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"Maybe we should show them your pilot project."
Would that appease my mother? Probably not, but it might distract her for a while. My mom wasn't an evil queen, but I knew she'd keep up the act for as long as possible to see how Heidi reacted.
"Okay," I said, "let's do it."
Heidi kissed my cheek.
Mom raked her assessing gaze over Heidi from head to toe. "Is her dress on backwards?"
I probably growled. "Mom, cut it out."
Heidi's dress was wrinkled and not exactly on straight, but it wasn't backwards.
My mother harrumphed, but then something past my shoulder caught her attention. Her expression brightened. "There's my darling Ollie. I have to say hello to that dear boy.Scuze."
She marched toward Ollie with Dad trailing after her.
"Don't worry about Mom," Stefan said to Heidi. "She's testing you, that's all. As long as you don't run away screaming or whack her with a baseball bat, you'll do fine."
"Thanks," Heidi said, sounding less than convinced.
"Ignore my brother," I said. "He's on strong meds to keep him from seeing leprechauns under every tree."
"Not leprechauns," Stefan said. "Vampires. I have erotic hallucinations about a sexy female vamp sucking on my…" He glanced down at his groin. "Neck."
"I don't think your 'neck' is big enough for anybody to suck on it."
Stefan threw an arm around his wife and hugged her close. "Oh wait, it wasn't a vampire. It's Emily who likes to sink her teeth into me."
Heidi smiled and laughed. "Guess naughtiness runs in the family, huh?"
I glanced at Mom and Ollie to see her holding his head with both hands and kissing his cheeks. Dad slapped Ollie's arm. Mom dragged Mara into a bear hug, then performed some kind of made-up gypsy blessing by waving her hands and tipping her head up.
Yeah, Mom loved to do that. It was part of her "Ileana the Gypsy Queen" act. Why she needed a stage name, I had no idea. When I was ten, I asked her. She told me she was "building the fantasy" for the neighbors and other people who asked her to entertain them at parties.
And people thought I was a show-off.
Well, I must have inherited it from Mom.
My parents came back over to us, and I led them all into the guest house to show them their rooms. Heidi rushed off to change clothes, but when she rejoined us, she stayed right by my side and didn't seem disquieted at all by my mom's antics.
Since her change of heart happened after we had sex, I could've convinced myself I was just that good in bed. Sure, I was good. But sex with me had never cured a woman of her insecurities. The first time I'd met Heidi, she had been a vivacious, carefree girl who loved to go nude and play miniten. Then she'd embarrassed herself with Ollie and, combined with all the times she'd forgiven her cheating ass of an ex, she'd lost her self-confidence.
Maybe screwing me hadn't cured her, but the time we'd spent getting to know each other must have played a part in her ongoing transformation. It was more like a return to her true self. She didn't need to change, just to get back to that carefree, fun girl she'd once been.
After my family got settled in, Heidi and I took them out to the pilot project. While we petted the horses and talked about my plans for horseback nature tours, Mom gradually let go of her haughty act and turned back into a semi-normal person. Like me, she could never quite be normal—and like me, she didn't want to be. But Mom started smiling and joking with the rest of us, so I knew she wouldn't harass Heidi too much more.
My family might have surprised me with their visit and their early arrival, but nobody surprised me more than Heidi. When Georgie nuzzled her cheek, she not only didn't freak, but she kissed his nose too and scratched under his chin. She also started a conversation with my mother, and they talked about everything from horses to palm reading to embarrassing stories from my childhood. Heidi told her own childhood stories, but she left out the stuff about her parents being such dicks.
I didn't blame her for omitting that.
Not once did Heidi seem anxious. I hadn't seen her this relaxed and outgoing since that day months ago when I'd first seen her.
Watching Heidi with my family, I got a strange pain in my chest. Her eyes sparkled in the sun, and whenever she smiled, I swore the entire world got brighter. I wanted to pull her into my arms and just hold her.
Was I falling for Heidi Mackenzie? I didn't know, but the idea that I might have been didn't bother me at all.
Chapter Nineteen
