“I sure am,” she said. “With this SPF 50 zinc.”
But beneath her words, a sultry spark of teasing warmed him more than the beautiful day outside.
“She will, Uncle Owen,” piped up Charlie, who’d come to stand beside him. She tugged on the pocket of his board shorts. “You can be the alien king, and you’re my daddy. Gracie will protect us both from the bad aliens.”
Charlie’s innocent storytelling transforming him from uncle to daddy lodged in Owen’s throat, so he cleared it before stepping away and hoisting up the cooler. “You two aliens ready to hit the beach? Morgan and William are already down there.”
Charlie frowned and slid her bare feet into her flip-flops waiting at the back door. “How come they get to go down the path by themselves?”
“Because Morgan’s nearly fourteen, and William’s ten,” Owen said. “We’re last because you changed your mind twice about what swimsuit to wear.”
Gracie slid off the counter and grabbed a tote bag stuffed with towels and more sun lotion. “Let’s go, then. I’ll lead the way and check for bad aliens.” She slanted a saucy glance at him. “What color are they, King Owen?”
“Pink,” he said. “Like the color of your cheeks the other night when—”
“I see one,” Charlie hollered and ducked past both Owen and Gracie, streaking outside. “C’mon!”
After two hours of sandcastles, beach cricket, beach soccer, and sand-speckled ham salad sandwiches, Owen was ready to hit the water to cool off. Only there was no one to join him.
Morgan wouldn’t risk the embarrassing-uncle factor since other teens were nearby. William wanted to stay in the sandy-bottomed giant pool of seawater left by the retreating tide, and Charlie—well, Charlie refused to go anywhere near the teeny-tiny waves washing up on the shore. Gracie tried admirably for the first hour on the beach, attempting to coax her into the water with the two older kids. Nope, Charlie would have none of it.
Owen glanced out at the sparkling waves of Bounty Bay. Offshore, a fishing boat bobbed, seabirds wheeling high in the air currents above. Farther along the beach the bright red-and-yellow flags of the local Surf Life Savers flapped in the breeze, and kids on boogie boards played in the shallows. His mouth tightened. So many of his good childhood memories were tangled up with the beach and playing with Ali and Daniel. He didn’t need to hear his sister’s voice in his head to tell him to pull his thumb outta his ass and do something to help Charlie get over her fear of the ocean.
“How about a piggyback ride, princess?” he asked.
Charlie sat beside him under the sun umbrella’s shade while Gracie and William waded in the giant rock pool. She scrunched up her face and grinned, putting down her plastic spade where she’d evidently been digging a hole to bury the alien kingdom’s gold from alien goblins—at William’s suggestion.
“Okay, King Owen.”
Owen rolled onto his hands and knees, and Charlie climbed aboard. He strolled along the beach toward the rubber rescue boats. Charlie bounced on his back as he veered toward the three volunteer lifesavers currently on duty—one of them was Sam. And, yeah, a vague idea had formed in his head since they’d first arrived on the beach, and he’d spotted his mate decked out in his red-and-yellow shorts and shirt.
“That’s Sam!” Charlie’s whole body wriggled as she waved. “Hi, Sam!”
Sam lowered his binoculars and waved back. He climbed down from the lifesaving tower and gestured to one of the other lifeguards to take over. Then he jogged across the sand to meet them, his face creased into a huge smile.
“It’s about time you brought my little mate to see me.” Sam reached over Owen’s shoulder and plucked a giggling Charlie off his back. “Hey, sugar-britches.”
“I’m not a sugar-britches. I’m an alien princess, and he’s my daddy, the king!”
Charlie clung to Sam with a familiarity that demonstrated Sam’s charismatic appeal to females of all ages—kids loved him, teenagers giggled over him, women lusted after him, and mums wanted him to put a ring on their daughters’ fingers.
“My mistake, Princess Sugar-Britches,” Sam said, but his gaze cast over Owen with a questioning seriousness.
“I thought you could tell Charlie what you’re doing here today.” Owen gave him a meaningful stare in return.
Sam, Isaac, and their family had attended Ali and Shaun’s double funeral, with the brothers being two of Owen’s sister’s pallbearers.
Sam nodded, and carrying Charlie tucked on his hip with the ease of a man with many, many cousins and little second cousins, proceeded to introduce her to the two other on-duty lifesavers, let her look through the binoculars, and lifted her to sit in the rescue boat.
“See how people are swimming between the flags?” Sam asked. “Chase, Vicki, and I keep them safe. If people get scared for any reason, they stick their hand up like this”—Sam demonstrated, shooting an arm into the air—“and we’ll go help them.”
Charlie’s little hand slid into Owen’s as they followed Sam past the flags to the wet sand. Charlie scrunched up her face, looking between Sam and Owen and the tiny waves.
“What about those people?” She pointed back toward their beach umbrella where a group of adults waded into the surf. “They’re not by the flags.” Her mouth tipped down. “What if they get scared?”
“Sam would help them, too, if he saw they were in trouble,” Owen said.
“Nana said nobody saw my mummy and daddy when they went swimming,” Charlie said. “So there was nobody to save them.”
Owen fought to keep his gaze steady on his niece’s upturned face, desperate not to betray the horror still curling through his gut when he thought of his sister and brother-in-law desperately fighting to survive. He chose to believe they’d still been together before the ocean overwhelmed them.
“No, sweetheart. They weren’t swimming near the flags where a lifeguard like Sam could help. And your mummy and daddy weren’t strong enough swimmers to get themselves back to the beach.” Owen crouched in front of Charlie. “That’s why me and Gracie and your Nana and Gramps want you to learn to swim.”
Charlie cast a dubious glance over her shoulder at Sam. “So I can grow up to be a lifesaver like Sam?”
Sam tugged one of her pigtails. “No reason you couldn’t. You see Vicki back there? She came third in the Women’s National Surf Lifesaving competition last year, and she swims like a fish.”
Charlie turned back to Owen. “I want to swim like a fish, too.” But her cherubic mouth puckered into a frown as a rogue wave swirled around her ankles.
“How about if we start by sitting in the rock pool with Gracie and William?” Owen asked. “Maybe the pink alien with tentacles that William told us about is still there.”
In a gesture identical to her big sister, Charlie rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t an alien, Uncle Owen. That was a sea-neno-me.”
“My bad.”
Owen scooped Charlie up in his arms, and she shrieked then giggled.
“Say, ‘see ya later, alligator,’” Owen told her.
He nodded his thanks to Sam, who returned with a no worries, mate eyebrow lift.
“In a while, crocodile,” Sam said and then in a lowered voice to Owen, “Baby steps.”
Owen carried Charlie along the beach, this time splashing through the shallow waves that surged around his feet so she’d hopefully get used to them. He wouldn’t rush her, but time was slipping through his fingers faster and faster.
***
Thanks to the position of the tidal pool by a cluster of limpet-covered rocks, Gracie’d had a clear view of Owen taking Charlie to meet the lifeguard—who William informed her was Owen’s friend, Sam.
Morgan had wandered over to dangle her feet in the sun-warmed salty water a few minutes ago, her face flushed. William remained fascinated with a group of hermit crabs hiding in the rocks behind them, so Gracie edged around the knee-deep tidal pool until she floated casually by Morgan’s feet.
Gracie tipp
ed her sunglasses down and peered at Morgan. “’Sup, Morg? You didn’t have to come back yet.”
The girl’s gaze flew to where a group of girls from her school were packing up their towels and beach bags. “Nah, they’re heading closer to the flags so they can drool over the lifeguard.”
Gracie’s jaw sagged. “Your uncle’s friend?”
Morgan jerked, her chin tucking down. “Eww, no. Sam’s like forty or something. I mean Chase Danielson. He’s in year twelve and a forward in the under eighteens.”
“Ah.” The high school rugby hero. Gracie sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “That makes more sense.” She gentled her voice. “You didn’t want to go with them?”
Morgan stared at her toes, pale ghosts under the cloud-reflecting pool. “All they wanted to talk about were boys. Which boys liked them, which boys they liked, which boys their other friends liked that they didn’t like, which boys they were going to the end-of-term dance with.”
The hairs on Gracie’s neck rose. “There’s a dance at your school? For the juniors?”
Morgan huffed out a sigh. “Yeah. It’s to fund-raise for the seniors’ ball later in the year. No big deal.” She scraped a few strands of hair off her cheek and tucked them behind her ear, displaying the taut angle of her jaw.
Evidently a big deal to Morgan.
“The teachers said it’s not a boy-girl-date thing like the senior ball. You can just go and have fun with your friends.” Her mouth twisted again. “Only lots of the girls want to make it into a boy-girl-date thing. They don’t care about having fun; they just wanna go with a cute boy so the others girls will just die.”
“Ugh.” Gracie couldn’t stop her lip from curling. “That’s a stupid reason to go. I’m glad you and Olivia and your other new friends will be going for the right reasons.”
Morgan’s feet stopped making little splashes in the pool. “I don’t know if we’re going.”
She glanced up, and Gracie followed her gaze to where Owen had paused in the water, pointing out something in the bay to Charlie.
“And I don’t know if Uncle Owen would even let me.”
“Oh, he will if I make sure he volunteers as a chaperone.”
The girl groaned, but it was a hopeful groan. “No way. Now I definitely don’t want to go.”
Inspiration came to Gracie in a flash. “Course you do. And your fairy godmothers, Natalie and I, will make sure you and Olivia go to the ball with new dresses.”
“Really? You’ll design something just for me and Livvy?”
“What are fairy godmothers for?” Gracie said, and with a quick calculation of her incidental spending money for the next few weeks added, “And I’ll spring for some new shoes, too, since you can’t show up in your black Converse.”
Splashes from beside them, and Gracie turned to see Owen wading into the tidal pool. He stopped when the water was up to mid-calf and grabbed Charlie—who was once again piggyback riding—under her arms, and swung her over his head. Settling Charlie on his hip, he bent and whispered something in her ear that made her smile.
“Okay?” he asked.
Charlie nodded.
He lowered her until her toes touched the water then swung her up, giving her a little toss in the air before catching her and dipping her feet into the pool again. Charlie squealed with delight.
“Was that scary?”
“No!”
“No? I’d better do it again.”
Owen repeated the action until Charlie was giggling and boneless, unaware that her uncle had walked up to his knees into the tidal pool.
Charlie wasn’t the only one boneless and flushed pink by the time Owen finally lowered her to her feet. Morgan held out her arms, and Charlie went to her.
Gracie shifted closer to the taller rocks, where the water covered her shoulders when she sat up. At some stage after his chat with Sam, Owen had stripped off his tee shirt, and she couldn’t get enough of looking at all that smooth, tanned skin. Including the defined muscle ridge by his hips that his board shorts sat beneath. She lost brain cell after brain cell just staring at them, and her skin felt hot enough to turn the tidal pool into a hot tub.
While Owen collected Charlie’s sandcastle bucket from the pool’s edge for her to play with, Gracie pressed cool, water-wrinkled hands to her cheeks and prayed he wouldn’t notice. Then she glanced over to Morgan. The girl gave Gracie the please talk to him eyeball and sat next to her little sister.
“Me and William will look after Charlie,” Morgan said to her uncle when he returned with the bucket. “You’d better get the sun lotion for Gracie soon; she looks sunburned.”
His gaze swung straight to Gracie, the heat in it as he scanned her from shoulders to mouth sending another trail of fire rampaging over Gracie’s skin. Oh, she was burning, all right, but not from the sun.
Owen handed the bucket to Morgan, who promptly scooped up some water and dumped it on herself, making Charlie laugh and apparently forget she was sitting in water up to her chest.
He waded through the pool, his eyes telling her he knew exactly why she was so hot and flustered. But instead of teasing, he eased down beside her, stretching out his long legs and resting back on his elbows. William climbed down from the rocky outcrop at their backs and slid into the pool on Owen’s other side.
“Hey, Charlie, want me to show you how to blow bubbles? Then we can look at the hermit crabs I found.”
He belly-flopped into the shallow water, sending an arcing spray over the girls. They squealed and kicked their feet, splashing their brother back.
“Progress, huh?” Owen said softly a few moments later when the mini water war ended and the bubble-blowing lesson began.
“Huge progress,” Gracie agreed. “She has such complete trust in you.”
Trust that was well founded.
Because underneath Owen’s initial I don’t know what I’m doing with these kids persona was a man who cared about them deeply. A man who probably didn’t even realize he’d fallen in love with his nieces and nephew. The thought made Gracie smile. Until she remembered there was only a month left until Owen’s mother would be ready to resume guardianship.
He made the grunting sound of a noncommittal male. “It’s a start.”
“Last week she wouldn’t set a foot in the pools, so take credit where credit’s due.”
If Gracie concentrated on Charlie and William and their bubble-blowing session, she’d overcome the urge to move closer to Owen. An urge that became harder to resist since her concentration was spotty at best. She cleared her throat.
“Morgan mentioned an end-of-term school dance. I think she’d like to go.” Gracie cast a sideways glance at Owen. Perfect timing to spot the relaxed ease slip away from his handsome face. His feet, which he’d been kicking lazily under the water, stilled.
“She’s too young for all that school dance bullshit, isn’t she?”
His voice was pitched at a low level so it wouldn’t carry across to the kids, but the streak of bitterness in it raised goose bumps on her skin.
“School dance bullshit?”
“We get at least half a dozen kids puking up buckets of cheap beer in the ED each ball season.”
“I can understand why you’d have reservations, but this isn’t a senior ball. It’s a bunch of thirteen-year-olds getting dressed up to stare awkwardly at each other across a school hall. I doubt most of the girls will even talk to the boys and vice versa. Plus, as one of the chaperones, the misbehave-and-die look on your face will deter any of the kids from trying to sneak alcohol inside the venue.”
Owen’s eyebrow shot up. “When did I sign up to be a chaperone?”
Gracie wriggled closer to him and nudged Owen’s arm. “When you realized you’d be giving Morgan a safe opportunity to break out of her shell, while not losing your mind worrying about her in the process.”
The three kids waded out onto the sand. Morgan helped her sister slip on her flip-flops so they could explore the rough-surfac
ed rock pools. She shot Gracie one more pleading look before helping Charlie clamber up onto the rocks.
The moment the kids were out their direct line of sight, Owen’s hand glided through the water and rested on Gracie’s leg.
“I’m not totally opposed to her going,” he said. “And I guess I could volunteer to be a chaperone if Morg wouldn’t die of embarrassment having her old uncle there.”
Thoughts scattered at the sensation of his hand touching her leg, his long fingers lightly spanning her kneecap, his thumb whispering over her skin.
“You’re not bad for an old guy; she’ll live.”
Owen chuckled. He tilted his face up to the puffy clouds strewn across the sky. “I don’t have positive memories of school dances. I guess that’s where my hesitation stems from.” He rolled a shoulder then angled his head toward her. “It’s pretty lame. I should shut up, and leave it at that.”
If Gracie wasn’t mistaken, a ruddy tinge had begun to appear on Owen’s cheeks. “Like hell,” she said. “You can’t hold out on me now.”
“You think I’m this sexy, got-my-shit-together guy. I don’t want to disillusion you.”
“Oh, that’s what I think?”
Nipples that already stood to attention beneath her swimsuit tightened even further. She crinkled her nose and pretended to haughtily scan him from chin to toes. Kinda backfired, because, damn, the man was drop-dead sexy.
“That’s my diagnosis, yeah.”
“Maybe I need to hear a story about a time Dr. O-for-Awesome wasn’t so awesome. Just to make you seem a little more human like the rest of us.”
He pursed his lips and nodded in pretend thoughtfulness. “Don’t blame me if afterward you don’t want to jump my bones anymore.”
“I’ll take that risk,” she said.
“Should I get you the sunscreen?”
“I’m good; quit stalling.”
He cleared his throat again. “Bounty Bay High School didn’t have a junior dance when I was there. And even if it had, at fourteen, Sam and I were too busy surfing and playing sports or tagging along with Isaac to worry about girls and dances.”
Teach Your Heart: A New Zealand Opposites Attract Romance (Far North Series Book 3) Page 17