Take Me To The Beach

by K. L. Grayson, Karina Halle, A. L. Jackson, Marni Mann, Monica Murphy, Devney Perry, Kristen Proby, Rachel Van Dyken

  “Sometimes your uncle needs a good thumping,” Hazel declared, then turned to Jackson. “All the bowls in the kitchen need to be taken down to the tables. Get on it.”

  His frame shrank. “Yes, ma’am.”

  We might be in our thirties, but neither of us ever went against that tone in her voice.

  “Show me that Jeep.” Hazel left Logan and me on the porch while Jackson disappeared inside the house.

  He and I would have it out later. For now, I was just glad that Charlie had missed the entire kissing episode and her happy birthday wasn’t in jeopardy.

  “You okay?” Logan stepped up to my back and placed his hands on my shoulders.

  I nodded and turned, ready to apologize and explain, but I was cut off when two of Charlie’s soccer teammates came running around the side of the house followed by their parents.

  My explanation would have to wait.

  It was party time.

  “Here.” I handed Logan a tumbler of bourbon and ice. “It’s not Macallan, but it’ll have to do.”

  “Thanks.” He took the glass, resting it on his knee as I sat down on the couch beside him.

  I had my vodka in hand, but tonight, it was in a glass, over ice and with a lemon twist. “Thank you. For today.”

  He extended a hand to squeeze my knee. “You’re welcome.”

  Logan had been amazing at the party. He’d stuck by my side all day, introducing himself to the other parents and bringing them under his spell. I’d gotten to know some of the other parents better than I ever had before, so much so, a couple of them had insisted I sit with them at the next soccer game.

  Because of him, there hadn’t been any awkward silences or divided groups. He’d brought us all together from the start and no one, especially me, had wanted to leave his side.

  On top of that, he’d been incredible with Charlie. He’d watched proudly as Charlie had made a wish and blown out her candles. He’d fussed over all the gifts she’d gotten from her friends. When he wasn’t standing by me, he was at her beck and call, getting her another drink or more snacks or another piece of cake.

  The afternoon and evening had flown by in a whirl, and Charlie had fallen asleep with a smile on her face.

  For the first time, both her mother and father had tucked her into bed on her birthday.

  “It was a fun day.” Logan sighed. “Except for the part where he tried to kiss you.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Yes.”

  I smiled, glad he hadn’t tried to deny it. “There’s nothing going on between me and Jackson. He was just trying to get a rise out of you.”

  Jackson and I were having words tomorrow, though he already knew he’d screwed up. He’d kept his distance today, watching from the back of the crowd. Any time I found his gaze, it was full of apology.

  “I still don’t like it.” Logan set down his glass on the coffee table, then reached across the couch. He looped his finger into the cloth belt of my dress, giving it a tug.

  I didn’t fight it. I scooted close so we were shoulder to shoulder. There was a lot I needed to sort out when it came to Logan, but tonight, I was too tired to resist snuggling into his side as he put his arm across the back of the couch.

  “She’s six.” His voice was laced with regret. “I’ve missed so much.”

  My heart broke. “I’m so sorry. I wish—”

  “Hey.” His hand came up to cup my cheek. “Don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  His hand fell away as he dropped his cheek to my hair. I sank even further into his side. “Tell me what her other birthdays were like.”

  “They were much less exciting. Mostly just me and Hazel fussing over her. Actually,” I pushed away to stand from the couch, “I can show you.”

  I put down my drink, then went to the closet in the hallway, pulling down a plastic tub full of the scrapbooks I’d made for Charlie.

  I hefted the tub into the living room, smiling as I set it down on the coffee table. Then I took off the lid, barely able to contain my excitement as I found the book I wanted and handed it over.

  “Start with this one. It’s her baby book.”

  Logan set his glass aside, sitting on the edge of his seat with the pink scrapbook splayed across his knees. He stroked the edge of the first photo, memorizing the picture. The one of Charlie swaddled and sleeping on my chest as I dozed in my hospital bed.

  It took him a few moments to flip the page. I didn’t rush him. Instead, I resumed my seat and watched as he slowly studied every detail in five scrapbooks.

  I’d put hours and hours into those books. Placing pictures. Adding designs. Noting important moments. I’d compiled one every year after her birthday. Mostly I’d done it for myself, so I’d have something to look back on as Charlie grew up. It took days to put one together with hundreds of photos. Every year when I was done, I told myself I’d scale back with the next book.

  The look of pure awe and joy on Logan’s face made me grateful I’d never backed off.

  Maybe deep down, I’d put them together not for myself, but in hopes that one day I could give them to Logan.

  He studied each photo and memento, touching the ones he seemed to love most. Book after book, I sat at his side and watched him soak it all in.

  I told him little stories, like how when Charlie was two, she’d only eat if I gave her ketchup, which she called her “dip.” Everything got dipped. Meat. Vegetables. Fruit. Then I narrated through the Christmases and Easters. Through her first haircut and her first day of kindergarten.

  Hours later, when he came to the last page, there were tears in both our eyes.

  “Thank you.” He sucked in a deep breath, then laced his fingers with mine. “It doesn’t feel like I missed it all now.”

  “I’m glad.” I reached up to cup his cheek, like he’d done earlier, and stroked my thumb across the stubble on his jaw.

  “Fuck, I wish I would have come back to that hotel bar sooner.”

  Sooner? My thumb froze. “You came back? When? Why?”

  “It must have been a week or so after you quit. Six months after we met. I came back to ask you out on a real date, but they’d told me you’d already gone. I should have hunted you down.”

  My hand fell away as my head started spinning.

  All this time, I’d thought he’d walked away and forgotten about me. I’d assumed he’d moved on to other things. But if he’d come back to the bar, it meant he’d wanted more.

  He’d felt it too.

  My eyes flooded at the realization. It hadn’t just been my silly, foolish heart believing in a one-sided fairy tale for all these years.

  He felt it too.

  In that hotel bar, I’d found something magical. Something more than lust and sex. Something I’d been running from for the last month, because I was worried Logan hadn’t felt it too.

  But he had. He was right there with me.

  I opened my mouth to speak but I was at a loss for words. So instead of trying to find them, I launched myself into his arms and crushed my mouth to his.

  He kissed me back, stroking his tongue against mine as his hands threaded through my hair. I swung up and onto his lap, straddling his thighs and grinding down against the hardness growing in his jeans.

  I wasn’t sure how long we sat there, but my lips were swollen when he finally broke away. He framed my face with his hands, holding me captive as I swayed on weak knees. “You’re a dream, Thea Landry.”

  So are you.

  “But we have to stop. I’m out of condoms.”

  I shook my head, climbed off his lap and stood. “I went to the gas station while you and Charlie were on your adventure earlier and bought some.”

  “You did?”

  I nodded.

  He surged off the couch and wrapped me up, kissing me breathless. Then he took my hand and led me upstairs, where the condoms were hidden under my pillow.

  I’d bought them on a whim when I’d been getting ice earlier.


  Just in case, I’d told myself as I’d grabbed a pack. Just in case Logan melted down my defenses.

  Just in case Logan turned out to be more than just a dream too.

  Logan

  “Hi, peanut.” I held out my arms for Charlie as she came into the kitchen. She rubbed her sleepy eyes, then came right to me and crawled into my lap, burrowing her head into my shoulder.

  Thea came over to the kitchen table and kissed Charlie’s hair. “Good morning, my love. Want some pancakes?”

  Charlie nodded as she yawned.

  “Chocolate chips or blueberries?”

  “Chocolate chips,” Charlie and I said in unison.

  Thea smiled at me and went back to her bowl of pancake batter.

  “Morning.” Hazel came into the kitchen from the back porch, kicking off some garden clogs by the door. “Nice shirt, Logan. It’s so similar to the one you were wearing yesterday.”

  I grinned. “Nearly identical.”

  Thea and I had gotten up early, wanting to beat Charlie out of bed. I’d intended to get to the motel and shower and change, but when Thea had handed me a cup of coffee, we’d ended up talking for an hour and I’d lost track of time.

  So I was in the T-shirt I’d worn yesterday, the one she’d worn to sleep in after we’d used three of her condoms.

  Cramped in her bed that was much too small for the two of us, I’d slept like a rock with Thea at my side. We’d heard Hazel head outside early, then had sex again before coming downstairs.

  I needed to get to work since my team at the firm had already been at it for three hours. But I couldn’t seem to get my feet to walk out the door. I couldn’t break away from the girl in my lap and the woman at the counter.

  “What’s the plan for today?” Hazel asked Thea, coming to sit at the table with a cup of coffee.

  “Since I’m off, I was thinking about going shoreline picking.”

  Charlie’s head flew off my chest. “Can I come?”

  Thea twisted to look over her shoulder. “Of course.”

  “Yes.” Charlie smiled up at me. “Can you come too?”

  Damn, I wanted to. I had no idea what shoreline picking was, but I wanted to find out. I’d go Dumpster diving if that meant I got to spend the day with the Landrys. But the phone in my pocket had been vibrating all morning. Ignoring it was getting harder with each call.

  “I’m not sure.” I touched her nose. “I’m supposed to be working, but hanging with you sounds like a lot more fun.”

  She nodded. “It is. It’s super fun. And we can bring snacks for a picnic.”

  I glanced over at Thea’s back. “What time are you going?”

  “Whenever. We can hang out and wait for you. Maybe leave around noon.” She was trying to come across as nonchalant, but I could hear the hope behind her words. It matched Charlie’s.

  “Okay. Let me make some calls.”

  I’d been killing myself for two weeks—more like two years. I could take an afternoon off.

  “Now.” I gave Charlie a serious look. “What on earth is shoreline picking?”

  By noon, Thea had loaded up her hatchback with some empty buckets and work gloves. She and Charlie had both changed into their swimsuits, and I’d run back to the motel to do some work and pull on a pair of shorts.

  I hadn’t changed my shirt, because it still smelled like Thea. She used the same lavender shampoo and lotion that she did on Charlie, but her natural citrusy scent made it entirely her own.

  “What can I do?” I asked her as she carried out a handful of trash bags from her workshop.

  “I think we’re good to go.” She scanned the yard, searching for our daughter. “Charlie!”

  In the distance, a faint “I’m coming!” carried through the trees.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket but I ignored it. I’d scrambled in my attempts this morning to fit eight hours of work into three. I hated being behind or leaving my team on their own, but that motel room couldn’t keep me today. I was too excited about what Thea had planned.

  Shoreline picking, I’d learned, was basically a treasure hunt.

  Thea and Charlie had made this a special outing between the two of them, and they’d go a couple of times each summer.

  Thea would pick a spot along the lake’s long, winding shoreline and they’d spend the day walking around the edge. Sometimes they were right on the water. Other times they were on deserted gravel roads, like the one that wrapped around the shoreline in front of my future property.

  But wherever they were, they’d walk a mile or so, searching for items that had been discarded.

  “I’m ready!” Charlie joined our sides just as Thea slammed the hatchback closed.

  She smiled. “I’m ready too.”

  Charlie turned to run toward the backseat, leaving Thea and me alone. So before she could walk away, I grabbed her wrist, yanking her to my chest.

  “What—”

  I cut her off, slamming my lips down on hers in a hard, fast kiss. “There,” I said, breaking away. “Now I’m ready too.”

  She shook her head, smiling as she turned and wiped her lips dry.

  We hadn’t talked about how to act in front of Charlie and whether or not we should keep our relationship a secret. But if all went according to my plan, I’d have both of them living with me before fall. Charlie would need to know something was up between Thea and me before we were all living under the same roof and her parents were sharing a bed.

  I rounded the car and got into the passenger seat, turning over my shoulder to smile at Charlie. “Excited?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded wildly, digging a small bag of chips out of the console in the backseat. “This is my favorite.”

  “So what kind of things do you guys usually find?” I asked as Thea pulled away from the cottage.

  “It depends. Usually when we go out in the early summer, it’s mostly trash. Stuff that got buried in the snow. But this time of year, we’ll find more. Tourists and visitors always lose things as the summer progresses. Last August, I found three sets of keys over a few weekends. I posted them at the bar for a month, but when no one came to claim them, I welded them all together in pipes for a wind chime. I had to buy a few plain keys so I had enough, but it turned out really cool.”

  “Where is it? I’d love to see it.”

  “I sold it.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t realize you sold your art.”

  She shrugged and pulled onto the highway. “It’s not the reason I do it, but if I didn’t get rid of some of the stuff, we’d be overrun at the house. So I commission my extra pieces at a gift shop in Kalispell. Then I set aside the money for Charlie’s college fund.”

  “Hmm, interesting. How many pieces do you have commissioned?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe twenty or thirty at the moment. But they’ve been taking my work for years. The owner is a good friend of Hazel’s.”

  I wasn’t a regular in the art scene, but I’d been to my fair share of fundraisers hosted at art galleries. Twenty to thirty pieces were enough that Thea could become a career artist, especially if she had a story to go behind each piece. Most of my friends would go crazy over junk turned into art, and Thea’s work was incredible.

  Once Thea and Charlie lived with me in New York, she wouldn’t need to work. She’d have time to focus on her artwork. I’d assumed that Thea’s art was just a hobby, but this could become her career. We could get a bigger place if she wanted a studio in the house. Or I’d rent her space.

  She could create something other than cocktails during the day.

  “It’s so beautiful today.” Thea’s eyes swept the lake as she drove. The sun was glistening off the glassy water. There wasn’t a cloud in the blue sky.

  “This is a beautiful area.”

  We’d definitely be back to Lark Cove. This small town had grown on me and the house I’d bought was a perfect spot for summer vacations to visit Hazel.

  “Have you ever been to Montana before?” she asked.

>   “Once.” I nodded. “An ex-girlfriend moved out here for a job and I came out to visit.”

  “How long were you together?” Something in her tone made it sound like she really didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Five years.”

  “Oh.” The temperature in the car dropped ten degrees, despite the shining sun. “So you were serious?”

  “Yes. I met Emmeline at a fundraising gala and we started seeing each other. We lived together up until she took a teaching job in Prescott and moved out here.”

  “Prescott,” she repeated. “I’ve never been there. That’s southwest Montana, right?”

  “Right.”

  Prescott was more rugged than this corner of Montana. Lark Cove suited me much more than the area where Emmeline had moved.

  “What happened with you two?” Thea asked.

  I studied her profile. The round sunglasses on her face were huge, covering a good portion of her cheekbones, but she was stunning. The sunlight coming through the windows gave her a glow.

  “I broke it off with her at Thanksgiving this last year. She kind of forgot to tell me she was married.”

  “Married?” Thea winced, hissing through her teeth. “And she didn’t tell you? That’s awful. What a b-i-t-c-h.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think she kept it from me maliciously. She’s got a good heart. She and her husband got married young and then separated. They hadn’t seen each other in years, but they were still legally married. She moved to Montana for a teaching job and he turned up there. When they reconnected, I knew it was over between us.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It all ended for the best. She’s happy.” I glanced behind me, seeing that Charlie was busy staring out her window, then reached across the console to touch Thea’s thigh. “And so am I.”

  There wasn’t anywhere in the world I’d rather be than in this car. I was happier than I’d been since the breakup. If I was being honest, I was happier now than I’d ever been when Emmeline and I had been together.

  The luckiest thing that could ever have happened to me was Emmeline leaving New York for Montana. If she had stayed, I would never have met Charlie. I wouldn’t have found Thea.