“No,” I said, reaching out to take her hand. “I’m glad for you both.”

“Well!” Mrs. Hartwell, who’d been standing in the corner watching my little family drama unfold before her like it was a reality show, clapped her hands in delight. “Isn’t this wonderful? I’d say it calls for a celebration!”

Drew squeezed my shoulders. “It sure does! How about some tequila?”

Grimacing, I elbowed him in the ribs.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Drew,” his aunt said. “I meant lunch. My husband and niece are down at our restaurant serving free food to this entire island, practically, and other restaurants have joined us in donating their food, as well, to serve before it spoils. Would any of you like to meet me down there, to share a meal? They’ve cleared our street, so I’d be happy to take you in our minivan.”

I glanced at my mother to see her reaction, since she had never set foot in a minivan in her life.

“Why, I think that would be lovely,” she said. “We’d be happy to, wouldn’t we, Steen?”

“I’m starving,” Steen said, finally putting away his phone. “I’d love it.”

“I’d be happy to come.” Dr. Svenson gently pushed Gary from her lap—though he protested quite vocally—and rose to her feet. “So long as they have vegetarian options.”

“They will,” I assured her.

“Well.” Mrs. Hartwell beamed. “Let’s go, then! Let me just go find my purse.”

She hustled back toward the kitchen, while Drew tugged on my hand and pulled me out into the hallway.

“What?” I asked as he pressed me up against the wall, out of sight of the others.

“Nothing.” He swept a few loose strands of hair from my face, then leaned down to kiss me. As usual, it felt as if fireworks were going off inside my body. “Just, I get it, now.”

“Get what?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him some more.

“Why you are the way you are—completely insane.”

“Thanks for the compliment. What explanation do we have for why you’re the way you are?”

“You mean so kind, sweet, and handsome?”

“I mean such a raving lunatic.”

“Oh, I was dropped on my head frequently as a child.”

“Yeah,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the feel of his long, hard body as it pressed me against the wall. “I can tell.”

“After lunch, and when we get all the rest of those damned animals fed, can I take you back to my place and ravage you again?”

“I was counting on it.”

“What about your mothers?”

“Don’t invite them.”

“Okay, good.” He kissed me again, then nibbled on my lower lip. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

There was a cough from the hallway, and we turned our heads to see my two mothers, Steen, and Drew’s aunt staring at us.

“Um,” Mrs. Hartwell said. “We’re ready to go if you two are.”

Drew and I burst out laughing.

Epilogue

Four Months Later

Time: 8:22 P.M.

Temperature: 72ºF

Wind Speed: 5 MPH

Wind Gust: 0 MPH

Precipitation: 0.0 in.

The Mermaid was lit up for the holidays.

Christmas lights of every color imaginable had been strung not only around the windows and doors, but all across the ceiling, in and around the mermaid Barbies, and especially around the counter and serving pass-through, too.

The place was packed, even though it was only a Thursday night . . . but it was the Thursday night before Christmas, and Little Bridge was stuffed near to bursting with visitors from the mainland, anxious to escape the winter cold up north. The Little Bridge tourist council had worked overtime to advertise the fact that the island had fully recovered from Hurricane Marilyn and was ready to take the vacation dollars of anyone willing to spend their winter break in the Florida Keys.

And it had worked. There was not a single vacancy to be found in any hotel on the island. Even the RV park was packed.

And I was loving every minute of it.

“How’s it going?” Drew asked as I flitted past his counter stool for a third time in as many minutes.

“Um, kind of weird. I just sold another one.”

He lifted his beer. “Why is that weird? I’m not the type to say I told you so—”

“Except you so are.”

“—but I told you so. You should have priced them higher.”

I collapsed onto the stool next to his—the only reason it was empty was because he was guarding it. Otherwise, it would have been filled in a second, the place was so packed with happy revelers.

And the only reason I could sit without Ed yelling at me was because I wasn’t working at the Mermaid.

Oh, I hadn’t given up my breakfast shift. Angela and I still toiled away every Tuesday through Saturday from six in the morning until two in the afternoon—although school had started, so Nevaeh had joined her fellow tenth-graders in class. I only saw her when I went to the Hartwells’, or when she filled an occasional shift.

I was at the Mermaid tonight not to work, but because it was a special occasion—the café’s very first art opening. And the art was mine.

And it was selling.

Probably a little too quickly. Drew was right, I’d priced my paintings too low. Since they were small and therefore, as he’d suggested, highly portable in a carry-on bag, and also depicted exactly what tourists—and let’s face it, all the rest of us—loved so much about Little Bridge, the beautiful wide blue sea and colorfully clouded skies, they were selling fast.

This was an ego boost, certainly.

But it was also confirmation of something my donor mom had told me—we emailed occasionally. Not too much, since she really wasn’t, as she’d said, the maternal type. She was simply a nice friend to have, who knew a lot about the kinds of things I was interested in, like one half of my genetic history, animals, and art:

“Find what it is you love to do,” she’d advised, “and then do that thing as much as you can. . . . That really is the meaning of life. I love to paint, too, but I wouldn’t like to make a living at it. I think that might spoil my love for it. But if that interests you, you should go for it.”

Now someone told me.

Not that I didn’t still appreciate my birth mother. I spoke to her on the phone practically every day. She’d planned on being here, in fact, for my first “gallery” opening, but a nor’easter in the New York area had prevented her plane from taking off.

I was secretly a little glad. I had enough to worry about without entertaining Judge Justine for the holiday weekend.

“Seven.” I held up my fingers to show Drew how many paintings I’d sold. “I’ve sold seven already, and it’s not even eight o’clock.”

“See?” He grinned with happiness for me. “Aren’t you glad you held some back? I bet if you took the rest to a real gallery, you’d make even more—”

I waved a hand to silence him. “Shush. I’m not trying to make a career out of this yet. I just want to have fun with it for now.”