Queen (41 page)

"Yuk, mushy stuff," J.J. said, tossing the entire handful of icicles toward the empty spot on the tree.

Will smiled and reached for a brownie. Donny stood beside the tree, staring pensively at the couple across the room, remembering a time long ago when his mother had been alive… remembering how empty their lives had been when she died… and now, with the arrival of their Queenie, how full and happy they seemed once more.

He sighed and then grinned. It wasn't everyone who found a savior at a bus stop. He considered himself pretty darn smart for having recognized her worth.

"Queenie, tell me again about the dream."

Will's plea was a repeat of the same request they'd all heard over and over.

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "You've already heard it a hundred times," she said.

"But I want to hear it again. Did you really see me in the hole?"

"Yes, I believe I did," Queen said. "How else would I have known what to tell your daddy?"

J.J. listened intently, already drawn into the magic of the story.

"And did you really hear me crying? Did you hear me say your name?" Will asked.

There was more to Will's question than just the need to hear the story of his rescue again and again. Cody heard his need to feel connected… in that special way… with that special someone. He understood that need, because it was a mirror of his own.

"Yes, darling," Queen said, and knelt beside Will's chair. She cupped his face and smiled, loving the blue eyes and black hair and his face, so similar to another's—the man she loved with all her heart. "I heard you call, but I didn't hear you with my ears… I heard you with my heart."

Will sighed. It was what he needed to hear.

"And I think I hear a kiss coming," Cody said. "Must be for me… my lips are still cold." Teasing was the only way he could hide his emotional reaction to her comment.

"Cody…" Queen laughed, stepping just out of his reach as she looked down at the small box beside his coat. "Presents already?"

The blue sweater she'd been knitting secretly, the one the color of Cody's eyes, had been wrapped for days, just waiting for Christmas morning to arrive.

Cody's eyes lit up. "I almost forgot. I thought we needed a new ornament for the tree in honor of our new family. What do you think, guys?"

He needn't have asked. They'd adopted Queen as theirs long before he'd admitted he'd fallen in love with  his sister who wasn't really a sister.

He handed Will the box. "You open it, son. It's for the top of the tree. I remembered our old star as looking pretty ragged."

"Great," Donny said. "I'd just promised Will I'd let him do the honors. Now that you're here you can lift him up. That cast weighs nearly as much as he does."

Queen knelt beside Will's chair, watching as he lifted the lid and sifted through the tissue paper inside.

"Look! It's an angel," he cried. He held it up and turned it from side to side, admiring the delicate white fabric of the gown and the fragile, ethereal wings rimmed with a tiny gold thread. "And she's got red hair… just like Queenie."

Queen stared at the doll-like ornament, blinking furiously against the sudden onset of tears.

Cody leaned down and picked up his son. "Put her on good and tight so she doesn't fall," he said as Will worked the angel over the top of the tree.

"There." Will was finished.

Cody set him back down on the couch and then stepped aside, squinting his eyes just enough to admire the way the angel seemed to hover above the treetop as if in flight.

Queen slid beneath his arm and laid her head on his chest as he hugged her gently. "It's beautiful," she said. "Thank you, Cody. Thank you for making me feel so loved… and so special."

"Look at her, Mom. She's shining."

J.J.'s innocent cry stunned them all. Unaware of what he'd said, he danced around the tree in a childlike frenzy, admiring the way in which the blinking lights reflected off her wings and her hair.

Queen was in shock, afraid to let her joy show… afraid that the others might be offended by what J.J. had done. But she needn't have worried. Donny just winked and then turned away, busying himself with brownies so that he wouldn't have to admit to the lump in his own throat. Will considered what J.J. had said. Without speaking, he simply slipped his hand in hers as she stood beside him and squeezed once. It was enough.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, covering trees and earth alike in a heavy white blanket of cold beauty. Inside the house, a fire burned brightly in the fireplace, love and laughter filled the rooms, warming their hearts as the fire warmed their bodies.

Cody took her in his arms, pressing his cheek closely against the soft warmth of her own.

"Welcome to the family, my love. Welcome home."

Lids rattled on the pots as wind rattled the windows. Queen walked from stove to cabinet and back again, stirring patiently and checking to make sure that the evening meal would be ready on time.

She could hardly believe that it was their second Christmas as a family and, within days, the first anniversary of their wedding.

With four males in the house, it had been a whirlwind year.

A small squeak and then a squawk turned into a definite wail as Amanda Bonner woke from her nap and for one of the few times in her very young life did not see a face hovering over her cradle. She was certain that she'd been abandoned and thereby proceeded to make her presence known.

Cody beat his three sons into the kitchen by inches, scooping his daughter from her cradle before she had time to finish her third yelp. Queen smiled and shrugged. It was hopeless to assume that this child wasn't going to be spoiled. If Cody didn't have her, Donny, Will, or J.J. did. She would never know what it was like to be lonely, but she would certainly know what it meant to be loved.

"Is she hungry?" Cody asked. "I'll finish supper if you need to feed her." He cuddled the tiny scrap of humanity that he and Queen had created and tried not to gloat at the beauty of their child.

"She has your hair," Queen said, amazed that a man of Cody's size could be reduced to mush by one so small.

"But she's going to have your eyes," Cody said, aware that the baby blue eyes Amanda had been born with were already changing to a deep forest green. It was a perfect blending, as was everything in their lives.

"Yeah, but she has J.J.'s personality," Donny said. "Totally rotten."

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

Cody rolled his eyes. "Guys… for Pete's sake, cut it out."

Queen smiled. She loved this rollicking mess of men and muscles and wondered where she and Amanda would fit into such a male-oriented world. If she knew her Bonners, she suspected it would be somewhere around the top of the pedestal.

Because of the weather, the radio on the shelf above the desk was picking up many unfamiliar stations. Cody said they were picking up skip, but whatever it was, it was music, sweet and familiar.

Queen listened absently, thinking how long it had been since she'd heard that particular station, and then realized what she was hearing was a live broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville.

"Oh, my," she said, and had a sudden hunger to see her family.

She sighed with regret when she realized how long it had been since she'd tried unsuccessfully to find Diamond through Jesse Eagle's music label. All three sisters were so lost from one another.

An unusual and intense longing overwhelmed her, and as the announcer began to talk, she turned away so that they would not see her tears.

Cody noticed Queen's face change expression. It had been months since he remembered seeing that longing… that far-off look of remembering. He silently handed Amanda to Donny and walked up behind Queen, intending to give her a hug, when she actually bolted out of his arms and made a beeline for the radio, turning up the volume while waving for everyone to be quiet.

They stared at her odd behavior and then watched in amazement as Queen began to smile.

"… live from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee."

A woman's voice filled the room, and even though Cody had never heard the song, a chill ran up his spine at the familiarity of the voice.

It wrapped around them as they listened, lulling them and then, when they thought it had passed, yanking emotion from them in unsuspecting fashion. And all the while Queen was laughing and crying and dancing in a little circle beneath the shelf.

"Oh, my God! My God… it's her! She did it! She really did it!"

She kept repeating it over and over until Cody started to suspect what she was talking about. "Honey… ?"

The song ended, and the wild sound of applause was drowned out by the announcer's exuberant shout. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Nashville's own Diamond Houston with her latest single."

Cody started to grin at the look of pleased shock on Queen's face.

"It's my sister!" she shouted, pointing toward the radio.

"Wow!" Donny was duly impressed. "You mean that you have a famous sister?"

"So it seems," Queen said, and nearly danced into Cody's arms.

"Well then," Cody said, hugging her tightly against him, feeling her trembling and her joy as his
own, " I believe we need to rethink where we're spending Christmas. What if I see about tickets to Nashville? If Queen can contact her sister and let her know it's okay, I think she deserves this Christmas with her own family… what do you say?"

The two younger boys were silent. Finally Will was brave enough to speak up.

"I say it's fine as long as we go, too. After all, who'll look after her if she goes alone?"

Queen laughed. "My God. He has it, too."

Cody grinned. He knew what she meant. That over-protective streak of his was definitely a dominant gene among the Bonner males.

"I wouldn't go without you," Queen said. "Remember, we're all one family now. And Diamond will be so excited. But Cody… how will I contact her? I lost Jesse Eagle's address. I don't even know if they're still together."

Cody grinned. "If she's that famous, she can't be hard to find," he said. "Just give me a phone and a couple of days."

Queen laughed, then took Amanda from Donny, watching as her earlier excitement caught fire and swept the room. Suddenly she had a vision of the woman she'd been when she left Cradle Creek nearly two years ago. That woman no longer existed, and it was due solely to a twist of fate.

Despite her dislike of Johnny's way of life, she'd taken quite a gamble of her own. She'd done something she swore she'd never do and found herself happier than a woman had a right to be. All in all, getting off that bus was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to her.

Then she smiled. Who would have thought that luck would make a difference in my life?

And just for a moment she had a vague understanding of her father's unrelenting need to search for luck of a different kind. He'd chased impossible rainbows, but she'd been looking for an anchor. And she'd found it in Cody.

Queen had all she needed. Her family… and her man.

And then she had to laugh at the thought that came next. With any luck, after the kids were asleep, she would have him… in spades.