by Eva Charles
I turned just as a little boy in a red and white bathing suit came flying into the kitchen. Startled to see me, he skidded to a barefoot stop.
“Hi,” I said, a bit surprised myself.
“Hi,” he responded shyly, arms glued to his sides.
I got down eye-level with him, and stuck out my hand. “I’m Mark. What’s your name?”
“Teddy.” When he took my outstretched hand, I moved our joined hands in an exaggerated motion until I coaxed a toothless smile from him.
“Nice to meet you, Teddy. Is that your white car outside?”
He nodded.
“You drive?”
“Nooooo.” He giggled, shaking his head. “I can’t drive. It’s against the law. But when I’m sixteen, I’m gonna drive. A monster truck with giant wheels.” He used his skinny little arms to demonstrate. “And an Apache helicopter. Like my dad.”
“Well, if it wasn’t you, who drove the white car here?”
“Mommy. Mom,” he corrected quickly. “We’re going swimming. She takes a long time to get ready.”
“I feel you. Women need a lot of time to get ready. But when they’re done, they look pretty and smell good. It’s usually worth the wait.” Teddy didn’t seem on board with my explanation. “Waiting always makes me thirsty. You want something to drink?”
He nodded.
“All right, let’s see what we have.” I opened the fridge, and of course, it was full. No doubt my grandmother, aunts, or Rosa—our housekeeper, who lived in the guesthouse with her husband, Antonio—stocked it early this morning. As long as those ladies had anything to say about it, no one would ever go hungry in this house, that’s for sure.
“Do you like orange juice?”
He scrunched his little nose. “Does it have yuckies?”
Yuckies? Oh, God. Kids were like women: they had their own language. “What’s a yuckie?”
“Skin.”
Skin? Pulp—got it. I took a quick look at the carton. No pulp. We were in business. “Do I look like a guy who would serve orange juice with yuckies floating in it?”
“Jake Harrington lives here,” Teddy blurted out of nowhere.
I smiled. Kids are funny. Something random pops into their head and it immediately pops out of their mouth. It’s a trait I haven’t completely outgrown, either, and apparently, it’s not one of my more endearing qualities.
“Yep. I saw Jake’s car in the driveway. He must be upstairs, or maybe he’s at the beach.”
“Or the pool.”
I nodded. “Or the pool.”
“He only lives here sometimes. Now he lives in a huge mansion. Is this a mansion?”
You really had to pay close attention to follow a conversation with this kid. “Jake lives in a mansion, really?” Last time I was there, it was a two-bedroom apartment with a galley kitchen. Spectacular views of the city, though.
“Football players live in mansions.”
I handed him a large glass of orange juice, and immediately understood why parents gave kids small plastic cups with lids. “You might want to hold that glass with two hands, buddy. That’s it. Is your dad here, too?”
“No.” When he shook his head, his whole body shook, too, and I had visions of shattered glass and sticky OJ all over the kitchen. I did not want to clean that shit up. “My dad can’t leave his house.”
“How about if we put the glass down on the counter, right here, until you get thirsty again?” An image of a white-collar criminal in an ankle bracelet immediately came to mind, but I decided to start with something a bit more kid-friendly. “Is your dad sick?”
“Dead. He lives in Virginia with all the dead soldiers.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. So innocently. No sadness. No regret. It was simply a fact, like all football players live in mansions. But my stomach coiled tighter than a garter snake poked with a stick, and I sucked in mouthfuls of air just to keep breathing.
“Who’s your favorite Turtle? Michelangelo’s mine. He has nunchakus.”
Dead soldiers. Ninja Turtles. My head spun.
“Teddy! There you are!”
I glanced up to a pretty brunette in the doorway. She was breathless, and the relief in her voice was palpable.
Emmie.
I should have guessed. When we had lunch, Jake invited her to come out for a weekend, and I encouraged it. But it was one of those up-in-the-air invitations, no specific date or time. The kind you mean when you offer, but no one ever takes you up on. Plus, the kid threw me off.
“Hi.” She smiled. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Just walked in ten minutes ago. This is a nice surprise.”
“I hope it’s okay. Sophie invited Teddy and me for the weekend, but Jake thought it might be more fun to stay here with all the guys. More fun for Teddy,” she added quickly.
“Teddy. Of course.” I pressed my back against the counter, resting my hands on the cool marble. “Have you met the dog yet?”
She squeezed her eyes tight, and her body vibrated with laughter. I stood there, grinning like an idiot.
“You have a dog?” Teddy asked, while I quietly admired his mother’s long, shapely legs.
“Brady. He must be next door. Otherwise he’d be in here, licking your face. You’ll meet him later.”
A kid. She has a kid. She’s somebody’s mom. Teddy’s mom.
But between the trendy sunglasses, and sexy little flip-flops, not to mention all ten toes lacquered in screaming-my-name red…nothing about that package said Mommy. My dick didn’t think so either. The pushy bastard was trying to get out, nudging my zipper hard enough to leave an imprint. For a half-second, my mind started to wander. Then a little voice piped up.
“You have really big muscles. Are you a football player, too?”
“Teddy!”
“Sorry. I’m not supposed to talk about how somebody looks. It’s not nice.” The kid was back on his heels, examining his wiggly toes.
“Don’t worry about it, buddy. I really like when people notice my big muscles.”
He threw Emily a huge grin over his shoulder.
But she wasn’t won over by the little imp. “I was worried when I came out of the bathroom, and you were gone.” She crouched in front of him. Her eyes focused intently on the cute little devil. “You weren’t supposed to leave the bedroom without me. We talked about that.”
“I’m sorry. I heard a big noise downstairs. I thought it was a burglar.”
“A burglar?”
He nodded feverishly, eyes wide, and I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t laugh. I didn’t dare look at Emily, but I heard a trace of humor in her voice.
“I wanted to protect you,” he added, with a good dose of sincerity. Even I almost bought it. The kid was good.
“You don’t need to protect me. I’m a grown-up. You’re a little boy. I protect you. We’ll talk about this later.” No humor now. She was dead serious. “If you want to go swimming, you need to come upstairs while I finish getting ready.”
“Moooom! It’s almost dark.”
“Hang tight, big guy. It won’t be dark for hours. Besides, the pool has lights,” I added, trying to help her out.
His eyes widened, again. “You can swim at twelve o’clock midnight?”
“As long as there’s no thunder or lightning, you can swim any time.” I gazed at Emily, keeping my eyes far away from her legs, and those cherry toes my dick liked so much. “Why don’t you finish getting ready? Teddy and I’ll get a snack.”
“He can’t have anything to eat—he’s going in the pool.”
“I’m not feeding him a five-course dinner. Just a handful of tortilla chips. And that’s an old wives’ tale, anyway.”
Her brow furrowed while she watched the kid drain the glass. “He probably shouldn’t have any more juice, either. Small person, small bladder.”
Ewww. “Got it.”
“Just a few chips. Teddy, look at me. Up here.” Her voice was kind, but firm. “Stay
right here in the kitchen with Mr. Harrington.”
“Mark. You can call me Mark.” She turned a simmering glare on me. Yikes. “My brothers will all be here this weekend. The Mr. Harrington thing is going to get confusing. We’re not all that swift.”
Her expression softened, and just like that, I’d talked myself out of trouble. She turned back to the pint-sized rule-breaker. “If you leave this room, even for a second, you won’t be allowed to go in the pool today. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Will you make sure he stays right here, in the kitchen?”
“So the trip to Cancun we were taking while you put on sunscreen is a no go?” She wasn’t amused. “Relax, Mom. He’s not going anywhere except up on those stools. Go do what you need to do, so this poor guy can take a swim. He’s been waiting a long time. Apparently, you take forever to get ready.”
The corners of her mouth eased up. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
4
Emmie
“How’s the water?”
I looked up to find Mark Harrington in nothing but low-riding board shorts and a pair of aviators. He looked like a three-dimensional ad in GQ. Drool-worthy from head to toe.
My eyes strayed to the sexy patch of dark hair that collected just below his navel, tapering as it disappeared into the shorts. I wasn’t turned on by pictures of naked guys, but show me some toned abs and a happy trail, and I immediately dissolved into a hot mess.
“It’s warm.”
I averted my eyes back to my son, and tried to remember Tim’s face in aviators. He’d worn them too. So many years had passed that my memories of him weren’t as crisp anymore. The vivid motion picture of our life together was gone, replaced by simple snapshots in time. There wasn’t a single day I didn’t think of him. Think about how much he would have adored his son, or how much Teddy would have loved him. I kept Tim alive, by talking about him often, so Teddy could get to know his dad through me. It didn’t fill the void for him, but it was the best I could do.
“Then how come you’re sitting on the edge?” He stuck his hand in the water and swirled it around.
I shrugged. “I can keep a better eye on Teddy from here.”
Mark lowered himself onto the ledge of the pool, near me. Our thighs were inches apart. “Jake was a lifeguard. He won’t let anything happen to Teddy. I’m surprised he didn’t take him down to the beach. In some ways, it’s easier to learn to swim in the ocean. The salt water helps you stay afloat. Once you learn in the ocean, tackling the pool is a piece of cake.”
“I wasn’t comfortable with him going into the ocean. People drown in the ocean all the time. It’s not as buoyant as you think.”
“People drown in bathtubs, too. But I bet Teddy takes a bath every day.”
He had an answer for everything. Given the opportunity, I bet he could mansplain a wide variety of subjects, until I was ready to strangle him.
“Shower.” My attention flitted between the swimming lesson in the pool and the man sitting so close I could feel the warmth radiating off his skin. “He just started taking showers. Says he needs privacy. Although I’m not sure what kind of privacy a seven-year-old needs.”
“I don’t know. That sounds about the age when a boy doesn’t want his mother in the bathroom with him. Hard to remember, exactly.”
“I changed his diaper, thousands of times.”
Mark grimaced. “Please do not share that bit of information with him. Trust me, he knows. But he doesn’t think about it. Guys who don’t have weird fetishes get creeped out about those kinds of images. Even little guys. Tell him that, and it’ll scar him for life.”
“The entire male species is so weird.”
“You think little girls want their fathers in the bathroom with them?”
I drew in a long breath through my nose, and held it. I wouldn’t know. This was where I began to fall short. I had virtually no memory of being a child. Everything I knew about children came from others, or from reading. Teddy taught me plenty, too.
But I didn’t have anything from my childhood to lean on. I was never really a child—not in the real sense of the word. I might have had a miniature body, but my experiences and responsibilities had always been adult size. I knew how to fake it, though. I could fake it like a champ. I released the breath. “Fair point.”
“You don’t swim?”
I glanced sideways at him, my mouth slightly agape. I told Jake that Teddy couldn’t swim, but I hadn’t mentioned anything about me.
“You’ve got a death grip on the side of the pool. Anybody who could swim wouldn’t be so hyperconcerned. The water’s shallow, and an adult is standing right there with him. Even a doggie paddler could pull a kid out of two and a half feet of pool water.”
Hyperconcerned. That was a layman’s way of saying hypervigilant. A word that was certainly not part of the Harrington brothers’ vocabulary. No, their Norman Rockwell childhood, with games on the beach, followed by family barbeques, and bedtime stories, didn’t know hypervigilance.
That word was used to describe the maladaptive behavior of people who were raised like me. Children so neglected their little brains were hardwired with the fight-or-flight instinct. It didn’t just kick in when there was danger, like with most people; it was always turned on. Because for people like me, danger lurked everywhere.
Despite all the years I’d spent in counseling as a child, my hypervigilance would still taint Teddy’s childhood. My stomach balled so tight it hurt. This was when I missed Tim the most. When my heart ached for him. He wouldn’t let me hurt Teddy. He’d tell me to stop being crazy.
I twirled my ankles, and let the water flow between my toes. “You see a lot.” I sounded calm, but it frightened me.
“I’ve been good at reading people all my life. It saved me as a kid.”
“It saved you as a kid? That sounds a bit dramatic.”
He stretched his legs out in front of him, until his heels hovered over the surface of the water. “I’ve always been impulsive, maybe a little on the hyperactive side. Although I outgrew most of it long before college—the hyperactive part, anyway.”
His mouth curled ever-so-slightly, and I wanted to peek behind the glasses to see whether the smile reached his eyes, or whether it was just a ruse for my benefit. No one knew better than me that a smile, even a small one that only involved the lips, wielded tremendous power. It could keep the world at bay, even during a fierce storm.
“Always had a bunch of friends, but I got into lots of mischief as a kid. We all did, but I was more likely than my brothers to haul off and flatten someone. Usually my cousins’ boyfriends.”
“That must have made your mother happy.”
“My mother was a saint. She raised six boys. We always had help in the house, but she never passed off the job of raising us to anyone.”
A black cloud descended for a few seconds, but I blew it away. It was my special talent. “Sophie told me about your mom. Six boys—that’s impressive. Most days, I can barely manage one.”
“He’s a great kid. It seems like you’re managing pretty well.”
I let my feet glide through the water. “I never learned to swim.”
Mark nodded. “Where did you grow up?”
“Here and there. I moved around a lot.”
“I don’t know about there, but there’s plenty of opportunity to swim here.”
His quick wit made me smile. “Not for me.”
“It’s not too late.”
I laughed—a small, superficial laugh that didn’t bubble up from my chest.
“I’m not kidding. You should learn so you don’t have to sit gripping the pool, praying that nothing happens to him. Living in New England, Teddy’s going to have plenty of opportunities to get in the water—boats, skis, boards, you name it. You need to get comfortable, so you don’t make him afraid of the water.”
I bristled. So you don’t let your craziness screw up his childhood. “I’ll get r
ight on it. I’ve been wondering how to spend all my spare time. Stuffing my face with expensive chocolate while I binge-watch This Is Us is getting old.” It came out bitchy. He didn’t mean it, but his words cut deep. The mere suggestion I wasn’t a good mother shook me to the roots.
“I can teach you.”
“You’re offering to teach me to swim?”
“I was a lifeguard, too. Taught a bunch of kids to swim.” He leaned over, scooped some pool water into his hand, and dumped it on his shoulder, right where it met his chest. After spreading the water to his wrist, he leaned over, and wet the other side. I watched the droplets bead tightly, and evaporate from his sun-drenched skin. For a few long minutes, I fully understood the visual appeal of porn. Understood it to the core. And if he started splashing water onto his stomach, well, I would not be responsible for my actions.
“We can start tonight, after Teddy’s in bed. Even with the lights, no one hangs around the pool after dark anymore, so you won’t have to feel self-conscious. That’s part of it, isn’t it?” He nudged my foot with his, until I looked up at him. “Isn’t it?”
I shrugged.
“That’s why more adults don’t learn to swim.”
The thought of him teaching me to swim, water collecting on his chest and shoulders, sent my hormones into overdrive. Skimpy bathing suits, his hands on my naked flesh…
I couldn’t go there. I already had my chance, and it was great while it lasted. Now it was Teddy’s turn. By some miracle, I’d been given another opportunity to mother a child. And Mark Harrington, with his sexy happy trail and layers of smooth muscle, wasn’t sidetracking me. I would not become my mother.
“You won’t be ready for Olympic competition, but I can at least help you learn to get more comfortable in the pool and breathe underwater. That’s the hardest part of learning to swim. The rest is easy.”
Learning to swim wasn’t a bad idea, for all the reasons he suggested. It’s not as though it never crossed my mind, but aside from the whole business of his nimble fingers on my wet, needy skin, there was a practical component as well. “I can’t leave Teddy inside while I’m out here in the pool.”
“Sure you can. We can borrow one of those baby monitor thingies from Sophie.”
