Lauren’s breath caught as he rocked against her. Her eyes crinkled. God, he loved her smile. “Funny, I feel something, too.”
He scowled down at her in mock outrage. “You think it’s funny?”
She grinned up at him, twining her arms around his neck. “What I think is this isn’t going to hurt at all.”
Nine
“GOOD NIGHT, SLEEPtight,” Jane said to Aidan. She ran her hand over her son’s straight brown hair, already outgrowing its summer haircut. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
“Mom.” He rolled his head on the pillow, annoyed at her touch. Asserting his independence, protecting his male dignity. A six-and-a-half-year-old version of his grandfather. “There’s no such thing as bedbugs.”
She didn’t correct him because she wanted it to be true. No bugs in the bed, no bumps in the night, no monsters in the closet in Aidan’s world.
Not anymore.
“Well, sleep tight anyway,” she said and bent to kiss him.
He rewarded her as he did most of the time, flinging one skinny arm around her neck in a brief hug. She gave herself a moment to savor his unique little boy smell, baby shampoo and Aidan, before she straightened and turned out the light.
“Mom.” His voice caught her at the door. “Can I go to Christopher’s tomorrow after camp?”
Jane swallowed. “Tomorrow’s Thursday, buddy,” she reminded him gently. “You come to the bakery on Thursdays.”
“But Christopher’s mom is taking him to the water park.”
Christopher had two working parents. His mom, Gail Peele, was wonderful about including Aidan in her family’s plans. But with only a single salary and no benefits, there was no money in Jane’s budget for weekly visits to the water park.
“How about when I finish at the shop tomorrow, we go to the beach?” Jane suggested.
“The beach is too sandy. And I won’t have anybody to play with.”
His whining drove her to distraction and made her want to laugh at the same time. “Maybe one of the many, many children whose families brought them to the beach on vacation might want to play with you,” Jane said. “What do you think?”
Aidan sank under his covers, defeated. “Maybe.”
She smiled. “Night, buddy. God bless. I love you.”
She left the door open exactly two inches, enough that she could hear him in the night, not enough for the light from the bathroom to disturb him. She was almost at the top of the stairs before she heard his muttered reply.
“Love you, too.”
Like a whispered absolution, the words eased the muscles in her shoulders, the anxious ache of her heart.
Seven hours before she had to get up and go to work again, she calculated. She started down the stairs. Nothing left tonight but to ready Aidan’s cooler for camp tomorrow, move the laundry to the dryer, wipe down the kitchen, check her phone messages, and go to bed.
She walked past the living room, where her father sat every night after dinner in the flickering glow of TV.Twenty years in the same recliner.
When she was nine, twelve, fourteen, sometimes she would sit with him, hoping he would look over and... What? Talk to her?
Now she was relieved when he turned away, thankful not to see the disappointment in his eyes.
In the kitchen, while she waited for the water in the sink to run hot, she checked her cell phone. Four calls in the time it took to shepherd Aidan through his shower and into bed. Jane scrolled through them. The dairy, confirming tomorrow’s milk order. OneCALLERUNKNOWN. And...
Her heart slammed. Two calls from Island Security Systems.Oh, God.Travis, she thought. But no. He’d said—he’dpromised—he was on his way to Florida. But her fingers trembled as she pressed the contact button.
Please, please, please, she thought as the phone rang on the other end, but what she was praying for, she couldn’t say.
“Island Security.”
