The Abbott brothers occupy my thoughts all the next day — along with other weighty considerations. I’m looking forward to seeing them Christmas night, but by the time I get off work, that feels too far away. At home, I message Deke: You said you had a toy drive?

Yeah, comes the answer. We’ve had collection spots going all month and now it’s time to round them all up and deliver them to the agency we’re working with.

Cool. Need a hand? I think I’m strong enough to lift toys.

Be pleased to have you along. Are you home?

Yeah.

Pick you up in 10.

I race around, changing out of my work clothes and into jeans and my low-cut boots and a long-sleeved sweater. Ten minutes later, I’m out the door and in Deke’s pickup.

Before I can get my seatbelt fastened, he tugs me across the seat and kisses me hello. By the time he’s done, my brain is melting, along with other parts of me. “Hi,” I say, in a soft, husky voice.

“Hi.” Deke’s voice is deep, and rough, in a way that’s become very familiar, and makes me even wetter than I already was. I squirm a little as I get my seatbelt fastened, and of course he notices.

“This won’t take too long, darlin’.” He puts the truck in gear and sets off. “Maybe an hour or two.”

And then we’ll be free to move on to our own agenda. “Okay.” My voice still sounds like sex.

“Clear your throat, babe, or we’ll be making an unscheduled stop at the side of the road.”

Under other circumstances, I might encourage that — but leaving kids waiting for their toys would be seriously uncool. I clear my throat several times, loudly. Deke doesn’t say anything, but when I look at him he’s smiling.

When we reach our first stop, Hook and Blue are there, along with some other Brimstone Friars members. We get waves and greetings as we jump down. “Hey, Stinger. Hey, Tara.”

“Hey, guys.” They’re all friendly, in an everyday kind of way — not like they’re making an effort to be nice to me, but like I’ve already been accepted. It leaves me with a warm glow that I hadn’t expected.

The same thing happens with the club members every place we stop. We all work amiably together to get the toys loaded in the Friars’ pickups. At one of the stops, I think I see Angel, lurking in the shadows with two men. But when I squint and look again, there’s no sign of them.

As I put the last toy, at the final stop, in the back of Deke’s truck, it strikes me that this kind of togetherness is just as much a family activity as me making cookies with my mom and sister. Except for Kendra, though, I can’t see any of my blood relations doing anything like this. Maybe they’d write a check, if someone asked. But they wouldn’t want to get their hands dirty.

Which leads me back to where my thoughts have been all day today.

For weeks now, my job — my intended career — has seemed less and less real, less worthwhile. If I’m honest, I had doubts even before I met the Abbott brothers, but my concerns have multiplied since then. I’ve just been too busy, between work and classes and hot motorcycle-riding twins, to give it space in my head.

Risk assessment takes a lot of training and working your way up the ladder, but once you’re there it pays well. It’s the kind of career my father can endorse: stable, prestigious, and upwardly mobile.

In the wake of last night’s party, with its revelations and world-shaking confrontations, I’ve been asking myself all day why I chose this path. It’s not that I’m not good at it. But is it really what I love, or am I trying, yet again, to win my father’s attention and approval?

I think I know the answer. But I also know that following my heart — in any of the directions it’s leading — will cause a much bigger commotion in my family than Kendra’s hair.

* * *

My sense of alienation — from my family, my work, and everything they stand for — only grows over the next two days. Now that I’ve stopped pretending, it’s painful to listen to endless conversations about golf scores and stock reports.

Not that there’s anything wrong with either one of those things. But they’re not all that matters. Real people, real problems, don’t seem to have any place in my family’s world.

Kendra, at least, is my silent ally. She’s already on the same page. Whenever possible, we slip away from the rest of the family for sister time.

I’m amazed, and impressed, that her head is screwed on as straight as it is, and I tell her so. “You helped with that,” she tells me while we’re sequestered in her bedroom, doing last-minute gift-wrapping.

“I did?”

“Well … not intentionally.” The smile she gives me is a little sad, a little tentative, as if she’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for me to push her away and go back to being the obedient daughter.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when you were in junior high, and you and Megan and Zoe used to do all that crazy stuff?”

I smile wistfully. “Yeah.”

“You were my role model. That’s who I wanted to be when I got big.”

I go still. “Kay-Kay … we were just kids.”

“Don’t tell me you grew up,” she says with sudden fierceness. “I was only five, Tara, but I know. You were happy then. And then … it was like your light went out.”

Oh my god. I stare at her, stunned into silence. Have I really changed that much?

I still have my besties. We still laugh together. But when was the last time we had an adventure?

Kendra’s right; I thought of it as growing up, as just the way life is. You have to leave your carefree days behind and settle down to the drudgery of adult life.

Like my father did. And my mother.

Holy crap.

Reaching out, I hook an arm around Kendra and pull her close. “I think you just saved my life.”

The look she gives me is full of sisterly confidence. “You’ll save your own life.”

“Yeah, I will.” I hug her tighter. “But you helped.”

We go back to wrapping, but my mind is a whirl. Megan and Zoe have new adventures now, with their men.

Maybe I can have mine too.

* * *

At Christmas dinner, though, I get my chance — and chicken out. “How’s your MBA program going, Tara?” my uncle asks.

“Fine.”

“How much longer?”

“Well, it’s part-time, so I can keep working, so ... another three years.” Which suddenly sounds like an eternity.

“But she’ll be perfectly positioned when it’s done, for risk assessment at any good-sized company. Maybe even mine.” My father beams at me. “In five years, she’ll be pulling down a top-flight salary.”

I stare at my plate, pick at my food, and don’t say a word.

Kendra’s right — again. My light’s gone out, and I was so busy trying to be the perfect daughter I never even knew it.