Page 60 of SEAL'S Baby Surprise
It is disgusting and adorable all at the same time. I realize I wouldn’t mind at all if Lee looked at me the way Kandy looks at Richie. “Cute couple” doen’t even begin to cover it.
In spite of his injuries, Richard is just as handsome as ever. Now that he is settling into his role as husband and father, he has afew gray hairs at his temples, just a hint at what kind of “silver fox” he will be one of these days.
Kandis is lovely in her own right, a true California girl. More than that, she is an accomplished hostess, managing her son, her husband, and an all-American sit-down meal without missing a beat.
“Have you heard anything about Rylie?” she asks Richard, keeping her voice light, but there is a thread of tension underlying the inquiry.
He shakes his head. “Nothing since the report that someone was trying to sell her jewelry. Whoever it was hasn’t tried again. We got it out of the girlfriend who was with her at the fitting that she and that idiot had some kind of fight. The girlfriend went to the bathroom, and when she got back, there was the train off Rylie’s dress on the floor, and Rylie was gone. It was as if she’d shed it like a lizard’s tail and scuttled away. She didn’t take her purse, her make-up kit, or anything.”
“And you’ve not heard from her again?” I ask. “That’s insanely scary, man.”
“Don’t I know it,” Richard replies, scowling. “And that SOB she was going to marry. I can’t begin to say how much I detest him, or how little I trust him.”
“Isn’t that sort of the function of an older brother who is also his sister’s guardian?” I tease.
I remember that Richard used to grumble about his sister having run away from yet another boarding school and having to go fetch her back.
“I guess,” Richard says. “But I’m really worried about her. I’ve got detectives out looking for her. No one has seen her, no one has heard from her. I’ve asked all her friends, her acquaintances, and even her employees and customers. It’s like she just walked away from everything.”
I think about this for a minute, while I watch Julia playing with Charlie, Richard and Kandy’s two-year-old son.
How would I feel if Julia just suddenly disappeared out of my life? I don’t have to use much imagination. I’d had a hard time finding her.
“How can I help?” I ask.
“Say, you live down there on that beach, don’t you?” Richard asks.
“I do,” I reply cautiously. “I’ve got a van I’ve set up to live in while Julia and I look for the perfect place to make a home.”
Richard looks at me shrewdly. “Are you sure the van isn’t home? I don’t recall you ever being all that long on money.”
I shrug. I like Richard, and I’m grateful for the leg up he gave me. But I’ve learned the hard way to keep my financials private.
“I’ve got my disability pay, and I can go back to school if I want. We’ve got groceries, food, and good neighbors. We’re doing all right.”
I watch Julia as she sings, “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” for Charlie, making him giggle and crow when the spider washes out and climbs up the spout again.
“You let me know if you need anything,” Richard says. “Anything at all. I’d never have made it through business math, letalone calculus without your help. Or survived all the jealous boyfriends and angry fathers. You’d make a good teacher, Austin.”
No. No, I wouldn’t,I think, remembering leading cadence for new recruits.Never again. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s life except maybe Julia’s.
I remembera man sobbing with the pain in his legs. Hardly more than a boy, really. And he’d been there because he’d been one of my students during combat training.
No. Never again.
Kandis must have picked up on my mood because she says brightly, “I finished putting together that photo album with all Charlie’s baby pictures. Would you like to look at it?”
“Sure,” I say. Charlie is a cute kid. That should be a safe topic, especially since he’s hit it off with Julia.
Kandis gets out a hand-tooled leather book and places it on the coffee table. I begin leafing through it.
There are the usual kinds of pictures. There’s Kandis, her body round with pregnancy, posing on an ocean-side lounge.
There’s the usual embarrassing picture of a newborn, upside down in all his naked glory, still attached to the umbilical.
This is followed up by a cute picture of Kandis in a frilly bed jacket, holding a cleaned up, clothed baby.
I turn the page. And staring up at me, baby Charlie in the crook of her arm, is Lee. “That’s Lee!” I blurt out. “While she still had pink hair.”
