Page 24 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

LEE

I feel just awful. If Julia had been harmed in any way, or if she’d drowned, I would never have been able to forgive myself. As we leave the Y with a thoroughly worn-out little girl, and an anxious big dog, I try to think how I can make things better.

“I can cook tonight,” I say.

“Are you sure?” Austin asks.

I feel a twinge of hurt, but he’s not wrong. My cooking attempts had not turned out the best.

“We can keep it simple,” I say. “Just hotdogs, and maybe burgers. I think I can do that.”

I’d managed to make it through cooking dinner once, with the worst casualty being a hamburger that fell into the ashes and got fed to Ark. Ark didn’t seem to mind the light gray dusting on his food.

We stop in the Farmer’s Market just as it is starting to close and pick up hamburger and hot dogs, ears of corn, bread, and watermelon.

The packages are heavy to carry home, especially the watermelon. But fortunately, the melon is an impulse buy on the same side of the square as home.

Austin carries it, and I carry the rest.

When we get back to the van, Austin puts mint tea bags in a gallon jar of water and sets it in the last rays of the sun so it could turn into tea.

Meanwhile, I do my best to get the charcoal going in the grill. It isn’t as easy as it looks when Austin does it. I manage to get it going without melting the tip off the long lighter thingie.

While the coals are getting going, I shape the hamburger into patties, just like Austin had showed me. Then I carefully place the burgers and the hot dogs across the grill.

Austin couldn’t manage to leave the cooking completely to me. He shucks the corn, and wraps the ears in foil, with a pat of butter in each one to make it even tastier.

Soon everything is sizzling beautifully. I manage to get all the burgers and the hot dogs off the grill without any problems. Then, without even thinking about it, I picked up one of the foil-wrapped ears of corn.

It is hot! So very, very hot, and scalding butter and liquid run out one corner of it all over my hand and down my arm. I scream and drop the corn.

Austin bolts up out of his chair and grabs me away from the barbeque before I could knock it over and make things worse.

“I’ll get Mrs. Hubbard,” I hear Julia say. Through the haze of pain in my hand I think, maybe say out loud, “Julia’s more grown up than I am. I’m worthless.”

“Shhh, shhh,” Austin says, holding me close. “You did great. You do fine. I should have told you the foil would be hot.”

“I’m so stupid,” I sob. “Of course, it was hot. It was on the fire, wasn’t it? Is the corn ruined?”

“Bother the corn,” Austin growls. “Let me see your hand.”

I slowly take it out from where I had been clutching it with my other hand. My palm is red. The worst of it is between my index finger and thumb where I had grasped the foil package. A red trail runs down my arm where the butter had dripped.

Julia comes zipping back to us, followed by Mrs. Hubbard at a slower, but still brisk pace. “Oh, my goodness,” she says as she comes puffing down the slight incline from her van, “What have you done, kids?”

“I tried to pick up the corn,” I say. “It was hot.”

“Oh, child,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “That’s what tongs are for. Julia, honey, go back to my trailer and get that green plant off my kitchen counter.”

As Julia speeds off to get the plant, Mrs. Hubbard says, “Do you have any soft cloths? And water — not ice water. There aren’t any blisters, so I don’t think it is too bad.”

Austin lets go of me, and gets a basin filled with tepid water. He is also carrying a soft, terry cloth.

Mrs. Hubbard places my hand into the basin, then uses the soft cloth to sponge away the slowly congealing butter. She uses patting, squeezing motions that are only vaguely painful.

“There now,” she says, gently patting the reddened skin dry. Julia comes running back with a potted plant in her hand. Mrs. Hubbard carefully cuts one fat leaf off the lower part of the plant, splits it down the middle, and squeezes the juice out of it.

I sigh with instant relief. “What is that?” I ask.

“Aloe vera,” Mrs. Hubbard explains. “Good for minor burns, insect bites, and such. I try to keep several growing in my kitchen and around my house.”

“How long have you lived here?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Several months. Aloes grow in pots, so they are easy to take from one place to another.”

Austin looks vaguely uncomfortable, so I don’t ask any more.

But Mrs. Hubbard seems in a mood to share.

“I moved here when Austin needed someone to vouch for him with Family Services. He was one of my students when I was teaching middle school English. Such a good boy, he was. Late with his homework sometimes, but never a scrap of trouble in the classroom.”

Austin’s face gets red. “I wasn’t that good,” he says.

“Well, maybe a little trouble,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “Especially if he was sitting next to Isabel. Ah, she was a wild one, that girl. Austin got suspended for three days because of her.”

“My Daddy got suspended?” Julia asks.

Mrs. Hubbard laughs. “Oh, he sure did. Randal Garcia kept teasing Isabel about her mama. Isabel called him a name, he called her one back, and Austin hit him right in the nose. It made quite a mess.”

“My dad wasn’t happy,” Austin puts in. “But he understood when I told him why. Then he talked to Mr. Garcia, which caused another mess that almost got my dad put in jail. But not quite.”

“Wow!” Julia says, her eyes big and round.

“It was a long time ago,” Austin says. “Almost like another lifetime. Would you like to have supper with us, Mrs. Hubbard? Lee made plenty, and she was doing a good job of it until she thought she had heat-resistant skin.”

The praise warms me, and almost makes the pain worthwhile.

“I’ve already had my dinner,” Mrs. Hubbard says, “But I’ll have a cup of tea and sit with you for a while.”

Austin puts ice into glasses for all of us and pours the mint tea.

Julia nearly falls asleep in her supper and goes off to bed without any argument. That leaves the three of us sitting beside the dying embers in the charcoal grill sipping our tea.

“How is Julia doing?” Austin asks.

Mrs. Hubbard laughs. “You know I won’t give you anything specific while you have someone else around,” she says. “But I will tell you that she is generally doing well. You might ask her how she is doing.”

Austin nods. “I get it. But Lee won’t be a problem.”

“That is as it might be,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “But let’s talk about something else. Lee, did you talk to the people over at the Family Clinic?”

I feel my face grow hot.

“Why the clinic?” Austin asks.

“Regular checkup,” I say. “It’s been a while since I last saw a gynecologist. My mother used to make me go.” I add the last, feeling my face get even warmer. I take a sip of my iced tea, trying to cool down.

“Lee told me you kids had been using condoms,” Mrs. Hubbard says so matter-of-factly, she might have been saying something like you put mustard on your sandwiches. “While that’s always a good idea, you know they aren’t reliable.”

“I know,” Austin mumbles. “That’s how Izzy and I got Julia.” Then he lifts his head and looks at his old teacher directly. “But I’m not sorry. My Judy-Rudy is all I have left of Izzy now.”

“I know,” Mrs. Hubbard says gently, “but you don’t want to have another mishap, do you? I’ve not heard a word about marriage between the two of you.”

Panicked, I burst out, “No marriage! No way.”

“Then you need to take your share of responsibility for birth control, dear,” Mrs. Hubbard says, then sips her tea. “They’ll take care of you even if you don’t have any money. An ounce of prevention . . .”

“Worth a pound of cure,” I recite back at her. “I know…I just hate getting poked, prodded, and having strangers peer up under there.”

“So go volunteer or something,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “Then the doctors and nurses won’t be strangers. But don’t put it off too long. Mother Nature has a way of being insistent.”

The grandmotherly woman stands up. “You two kids try not to get into too much trouble, all right? Life is hard enough without making it worse by not planning ahead.” She puts her glass into the dish tub, hugs each of us, and goes on up the path to her home.

“Well,” Austin says, “I guess you might as well come sleep with me tonight. I think our secret is out.”

I giggle a little foolishly, then say, “I’d like that. It’s been a rough, bumpy kind of day.”

“That it has,” Austin agrees. “Let me just do the dishes. We don’t need to toll in any trash bandits.”

“Trash bandits?” I ask.

“Raccoons, possums, rats,” he says.

I shudder. “No, don’t want any of those.”

“You go on and get ready for bed,” he says. “Holler if you need help.”

“Alright,” I say, and go in to get out of my soiled, sandy clothing and into a clean sleep shirt. I have a lot to think about — including what kind of danger I might be bringing to Austin and Julia. But I could have one more night, couldn’t I? Just one more, sweet, wonderful night.