She hesitated before taking a seat next to him. When he’d set them up, he’d left enough distance between them so that they wouldn’t accidentally touch. Alex twisted the cap from his beer and took a pull. “There’s nothing better than a cold beer on a hot day at the beach.”
She smiled, slightly disconcerted at being alone with him. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“You don’t like beer?”
Her mind flashed to her father and the empty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon that usually littered the floor next to the recliner where he sat. “Not too much,” she admitted.
“Just wine, huh?”
It took her a moment to remember that he’d given her a bottle. “I had some wine last night, as a matter of fact. With my neighbor.”
“Yeah? Good for you.”
She searched for a safe topic. “You said you were from Spokane?”
He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “Born and raised. I lived in the same house until I went to college.” He cast a sidelong glance at her. “University of Washington, by the way. Go, Huskies.”
She smiled. “Do your parents still live there?”
“Yes.”
“That must make it hard for them to visit the grandkids.”
“I suppose.”
Something in his tone caught her attention. “You suppose?”
“They’re not the kind of grandparents who would come by, even if they were closer. They’ve seen the kids only twice, once when Kristen was born and the second time at the funeral.” He shook his head. “Don’t ask me to explain it,” he went on, “but my parents have no interest in them, aside from sending them cards on their birthdays and gifts at Christmas. They’d rather travel or do whatever it is they do.”
“Huh?”
“What can I do? And besides, I can’t say they were all that different with me, even though I was their youngest child. The first time they visited me in college was graduation day, and even though I swam well enough to get a full scholarship, they saw me race only twice. Even if I lived across the street from them, I doubt they’d want to see the kids. That’s one of the reasons I stayed here. I might as well, right?”
“What about the other set of grandparents?”
He scratched at the label on his bottle of beer. “That’s trickier. They had two other daughters who moved to Florida, and after they sold me the store, they moved down there. They come up once or twice a year to visit for a few days, but it’s still hard for them. And they won’t stay at the house, either, because I think it reminds them of Carly. Too many memories.”
“In other words, you’re pretty much on your own.”
“It’s just the opposite,” he said, nodding toward the kids. “I have them, remember?”
“It has to be hard sometimes, though. Running the store, raising your kids.”
“It’s not so bad. As long as I’m up by six in the morning and don’t go to bed until midnight, it’s easy to keep up.”
She laughed easily. “Do you think the coals are getting close?”
“Let me check,” he said. After setting the bottle in the sand, he stood up from his chair and walked over to the grill. The briquettes were white and heat rose in shimmering waves. “Your timing is impeccable,” he said. He threw the steaks and the hamburger patty on the grill while Katie went to the cooler and started bringing the endless array of items to the table: Tupperware containers of potato salad, coleslaw, pickles, a green bean salad, sliced fruit, two bags of chips, slices of cheese, and assorted condiments.
She shook her head as she started arranging everything, thinking that Alex somehow forgot that his kids were still little. There was more food here than she’d kept in her house the entire time she’d lived in Southport.
Alex flipped the steaks and the hamburger patty and then added the hot dogs to the grill. As he did, he found his gaze drifting to Katie’s legs as she moved around the table, noting again how attractive she was.
She seemed to realize he was staring. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You were thinking about something.”
He sighed. “I’m glad you decided to come today,” he finally said. “Because I’m having a great time.”
As Alex hovered over the grill, they settled into easy conversation. Alex gave her an overview of what it was like to run a country store. He told her how his in-laws had started the business and described with affection some of the regulars, people who could best be described as eccentric, and Katie silently wondered whether she would have been included in that description had he brought someone else to the beach.
Not that it would have mattered. The more he talked, the more she realized that he was the kind of man who tried to find the best in people, the kind of man who didn’t like to complain. She tried and failed to imagine what he’d been like when he was younger, and gradually she steered the conversation in that direction. He talked about growing up in Spokane and the long, lazy weekends he spent riding bikes along the Centennial Trail with friends; he told her that once he discovered swimming, it quickly became an obsession. He swam four or five hours a day and had Olympic dreams, but a torn rotator cuff in his sophomore year of college put an end to those. He told her about the fraternity parties he’d attended and the friends he’d made in college, and admitted that nearly all of those friendships had slowly but surely drifted away. As he talked, Katie noticed that he didn’t seem to either embellish or downplay his past, nor did he appear to be overly preoccupied with what others thought of him.
She could see the traces of the elite athlete he once had been, noting the graceful, fluid way he moved and the easy way he smiled, as if long accustomed to both victory and defeat. When he paused, she worried that he would ask about her past, but he seemed to sense that it would make her uncomfortable and would instead launch into another story.
When the food was ready, he called the kids and they came running. They were covered in sand, and Alex had them stand to the side while he brushed them off. Watching him, she knew he was a better father than he gave himself credit for; good, she suspected, in all the ways that mattered.
Once the kids got to the table, the conversation shifted. She listened as they chattered on about their sand castle and one of the shows on the Disney Channel they both enjoyed. When they wondered aloud about the s’mores they were supposed to have later — marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers, warmed until melting — it was clear that Alex had created special, fun traditions for his kids. He was different, she thought, from the men she’d met in her past, different from anyone she’d met before, and as the conversation rambled on, any vestiges of the nervousness she’d once felt began to slip away.
The food was delicious, a welcome change from her recent austere diet. The sky remained clear, the blue expanse broken only by an occasional seabird passing overhead. The breeze rose and fell, enough to keep them cool, and the steady rhythm of the waves added to the sense of calm.
When they finished eating, Josh and Kristen helped clear the table and pack away the uneaten items. A few items that wouldn’t spoil — the pickles and the chips — were left on the table. The kids wanted to go boogie boarding, and after Alex reapplied their suntan lotion, he slipped off his shirt and followed them into the waves.
Katie carried her chair to the water’s edge and spent the next hour watching as he helped the kids through the breakers, moving one and then the other into position to catch the waves. The kids were squealing with delight, obviously having the time of their lives. She marveled at the way Alex was able to make each of them feel like the center of attention. There was a tenderness in the way he treated them, a depth of patience that she hadn’t quite expected. As the afternoon wore on and the clouds began to drift in, she found herself smiling at the thought that for the first time in many years, she felt completely relaxed. And not only that, she knew she was having as much fun as the kids.
11
