Page 69 of Legally Mine

A muffled, gruff voice sounded from within, and we heard the obvious stomps of Brandon's foster father, Ray. Beside me, Brandon's tall form stiffened.

The door swung open.

"What is it? Oh, Bran!"

We were met by the clearly confused face of Ray, who was dressed nearly the same as the night I met him, nearly four months before, in a pair of practical khaki pants and a plaid, slightly threadbare button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He pushed his frameless glasses up his straight nose and surveyed both Brandon and me as if we were potentially here to burn his house down.

"Hi Ray," Brandon said in a tone I recognized from the last time we saw his foster father: resigned and hopeful all at the same time.

Ray glanced at me. "Who's this?"

I reached out a hand. "Skylar Crosby, sir. We met a few months ago in your office."

Ray screwed up his ungroomed white eyebrows, but clearly had no recollection of the event. Brandon took my extended hand and squeezed. I squeezed back, hoping he'd understand that I didn't take offense. Ray Petersen's opinion of me wasn't really the one that counted anyway.

"We were hoping to crash dinner," Brandon said. "We brought dessert. And some beer if you can hide it from Susan."

Ray screwed his face up again in disapproving glare, but stepped aside and took the paper bag containing the six-pack of PBR Brandon had selected. Brandon set the dessert, a chocolate cream pie, on the small entry table next to the door and turned to help me remove my denim jacket after we entered the house. The room opened into a homely living room lined with bookshelves. A small television set was in one corner, and a burgundy couch faced an unlit fireplace.

"Ray! Who is it?"

A woman's voice floated down a hallway, out of which shone a few lights that, if the smell was any indication, clearly led to a kitchen. A few other darkened doors on the right likely led to bathrooms, closets, maybe an office. The woman appeared in the hallway: short and compact with a navy-blue apron tied around her waist. She caught sight of who had just entered her house, and threw her hands up.

"Brandon!" she cried and raced down the hallway.

Close up, Susan Petersen looked a lot younger than her husband, although some of it might have just been their personalities. With his bright white hair, stodgy glasses, and stooped posture, Ray looked to be well over seventy, maybe even seventy-five. Susan, on the other hand, had an appearance of youth that couldn't just be erased by time alone. Her skin, a tawny color that belied years in the garden, and shoulder-length wavy hair that was still more light-brown than gray, made her look no more than her mid-to-late fifties. She would have strongly resembled a sparrow, chirping down the hall and around her family, had it not been for the clear blue eyes that matched her foster son's. Ray Petersen might have held his foster son at arm's length, but Brandon was clearly the apple of Susan's eye. I was thrilled to see it.

"You," she said fondly as she grabbed Brandon around the middle with a warm embrace.

Brandon smiled and pressed a kiss into Susan's mussed hair, but I could see the mirth in his eyes as he hugged his foster mother. That is, until he looked to Ray, who was staring grimly at the two of them.

"Are you finished?" Ray asked.

I frowned. What a grump.

Susan stepped back, but continued to pat Brandon over the arms and shoulders, even reaching up on her tiptoes to fix his hair where it stuck out from under his backwards bill.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "This is such a surprise!" Then her warm yet sharp glance turned to me, as if she had just realized I was there. "And who do we have here, Bran?"

Brandon turned to me with a grin and pulled me in front of him.

"Susan," he said as he set his hands on my shoulders. "I want you to meet someone really special. This is Skylar Crosby, my girlfriend."

Susan quirked her eyebrows at Brandon, then looked at me with open curiosity.

"Girlfriend?" she repeated with obvious awe. Her infectious grin transformed her face. "Well, well, well. It's very nice to meet you, Skylar. My, you are a lovely little thing, aren't you? Look at all that beautiful hair! Ray, could you imagine if these two had kids? Beautiful, just beautiful."

Blue eyes or green?

I pushed the guilt away and focused on the situation at hand. "It's lovely to meet you as well, Mrs. Petersen," I said.

I reached out to shake her hand, but she pulled me in for a tight hug instead.

"Does your wife know you've got a 'girlfriend'?" Ray asked behind us.

Brandon jerked his head to his foster father. "Really?"

Ray crossed his arms. "Does this one know about the mess you're in right now, Bran? Trying to divorce a woman who won't have it?"

---