And then the squeal of Susie, floating up from the playground he wanted to destroy, was followed by the laughter of Dannie. He looked toward the playground. He could clearly see the nanny was immersing herself in the moment again, chasing Susie up the ladder into the tree fort, those long legs strong and nimble. Susie burst out the other side of the fort and slid back to the ground, Dannie didn’t even hesitate, sliding behind his niece.
If he knew women with more to offer than her, he suddenly couldn’t think of one. He could not think of one woman he knew who would be so comfortable, so happy, flying down a children’s slide!
A little distance away from Dannie and Susie, Sally was sitting on a bench with Jake at her feet. He had a little shovel in his hand, and was engrossed in filling a pail with fine sand.
Joshua wondered how he was going to tear the playground down now. Without feeling the pang of this memory. That was the problem with emotion. He should have stuck to business. He should never have brought the children here. Of course, without the children he doubted he would have been invited here himself.
For a moment, watching the activity at the playground, Joshua felt acutely the loss of his parents and the kind of moment they would never share with him. He felt his vision blurring as he looked at the scene, listened to the shouts of laughter.
He missed them, maybe more than he had allowed himself to miss them since they had died. He remembered moments like the one below him: days at the beach in particular, endless days of carefree laughter and sunshine, sand and water.
He had a moment of clarity that felt like a punch to his solar plexus.
I wanted to keep my son so I could feel that way again. A sense of family. Of belonging. Of love.
The thought had lived somewhere deep within him, waiting for this exact moment of vulnerability to burst into his consciousness. When he had given up his son, he had given up that dream. Put it behind him. Shut the door on it. Tried to fill that empty place with other things.
And not until this very moment was he aware of how badly he had failed. He snorted with self-derision.
He was one of the world’s most successful men. How could he see himself as a failure?
His sister knew what he really was.
And so did he. A man who had lost something of himself.
He shook off the unwanted moment of introspection. Though he had planned to move away from the group at the playground and go in search of Michael to begin to discuss business, he found himself moving toward them instead.
With something to prove.
Just like kissing Dannie might get it out of his system, might prove the fantasy was much more delightful than the reality could ever be, so was that scene down there.
That happy little scene was just begging to be seen with the filters removed: the baby stinking, Susie cranky and demanding.
Sally looked up and smiled at him as he crossed the lawn toward them. “Glad you arrived,” she said. “I was just going to see about dinner.”
And then she got up and strolled away, leaving him with Jake. After a moment considering his options, Joshua sat down on the ground beside his nephew. Just as he’d suspected: reality was cold and gritty, not comfortable at all.
And then he looked through a plastic tub of toys, found another shovel and helped Jake fill a bucket.
Just as he’d suspected: boring.
And then he tipped the bucket over and saw the beginning of a sand castle. Jake took his little shovel and smashed it, chortling with glee.
Susie arrived, breathless. “Are you making something?”
Dannie’s long length of leg moved into his range of vision. She was hanging back just a bit. Sensing, just as he did, that something dangerous was brewing here.
He looked up at her. He didn’t know why he noticed, but the locket was missing. Just in case he hadn’t already figured out something dangerous was brewing here.
He handed her a bucket, as if he was project manager on a huge construction site. Thatta boy, he congratulated himself. Take charge. “Do you and Susie want to haul up some water from the lake? We’ll make a sand castle.”
Before he knew it, he wasn’t bored, but he was still plenty uncomfortable. Take charge? Working this closely with Dannie, he was finding it hard to even take a breath, he was so aware of her! She kept casting quick glances at him, too. It was so junior high! Building a Popsicle bridge for the science fair with the girl you had a secret crush on!
Not that he had a secret crush on her!
The castle was taking shape, multiturreted, Dannie carefully carving windows in the wet sand, shaping the walls of the turrets.
She had the cutest way of catching her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated. Her hair kept falling forward, and she kept shoving it impatiently back. It made him wonder what his fingers would feel like in her hair, a thought he quickly dismissed in favor of helping Susie build the moat and defending the castle from Jake’s happy efforts to smash it with his shovel.
Before he knew it, his discomfort had disappeared, and happiness, that sneakiest of human emotions, had slipped around them, obscuring all else. It was as if fog, turned golden by morning sun, had wrapped them in a world of their own. Before he knew it, he was laughing.
And Dannie was laughing with him, and then Susie was in his arms with her thumb in her mouth, all wet and dirty and sandy, and the baby smelled bad, and reality was strangely and wonderfully better than any fantasy he had ever harbored.
Something in him let go, he put business on the back burner. For some reason, though he was undeserving of it, he had been given this gift. A few days to spend with his niece and nephew in one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen or been.
A few days to spend with a woman who intrigued him.
By the next day, he and Dannie settled into a routine that felt decidedly domestic. It should have felt awkward playing that role with her, but it didn’t. It felt just like walking into the cottage Angel’s Rest had felt, like coming home.
Sally prepared the most wonderful food he had ever eaten: old-fashioned food, stew and buns for supper the evening before, biscuits and jam for breakfast, thick sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch.
The lodge, magnificently constructed, always smelled of bread rising and baking and of fresh-brewed coffee. In the chill of the evening last night, there had been a fire going, children’s board games and toys spread out on the floor in front of it.
The second day unfolded in endless spring sunshine. They played in the sand, they went on a nature walk, he rowed the kids around in the rowboat. When the kids settled in for their afternoon naps, he and Dannie sat on the front porch of Angel’s Rest.
“Kids are exhausting,” he told her, settling back in his chair, glad to be still, looking at the view of the little cabin on the island. “I need a nap more than them.”
“You are doing a great job of being an uncle. World’s Best Builder of Sand Castles.”
Somehow that meant more to him than being bestowed with the title of World’s Sexiest Bachelor.
“Thanks. You’re doing a great job of … being yourself.” That made her blush. He liked it. He decided to make her blush more. “World’s Best Set of Toes.”
“You’re being silly,” she said, and tried to hide her naked toes behind her shapely calves.
Today she was wearing sawed-off pants he thought were called capris. They hugged her delicious curves in the most delightful way.
“I