Page 58 of In A Faraway Land

At the Swim Lesson

Flicka von Hannover

Dieter did look good in a swimsuit,

so the swimming grandmothers weren’t wrong

to catcall him like that.

A few days later, Dieter asked Flicka if she wanted to come along to Alina’s swim lesson. “They have a lane reserved for laps if you want, or the sun is nice.”

The Nevada summer sun would peel the paint off a BMW, but thethought of swim lessons for a toddler who was still working on staggering around the room more than three times seemed to be an amusing proposition. Flicka found a cheap swimsuit at one of the shops in the Silver Horseshoe where she could use her employee discount and tagged along one searing September morning.

Even considering that the swimsuit had been on sale, it seemed like quite a bit ofmoney for the small amount of cloth involved.

When Flicka tugged Dieter’s oversized tee shirt over her head, revealing the red bikini on her pale skin, Dieter looked her up and down, taking her in, and then he gazed in her eyes for a moment, his gray eyes turning darker, almost smoky.

Flicka didn’t look away, but her breath felt a little shallow in her chest.

Alina tugged on Dieter’s hand,pointing toward the pool. “Dada? Pool. Want pool. Dada? Pool.”

Dieter stripped off his tee shirt, revealing his muscular physique that Flicka loved to look at but couldn’t quite touch. The sun was tanning him during these swim lessons, she noticed, because his skin over his strong shoulders, round biceps, and heavy chest was turning golden. The deep crevices pointing from his waist to the waistbandof his swim shorts seemed darker, not to mention the furrow running between the hard bricks of his abdominals.

From the pool, feminine voices hooted.

Flicka glanced over.

A bunch of white-haired ladies were holding toddlers in the pool, splashing around with them, and they catcalled and whistled at Dieter, standing there shirtless.

The instructor, a whipcord-tough woman in a red lifeguardswimsuit, trotted across the hot deck and leaped into the pool. She called, “Raphe! Bring Alina. It’s time to begin.”

“Dada? Pool, p’ease. Time for pool.”

Dieter said, “Yes, Alina. Time for your swimming lesson in the pool,” but he didn’t look away from Flicka as Alina towed him toward the water.

Flicka swam laps in the designated lane at the far end of the pool. Her body lengthened and unknottedin the cool water. When she clung to the side for a moment, she glanced over at Dieter and Alina.

Alina was splashing in the water along with the other babies and making short swims between Dieter and one of the grandmothers in the pool.

Dieter was laughing and encouraging her and the other splashing toddlers.

The joy on his face and in his gray eyes was amazing.

When he caught Flicka staringat him, he grinned harder and went back to catching Alina as she paddled to him.

She’d always thought Dieter was a handsome man—his strong shoulders and slim hips, attractive as hell in a dark suit or ripped fatigues, calm watchfulness or wild adrenaline burning in his gray eyes—but the laugh lines creasing his face as he played with his daughter made him look different to her.

Better.

A wistfuldesire shot through her, though she couldn’t quite place what she wanted.

Flicka went back to swimming laps to work the waitressing kinks out of her shoulders and back, even though she wanted to just hang on the side of the pool and watch Alina and Dieter.