Page 27 of Love At The Shore
He was still moving dry sand as fine as powder, so he knew he still had a ways to go, when all of a sudden Jenna’s kids appeared. They hovered near the outer ring of the pit, peering into it. Each of them held a colorful beach pail—Ally’s was a bright, sunny yellow and Nick’s was blue.
Lucas had a feeling he knew what was coming next.
“Wow, that’s a big hole.” Ally’s eyes went wide. She plucked a plastic shovel out of the bucket in her hand. “Do you want some help?”
Bingo.
“Sure. The more, the merrier.” Granted, the tiny shovels they had looked about as effective as digging with teaspoons, but every little bit helped.
Ally dropped to her knees and got to work, peppering Tank with a constant stream of chatter as she hauled sand out of the hole, two or three grains at a time. The dog’s attention stayed focused on his stick, but his tail swept back and forth, moving more sand around than either of the kids’ plastic tools managed to accomplish.
Nick sighed and cast a longing glance at Lucas’s aluminum scoop shovel. “Can I borrow yours?”
“No, you may not,” someone said.
The voice came from somewhere behind Lucas, and he was so certain who it belonged to that he would have wagered Tank’s stick on it.
“Mom.” Nick swallowed. “Hi.”
Lucas turned around to find her standing in her pretty emerald-hued swimsuit—the one that reminded him so much of a mermaid, even without the sandy tail—with her arms full of more beach toys.
“I’m so sorry. They told me they wanted to come out here and build a sandcastle. Clearly that was just a ruse to help you with…” Her brow furrowed as she inspected the fire pit. “…whatever this is.”
“It’s a fire pit,” he said.
“A fire pit?” she echoed.
“Cool!” Nick beamed while Ally ignored all of them and kept talking to Tank. She’d abandoned her shovel in favor of picking the sand out of his fur while he gnawed away at his driftwood.
“Yes.” Lucas shrugged. “I’m having a bonfire tonight.”
He could’ve left it at that. But somewhere in the back of his head he was still thinking about the look on her face when she’d seen him messing around with Kayla at the pool earlier.
Who was he kidding? It wasn’t in the back of his head at all. It had been right at the forefront of his mind, the starring attraction of his thoughts the entire time he’d been digging the hole.
“You should come,” he heard himself say.
She blinked. “I, um…”
Her gaze flitted to Nick, then Ally.
“All of you,” Lucas clarified.
“Yessss.” Nick let loose with a fist pump.
“I don’t know.” Jenna gnawed at her bottom lip. “We wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It’s no imposition. It’s just a bonfire.” It was a spur of the moment invitation, so it shouldn’t matter whether or not she said yes. But Lucas hoped she did. He hoped more than he wanted to admit.
At long last, Tank looked up from his stick. His scruffy head swiveled back and forth from Lucas to Jenna as if he was as invested in her answer as Lucas had somehow become.
She was going to say no. He could feel it.
“Mom, please,” Nick begged.
“Yeah, Mom. It’ll be fun.” Ally pointed at the pit. “We already helped dig the hole.”
That was debatable.
