“You told me you hated me, and look what happened.” As they walked through the surf, he looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.
“Then it’s a good thing you find me completely resistible.”
He glanced at her chest, then turned his gaze toward the shore. “Yeah, good thing.”
When the three of them got back to the house, John insisted on making lunch. They sat at the dining room table and ate shrimp cocktail, slices of fresh fruit, and pita bread filled with crab salad. While Georgeanne and Lexie helped John put things away, she spied a deli sack stuck back in the corner by his answering machine.
By four o’clock the morning spent in the car with Lexie and the anxiety of the trip left Georgeanne exhausted. She found a soft chaise lounge on the deck and curled up with Lexie in her lap. John took the chair next to her, and the three of them stared out at the ocean, content with the world. She didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. She savored the calmness of it all. Although she couldn’t say that the man sitting next to her was relaxing company-John was too big a presence and there was too much painful history between them for that-this house on the coast went a long way toward making up for the strained moments when he did his best to provoke her.
The peaceful sounds and the soft breeze lulled Georgeanne to sleep, and when she awoke, she was alone. A handcrafted bla
nket with shells on it covered her legs. She pushed it aside, stood, and stretched the kinks from her bones. Voices from the beach rose on the breeze, and she moved to the rail and leaned over the edge. John and Lexie weren’t on the beach. She pulled her hand back and a sharp sliver stabbed the soft pad of her middle finger. Her finger throbbed, but she had a more pressing concern.
Georgeanne really didn’t think John would take Lexie anywhere without talking to her about it first. But he wasn’t the sort of man who would think he needed her permission. If he’d left with her daughter, then Georgeanne figured she had a right to kill him and consider it justifiable homicide. But in the end, she didn’t have to kill him. She found both Lexie and John downstairs in the weight room.
John sat on a fancy exercise bike in the corner, pedaling at a steady pace. His gaze was lowered to Lexie, who lay on the floor, her hands behind her head and one dirty little foot resting on her bent knee.
“How come you gotta ride that so fast?” Lexie asked him.
“It helps my stamina,” he answered above the soft whirring of the front wheel. He still wore the olive T-shirt he’d worn earlier, and for one short second, Georgeanne let her gaze travel to his strong thighs and calves, and she took in the pleasure of watching him.
“What’s stamina?”
“It’s endurance. The stuff a guy needs so that he doesn’t run out of steam and let the young guys kick his ass all over the ice.”
Lexie gasped. “You did it again.”
“What?”
“You swore.”
“I did?”
“Yep.”
“Sorry. I’ll work on it.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Lexie complained from her position on the floor.
He smiled. “I’ll do better, Coach.”
Lexie was quiet for a moment before she said, “Guess what.”
“What?”
“My mom gots a bike like that.” She pointed in John’s direction. “ ‘Cept I don’t think she rides it.”
Georgeanne’s exercise bicycle wasn’t like John’s. It wasn’t as expensive, and Lexie was right, she didn’t ride it anymore. In fact, she never really had ridden it. “Hey,” she said as she stepped into the room, “I use that bike all the time. It has a very important job as a shirt hanger.”
Lexie turned her head and smiled. “We’re working out. I rode first and now it’s John’s turn.”
John looked over at her. The bicycle pedals stopped, but the wheel kept spinning. “Yes. I can see that,” she said, wishing she’d brushed her hair before she’d found them. She was sure she looked scary.
John didn’t agree. She looked tousled and flushed from sleep. Her voice a bit lower than normal. “How was your nap?”
“I hadn’t even known I was that tired.” She combed her fingers through her hair and shook her head.
“Well, keeping up with the twists and turns of a certain little mind is exhausting,” he said, and wondered if she was doing that hair-shaking stuff on purpose.