Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 14 TESSA

I kiss his face like he’s been gone for a year, and he laughs as he clutches me in his arms. We’re standing in the foyer of our new home, and he just walked in the door about four seconds ago.

“Am I going to be punished, sir?” I ask.

He chuckles as his eyes meet mine. “Do you want to be?”

I squirm a little. “Yes and no. I mean, I’d like to have some fun, too, if you know what I mean.”

“Let’s hope you’re cleared tomorrow at the doctor. And speaking of that, I booked us a chapel at the Venetian for Friday. Does that sound good?” he asks.

“We’re getting married on Friday?” My tone is filled with awe and I’m sure my eyes are dreamy and faraway.

I never thought this moment would come.

He nods. “Should we tell our parents?”

“Let’s have them over for dinner tonight and surprise them,” I suggest.

He nods, and then excitement overtakes me. I kiss him once more before I grab his hand and rush around the house, dragging him into room after room as I show him every last detail and all the work I’ve put in over the last few days along with all the gifts from the baby shower.

The house kept me occupied and quieted my mind from worrying about Stephanie, about Tristan being out of town…about everything.

I take him into the baby’s room last, and I show off the new purple and gray nursery filled with little forest friends. I found a wall decal featuring a tree with lavender and white leaves, and bunnies, foxes, and squirrels run around in the scene beneath it.

It’s perfect. It’s cute while also promoting a sense of adventurous wonder—exactly what I’d want for my sweet little girl.

“This is incredible, Tess,” he murmurs as he looks around the room. He walks over and touches the decal. “I love this.”

I smile proudly upon it. “So do I.”

He walks over and circles his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. “You’re already such a great mother to our baby and she’s not even here yet. How did I get so lucky?”

Tears fill my eyes. We made it through the run of bad luck. It’s our turn for something good now, and I hope and pray we’re through the worst of it and on the other side.

He presses a soft kiss to my collarbone, and I squeeze him. “I’m the lucky one,” I say softly. I don’t need to voice aloud how alone I felt on the drive from Chicago to Fallon Ridge when I first moved back. I was leaving a job I loved, pregnant and alone, to come live with my mother who I’d barely spoken to in the last seven years.

Now my mom and I are closer than ever, my baby has a father, I’ll soon have a husband who happens to be the man of every dream I’ve had since I was twelve, and we own the house on the corner.

It feels like life couldn’t get any more perfect than it is.

And then the doorbell rings.

You know in movies how the doorbell rings and it’s that low-toned sound of doom and gloom?

That’s sort of how it sounds in my mind.

Tristan kisses me once more before running down the stairs to see who it is, and the thought of doom and gloom rings true as Tristan throws the door open to find my half-sister behind it.

I just saw her yesterday at the shower.

Why is she back today?

“Stephanie,” he says quietly. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you’re back from Vegas?” she asks flatly.

“I’m back,” he verifies, and I walk a little more slowly down the steps behind him. “Now’s not a good time.” He offers no other information or excuses, and I wish I could talk to her like that.

“Why not?” she challenges.

“I’m sorry, but it’s personal,” he says. “Thank you for understanding.”

He moves to shut the door, but she’s quick with putting her foot in the doorway so he can’t close it.

“Wait,” she says, and Tristan turns to give me a look that says what the fuck is up with her without actually voicing the words.

“What?” he asks, and he sounds exasperated as he turns back to face her.

“I just want to talk to my sister,” she says.

“ Half -sister,” he corrects, and she rolls her eyes.

“I, uh, didn’t get a chance to chat with her much yesterday, and I just wanted to say what a nice shower it was.”

It feels like something that could’ve been handled with a phone call, but she probably thinks I wouldn’t have picked up if I saw it was her calling.

And she’s probably right to think that.

“What’s up, Stephanie?” I ask, and my voice sounds tired…mainly because I am tired of dealing with her.

“Did you find a scrunchie at your mom’s house? It’s my favorite and I think I dropped it somewhere,” she says.

“You drove all the way from Kewanee to find a scrunchie?” Tristan asks.

I hold back a giggle. “It’s her favorite, Tristan,” I say, coming up to the side of him and lightly knocking my knuckles against his chest. I look at her. “I haven’t seen one, but you’re welcome to mine.” I pull a hair tie off my wrist and get an idea. “See if it fits,” I suggest, and she takes it and slides it onto her wrist.

“Maybe later. Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” she says.

The second her foot is out of the doorway, Tristan slams the door.

“See you around?” he murmurs to me, lacing his arms around my waist. “She lives forty-five minutes away. It’s weird how she keeps showing up,” he says.

“Do you think we should add it to the police report?” I ask.

“It couldn’t hurt.” He lets go of me and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He sends off a text.

“What was that?” I ask.

“I told Walt we have some new information to share with him.” He glances at his phone. “He said he’s driving around, and he’ll be right over.”

Walt shows up as promised two minutes later, and we invite him in.

“Any new details on the case?” Tristan asks, and we take a seat on the new furniture in the front room.

Walt shakes his head. “We haven’t figured out who it is, but what I can tell you is that unless there’s some other crime happening, there’s not much we can do. Online impersonation happens all the time, and while it’s terrible you’re being targeted, there’s not really anything illegal about it.”

“Even if she’s making money off it?” Tristan asks.

He shrugs. “If she’s doing anything to make Tessa liable in court or something that might cause her to pay money, then we could pursue false impersonation. But there’s little else to go on.”

“What if the person I think is doing it is also stalking me?” I ask.

Tristan’s brows dip. “You think she’s stalking you?”

I shrug. “She shows up all the time uninvited. She knows things about me…and her Instagram…”

“Stalking is a crime when you feel threatened by her,” Walt says. “Who is it?”

“It’s my half-sister,” I say. “I just met her when my father died, and I think she has become obsessed with me.”

“Obsessed how?” Walt asks.

“She’s mentioned a few times to me how I have everything, and she seems to think she has nothing.” I shrug as I start to question whether I’m going a little crazy—whether I’m being too hard on her. “She seems harmless enough, but I don’t really know her. She’s just very interested in everything I do.”

He nods. “Give me her name and I can look into her as a person of interest.”

“Stephanie Taylor. She lives in Kewanee, Illinois.”

“The tattoo,” Tristan says.

“Oh,” I say. “Right. We saw the edge of a tattoo in one of the videos, but I don’t know if Stephanie has one or not.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Walt says. He flips open a notepad and jots some things down, and then he sticks it in his pocket and stands. “You two have a great day.”

“Thanks, Walt,” I say as we walk him to the door.

I feel better having him on our side, like he’ll figure out a solution here so this weirdness with Stephanie will stop.

I don’t know how else to get her out of my life, and the more I interact with her, the more certain I am that I need to figure it out.