Page 38 of Not Your Average Vixen
She was ready to ask him point-blank when a sharp knock on the window sent them jumping to opposite sides of the back seat like teenagers caught necking after curfew.
“Uncle Scooter? What are you doing in there?”
A little girl with a scrunched-up face stood beside a little boy wearing bright red bifocals.
“Did that lady have an eyelash stuck on her eyeball? Sometimes, when I have an eyelash stuck on my eyeball, Mommy has to get that close to fish it out,” the boy commented, pressing his gloved hands to the glass to get a better look at them.
“It’s all steamy in there,” the little girl remarked, rubbing her mitten against the window above the boy’s head.
Soren’s gaze bounced between her and the children, who were watching them as if they were in a zoo enclosure.
“That’s Carly and Cole,” he said, losing the asshat vibe and looking downright flummoxed.
She nodded, completely cognizant that two little kids had caught them full-on sucking face.
“Tom’s niece and nephew, right?” she replied, going for casual, which was not as easy as one would think after a make-out session that left her swaying side to side in a woozy kissing daze.
“Yes, that’s right,” he answered, still looking quite shellshocked.
Before this awkward moment, their lives had intersected, first, in a rapture of anonymous sexual bliss, then as steadfast sworn enemies, once their veil on anonymity got blown to hell. And now, they were two people connected to these children, who continued to watch them like a science project gone wrong.
She waved to the kids and did her best not to look like a wannabe dirty girl vixen.
These two kiddos were just as Lori had described: Carly with her button nose, ash-blond hair in two braids, and Cole with his rosy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. Her sister had told her all about Tom’s family. She absolutely adored them, and from the sound of it, they adored her, too.
It was quite a distinguished group.
Tom’s parents, Grace and Scott Abbott, ran their Boston-based law firm, Abbott and Associates, where Lori and Tom met and worked. Tom’s sister, Denise, a social worker, was five years older than Tom. She and her wife Nancy were the proud parents of eight-year-old, Carly, and five-year-old, Cole.
Lori had spent many a weekend with them on the coast along with Tom’s grandfather, who Lori described as one tough, lovable character. Franklin Abbott went by the moniker, Judge. Everyone, even the grandkids and the great-grandkids, called him by this name as a tribute to his forty-five-year career on the bench. Tom’s uncle Russell would be joining them for the wedding, but Lori hadn’t spent much time with him.
“Is your eyeball okay, lady?” the little boy called.
She nodded to the child, then turned to Soren.
“We should probably get out of the car,” she said, smoothing a lock of her hair before gesturing to the door.
“Yeah,” he answered with a minute shake of his head.
At least, this seemed as weird for him as it did for her.
He opened the door and barely had a foot out before the children pounced on him.
“Uncle Scooter rides!” Cole cheered.
“Me, first,” Carly called, jumping into the man’s arms.
“Uncle Scooter, do you want to see the snow angel I made?” Cole asked, pulling on Soren’s coat sleeve.
The little girl pointed toward a small log cabin about fifty feet away from the large mountain house. “I made one in front of Dan and Delores’s little log cottage. See, it’s right over there. Dan says that there are lots of little cabins in the forest around here, but only theirs is warm enough to live in over the winter.”
“Is that so?” Soren asked, glancing over his shoulder at her as she got out of the car.
It was as if he didn’t know who to be. The cocksure asshat or Uncle Scooter—who, quite possibly, had one of the nerdiest uncle names out there.
“You’re Birdie, Aunt Lori’s sister!” the little boy said, materializing by her side.
This kid could really move.
