Page 81 of Small-Town Secrets

Laurence dug a few picture frames out of the bag. "We need to hang these."

"Where would you like to hang them?"

"Everywhere." Laurence shot me a grin. "But I think we should start with the family room."

"Great idea," I said, smiling back at him. The family room was absolutely where these pictures should hang.

"C'mon." Picture frame in hand, Laurence took my arm and dragged me into the family room. "Find a good place for it," he said, pointing at the wall.

A good place... I studied the pictures on the wall for a second. There was a gap between a picture of my brother and I at a football game with my dad and another picture that showed my mom decorating a Christmas tree. "I think it should go here. Let me just get a hammer and nail from the garage."

"I can do that."

As Laurence left the room, the twins poked their heads inside, and with them, the dogs.

"What are you doing?" Chris asked.

"I was about to hang a picture." I showed it to them.

"That's us!" Tyler noticed.

"Yeah, it's you."

"When we were babies."

I had to laugh at that. They weren't babies in the picture. They must have been three or four years old already. In the picture, they were standing at a beach, one of them waving at the camera and the other one looking at a seashell in fascination. I had to get Laurence to tell me who was who later, although I thought I had a pretty good idea.

"You're going to put it on the wall?" Chris asked.

"Yup."

"Where did you get it?"

"Howard gave it to me."

Chris squinted at me. "He did?"

"Sometimes all you gotta do is ask nicely."

My son didn't seem convinced, but he nodded anyway. "I bet Daddy's happy."

"I think he is." I ruffled Chris' hair and smiled at Laurence as he came back into the room to hand me the nail and hammer.

"There you go."

I turned to the wall again to hang the picture. Then I took a step back to look at it.

"It's perfect," Laurence said. When I shifted my attention back to him, he was holding Casanova in his arms and I got the feeling he was talking about more than just the picture—and he was right too. I glanced at the twins—who were starting to play-fight each other on the mats I'd put down for our karate sessions and then I let my gaze sweep over the assortment of toys they'd left lying around in a corner next to a chew toy that Sarge or Casanova must have contributed to the collection. Laurence had warned me that the children's tendency not to clean up after themselves would irritate me, but he was wrong. I kind of loved what I was seeing.

This room finally had some life in it again, and not just this room. This whole house.

I had a family now, and I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to make them as happy as they made me.

Epilogue

LAURENCE

2 months later