Page 56 of Class Act

Plus . . . I wanted to be with him.

I wiggled my fingers. “I’m supposed to be easy on my wrist still.”

“I’ll do my best to keep the kids from manhandling you.”

Hillary and Henry came running up, each with a box of ice cream treats, wearing excited expressions. Hillary bounced on the balls of her feet with a big grin. “We’re ready, Daddy.”

“What do you think of Hailey coming swimming with us?” Ford asked.

Henry and Hillary cheered. All three of them looked at me: Ford with laughter in his eyes, and Hillary trying to hold in a squeal. I glanced down at my grocery cart and thought about how I didn’t have a suit or towel with me.

“We can follow you to your house so you can leave your groceries there and get your things,” Henry surprised me by saying.

I was warming up to the idea of joining them. All I had waiting at home was an empty condo. Still, I wanted the security of having my own car there. It was something I tried to do as much as possible. I liked the comfort of knowing I could escape whenever I felt overwhelmed at gatherings. Besides, I had two legs that needed shaving, and I wasn’t going to have them wait in my living room while I did that.

“I know where they live,” I said, shaking my head as though I couldn’t believe what I was agreeing to. “I’ll meet you up there in half an hour.”

The kids took off toward the checkout stand, and Ford followed them, walking backwards for a few steps. “I’m not bullying you into this.”

I smiled. “I know.”

In the end, it had taken very little convincing at all.

*****

Ford had been right—I was waterlogged. I’d not been swimming with children since graduating from childhood myself. I wasn’t all that familiar with public pools, as most of the swimming I did was here at Cox’s, which meant the group was typically small. Cox’s two sons didn’t live nearby, and they only had one grandchild so far. Even as a schoolteacher I was unprepared for the amount of screaming and splashing that went on. And it was only two kids. The call of ‘cannon ball’ became the thing that made me shudder. After being thoroughly drenched several times, I figured out to turn my back toward the voice and hunch my shoulders. It was much better than a direct face hit.

Ford, for his part, was as active as the kids. He chased them around the shallow end, throwing them into the air and making them shriek as they flailed before hitting the deeper water. He did poses off the diving board and challenged the kids to a variety of races. I enjoyed the show, thinking how different he was from the man whose articles I’d read and polished pictures I’d seen. He wasn’t the perfectly pressed businessman I’d initially met.

I enjoyed watching them have fun together but felt a little shy and unsure about how to interact with them myself, so I held back. When I was in a pool, I swam a few sedate laps and then lounged by the side chatting with the other women. Horseplay wasn’t in my wheelhouse.

Tonight, however, I was the only woman around. Connie and my mom had gone out to dinner and a movie, so it was only Leonard in the house. And Leonard had never been one to sit by the pool, or really get into the pool as far as I could remember. After his boisterous greeting he’d instructed us to have fun and turned everything over to me since I knew it all anyhow.

On the bright side, it had given me plenty of time to observe the object of my infatuation, and there was no way I’d complain about that.

Hillary and Henry seemed to be winding down, and Ford climbed out of the pool, water sluicing off his shoulders and down his back as he walked to the side of the pool where large floaties were stored. He chose two and tossed them into the pool. I laughed along with him as we watched the kids climb on top, which involved flipping themselves over several times until Ford dove in and heaved them into place. Ford swam my way once they were lying on their backs, spinning in lazy circles and using their hands to flick water at each other.

I was sitting on the pool steps in the shallow end, the water up to my shoulders, and my eyes racked over him as he swam to me with broad strokes and gleaming skin. He took a seat on the same step and used one hand to push his hair into a slicked-back look that wasn’t that different from his normal hair style. Water dripped off his lashes, making his gray eyes appear to glow as he smiled over at me.

“Hiding away from the action?” he teased.

I stretched my legs in front of me, letting my toes peek up out of the water. My eyes went to the red nail polish, and I was grateful to have something to focus on. “Did you know I’m an only child?” I asked.

He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows and giving me a delicious view of his body. Not overly muscled, but lean, athletic, and healthy and . . . I was getting off track.

“I did,” he replied, letting the unvoiced question linger in the air. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

“I don’t know if that’s the reason I’m more introverted or if it would have been that way even with ten siblings.”

He nodded, his gaze watching his kids as they floated past. “I’m an oldest child and an extrovert to the core. Mom had a hard time keeping me at home to get chores and homework done. I wanted to be in the middle of the action.”

My toes sank back down to the steps, and I pushed the ball of my feet against the rough floor of the pool. “I’m guessing you weren’t spending your days at home reading books and cooking with your parents, then?” I swirled my hands in circles, creating little waves in the water.

“Nope.” He chuckled. “I was too busy running for every student office I could and finding where the parties were on the weekends.”

“We are so different,” I said with a soft laugh.

I saw him nod. “True.” But his tone didn’t sound like that was a bad thing.

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