Page 54 of Free to Fall

Then she disconnects our call.

That’s when the pictures appear.

In the first one, my baby’s getting garbage bags carefully tucked around her casts. In the next, she has her butt in the sand with her legs resting on the blanket. In another, she’s squealing happily as a wave demolishes the castle she’s built and soaking her suit. In every photo, next to her is a girl who bears unfortunate scarring on her skin. As if she knows Laura as well, she too is giving a cheesy grin at the camera. On the edge of the shots are two beach wheelchairs.

Laura gave my baby a gift I hadn’t quite worked out how to pull off. Part of me feels enormous gratitude while the other a searing jealousy I couldn’t be there with them. Still, pleasure outweighs the pain because I haven’t seen Bailey this radiant since before the night at the ER—not even when her legs were taken out of the full-length casts and reduced to ones just below her knees.

I need to call Laura back and thank her. Before I do, I call out and ask Tony to come in. The first words out of his mouth are, “Is your daughter okay?”

I fold my hands across my stomach. “I forgot to tell you, Tony, but I found a temporary nanny for the summer.”

He grunts. “Do you have a name for the new one so I know who to put through?”

Just then, my phone pings. I snatch it up to find another text from Laura.

Laura:

These are better than the first.

Anxious to open the attachments, I absentmindedly answer, “Laura Lockwood.”

He chokes on air. “Caleb’s Laura? Gore?”

“Yes.”

“She’s your new nanny?” Tony guffaws.

“I fail to see what’s so funny.” I’m affronted on Laura’s behalf.

“You would if you’ve known her as long as I have. She looks like an angel with the mind of a steel trap and the demon tendencies most Freemans seem to breed in all their children.”

Just then Keene pops his head in as he walks by my open door. He glares down at Tony. “I heard that.”

Tony retorts, “Your three are worse than the rest, with Kalie leading them straight to hell.”

Keene lets out a beleaguered sigh but doesn’t deny the charge. While Tony begins enumerating all the trouble the Lockwood and Marshall progeny got into within the confines of the Hudson offices growing up, I open the new photos from Laura.

These are better. They’re close-ups of Bailey’s face, and the undiluted joy in her expression makes my heart sing.

Then I get one of Bailey and Laura lying back against the sand, then one of Laura alone that has me willing my dick not to burst through my pants as I study my daughter’s nanny in detail. Laura’s two-piece bathing suit leaves me with zero doubt her curves are a gift from God. It also sets my mind wondering how her oiled legs would feel wrapped around my waist, how her smooth pussy would feel as my fingers slid over it ... Recalling who is in my office, I fire off a quick text.

Liam:

You’re right. They’re great.

Laura:

Crap. I meant to send the last ones to my cousins.

I’m not. In no way am I sorry to have these photos. I slip my phone into my jacket pocket so I’m not tempted to tell her I plan on jacking off to the image of her in that excuse for a bikini later.

Keene’s phone pings. He whips it out and a grin flashes. “Ahh. I wondered if Laura was going to introduce the two of them.”

“Who?”

He holds up his phone. On the screen is a closeup of Laura with a slightly older woman making goofy faces in a selfie. Keene explains, “Laura’s Aunt Jillian. I imagine if Bailey expressed interest in going to the beach, she immediately thought of calling her to borrow a beach wheelchair.”

“Why would Laura’s aunt have beach wheelchairs? Would Laura not just go to the hospital to borrow one?”

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