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“Not lately,” he answered.
“I had a voice mail from him when we landed. He’s coming to the wedding, after all. He’ll be here tomorrow and he’s bringing...wait for it...wife number five. Sherri or Sharon or something like that. The message was a little garbled, but I figured out they were married last weekend in Reno. Isn’t that great?”
He listened to her listless tone and wanted to punch something. Trust Hal Russell to do whatever he could to screw things up if at all possible. He didn’t know how to answer her and had to take a few deep breaths to keep from spewing anger that had absolutely nothing to do with her.
“Oh, Cara.”
“Mom is arriving tomorrow, too. She’s going to flip when she finds out.”
“She can deal,” he answered sharply, determined to make sure of it. “Don’t worry, kid. This day is about you and Nick, not about Dad and his wedding du jour or Mom and her drama. I won’t let either of them ruin your big day.”
“Do you really think you can stop them?” she asked.
“I’ll figure something out, even if I have to handcuff them in their cabanas.”
She laughed at that. “I would love to see that.”
He smiled. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I only brought one pair, though I could probably round up a zip tie somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to both of them, make sure everybody keeps things civil.”
Their parents despised each other, which had certainly made for an interesting childhood.
Cara leaned her head against his shoulder. “I love you, Shane. Have I told you that lately?”
He threw an arm around her, wishing, as always, that he could do more to make things easier for her. Though four years younger, Cara had been about the only stable thing in his tumultuous childhood. By necessity, they’d clung together to survive the storm-tossed seas of divorce, remarriages, custody battles, family court hearings.
“Love you back, kid.”
They sat that way for a few moments while the sea whispered against the sand. Finally Cara sat up, looking up the beach toward a few of the other cabanas.
“Oh, look. Megan’s taking the girls swimming.”
He followed her gaze and found Megan wearing a hip-skimming, pink swimsuit cover-up, carrying Grace on her back. Sarah skipped along beside them holding a basket full of beach toys.
The late-afternoon sunlight glowed in her burnished hair. A few feet above the wet sand mark, Sarah threw out a towel and Megan carefully lowered Grace onto it.
The scene touched a soft chord inside him, for reasons he couldn’t have explained.
“She’s pretty awesome, isn’t she?” Cara murmured.
“I just met her,” he lied. “She seems to be.” He spoke in a guarded tone, not liking the note of insecurity in his sister’s voice.
“I’m not jealous of her, I promise. You can get that worried look out of your eyes. I like her too much. I know both she and Nick tried hard to make their marriage work. They care about each other, but I don’t think they were ever really in love. The marriage was shaky from the beginning, and just never recovered from the stress of the girls being so sick at birth. It’s just...I want to be a good stepmother, and I’m not sure where to start, especially when she’s so great with the girls. Why would they need me?”
“They strike me as pretty easy girls to love. That’s about all they need from you, isn’t it?”
She sighed. “I hope that’s enough. I’m going to be a stepmother. I’m suddenly feeling bad for the rotten way I treated wives two, three and four. I can’t feel guilty about Sherri or Sharon or whatever her name is, since I haven’t met her yet.”
“You have nothing to be guilty about. None of them wanted to be bothered with us. You, on the other hand, already care about Grace and Sarah, and they like you.” He’d figured out that much, hearing them talk about the wedding. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder again for just a moment before rising to her feet. “In the interest of saving my sanity and my nerves, I’m going to choose to believe you about that. I love Nick too much to back out now. Thank you. A bunch of us are going to dinner later, if you’re interested. Around eight.”
“I might be. I’ll let you know.”
After she left, he took another drink from his beer, listening to the light music of the girls’ laughter on the trade winds.
They were having the time of their lives playing in the waves, and he suddenly wanted to be out there with them.
So why wasn’t he?
He battled indecision for another minute before he hurried into the cabana for his board shorts.
* * *
“IT’S SO WARM!” Sarah exclaimed, trailing fingers through sea water. “Remember how cold Lake Michigan was last summer?”
Megan shivered at the memory, which seemed a distant lifetime ago. “Yes. I think my teeth only stopped chattering last week.”
Sarah giggled, bouncing a little on a wave that rolled past them. They were in only about eighteen inches of water, barely to the girls’ chests when they were sitting on the sandy bottom.
“What about you, Gracie?” she asked.
“I love it,” she declared, beaming and wiggling her legs. In the water, Grace enjoyed a freedom of movement she didn’t have elsewhere. She had more control over her muscles, somehow able to countermand the disrupted neural pathways created by the hypoxic brain bleed that had caused her cerebral palsy shortly after birth.
“I think a fish just nibbled my toe!” Sarah exclaimed.
She flopped onto her stomach and stuck her face straight into the water, emerging a moment later with wide-eyed delight on her dripping features.
“It did! I saw four little fish! They’re silver and orange. Can you see, Grace? Can you?”
Grace might have been able to move better in the water, but she’d never mastered her fear of submerging her face.
She peered a few inches above the softly rippling water, straining hard to see into the depths. “I can’t see anything but water,” she complained.
“They’re right there. Try harder.”
“What are we looking at?” a male voice called out and Megan jerked up from her own scrutiny of the depths to discover Shane wading toward them, a pair of board shorts hanging low on his hips.
His shoulders were broad and muscled, and her toes suddenly tingled as if a whole school had started nipping them.
“There are fish down there,” Grace announced, with all the wide-eyed glee of someone declaring the clouds had suddenly turned rainbow colors.
He smiled down at her with a soft tenderness, and Megan’s stomach fluttered. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Sarah felt one bite her toe. They didn’t bite mine, though.”
“Lucky.”
“I wanted one to bite me. I don’t like to put my face in the water, so I can’t see them, but Sarah said they’re there.”
“I saw them,” Sarah declared. “Look, there’s another one.”
Shane obediently lowered his face to the water. “Oh, I see him. You’re right.”
He lifted his head, only inches away from Megan’s. That fluttering went into double time.
“You know, there are boogie boards with snorkel windows on them,” he informed her. “Grace could lie on the board and look right down into the water.”
Sarah snickered. “You said boogie.”
Grace giggled, too, and Megan had to hide a smile as Shane rolled his eyes at her.
He pulled the board out from under his arm. “For your information, missy, this is called a boogie board. It helps you ride the waves.”
He turned to Grace. “Want to try it?”
Grace gave a little nod, though she looked apprehensive.
He held the wide board steady in the small waves while Megan helped Grace stabilize on it.
“Hold on to the sides. That’s it,” Shane said. He supported the board and angled it to take best advantage of the waves. A slightly bigger one rolled to shore and she laughed when she rode up and down on it.
“That made my tummy tickle like the airplane!” she said.
He grinned. “It can do that.”
Megan really tried not to notice how sweet he was to entertain her daughter—or how gorgeous he looked doing it.
All the headaches of traveling with children, especially one with special needs, seemed to float away on the tide as she watched her daughter’s joy at riding the waves.
“Go Gracie!” Sarah yelled, clapping her hands. After a minute she turned to Megan. “Do you think I could have a turn when Grace is done?”
“You’ll have to ask Shane.”
He overheard. “Sure you can. Just give us a minute.”
After a few more waves, he tugged Grace back to Megan, lifted her off, then helped Sarah onto the board.
While Megan and Grace sat in the warm, shallow water, he tugged adventurous Sarah out to where the waves were slightly bigger.
Grace, in Megan’s arms now, gave a little yawn that for just an instant made her look like a fragile baby bird.
When Shane returned Sarah to Megan, he held out the board to her. “Do you want a turn now?”
She ordered her stupid hormones to calm down.
“No. Thank you, though. I need to get these little mermaids onto dry land for dinner and bed. We’re still on Chicago time, I think. It’s been a long day today, with more fun planned tomorrow.”
“If you take the board, I can carry Grace up to the house for you.”
He knelt down in the water, offering his broad, comforting back. “Hop on, Ariel,” he said over his shoulder.
Grace and Sarah both giggled, clearly infatuated with him. Grace threw her arms around his neck and he stood easily, wading through the waves and sand toward their cabana.
“Outdoor shower first, girls,” Megan said, following along with Sarah’s hand in hers. “We need to wash all this sand off out here.”
He lowered Grace to the little bench beside the shower. “Thanks for the boogie boarding,” Megan said, trying not to stare at all those gleaming chest muscles, or the small, puckered red scar on his biceps from the gunshot wound.
“No problem. I’ll see you all later.”
His fingers brushed hers as he grabbed the board. His smile encompassed her and her daughters, then he turned around and headed back into the waves. He waded a little ways, then dove in with quick, sure movements, heading for deeper water.
“Mommy?”
Sarah’s tone indicated that wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get her attention, and Megan jerked her focus away from Shane and back to her daughters, where it rightfully belonged.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE SLEPT WITH the windows open and the sound of the sea lulling her to a deep and dreamless state...and awoke to pearly dawn splashing across the white and red hibiscus embroidered on her Hawaiian quilt and the quiet, endless murmur of waves licking the sand.
For one disoriented moment, she couldn’t think why she had brought the girls’ sound machine into her bedroom, then she realized that it wasn’t some kind of white noise sleep aid, it was the actual ocean.
She and the girls were in Hawaii, staying in a beautiful ocean-side cabana. Nick and Cara were getting married the next day.
She stretched and sat up. Though the clock on the bedside table read barely five-thirty, she was abruptly wide awake.
She loved working the night shift at the hospital for the flexibility it gave her with her daughters’ schedules, but as a result her body had become conditioned to odd hours and quick transitions from sleep to full consciousness. She wasn’t very good at sleeping in.
The ceaseless rhythm of the waves seduced and entranced her. Was it as beautiful as she remembered here?
She climbed out of bed and padded through the silent house to the lanai. Yes. In the pale pink predawn light, the water looked a mysterious, alluring green. Palm fronds rustled in the breeze, and the air was heavy with the scent of ocean and flowers.
She felt as if she were the only one awake this early, as if she had the entire Pacific to herself. A sudden, fierce urge to stand at the water’s edge to greet the sunrise washed over her.
Why not? How many chances like this would she have?
She hurried back to her room and threw on the first thing she grabbed in the closet, a soft, loose sundress the color of newly ripe peaches. She quickly pulled her tangled hair into a loose ponytail and picked up the video baby monitor she sometimes still used when Grace was sick, grateful for the impulse to pack it at the last minute.
A quick check of the screen told her the girls were still sleeping soundly, so she unplugged the little monitor and slipped it into her pocket, then walked out into the quiet.
The sun hovered just below the horizon, the puffy clouds glowing orange and pink and pale lavender in the gathering light. She could hardly take her eyes off it as she turned to walk down the ramp of the lanai to the sand.
Only then did she notice three boogie boards propped next to the front door. Two of them had little clear windows for looking beneath the surface.
She stared. What in the world?
A note was attached to the biggest one, written on resort stationery that flapped in the breeze. She pulled it off, knowing instantly who had left these on the porch.
“We can’t let Gracie miss the fish,” Shane had written in bold, masculine handwriting.
