by Amie Denman
“Are you Uncle Kevin’s girlfriend?”
At five, Maureen was observant, inquisitive and adorable. He also knew from experience she would report every single thing that happened that day to her mother at bedtime. She’d told her mother every word Kevin said when he took the girls fishing and Paige hooked him in the ear with a wild cast. She had faithfully reported how much pizza and ice cream Kevin let his nieces eat when he took them bowling. And, of course, she enjoyed telling exactly what happened last Christmas when Kevin took the girls to the amusement park for the holiday spectacular. While their parents were shopping and playing Santa, he was running his jingle bells off keeping up with two toddlers. Maureen threw up peppermint ice cream on his shoes and he later found what was left of a candy cane in his coat pocket after he ran it through the washer and dryer.
He got new shoes and a coat at the after-Christmas sales.
Maureen would spin out the whole day as if it were a film reel. He should warn Nicole not to give her the start of a story she could develop into a full-blown tale later. The girl was likely to be a novelist or a politician when she grew up.
“I’m just a friend,” Nicole said. Kevin saw her twist in her seat and smile at his nieces.
He backed out of the driveway after looking both ways twice. He usually only had Arnold to watch out for, but today there were two sets of chubby legs swinging from their booster seats behind him.
“If you can figure out how to run the DVD player and put in a movie for the drive, I swear I’ll win you the prize of your choice at the game booths.”
Nicole tilted her head and studied the drop-down DVD player installed in the van’s ceiling. “It’s a short drive, isn’t it?”
Kevin gripped the steering wheel. “Thirty minutes, give or take.” It could be a long half an hour. Both girls were already supercharged with energy when his brother dropped them off that morning. They didn’t know about their grandfather’s terrible accident. Instead, his brother had painted today as a special surprise treat for Uncle Kevin.
Uncle Kevin knew there was a beer offering coming later. At least a twelve-pack of remuneration for a day of heat, crowds and kiddie rides.
“I can do it,” Maureen offered. “Mommy lets me run it all the time. I’m her helper.”
“Terrific,” Nicole said cheerfully. “I’ll count on you to help all day.”
“Do you have kids?” Maureen asked.
“No,” Nicole said. “No kids of my own, but I babysat a lot when I was a teenager. We’ll get along just fine as long as your uncle behaves.”
“Uncle Kevin in time out, Uncle Kevin in time out,” Paige sang.
“I’m on your side,” Nicole said in a low voice.
Kevin smiled. He never doubted it.
“Who’s carrying the princess bag?” he asked when they’d parked the car and were mobilizing in the parking lot. He held up the mini-backpack with the latest sparkly princess to take the kid movie audiences by storm.
“I’ll do it,” Nicole said. She took the bag and glanced inside. “Your sister-in-law is well prepared. We have sunscreen, Band-Aids, crackers and hand wipes.” She looked up and smiled. “We could survive anything.”
“I need sunscreen,” Maureen said. “Mom always puts it on us.”
“No. Sticky. I hate it,” Paige protested.
Nicole knelt. “You can put it on me,” she said. “I burn. Bad. I hate having a sunburn.”
Paige smiled and let Nicole squeeze kid-friendly sunscreen into her chubby hand.
Kevin sucked in a breath. Watching Nicole with his nieces hit him in the gut with the wish that he had a family like his brother’s. Maureen and Paige took after their mother with auburn hair, and he could picture daughters with Nicole. Blondes with green eyes.
“I’ll close my eyes while you put some on my face and neck,” Nicole said.
God, she was brave.
“Hold still,” Paige said. “After I do you, you can do me.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Nicole said, lips closed against the onslaught of toddler-applied sunscreen.
After they were slathered up—and Nicole had discreetly wiped out her ears with a tissue—they held hands and braved the asphalt heat of the parking lot. Kevin presented their tickets and they clunked through the turnstiles. Only ten feet into the park, a photographer stopped them and instructed them to group up for a family picture.
Kevin looked at Nicole. She shrugged and lined up with the girls, smiling.
“Let’s get one of just you and the girls to give their parents later,” she suggested.
Kevin mugged with his nieces.
“Now just you two,” the teenaged photographer said, indicating Kevin and Nicole.
Kevin wrapped an arm around Nicole and held her close for a picture.
“Girlfriend,” Maureen announced to her little sister.
“We always buy the pictures,” Kevin confided to Nicole. “We’re suckers. I usually get the package where they give you two keychains with a little picture. The kids love it.”
Nicole wondered if he planned to purchase the picture of the two of them.
“How many times have you done this?” Nicole asked.
“Solo? Only once before. But I’ve tagged along at least once a year.”
“Are the girls tall enough for the kiddie coaster?”
He nodded. “I think Paige just makes the height requirement this year. It’s a hike, though, in the back of the park.”
Nicole pointed to her sneakers. “I came prepared. Let’s head for the coaster, girls.”
“Want me to carry the princess bag?” Kevin offered.
She laughed. Kevin’s nieces each grabbed one of his hands and started swinging them, leaving him no way to sling a tiny princess backpack over his shoulders.
Dodged a glittery bullet.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MIDDAY HEAT blasted their group, sunshine mixing with rising humidity and no breeze. So far, she’d buckled in for two rides on the kiddie coaster, one trip around a miniature racetrack, and ten minutes in the bounce house. When they finished jumping madly with fifteen other adults and kids, Nicole helped both girls find their sneakers and tie the laces. Despite his excellent physical condition, Kevin was sweating and breathing hard after the bouncy ordeal. That kind of thing wasn’t for the weak. Nicole had to give him credit—he’d really made an effort in there, doing flips and chasing both girls until they giggled. She’d taken a more moderate approach. Which was why she retained the ability to kneel and tie pink laces while Kevin clutched his side and stood in the shade.
Nicole’s chin-length blond hair was plastered to her neck in a slimy mix of sunscreen and sweat. Mercifully, it was lunchtime and Kevin knew the location of an air-conditioned restaurant. While Nicole claimed a corner booth with the two little girls and breathed in the cool air, Kevin solicited orders, nodding sagely as if he were memorizing them in great detail.
“Booster seat?” Nicole asked Paige, offering her a red plastic seat from the stack by their table.
The child shook her head. “I’m a big girl.”
“Okay,” Nicole said. It was one less thing she’d have to clean before the girls touched it.
Kevin dashed back over with a stack of napkins so Nicole could wipe off the sticky table. She watched him return to the line at the registers. He was easily the most attractive man in line. She should stop staring.
“Do you think your uncle will get our orders right?” Nicole asked.
Maureen shook her head. “My dad never does, so I don’t think Uncle Kevin will.”
Nicole smiled and shrugged. “I don’t blame him. We’re hot and hungry,” she said. “And it’s not easy being a waiter.”
Both girls giggled. Nicole dug the hand wipes out of the backpack and helped them scrub up while they waited for food. The three lin
es were at least four people deep each, and the teenagers at the registers mechanically pushed buttons as if they were treading water. Nicole wished she had thought to pack lunch. A peanut butter sandwich and a pudding cup would be like a gift from heaven right now.
“I got everyone the same thing,” Kevin announced a few minutes later as he placed an overflowing plastic tray on their table. “Hot dogs and fries. There was chaos at the register and it killed my confidence. You can add ketchup and mustard if you want.”
“Told you,” Maureen whispered to Nicole and they both laughed.
“If you make fun of me,” Kevin said, “I’ll tickle you on every ride. With your seat belt on, you’ll be totally at my mercy.”
“I like my lunch,” Paige said, nodding agreeably.
“Smart girl.”
Nicole watched Kevin steal fries from his nieces and pretend not to notice when they stole some from him. He didn’t flinch when food fell out of Paige’s mouth as she talked and ate at the same time. He made an emergency napkin run in record time when Maureen tipped over Nicole’s drink and the orange soda was headed for their laps.
He would be a wonderful father.
Kevin pulled out his phone and checked his messages.
“Mom,” he told Nicole. “Dad’s thing went fine and she stopped by my house to let Arnold out.”
“Good. Any other interesting news?”
He shook his head and glanced at his nieces who were, of course, listening to every word.
“Still waiting to hear if the...um...Yankees will win the World Series.”
“I hope they do,” Nicole said.
“Me, too.”
When they finished their lunches and left the air-conditioned oasis, the first thing to hit them was heat and humidity even worse than before. And a dark, threatening sky. Nicole dug her smartphone out of the princess backpack and checked her weather app. She held it up for Kevin to see.
“Looks like we’ll get wet in about an hour,” he said.
Nicole held it closer to his face. “Are you sure you’re looking at the radar west of here?”
Maybe he was an optimist or perhaps he had zero experience reading the weather radar. Nicole had grown up with a mom obsessed with the weather. Hanging in the hallway of their ranch home was a three-part weather predictor. Thermometer, barometer, humidity indicator. Her mother could predict bad weather better than the meteorologist on television. And she both feared and reveled in approaching storms.
The flashing red lines on Nicole’s phone would have sent her mother straight to the basement with flashlights and a change of underwear for everyone in the family. Growing up in the Midwest, she’d always known there was a tornado kit under the basement stairs. When the tornado sirens sounded their warning in Indianapolis, Nicole, Laura and Adam would hunker down in the basement wearing their bicycle helmets while their mother earnestly listened to the NOAA weather radio. Their father would pace up and down the basement stairs so he could peek out the kitchen windows toward the west.
It was the most excitement they got in Indianapolis. Tornado season. The season of adrenaline.
“I think we’re in for it and soon,” Nicole whispered, not wanting the girls to overhear and panic.
Kevin looked at the screen and shrugged. “Might miss us. I say we go have fun while we can.”
Nicole smiled and followed the group despite the sinking feeling in her stomach. The air had changed. Her mother could probably tell exactly how far the barometer had fallen. But Kevin was a local, and a public safety officer. Maybe he was right.
Thirty minutes later as their group huddled in the entrance to the brick bathroom building and lightning flashed across the sky, Kevin leaned close to Nicole.
“I should have listened to you,” he whispered in her ear. “I swear I won’t make this mistake again.”
Their current rain shelter was about six feet square, with the men’s restroom opening on one side and the women’s on the other. Her clothes were no longer damp with sweat. They were soaked with rainwater instead. The rain hammered on the steel roof and Nicole shrank against the wall with both girls sandwiched between her and Kevin, the princess backpack digging into her back. Kevin’s back was to the open entrance and he was probably getting wetter. Nicole was grateful for the drinking fountain digging into her side. Its tiny exhaust fan on one side blew warm air against her bare thigh.
The wind picked up and leaves scattered across the concrete. Both girls huddled closer and Kevin used his broad shoulders to shelter them all from anything that blew toward them—rain, wind, leaves, wrappers from amusement park food and drinks.
“Next time you’ll know,” Nicole said, in answer to his admission. “My mother was a closet weather forecaster. I have years of experience with these things.”
He grinned. “My mother keeps an umbrella under the seat of her car. That’s as close as she ever gets to being prepared for the weather.”
“I’m cold,” Paige complained.
“Here,” Nicole said, shifting the three-year-old closer to the drinking fountain. “I’ll share my heater.”
Thunder ripped the air and both girls cowered closer to Nicole. Kevin moved in and tightened their circle, his back still to the storm. The public address system hissed on and a voice sounded as if it were giving instructions, but they couldn’t hear the words distinctly.
Nicole maneuvered the princess pack around to her front and dug through it for her phone. Just as she feared. Severe thunderstorm warning. Hail. Damaging winds. As indicated half an hour ago by the flashing red lines... I should have spoken up more.
She got on social media and searched the hashtag for the amusement park. Yep. Park temporarily shut down, all guests asked to locate to storm shelters.
Lightning blinded them and both girls screamed.
“Hate to say it,” Kevin said. “But maybe we should move into the actual bathroom.”
“We can’t go in the boys’ bathroom,” Maureen protested. “I’m not going in there.”
“We’re sticking together,” Kevin said.
Maureen glanced up and gave him pouty-kindergartener face. Nicole wondered what Kevin would do. She was on Maureen’s side. The men’s bathroom was not in her plan.
Kevin sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Everyone in the girls’ bathroom,” he said.
The four of them moved as a group to Nicole’s right and they ducked through the swinging door with a skirted figure on the front. It was much quieter inside, although the rain still danced on the roof.
Okay. I’m hiding out in the bathroom during a thunderstorm with two little kids and a man who rattles my internal weather system. This will definitely be funny later when I tell Jane about it.
“Hey,” Kevin said as the four of them leaned, dripping, against the brick wall. “This is much nicer than the boys’ bathroom. You girls have it made.”
A toilet flushed and an older woman edged out the stall door and glared at Kevin.
He smiled. “Sorry. Any port in a storm.”
The woman washed her hands while keeping an eye on Kevin in the mirror. She hustled past them and pulled open the door, then paused and turned a less hostile face to the group.
“I think I’ll wait this out,” she said.
Kevin smiled again and pulled some paper towels from the holder by the sink.
“Think these will get the girls dry?” he asked.
“I can do better than that,” Nicole said. “Would you girls like a spa treatment?”
Maureen and Paige stared at Nicole and Kevin raised both eyebrows. The old lady crossed her arms and leaned against the inside of the door.
“I’ll show you,” Nicole said. She crouched down, ducked under the hot air hand dryer on the wall, and pushed the button. Her wet hair blew around her face in blond clumps while she worked her fingers throug
h it. She pushed the button again when the timer ran out. Although she felt Kevin watching her every move, she tried to ignore him as she smiled reassuringly at both girls, who watched wide-eyed.
“Much better,” she said, straightening up and shaking out her hair. “I’m dry and warm. If there’s a brush in the bag, I could give you a nice blow-dry.”
“Me first,” Maureen exclaimed. Paige pawed through the front zipper pouch on the backpack and produced a small purple brush. She handed it to Nicole.
The old lady exchanged a smile with Kevin. “Your wife sure knows how to make lemonade.”
Nicole noticed that Kevin didn’t bother to set the woman straight. Maureen stood under the hand dryer and Nicole brushed her hair. Kevin helped out by pushing the big silver button each time the dryer timed out. Paige took her turn, easily fitting under the wall-mounted dryer, and stood stock-still while Nicole brushed her hair as it dried.
“You are both beautiful,” Nicole said. It was true. Their long, smooth hair and pink cheeks glowed, even in the dim fluorescent lights in the bathroom.
The storm still raged outside, but Nicole felt like sunshine inside.
“My turn?” Kevin asked. He stripped off his T-shirt and held it under the dryer. Several teenaged girls raced in and stopped when they saw a shirtless man in the women’s bathroom. They stared, obviously impressed.
Nicole stared, too. Kevin’s broad shoulders and muscles rippled as he wrung out his shirt and held it under the dryer, elbowing the button to turn it on. He glanced up and grinned.
Maureen and Paige giggled.
“This is a first,” he said.
The teenaged girls and even the old lady were riveted by the performance, and Nicole felt warm inside because Kevin was, at least temporarily, hers.
But what would happen when they got home? No matter how foolish it was to hand over her heart to someone with Kevin’s career, Nicole was inching closer to letting go of the past with every moment she spent with him.
Despite the storm—and despite the fact they were trapped in a women’s bathroom with adorable children while a tornado could be bearing down on them—Nicole felt safe. Because of Kevin and his strength, his need to help people. Even at the risk of his own life.
