But the person who makes me look their way twice just so happens to look suspiciously like yours truly. I frown slightly as my own face stares back at me. The hair is darker, but that woman is a dead ringer for me.
That woman would be Carlotta—Charlie Sawyer, my sister via my birth mother who, yes, also happens to be named Carlotta. Fun fact: My formal moniker is Carlotta as well, and I’ve passed along the carnage to my poor sweet daughter—even though she’ll forever go by Lyla Nell.
Charlie has only been in my life for one week—or at least officially. I haven’t really seen her since the big reveal. But prior to that, she was becoming pretty proficient at stalking me. Nevertheless, a week has whirled by since our formal meet and greet. Every time I tried to get together with her she had somewhere she needed to be. Truthfully, I’m shocked she showed up for my baby girl’s christening this afternoon.
“Lottie?” Pastor Dave leans my way with those dark chocolate eyes of his. “I’m afraid you didn’t hear me.” He looks to the crowd. “A touch of stage fright, I’m assuming.”
The audience breaks out into titters on behalf of my nonexistent jangled nerves. Okay, so I’m a little nervous, but that’s only because I’m not comfortable having a spotlight on me—and the two men I’ll be raising Lyla Nell with. Believe me, I’m well aware of how this must look—to a room full of God-fearing people no less.
Pastor Dave nods my way. “Go ahead and introduce the gentlemen standing beside you.”
“We all know who they are,” a female voice chirps from the back. “Hot Judge and Hot Cop!”
A few catcalls erupt from the teen section, and I spot Evie sinking in her seat and rolling her eyes. Evie—Everly Baxter is a knockout, and she just so happens to be a knockoff of her father with the same jet-black hair and cobalt blue eyes. Evie is as smart as she is gorgeous, and she’s already giving Everett and me a run for our money in the parenting department.
That whole hot judge, hot cop thing is sort of her fault to begin with. A few months back, she accidentally published a torrid picture of Everett and me on her social media site, and both she and her BFF thought they could fix the nightmare by adding the hashtag hot judge. Noah sort of earned hot cop on his own.
“Right.” I clear my throat as I look to Everett. “First, I’d like to introduce you all to my husband, and Lyla Nell’s father, Judge Essex Everett Baxter.”
Everett nods my way before kissing me on the lips and dropping a kiss to Lyla Nell’s forehead as well.
“Hot Judge!” someone shouts from the back.
Lord knows they’re not wrong.
“Oh God!” a woman wails from the middle of the room somewhere, and she sounds as if she’s about to faint. Not an entirely unheard-of phenomenon when Everett is involved. It’s happened to women before in his presence.
A robust applause breaks out from those same single women looking to mingle in his honor—and more to the point, with His Honor.
I can’t blame them. Everett is tall and obscenely handsome with the aforementioned jet-black hair and cobalt blue eyes. His features are exceptionally comely, and his body is made of granite and put together in exactly the right way. He exudes monstrous levels of testosterone and manages to turn the head of every woman in a ten-mile radius no matter where he goes. I’ve even seen a few women drop to their knees in his majestic presence. He’s as serious as the sun is hot—ironically, he’s twice as hot as the sun—and he rarely ever smiles.
“And to my left…” I say while bouncing Lyla Nell in that direction and she squeals, eliciting her deep dimples to sink in with her smile. Lyla Nell has dark hair that turns red at the tips and brilliant green eyes—just like her daddy. “This is Homicide Detective Noah Corbin Fox, Lyla Nell’s father as well.”
I would have included the fact he was her biological father, but it sounds so cold. And the reason it sounds so cold to me is that’s how I’ve introduced my own biological mother, Carlotta, to the world ever since she’s come back into my life just a few years ago. And seeing that she abandoned me on the cold floor of the Honey Hollow Fire Department when I was an infant, I’ve never had a problem with the icy intro.
“Hot Cop!” someone shouts as the room breaks out into another applause, this time just for Noah.
I can’t blame them for that, either.
Noah, too, is tall, handsome to a fault, and just like Lyla Nell, has dark hair that turns red at the tips, deep dimples, and eyes the exact color of a fresh cut lawn in springtime.
The double doors in the back of the sanctuary snag my attention as something scurries across the floor of the foyer and quickly zips right out of my line of vision. It looked furry, with a black and white coat, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a skunk.
My Lord up in heaven… Was that a skunk? My heart thumps hard at the thought of a skunk, of all things, bolting into the sanctuary and stinking up my baby dedication—quite literally. Trust me when I say, I’ve envisioned the things that could go wrong while we were up here, twelve ways to Sunday—again quite literally.
Noah offers a dimpled grin my way before kissing me on the cheek, then kissing Lyla Nell as well, and half the crowd coos, and the other half gasps at the sight.
“Oh, it’s okay.” I’m quick to offer up some comfort to those who appear to be dismayed. “Noah and I kiss all the time.”
Another round
