“This is a surprise.” He handed over the beers and then dropped to his haunches to greet Lizzy, noticing the bows in her hair. “Pretty necklace.”
Lizzy fingered it. “I made it with Skylar.”
“Emily!” Lisa arrived with the twins, holding on to each hand. “Can Lizzy join us? We’re hunting for shells on the far side of the beach with Rachel.”
The request seemed to stir Emily from her trance. “Rachel?”
“My sister,” Ryan murmured in response to her blank expression. “Even on her day off she doesn’t miss the opportunity to grab a group of young children and stimulate their minds.”
Emily held tight to Lizzy’s hand. “That sounds like fun.” The tone she used told a different story. “I’ll come, too.”
Ryan understood that for Emily, being here was an enormous step. It was too much to expect for her to leave the child in someone else’s care. Blocking out Alec’s comment that in order to get the girl he had to deal with the child, he swung a giggling Lizzy onto his shoulders.
“Now you have a seagull’s view.”
He ignored Kirsti’s approving glance and strolled across the sand, wincing as Lizzy’s small hands tugged at his hair.
“Hey, that’s attached to me.”
“I’m too high up. I don’t want to fall.” But she was giggling, and he saw Emily glance at the child and smile, too.
By the time he reached Rachel and the twins, his scalp was sore from being pulled, and he swung Lizzy down, forgetting to make allowances for his injury.
He said nothing, but something must have shown on his face because Emily reached out and touched his shoulder gently.
“You hurt yourself?”
“It’s fine.” He could feel the warmth of her hand through his shirt. He remembered those fingers sliding under his shirt and resting lightly on his back. Sliding over his jaw and into his hair. Locked with his as he’d lifted her arms above her head and plundered her mouth.
Her gaze lifted to his, and he knew she was remembering the same thing.
She withdrew her hand quickly.
“Ryan?” Rachel was glancing between them curiously, and Ryan pulled himself together and introduced Emily and Lizzy. After that, all he had to do then was stand back and watch while his sister worked her magic. Even as a child, Rachel had wanted to be a teacher. He remembered her lining up all her toys and standing up to teach the “class.”
The tide was far out, exposing granite boulders crowded with rockweed, barnacles, whelks and mussel shells. Within seconds Lizzy was holding Rachel’s hand and searching nearby tide pools for sea creatures while Emily stood tense as a bow.
“I should go with them.”
He wondered whether it was the sexual chemistry that was responsible for her tension or the proximity of the water.
“She’ll be safe with my sister.” He saw Rachel point out where Lizzy should step to be safe on the rocks. “Rachel is the best teacher Puffin Elementary has ever had. She adores the kids, and she knows exactly how to handle them. And she’ll be working at Camp Puffin all summer. Relax.”
“We’re on a beach,” she muttered. “I don’t think relaxing is possible.”
“Try.” Against his better judgment, he put a comforting hand on her back. He felt her stiffen and then relax into the reassuring pressure and draw a deep, shuddering breath through her body.
“Pathetic.”
“Who is pathetic?”
“I am.” She kept her eyes fixed on Lizzy the whole time, every muscle in her body tense and ready to move in an instant.
“You’re here. You’re standing on a beach. That’s not pathetic. It’s brave.”
“Brave would be getting in the water.”
He glanced at her profile. “One step at a time.”