Page 81 of Look for Me

“He came to us when there was a heavy downpour, and it looked like the campground was going to be flooded,” Angelina explained. “So we called him Sunshine.”

“Better than Umbrella,” Martin said.

“Umber for short. Hmm.” Pete turned to Angelina. “Hand me a platter, will you, my dear?”

Soon they were sitting down on their camp chairs. Even though Pete asked Martin to say a blessing over their dinner, Angelina didn’t say amen when Pete was done.

“And Lord, please watch over Corinne and her two children, Dahlia and whatever his name is,” Angelina prayed. “In the mighty, powerful, all-sufficient Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

“Amen,” everyone else echoed.

“How do you know the baby is a boy?” Pete asked.

“I’m guessing. I think she wanted a boy.” Angelina smiled. “Martin, if you ever have children, would you want boys or girls?”

“Anyone God provides.” Martin realized too late that he had answered quickly.

“Oh, you’ve thought about it.” Angelina gave him a sly smile.

“Not really.” He backtracked. “My sister, Tina, has three kids. When I visit her in Atlanta, I spend a lot of time with her kids. I’m their favorite uncle—their only maternal uncle.”

“That’s good practice for you.”

“I don’t know.” Martin felt he was saying it honestly. “I might be a bachelor the rest of my life.”

“I don’t know about that.” Angelina tipped her head up. “I think you’re the marrying kind.”

“What on earth does that even mean?” Pete laughed.

The rest of the evening, they made small talk all the way thorough dinner and dessert, surrounded by citronella candles holding back mosquitoes. It was September now, but the mosquitoes were still out.

Martin noticed that Angelina was quieter than usual. Perhaps her twisted ankle was still giving her problems. Perhaps she was on medication. Perhaps she was simply tired from all that work at Delilah’s office.

“Thank you for the dinner.” Martin wiped his lips. “That was an excellent hamburger.”

“Welcome,” Pete and Angelina said in unison. “Want more?”

“No, no. I’m full—except for maybe a piece of pie.”

“Good pie,” Angelina said. “So they make all sorts of pies at Piper’s Place?”

“Yes. And lots of cupcakes too.” Martin thought that maybe for Christmas, he could give them a gift card to Piper’s Place.

After Pete sent Angelina inside to rest her ankle, he and Martin made short work of cleaning up the place. They let the grill cool down, and Pete said he’d clean it up in the morning.

“Is everything okay?” Martin asked as they took out a bag of trash to the large dumpster down the lane.

“You mean me or Angelina or us both?” Pete asked.

“Both, I guess.”

“I’m doing fine.” Pete tossed the bag of trash into the bin. “Angelina is probably a little homesick.”

Did that mean Martin was going to lose Pete? He had only started work in late July. Two months and no vacation collected.

“Are you going home at Christmas?” MacMuscles gave everyone a week off then for family time.

“I think she wants to go home now.”

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