Page 14 of Romance Reset
Chapter 6
The following afternoon, Lincoln sat at his desk in his home office and stared out the window at the boat traffic on the canal.
“Hey,” Carter yelled from the first floor. “Music starts at seven. Leave around six?”
Had his brother never heard of texting? “Yeah. Sounds good.”
Lincoln heard the door shut and went back to his deep pondering of last night’s date with Amelia. She’d looked beautiful. The young girl he’d fallen so in love with had turned into an alluring woman who carried herself with confidence and assurance.
He wondered why she was single now. She shouldn’t be. But then, he knew well that life didn’t always work out as one planned. He’d certainly never expected to be a widower now. Over the years, he and Jill had talked about what they’d do when the twins went off to college. Travel, maybe take some classes together. Things that would help them focus on each other and their relationship sans kids.
His cell phone rang and he dug under the mound of papers on his desk to find it. A glance at the face left him frowning. His thumb hovered over the swipe bar, but he clicked the side to silence the ring and let it go to voicemail. He wasn’t ready to talk to Marsali just yet. He had more thinking to do before giving his post-date responses as to whether or not there would be another date between them in his future.
He set the phone aside and tried once more to focus on the listing details in front of him, but as it had earlier, his mind wandered back to last night.
Amelia. Why hadn’t she married? Why was she looking now? They were questions he wanted answers to, but there was only one way to get them and he wasn’t sure he was willing to invest the time.
According to her story, she’d traveled for a while when she was young but went to school and settled into a career. Surely there had been plenty of opportunities for her to fall in love during that time. She’d admitted to coming close once but was that it? Only once?
Only one way to find out.
Giving up on the work in front of him, Lincoln shook his head and shoved himself away from the desk, deciding to join Carter and the kids downstairs. They were all in the pool and he could hear them splashing and laughing, and he didn’t want to miss out. Not when, in a matter of days, his kids would be gone and the house empty. Some things took priority.
He changed into a pair of swim trunks and made his way downstairs, out the sliding glass door. Breanne lay on a lounge chair on her belly in a suit that made his head spin because it was so tiny, but Brendan, Carter, and Piper played a game of treasure hunt. Lincoln jumped in, close enough to the edge to splash his daughter and maybe get her to join in on the fun.
When he broke the surface and wiped the saltwater from his eyes, the lounger was empty and Breanne was shutting the patio door.
“Man, moody much?” Carter asked from the other end of the pool. “Pip, don’t you turn into a girl on me, got it?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
Lincoln frowned at the door where Breanne had disappeared until Piper swam over to him like the fish she’d turned into once she’d learned how to swim.
“Your turn, Uncle Linc.”
He looked down at the brightly colored weighted pool toys she handed him and smiled at her. “My turn? Hmm. Let’s see.” Linc tossed two in the deep end and three in the shallows for Piper to dive for. While Brendan and Carter dove toward the deep end, Lincoln pretended to race Piper for the other three.
“Hey. Where were you last night?” Carter asked Lincoln after he surfaced with his prize.
Lincoln turned at the question but shrugged. “Kids were out, so I went to get dinner in Wrightsville.”
Better to stick with the truth rather than lie. And omitting a few details Carter didn’t need to know wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially when Carter would remember Amelia and all that had happened between them.
“I found two! I won, Uncle Linc!” Piper called.
“Good timing, Pip,” Carter said to his daughter. “It’s time to get out so I can get ready for the concert.”
“Will you bring me back cotton candy?”
Carter laughed at the question and sliced through the water toward his baby girl.
“If the concert sells cotton candy, I think I can manage that,” Carter told her. “No promises, though. Now let’s get out so we can head home, okay? I want you out of the shower before the babysitter gets there.”
After the group exited the pool, Lincoln swam some laps before doing the same. A quick shower and he was ready to go. He stopped by Brendan’s room and heard his son’s shower running, so Lincoln moved on to Breanne’s room and knocked on her door. “Hey, sweetheart. We’re leaving for the concert soon. I still have that ticket if you want to go.”
“No, thanks. Let Bren bring another friend. I think Ty wanted to go.”
Had she been crying? “Breanne, open up.”
