“No.” She shook her head again and her chin quivered as she said, “Its mommy is lost, too.”
Because Lexie had only known the security of one parent, and she had no other family besides Mae, Georgeanne had to carefully screen Lexie’s movies and videos to make sure that every child and animal had a mother or a father. On her last birthday Georgeanne had let Lexie convince her that she was old enough to watch the movie Babe. Major mistake. Lexie had cried for a week afterward. “Its mommy isn’t lost. When the tide comes back in, it can go home.”
“No, mommies don’t leave their babies unless they’re lost. The little fish can’t ever go home now.” She rested her forehead on her knee. “It’s gonna die without its mommy.” She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear ran down her nose.
Georgeanne gazed across Lexie’s bent head toward John. He stared back with a desperate look in his deep blue eyes. He clearly expected her to do something. “I’m sure its daddy is out there swimming around looking for it.”
Lexie wasn’t buying. “Daddies don’t take care of babies.”
“Sure they do,” John said. “If I were a daddy fish, I’d be out there looking for my baby.”
Turning her head, Lexie looked at John for a few moments, weighing his words in her mind. “Would you look until you found it?”
“Absolutely.” He glanced at Georgeanne, then back at Lexie. “If I knew I had a baby, I’d look forever.”
Lexie sniffed and stared back into the clear water. “What if it dies before the tide comes back?”
“Hmm.” John reached for Lexie’s bucket, dumped out her shells, and scooped the tiny fish inside.
“What are you doing?” Lexie asked as the three of them stood.
“Taking your little fish to its daddy,” he said, and turned toward the tide. “Stay here with your mother.”
Georgeanne and Lexie stood on a flat rock and watched John wade out into the surf. Gentle waves swept up his thighs, and she heard his gasp as the cold water soaked the bottom of his shorts. He looked about him, and after a few moments, he carefully lowered the pail into the ocean.
“Do you think it found the daddy fish?” Lexie asked anxiously.
Georgeanne stared at the big man with the little pink pail and said, “Oh, I’m certain he did.”
He walked back toward them. A smile on his face. John “The Wall” Kowalsky, big bad hockey player, hero of small girls and guardian of tiny fish, had just sneaked past Bad Hair Day on her likable scale.
“Did you find him?” Lexie jumped off the rock and waded in up to her knees.
“Yep, and boy, was he happy to see his baby.”
“How did you know it was the daddy?”
John gave Lexie her pail, then took her little hand in his. “Because they look alike.”
“Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “What did he do when he saw his baby?”
He stopped in front of the rock where Georgeanne stood and looked up at her. “Well, he jumped up in the air, and then he swam around and around his little fish just to make sure it was all right.”
“I saw him do that.”
John laughed and little lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Really? From clear over here?”
“Yep. I’m gettin‘ my towel ’cause I’m freezin‘,” she announced, then took off up the beach.
Georgeanne looked into his face and matched his smile with her own. “How does it feel to be a hero?” she asked.
John grabbed Georgeanne’s waist and easily lifted her from the rock. Her hands grasped his shoulders as he lowered her feet into the frigid surf. Waves swirled about her calves and the breeze tousled her hair. “Am I your hero?” he asked, his voice gone all low and silky. Dangerous.
“No.” She dropped her hands from his hard shoulders and took a step backward. He was a big, powerful man, and yet he was very gentle and caring with Lexie. He was slicker than an oil spill, and if she wasn’t careful, he could make her forget the painful past. “I don’t like you, remember?”
“Uh-huh.” His smile told her he didn’t believe her for a minute. “Do you remember the time we were together on the beach in Copalis?”
She turned toward shore and spotted Lexie bundled up on the beach. “What about it?”
“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 blanket 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.”