Page 170 of Protecting What's Mine

Win, dressed in podiatrist casual Dockers and a checkered button-down shirt with Nikes, nudged Mack. “You hear about the podiatrist who was having a bad day?” He wiggled his eyebrows over his silver-rimmed glasses.

Mack pinched her lips together. The man took dad jokes to a new low, combining them with lousy podiatry jokes. “I did not.”

“He started the day on the wrong foot.”

“Dad!” Violet rolled her eyes. She was shorter than Mack and had the slump-shoulder posture and amused smirk of a teenager. She was going through a cute Nirvana/Seattle-grunge phase and experimenting with eye makeup and flannel.

Mack laughed. She couldn’t help it. “That’s terrible.”

Win pulled her in for a hug. “You look good, Dr. O’Neil.”

Her bruises had finally faded enough to be hidden under a coat of makeup—thankfully. She had no real need to walk the Nguyens through the latest and final ordeal with her family. They’d witnessed enough of that history. It felt like it was finally time for them all to focus on the future.

She slung an arm around Violet’s shoulders and gave the girl a squeeze.

“Nose stud, huh?” Mack asked, tapping the tiny heart-shaped stud in Violet’s nose.

“Awesome, right?” It kinda was.

“It suits you.”

“Tuesday, would you mind taking a picture of us together?” Dottie asked, pulling a hefty, practically antique digital camera out of her purse and handing it over.

Tuesday eyed the dinosaur with apprehension and fascination. Dottie was big on pictures. Some of the kids she and Win had fostered didn’t have a photographic history of their childhoods. So the Nguyen’s made sure to document every moment they could for the kids who came into their lives.

The first time Mack had seen the Nguyens as an adult, Dottie had presented her with a photo album of her ten weeks with them. To this day, it was the only photo album Mack owned. Her mother had left behind Mack’s baby pictures somewhere along the way, either in a half-empty apartment or in one of the long line of “uncles’” homes.

“I can take a bunch on my phone, do some fun filters. I can text them to you,” Tuesday offered. She’d spent fifteen minutes of her lunch break explaining photo editing apps to Mack earlier in the week.

Violet snorted, then hugged her mother, who probably had only understood every other word in that sentence. “You can text them to me or Mack. We’ll get them to Mom,” the girl offered.

“Get over here, Mack,” Dottie insisted, putting an arm around her and Violet. Win squished in next to Mack.

“Everyone say ‘duck lips,’” Tuesday sang.

“Duck lips!”

Mack mentally added “Get Dottie a smartphone for Christmas” to the sticky note in her pocket.

They smiled cheesy smiles and let Tuesday play Annie Liebovitz before Dottie invited Tuesday, Freida, and Russell to join them for “one of those selfies.”

While she oohed and aahed over Tuesday’s photographic expertise, Win stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and made some wistful comments about lunch. Next up would be jokes about hypoglycemia as well as twenty questions about local restaurants and their signature dishes.

“Go,” Russell said when Mack looked at him.

“We’re closing early anyway. Take your family to lunch.”

Family.The word used to stick in her throat. They weren’t hers. Not legally or biologically. But damn it, in her heart, in the place that it counted the most, Dottie and Win were the best parents she could have asked for.

“Why don’t you see if your manfriend can join us?” Dottie suggested brightly.

“Linc? Oh, he might be busy.” The plan had been for Mack to have a fun takeout dinner with the Nguyens tonight while Linc worked the night shift. They’d meet him officially tomorrow.

“It sounds like you’re scared to introduce him to us,” Violet mused. “So does that mean you’re ashamed of us or him?”

“It has to be him,” Dottie said, playing along. “We’re amazing.”

They were.