by Gerri Hill
“Did you see? Was it good?”
“Yes…it was really good,” she said with a smile. “I see you’ve been practicing it a lot.”
Lindsey laughed quietly beside her. “I practically have to drag him to the Mule. He always wants just one more swing.”
Jack pushed his blond hair away from his eyes and climbed back up on the deck. “You want to go?”
“Don’t you want to have lunch?”
“In a minute,” he said. He dripped water on her towel when he walked past and took hold of the rope again.
“So this is a daily thing, huh?” she asked Lindsey.
“It’s too hot to fish. We need to get out at daybreak sometime. Or late evening.”
Hannah stared as Lindsey pulled her shirt over her head, leaving her in only a bikini top. Well, it looked like a bikini from the front. The straps on the back were crossed, looking more like a sports bra. Lindsey’s skin was a lovely golden brown and her gaze was drawn to her breasts as Lindsey bent over to lay out a towel. Embarrassed for staring, Hannah turned her head when Lindsey straightened up.
“Since he’s not ready to eat, I guess I’ll join him in the water for a bit,” Lindsey said. “You want to get in and float around a little?”
It was why she came, she told herself…to swim. Yet she was feeling a bit self-conscious. Lindsey was obviously very comfortable in what she was wearing. Hannah wished she could be as confident. I should have worn the one-piece. Well, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Hadn’t James always told her she had a beautiful body? Was it true or had he been lying? No…she took pride in her appearance. Only, her exercise routine had suffered once James got sick. When she used to join Avery and Jennifer five days a week for their four-mile run, she’d cut back to three days…then two…then finally giving up altogether. James had encouraged her to keep going. It was an outlet for her, at least. It was the only time James’s illness wasn’t at the forefront of her mind. Toward the end, though, James needed her at home. She couldn’t possibly leave him.
Lindsey was looking at her expectantly, and she realized she hadn’t answered her question. So she nodded.
“Sure. It’ll be nice to cool off.”
Lindsey tossed a tube and a noodle into the water, which Jack swam over to retrieve. Then she tossed in the fanny floater. The dogs were still splashing in the water, but nearer the bank. Max looked up as Lindsey took hold of the rope and, like Jack, backed up a few feet before running to the edge. She let out a playful yell as she splashed into the water and Max immediately jumped in and swam toward her.
“Oh, yeah…that feels good,” Lindsey said as she maneuvered into the fanny floater.
“Come on, Mom! Your turn!”
With both of them staring at her, she pulled her tank top over her head, trying not to compare her rather pale skin with Lindsey’s. Give her a week or two in the sun and she’d catch up with her. She hesitated, however, when she unbuttoned her shorts. Damn, but why didn’t she wear the one-piece? Oh, well. She was thirty-four years old. And she happened to think she looked pretty damn good for her age!
But as she stepped out of her shorts—standing there in nothing more than her black bikini—she’d never felt more insecure in her entire life. Two sets of eyes were watching her. Jack was smiling, waiting on her to take the rope swing. Lindsey, however, quickly averted her gaze when Hannah looked her way. Was Lindsey embarrassed to look at her? Was her thirty-four-year-old body that hard to look at? Hannah had to resist the urge to pull her shorts back on and somewhat cover herself.
“Come on, Mom! Jump in!”
Hannah pushed all of her insecurities aside, telling herself she would simply ignore Lindsey McDermott. She was younger, she was obviously more fit, she had a fabulous tan and a very nice body—but there was absolutely no reason for her to feel intimidated by any of those things.
Right.
So she grabbed the rope swing and held on tight, praying she wouldn’t fall and further embarrass herself. As she was swinging over the water, two thoughts popped into her mind. One, they were going shopping in the morning to buy some water shorts. And two…what in the hell was she doing? She slipped from the rope, her arms no longer able to support her. She landed in the water with a clumsy splash, conscious enough to hear laughter coming from her son.
When she slicked the hair from her eyes, Lindsey pushed a tube in her direction and she held on to it. For a second, their eyes met, and Hannah smiled her thanks.
“Yeah…we’ll need to work on your landing,” Lindsey teased.
“That was great, Mom!” He laughed again. “You should have seen your face!”
Hannah splashed water in his direction. “I’m old. I can’t help it.”
With as much grace as she could manage, she got into the tube, finally relaxing as she leaned back, her face turned up to the sun. The water felt wonderful on such a hot day. She turned her head as Jack swam past her, heading back to the deck and another swing on the rope. He looked strong swimming and she wondered how much credit Lindsey deserved for that.
She looked over at her now, finding Lindsey’s gaze on her. “I understand you’re teaching him the backstroke.”
Lindsey nodded. “As well as I can. I’m not very good at it myself, but as a kid, I had to learn all the strokes. I thought if Jack was going to be out here in the river, he could stand a few lessons.”
“Watch, Mom!”
She turned, nodding, as he took a running leap with the rope, landing far out in the river. He popped up, a huge grin on his face.
“That’s my best jump yet!”
He swam back over to his noodle and wrapped an arm around it, grinning at Lindsey. She looked over at Lindsey, who was smiling back at Jack. Yes, they were close. She’d have to be blind not to see the bond between them.
Chapter Twenty
Lindsey wasn’t sure of the reason—maybe because she’d lived in such a vacuum the last few months—but the sight of Hannah Larson in a bikini nearly caused her to tip out of her fanny floater. She tried to look away. It was totally inappropriate, after all. It reminded her of the time she had a crush on her friend Mattie’s mother, Mrs. Simmons. They lived down the street from them. She had been probably twelve or thirteen at the time…too young to know what the crush meant, but she’d get completely tongue-tied around the woman. When she’d picked roses from her mother’s flowerbed to take to Mrs. Simmons, however, her mother had finally sat her down and they’d had a talk. She was so embarrassed afterward that she stayed away from Mattie’s house for nearly a month.
She glanced at Hannah now, who was sitting cross-legged on the deck, her towel tossed casually across her legs—to cover herself perhaps? That was a pity, she thought as she handed out sandwiches.
“Extra cheese for you,” she said to Jack.
“Goody,” he said as he snatched it out of her hand.
“I see you’re contributing to his cheese addiction,” Hannah said as she took the sandwich Lindsey offered her.
“I had no choice. He informed me after the first one that it would taste ‘way better’ if it had two slices on it.”
“Yes, he tries that with me too. It doesn’t work.”
Lindsey looked over at Jack, who was giving her a sly smile. “Looks like you’re busted, kid.”
He grinned and took a huge bite of his sandwich. Mayo mixed with mustard wedged in the corner of his mouth as he chewed. Hannah handed him a napkin and pointed to his mouth, however Barney—with one quick lick of his tongue—cleaned it up.
Hannah shook her head. “You do remember that he is a dog, right?”
Jack laughed. “He doesn’t think so.”
Lindsey sat down between them, then scooted the cooler closer. Her family had been beer drinkers, especially out here at the river. While she rarely drank anything when she lived in Dallas, she found herself following the tradition here. She pulled out a Coke for Jack and handed it to him. For her, she took a can of beer out and slipped it into one of the ko
ozies she kept in the side pocket of the cooler.
She looked over at Hannah. “I’ve got beer, Coke, or bottled water.”
“I’ll take a beer.”
Lindsey was surprised. She would have bet a hundred bucks that Hannah would choose the water.
“So you’ve been living out here since the end of May, huh?”
Hannah nodded. “As soon as school was out. Dennis—that’s my father-in-law—drove the rental truck. We didn’t bring very much furniture as the house was already well furnished but…well, I wish we had now.”
“Old stuff?”
“Old and worn, yes. And Lilly is in the nursing home and not coming back, but Margie thinks it would be disrespectful to get rid of her things.”
“She’s really old,” Jack offered. “We went to see her. She didn’t even know us.”
“Dementia?” Lindsey guessed.
“She had a stroke. Or a mini-stroke, as Margie called it. She had memory issues after that. She was easily confused, and they didn’t trust her living alone.”
“Well, she must be old. When I was a kid, we called her Old Lady Larson even back then,” Lindsey admitted. “She was…well, to quote my grandmother, a mean old biddy.”
Hannah laughed. “Yes, that describes her perfectly. James was afraid of her when he was young.” Her smile faded slightly. “I’m afraid some of her personality rubbed off on Margie.” She looked quickly at Jack. “Don’t you repeat that,” she threatened as she pointed a finger at him.
“What’s an old biddy?” he asked innocently.
Lindsey laughed at the look on Hannah’s face.
“You don’t need to know, and don’t you ever say that to your grandmother,” Hannah said. She looked back at Lindsey. “Margie is a bit of a nag.”
“And the queen of guilt.”
Hannah glared at him. “Do you have to repeat everything I say?”
He shrugged.
“She’s very condescending, and when she’s lecturing me about something, she can make me feel like a teenager sometimes,” Hannah explained to Lindsey. “She’s not impressed by my parenting skills.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you move here?”
Hannah chewed her sandwich slowly, as if thinking of an appropriate answer to the question. She took a sip of beer, then shrugged her shoulders slightly.
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Mostly. And like Jack said, Margie could make even an immoral man quiver with guilt. James was her only child. Jack is her only grandchild.”
“Ah. I see.”
“And…we needed a change. After James died…well, we needed a change,” she said again.
Lindsey waited, assuming Hannah would ask her the same question. Their eyes met and Lindsey saw numerous questions floating in Hannah’s gaze. But before she could ask any of them, Jack got up and stood in front of them.
“Hurry up and finish,” he said. “We’re gonna try to teach the dogs to jump off the deck, remember?”
Lindsey nodded. “I remember. I even brought a tennis ball.”
His blond hair was dry again and it blew into his eyes. He impatiently wiped it away. He was a cute kid—too damn cute—and Lindsey could imagine the girls chasing after him in a few years.
“Do you want a cookie?” Hannah asked him.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
He stuck his hand into the zippered plastic bag and brought out two, grinning as he shoved one into his mouth, then ran to the Mule, presumably to get the tennis ball.
Lindsey had been ignoring Max, but a large paw on her thigh made her look at him. His gaze, however, was locked on what remained of her sandwich. She took one more bite, then handed him the rest, which he devoured in one chomp.
“You didn’t even taste it,” she told him. He tilted his head. Yeah, he probably recognized the words, she said them often enough.
“Max is as spoiled as Barney, I see.”
“Yeah, but Barney is a little more polite with his eating. Max hasn’t mastered the art of chewing yet, I’m afraid.”
She got up, conscious of Hannah watching her. She resisted the urge to turn and look back at her. Instead, she turned her attention to Jack as he ran back over with the ball, causing the dogs to jump up excitedly.
“So how do we do it?”
“Well, I think first, we get them to chase the ball from the bank,” she said.
The dogs proved to be harder to entice off the deck than she’d imagined. They splashed in happily from the bank to retrieve the ball but refused to jump from the deck. By the time they gave up, both she and Jack were waterlogged and exhausted from the many jumps they’d made. Hannah apparently enjoyed the show as she floated in her tube, laughing at their attempts to cajole the stubborn puppies into the water.
“Maybe they’re too young,” Hannah offered. “They just learned to swim, didn’t they?”
“Yeah…I sometimes forget they’re still puppies,” she said as she got back in her fanny floater.
Jack hung on his noodle, floating between them. The dogs were apparently tired from their swimming, and both of them were on the deck, lying in the shade. Lindsey leaned her head back, looking up into the sky. She’d been a little apprehensive about Jack’s mother joining them, afraid things would be different. It was unwarranted, though. It had been a fun day, and Hannah hadn’t gotten in the way. In fact, it was kinda nice to talk to an adult. Since she’d moved here, besides Jack, her only other conversations were when she went grocery shopping and made idle chitchat with the clerk.
She looked over, watching Hannah as she relaxed in her tube, her eyes closed, one hand hanging lazily in the water, the other resting on her stomach. She assumed Hannah was five or six years older than she was, but still, she looked really good in a bikini. Really good. Her gaze lingered on Hannah’s breasts, then she quickly looked away. This was Jack’s mother, for god’s sake!
“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Jack asked, his voice breaking the silence.
Hannah opened her eyes. “We’re going shopping. Water shoes and shorts.”
“Oh, Mom,” he complained. “I hate shopping.”
“I thought you wanted some water sandals like I have,” Lindsey reminded him.
“Yeah, I do,” he conceded.
“If we leave early, we can be back in time for an afternoon swim,” Hannah said. She glanced over at her. “That is, if Lindsey wants to.”
Jack looked at her. “Can we?” he asked hopefully.
She smiled at him. “Of course. In fact, we can make it late afternoon, and then, if you want,” she said, addressing Hannah, “you can stay for dinner. I’ll put something on the grill.”
Jack grinned and looked at his mom. “Well? Can we?”
Hannah spun around in her tube, facing her. “I…I don’t want to monopolize your time, Lindsey. You’ll be sick of us before too long.”
“No, she won’t,” Jack said quickly.
Lindsey smiled at him, then splashed water in his direction. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want your company,” she said to Hannah. “It would sure be better than eating alone.”
Hannah studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. We’d love to have dinner with you.”
“Yay!” Jack yelled.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jack helped her bring in their loot from their shopping trip. It had been a quick trip to San Antonio. So quick, in fact, that she hadn’t called her sister to see if she’d want to meet up for lunch. Jack had been too antsy to get back. Not knowing what Lindsey planned for dinner, she hadn’t wanted to eat burgers in case that was going to be on the menu so she pulled into a Taco Bell—at Jack’s request—for tacos. Actually, what she hoped Lindsey had planned was steak. She hadn’t had a good one in more months than she could recall. James always handled that and…well…he hadn’t had an appetite for much of anything toward the end. Before they sold the house—and the gas grill—she’d attempted to cook one for her and Jack
. While Jack claimed that it was good and he ate his entire portion, she knew it had been terribly overcooked. She should have kept the gas grill, she realized. The only thing here was an ancient charcoal grill with a rusted grate. On the occasions that they had burgers, she always fried them or broiled them in the oven. Jack didn’t seem to mind, as long as he could put “extra” cheese on his.
“Did you call her yet?”
“We just got back. And it’s not exactly late afternoon, you know.”
“But—”
“Honey, if we’re going to have dinner with her, we don’t need to take up her whole afternoon too. I’ll call her about three and ask when she’d like to pick us up. I would imagine four would be the earliest.”
“Four?” he complained with a whine. “That’s hours yet. Lindsey won’t mind if we come over.”
“That’s only two hours. Surely you can entertain yourself for that long.”
He huffed off to his room and she shook her head. What, exactly, was his infatuation with Lindsey? Did he view her as a new friend, despite their age difference? Did he have a crush on her like he might for a teacher? They were close, she could tell that. And they were comfortable, familiar with each other. That was obvious. Still…Lindsey was twenty years older than he was. She could see Jack’s attachment, but what about Lindsey? What was Lindsey getting out of it?
Was she, perhaps, lonely too? When Margie had said the whole family had perished, who all did that mean? Obviously, the grandparents. Who else?
She went back to her bedroom, intending to sort out the new clothes she’d bought and decide on what to wear. Instead, she stopped at Jack’s room. The door was ajar and she pushed it open, finding him on top of his bed, playing on his iPad. Barney was also on the bed, sprawled out like he did most nights. Margie would have a stroke if she saw this, she mused.
“Jack?”
He looked up but said nothing.
“Has Lindsey…has she mentioned much about her family?” she asked.