Adrian sat next to Caroline on the bench and watched his mom braid her long hair in a complicated plait that started as two braids and combined into one at the back of her neck. He bent down to meet the child’s eyes. “Your fancy braid is very pretty, Caroline.”
She tucked her chin and looked pleased but also painfully shy. “Thank you,” she said so quietly he almost couldn’t hear. He’d thought he’d made progress with Caroline when he brought her up in front of him to ride Charlie. But apparently, those two steps forward had been followed by one step back. If his relationship with Heather was going to go anywhere, he would have to make friends with all three of Heather’s kids in a way that stuck.
He had his reservations, and no doubt Heather had hers. But his quest to win over Heather’s kids had begun. Josh was so hungry for a daddy figure that befriending him was already a done deal. The girls, for different reasons, would be harder to get to know. He hoped that today, they could make a start. If he was lucky, by the end of the day, Heather would be able to see that he was trying.
Josh screamed, and everyone looked up to see him run back to the picnic table. After a quick glance, Reva and Heather went back to chatting. Josh leaped into Adrian’s lap with high drama.
Adrian put a calming hand on the kid’s back. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Gordon said, following more slowly. “Josh saw a little water snake.”
“It was a water moccasin,” Josh insisted. “I saw the inside of its mouth.”
“Whatever kind of snake you saw from fifteen feet away, it’s gone now.” Gordon chuckled. “You probably scared the poor thing to death with all your screaming.”
“I wasn’t screaming,” Josh was quick to say. “I was yelling.” He sat still in Adrian’s lap for a half second before jumping off again. “Let’s go look for more tadpoles.”
“We already found some,” Gordon said to Josh. He sat on the end of the bench and patted the space beside him. “Let’s sit here for a minute.”
Though Adrian hadn’t told either of his parents that there was anything brewing between him and Heather, they were both born grandparents, so they took Heather’s twins under their wings. His dad seemed to glory in directing Josh’s high energy. His mom seemed to know that Caroline needed to be finessed into moving out from under Heather’s coattails, so she used her gentle wiles to charm the child.
The pontoon boat came chugging into view. “They’re back,” Josh yelled. He jumped down from the bench and ran to the dock.
“Josh, wait.” Heather grabbed up her beach tote and the Ninja Turtle life vest and went after him. “You have to put your vest on.”
Adrian’s mom stood and jingled her room key. “Last chance for a pit stop before we leave. Any takers?” She and Reva headed toward the motel while Gordon ambled toward the dock.
Adrian picked up the other vest and turned toward Caroline. “Will you let me help you?”
Caroline looked at him with her mother’s big green eyes and nodded slowly.
He pointed to the ground in front of him. “Come stand here.”
She climbed down from the bench, as careful as her brother was bold. Standing in front of him, she held out her arms and let him slide the vest on. “It matches your bathing suit, doesn’t it?” He adjusted the straps and buckled them. “Is pink your favorite color?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her cheeks turning as pink as the Disney Princess flotation vest.
“I like pink too.” He realized right away that he needed to ask her a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple yes or no, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of one. He pointed out one of the princesses pictured on the vest. “This one’s Aurora, I think.”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
He pointed to a different one. “Which one is this?”
“That’s Jasmine.” She pointed to another. “And that’s Ariel.”
Together, they identified all the princesses while the pontoon boat slowed past the NO WAKE sign and puttered up to the dock. Adrian held out a hand to Caroline. She hesitated, then took it.
She held his hand all the way to the pontoon boat.
Progress.
The large rectangular boat’s flat platform rested on two long metal cylinders that floated on top of the water. At the back, where the outboard motor hung, a wide deck with a ladder on one side allowed people to enter and exit the water easily. The rest of the platform was enclosed on all sides by a low wall with a small entry gate.
This model—which Quinn had jokingly called Mack’s happy divorce present to himself—featured padded leather seats all the way around, with a captain’s chair and steering deck under a canopy in the center.
Gordon kept Josh from making a flying leap from the dock to the boat, taking him by the hand and guiding him over the gap instead. Once on the boat, Josh rushed over to pester Mack. Adrian held Heather’s hand as she stepped in, then Caroline allowed him to lift her into Heather’s outstretched arms. Once everyone had safely embarked, he untied the dock line, tossed it into the boat, and gave the boat a push away from the dock before he leaped in himself.
“Everybody settle in,” Quinn said. “Here we go.”
Reva and Adrian’s parents sat at the back of the boat, laughing and chattering to one another as if they’d been friends for ages. Heather took a corner seat at the front, with Caroline tucked close beside her. Josh was busy hopping from one seat to another.
Conscious of what it might look like to everyone if he and Heather sat too close, Adrian took the opposite corner. “Josh,” he said. “Come here. You need to light somewhere so we can get going.”
Josh sat next to Adrian, and Quinn guided the boat slowly past the NO WAKE sign, then pushed the throttle down. The pontoons kept the boat so stable that it felt like they were skimming over the water, while the tall, moss-draped trees on either side of the inlet zoomed past.
Heather closed her eyes and lifted her face to the stiff breeze that flirted with her bangs and made her ponytail flap out behind her. The older folks at the back of the boat were whooping and cackling with hilarity, but the wind caught their voices and tossed them out behind the boat, so there was no telling what they found so funny.
Clearly, though, they weren’t paying any attention to anyone else, so Adrian felt safe enough to study Heather’s blissful expression.
He hoped that maybe he had helped put that serene, joyful smile on her lips.
***
Reva put a hand on Eileen’s shoulder and leaned in close. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”
Eileen glanced at her son and leaned back to speak into Reva’s ear—it was the only way to be heard over the wind and the sound of the boat’s outboard motor, which was just a few feet behind them. “He’s right smitten, isn’t he?”
“I’d say so.”
The inlet opened out onto the bay, and the water became much choppier. Quinn pulled back on the throttle when the boat rounded a small marshy island between the boat launch and the bay. On the far side of the bay, a thin strip of barrier islands met the gulf. Beach condos on the peninsula looked like tiny sandcastles shrouded in mist.
Closer, but still some distance away, the sandy beach and the floating dock that anchored Mack’s houseboat came into view. After being dumped by his wife (who, in Reva’s opinion, had never deserved him anyway), Mack had traded the house he’d worked so hard to buy for a houseboat, a pontoon boat, and a speedboat. Now, he lived on the water, having traded his paid-off mortgage for a few rented boat slips.
Eileen pointed at the portable floating dock Quinn and Mack had built before Mack’s divorce became final. “Is that where we’re headed?”
“Yes. Mack towed the dock out there and dropped anchor this morning. He’s been guarding it and the beach from interlopers ever since.”
Labor Day weekend boaters would’ve been out early, snapping up the available strips of sandy beach. Not all of the bay’s coastline was suitable for water sports and picnicking. Most, in fact, was marshy, full of water plants and lily pads and thick grassy reeds mixed with fallen logs and tree roots exposed by erosion from flooding.
Beautiful but wild. The land beyond was, in most places, impenetrable and unfit for human habitation, but it provided a lush Eden for wildlife.
“I’m sure Mack was glad to see Abby and the big kids show up to help,” Eileen said.
As the pontoon boat advanced farther into the bay, other boats began to zip past, some towing skiers, others hauling huge inner tubes that bounced along while screeching kids struggled to hold on.
Quinn slowed the pontoon boat to a putter.
Gordon got up to stand next to the captain’s chair and pointed out something on the marshy bank. Reva looked toward the front of the boat and noticed that Heather and Adrian had scooted closer to each other. The glances that passed between them were hot enough to light a match. “What do you think about all that?”
Eileen smiled. “I’d say it’s about time. Heather seems like a nice girl.”
“Oh, she is.” Reva told Eileen about the loss Heather and her kids had endured. “She’s due for a little happiness. It would be sweet to see something blossom between her and Adrian. But…would you mind the fact that she has three kids?”
“No, not at all… Oh, look at that.” Eileen pointed out a bald eagle sitting at the top of a dead-looking cypress tree. “I think a ready-made family would be good for Adrian. Settle him down a bit. He… We…”
Eileen bit her lip and gave Reva a look that revealed the depth of what she was about to say. “Adrian lost a lot because of Hurricane Katrina. He spent his senior year in high school away from his friends and the rest of the family—we all had to relocate to Houston for nearly a year.”
Reva nodded, encouraging Eileen to continue.
“I stayed with my sister and the younger kids, while Gordon went back to New Orleans and basically camped out to help with the cleanup and to rebuild the house. Adrian, being older, stayed with his cousin who was already in college. We didn’t realize it at the time because we were all just doing the best we could in a bad situation, but Adrian felt very isolated, very…lost.”
Reva put a hand on Eileen’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Eileen nodded. “I think that, in a way, everything that happened—and the way it happened—damaged Adrian’s ability to connect with others. Not just people, but animals too. We lost the family cat, Buster, because he hid somewhere as a result of all the commotion, and we couldn’t find him before we had to evacuate. We managed to get the horse on a rescue transport up north, but we didn’t have a place to keep him after the storm went through, so we allowed him to be adopted by a family who wanted him.”
Reva shook her head. “So many people and animals suffered in that storm.”
“And afterward. Most of us are still scarred in some way. Adrian lost his ability to trust in the sweetness of life.”
“I think Heather has lost some of that ability too,” Reva said. “Her husband’s death was so tragic, so sudden. And very upsetting, the way it happened. He died right in front of Heather and the kids.”
Eileen made a tsking sound, then glanced toward the front of the boat. “But look…”
Adrian’s arm was stretched across the back of the seat, just close enough to touch Heather’s shoulder with his fingertips. Caroline and Josh sat between them with their heads down, both immersed in whatever game they were playing on someone’s phone. Adrian and Heather weren’t speaking, but they were looking at each other with small, secret smiles on their faces.
“Maybe they’re beginning to heal each other,” Eileen said.
Reva smiled. “I hope so.”
***
Heather stretched out on a beach blanket next to Abby.
“Adrian sure is good with Caroline,” Abby commented. He stood in waist-deep water, holding Caroline up while she dog-paddled toward Eileen. When they got within a couple feet of Eileen, he gave Caroline a little push through the water so she could paddle on her own the rest of the way. “I haven’t seen her look so relaxed and happy since…well, since ever.”
“He’s pretty good all the way around,” Heather agreed, wondering every other minute whether she should ’fess up and tell everyone that she was falling in love—not just with Adrian, it turned out, but with his parents too. Eileen had taken Caroline under her wing. Gordon had kept Josh busy all day, hunting for minnows with a dip net in the shallow water—a surprisingly interesting activity given that they never caught a thing. “Adrian’s parents are great too.”
“They’d make wonderful grandparents for someone’s kids,” Abby said in a la-de-dah tone.
“I’m sure they would,” Heather said, refusing to rise to the bait. “In fact, I think they already are. Don’t Adrian’s sisters have kids?”
Abby sat up and rooted through the cooler. “Yeah, but they live too far away. Gordon and Eileen need grandkids who live closer so they can do weekend sleepovers and such.” She handed Heather a wine cooler. “Don’t you think?”
Heather took the beverage but again refused to take the bait. “Maybe.”
Quinn plopped down beside them, totally ruining the girlfriend vibe, so after a few minutes of polite conversation, Heather finished her watermelon cooler and waded out into the water toward the ongoing swimming lesson. She hoped her presence didn’t ruin things—when Heather had tried to teach Caroline to swim, the child refused to budge off Heather’s hip—but Adrian’s laughter across the water pulled her like a magnet. “Look who’s swimming,” Heather praised. “Somebody’s got the magic touch.”
“It’s me,” Eileen said with a laugh. “I taught all my kids to swim, didn’t I, Adrian?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. “And now you’ve taught this one.” He lifted Caroline out of the water and twirled her around. “Ain’t that right, princess?”
Caroline laughed, her face lit like a candle. She even patted the side of Adrian’s face with affection. “I can swim, Mama!” She squirmed for Adrian to put her back in the water. “Watch how far I can swim.”
“Let’s show her.” Eileen backed up a few steps and held her arms out.
“Watch me, Mama,” Caroline yelled, her voice as loud and enthusiastic as Heather had ever heard it.
“I’m watching, sweetheart.” As Caroline paddled valiantly toward Eileen with her little chin barely above the water, Heather swallowed down the lump in her throat. Abby was right; Caroline hadn’t really seemed happy at all since Dale died. But now, because of Adrian and his mother, Caroline was happy and unafraid. In Adrian’s arms, Caroline felt safe.
At the thought, Heather realized for the first time that Caroline hadn’t just been sad after Dale’s death; she’d been fearful. A simple realization Heather should have snapped to long before now, but it rang in Heather’s mind, an undisputed truth. For all her trying, Heather hadn’t been able to make Caroline feel safe, but Adrian had.
Though Eileen had stepped away from Caroline before Adrian launched her into the water, she stepped forward to lift her up. Then, with a half twirl, she turned toward Heather. “Okay, Mama, ready to catch your girl?”
Heather held her arms out. “Swim to me, baby.”
Eileen propelled Caroline through the water so she only had to paddle a few strokes to get to Heather, but the shared sense of accomplishment still made Heather’s heart sing. “Whoo!” She hugged Caroline tight. “You can swim!”
Adrian waded forward and tucked a tendril of hair behind Caroline’s ear. “But no swimming in the river behind your house—or anywhere besides the bathtub—without your mama or me right there with you, right?”
“I promise,” Caroline said in an impatient tone that made it clear Adrian had already drilled the rule into her head. Then she leaned toward Adrian with her arms out.
He caught her up and held her close, smiling at Heather over Caroline’s wet blond head. “Did you see Erin ski out of here a few minutes ago?”
“Yes, I did.” Mack had been driving the speedboat, Reva had been spotting, and Sean had been sitting at the back of the boat, snapping pictures. “Thank you for that too.” It felt like everyone in Heather’s family had been existing in a state of suspended animation until Adrian came and woke them up.
Eileen waded past and patted Caroline’s back. “You’ve worn me out, sweetie pie. I’m gonna go see if there’s any lemonade left in one of those coolers on the beach.”
“Lemonade!” Caroline jumped from Adrian’s arms and went under for a second but popped back up undeterred. “I want lemonade,” she sputtered, flailing her arms in the general direction of the shore.
Eileen grinned at Heather and boosted Caroline forward a bit. “Let’s go then.” She kept an unobtrusive hand beneath Caroline’s belly to keep her from sinking. “Don’t forget to kick.”
As Eileen guided Caroline toward the beach, Heather and Adrian stood waist-deep in the water, close enough to touch but not daring to.
“Hey,” he said, swiping a water slider away as it paddled just under the tea-brown surface.
“Hey,” she answered, skimming her fingers through the gentle waves. She thought about saying that they could tell their secret now, get it over with. But something made her hold back. What if Adrian seduced them all into wanting him in their lives and then decided that country life in Magnolia Bay wasn’t for him? Could they relocate to New Orleans, with its narrow streets and party atmosphere, with its close-together buildings and touristy culture?
Her kids were used to having space to roam and people around who knew who they were and where they lived. Erin couldn’t make a wrong step without Heather knowing about it before nightfall. It wouldn’t be like that in New Orleans.
Adrian stepped closer, still not touching but close enough for her to feel the warmth of the sun radiating off his tanned skin. “Your kids love me,” he taunted, his voice soft, his gaze intense. He slipped a hand toward her, just under the surface of the water.
“I can tell.” She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through his. Anyone watching wouldn’t know they were touching. She glanced toward the beach. No one seemed to be looking, but that didn’t mean they weren’t. “Thank you for making the effort.”
“I honestly enjoyed spending time with your kids today.” With the afternoon sun behind his head, his blue eyes looked dark, almost black. “I’m beginning to realize that this is about more than you and me.”
“That’s why it’s so scary,” she said. “I can fall in love with you and get over it if things don’t work out. But what if they fall in love with you?”
He gave her that heartbreakingly beautiful smile of his. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“It would, unless you decide you’re not up for taking our package deal.”
“I’ve already shown you that I’m willing to try, haven’t I?”
“But trying might not be good enough. And you can’t guarantee that you won’t change your mind, can you?”
He made a move toward her, but she took a step back. “My kids have already lost their dad. I don’t want to let them get used to having you in their lives only to lose you if you decide to leave.”
“I won’t do that. I wouldn’t.” His fingers squeezed hers under the water’s surface. “Just like with Charlie, no matter what happens between you and me, if your kids need me, I’ll show up.”
“I’d like to think that’s true,” she said. “I hope it is.”
Because this whole day had been like a fairy tale, complete with a handsome prince and fairy grandparents. But Heather couldn’t help waiting for the other shoe to drop out of the sky. Ever since Dale died, she’d been just as fearful as Caroline, expecting that her whole world could come crashing down if she made one wrong move. The carefree day they’d just shared almost made the waiting worse because the higher she let her spirits rise, the farther and faster they would plummet down to earth.
***
Hours later, Adrian paddled his two-person kayak up closer to Heather’s. Even though each of them had one of the twins up front, he knew they weren’t paying attention, so he reached out to take her hand. “It’s been a great day, hasn’t it?”
Heather linked her fingers through his for a brief squeeze before letting go. “Yes, it has.”
Adrian felt elated by a sense of accomplishment. He’d taught Erin how to ski, Caroline could dog-paddle without help, and he’d broken through the barrier of her extreme shyness. In fact, when they’d set out on this last adventure of the day, she had easily agreed to sit in Adrian’s kayak while Josh sat in Heather’s.
Sunburned despite the liberal application of sunscreen, sore from the day’s strenuous activity, he and Heather paddled back toward the beach in companionable silence. They beached the kayaks, and while the twins tossed the ball to Jasper and Georgia, the adults and the teenagers loaded the toys, the coolers, and the grill onto the pontoon boat.
Mack turned to Adrian with the slalom ski under one arm. “You didn’t get to ski yet, did you?”
“Nah, but that’s okay.” He had actually enjoyed spending most of the day getting to know Heather’s girls better. It seemed almost as if the universe had conspired to give him time with each of them. Sean had encouraged Erin to let Adrian teach her to ski, then spent the rest of the day helping her practice. Adrian’s dad had taught Josh to dive off the floating dock while Adrian and his mother stood waist-deep in the water and taught Caroline to swim.
“You can ski back to the landing if you want,” Mack said. “I’m taking the speedboat, and Reva’s riding with me, but there’s room for Heather and the twins, too, if they want to come along.”
Adrian looked at Heather.
She shrugged. “Works for me.”
“Okay, sure.” Adrian reached out for the ski. “Let’s do it.”
The speedboat was beached on the shore. Heather and Reva climbed in, and Adrian lifted the twins into the boat. Reva pulled the anchor in while Mack pushed the boat away from the bank, then he jumped in and sat in the ski boat’s captain chair and started the engine. Reva reached into one of the under-seat storage bins and tossed a life vest to Adrian.
“You want to do a beach start or a water start?” Mack yelled.
Adrian let the ski float beside him while he put the vest on. “Beach is fine.” He couldn’t help wanting to show off a bit for Heather.
“I’ll spot,” Reva offered.
“Thanks, Reva,” Adrian said. Heather might be too distracted by the twins to be able to watch out for dangers like other boaters or submerged logs. It was always necessary from a safety standpoint to have a designated person to be a line of communication between the skier and the boat’s driver. Reva would inform Mack if Adrian fell or if he decided to drop the rope and call it a day.
While the engine idled, Reva tossed the ski rope. Adrian caught it in midair, then waved to the twins as Mack backed the boat up and turned the bow toward the bay.
Adrian put the ski on and stood in knee-deep water with his right leg cocked to keep the ski’s tip sticking out of the water. He held the ski rope and watched the length play out. When only a few feet of slack snaked out across the surface of the water, Mack idled the boat and turned back to look. “Hit it?”
Adrian gave a thumbs-up, and Mack pushed the throttle wide-open. A second later, Adrian was skimming across the water with the wind in his face and the turbulence stirred up from the boat’s motor bumping under his ski. He pulled back on the double-handled rope and leaned right, jumping the wake onto smoother water. He rode that way for a while, waving to the twins who were both waving at him.
Then the real fun began. He zipped from left to right and back again, jumping the wake and using momentum to build speed on each end of the pendulum swing before crossing the wake again.
He did a few trick moves: a couple of turnarounds while jumping the wake, then skiing backward in the center of the wake. But when he turned back around after that one, he noticed that Heather was biting her pinkie nail and looking worried, so he decided from then on to enjoy a more sedate but still fun swing from one side to the other, over the wake and back again.
Reva stood and pointed out a good-sized stick bobbing in the water.
Adrian nodded and switched to the other side of the wake. Starting to get bored, he was thinking about dropping the rope and calling it a day when he noticed a twig sticking up in the water.
Then he hit the submerged log attached to the twig.
The rope ripped out of his hands, and the ski flew off his foot, wrenching his ankle and catapulting him up into the air. He cartwheeled down onto concrete-hard water, then somersaulted over the waves as a blinding spray of water went up his nose and down his throat.
He didn’t even see the ski spinning through the air until it smacked him in the face.
***
Heather screamed.
Reva pounded Mack on the back. “Stop! Stop. He’s down.”
Adrian floated, faceup at least but as limp and still as if he were dead. “Turn around, turn around,” Heather yelled at Mack.
“I am,” Mack yelled back. But he wasn’t turning, not yet. The boat had to slow down first. “Is he okay?” Concentrating on driving the boat, Mack couldn’t turn around to look.
“I don’t think so,” Reva answered. The fear in her voice ramped up Heather’s fear. She’d seen the ski hit Adrian in the face. It had hit him hard. So hard that it had spun off to land in the choppy waves fifteen feet away.
“Hurry, hurry,” Heather chanted. Adrian still hadn’t moved. At least he wasn’t facedown. If he had been, he would drown before they could get to him. And other boats were beginning to come in at the end of the day; someone not paying attention could run over him. “Oh my God, Mack. Hurry.”
Mack finally got the boat turned around and headed back to where Adrian floated, his head tilted back in the water, his chest held up by the flotation vest.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“Mommy, Mommy,” Heather heard Caroline saying as if from a long way away. “Is Adrian dead?”
Heather’s mind flashed back to the scene of Dale’s death, when the kids had been gathered around him, screaming and crying out for Heather to do something.
Then, as now, she had been powerless.
The boat pulled even with Adrian’s lifeless body, and Mack cut the engine. “Reva. Drop the anchor.”
Heather looked over the side of the boat and felt her face and hands go numb. Adrian’s eyes were closed, his face a bloody mess.
Heather’s head seemed to be floating high above her body. She couldn’t go through this. Not again.
“Mommy,” Caroline screamed. Heather knew her daughter’s arms were wrapped around her, but she couldn’t feel them. “Help him, Mommy. Help him,” Caroline chanted, stringing more words together than she’d done in the last year. “Adrian’s not dying, is he? He’s not dying…?”
Joshua was uncharacteristically silent.
“Come here, baby.” Heather heard Reva’s soothing voice, felt her gentle hands breaking Caroline’s death grip on Heather’s legs. “You too, Joshua. We need to stay out of the way. Y’all come sit over here with me.”
Mack jumped over the side of the boat with a splash, then towed Adrian toward the ladder at the back of the boat.
“He’s breathing.” Mack swam with one arm supporting Adrian’s shoulders while he smacked Adrian’s blood-smeared cheek with his other hand. “Adrian. Wake up. I need you to help me.”
Adrian’s head lolled, but his eyelids fluttered, and his lips moved. Mack clung to the boat’s ladder with one hand and tried to lift Adrian’s shoulders up.
“Reva. Heather. Help me lift him into the boat. I can’t touch bottom here. I don’t have any leverage.”
“Yes,” Reva said immediately.
Heather wasn’t sure she could stand up without keeling over. She pulled herself together and leaned over the back of the boat and helped Reva grab Adrian by his upper arms.
Adrian’s skin was slippery wet and chilled from being in the water, but beneath the chill, she felt the warmth of his muscled flesh.
Heather’s rational mind tried to come online. This is Adrian. He’s hurt, but he’ll be okay. Ski accidents were rarely fatal.
The two women managed to lift Adrian up enough for Mack to get a foot onto the ladder.
Mack grabbed Adrian around the hips and powered up the ladder while Heather and Reva supported Adrian’s shoulders and walked backward until they had him in the boat.
Heather collapsed on the floor of the boat and dropped her head to her knees. Reva put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Heather shook her head no. “Trying not to faint.”
“Just breathe.” Reva’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way away. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. He’s got a gash on his forehead and maybe a broken nose, so he won’t be so pretty for a while, but he’ll be okay.”
Heather could hear Caroline wailing in distress. Josh, always the loudest voice in the crowd, remained chillingly silent. She reached up to take Reva’s hand. “I’ll be okay. Please see to my kids.”
Heather pressed her forehead to the boat’s scratchy carpeting and gulped for air like a fish tossed up onto a bank. Reva’s calm voice soothed her children, and Mack’s strong, take-charge tones talked to Adrian. “How many fingers am I holding up? Okay… What year is it?”
Mack’s tone changed when he talked to Reva. “I’m pretty sure he’s got a concussion, and he’s definitely gonna need stitches. Here. Put this…” His voice faded out, and Heather concentrated on breathing again. “…stop the bleeding, and…”
It wasn’t the sight of blood that was getting to Heather; it was the thought that she could so easily lose Adrian. Maybe not from this accident, but what would stop him from dying some other way? He could have a car accident driving from Magnolia Bay to New Orleans. He could get bitten by a snake while hiking or fall off a mountain while climbing or plunge off a precipice while snow skiing or fall out of the sky while riding in an airplane on a business trip. He could die a thousand different ways, and if he did, she would be unable to do anything to stop it from happening.
“Call 911,” she heard Mack say to Reva, “and get an ambulance to meet us…”
“Sit with him,” Mack told Reva. “I’m gonna get us to the dock.”
The boat started moving, and Heather eased upright slowly. Looking over the stern of the boat, she could see the slalom ski that had ruined Adrian’s face getting smaller in the distance, innocently bobbing in the reeds at the water’s edge.
“Heather.” She heard Adrian’s voice behind her.
“Don’t try to sit up,” Reva said.
“Heather,” Adrian said again. His voice sounded wrong—weak, nasal, and slurred, even though she knew he hadn’t been drinking at all today because he’d been so busy playing with her kids. And they had loved every minute of it. They were all falling in love with him, just as she was.
Just as she already had, God help her.
Damn him for doing this to them. Damn him for making them all fall in love with him and then doing this. “I’m okay, honey,” he said in that stupid-sounding slurred voice. “It doesn’t even hurt; it just feels numb.”
Stupid idiot. Didn’t he know that really bad injuries might not hurt at first because adrenaline kept the pain from kicking in? “I’d feel better if it did hurt,” she said over her shoulder without looking at him. “Your fucking face has been laid open. It’s supposed to hurt.”
“Come here, baby.”
“Don’t try to sit up,” Reva said again, her voice stern.
An indelible snapshot of Adrian’s beautiful face covered in blood would be stuck in Heather’s mind forever. Worse, the twins had seen it.
Heather realized in that moment how badly she had failed her poor kids by letting Adrian into their lives and allowing them to go through this kind of trauma all over again.