Page 130 of Recipe for Rivals

Alice vehemently shook her head, even though I’d felt the squeeze of her hand and heard her scream during the ride. “Please?”

“Okay.” It took a minute to locate Dusty and Ben and reach them in the line. When I saw them, my heart did a little leap.

“Any luck?” Dusty murmured, taking my hand and pulling me to his side.

My arms went lightly around his waist. “No cat costumes,but I found out where we can look later. Alice got something else, instead.”

“I want to do it!” Alice said, bouncing on her toes.

I stepped back, sliding my backpack around and opening the zipper. I pulled out the bagged toy and gave it to her, which she promptly stuck behind her back. The bag showed easily, but Ben was too distracted by the animatronic BB-8 up on the platform to notice.

“Ben,” she said. “Ben!”

He turned. “What?”

“I got something for you.” She bounced on her toes.

Dusty took the backpack from my hands and slung it over his shoulder, then his arm went around my waist.

“What?” Ben asked again.

Alice took the bag from behind her back and thrust it at him. He took it, pulling the Chewbacca figurine out and gasping. His eyes went straight to me. “It’s just like my old one!”

“What do you say?” I prompted him.

“Thanks, Alice,” he said, but he was already trying to get it from the packaging.

She beamed.

“That was sweet,” Dusty said.

“It was all her idea.”

“Now I havetwo!” Ben shouted.

We nudged him to keep walking, since the line had started to move again. At least Alice knew better than to somersault here.

Dusty helped Ben get all the packaging off the toy and put it in the backpack to throw away later. Ben and Alice found a way to entertain themselves with Peaches and Chewie, so I leaned my head against Dusty’s shoulder and watched.

“I just thought up a new recipe,” I said.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Happiness: take one family, tie them together with love andvows, and send them on a trip to geek out to science fiction and princesses.”

Dusty pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You forgot Peaches. She’s utterly essential.”

“Oh right. Don’t forget to mix in a little stuffed monkey, a plastic Chewbacca, a cat, a half-brother and, someday soon, another little baby.”

He grinned. “Very soon, I hope.”

“We can only hope,” I agreed.

“Alice needs someone to teach all those new gymnastics moves to,” Dusty said. “I tried to do the back walkover with her last week and thought I was going to put my back out.”

“Better leave those to the seven-year-olds.” I leaned up and kissed him, but I knew my words would go in one ear and out the other. Dusty would do anything for Alice. She had well and truly taken his heart. He was a prime example of what I’d tried to explain to Ben all those months ago—love doesn’t divide, it grows.

Our little family was proof of that.

“Love you,” I whispered, moving ahead with him in the line again.

We stopped with the crowd.

“Love you too,” he said, pressing a sweet kiss to my lips, which was promptly interrupted by Ben and Alice bickering over who got to stand in the front for our family.

Like all things, it had a way of working itself out.

And, because I love my husband, after a break to check out theToy Storyrides, we got in line for Rise of the Resistance a third time that day.