Tessa noticed that his biceps were ringed with tattoos and a star adorned his inner left wrist. It was only when he raised his head that she realized who it was. Vince. The guy from the restaurant.
Again she was captured by his hair, thick and dark and glossy, and the powerful cage of his ribs. His belly was faintly soft, pale, as if he didn’t go without his shirt very often. “Girls, slow down!” he roared.
Sitting there with the sun pouring down hard on her head, Tessa’s hands got sweaty and her starved libido sat up straight and said, Okay, hell do. Hot. Very hot.
Of course he had three little girls, and of course this dog was the crotch sniffer, and of course the owlish little creature who’d been so hostile in the plaza now glared at her again.
“He’s my dog,” the girl said, tugging on his collar. “Come on, Pedro.”
“Is it okay if I just pet him?” Tessa asked. “I think he likes me.”
“Natalie,” said her father. “Let him go. He’s fine.”
Pedro leaned heavily against Tessa, and she instinctively put an arm around him. His lungs moved against her side, panting. “You must be his favorite,” Tessa said to appease the little girl.
“No,” she said with a very adult understanding. “He’s my favorite.” She wore an unfortunate combination of clothes—a shirt in horizontal stripes that was too small and showed a slice of smooth, plump tummy and a pair of shorts that rode up between her thighs. Her cheeks were flushed. “Our other dog just wants food.”
Tessa nodded. “My dad has three dogs, and one of his is like that. Lives to eat.”
“Three dogs?” Behind her glasses, the little girl’s eyes were the color of blue raspberry syrup. “That’s a lot.”
“It is,” Tessa agreed. “And one of them? Guess how old she is?”
The girl looked at the old dog panting in the shade. “Sasha is fifteen. Older than that?”
Tessa nodded and pointed her thumb at the sky.
“Eighteen?”
“Twenty-three,” Tessa said.
“No way.”
“True story.” Tessa raised her right hand to swear it.
The girl narrowed her eyes. “That’s impossible.”
Vince came up beside his daughter. “Get into your swimsuit, kiddo.” He held out a red one-piece and tilted his head toward the trees. “Nobody will see you over there.”
“I don’t want to go swimming.”
“Nonnegotiable. You want your surprise, don’t you?”
She glared at him from under her eyelashes. “It better be good.” She grabbed the suit and stomped off.
“Hello,” Tessa said, shading her eyes to look up at him. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Tessa, right?” He sat down beside her, arms resting on his knees. The tattoo on the right was an elaborate tribal, woven with color.
“That’s right.”
“I’m Vince.”
“I remembered.” She scrubbed the dog’s chest. “And this is your crotch sniffer, I guess.”
“Yep. Pedro the wild man.”
“And the girls, all yours?”
He nodded. “Guilty.” Looking in the direction of the trees, he said, “She’s not always a brat. Eight has not been the best year so far.”
“She’s not bratty. Just forthright.”
“Yeah. Just wait.”
He wore no wedding ring, but Tessa asked, “And where is their mother?”
“She’s dead. Three years.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, scratching the dog’s head. “What’d you do to my dog? Give him a love potion? He’s not usually all that friendly.”
“I met him before I met you, actually,” she said, and traced the line of black on the tip of his ears. His eyes were half closed, and he suddenly fell over on his back and turned his belly up to her. She rubbed the silky tummy as she weighed how much to say. “He was chasing a rabbit, just outside of town.”
“Jeez, I’ve never seen him act like this.”
Tessa met the dog’s blue eyes. Kept his secret. “Dogs like me.”
“We want to go swimming, Daddy!” said the middle girl, a slim brown pencil with a white-blond braid that swept her butt.
“Hold your horses, babe. Let your sister change her clothes.”
“Can we just wade right there at the edge?”
“To your ankles, that’s all. Hold Hannah’s hand.” He dropped a pack and yanked a zipper open. From within, he grabbed a bottle of sunscreen and stood up. To Tessa he said, “Don’t run off, huh?”
“The dog and I will hold down the fort.”
“Pedro is his name,” Vince said.
Tessa met the dog’s eyes. “Pedro and I will hold down the fort.”
The other dog, who had a terrier face, hauled herself to her feet to take an endless drink from the lake, then wobbled back to the shade and collapsed not far from where Tessa sat. The girls stood with their feet in the water, knees like cypress trees reflecting back on the surface, holding their arms out and tilting up faces for sunscreen, rotating by degrees to let their father rub lotion from strap to strap. He was very thorough. The baby was very fair, and Vince dabbed lotion under her eyes, along her scalp, and rubbed a second helping over her tiny shoulders. She giggled and danced away. He hauled her back, patted her bottom. “Scamp.”
Impossible not to like a man who could be that tender. Genuine.
She hummed “Rescue Me” under her breath and stopped the instant she heard what it was, her cheeks flushing.
Out of the trees came the oldest girl, poured into a red one-piece. Her tummy jutted out in a little Buddha shape. She dropped her shirt and shorts in a pile next to Pedro and paused, looking at the clear blue lake shining like a mirror in the bright, hot afternoon. She sighed.
Tessa asked, “Don’t you like to swim?”
“Have you ever been in that lake?”
“No, I don’t live here.”
“It’s cold,” she said, and rubbed her arms.
“Really? Like how cold?”
“Like filling-up-a-bathtub-and-pouring-ice-cubes-in cold.”
“Oooh, that’s pretty bad. Maybe it would help if you got really, really hot first? Lie in the sun with me for a minute, and then when we can’t stand it, I’ll dive in with you.”
The girl blinked. “I don’t even know you.” She primly walked barefoot across the sand to join the other two girls.
Tessa leaned into Pedro. “She told me, huh?”
He licked her nose, his blue eyes direct and adoring.
“Wow,” she said, “you are some dog. I’m glad to meet you.”
He stuck by her side while the girls splashed and played for a half hour. Vince hovered nearby, but none of them wanted to actually swim, just dance along the shallow water, and after a few minutes he sat down with Tessa. He smelled of sunscreen and sun-dried laundry and a note that was entirely his own, a watermelon scent of freshly cut grass. His bare arm was only inches away from her own, and she fancied she could feel the heat of it.
“Tell me their names,” she said.
“Natalie, the oldest. Jade, the middle one, and Hannah is the baby.” They were splashing one another, and Natalie, despite her protestations, was as splashy and playful as the other two once she let down her guard. “Do you have sisters?” he asked.
“No, I’m an only child.”
“Me, too, and I think it’s a disadvantage as a parent. These guys fight like the Crow—counting coup if they can’t draw blood. It’s crazy.”
“I think kids just do that.”
“So my mother says.” He looked at her. “No kids?”
“Nope. Never been married.”
He inclined his head, smiled lightly. “You’re just a lone wolf, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. “It suits me.”
“No pack anywhere?”
Tessa thought about it. “My d
ad is my pack. Him and his dogs.”
“How about your mother?”
“She died when I was four. I don’t remember her at all.”
“Probably a blessing.” He paused, looking at his children. “Jade doesn’t remember, or Hannah. Natalie does.”
She looked at him, at the hard slant of cheekbone, his jaw. She wanted to ask, And you? But she didn’t.
They sat side by side in the quiet, watching the girls. The views of trees and sky and water eased into some of the little cracks and sore spots in her spirit, mending them. The undiluted sunshine was good on her arms, and his company was especially pleasant. She liked that he was the kind of man who could sit and not fill every second with chatter.
After a while, the girls started to shiver so much that their father insisted they come out of the water and dry off.
“Are you hungry?” Vince asked, spreading a feast out on the blanket. The girls, wrapped in beach towels, pinned the edges, with the dogs banished to the outer perimeter.
“I don’t want to interrupt your family picnic,” Tessa said. “I can leave you guys to it.”
“You were here first,” the middle sister—Jade?—said.
Vince took a peach, pink and orange and curvy, from his pack and held it out in the palm of his hand. “Please stay.”
“Okay.” She plucked the fruit from his hand without touching him. It was warm from the sun, like skin. “Thank you.”
“We have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wholewheat bread, crusts removed,” he said, arranging them on a paper plate. “Smoked turkey on sourdough, chips and salsa, Fig Newtons because they’re my favorite, bananas, and root beer.”
“What’s my surprise, Dad?” Natalie asked. She tugged her shirt over her head and pushed her glasses back on her nose.
Vince held up one finger. “You have been such a trooper, Miss Scarlett, that I have three things.”
“Three?” her sister protested. “Why is she so spoiled?”
“We came to the lake to swim because you like it, Jade.” Vince produced a sandwich. “First, a peanut butter and Dijon mustard sandwich on whole-grain bread.”
Natalie grinned. “Perfect.”
“Next, one perfect Haas avocado, whole.” He put it down in front of her. “And last”—he took out a tiny envelope—“Hawaiian Alaea red sea salt.”
Watching curiously, Tessa was touched to see the suspicious shine of tears in Natalie’s eyes. “Oh, Daddy! The red salt?”
“Yep. Only the best for my girl.”
Natalie jumped up and kissed him. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He picked up the avocado, neatly cut it open, and sliced the fruit within. “There you go.”
With reverence, Natalie pinched out a measure of salt and sprinkled it over the sliced avocado. “Ooooh,” she said. “Look at how pretty that looks!”
“Gross,” Jade said. “That doesn’t even go together. You’re just weird, Nat.”
“Leave her alone.”
With ceremony, Natalie took a bite and closed her eyes. “Good,” she pronounced.
Vince winked at Tessa over Natalie’s head. “Peanut butter and mustard?”
“I’ll stick with my peach, thanks.” But as Natalie focused so intently, Tessa put down her peach and took out her camera. “Can I take a picture of that, the avocado and the salt?”
“You really want to?”
Tessa nodded. “Please.”
Natalie held out the slice of avocado sprinkled with coarse red salt, and Tessa grinned as she shot the little fingers with chipped polish on short, squat nails. She took several photos, then asked Natalie to pour some salt in her hand and hold it out.
“Hold this, Daddy,” Natalie said, giving him the avocado slice so she could pour salt into her palm. “Are you a food photographer?” she asked Tessa.
“No, I just play around with my camera for fun mostly.” She zoomed in on the little-girl palm curling up around the salt, shot a series, click click click. “But I do work for a travel company, and they might like these pictures for a brochure, if you don’t mind.”
“Will she get money for being a model?” the next younger sister asked. She had a smear of peanut butter on her cheek, and her hair was mussed from the water.
“Probably not. My boss is pretty cheap.”
Jade laughed. Tessa snapped her picture, too, the long braid and peanut butter and great bones. She was pretty and she knew it.
“Get out of here!” Natalie said. “She’s taking pictures of my salt!”
“Nat, settle down,” Vince said. “It’s not a contest.”
“Everything is a contest,” she said, and huffed away, her hand closed tighter around her salt.
Tessa took her picture anyway, shot the rigid heat in her spine, the fingers clenched on the salt. “Hey, Natalie, if you keep your fist tight, the salt will dissolve,” she called.
Natalie opened her hand right away, stared down at her palm, and burst into tears. “I ruined it!”
Vince leapt to his feet and went to her. And Tessa, sap that she was, took pictures of that, too. Elk dad and elk daughter and the little dragonfly princess calmly watching.
Tessa said to Jade the dragonfly, “Did you know she would do that?”
The girl hunched her shoulders, giggling, and covered her mouth. “Yes. Mean, huh?”
Tessa nodded. “Pretty mean. If I had a sister, I’d want to be really nice to her.”
“You only think that because you don’t have a sister,” Jade said with full superior knowledge.
Vince calmed Natalie down and led her back to the group. “Look,” he said, “there’s plenty of salt left.”
Over the top of the girl’s head, Vince met Tessa’s eyes, and she caught an expression of weariness and sadness and hopelessness. Then he smiled ruefully and it was gone.
He sat back down. “All right, everybody, let’s eat lunch without a war, all right? Can we do that?”
After lunch, the girls sat by the lapping water in the shade, digging with plastic shovels. The dogs sprawled by the blanket, snoring. Tessa suddenly felt panic over the way she was tucked into the scene almost without noticing. “I guess maybe I should go,” she said.
“Why? What else are you doing on a Sunday afternoon?”
“I’m supposed to be working, checking out the town.”
“So, nothing?”
She smiled. “Right.”
Hannah squatted next to Vince and reached out to touch Tessa’s foot, the blot that looked as if she had been burned. “What’d you do?”
Tessa nearly answered truthfully, then realized how terrifying “spider bite” would sound to a trio of little girls. “I hurt it on a hiking trip.”
“How?” the little one persisted. She tucked her hands close to her chest. Her eyes were serious, searching Tessa’s face.
“That’s a personal question, Hannah,” Vince said. “Don’t be rude.”
“I bet it’s something really gross,” Jade said, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “And you don’t want to tell us.”
Tessa inclined her head. “Well, if it was something like that, I would be trying to protect you, right?”
“We’re not afraid of things,” Natalie said fiercely. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened?”
“Natalie, watch your tone.”
Tessa met her eyes. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Nat!” Vince said sharply.
“Because,” Tessa said, not breaking eye contact, “it is personal and I’d rather not.”
Natalie opened her mouth, prepared to battle, but her father cut her off. “Go play,” Vince said. “Mind your own business and do something constructive.”
They obeyed. Vince watched them go with a faint flush on his cheekbones. “Sorry.”
Tessa shrugged. “No big deal. I just couldn’t come up with a good lie so fast.”
He laughed. “It must have—never mind. Now I’m being rude.�
�
“It was a brown recluse spider bite, and I didn’t get treatment for four days, so by the time they got to it, it was a raging infection. I couldn’t walk for about three weeks.”
“A brown recluse?” He peered at her foot. “Really. I’ve never seen a bite before.”
“Lucky you.”
“I had the impression it was a painful bite.”
“It wasn’t, to tell you the truth. Not until it got infected, and by then—” The black hole punched through her ribs. “I was an idiot, basically.”
“Yeah, well, been there.” He tugged up the cuff of his jeans to show a knee crisscrossed with scar tissue. “I was a”—he paused with a glitter in his dark eyes—“professional mountain biker.”
Tessa found herself laughing. “Ah, a professional!” She made a face. “‘Were’? You don’t do it anymore?”
“Ah, hell, even if my knees weren’t shot, I’m way too old.”
“What, thirty-five?”
He grinned sideways. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
Sun bore down on the top of her head, singed the bridge of her nose, and she just looked at him; his brown eyes moved over her face, touched shoulder, breasts, legs, then back to her mouth. A heat shimmer rose between them, bending the light, gilding the circle around them, and Tessa had a sudden, hot vision of his naked thighs in her bed for a day or two.
Abruptly, she reared away. “I have to get back before I turn into a lobster,” she said, standing to brush off her butt.
“Will you still be in town for a day or two?” he asked.
“I’m staying for a couple of weeks, I think.”
“Let’s have a beer or something, huh?”
Tessa nodded. “You still have my card?”
“I do.”
“Good.” She paused for a moment, torn, looking at the crown of his head, the woven circle around his arm. “See ya.”
SEVEN
It wasn’t until she reached the bottom of the trail at the church that Tessa remembered she had planned to go to the river today. Too late now. Her foot was fiery. She’d picked up a good strong pine bough to use as a walking stick, but she was still hobbling as she came around the graveyard and spied the black-and-white pup. He lurked behind a tree, his head low, and Tessa stopped.
The Secret of Everything Page 8
