A flock of seagulls squawked above her, drawing her attention from her problems with Charles to several children tossing bread crusts over the Promenade wall toward the beach. Georgeanne watched the birds and the people for a while before she spotted John and Lexie. John skated backward toward her, and she let her gaze slowly slip up his muscular calves, over the backs of his knees and hard thighs, to the wallet making a bulge in his back pocket. Then he crossed one foot behind the other and was suddenly skating forward, beside Lexie. Georgeanne looked at her daughter and laughed. Lexie’s brows were lowered and her face pinched as she concentrated on what John was telling her. The two of them slowly wheeled past and John glanced at Georgeanne. His brows lowered when he saw her, and Georgeanne was struck by how much he and Lexie resembled each other. She’d always thought Lexie looked more like John than herself, but with both of them scowling, the similarities were striking.
“I thought you were going to practice around here,” he reminded her.
That’s what she’d told him, and he’d believed her. “Oh, I did,” she lied.
“Then come on.” He motioned with his head.
“I need to practice a little more. Y’all go on without me.”
Lexie raised her gaze from her feet. “Look, Mommy, I’m good now.”
“Yes, I see that.” As soon as they wheeled past, Georgeanne resumed her people watching once more. She hoped when John and Lexie returned next time, they would have grown tired of skating and the three of them could retire their Rollerblades and get serious in the gift shops lining Broadway.
But her hopes were dashed when Lexie boldly rolled past as if she’d been born with wheels on her feet.
“Don’t go too far now,” John called after Lexie, and took a seat by Georgeanne on the stone bench. “She’s pretty good for a kid her age,” he said, then he smiled, obviously pleased with himself.
“She has always picked things up quickly. She walked a week before she turned nine months old.”
He looked down at his feet. “I think I did, too.”
“Really? I worried that she’d become bowlegged from walking so early, but there was no way, short of hog-tying, that I could stop her. Besides, Mae said all that bowlegged stuff is an old wives’ tale anyway.”
They were silent for a moment while both of them watched their daughter. She fell onto her behind, picked herself up, and was off again.
“Wow, that’s a first,” she said, surprised that Lexie didn’t skate toward her with big fat tears in her eyes.
“What?”
“She isn’t howling and demanding Band-Aids.”
“She told me she was going to be a big girl today.”
“Hmm.” Georgeanne’s eyes narrowed on her daughter. Perhaps Mae was right. Perhaps Lexie was more drama queen than Georgeanne realized.
John nudged her bare arm with his elbow. “You ready?”
“For what?” she asked, although she had a real bad feeling she knew the answer.
“To skate.”
She uncrossed her legs and turned toward him on the bench. Through the thin fabric of her skirt, her knee brushed his. “John, I’ll be real honest with you. I hate skating.”
“Then why did you pick it?”
“Because of this bench. I thought I could just sit here and watch.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Come on.”
Her gaze traveled from his open palm and up his arm. She looked into his face and shook her head.
He responded by making chicken sounds.
“That’s so juvenile.” Georgeanne rolled her eyes. “You can coat me with secret herbs and spices and serve me in a bucket, but I’m not skating.”
John laughed and creases appeared in the corners of his blue eyes. “Since I promised to be on my best behavior, I won’t comment on how I’d like to see you served.”
“Thank you.”