An Unlikely Hero (1) Read Free

love you too!” He stole a kiss then ran down the hall to his room.
    Picking a towel up off the floor, Tessa caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Not bad, she thought. Her shoulder length blond hair had curled up enough to give it body and even in this light she could tell it was shiny. Although applied lightly, her makeup was flawless, giving her complexion a healthy glow. Maybe she wasn’t so old after all. Most people didn’t guess she was on the upside of thirty-five. The youthfulness in her appearance kept people imagining that she must have been a young bride and started on a family rather early. Tessa never bothered to tell them otherwise. Forty was beginning to loom on the horizon. Blessed with a cosmetic edge, Tessa wasn’t about to surrender without a fight.
    Pulling back her shoulders, Tessa sucked in her stomach as long as she could, hoping the extra pounds would melt away. When the air gushed out of her mouth, the stomach reappeared.
    “Mommy! Mommy!” Heather’s hysterical bird-like voice rose above the patter of her little sock feet in the hall. Tessa stepped out of the bathroom just in time for Heather to collide into her legs. She encircled her mother’s legs and held tightly. “A long star just fell into the backyard! I promise!” Her little curly head looked up at Tessa, eyes wide with wonder and fear. “I amn’t telling’ a story either, Mommy!” Heather squeezed her mother again and laid her soft cheek firmly against Tessa. Tessa couldn’t help but smile at the invented word “amn’t”. She and Robert never allowed the word “ain’t” so Heather had invented a word to replace “am not” by using “amn’t”. It was too adorable to correct. Then there were the imaginative stories she liked to create like a star falling in their backyard.
    Tessa gently touched her precious baby on the head and paused long enough to feel the softness of Heather’s long reddish brown hair. None of her children looked like her. She thought all her children would be blond and blue eyed, but they had taken the dark good looks of their father. “Did you make a wish? When you see a falling star you can.”
    The little girl’s body relaxed as she grabbed Tessa’s hand and pulled her toward her bedroom. “I get a wish? Come help me!” She began to hop and twist to the point that Tessa could hardly keep from tripping.
    “Everything alright, Tessa?” Robert and Mr. Feldspar had come inside to sit at the kitchen table to escape buzzing mosquitoes. They were already making progress on their T-bone steaks and adding butter with ranch dressing to their potatoes.
    “I had to help Heather make a wish on a falling star. Saw one fall in the backyard, she said.” Tessa couldn’t help but smile at Heather’s insistence. “I don’t guess you saw anything before attacking those steaks.”
    The men chuckled and the meal progressed leisurely without any more interruptions. The children were soon asleep and Mr. Feldspar didn’t stay long after dinner, saying he still had some work to do back at the hotel before turning in for the night. He thanked the Scotts for their hospitality and took his leave.
    Robert helped Tessa clear the table while chatting about the account that Mr. Feldspar would be bringing to the law firm where he’d been made a partner. It was obvious from Tessa’s quiet, cool demeanor that she was going to sulk until he apologized again and focused on how special she was to him.
    “I love you, Tessa.” Robert tried to slip an arm around his wife but she dodged him and began wiping off the table.
    “You love what I can do for you, Robert. When you love someone you see them for what they are all the time. To you I’m a playmate for the kids, and someone to cook your meals and entertain your clients, and of course, have sex with you when you want!” Tessa said sadly.
    “That’s not true,” Robert snapped, offended that maybe she’d been partially correct and thrown it in his face.