“English, button,” Rico reminded her, skimming his hand over the rippling red-gold waves. He called Lily button and angel and he called Poppy flash and treasure and keeper of my heart.
“Be gentle,” Lily repeated in the near whisper they’d been coaching her to use when her little brother was sleeping. She was two and a half and talking a blue streak in two different languages, sneaking in a little Valencian and the Swiss nanny’s French here and there.
“I will be very gentle, my darling,” Gran said with a beaming smile and damp eyes. “Will you stand here beside my chair while your mama takes our picture?”
Rico stepped out of the frame, waited while Poppy snapped, then took the camera so she would have a few of her with her grandmother and the children. She didn’t let herself wonder how many more chances she would get for photos like this, only embraced that she still had the opportunity today.
“He’s beautiful,” Gran said, tracing her aged fingertip across the sleep-clenched fist of Guillermo, named for her husband, William. “And heavy,” she added ruefully.
“He is,” Poppy agreed, gathering up Memo, as Lily was already calling him. Poppy kissed his warm, plump cheek. “Two kilos more than Brenna—that’s Sorcha and Cesar’s little girl. She’s only a couple of weeks younger.”
“Brenna is, is, is—” Lily hurried to interject with important information, but hit a wall with her vocabulary.
“Your cousin, sweetheart.”
“My cousin,” she informed Gran.
“You’re very lucky, aren’t you? To have a little brother and cousins, too.”
“Mateo is bossy.”
“Mateo might express similar opinions about his cousin,” Rico said with dry amusement, waving Poppy to sit on one end of Gran’s small sofa. He took the other and patted his knee for Lily to come into his lap.
Lily relaxed into his chest, head tilted to blink adoringly at her daddy. “Can I see Mateo?”
“In a few days. We’re visiting Gran and then we’re going camping. Remember?” Poppy said.
“And buy Mateo a toy,” Lily recalled.
“That’s right. Before we go home, we’ll buy toys for him and Enrique.”
“And Brenna?”
“And Brenna,” Poppy agreed.
“You were so homesick when you first went to Spain. Now look how happy you are.” Eleanor reached out her hand to Rico. He took it in his own. “Thank you for making her smile like this.”
“Thank you.” He secured Lily on his lap as he leaned across to kiss Gran’s pale knuckles. “We still have a room in Spain for you,” he told her for the millionth time. “It’s very warm there.”
“I’m too old for migrating around the world like a sea turtle,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand. “I have my sister and my friends here. But you’re sweet to keep asking.”
They stayed through the dinner hour so Gran could show off her great-grandchildren and handsome grandson-in-law.
“Poppy is becoming famous for her photography,” Gran made a point of announcing over dessert. “There was a bidding war at the auction.”
“It was for charity,” Poppy said, blushing and downplaying it. “Rico’s brother was being nice, topping each bid.”
“Don’t be modest. That’s not what happened at all,” Rico chided. “Cesar was incensed that people kept trying to outbid him. My sister-in-law wanted it and he wanted her to have it.”
“It was so silly,” Poppy said, still blushing. “I could have printed her another.”
“They wanted the only one and now they have it,” Rico said. The negative had been signed and mounted into the frame. “Poppy has an agent and is filling out her portfolio. We expect she’ll have her first show next year. We’re heading north in the morning, hoping to catch the aurora borealis.”
The whole table said, “Ooh.”
The next night, they were ensconced in a resort that billed itself as one of the best places for viewing the northern lights. Their children were abed, the nanny reading a book by the fire and Poppy and Rico were tramping through the trees to a lake that reflected the stars and the sky.
The world was still and monochromatic under the moonlight, the air crisp with the coming fall. They stood holding hands a long moment, absorbing the silence.