Page 33 of The Scars I Bare
I nodded. “Ah, yes. Jake usually travels up to Nags Head or Virginia Beach to the hospitals today to check on patients or meet with doctors.”
“That’s what he told me. Anyway, I’m free, so I can take over from here.”
Her blank stare from across the table spoke volumes. Clearly, I wasn’t needed anymore, and I was being dismissed.
“Right,” I said, taken off guard and suddenly feeling a little pissed. Obviously, the idea of being neighborly hadn’t been explained to our new resident. “I have stuff to do anyway.”
“No, Mommy!” Lizzie whined. “We haven’t eaten yet, and Dean hasn’t shown me how to eat fish with my fingers.”
Cora’s eyes stared daggers into mine.
“I said I’d treat her like a treasure.” I shrugged. “Not royalty. This is how we roll in the ’Coke. You can’t tell me you’ve never dug into a basket of fresh seafood with your bare hands.”
She shook her head, the annoyance still written all over her face. “Not even once.”
Leaning forward, not even making a single attempt to leave, I asked, “Where are you from again? Texas?”
She nodded.
“And you’ve been here, living the beach life, for how long?”
“A little over seven years.”
“And how many of those were spent with the lawyer?” I asked.
“All but a few months, but I fail to see how any of that—” she answered stiffly.
“You never got a proper introduction,” I said. “You moved here, met the rich guy, and were shown a completely ridiculous side of shore life. You’ve missed out on Jeep rides, late-night bonfires, and pigging out on seafood so fresh, you can’t help but eat it with your hands.” I grinned, ignoring all those Southern manners my mother had drilled into me.
I mean, she’d started it by barging in here. That reminded me…
“Hey, how did you know where we were?” I asked.
“What?” Cora asked, knocked somewhat off-balance by the abrupt question.
“Well, you weren’t planning on meeting us for lunch, and I don’t recall getting any calls from you, so how’d you find us?”
One glance over in Lizzie’s direction told me she was enrapt with the whole conversation, drinking her soda as her short little legs swung from the plastic chair on the patio, soaking up every word.
“Um, well, I just sort of drove around.”
“You drove around? Why didn’t you call?”
Her face went blank, a kind of innocent face you’d make when you’d been caught in a lie.
“I didn’t think about it.”
I grinned, folding my arms in front of me. “You got off work early, were eager to pick up your daughter, and the first thought in your head wasn’t,Maybe I should use that phone number Dean wrote down for me before he left with my kid?”
“I—”
“You wanted to sneak up on me,” I said, cutting her off, sending Lizzie a lazy wink, which caused her to giggle. “You wanted to see just how well I was living up to my word, didn’t you?”
Her arms flew up in the air. “Okay, yes!” she admitted. “I did. But do you blame me? I show up to a town I’ve never been to, and I’m living in someone else’s house, working for another person I barely know, and then you show up and offer to babysit my child when I basically have no other choice.”
“You’re not a very trusting person, are you?”
“Are you?” she fired back.
