Page 22 of Forever Mine

She pushed away her chair and hurled herself at me. With her arms around my neck, she shouted in my ear. “Yay!”

Deafened, but grinning, I hugged Angel and kissed her forehead. She smelled of the buttery rice she’d been eating. From the sugary aroma clinging to her face, I guessed she’d taken a sip of fruit punch when we weren’t looking.

“Finish your dinner, baby, and don’t forget to wash up when you’re done.”

She gave me another huge grin before settling into her chair and picking up her fork.

“So what did you do for fun?” Mom asked, “as if I don’t already know the answer to that. You probably spent the entire week in your room reading.”

“You’d be wrong if that’s your guess,” I said, bobbing my eyebrows. “I did a few things.”

My gaze shifted from Angel to Mom. With one brow arched, she said, “I get the picture.”

There was no such thing as speaking in code when Angel was around. In a heartbeat she’d tell us she understood what we were trying not to say in plain language.

My baby glanced between Mom and me and went back to eating. Mom and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“I know you’re going to wait until I go to bed before you talk about the juicy stuff.”

I exchanged a stare with Mom. “Where on earth did you hear that?”

Angel chewed and swallowed before saying, “Auntie Rita.”

“I should have known.”

Rita also had one daughter and didn’t believe in beating around the bush where kids were concerned. I’d spoken to her briefly when I got home, but we needed to catch up. I’d hinted that I met someone, but that it was on my usual terms. Until he got here, there was really nothing to talk about. Or was there?

A grin burst from me. I was sure we’d have fun because Scott wanted to cram everything into his visit. When my gaze went back to Mom, her eyes were fixed on me. She raised her brows and then frowned, as if curious to know why I was daydreaming. I’d never been that kind of goofy, and nobody knew that better than Mom.

My wink carried a promise that we’d talk when the opportunity came.

***

The wind wasn’t heavy, but I had to raise my voice to get Mom and Angel’s attention where they crouched on the sand a few feet away. Mom got to her feet and slapped her hands together to rid them of sand, while Angel raced toward me. The three of us huddled together, smiling into the camera.

“Come on, guys,” I angled the phone to get a good shot. “Say, cheese!”

I took a couple of pictures and while I tried to choose the best one, Angel poked her head between me and the phone. While nudging her aside, I kissed her cheek. “Baby, I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“But I want to see it,” she said, with her bottom lip jutting.

“Don’t be a spoilsport.” I held the phone toward her. “Are we cute, or what?”

She cupped her hand around the screen, then bobbed her head and laughed. “Yes, we are.”

Satisfied, she went back to pouring water from a plastic bucket into the sand to make ‘cement’ for the castle she was building.

“My bones are too old for this,” Mom grumbled as she got to her feet, only to kneel next to Angel.

My gaze rested on them before I slid my shades back on and got ready to send the photo to Scott. With my lip caught between my teeth, I turned on the data, captioned the shot, and sent it to him.

We’d been talking back and forth all morning and I promised to not only take pictures of the beach, but myself, when I got there. Since I hadn’t bothered to tell him about my mother, nor Angel, I gnawed my lip as I waited for him to reply.

When there was no response after a minute, I picked up my Kindle. Leaning against an almond tree with the breeze caressing my face was a sure way to fall asleep. The beach was relatively empty for a Sunday, but it was early and I was certain that by midday, the sand would be buzzing with people. For that reason alone, I preferred to come early in the day.

The moment I took my eyes off Angel and swiped the screen of the Kindle, my phone pinged. I picked it up off the towel and thumbed the screen.

Scott had responded.

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