“She said she wanted to talk to you,” Kenna said. “She just needed to finish serving—oh, there she is.”
Arlo’s fingers tightened around Jacqueline’s. She turned to look where Kenna was pointing, and caught a glimpse of a strange expression on Arlo’s face. Almost as though he was scared.
When she glanced at him again, the expression was gone, so quickly she must have imagined it was there in the first place.
The woman walking over from the ice cream parlor looked a few years younger than Jacqueline. She had her hair pulled back under a retro-style hairnet, and huge dark eyes behind thick-framed glasses.
When she spotted Jacqueline and Arlo sitting together, those huge eyes got even bigger, and she spun around and darted back into the ice cream parlor.
“What—” Arlo began, and frowned. “One moment,” he muttered to Jacqueline, and his eyes went vague.
“He’s mindspeaking to her,” Dylan explained.
Jacqueline raised her eyebrows. “Oh. You can hear?”
“No, because he’s really good at it.” Dylan heaved a sigh. “But it feels kind of buzzy against my brain. It’s nice.”
“How’s your ice cream?” Jacqueline didn’t want to guess at what flavor Dylan’s bright pink cone was.
“Really good!” his eyes lit up. “It’s like cotton candy.”
“I got chocolate,” Kenna said, ducking her head. “Not chocolate-and-anything, just chocolate.”
“And what did—wait, where’s Tally?” Jacqueline stood up. Oh God. I lost one of them.
Arlo snapped to attention. “What is it?”
“Tally’s—”
“With Ms. Eaves and Mr. Galway,” Kenna said quickly.
Who? Jacqueline thought. Arlo caught her confused look.
“Lainie and Harrison,” he explained.
“Oh. Good.” Jacqueline sat down. Her heart was racing, and everyone was staring at her. “I guess I’m more on edge after what happened yesterday than I thought.”
Dylan was jumping on his heels and tugged at Kenna’s sleeve. “Yeah, I know,” she muttered, shaking him off. Despite her surly tone, her face was glowing.
Jacqueline sat back. Her ice cream was melting, so she ate a few bites while she gathered her thoughts.
Arlo still had that second question for her. And she had a pretty good idea what it might be.
She’d let go of his hand when she stood up, but even the memory of his fingers wrapped around hers made her skin go hot all over.
She knew what she wanted that second question to be and, damn it, she knew where she wanted the answer to land her. Not on a car back to Dunston that evening, that was for sure.
There was still one more day left to the weekend.
“I was saying that I’ve decided to stick around for the rest of the weekend,” she said, and Arlo made a soft, strangled noise that made the heat on her skin blaze. “At least to see you kids settled.”
And spend more time with the hot guy who saved my life, she added privately.
14
Arlo
Harrison appeared a few moments later, surrounded by small children and with Tally on his shoulders and half of her ice cream running down the side of his head. He rounded up Kenna and Dylan and led the shrieking mob straight into the water.