Page 87 of Love At The Shore
“Are you cold?” he asked when he spied Jenna performing a one-handed buttoning maneuver on her cardigan. The woman had some serious mom skills, but he’d known that since day one.
“I’m perfect.” She grinned at him, then frowned down at her cherry vanilla. “But remind me whose idea it was to get ice cream on a cool night like this.”
“Ally’s,” Lucas said in unison with Nick.
She really needed to ask?
“Ice cream is a year-round treat.” Ally bounced on her toes.
“If you say so,” Nick countered. Lucas couldn’t help but notice he’d ordered a double-scoop though, so it wasn’t as if he objected.
“It’s really good ice cream, I have to admit.” Jenna took a bite and came away with a dollop of pink cream on the tip of her nose.
Lucas laughed and motioned toward her face with his cone. “You’ve got a little something there.”
“Oh yeah?” Her brows lifted, and he had a feeling he knew what was coming.
He was right, because before he could find an escape route in the crowded park, she reached over and dabbed his nose with her ice cream.
Ally and Nick collapsed into giggles. There was only one way to win a battle like this one, so Lucas pulled his wife close and gave her a big, smacking kiss. Both of them were sticky messes now, but neither cared.
Ally said, “Only one thing could make this night better.”
Jenna and Lucas exchanged a glance.
“What’s that?” Lucas asked. He genuinely wanted to know because, as moments went, this one was pretty perfect.
“If Tank was here.” Ally straightened the mouse ears on her head and took a generous lick of her ice cream cone. “Obviously.”
Lucas laughed.
Obviously!
The kid had a point. It wasn’t truly a vacation without his dog, which was precisely why Tank was cozied up at their Florida beach condo rental just a short tram ride away from Cinderella’s castle.
“Ally, honey. I don’t think they allow dogs at Disney World,” Jenna said as she slipped her hand into Lucas’s.
Behind her, Lucas could see flying elephants and a haunted castle high up on a hill. Somewhere nearby, a roller coaster whirled past and Nick’s eyes lit up. Lucas was Nick’s ride-buddy. If it rocked, rolled, dropped you from an immense height, spun you around or spit you back out, they’d been on it. In most instances, twice. Lucas thanked his lucky stars that a lifetime of being on the water had prepared him for the motion-sickness challenge that came with being a dad.
Meanwhile, he wouldn’t be surprised if Ally was silently planning a petition to allow dogs into the park. He wouldn’t be surprised if she succeeded.
He shot her a smile. “It’s okay because Tank isn’t really a theme park dog.”
Jenna’s gaze met his, then she glanced at his head and her lips twitched into a smile. Yes, much to everyone’s amusement, Lucas was wearing mouse ears. If he was going to Disney World on his honeymoon, he was goingall in. Kayla had demanded a selfie, and Lucas playfully refused. But he was pretty sure Jenna had already snuck a photo behind his back and sent it along. Lucas fully expected it to be blown up and hanging in a frame at the summer camp next season.
The camp on Tybee Island was now known as the flagship summer camp. Three others had been opened along the Georgia coast, and Lucas and his partners were thinking about expanding into the Outer Banks area of the Carolinas next.
“I know Tank isn’t a theme park dog,” Ally said as if it were a well-documented fact.
Nick looked down at his sister. He’d grown like a weed over the past year and spent most of his time at the pool with Grayson, where Nick had successfully made the school swim team. This year, he’d be swimming for the junior high on Tybee Island, where Lucas was converting the duplex into one large beach house with room for the whole family. “What kind of dog is he, then?”
Ally shrugged. “Tank is afamilydog.”
Jenna squeezed Lucas’s hand tight and a feeling so good, so pure filled his chest that he imagined this is what it must feel like to catch the biggest monster wave the ocean had to offer.
A family dog.
He smiled to himself in the cool moonlight.
Then the first firework of the night boomed overhead, illuminating the sky in glittering violets, aquas and blues—dazzling beach colors that reminded Lucas of the sea and the shore, and of the summer he lost his heart to the beautiful woman standing beside him and the two best kids in the entire world.
But he really hadn’t lost his heart, had he? He’d found it, and then just like Tank, everything about his life had changed.
If Tank was a family dog, then that made Lucas a family man. And he was perfectly fine with that.
