She waved a hand. “Whatever.”
Taking a deep breath, Micah slowly counted to three. He loved his niece, but there were times when she truly tested his patience. “Tessa, I would like to introduce you to my father, Edgar Sanborn, aka chef and Grandpa.”
Edgar deftly slipped three pancakes off a stove-top griddle and slipped them onto a platter. He winked at Tessa, his dark eyes sparkling like polished onyx. “Welcome, Tessa. I’d shake your hand, but that would be a little risky with this wild bunch.”
She smiled at the man who bore an uncanny resemblance to one of Hollywood’s late great leading men, Clark Gable. “I understand,” she said. “It’s nice meeting you.”
Micah pointed to his redheaded sister-in-law. “This is Melinda, but everyone calls her Lindy. Standing behind her is my brother, William. Will and Lindy are the parents of my bottomless-pit nephews, Isaac and Jacob, and my niece, la princesa, Marisol.”
Marisol affected a curtsy with Micah’s compliment. Tessa acknowledged William and Lindy with a warm smile. “You have a beautiful family.” The twins looked like their mother, and Marisol had inherited her father’s rich olive-brown coloring and raven-black hair.
Bending down, Micah scooped up the toddler whose intent was to make as much noise as she could when she pounded a pot with a wooden spoon. Her sandy-brown hair, braided in cornrows, resembled orange sections, and the braids, held together with a length of red ribbon, looked like a stem.
“This future percussionist and indisputable boss of her family is Kimika.” The chubby little girl squirmed, holding her arms out to her mother, who’d affected a similar hairstyle. “Kimmie belongs to my brother Abram and my sister-in-law Ruby.”
Abram, who claimed the height and girth of a football linebacker, looped an arm around his petite wife’s waist and pressed a kiss on her braided hair. His clean-shaven dark brown head gleamed like polished teak.
Abram winked at Tessa. “I think I can speak for everyone else in the family, but I hope you have the patience of Job. Dealing with our little sister is certainly going to try your soul.”
Edgar, using a pair of tongs to remove strips of crisp bacon from the heated griddle, shot his youngest son a warning look. “Watch it, son. You’re talking about my princess.”
“Dad, you know your princess is spoiled rotten.”
“And you’re not, mama’s boy?” Edgar teased.
“Edgar, please,” Rosalind said softly, blushing. “We have company.” Her husband had accused her of spoiling Abram, while she’d blamed him for indulging their only daughter’s every whim.
Micah’s hand cradled the small of Tessa’s back. “Let me show you where you can wash up before we sit down to eat.”
Tessa stood in an all-white bathroom with pale blue accents, next to Micah at twin blue-veined pedestal sinks, washing her hands. She met his amused gaze in the mirror. He’d taken off his cap and placed it on a table with a half dozen others bearing the logos of baseball and football teams.
“What’s so funny, Micah?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Go ahead and say it.”
She smiled. “Say what?”
“That my family is a little off the chain.”
“They appear quite normal to me.”
“Didn’t you notice something that was just a bit unconventional?”
“By unconventional do you mean that the Sanborns are a multiracial family?”
Reaching for a towel on a stack on a low table, Micah handed it to Tessa. “Yes.”
“Your family is anything but unconventional, Micah. I’ve interacted with families with two mommies or two daddies, transgender, families where the bride and groom are visually-or hearing-impaired and I’m forced to bring in someone fluent in Braille or American Sign Language. That’s what I’d consider unconventional. My focus will be on the bride, the groom and the mother of the bride. And if Bridget and Seth want a traditional interfaith ceremony wedding, then there are certain customs and traditions they have to follow.”
Micah dried his hands as he watched Tessa’s reflection in the mirror. The more sedate hairstyle displayed her features to their best advantage, but he much preferred seeing her hair loose and framing her face in sensual disarray.
“When my brothers got married, all I had to do was put on a tuxedo and show up.”
“You’ve never been a best man?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been a witness a few times but never a best man. What about you, Tessa? Have you ever been a bride?”
She met his steady gaze in the glass. “No.”
“Have you come close?”
“No. What about you, Micah?” she asked, shifting the focus from herself to him. “Were you ever married?
“No, and I’ve never come close.”
“Do you like women?”
Her query must have startled him, because he went completely still. The frown lines that appeared between his eyes were replaced with a knowing smile. Resting a thigh against the pedestal sink, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You think because we slept together and I didn’t touch you that I’m not into women?”
Tessa blushed, the color temporarily concealing the spray of freckles across her velvety cheeks. “This is not about me.”
His smile widened. “Isn’t it, Tessa?”
“No. It’s about you, Micah.”
“What about me?”
“I’ve come into contact with together sisters every time I coordinate a wedding. Bridesmaids and maids of honor looking for a together brother like you. But when they do marry, it is to settle because they don’t want to be alone and they don’t want to become just a baby mama.”
Micah angled his head. “By settle you mean they marry brothers who don’t come correct?”
“Yes. The men they marry don’t measure up, will never measure and have no intention of ever measuring up. Instead of becoming a partner, she’s thrust into the role of working overtime emotionally to make her marriage a success.”
Micah had lost track of the number of times he’d overheard black women complain about not being able to find a “good black man.” He’d worked and gone to school with good black men. His brothers were good black men, loving husbands and protective fathers.
“Thank you for the backhanded compliment, Tessa. But, unlike Will and Bram, I’m not the marrying kind.”
“You don’t believe in marriage?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in marriage. In fact, I believe it’s a very important
