She took a few pictures of the girls beaming in front of their creation, teasing and smiling with them.
This was the first he had seen her since earlier that day when they had shared that incredible kiss. As he had told her, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head.
Every time he thought he was over it, that he could now simply move on, he remembered the way her mouth had softened beneath his, how her breath had come in sexy little gasps, how she had thrown her arms around his neck as if he had just rescued her from a thirty-foot swell.
As he watched her with her nieces, he was astonished at how different she seemed from the woman he had met over these past several days as she helped his mother.
There was a sweetness about her he didn’t usually see, a gentleness that took his breath away.
She was a complicated woman, Jess Clayton. One minute she was tough, independent, bordering on prickly.
The next, she could be hamming it up for the camera as her older niece took a picture of Jess holding the younger girl.
She was beautiful, her eyes bright and amused as she posed for the camera, and it was hard to look away.
“Let me take a picture of all three of you. This grand castle was obviously a team effort.”
“Too bad Sophie left already. She helped us a ton,” Grace said.
“Why did she have to go?” Ava complained.
Good question. He had come down too hard on her. He knew it. Seeing that empty spot on the wall where her surfboard should have been had sent him into a panic, which was his only excuse.
He had calmed somewhat when he saw she was down at the cove with Jess and her nieces, instead of on her own as he had feared. Still, he found it concerning that she would even consider breaking the major family rule that she wasn’t supposed to get into the ocean by herself.
Every time he wanted to have a real conversation with his child, she chose to escape rather than talk to him.
Maybe he hadn’t picked the best venue here with an audience. He had been upset and worried about her, which might have made him respond more harshly than normal.
That didn’t mean she had to stomp off every time he annoyed her.
He had to figure out a way to reach her, but not right now.
He took Jess’s phone from her. “Turn this way so I can get the sun on your faces.”
He didn’t know much about photography. Not like her sister, Rachel, anyway. But he did like the way the sun hit them and the clear affection between the three of them.
“Thanks,” she said when he handed her phone back to her. Their fingers brushed and he felt the electrical jolt down his spine. Did she? He couldn’t tell for sure but was almost positive her breathing accelerated a notch.
Good. He liked knowing this attraction wasn’t only one-sided.
Was she remembering their heated kiss, too?
“Let me take one with my phone so I can show Sophie.”
He wanted to capture her like this, with her features open and happy. He took one of her and the girls but also one of Jess alone. She didn’t have to know that, right?
“It really is a wonderful sandcastle.”
“Can we come visit it tomorrow? I want to show Mommy,” the younger McBride said.
“You can come anytime your parents want to bring you,” he assured her and was rewarded with a wide smile.
“Thanks, mister.”
“You can call me Nate, if you want.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
“Girls, should we go?” Jess said.
He could tell neither of them wanted to leave but they helped her gather up containers and slip them back into the bucket she had emptied.
She picked up her beach blanket and shook out the sand then folded it and slung it over her arm.
“What can I help you carry?”
“Maybe Ava.”
“I can walk,” the girl insisted.
“How about I hold your hand and help you up where the path gets steep?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll take your bucket and umbrella, too.”
“Thanks.”
She handed them over to him and then she and the older girl went ahead with the McBride family dog on a leash.
Ava was slow but cute. While she took each step one at a time, she chattered to him the whole way up, keeping up a steady stream of observations, stories, even a song or two during the five-minute walk.
A few times, he thought he caught Jess turning around to give him a sideways look, as if she couldn’t quite figure him out.
What? He was good with kids. He had managed fine with Sophie so far—the past month notwithstanding.
“We’re having a slumber party with our auntie Jess because our brother has a doctor appointment a long way away tomorrow,” Ava informed him.
“I know. She told me. She’s been looking forward to it.” That might have been a stretch. She had mostly been in a panic about it but Ava didn’t need to know that.
“She’s our mom’s sister but we don’t see her that often.”
“How fun that you can spend some time with her now.”
“Yes. Can you do a cartwheel? I can. Want to see?”
“Not right now when we’re on a hill like this. How about you show me when we get to the top and you have a flat area.”
“Okay.”
A minute later when they reached the top of the path, she broke away from him and did a cartwheel in the grass.
“Wow. Impressive.”
“I can do one, too,” Grace said. She took a little skipping run and then cartwheeled after her sister.
“You’re both great,” Jess said. “I had no idea you could do that.”
“Mommy taught us,” Ava said. “Can you do one, Aunt Jess?”
“Um. No. Sorry.” She set the blanket onto the folding bistro table beside her trailer and took the bucket and umbrella from Nate, then started brushing the considerable sand off the girls.
Ava whispered something to Jess, who suddenly looked panic-stricken and handed the dog’s leash to Grace.
“She has to use the bathroom. Watch Freckles, okay?”
Ava danced around as if on the brink of an accident and Jess lifted her up into the trailer and shut the door behind her.
“Do you want to see my new bike?” Grace asked eagerly. Only now did he notice the girl’s bike and the adult bike and trailer, tucked behind her Airstream. So that’s why he hadn’t seen her truck when he hurried over looking for Sophie and why he hadn’t realized she was at the cove with his daughter until he was about halfway down the path.
“That is a great-looking bike,” he told the girl, admiring the retro banana seat and the tassels in the handlebars.
“Aunt Jess rode our mom’s bike. She didn’t ask before she borrowed it either.”
“I’m sure your mom wouldn’t mind.”
“That’s what Aunt Jess said.”
Something seemed off on the bigger bike. He was giving it a closer look when Jess and Ava walked out of the Airstream looking much more relaxed now. The girl had apparently made it to the bathroom on time.
“Bad news,” he said apologetically. “Your bike tire is flat. Looks like you ran over a nail.”
She looked at it with dismay. “Oh no. Rachel will kill me.”
“You should have asked her,” Grace muttered, earning a dark look from her aunt.
“Not to worry. It’s easily fixed.”
“Sure. If you have the right tools and a new inner tube. Which I don’t.”
She looked at the girls and the dog and the bikes, and winced. “Looks like we’ll have to walk back to my sister’s place, get my truck and run to the bike store.”
He suspected Ava would never make it, walking all the way to the McBrides’. The bike trailer was
similar to one he’d had for Sophie that converted to a jogger stroller with the right accessories, but he suspected Jess didn’t have those with her.
“How about this? We can load up the bikes into the back of my truck, run to the bike shop for a tube and have them fix it while we grab a pizza for dinner. It’s the least I can do to thank you for watching over Sophie.”
She looked shocked at the suggestion. “That’s not necessary, really.”
“Maybe not, but I would enjoy it. If you already have dinner plans, that’s fine. I’ll drive you home and pick up a tube on the way back, fix your bike and get it to you tomorrow.”
“I would rather have pizza,” Grace said.
“Pizza!” Ava exclaimed.
Even their dog seemed to agree, jumping around and giving happy little yips. He might have been picking up on the girls’ excitement, though.
Jess looked uncertain, though he could see her beginning to weaken. “What about Sophie?”
“I’ll go talk to her and tell her the plan.”
“She wasn’t very happy with you when she left. I’m not sure she’ll be in the mood to hang out with us.”
“Has it been longer than fifteen minutes?” he asked ruefully. “With the way her moods go lately, she’s probably done being mad at me about the surfing thing and has moved on to something else completely.”
She would still be mad at him, of course. That was a given. But maybe she would unbend long enough to enjoy more time with Jess and her nieces.
“I have to go talk to her anyway. If she doesn’t want to help us with the bike, I can always bring her back some pizza, if it comes to that.”
“How about this? If she wants to go along, we’ll have pizza. If not, I’ll just ask you to take us and the bikes back to Rachel and Cody’s place, where I can look around for an inner tube or a patch kit.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll meet you back here in ten.”
“Long enough for us to wash up. Thanks,” she said, ushering the girls toward her Airstream steps as Nate headed for his place.
He found Sophie in the family room playing her favorite video game. She looked up when he entered but seemed too distracted by the game to glare at him. That was progress, at least.
“Hey there,” he said with a smile. “I’m sorry I treated you like a baby. I was worried about you. I know you can take care of yourself in most situations but you know how unpredictable the ocean can be. You made the right choice in the end not to surf by yourself. I should have focused on that instead. I’m sorry.”
She looked startled at the apology, which made Nate think maybe he didn’t do enough of them.
“I should have texted Gram to let her know where I was. I do know the rules. I thought my friend would be with me.”
He wanted to talk to her about this boy she had invited over after school but decided to pick his battles for now.
“Jess has a flat tire on her bike. We’re going to run downtown to the bike shop and we’re talking about getting a pizza. Want to come? You can get a personal-size with your own toppings, if you want.”
Sophie had a long history of being picky when it came to her pizza toppings, which he had learned how to work around.
She appeared to consider the merits of staying home by herself with her video games or spending more time with Jess and the girls. They won.
“I guess,” she said, saving and shutting down the game.
Nate figured he would take a shrug and an unenthusiastic response as a win in this case.
* * *
In the end, they decided to wait for the tire to be repaired at the bike shop, which didn’t take long. They were done and ready to be on the road again in about twenty minutes.
All three of the guys working in the shop couldn’t seem to take their gazes off Jess, each vying for her attention. She didn’t seem to notice. Could she possibly be unaware of the attention she attracted?
“All done,” Mike, the very married store owner, said with a flirtatious smile at Jess. She either didn’t notice or had decided to ignore him.
“Thanks for doing it so quickly.”
“Anytime.”
She paid for the repair, which Nate would have liked to do, then she walked her sister’s bike back outside the store to his truck.
“What a beautiful evening.” She lifted her face to the sky and he fought the urge to kiss her again right there in the middle of downtown Cape Sanctuary.
“It really is.” He looked around. “What’s your pleasure? We can go to the pizza place or we could grab one to-go and eat it at the park.”
“Good idea. Anything that will help me wear out the girls so they’ll sleep well tonight gets a thumbs-up from me.”
The best pizza in town was at a restaurant right next to Driftwood Park in the downtown area. Jess took Sophie and the girls to the park while he went inside and ordered for them.
He knew the owner of the restaurant, who offered to deliver the pizzas to them at the park so Nate didn’t have to wait inside on such a lovely May evening.
They weren’t the only people doing the same thing. As he walked back to the picnic table Jess had claimed, he greeted several other families he knew from town who were gathered around their al fresco meals.
Sophie was pushing the girls on the swings and laughing at something they had said when he slid onto the bench of the picnic table near Jess.
“The pizzas will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
“Perfect,” she said. “This was a great idea.”
Dinner with a lovely woman and some cute kids? He had to agree.
“They look like they’re having fun.”
“Sophie is great with them. She must do a lot of babysitting.”
“Some. She’s watched your nieces a few times to help out since their brother came along. She watched all three of them once a year or so ago but hasn’t tended him for some time.”
“Silas has some behavioral issues that make him somewhat, er, challenging for the average babysitter. I think Cody’s mom usually watches him when Rachel needs help.”
“How old is he now? Three?”
“Not quite. He’ll be three in September.”
“That can be a challenging age. Sophie used to hold her breath when she didn’t get her own way. That certainly made life interesting. She grew out of it, eventually. Now she just snaps at me instead and storms off.”
“She’s a teenager. It’s a tough time for every girl.”
He suspected there was more to Sophie’s anger at him than that but she had become very closemouthed and secretive lately and wouldn’t open up.
When he pressed her, she just snapped even more, claiming she didn’t know what he was talking about, that she wasn’t acting any differently.
“So this appointment Rachel and Cody took Silas to. Is everything okay? Does it have to do with his autism?”
Jess gave him a surprised look. “You know about that?”
“I heard Rachel talking to my mom about it once when we bumped into them at the farmer’s market.”
“I don’t know how public she’s been with his diagnosis so I didn’t want to say anything if you didn’t know. Yes. They have an appointment with an autism clinic associated with UC Davis. It starts early in the morning and is supposed to last several hours.”
“That’s rough.”
“The appointment or that Silas has autism?”
“Both, I guess.”
“He’s a sweet boy who just has some extra challenges to deal with right now. If anyone can handle it, it’s Rachel and Cody.”
“I completely agree. They’re good people. And they have each other, which has to be a plus.”
He saw a shadow briefly cross her expression but the delivery person from the restaurant found them before she could comment.
/> “I’ve got a medium cheese pizza, one with all veggies and a personal with only pepperoni and olives.”
“Yes. That’s right. Thanks, Aspen,” Nate said. He tipped the girl, who was a few years older than Sophie and whose older brother worked for him during the summers when he was home between semesters at college.
They dug in while families played around them and the streetlights of town began to come on as the sun started to fade over the water.
This probably wasn’t the best way to go about keeping his distance from Jess Clayton but right now he wouldn’t trade this evening for anything.
16
Jess
If the afternoon spent building sandcastles on the shore of Sunshine Cove was enjoyable, the evening at the park was sheer perfection.
Jess didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. Mainly, she had agreed because the girls were excited about the idea when Nate suggested it.
She enjoyed her own company and had no problem eating her meals alone. She had become so used to her solitary existence that she had almost forgotten how much she enjoyed fun conversation, delicious food and enjoyable companions.
The girls were hilarious. Ava and Grace were very different. Ava liked to be the center of attention, telling jokes and being silly, while Grace was more careful, concerned with propriety and following the rules.
Sophie did a wonderful job of entertaining both of them.
As for Nate, he was great with both of the little girls. Not to mention completely gorgeous. She couldn’t stop thinking about how delicious his mouth tasted and how she really wanted him to kiss her again.
The long day of excitement was too much for the girls, though. Ava couldn’t seem to stop yawning, even before she finished her pizza, and her older sister rubbed her eyes several times.
“This has been wonderful but I probably need to get these girls home. Their bedtime was a half hour ago and we still need to follow Rachel’s ten-point schedule for a good night’s sleep before I settle them down.”
“I don’t want to leave the park,” Ava protested, over another big yawn. “This was so much fun.”
The Path to Sunshine Cove Page 14