her hard. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I’m sorry my surgery and recovery kept me out of the loop for so long and brought you trouble.”
They both looked across the room to where Ari and Flynn stood in animated conversation with his sister and brother-in-law beneath a hand-lettered banner that declared Happy Gotcha Day, Ari!
“It all worked out in the end. As of this afternoon, we’re completely legit. Judge Moseley signed off on the adoption.” She and Flynn were officially parents to a precocious fourteen-year-old girl, and life would never be the same again.