Their Secret Summer Family (The Bravos 0f Valentine Bay Book 7)

by Christine Rimmer

  He handed her the chilled bottle of wine and she carried it to the counter to open it.

  “Smells good in here.” He knelt to pet the dog, who greeted him by rolling over for a stomach scratch. “You’ve got bowls for him, too?” They were on the floor at the end of the counter. One was empty, the other had water in it.

  “Have a seat at the table,” she said as she popped the cork. “I never feed your dog, I promise.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat. “But I’ll bet you have kibble.”

  “Well, just in case.” She got down two wineglasses and carried them and the opened bottle to the table, where she filled a glass and held it down to him.

  He took it. “Thanks.”

  She claimed the chair opposite him, poured a glass for herself and sipped. “Yummy wine—and you know, I’m more than happy to watch him whenever I’m here.”

  That made him laugh. “You already watch him all the time.”

  “If you’re here, it’s not watching him. He’s just coming over to visit, that’s all.”

  He studied her face, wondering how it was that she always seemed to have a certain glow about her. “That’s a distinction without a difference.”

  “Wrong. And the offer stands. Just let me know if you need me to look after him.”

  He glanced over at the dog, who lay on his back with his tongue hanging out. Dante probably ought to put more effort into keeping him at home. But Owen was happy and Gracie liked having him around, so why mess with what seemed to be working out for everyone? “I think I’ll just say I appreciate the offer and we should move on to some other, more interesting topic.”

  “Works for me.”

  They stared at each other. He wanted to touch her and knew that he wouldn’t at the same time as he regretted saying they ought to talk about something more interesting.

  Interesting topics could be dangerous—at that moment, all topics seemed off-limits. Anything they said could lead to an honest conversation. He might just blurt out something totally unacceptable, like how he couldn’t stop thinking of her and he hadn’t changed his sheets since the night she spent in them. They still smelled of her, though only faintly now. Of flowers. And sex.

  She set her glass back on the table. “The chicken needs another half hour and then a little time to rest before we carve it. How ’bout a walk down to the beach?”

  He set his glass next hers. “Let’s go.”

  Owen led the way along the twisting, narrow path to the sand. This time of day, the beach was deserted. The lowering sun glittered on the water and the waves were slow and lazy, drifting in, sliding out.

  They took off their shoes and strolled the shoreline, the dog running ahead and then doubling back to follow for a while, then taking off in front of them again.

  It was nice, but too quiet. They were being careful with each other and he hated it. At the same time, he knew that saying anything too meaningful could lead somewhere he wasn’t prepared to go.

  They went to back to the cabin. She served the dinner. He tried not to stare at her sleek bare shoulders, at her thick, pale hair. At everything he wanted that he really needed not to let himself have.

  * * *

  Grace sat across from him at the small gateleg table and didn’t really know where to go from here.

  Tempting him until he broke didn’t seem to be working. Plus, it was kind of childish. She realized that.

  But the guy was impossible. They could have a great thing together if he’d only stop behaving like it was his sworn duty not to touch her ever again.

  For once in her life, she was attracted to someone who didn’t want her to fund his art or his writing or his next experiment. All Dante really wanted from her was companionship—and hot, sexy times, even if he refused to admit it.

  He was the first traditional male who’d ever interested her in the least. And since the night they’d shared a bottle of great tequila and his bed, he interested her a whole lot. He was protective and considerate and smoking hot—when he wasn’t being a damn idiot and turning her down.

  After the meal, he helped her clear the table and volunteered to wash the dishes. It didn’t take all that long.

  He thanked her for the evening and said he had to go. She felt so disheartened, she didn’t even try to stop him.

  Maybe, really, she needed to simply accept that they’d shared one amazing night and it wasn’t happening again.

  For the rest of the week, she wore a bra when she hung around the cabin. She gardened in her oldest pair of baggy cargoes and she saw Dante only when she brought Owen back to him or waved at him because they both happened to be outside at the same time.

  She figured she’d seriously messed up, lost a really good friend by getting naked with him. It was just another life lesson, she tried to tell herself. Constructive and depressing. Like blowing her inheritance supporting interesting men in Europe.

  Some women never really worked it out, man-wise. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have a rich and meaningful life. Look at the first Queen Elizabeth. They called her the virgin queen, though most reliable sources claimed the epithet was an exercise in irony. But whether she’d actually died a virgin or not, Elizabeth I never found a life partner. Yet she’d been the greatest ruler England ever had.

  Time to face facts, Grace decided. She and Dante were over before they’d even really begun.

  Chapter Four

  That Saturday morning at ten, Dante arrived at the specified wide space in the road about midway between Valentine Bay and Portland to pick up his girls.

  As always, he got there right on time.

  And as usual, Marjorie and the girls were late. Dante played Fortnite on his phone and tried not to feel impatient as twenty minutes crawled by.

  And then, finally, there they were, with Roger at the wheel of the white Toyota Sienna he’d owned before he and Marjorie got together. Because leave it to Roger Hoffenhower to drive a minivan even before he had a family to ferry around in it.

  Roger pulled in behind Dante’s Ram crew cab and Dante got out to help the girls move their mountains of belongings from the Toyota to the truck. Nic and Nat jumped out and came running as Marjorie called out the window, “Stay out of the road, you two!” They were on the passenger side of the minivan, nowhere near traffic, but Marjorie was a mother to the core.

  His daughters squealed as he held out his arms. They landed against him, one on each side.

  “Daddy!” cried Nicole as Natalie shrieked, “We’re here!”

  Had they grown since their last visit four weeks ago? Kind of seemed like it. They smelled of Sour Patch Kids and that all-natural mango-and-shea-butter shampoo Marj bought for them, and he forgot all about his annoyance at Roger for arriving late. It was everything in the world to him, just to have them in his arms.

  For about a half a second.

  Immediately, they were dropping to the ground again, whirling around to start grabbing their stuff, babbling on about their cousins and friends in Valentine Bay that they couldn’t wait to see. They’d been coming to Dante every summer since they were three. It was pretty much the life they’d always known. They had friends, Marj’s family and school in Portland and a whole other set of friends and family in Valentine Bay.

  Roger got out and shook Dante’s hand and they made friendly noises at each other for a minute or two as Marjorie tried to supervise getting the booster seats out of the minivan.

  “We know how to get our seats,” insisted Natalie.

  “Yeah, Mom,” moaned Nic. “We’d rather do it ourselves.”

  “Well, pardon me.” Marj stepped back with both hands up.

  The change-off went pretty smoothly, overall. And the girls weren’t fighting or crying or complaining, so that was a win. Not ten minutes after Roger pulled in behind Dante, he and Marj were waving goodbye.

  The
girls buckled up in the back seat and off they went. The drive home took about an hour. Five minutes into the trip, they started working on him to stop at Camp 18 for burgers.

  It wasn’t even eleven yet. They could have sandwiches at the house.

  But he was a single dad and he hadn’t seen them for a month. Whatever they wanted, he wanted to give them.

  And they knew it, too.

  “Daddy, please?”

  “Can we?”

  “We never get to stop at Camp 18...”

  They stopped at Camp 18. First came the pictures. He took a bunch of the two of them posing in front of various pieces of logging equipment on view out by the parking area. Then they started in on him about cell phones.

  “We need our own phones, Daddy, we really do,” insisted Nat as Nic stood beside her, nodding with enthusiasm. “If we had our own phones, we could take our own pictures...”

  So far, he and Marj had held the line on the phone situation. The plan was to put off going there until the twins reached eighth grade. Yeah, he knew it was a losing battle, but at this point he and his ex were still presenting a united front on the issue. “We’ve talked about phones. A lot,” he said patiently. “I don’t think we need to go over all that again right now.”

  They aimed identical scowls at him.

  But then Nic asked so sweetly, “Can we at least use your phone and take some pictures of each other?”

  There went another half hour as they giggled and chattered together and took turns posing for each other in front of and on the giant chainsaw sculptures scattered around the series of porches leading into the log cabin–style restaurant and gift shop. Not that he minded them taking their time. They were having a ball and he had the weekend off and the plan was to spend it all with them, anyway.

  When he finally herded them inside, they wanted to order everything on the menu. He just kept shaking his head until they narrowed it down to burgers with fries and lemon-lime sodas. The burgers were big, so he really tried to get them to split their order between them. But they looked at him through matching sets of wide brown, hopeful eyes and he was a goner. Food would be wasted.

  But as it turned out, they were both hungry and really put it away. He was glad he’d let them have what they wanted. It was all going great—until Nic picked up her full soda just as Nat leaned close to her ear and whispered something.

  Nic burst out laughing and stopped paying attention to the drink in her hand. The corner of her big plastic cup caught the edge of the table and sent ice and sticky soda raining into her lap, drenching her turquoise tank on the way, soaking her faded rolled-up jeans and even sliding down her calves to fill her pink-and-white-checked Vans.

  She let out an outraged cry of surprise and stared down at the mess with a look of absolute horror.

  And then Nat said in a gently chiding tone, sounding just like their mother, “Nic, you really need to be more careful.”

  Nicole promptly burst into tears. “Oh, shut up, Nat,” she sobbed. “You made me do it.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did so...”

  The nice waitress came running with clean towels and gentle words. Dante was sent to the truck to get Nic some dry clothes as the waitress and Nat took the sobbing Nic to the restroom.

  Of course, he brought back the wrong things.

  “I’m not wearing those,” Nicole moaned. He could hear every word clearly through the restroom door. “Nat, you have to go with him and show him what I need.”

  A moment later, Nat emerged carrying the clothes he’d brought from the pickup. “She’s soaked all the way through,” Nat said sternly. “And she’s very upset.” He must have looked pretty worried, because then she reassured him. “Come on, Daddy.” She patted his arm. “It’s going to be fine.”

  Back out to the truck they went. Nat dug around in one of Nic’s suitcases, coming up with a top and some pants that, to him, looked pretty much like the ones he’d chosen in the first place. She also found clean underwear and another pair of canvas shoes.

  They headed back to the restaurant and straight to the restroom. He lurked near the door as his daughters spoke in whispers on the other side.

  When they came out, he thought Nic looked pretty composed. She handed him a plastic bag provided by the waitress. “Here’s my stuff,” she said with distaste. “Everything’s sticky.”

  “We’ll dump them in the wash at home and they’ll be good as new.”

  Though her tears had dried, her eyes were red from crying. “I know, Daddy. It’s just embarrassing, that’s all.”

  “Happens to everyone now and again.”

  She stuck out her lower lip with a tiny humph of sound and then added softly, “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “It was an accident.” He dared to offer a hug and she accepted as Nat looked on approvingly.

  “Ready to go home?” he asked them both, though as a rule with them he tried not to ask questions he might not like the answer to.

  This time, though, he got the answer he was hoping for. Both of them nodded.

  * * *

  By nine that night when the girls went to bed, he was exhausted. He grabbed a quick shower and then checked on them. They were both sound asleep.

  Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he went out to sit on the deck, only realizing that Owen had escaped to Gracie’s again when she emerged from the cabin with the dog right behind her. The light by the cabin door made a halo around her bright hair as she paused to pull it closed behind her.

  He watched her coming toward him through the twilight, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt—with a bra underneath, he couldn’t help but notice with more disappointment than he should have allowed himself to feel.

  “Owen.” He clicked his tongue and the dog loped up the deck steps and right to him. “Lie down.”

  Owen dropped to the deck boards and put his head on his paws. With a wave, Gracie started to turn back for the cabin.

  He’d spent the whole day with a couple of eight-year-olds and he really couldn’t help longing to look at a pretty woman, not to mention, talk to an adult. “Gracie.”

  She turned back to him again and braced her hands on her hips. “What’d I do now?”

  “Want a beer?”

  She tipped her head to the side, like she wasn’t sure she ought to accept his invitation.

  He got that. He’d been avoiding her and, judging by the bra she was now wearing and the disappearance of those revealing Daisy Dukes, she’d taken the hint.

  “C’mon,” he coaxed. “Just one.” With a shrug, she came toward him. “Have a seat.”

  She dropped into the chair across from him and he got up and went in to get an IPA, handing it to her before he sat down again.

  For a couple of minutes, they just sat there, sipping. He thought about how superfine she looked in the light by the slider behind him and couldn’t help missing all that gorgeous skin she had hidden now under faded jeans and a plain shirt.

  “Your daughters are adorable,” she said.

  He frowned at her. “You met them?”

  She laughed. The sound tugged on something deep inside him, something that wasn’t quite an emotion, something more basic. Something needful and hungry—and lonely, too. “I babysat them once, back when they were toddlers. It was here. At this house.”

  “I’d forgotten.”

  “They were a handful back then, but sweet. Kind of like Daniel’s twins.” She set the bottle down on the table, but didn’t let go of it. “This afternoon, they came to the cabin to get Owen.”

  “Owen.” At his feet, the dog lifted his head. Dante gave the dog a pat. “I should have known. That must have been when I was trying to get their karaoke machine up and running. I had some trouble with the disco lights.”

  “But you got it working?” At his nod, she went on, “For identicals,
I find them pretty easy to tell apart.”

  “Yeah, Nat’s more athletic, more outgoing and opinionated. Nic is more in her own head, I guess you could say. She weighs maybe five pounds more than Nat, but she’s pretty sensitive about it.”

  “They’re both gorgeous.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Spoken like a really good dad.”

  He grinned at her across the table. “Hold that thought.”

  “Once you got the disco lights working, did they sing for you?”

  “Let me put it this way. I don’t really ever need to hear ‘Let It Go’ again.”

  Gracie ran a hand back through all that beautiful hair. What was it about her? Even in unrevealing clothes, she pretty much sucked the breath clean out of his lungs. She asked, “So they wore you out, huh?”

  “They did. And I try to keep in shape, too. Valentine Bay is hardly a hotbed of crime, but I’ve taken down my share of bad actors and fleeing offenders. None of them had half the energy of my two girls. Every time they come home, I realize all over again how nonstop they are. Always talking, on the move.”

  She was watching him. “I meant it when I said that you’re a good dad, Dante.”

  “Thanks.” He confessed, “I miss them so much when they’re gone.” Their eyes met and held. He never wanted to look away.

  She was the one who broke the spell, slowly turning to stare off toward the shadows of the twisted trees that framed the path to the beach. “They’re excited to be here. They told me they always do the day camp in Valentine City Park and have lots of friends they can’t wait to see.”

  “Yeah. I get banker’s hours when they’re with me so I can work while they’re at camp. Today, they were home for maybe two hours before they started begging to go to Grandma’s. They can’t wait to have sleepovers with their cousins and friends here in town. And they’re already on me about where they can get the right costumes for the Medieval Faire—according to some all-knowing authority they somehow can’t quite name, it’s no good to just go to a discount store and pick up something simple and easy out of a box. It has to be ‘special,’ though neither of them seems that sure what ‘special’ involves.”