she’s afraid it will grab her finger and won’t let go.” Georgeanne said.
“No, I’m not,” Lexie objected, and shook her head again. She scrambled to her feet and pointed to Haystack Rock about a hundred feet away. “I want to go there.”
Together the three of them picked their way toward the huge formation. John helped Lexie jump from rock to rock, and when the terrain got a little rough for her short legs, he picked Lexie up and swung her up on his shoulders as effortlessly as if she weighed nothing.
Lexie grabbed the sides of John’s head, and her pail swung and hit him on his right cheek. “Mommy, I’m high!” she shrieked.
John and Georgeanne looked at each other and laughed. “Just what every mother longs to hear,” she said.
When their laughter died and was drowned out by the sound of waves, John’s smile remained. “I was beginning to think that you only wore dresses or skirts,” he said as he reached up to wrap his hands around Lexie’s ankles.
She wasn’t surprised he’d noticed. He was that kind of guy. “I don’t usually wear shorts or pants.”
“Why?”
Georgeanne didn’t really want to answer that question. Lexie, however, had no problem providing personal information. “Because she has a big bum.”
John looked up at Lexie, his eye squinted against the sun. “Really?”
Lexie nodded. “Yep. That’s what she says all the time.”
Georgeanne felt her face flush. “Let’s not discuss it.”
Reaching for the hem of her yellow shirt, John raised the back and tilted his head to the side for a better look. “It doesn’t look big,” he said as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “Looks pretty good to me.”
Georgeanne felt a little foolish for the ember of pleasure in the pit of her stomach. She batted his hand away and pulled the bottom of her shirt down. “Well, it is,” she said, then she stepped around John and walked ahead of him and Lexie. She remembered what had happened seven years ago when he’d turned her head with his smooth compliments. Every southern girl dreamed of being a beauty queen, and with very little effort, he’d made her feel like Miss Texas. She’d eagerly jumped in his bed. Now, as she walked around a medium-sized boulder, she reminded herself that while he could be charming, he could also get real nasty.
Once they reached the base of the rock, the three of them explored. John set Lexie back on her feet, and together they examined the usual variety of ocean life. The sky remained cloudless and the day beautiful.
Georgeanne watched John and Lexie together. She watched them discover orange and purple starfish, mussels, and more sticky anemone. She watched their dark heads bent over a tide pool and tried to bury her insecurities.
“It’s lost,” Lexie said as Georgeanne crouched down next to her beside the tide pool.
“What is?” she asked.
Lexie pointed to a little brown and black fish swimming beneath the surface of the clear, cold water. “It’s a baby and its mommy is gone.”
“I don’t think it’s a baby,” John told her. “I think it’s just a small fish.”
She shook her head. “No, John. It’s a baby, all right.”
“Well, once the tide comes back in, its mommy can come and get it,” Georgeanne assured her daughter, attempting to stop Lexie before she got too agitated. When it came to orphans, Lexie was known to get very emotional.
“No.” She shook her head again and her chin quivered as she said, “Its mommy is lost, too.”
Because Lexie had only known the security of one parent, and she had no other family besides Mae, Georgeanne had to carefully screen Lexie’s movies and videos to make sure that every child and animal had a mother or a father. On her last birthday Georgeanne had let Lexie convince her that she was old enough to watch the movie
“No, mommies don’t leave their babies unless they’re lost. The little fish can’t ever go home now.” She rested her forehead on her knee. “It’s gonna die without its mommy.” She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear ran down her nose.
Georgeanne gazed across Lexie’s bent head toward John. He stared back with a desperate look in his deep blue eyes. He clearly expected her to do something. “I’m sure its daddy is out there swimming around looking for it.”
Lexie wasn’t buying. “Daddies don’t take care of babies.”
“Sure they do,” John said. “If I were a daddy fish, I’d be out there looking for my baby.”
Turning her head, Lexie looked at John for a few moments, weighing his words in her mind. “Would you look until you found it?”
“Absolutely.” He glanced at Georgeanne, then back at Lexie. “If I knew I had a baby, I’d look forever.”
Lexie sniffed and stared back into the clear water. “What if it dies before the tide comes back?”
“Hmm.” John reached for Lexie’s bucket, dumped out her shells, and scooped the tiny fish inside.
“What are you doing?” Lexie asked as the three of them stood.
“Taking your little fish to its daddy,” he said, and turned toward the tide. “Stay here with your mother.”
Georgeanne and Lexie stood on a flat rock and watched John wade out into the surf. Gentle waves swept up his thighs, and she heard his gasp as the cold water soaked the bottom of his shorts. He looked about him, and after a few moments, he carefully lowered the pail into the ocean.
“Do you think it found the daddy fish?” Lexie asked anxiously.
Georgeanne stared at the big man with the little pink pail and said, “Oh, I’m certain he did.”
He walked back toward them. A smile on his face. John “The Wall” Kowalsky, big bad hockey player, hero of small girls and guardian of tiny fish, had just sneaked past Bad Hair Day on her likable scale.
“Did you find him?” Lexie jumped off the rock and waded in up to her knees.
“Yep, and boy, was he happy to see his baby.”
“How did you know it was the daddy?”
John gave Lexie her pail, then took her little hand in his. “Because they look alike.”
“Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “What did he do when he saw his baby?”
He stopped in front of the rock where Georgeanne stood and looked up at her. “Well, he jumped up in the air, and then he swam around and around his little fish just to make sure it was all right.”
“I saw him do that.”
John laughed and little lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Really? From clear over here?”
“Yep. I’m gettin‘ my towel ’cause I’m freezin‘,” she announced, then took off up the beach.
Georgeanne looked into his face and matched his smile with her own. “How does it feel to be a hero?” she asked.
John grabbed Georgeanne’s waist and easily lifted her from the rock. Her hands grasped his shoulders as he lowered her feet into the frigid surf. Waves swirled about her calves and the breeze tousled her hair. “Am I your hero?” he asked, his voice gone all low and silky. Dangerous.
“No.” She dropped her hands from his hard shoulders and took a step backward. He was a big, powerful man, and yet he was very gentle and caring with Lexie. He was slicker than an oil spill, and if she wasn’t careful, he could make her forget the painful past. “I don’t like you, remember?”
“Uh-huh.” His smile told her he didn’t believe her for a minute. “Do you remember the time we were together on the beach in Copalis?”
She turned toward shore and spotted Lexie bundled up on the beach. “What about it?”
“You told me you hated me, and look what happened.” As they walked through the surf, he looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.
“Then it’s a good thing you find me completely resistible.”
He glanced at her chest, then turned his gaze toward the shore. “Yeah, good thing.”
When the three of them got back to the house, John insisted on making lunch. They sat at the dining room table and ate shrimp cocktail, slices of fresh fruit, and pita bread filled with crab salad. While Georgeanne and Lexie helped John put things away, she spied a deli sack stuck back in the corner by his answering machine.
By four o’clock the morning spent in the car with Lexie and the anxiety of the trip left Georgeanne exhausted. She found a soft chaise lounge on the deck and curled up with Lexie in her lap. John took the chair next to her, and
