Someone walked down the steps. As the black pinstripe gangster pants came into view, her heart couldn’t help a hint of relief. He peered at the ocean, scanning the beach…for her? She whistled. When he turned toward her, his face lit up, and her heart melted into her chest.
She scooted over as he walked toward her. He sat next to her, causing all kinds of imbalance, not only in the swing but inside her.
He set his toy gun between them. “The party’s up there, you know.”
“Are you kidding? These crabs and I are getting ready to do the Electric Slide.”
“Do people do that anymore?”
“My friend got married about a year ago. We did all the group dances. My favorite is the Chicken Dance, of course.”
“The Chicken Dance?”
She slid him a look. “You do know the Chicken Dance, don’t you?”
“I’ve seen it, sure.”
“Yes, but have you ever done it?” He lifted his eyebrows in concession, and she put her hand to her forehead in dramatic fashion. “Oh, my God. You haven’t lived until you’ve done the Chicken Dance.”
“I’ll be sure to get myself invited to a wedding soon.”
“It’s a necessity.”
He shifted in his seat, opening himself a little to her. “So, how’s everything going?”
“Great. I’m starting the job with Chase Monday…thanks to you.”
“I meant with everything else? Have you heard anything from your ex?”
She rolled her eyes. “He called the shop so Cassidy was stuck talking to him.”
“So he knows you’re here,” he said.
“That part isn’t rocket science. He knows none of my family or friends know we’ve broken up. And he also knows I trust Cassidy with my life. So where else would I go? It’s not like I can afford to go anywhere else.”
“What did Cassidy tell him?”
“I let her spill the beans that I was here and okay. That should hold him off for a hot minute.” She turned to him. “You know, I’ve done nothing but talk about myself since we’ve met. Tell me something about you, something I could never guess.”
He shrugged, but his face turned red. She was starting to learn his tells. “There’s not much to talk about.”
“What about your family? Where do they live? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
He squirmed in his seat a little. “Sort of.”
She studied him. “You sort of have brothers and sisters?”
He scratched his neck under the collar of his shirt. “I’m burning this cheap Halloween costume when I get home.”
She wondered what he meant by sort of, but she was afraid to push. Maybe he had a sibling who’d passed away…or maybe he had step siblings or half siblings he didn’t know very well. Suddenly, she was plagued with a ridiculous desire to know the full story. “Are your parents still together?”
He gnawed on his bottom lip. “How are you doing on that drink?”
“Full up.” She turned her body to face him, zipping her lip. As much as she wanted to prod this forward, she wondered if the best tactic here might be silence.
He pointed at the ocean. “Have you seen a dolphin yet? They poke their heads up sometimes at night when they think nobody’s watching.”
She considered him. “I have an older brother. We’re not very close. There’s a bit of an age difference, and I don’t know, we just never really clicked.” She slid her hand over to his forearm. “I’d like to know about your family.”
He met her gaze, his brow worried. “I don’t really talk about it much.”
She squeezed his arm. “Could you tell me?”
His forehead creased in consideration as he searched her eyes. Finally, he scooted over to his side of the swing, holding onto the chain. “I’m an orphan.”
If someone would have offered her a million dollars to guess what he was going to say, she still wouldn’t have thought of that. “Oh, wow. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry about. I never knew my parents. I always wondered, of course. When I was eighteen, I got my birth mother’s information and researched her. I found out she was fifty-three years old then.”
Seanna’s heart constricted. “So that would have made her…”
“Thirty-five when she had me.”
Seanna let that sink in for a moment. “Did you go talk to her?”
Blake kept his expression even. “I spent a lot of time mulling over the reasons a thirty-five-year-old woman would give up a baby for adoption. I finally figured whatever the reason was, it didn’t involve her wanting to see me again. Honestly, I didn’t think she should have to see me.” Seanna opened her mouth to respond but didn’t know how to. He shrugged. “She stuck it out for nine months so I could be born. I figured I owed her the courtesy of being left alone.”
Sliding her hand across the swing cushion, she found his and squeezed it. He smiled down at his lap.
“So your mother gave you up as a baby, but you were never adopted?”
“I was set to be, apparently, but I developed GBS.” Seanna knitted her eyebrows together. He shook his head quickly. “Group B Strep, which eventually resulted in bacterial meningitis.”
Her hand drew to her lips. “Oh my gosh.”
He smiled and pointed at her. “I think that was the exact reaction of a dozen other potential adoptive families.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her heart aching for him.
“Don’t be. Meningitis is a scary word.”
“But you obviously got better from that,” she said, still wondering how he didn’t get adopted.
“One of the long-term effects of GBS meningitis is developmental delay. I didn’t hit the milestones when I should have. Walking, talking. I didn’t say a word until I was four. I didn’t make for the most adoptable kid.”
Seanna’s heart hurt as she thought about a little Blake, sitting in the corner, coloring outside the lines, not able to speak with potential parents who came to adopt him. Her nephew was autistic and delayed developmentally. He didn’t talk until he was three and a half. Seanna had seen the frustration in his features and what a completely different kid he was when he was finally able to use his words.
“So where did you grow up?” she asked.
“Partially at a Presbyterian children’s home in a suburb of Atlanta. It was a series of houses on a two-hundred-acre property. We had cows and horses, chickens. It was a beautiful place.”
“So you grew up on a working farm?”
“Somewhat of one. I got to ride the horses, milk the cows, collect the eggs from the chickens. I saw the birth of a baby llama once.”
She laughed. “That’s the coolest thing ever.”
He nodded in memory. “It was. Kids from other schools would come to the farm for field trips. One of the local stations did a special interest story on us. We kids were like rock stars.”
“Seriously?”
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Are you close with the couples who raised you?”
“No. They raised a lot of kids. I stayed out of trouble, kept to myself. A couple would come and care for my house for a while. Some would find it wasn’t for them, move on to another place in their life. I learned not to get too attached to any of my house parents.”
Seanna tried to imagine what life would be like without permanent parents. Her own parents meant the world to her. It’d been hard calling her mother earlier this week and telling her the wedding was off, but she couldn’t imagine not having her mom, or her aunt for that matter, to confide in. No wonder he was so shut off.
“What about the other kids in the house?” she asked.
“I stayed in touch with some of them for a while. I think they mostly keep in touch on Facebook. That’s not my thing.”
She couldn’t imagine Blake taking a selfie or posting a status update on any social media site. She considered him…so many questions. She wanted to choose wisely. “So where do you go for th
e holidays?”
“Bo’s family has me for Christmas. Your aunt has Sebastian and me over for Thanksgiving every year.”
Seanna took note that this covered the past few years, but what about his time in Atlanta? Where had he gone then? She knew better than to ask that.
“Is Sebastian an orphan, too?” she asked.
He frowned. “No, his dad is still living. I’ll let him tell you the rest of that story.”
She had a feeling she wouldn’t like it. She considered Blake. “You know, he comes in the shop every day and buys five cinnamon rolls, and he’s very hush-mouthed about who eats them. It’s clearly not him. Who are those for?”
Blake smiled. “I guess I can reveal that secret. He visits a nursing home every day. He has this group of women whose hair he does. He invited me along one day because one of them wanted a shelf built. You should have seen the way those women doted over him.”
Seanna could only imagine. “He’s a pretty special guy, huh?”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“What does he do for a living that he has time to go to the nursing home every day?” she asked.
“He’s a financial consultant. Really smart guy. I think he’s made a mint in the stock market, but he still works when he wants to.”
“Wow. Must be nice. I guess if all goes well with this kitchen remodel, and I get that gut-job of Chase’s, we’ll be spending Thanksgiving together this year.”
“If that’s okay,” he said. “Now that your aunt has actual family here, I’d understand if I needed to find somewhere else.”
“Are you kidding? Looks like I’m the one intruding.”
He shook his head with a smile. She was starting to notice that one eye closed a little more than the other when he smiled genuinely. God, he was handsome with those clear, blue eyes with the little laugh lines around the edges, that crooked nose that she wouldn’t want fixed for anything in the world, and those stupid, perfect kissable lips…the lower one a little bigger than the upper one except for when he smiled, and then they evened out into perfect symmetry. Damn. She was so screwed.
She wiggled in her seat. “So how do you know the Baldwins? Do all the locals in this town know each other or something?”
“Actually, I know them through Bo. His company handles their pool. He recommended me to do some work for them a while back. This is the first year I got a direct invite.” He stuck out his chest in a show of pride.
She smiled. “Climbing up the social ladder, huh?”
“Not bad for a blue-collar guy.” He gave her a lazy grin and then set his gaze on the rolling surf in front of them.
She walked her fingers toward his hand. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced down. She made a show of fisting her fingers, like she wasn’t up to anything. He smiled. She loved how she could make him do that.
She shifted on the bench so she had her back against the arm, facing him. She smoothed her knee-length pencil skirt against her thighs and rested her knees against the back of the bench. She cursed her aunt for outfitting her in this confining sixties librarian getup. “Tell me something else about you.”
“I told you I was an orphan. That wasn’t enough?”
“Tell me something you like.”
He peered at her, narrowing his gaze. “I like Batman.”
She attempted to hold back her smile but failed miserably. “Batman? He does it for you?”
“I respect him.”
“Oh, okay. I get that. He’s got superpowers.”
He frowned. “No he doesn’t.”
“He’s a superhero, isn’t he?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s what’s so cool about him. He doesn’t have superhuman strength or the ability to fly on his own, so he’s got to come up with creative ways to fight the villains.”
She nodded, holding back a grin. “Interesting.”
“Of course he is. He’s Batman.”
“No, not him…you. I hadn’t pegged you as a comic book geek.”
He huffed a laugh with a shrug, seeming about as un-geeky as possible. “I actually never had any of the comic books. I like the movies, though.” She nodded, trying to seem neutral, but the way he was looking at her, she suspected she was busted. “You’ve seen the movies, right?”
She scratched her chin. “Umm…”
“You’re kidding. Not even the Christian Bale ones?”
“What other ones are there?”
“Well, there’s the original ones from the forties and sixties, then the first Tim Burton one came out in 1989.”
“Which ones are better?”
He considered her. “Want to put it to the test?”
She looked him up and down like he’d laid a challenge before her. “Okay.”
“We’ll watch the first Michael Keaton one and the first Christian Bale one back-to-back.”
“It’s a d…” she said, stopping herself just in time, “plan.”
“Cool.” He furrowed his brow and looked her up and down, sending shivers up her spine. “That’s a good look for you, you know.”
She held up her pen necklace and stuck out her chest. “Would you like me to take a memo?”
He grinned and slid his gaze to her mouth, waking up her bottom half. The sound of what was certainly a herd of elephants on the wooden stairs had them both turning their heads. Desiree led the pack, flinging off her sandals when she reached the sand. She held out the skirt of her flowing stage dress and twirled around in circles until she dizzied herself, stumbling and laughing.
Sebastian came next. “Don’t ralph up your cocktails, Diana.”
Ashe held his Zorro mask over his eyes and ran headlong toward the ocean.
The blond, cat-eyed girl from the bakery the other day was next, dressed in a skin-tight sexy devil costume. She was so skinny Seanna thought she might lift right up off the ground with the next ocean breeze. As she spotted Blake and Seanna, her expression tightened. Seanna dropped her feet to the ground, feeling a little exposed.
She sleeked their way. “Hey Blake, Brianna.”
Bo stepped off the stairs and followed behind her, wearing a weary expression. “Seanna.”
The girl tossed a hand up in irritation as she narrowed her gaze on Seanna. “What are you, a librarian?” Seanna knew it. She should have gone with a black cat. But then it wasn’t like she wanted to stand next to this girl in anything figure hugging.
“She’s Joan, from Mad Men.” Blake turned to Seanna. “Right?”
She nodded, glad someone got it.
“Oh,” the girl said, her nose scrunching up on the side. “How cute. Wasn’t she like a secretary or something on that show?”
Bo pulled the tail on her devil outfit. “We can’t all have such a fitting costume.”
She glared at him in the way only a tween girl with a huge crush on a boy could. Seanna figured out quickly that she was on this girl’s territory, or what she perceived to be her territory. The girl—Marigold was it?—turned to Seanna. “So Sebastian’s bringing you everywhere, isn’t he? I assume you came with him.”
“I did,” Seanna said.
“That’s…great.” she said, practically clenching her teeth.
Sebastian approached them and tugged at Bo’s toga. “Let me get a good look at your costume.” Sebastian pursed his lips in disappointment. “I see you’ve got it tightly fastened. Good for you.” He shrugged and mouthed the words I tried to Seanna.
Zorro ran up behind Marigold and wrapped her in his cape. He dipped her, leaning in like he was going to kiss her. Her eyes bulging, he pulled her upright. “Sorry, can’t do it.”
Sebastian grabbed the chain of the swing next to Seanna. “Even that costume can’t turn him straight.”
Desiree floated over to them. “I want to dance. We should go to Wooley’s.”
Ashe pulled the mask from his face and widened his eyes, jumping up and down. “Ooh, yes! The ghouls and goblins will be out in full force.”
�
��Try the drag queens and shirtless boys,” Sebastian said.
“Even better.” Marigold took Blake’s hand, tugging at him. “Come on. I’ll ride with you.”
Sebastian pulled out his phone. “We’ll get a ride. Everyone’s been drinking.”
“That won’t be cheap all the way to PCB,” Desiree said.
Sebastian waved her off. Seanna wondered what it’d be like for just one day to have his kind of money. She had no idea how much he had, but by the look of his clothes and car, he didn’t want for much. “Come on,” Sebastian ordered, and took off for the stairs, punching into his phone as he walked.
Marigold pulled Blake up and pushed him, drumming on his shoulders, claiming back her rights to him. Bo held out his hand to Seanna. “Need help up?”
“I was thinking of taking up residence here.”
Bo glanced up at Gwendolen and Rob’s Mediterranean mansion. “I’ll let you take the master if you let me have one of the spare bedrooms.”
She took his hand and let him haul her big behind out of the swing. “I meant right here on this beach. Does it ever get old?”
He shrugged and walked toward the stairs. “I don’t know. I’ve never lived anywhere else, except for Tallahassee for college.”
“Florida State?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said.
“I went to UT. Our real rivalry is with the Gators, so you’re forgiven.”
He grinned at her. “That’s a relief.”
He offered her the staircase first, either because he was a gentleman or he wanted to check out her ass. “I tried to keep Marigold at bay as long as I could, but once the others came around, there was no holding back.”
“She’s…” She wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, so she didn’t.
“She’s got her moments. Unfortunately, they’re few and far between. I’ll warn you though, if you get close to Blake, she’s liable to strike.”
“I’m not getting close to anyone right now,” she said.
“Why’s that?” he asked, showing her the way to the side gate. “There’s a spigot around the corner.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m still dealing with my last breakup.”
“How long ago did you break up?”
Seaside Sweets (Love Along Hwy 30A Book 1) Page 8
