“The one about having to repeat it?” she asked. When Mina nodded, Charm sighed. “Granny says it all the time. Usually when I make the same mistake twice.”
“If you’re tired of hearing it, then don’t make silly mistakes over and over again,” was Miss Pearl’s tart remark from over at the stove.
Charm wrinkled her nose, and Mina swallowed her chuckle. No sense in letting the old lady know her great-granddaughter was silently sassing her!
“When is your essay due?” Kiah asked.
“Not for two weeks,” Charm replied, turning her best begging face to her uncle. “I have lots of time.”
“Okay, you can come,” he said, continuing over her cry of jubilation, “but I want to see a first draft by the end of next week.”
“Can we stop at Salty’s and get roast corn?”
“Sure,” he said, earning another whoop from Charm.
The day was gorgeous, with just a few puffy clouds drifting overhead in the azure sky and a nice breeze coming off the coast. Port Michael, the capital of St. Eustace, was situated on the southeast side of the island, and Kiah turned the car east, following the road that hugged the coast.
Charm was in high spirits and carried on a running, largely one-sided commentary of the music she liked, TV shows she’d watched, and the latest drama going on at school. Kiah put in an observation or answered when necessary, leaving Mina to follow her own muddled thoughts.
But despite doing her best to appear as if nothing at all had changed, she found herself noticing little things about Kiah that she hadn’t really paid attention to for a long time.
The deep, warm timbre of his voice; the rumbling laughter that flowed from him so easily.
How broad his shoulders were, and how the muscles in his arms and legs flexed and relaxed beneath his clothes.
Those sensual hands, with their long fingers and broad palms.
The absolute, breathtaking beauty of his smile, and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he was amused.
In a strange way, it was like seeing him anew, all her favorite things about him enhanced and more appealing than ever.
Yet, she was sure she couldn’t, shouldn’t trust what she was feeling right now, as it could be just a by-product of the upheaval in her life. Coming to terms with the losses she’d sustained didn’t automatically inure her to the pain, and the fear of losing more. Maybe Kiah represented stability, and she was grasping at the safest straw she had, because she’d been adrift so long?
Thinking about it that way made her a little sad, and she sighed.
“Everything okay over there?”
Kiah’s question shook her out of her reverie, making her realize the conversation between him and Charm seemed to have stopped. She half turned to send him a smile.
“Fine, just wondering what they’ll have me doing at the hospital on Monday. What time do we leave to get there?”
His eyebrows quirked up slightly as he threw her a quick glance. “I’m on call tomorrow night, but if there’s no emergency and I’m not called in, I’ll leave home at about seven, drop Charm off to school and head into the hospital then.”
“And what happens if you’re called in and already at the hospital?”
“There’s a taxi driver who’ll come for Charm. He can drop you off then, too, or come back for you afterward, if you don’t want to be up so early.”
“My friends at school like it when Uncle Kiah drops me off.” Charm’s comment, dripping with scorn, came from the back seat. “They think he’s cute.”
“I think he’s cute, too,” Mina couldn’t help saying, casting Kiah a mischievous grin. “Don’t you?”
“He’s all right,” Charm said grudgingly. “But my friends get all silly over him and that’s gross. He’s so old.”
They’d turned off the coast road and were going up into the hills. Kiah took his foot off the accelerator.
“Okay, that’s it,” he said, shaking a fist in the air. “I’m letting you out here. You can walk home, missy.”
“How far are we from Salty’s? I’ll just stay there,” came the irrepressible reply, and Mina couldn’t hold back her laughter.
As it turned out, it wasn’t that far from the roadside shack. As they pulled up, Mina was surprised at the number of cars filling the small parking area and overflowing onto the road.
“Ah, the parking gods are with me today,” Kiah said, when a car backed out of the lot just as they pulled up.
After he’d slotted his car into the space, they all got out, and Charm ran off right away to join the line, leaving them to follow at a slower pace. Kiah slung his arm over her shoulders, the way he often did, but today it felt heavier, his muscles more solid, and a shiver of awareness traveled down Mina’s spine.
“So you think I’m cute, huh?”
“Don’t be fishing for compliments, Hezekiah.” She tried to channel Miss Pearl, making her voice stern, but he just chuckled, tightening his grip on her.
“I don’t find it complimentary that a bunch of twelve-year-olds are standing around ogling me. It fills me with self-doubt. Are they the only ones who think I’m cute? Is that why I can’t get a date?”
They’d paused under a shady tree, where they could see Charm’s slow progress toward the head of the line without having to join her in the hot sun.
“You can’t get a date because you’re not looking for one,” Mina reminded him.
“True,” he replied easily. “But speaking of dates, Henkel looked like he was putting some serious moves on you last night. Did he ask you out?”
She glanced up at him. There was something almost too casual about the way he’d spoken, but with his dark glasses firmly in place, she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
“No offence to your friend, but I think he’d make moves on any woman who crossed his path. I
