Chapter One

Savannah moaned as her body slipped into the cool blue water of her swimming pool. Her skin practically sizzled as the water ran off her arms and the feeling of her body being supported by the water felt like heaven. She allowed herself to float on her back; the sudden silence as her ears were submerged in the pool was immensely peaceful. She closed her eyes behind her sunglasses and a small smile spread across her lips.

She'd only been back in the country for less than a week and she found she both grieved the loss of the vacation and craved the new beginning being home represented. The vacation had, after all, been her honeymoon: three glorious weeks tucked away on an island paradise, with no one but her love; her sweet son stashed with his nanny in the next door villa.

There'd been time, finally, for true relaxation after a truly overwhelming couple of years of incessant touring, wedding planning, and what felt like several huge life events. They'd drank endless mocktails, lazed under palm trees, splashed beneath pristine waterfalls, gazed at every sunset, made love until Savannah had felt drunk with it. She had never been happier.

Except, perhaps now, back in their home, rested, and ready to start the rest of their lives. Ready once more, to work. Despite the water muffling her ears, Savannah heard quiet laughter above her and she let her feet drop down to tread water.

"Yes?" she enquired, turning to face the tall brunette standing poolside. Brynn Marshall - her wife, Savannah would never tire of that word - was trying and failing to bite back a grin as she surveyed her.

"Nothing," Brynn denied. "Just enjoying the view." She sat down on the edge of the pool. She wore a pair of distractingly small shorts and her long tanned legs dangled in the cold water. Savannah's eyes narrowed as she swam slowly toward her.

"Are you laughing because I look like an escaped blimp from that angle?" she demanded. Brynn shook her head, amusement sparkling off her.

"Never." She wriggled her toes in the water. "Maybe like a series of mountain ranges," she admitted, then gasped as Savannah splashed her in retaliation.

Savannah grabbed her legs, wondering if she could pull her into the pool, but Brynn was immoveable. She leaned down as far as she could to kiss Savannah, her mouth warm, her hands firm as they slipped into her hair. A bolt of heat raced through her, remembering the delicious indulgence of their honeymoon, and she bit down demandingly on Brynn's plump lower lip.

"Mmm." Brynn smirked down at her, seeing exactly what was going through her mind. "Are all pregnant women this wildly horny all the time?" she mused. "Because if so, I really erred not dating more of them in my life."

Savannah flicked more water at her.

"Shut up and come meet me in the bedroom," she murmured, and Brynn bit her own lip.

"Oh, you're on," she said softly. Savannah was making her way toward the pool steps when Annabelle, their housekeeper, appeared. She gave Savannah a quick, unreadable glance and approached Brynn instead, speaking in a low tone. Brynn also glanced at Savannah and then replied to Annabelle, all just out of earshot.

"Give me five minutes?" she told Savannah, who'd only just struggled to the top step. She frowned, disapproving of anything that was going to distract her wife right when she'd been imagining her soft lips on her skin and her strong fingers…hmm, Savannah caught herself. Pregnancy really was a whole thing.

Brynn reluctantly followed Annabelle across the courtyard and into the house. She'd left Savannah glowing in the afternoon sun, water dripping off her skin, her new insane curves spilling out of her bikini and that look on her face that spelled serious needs for Brynn to meet. To say she wasn't in the mood for dealing with a silly attempt at a security breach was to understate things dramatically.

Their home was a sweeping estate within a secure compound well outside of Nashville. They got very few uninvited visitors. Savannah was, however, a huge star, and this attracted its own risks: overzealous paparazzi, sightseers with a lack of boundaries, and the occasional over-obsessed fan. They didn't have on-site security personnel, but they did have an external company ready to dispatch that monitored their boundary and entry gate. For Annabelle to be consulting her on an arrival, something was either more gray-area or more serious.

"What's going on?" she asked the housekeeper. Annabelle was a no-nonsense white woman in her fifties, her hair a stylish pure gray, her figure solid and her manner like that of an old school nurse: calm, unflappable and unlikely to take your shit. She'd been with Savannah for seven years and in the time Brynn had known her, she'd never once looked ruffled, let alone perturbed the way she did now.

"There's a young woman at the front gate," she said. "Asking for Savannah. She says she's her sister."

"Sure." Brynn shrugged. It wasn't remotely the first time someone had tried pretending they were family to gain access to the singer. "But she won't leave?"

"I…asked her to wait," said Annabelle, slowly. "I asked her for ID and she said she didn't have any. But…well, perhaps you should look for yourself."

Brynn followed her to the alcove by the front door that housed the video monitor from the gate. She could see a girl's figure, hands on hips, long blonde hair, her back to the camera, impatience on every line of her body.

"Ma'am?" Annabelle spoke through the intercom. The girl turned around and Brynn's jaw dropped, shock slicing through her. Seconds passed. Then, without a word, as if on autopilot, she reached out and pressed the gate release.

"Uh, see if you can stall Savannah?" she asked Annabelle, who blinked and nodded and headed out toward the pool.

Brynn slipped out the front door. Back outdoors, the oppressive heat felt so humid it was like trying to breathe through a wet blanket. She began to walk the long driveway, through the green fields, until the young woman appeared, walking towards her. The closer she got, the more her skin prickled until suddenly she was face to face with incredibly familiar blue-gray eyes.

The girl in front of her had long blonde hair all the way past her waist. She was small, wearing a slightly grimy crumpled green dress, black chucks, and a big rucksack. For a moment Brynn wondered if there'd been a rip in the space-time continuum and somehow Savannah Grace as a teenager had materialized in front of her. Then, real life caught up with her.

"Cassidy?"she breathed.

"You're her," the young woman said. "The woman my sister gay-married, aren't you?"

"I'm Brynn," she confirmed. "And I just gay-walked this hot driveway to come gay-meet you. Why didn't you call first?"

"You think I have her number?"

"You don't?"

"You don't know anything." Cassidy's voice was bitter.

Brynn considered her while the sun beat down on them. She looked weary and irritable and very young, younger even than Brynn knew her to be. She gestured with her head to follow her and started back to the house.

"Can I ask what brings you here?"

"I don't see how it's your business," Cassidy said flatly, her accent Savannah's but even more of a drawl.

"Sure," Brynn said evenly. "It's just my home and my wife."

"It's between me and Savannah." Cassidy lifted her chin defiantly.

"Alright, kid." Brynn shrugged. "I'll bring you to her. But…well, you'll understand when you see her; just go easy on her, okay?"

A short, hard laugh barked out of the young woman and she shot Brynn a look of utter disbelief.

"Are you here to start some shit?" Brynn asked curiously as they reached the front door. It wasn't like she wouldn't let Savannah's own flesh and blood in the house, but the clear fire burning inside the girl was giving her pause.

"Are you going to let me in the door, or should I just die out here in the heat?" Cassidy put her hands on her hips. Brynn bit back a grin.

She opened the door and they both crossed over the threshold into the relief of the cool climate-controlled house. Cassidy looked around her, at the pristine white entrance hall opening up to the view of the immense staircase to the upper floors.

"Stay here for a second," Brynn told her, and walked through into the living room, where she found Savannah ensconced on one of the couches, a cushion behind her back, supporting the round sphere of her belly under the white gauzy beach dress she'd slipped on over her bikini. Annabelle had clearly shoved some kind of household accounts into her lap, with a sweating cool glass of sweet tea beside her for good measure.

"Babe," Brynn started, and Savannah looked up. "There's someone here to see you…" She was unsure how to prepare her, when suddenly her wife's eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. She hauled herself to her feet with effort.

"Cassie?" she whispered, taking a step toward the girl who'd ignored Brynn's request and followed her into the room. Her eyes misted. "Oh my god, you're so big," she breathed.

Cassidy stayed rooted to the spot.

"Shouldn't I be the one saying that?" She looked at Savannah's mid-section with mild horror. "And you know I'm almost twenty-four, right? Just because you haven't seen me since I was a child doesn't mean time revolves around you."

Savannah blinked at the hard tone. Then she cocked her head.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes full of concern.

"No, I'm not okay," Cassidy said, clearly exasperated. "You think I'd turn up here if I was okay?"

"Honey, what happened?" Savannah's arms raised helplessly. It was clear she wanted to embrace her little sister, but every line in Cassidy's body suggested that would be a very poor idea indeed.

"Look, can I just stay here for a bit?" Cassidy said ferociously. Brynn realized it was because she was fighting back tears and desperately didn't want to show it. "It's not like you don't have the room for it," she gestured irritably at the epic mansion around them.

"Of course." Savannah seemed uncharacteristically at a loss, hovering a few feet from her younger sibling. "For as long as you need."

"Great," Cassidy gave a sarcastic smile as if Savannah had just offered to gift her a bag of garbage, rather than unconditional accommodation in a beautiful home.

"Do your…our parents know you're here?"

"Did you forget the part where I'm an adult now?"

"So, no then?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell them?"

"No. Are you?"

Savannah considered her.

"They'll want to know you're safe."

"Will they?"

"Well, you were living at home with them, right?"

"Keeping tabs, were you? Wow, you're awesome."

Brynn was lost. Cassidy was going out of her way to be rude, and Savannah was accepting every punch. Savannah was a lot of things, but a pushover was adamantly not one of them.

As far as Brynn understood their history, Savannah had grown up in a conservative family who also lived well below the poverty line. They'd rejected her when they'd realised she was queer, kicking her out on her own as a seventeen-year-old, leaving her to fend for herself. And yet as soon as Savannah had the means, she'd financially supported her family - despite their ongoing estrangement - buying them a nice house and ensuring no one went hungry again. But instead of responding with gratitude, this kid was acting like Savannah was her sworn enemy. Brynn's own family relationships could be complicated, ?but this was a whole other level.

"Alright, kid," Brynn interrupted. "This is not what I meant when I said to go easy on her."

Suddenly, two sets of blue-gray eyes were giving her identical dirty looks.

"I'm not fragile," her wife said flatly.

"I'm not a kid," her sister-in-law denied simultaneously.

"Wow." Brynn held up her hands in surrender. "That's uncanny."

"What is?" Savannah gave her a blank look.

"Nothing! It's just, it's kind of like you're multiplying." Brynn looked from one to the other.

"We don't look anything like each other." Cassidy looked offended. "We're not even full sisters. I look like my dad."

"Sure, if he's blonde and pretty and looks exactly like Savannah." Brynn shrugged.

"Hilarious," Cassidy shot back. "You're so funny."

"Okay, that's enough." Savannah seemed to recover herself, just a touch. "Here's how this is going to go: you can stay here as long as you need to, but you can contain the attitude around my wife and family, and everyone else who lives or works here. Got that?" Her voice was strong again and the hint of steel in her eyes perfectly evident. Cassidy looked mutinous, but eventually she nodded.

Annabelle popped her head in, curiosity barely hidden in her gaze.

"Can I offer you some sweet tea?" she asked. Cassidy nodded adamantly, then caught Savannah's eyes.

"Thank you, that would be nice," she said quietly. Annabelle assessed her a moment longer.

"And something to eat?"

"Yes, please. If it's not too much trouble."

Annabelle bustled away to go and serve up what Brynn suspected would be a feast, and Cassidy raised her eyes to Savannah again.

"Must be nice, sitting around on your ass all the time and never having to lift a finger."

Brynn held her breath, but Savannah just sighed and took a seat back on the couch.

"You're right," she said. "I've never even worked a day in my life."

"Not real work," Cassidy scrunched up her nose.

"And what is it you're doing with your life? Because I tried to send you to college and Mom said you refused."

"I'm a waitress at the diner." Cassidy raised her chin defiantly. "College is a pile of elitist crap. I don't need to be indoctrinated."

A look of pure fury crossed Savannah's face for just a second, and again Brynn readied herself for the coming fireworks. Then her wife wilted.

"You really are their kid," she said softly.

"Because you're so much better than us." Cassidy's lip curled. "Did you go to college? I hear you didn't even finish high school."

Savannah's jaw clenched.

"I would have loved to go to college," she said quietly. "You could have done anything you wanted to with your life. I'd have made it happen."

"Oh yeah, Savannah the great," Cassidy muttered.

"Okay!" Brynn had had about enough. "As delightful as this reunion has been, I believe there's a burger waiting for you in the dining room." She all but shooed the young woman into Annabelle's hands before turning and looking at her wife. "Do you think there's a chance her mood will improve with her blood sugar?" she tried hopefully.

Savannah let her head fall back in relief as her sister disappeared and Brynn sank down beside her, pressing a kiss into her hair and taking her hand.

"What," she asked, "the heck is going on?"

"I don't exactly know." Savannah looked at her wearily. "The last time I saw her she was this sweet, shy twelve-year-old."

"She's none of those things now."

"You're not kidding. Ouch!" She winced, and Brynn sat bolt upright. "No, it's fine, just a kick to the ribs."

"All the kids in your bloodline have a real attitude," Brynn told her. "Any chance we can ask Lane to babysit a twenty-four-year-old?"