Page 22 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

LEE

We all walk away from the bookmobile licking ice cream cones. This is the wonderful kind of ice cream —made with salt and ice and a boiled custard recipe.

The flavor is fabulous! Even better, it comes as the prize at the end of a story about a boy who wants twenty flavors of ice cream on his cone and winds up losing all the scoops except the vanilla as he gives samples to people as he walks along.

Better yet, I have a “transient” library card in my pocket.

It seems that this is a very special kind of bookmobile, one designed so it can be used by people who don’t have a permanent address.

The transient card doesn’t give me access to all the library books, but there is a special rack of paperbacks.

Austin explains that the books in that rack are donated, so they don’t cost the library anything but storage. “Most people do bring the books back,” he says. “It’s amazing how honorable people can be when offered an honor system.”

In addition, Austin is carrying a cloth bag of books on all kinds of things. But each of us has picked out one book just for fun. I have a copy of Eight Cousins, which I’ve always wanted to read. Julia has an alphabet book, with silly verses for each letter.

Austin says it won’t be a problem because the bookmobile stops off at the Beach one day a week. We could return our books, and we could have some more of that marvelous tea. And maybe more ice cream.

It’s not quite as exciting walking back through the fair as it had been coming through it the first time. We don’t stop at the carnival part on the way home, but we do some shopping in the clothing part.

Austin buys this marvelous sunset quilt, just because I admire it. He also gets good new things for Julia because she is growing so fast and insists on getting a sundress for me. It is made of a fabric that looked like fish scales and that shimmers in the sun. I love it!

Julia picks out a shady hat and a rag doll that transforms from Little Red Riding Hood into a wolf wearing grandma clothes. It is a cute idea, and I think about how I could make similar dolls for her.

We do see a fashion show, although it was nothing like the ones I was used to. The local scout and camp troops had made clothing. The placard beside the show lists the various youth groups that had participated.

Each youngster had made the clothing they modeled for everyone. I think it is a fun idea, even if most of the designs aren’t that original.

We are feeling bubbly and happy until Pops meets us at the Freedom Beach sign. Ark is with him. It takes a few minutes for the big fellow to stop frisking around us, acting like a puppy, and settle down long enough for Pops to make himself heard over the barking.

Pops says, “We had an intruder while you were gone. The fella had Bad News written all over him. Came in here wearing a suit an’ sunglasses. Wanted to know if we’d had any unusual visitors. He had this rolled up newspaper in his hand.”

“What did you tell him?” Austin asks.

“I told him that the only folks I’d seen was people living here. Ark didn’t like him, an’ I had a hard time gettin’ the big fella to heel. When he did, he hung next to me like he was glued, growling an’ mutterin’ under his breath.”

“That’s not good,” Austin said. “That’s Ark’s tell for when someone smells like drugs. I’ll let the village Chief of Police know. I’ll screen any new residents extra careful for the next few days.”

“You do that,” Pops said. “I got nothing against new people, but I don’t think that fella was our sort, if you get what I mean.”

I feel a cold chill down my spine. I’d known all along that this was all too good to be true. I love living with Austin and Julia way too much for it to last.

I try to keep on seeming happy while we put all our purchases away. I try to focus on the idea that we can go to the bookmobile once a week and have tea and scones, go to story times, make sandcastles, and play in the water at the beach.

Yeah, I’d known it was too good to be true. And when I pick up the folded newspaper beside the barbeque, I know it for sure. The paper is folded open to a picture of me in one of my designs. I had my signature long hair, although you couldn’t tell the color in the black-and-white newspaper photo.

Before Austin or Julia can see it, I stuff it into the trash can, burying it way, down deep under the banana peels and the wrappers from Ark’s food.

The trash was really stinky and nasty down there, so I didn’t think anyone would look for it.

Real quick I wash my hands in the outside basin, hoping I’d been fast enough for Austin not to notice.

Ark comes over and snuffles at me. I kneel down beside him and hide my face in his fur. “You are the best dog ever,” I tell him, breathing in his musky doggy aroma. “The very best.”

“Keep telling him that, and it’s going to go to his head,” Austin said, coming up behind me.

“He is the best dog ever,” I say, getting up. My eyes prickle, and my nose is all snuffly. “But I think I need to go wash my face and hands now.”

“All right,” Austin says.

You can almost hear the wheels turn…I’d been sleeping with Ark whenever Julia wasn’t at home, and not shown any allergy signs up till now. Well, I hadn’t claimed that was why my eyes were watering, now had I? So, it doesn’t really count as a lie, not really, now, does it?

I go into the van, close the bathroom door behind me, and let the tears flow.

Dammit! I love my life here so much! Compared to the life I used to have, it is heaven.

Austin is the center of it, but there is Julia, Ark, the Turners, Mrs. Hubbard, and Pops.

Never in all my life had I lived in a place I love more than this place or been around people who genuinely seem to like me for just me.

I don’t sob out loud. If I don’t let Austin know what is coming, maybe we can have one more day.

Just one more lovely day where I don’t have to pretend, don’t have to live on salads when people are looking, and scarf down hamburgers and ice cream in private because I’m so hungry I can’t stand myself.

And where, even though they don’t know me as anyone except the girl who has a buzz cut and can do handstands and cartwheels, they like me. Just me…for my own self. Not because I have money, or because I’m pretty, or give them a paycheck or anything.

I stuff a terry washcloth between my teeth and bite down on it to keep from letting the sounds of my pain escape. My tears flow like ocean water running down the beach from a ruined castle of sand.

There’s a tap on the door. “Lee?” Austin calls to me.

I run water, splash it on my face. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I say. Then I fake sneeze a couple of times or two — I had gotten pretty good at it in boarding school. Sometimes a day in the infirmary was the only way you got any peace.

When I come out, Austin folds me in his arms. “Don’t you like it here?” he asks.

“I love it,” I say, trying hard not to start crying again.

“It is the best place ever.” I almost say, and I love you, but I don’t because I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.

I don’t know how in the world I’m going to give up Austin, because he is the best guy in the whole universe.

When God made him, He broke the mold. There won’t ever be another Austin.

I bury my nose in his armpit. Sound crazy?

Maybe so. But it smells like his Old Spice deodorant and Austin perspiration, making an indefinable mix that says “home” and “safe.” And loved.

Yeah, that, too. I had no idea what the word meant before Austin.

Before Ark. And, yes, before Julia. Austin smells like family, the family I had never known.

And I am going to have to leave them to keep them safe. But one more day, please unkind fates of the universe, please just one more loving and lovely day.

When I go out to sit with Julia and Ark while Austin cooks, I almost cry again. The hamburgers and the smoke from the grill all mix up with the salt sea smell of the ocean, and the hot spicy odor of someone making chili somewhere in the neighborhood.

It is like riding the roller coaster. Up, up, up, then that terrifying plunge followed by the suspense as you hit the top of the loop before coming down again.

I run my fingers through Ark’s fur. The long guard hairs are coarse, but his undercoat is soft and thick. He makes a grumbly noise almost like a purr and leans against my knee.

“Ark likes you,” Julia says. “And so do I.”

“I like you, too,” I say, struggling to keep the words even past the big lump in my throat.

I am saved from having to say anything more by Austin pushing Ark out of the way and placing a folding table in front of Julia and me.

He loads it up with a plate of burgers, buns we picked up at the fair, fat smashed potatoes — all soft in the middle, and crispy around the edges, pickles, ketchup and mustard, sliced watermelon, and bottles of jasmine tea.

It is a feast fit for kings, but there is just us to enjoy it. Even Ark gets some, although his portion is a plate of rice cooked in beef broth vegetables and topped with crumbled burgers. I sneak him bits of watermelon, which he seems to enjoy immensely.

I put the newspaper and all thoughts of tomorrow out of my head, and just focus on the day and the evening. Because today has been perfect, and I want to remember it forever.