Page 129 of Bountiful
“Hey!” I repeated. “Look, Nicole, it’s your crazy aunt Bess. Can you tellherhi?”
Nicole lifted her hand and waved at the screen, while Bess swooned. I let my sister chatter to the baby for a while, then I told her I needed to go see aboutbreakfast.
“Wait,” she said, remembering that I was alive. “Since you’re here, it’s time for my weeklynagging.”
“I’m on vacation,” I said quickly. We didn’t need to talk about my contract extensiontoday.Jesus.
“Look, I was talking to Hugh this week on another matter…” Hugh was my team’s general manager. “He asked where you stood on the question of two years versus three, and of course I told him you just weren’t ready to think about it. Eventful summer, blahblahblah…”
“Right.So?”
My sister bit her lip. “I wondered whether I should have asked him how he felt about aone-yearextension.”
“One year?” I didn’t see how that really helped thediscussion.
“Well, yeah.” She gave me a cautious smile. “I thought maybe you were having trouble choosing because suddenly it was harder to think three years out.” Her eyes flicked to Nicole. “A one-year would buy you some time to thinkthingsover.”
“Huh.” Then again, they could drop me after a year. “I’ll think about it. Gotta go. Hotel pancakes are callingourname.”
Nicole made a happy noise. I was pretty sure they were calling her name, too. I set her down in the sand to say goodbye to my sister, and Nicole plopped down on stubby knees to run her fingers throughthesand.
“Come on, angel,” I said, standing up slowly. “Let’s go ordersomefood.”
She reached up to wrap her hand around my finger. And we walked back insidetogether.
ChapterThirty-Nine
Zara
Iwoke up alone.There have been times in my life when I woke up alone and felt sad about it. This wasn’t one of thosetimes.
When I rolled over on the thousand-thread-count sheets and heard…silence—beautiful silence—I knew Dave had gotten up with Nicole, and that she must be feeling better. I would have heard her if she needed me. And I trusted Dave not to wander the resort with a childinpain.
When I lingered on that idea, though, I realized something. I trusted Dave with Nicole. I really did. Why had I taken so long, then, to trust himwithme?
That thought got me out of bed. I washed my face and brushed my teeth and put on one of the thick, fluffy robes hanging in thebathroom.
Then I paced the hotel suite for a few minutes, looking out of various windows, wondering when they were coming back—not because I was worried, but because Imissedthem.
It was probably only a few minutes later when the door clicked open and Dave appeared like a handsome vision in the doorway. Nicole was riding on his muscular arm, one hand casually resting on his shoulder. When she saw me, she smiled andsaid, “Mama!”
“You look so much better!” I cried, reaching forthemboth.
A group hug ensued until Dave stepped back to say, “Breakfast will be here in twenty minutes. I’m really hungry so I ordered one ofeverything.”
“Oh!” That sounded amazing. “I need to find some milk forNicole’s—”
“She already drank one,” he said, pulling her cup out of a pocket in his shorts. “But they’re sending us some more forlater.”
“Wow. You took care ofeverything.”
He smiled at me, and I got the same thrill I always did. “I spotted the p-o-o-l,” he said. “It’s a nice spot. We could head over there after breakfast? There’s a kiddie area heresomewhere,too.”
“Ican’twait.”
Seriously,I was in love. Not only with the hot guy on the other end of the couch, but with this whole experience. I was still in my bathrobe while we drank a second cup of the coffee that room service had brought in a silver pot. I was full of eggs, bacon, andpancakes,too.
“Honey, a year ago, if someone had told me I’d be enjoying a family vacation with you and Nicole at a posh resort, I would have told them to get off thedrugs.”
