Page 3 of Kissing in the Rain
Susan cackled. The sound was as fake as her platinum hair and—Gabe glanced down for just a millisecond—fake as her double D’s. “I’m going to the music festival on the waterfront this weekend,” she said, sweeping her hair out of her face. “What aboutyou?”
He looked ahead, wishing this damn line would move. All he wanted was to get Kimberly and take her back to the rec center. Kimberly loved to help him out in the afternoons until Lorelai came to get her. “Notsure.”
“Well, maybe I’ll see you there. And if I do, you should sit with us. There’s always a little extra room on my picnicblanket.”
By an act of God, rain started to fall. Gabe noticed the skies had turned dark too. Summer storms often popped up out of nowhere here on the North Carolina coast. Their unpredictability was downrightpredictable.
Susan’s smile wilted. “Oh my! Hopefully, I’ll see you at the event. Bye,” she said hurriedly. Then she rushed off, dragging her son behind her. Probably worried her gallon of makeup would run onto her designerclothes.
The pickup line started to move forward. A couple of minutes later, Kimberly came running to the side of hisvehicle.
“UncleGabe!”
One of the teachers helped Kimberly strap in and waved to him before shutting the back door with Kimberly safelyinside.
“Hey, munchkin. Did you have a good day?” he asked, following the line of cars ahead of him out of the school’s parkinglot.
“Great.” She proceeded to rattle off every detail, starting with the moment she walked into her class to the very end of the day. Then she fellsilent.
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her bottom lip puckering down. “What’swrong?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. He only knew what she said because he read her lips over the loud patter of rain suddenly beating against the Jeep’sroof.
“Not nothing. Something. What isit?”
“It’s just…there’s going to be an end-of-year Daddy-and-me picnic at school for Father’s Day. And I’ll be the only one without adaddy.”
His heart ached for his niece. “I’ll go,” he said without hesitation. He had never minded taking on that role in Kimberly’slife.
“You’re not my dad, though,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “You’re my uncle, and everyone knows it. It’s notfair.”
He swallowed past the lump tightening his throat. “You’re right. It’s not.” What else could he say? Life was cruel sometimes. Not a lesson a seven-year-old should already be learning. The rest of the ride was quiet except for the steadily progressing drum of rain. The wind was picking up and making the sound deeper as hedrove.
He parked in front of the rec center’s office, jumped out, and scooped Kimberly out of the backseat. With a few quick steps, he put her down under theawning.
“That was fun,” she said, wearing a smileagain.
He swore that smile of hers could cure any disease. “Yeah. Wanna do it again?” He reached for her, threatening to pull her back into therain.
Giggling, she slipped past him and ran inside thebuilding.
Jonathan looked up. “Hey, bro. Hey, Kimmie!” He’d worked here for barely a week and already he was on a nickname basis withher.
“Hi, Mr. Jonathan!” She went barreling toward him. “Do you have a snack forme?”
“Of course I do.” Jonathan pulled out a snack-size bag of Goldfish crackers and dangled them in the air like bait. It was child-crack for sure, and Gabe had learned a long time ago that junk food was the key to his niece’sheart.
Gabe hooked a thumb behind him. “I’m going to go make sure everything is tied down. The wind is really picking up out there. Are all the customersback?”
Jonathan looked up, but he was half distracted by Kimberly, who was theatrically trying to catch each fish-shaped cracker with her mouth. “All but one. Some lady took a sailboat out earlier. She’ll probably be heading back soon now that it’sraining.”
Gabe nodded. “Hope so.” He grabbed his raincoat and headed out to secure the kayaks and paddleboards. Looking in each direction, he didn’t see any sailboats still out on the water. His sailboats had bright neon-green sails that could easily bespotted.
Thunder cracked overhead. He’d keep an eye out for the woman and an ear on the forecast. Hopefully this thing would move by fairlyquickly.
“Pull up the woman’s contact information?” Gabe said when he was back inside. He pulled his rain jacket off and placed it on a hook by the door. “I want to try to call her backin.”
Jonathan’s expression was deadpan. “I didn’t get her cell phone number. Just hername.”
