Page 25 of Meant for Me (Magnolia Bay #3)

fourteen

“W hat kind of school insists parents attend a field trip the first week?” Linc grumbled.

The bus was sticky—so sticky. He crossed his arms over his chest, his shoulder bumping Zoey’s in the constricting, peeling leather seats.

Overly applied adolescent perfume and body odor competed in the small space, as the bus bounced over a pothole still yet to be fixed on Marsh Street.

“Well, it’s the only middle school in Magnolia Bay, for starters.

” Zoey gripped the seat in front of her, grinning as a row of kids in the back broke into a rousing chorus of This is the Song That Never Ends .

In her graphic T-shirt and ripped jeans, she didn’t look much older than a teenager herself.

“And this is what parents do—I’m assuming. ”

“Then why are we the only ones here besides the teacher?” He gestured with his chin to the front of the long vehicle, where an already-tired-looking woman rode behind the bus driver.

“I don’t know. Amelia said Principal Vaughn needed chaperones or the field trip to New Orleans would get canceled.” Zoey shrugged. “So here we are.”

Yep. Trapped. When he needed to be fixing that loose board at the concession shack and prepping the boat before the next tour tomorrow. “There’s so many…kids.”

“On a school event? Shocking.” She rolled her eyes with a little grin. “We couldn’t tell Amelia no. I think it’s a good sign she asked.”

Good point. It’d been five days since their return from her apartment, four days since she started school, and the week had been…

interesting. Not that he expected their post-run-from-the-diner-talk and impromptu road trip to get her stuff to be a massive breakthrough, but she still kept her distance more than not. Slept with that ratty unicorn. Argued.

Slammed her door a lot.

Ms. Bridges had checked in Wednesday on the phone, and he tried to tell her only the good stuff. Like Amelia had eaten a vegetable on Wednesday without protest and had stopped being rude to their friends. Not that he was too worried about Ms. Bridges taking Amelia back—where was she going to go?

But in the middle of the night, as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, he wondered if Amelia could ever choose to leave.

Choose the state home over him.

He swallowed. “You’re right. Her wanting us to come along seems like a good sign.” Either that or Amelia just really wanted to leave school for the day.

“Is that your dad?” A boy’s voice whispered from two rows back, near where Amelia sat.

Linc fought the urge to turn, scowl at him. Nosy little scamp.

Amelia’s voice was low in return. “Yeah.”

“He’s so…big.”

Okay, maybe the kid wasn’t all bad. Linc grinned.

Zoey nudged his arm. “If your head gets much bigger, I’m going to have to open the emergency exit window.”

He grunted. “Like you even could. You’re so behind on your pushups.”

The eighth-grade teacher, wearing turquoise wire-rimmed glasses and looking like school had been in session for a whole semester instead of just a week, made her way toward them.

A paper airplane bounced off her hair as she sank into the empty chair beside them.

She smiled. “So you’re Amelia’s parents? ”

“Stepmother, yes.” Zoey shook her hand. “Zoey Lake—Zoey Fontenot.”

Hmm. He liked that. Even if theirs wasn’t a typical marriage, it sounded…nice.

“Penny Thompson.” The middle-aged woman shook Linc’s hand next. “I’m glad you were able to come. Amelia said you insisted.” She smiled. “That’s so nice, really. And rare for this age group.”

Insisted? Linc frowned. That was hardly the way it went.

Another airplane bounced off the teacher’s head and this time stuck in her curls. Zoey snatched it free, tossed it on the floor. “Amelia said that?”

Penny patted her hair. “We didn’t need chaperones for this trip, since it’s only a few hours and a small group. Principal Vaughn meets us there too, and the museum provides an escort. But it’s so refreshing to see parents who want to get involved!”

Uh-huh. Linc turned, caught Amelia’s eye. She grinned, wiggled her fingers.

He spun back around. “We’ve been set up.”

Penny frowned. “Pardon?”

“Nothing.” Zoey elbowed him in the ribs. “We’re happy to be here.”

A boy in the back kept singing loudly, off-key. Someone behind him started burping the alphabet. The window ledge stuck to Linc’s arm. He nodded, feeling strangled. “Thrilled.”

With a confused smile, Penny went back to her seat. Two girls in front of them began taking a string of selfies on their phones, while two boys across the bus started an aggressive game of thumb war.

He nudged Zoey’s bag on the floor between their feet. “Got a time machine in that purse of yours?”

“It’s possible.” Zoey bent to retrieve it. “Which part of time would you like to go back and change?”

Good question. Maybe the part where he said yes to this field trip.

There had to be a different way to connect with his daughter than in a bus of screaming kids, especially when he needed to be doing a dozen other things for work.

He had been worried enough about getting the tour business off the ground even before he suddenly became responsible for two other people’s welfare.

Was this what parenting was like? Constantly choosing between the hard and the harder? The right decision and the best decision? What was more important—time spent bonding with Amelia, or time spent providing for her financially?

His head swam.

Zoey hauled her purse to her lap and began to paw through it, moving a screwdriver and a jump rope out of the way. “You might have to settle for some gum.”

A black-and-white photo slipped out the front pocket, and he went to grab it before it could fall to the sticky floor. And paused.

It was a picture of him, from the other week, when he was driving the boat. When he’d been thinking of her.

Why was she carrying around a picture of him?

He glanced at her, but she hadn’t seemed to notice what happened as she ducked her head, reaching into the depths of an interior pocket. He quickly tucked the picture back into the oversized bag as she emerged triumphant with a package of peppermint gum.

“Here.” She pulled out a stick, handed it to him. “You never answered my question about which part of time you’d change, by the way.”

He took the piece, unwrapped it. Popped it in his mouth as he eyed the bag where the photo lived. A rush of warmth spread through his chest. “Maybe I wouldn’t change anything after all.”

Oh, man. Hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Zoey shot him a quick look, brow furrowed, and he quickly chomped into the gum. “I mean, like you said…it’s a good sign Amelia wanted us here.”

Disappointment—was it disappointment?—briefly flooded her expression, then was gone. A passing cloud. She smiled, loosely, the shine not quite meeting her eyes. “Exactly.”

Aye . What had he done? Did she know what he had really meant? Had he freaked her out? He’d promised nothing would change, and yet here he was, reading into something as simple as a photo in her purse. It could have been anyone. She probably just was proud of the shot.

He was such an idiot.

Linc scrambled to keep the conversation going, away from the truth. “I mean, even if Amelia just meant this whole thing as a trick to punish us, she’s obviously not embarrassed by us enough to hide us from her new friends.”

“We could fix that, you know.” Zoey wiggled her eyebrows. “Throw some slang her way.” She twisted to look over her shoulder, her body angling toward Linc’s.

He caught his breath, held it, as she shifted back forward, her gaze locking with his. “What? Too far?”

She meant the slang idea. But the scent of her perfume, the warmth of her side, the memory of her body next to his in the dimly lit kitchen as they danced…He swallowed. Nodded. “Yeah. That would be going too far.”

Maybe time for him to pull back a little. Before he ruined this very fragile thing he’d created.

* * *

Everything with Linc lately felt like two steps forward, two steps back. Not regressing, exactly, but definitely not progressing. At least not in the way she kept daring to imagine.

Zoey stood in front of a portrait in the New Orleans Cabildo museum, the polished wood floors gleaming under the sneakered feet of two dozen eighth graders.

The kids had poured off the bus like a pack of hungry wolves earlier, but to their credit, most of them had been properly awed by the ornate historical building on their way in.

Linc had reluctantly taken a group down the other end of the museum hall at the teacher’s request, much to Zoey’s surprise.

But maybe he was trying to avoid her after that— whatever that was on the bus.

For a minute, she’d thought he’d meant he wouldn’t change anything about them.

But that was silly. After their kitchen dance and that random comment about time, she was obviously reading into things that simply weren’t there. Getting her hopes up.

She knew better.

She turned her attention to Amelia, who had hung back from the group near Zoey, taking in all the paintings with twice as much interest as the rest of her class.

Her thin arms wrapped around her T-shirt-clad waist as she gazed at a landscape, so intently Zoey half wondered if she might try to run straight into it, like Harry Potter boarding the train at 9 ?.

Zoey couldn’t help it anymore. She leaned in close. “What do you see?”

Amelia jerked, as if she forgot Zoey was there. She frowned a little. “I was just thinking that some of these are not very good.”

Zoey blinked and straightened. “Oh.” Not what she’d expected her to say—though Amelia had yet to be real or vulnerable about anything yet.

Took after her father that way.

She started to move to the next portrait, give her space, when Amelia spoke again, her voice smaller. “Kinda makes me feel like maybe I could draw something that was important one day too.”

Zoey paused, turned. “I bet you could. You seem to have a natural gift.”