by Dana Corbit
“Come in with us, Aunt Lindsay,” Emma called out to her, drawing her back from the faraway place to which her thoughts had traveled.
“Yeah, sunbathing beauty, aren’t you coming out to play? Afraid you’ll mess up your hair?”
She understood that he was kidding. Yet a flush climbed up her neck over his compliment. Did he think she was pretty? She shook her head, knowing she shouldn’t care. When was she going to stop reacting like a silly schoolgirl around Joe Rossetti?
“This hair?” She patted the mess of it piled on top of her head. “I don’t think you could mess this up.”
“Then come on in,” he said.
“Please, Aunt Lindsay.”
Glancing at her cane and then to the rocky edge of the water, Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t know.”
But she used the cane to struggle to her feet anyway. She decided to leave on her cover-up over her swimsuit. She wanted to do this for Emma, but she couldn’t take the cane in with her, and she was flustered enough around Joe without having to fall on her face in the water.
“Do you think she needs some encouragement, Emma?”
“Yeah. Let’s go get her.”
She braced herself as Joe and Emma climbed out of the water and jogged over to her. Joe wrapped a wet hand around Lindsay’s waist, leaving her with no choice but to put her arm around his shoulder. Emma clutched Lindsay’s other hand and pulled her toward the water, missing that Joe was supporting most of her aunt’s weight.
Joe leaned around and looked down at Emma, just as they reached the water’s edge. “You see? We talked her into it.”
With the combined scents of lake water and masculine male flooding her senses, Lindsay had to concentrate on the damp chill of the swimmers sandwiching her to stay focused on the ten steps into the green water. After a few precarious seconds, as they stepped over the sharp rocks at the water’s edge, they reached a sandy bottom in a shallow spot and stopped to let the tide rush past their knees.
“Thanks,” Lindsay said in a low voice. It was important to her that she be able to participate in physical activities with Emma, and Joe had seemed to understand that without her saying so.
“Anytime.”
His gaze caught hers again and held, but this time she had to look away. The image was too much like her fantasy. It made her long for things she’d never realized she wanted, things she couldn’t allow herself to think about, when her focus needed to be on her niece who had lost so much. Lindsay glanced down at the sweet little girl holding her hand, but Emma pulled away and started running circles around the two adults.
“You can’t catch me,” she sang.
Lindsay braced herself, preparing to find her balance when Joe released her to chase after the child in the shallow water, but he kept his arm on her waist, his touch a warm reassurance that he wouldn’t let her fall. Again, Lindsay rejected the temptation to see more than was there. Emma continued to run around and around them until she became dizzy and fell back into the water laughing.
Lindsay could relate to that feeling of being off-balance. The rational part of her was onboard with the idea that she should avoid thinking of anything beyond friendship with Joe. But that irrational part, the one that wanted things it shouldn’t, was going to be harder to convince. Right now that disobedient part didn’t want Joe Rossetti to let her go.
“Let me see those prune piggy toes.”
Joe sat up from the place on the blanket where he’d dropped to rest what had felt like only seconds ago. Minutes or hours might have passed, but he’d been too content to notice. He breathed in the smells of the water, the foliage and the peace that seemed to have its own scent and exhaled a calm that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
From the other side of the blanket where they’d sandwiched Emma between them, Lindsay chuckled. “No way, buddy. You leave my prune toes alone.”
Joe glanced over in time to see Lindsay sit up and tuck her feet beneath a layer of sand. He didn’t have to see them to know that she had coral-colored polish on her pretty toes any more than he needed to see her face to know she would be blushing after what she’d said. Yes, he was supposed to notice details in his job, but it was over-the-top for him to note that her nail color matched the hue that she often wore on her lips.
“Trooper Joe was talking about my toes.” Emma kicked both legs up into the air and wiggled all ten of them.
“Was I?”
He certainly hoped he was because he wouldn’t be able to explain anything else. He was still trying to process the rush of feelings he’d experienced when helping Lindsay in the water. It wasn’t just the experience of touching her, which he’d already learned had its own electrical charge, but knowing she trusted him was exhilarating.
Joe nabbed one of Emma’s feet and squeezed a plump little toe. He shook his head. “Oh, this is much worse than I thought. We have some serious pruning here.”
The worried look on Emma’s face as she pulled her foot away made him laugh. He ruffled her hair. “I think they’ll be fine, that is, if you spend some time out of the water.”
“But the sprinkler park…”
Joe shook his head. “Nope. That can’t happen today. Those toes need a rest. And let me get a look at those fingers.” He reached for her tiny hand and turned it palm up before lifting it to show Lindsay. “Did you see these? I think a break from swimming is called for here.”
Lindsay shook her head sadly. “I have to agree.”
“We’ll have to do that another day,” he said, as Emma’s lips formed a pout.
“It’s time for us to be getting home anyway,” Lindsay said.
“I don’t want to—”
Lindsay held her index finger to her lips until the child stopped. “Remember, I told you we could get ice cream on the way home, but only if you could leave without complaining.”
“Chocolate-and-vanilla twist? And not a baby cone.”
The side of Lindsay’s mouth lifted. “A small.”
“Small is big.”
The idea of a frozen treat winning over the tantrum, Emma stood up from the towel and started gathering her sand toys. As the child moved over to her deserted castle to collect her shovel and pail, Joe leaned in toward Lindsay.
“What were you saying about bribes?” He couldn’t help grinning as he said it.
“They work sometimes. Anyway, this is an incentive program.”
He nodded, but he couldn’t keep a straight face. “You see? I did teach you something about kids.”
“Now you’ve created a monster,” Lindsay said with a frown as she struggled to stand up and then started shaking out the beach towels. “Two, if you’re including Emma in that. Before long, I’ll be bribing her with a sports car just to keep a C average on her report card.”
“If you’re handing out sports cars, would you mind adopting me? I’ll just go back to college. I’m sure I can find something else to study.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Emma raced back to them, her toys already in the mesh bag with sand trailing out through the holes. “Can Trooper Joe come with us to get ice cream?”
Lindsay glanced sidelong at him, as if waiting for his nod. When he gave it, Lindsay turned back to Emma. “If he wants to come, fine.”
“Want to get ice cream, Trooper Joe?” Emma asked.
“I like ice cream.”
Why was it that he suddenly wished Lindsay had invited him herself? It was just ice cream. But what he needed to admit to himself, even if he wouldn’t confess it to anyone else under direct questioning, was that he wasn’t ready to leave Lindsay Collins and her young niece just yet.
He didn’t know how he’d gotten to this place. He’d been a mess at work, even after Brett had spoken to him, and he’d come here wound so tightly that even Lindsay had pointed it out. Yet, after a few minutes here with the two of them, all of his stress had melted away. That truth alone should have set off more bells in his mind than a four-alarm fire, but he didn’t
even have the good sense to be on high alert.
Didn’t he realize that at any time she might start asking questions again? Spending time with them, it was easy for him to blank out the memory of the accident that had brought them together in the first place, but it was wrong to keep the truth from Lindsay.
She had every right to know the whole truth, but he still didn’t know how to tell her that he’d not only played God by choosing which sister would live, but that he’d refused to listen when she’d begged him to save her sister instead. He had to tell her; that was all there was to it. He just had to find the right time.
As Lindsay finished with the towels, Joe grabbed the blanket, shook it out and folded it over his arm.
“Here, let me get those.” He reached for the pile of towels stacked on the sand, and then he took the ones she was already carrying from her arms.
“I am perfectly capable of doing this stuff myself.”
“I know you are.”
She’d taken a few steps toward the parking lot, but she stopped and looked back at him with a guarded expression, as if she expected him to make a joke. “I might move at a snail’s pace, but I eventually get there.”
“You’re doing just fine.” He meant more than about navigating a day at the beach, and she must have guessed that because she nodded, her gaze off to the side rather than meeting his. “You were doing just fine without any tips from anyone. Even me.”
“Thanks.”
Something must have caught her attention because her head turned and she focused on a bank of trees. Within seconds, a pair of runners emerged from the wooded area on the bike path, matching each other’s stride.
“They’re moving at a fast clip,” she said when she caught him watching her.
“You really miss it, don’t you?”
“Running?” She shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do about that, at least until I’ve healed more. What am I supposed to do, try to run using a cane? That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”
“But would you start running again if you could? And you did say that you’re relying on your cane less and less, right?” He glanced at the sandy beach and looked back to her. “Except at the beach.”
“It just isn’t a possibility right now. I’m not confident enough in my balance to even attempt to run. And if I were ready again, I would still have to find child care for Emma while I ran. I don’t know my neighbors that well, and after last night, they’re probably not going to volunteer to baby-sit.”
“But you would if you could, right?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I would if I could.”
Her face was so sad that he was sorry he’d mentioned it and even sorrier that he’d pushed the issue. He’d rubbed salt in one of her open wounds from the accident, this one on the inside where no one could see. She must have wanted to escape the sting of it because she suddenly took a few steps away from him, stopping where Emma had set her bags of toys and was playing again in the sand.
“Okay, sweetie. We’re really going to go now.” She looped the mesh bag over her shoulder and took Emma’s hand, relying a little on the cane in her other hand.
Joe helped them load the car and followed them in his truck to the ice-cream stand just outside the park entrance. He hoped they would make their stop a quick one. It wasn’t as if he suddenly wanted to put some space between them, but the idea he’d just come up with was going to require him to be away from them for a while.
No, he couldn’t take back the accident or restore Lindsay’s family, but there was one thing he could return to Lindsay that she’d lost that day. He would help her to run again…with him. And maybe somewhere along the way he would find the courage to tell her the whole truth.
Chapter Eight
Lindsay closed her eyes as she sat on the front steps of her condo and tilted her head to feel the sun’s warmth on her face. She relished a brief moment of peace. Today had been a series of rushes added to the serial scrambles of the past few weeks, from home to the day-care center to work, and the same list of stops in reverse.
So this was what parenting was really like. Not those tissue-inspiring moments, like on TV commercials. Day after day, doing the right thing. The responsible thing. It was tough, sometimes draining. She’d been told it was rewarding, too, but she hadn’t experienced that part yet.
Opening her eyes, she twisted her body to look over her shoulder to the closed door behind her. Usually, by this time in the afternoon she would be hurrying to prepare dinner, but her effort would have been wasted today, since Emma had dozed off on the couch a half hour before. They were only having hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, anyway.
Lindsay dropped her head into the cradle her hands had formed as she rested her elbows on her knees. She was a failure as a guardian on so many levels. Emma had only been living with her for a few weeks, and already Lindsay had resorted to feeding her junk just to keep the peace at dinner. And letting Emma nap this late in the afternoon would make it nearly impossible to enforce her 8:30 bedtime.
As she stared out into the street, she could almost see the approval disappearing from her parents’ eyes. At church the day before, her mother had told her it was a “good idea” when she’d described her plan for creating a regular schedule for Emma. A schedule she was already blowing.
You should give yourself a break. Lindsay bristled as Joe’s words slipped into her thoughts uninvited. She didn’t need him as her cheerleader here, but worse than that, she didn’t need to be thinking about him one more time today. She shoved her hands back through her hair.
Wasn’t she having a tough enough time balancing work and parenting roles without wasting time wondering why Joe hadn’t called in two days? She shouldn’t have been thinking about anyone at work, where her concentration needed to be on measuring gestational age and development on the ultrasound screen. She definitely shouldn’t have been thinking about Joe.
He’d certainly managed to remove her from his thoughts, if the past few days were any indication. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since Saturday. She shook her head. That couldn’t matter to her…even if it did.
Straightening, Lindsay glanced out into the street again, looking for some entertainment. In this unique area of town, where modest older homes with established trees shared space with her newer condo complex, there was always someone out on the street, staying active. She used to be one of them.
As if to prove her point, a pair of in-line skaters raced on the asphalt, their arms pumping furiously with the effort to get the edge. A helmeted cyclist in racing gear passed them on the left. She followed the biker’s path with her gaze, appreciating his joy for speed, his commitment to the sport.
When he was finally out of sight, she turned her head the opposite way, catching sight of a runner approaching in the distance and pushing a jogging stroller. Runners were always the hardest to watch, their freedom and fluid movements making her wish for things she couldn’t have right now, so she turned away.
But curiosity drew her gaze back to the runner, who wore a baseball cap low over his eyes. Because he was closer now, just beyond the first condominium building, she got a better look at him. And his empty stroller. Lindsay rubbed her eyes and looked again, just to make sure her vision wasn’t playing tricks on her.
She was still wondering why a tall, broad-shouldered man who didn’t have the lean build of a runner, would be running up her street pushing an empty stroller, when he came into view. Her breath caught. A chill she couldn’t explain scaled her arms, though it was probably seventy-five degrees outside.
Joe? Maybe red-faced, but that could be him, right? She gritted her teeth, shaking her head. It had been bad enough that she’d been thinking about him at work, but was she going to start seeing him everywhere now? Then the man she’d almost convinced herself was only a mirage grinned and waved. After he stopped the stroller on her driveway behind her car, he gripped its padded handle and bent at the waist, gasping for breath.
Joe took a few more deep breaths, still bent over and holding up his index finger in an unspoken request for her to give him a minute.
She couldn’t wait that long. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said as he straightened. “I’m out for a run. It’s a great day for one, isn’t it?”
“Nope. It is definitely not obvious what you’re doing here ready to pass out on my driveway. The only thing that is obvious is you really aren’t a runner.” She paused, studying him. “Just look at you. I’m tempted to call an ambulance.”
“Thanks. Way to beat a guy down while he’s hyperventilating. Maybe I need more cardio.”
But he was grinning as he said it, and his face was losing its sunburned look with each breath.
“So…?” Stepping back, she leaned against the bumper of her car and propped her cane next to her leg.
He set the parking brake on the jogger and slipped the safety strap from around his wrist before waving his hand over the stroller. “Surprise.”
Lindsay looked from Joe to the stroller and then back to Joe. “That’s for me?”
“Well, I don’t have that much use for it, other than to have it drag me down the hill after I pass out, so if you could use it…” He let his words trail away, his face becoming serious. “You miss running. It’s important to you. This is a way you could do it again. I just thought—”
Lindsay shook her head until he stopped, but there was nothing she could do to halt the feelings that bombarded her thoughts. Frustration and gratitude and another feeling she couldn’t define shot at her from different directions until she wasn’t sure how to respond. No one had ever done something so kind for her before. Certainly not any man.
