He stood there another minute, waiting on…he had no idea what, before heading back in the direction he’d come. That little girl was a doll, with her blowing curls and preschool chatter. And the mom, well…he needed to keep walking. And then it hit him.
He hadn’t met her at all. Hadn’t even asked her name. What an idiot. His brothers would laugh their asses off. He picked up the pace until he was jogging.
It shouldn’t matter whether he knew her name or not. It didn’t. Just because he hadn’t seen a man around didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Except…if she was here alone and pregnant with four kids, then…Then what?
—
Crazy. Patsy Cline sang in Abby’s head. I’m crazy for…bringing four children to the beach? Definitely. Could people tell by looking at her? Hopefully not. She prided herself on keeping it together.
This week at the beach would prove a definite challenge, but she was used to that. And she’d prepared for this vacation for months, researching resorts with child-friendly beaches, pools, and activities. Even when her friend had been forced to bail on her, she’d been determined not to disappoint the kids.
“Mommy, my mouf is crunchy.” Gracie pushed her blowing hair out of her face and tapped her teeth together.
Abby looked down at the small PB&J triangle in her three-year-old’s sandy hand. “Uh-oh. Rinse your hand in the bucket and I’ll get you a new one.”
She fished out another sandwich and sprinkled a few chips onto her daughter’s plate. Before Gracie ate even one, the wind picked them up and sent them tumbling across the sand, where they were immediately attacked by seagulls. Charlie then attacked the birds like the wild two-year-old he was, kicking sand all over as he went.
“I think we should eat at the pool,” Annie said.
Abby agreed with her sensible six-year-old. A picnic on the beach might be a great idea in theory, though the authors of Varied Dining Experiences for Children had obviously never tried peanut butter and jelly in the sand.
She sighed. Why fight it? No need to make things harder than they had to be, and the poolside grill was one of the reasons she’d chosen this resort. One week of chicken fingers and fries wouldn’t kill them.
Shade? An ice-cold drink? Swimming without Mother Nature trying to drown you? Abby stared out at the churning foam of death. It had taken all of two seconds to realize her children would not be getting into that water no matter how many flotation devices were tied to their bodies. More than twenty years later, she could still taste the salt water in her mouth, still feel the panic of being pulled under and tossed like a rag in a washing machine.
“Come on, guys. Let’s go.” Abby gathered their things and trudged through the sand as fast as possible with a sweaty two-year-old lump plastered to her side. They’d eat lunch, spend a few hours at the pool, then plenty of time to rest before dinner.
“Hot, hot, hot.” Her daughters chanted and ran past her on their tiptoes. Jack made it to the boardwalk first, dropped his football, and snatched up the hose. The ball bounced down the steps, and an unbidden image of a man came to mind:
Tall, broad, dark hair on his head and his chest. Nice, and nice looking. Not that she had been looking, but she wasn’t blind. And the way he’d played with her son? Not once in Jack’s five years had his own father played with him like that.
And now he never would.
Abby climbed the wooden steps between waving sea oats as the smells drifted and merged: sunscreen, salty air, and rotting seaweed. She’d just set Charlie on his feet and pushed her bags well away from the spraying water when a screeching voice pierced her ears.
A tall redhead in a sparkling orange bikini stood behind her, eyes wide open just like her mouth.
“Oh. My. God.” The redhead gaped at her glittering top like she’d been peed on.
Her platinum-blond friend glanced up. “What?”
Big Red dabbed at her beaded suit. “That kid just sprayed me. Stupid,” she muttered.
Good grief. Jack had not sprayed her. The wind might have blown a slight misting in her direction. The way the woman had reacted, you’d think she’d melt. Doubtful.
Jack turned with the hose, nearly spraying the woman for real. “Mom, she said ‘stupid.’ ”
“Hi.” Gracie smiled up at the redhead. “I wike your baving suit. I have a Barbie wif an orange baving suit.”
Abby adjusted the hose in Jack’s hand, pointing it at his feet before the Wicked Witch of the East had a meltdown.
“Can’t you get wet?” Eyes round with wonder, Gracie gazed up at the tall woman studiously ignoring her. “Are you a mermaid?”
“She’s not a mermaid,” Annie whispered.
“She could be,” Gracie said. “You don’t know.”
Abby picked up her youngest and rinsed his little feet, then handed the hose to Annie.
“I told you we should have gone up a different way,” Blondie said. “This is ridiculous.”
Right. Children rinsing off sandy feet on the beach boardwalk. Insane. Abby took a calming breath and let it out. The best reaction is no reaction. At least that’s what her social worker had always said.
“My turn.” Gracie hopped from foot to foot like a jumping bean. “I need to winse. I’m not a mermaid.”
—
Matt scanned the balcony of the resort’s main restaurant, nestled between the high-rise condominiums, and absently took in the other guests: an elderly couple; a family of four; a large, boisterous party raising glasses of red wine. His table next to the white stone railing gave him a clear view of the pool below, and the happy sounds of families enjoying an evening swim reached him in bursts. All this against a backdrop of rustling palms, their trunks wrapped in twinkling lights, which were becoming more visible in the fading light of dusk.