Page 36 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

AUSTIN

ONE MONTH LATER — A CHILD IS BORN

I sit on the edge of the bed. We are at the birthing center.

Kandis and Richie had this room specially decorated as a surprise. The bed looks like a giant paddle raft. The floor, which is a cushioned vinyl, looks like shell-strewn beach sand.

The walls are covered with a mural oceans-cape, featuring gently foaming waves, people on paddle boards and surfboards.

Lee (I still can’t think of her as Rylie) sits propped up by sea-green pillows, wearing a frothy white bed jacket, cuddling Robert Aloysius Moore to her breast.

Baby Al is a noisy feeder, smacking enthusiastically at his mama’s breast. He’s so blond he looks bald, even though he has a pretty good amount of fuzz on his head.

Richie sits in a rocking chair, dandling Charlie to keep him from climbing up onto the bed. Julia, who would ordinarily be keeping Charlie busy, is sitting on the other side of Lee, leaning on her shoulder to get a better look at her new brother’s ecstatic little face.

“He likes milk,” she announces.

“Yes, he does,” Lee agrees with her, looking down at the greedy little pig at her breast. Her face is alight with maternal fondness. It is no wonder that the old masters had portrayed mothers with a halo around their heads.

Lee has always been beautiful. But motherhood has brought out another side of her. She has that whole earth goddess — or maybe sea goddess — thing down pat.

Kandis has a camera out and is busy getting pictures of all of us.

“What will happen to this room when we go home?” I ask. It’s not like I really care all that much, but it does seem kind of a shame to waste all the work that went into putting it together.

Richard replies, “It will be available to other people to use. It has a kind of peaceful, yet happy dynamic going for it, don’t you think?”

“It does,” I say. “Kind of like Freedom Beach on a good day. I keep expecting to see Pops McKinney or Betty and Bobby to come walking up that path.”

“We’ll see them soon,” Lee says, “Won’t we?”

We will. Summer is here, and I cannot think of a better place for my little family than Freedom Beach. The travel trailer is just right for us right now.

Julia has her own room on one end, we have ours on the other, and Al has a niche that used to be a closet. We’ll outgrow it in a year or two, but by then we might have found a place to settle down and stay in one place. Maybe I’d just renovate one of the cottages in the Village.

My sister is coming to visit in a day or two. I’ll put up the glamping tent for her. We don’t really need her help, but she misses me. And she likes Rylie.

She had never liked Izzy. She always said she was bad for me. But she was sorry that she’d not been in touch when Izzy died. She would have taken Julia in, and she wouldn’t have been in the system.

But that was all right. The foster family she’d been with had done all right for her. Better than her own mother had, truth be told.

Sis has her own demons — a failed marriage, and a baby that was stillborn, in spite of all that medical help could do for her. I don’t mind letting her stay with us for a while. Perhaps the sea will be the healing she needs.

There are voices in the hall. Mimi and Pops Quinn come in. They make a beeline for the bed, but approach gently. Lee smiles at them. They’ve adopted us as their grandkids, just as they have Richie.

Pops claps me lightly on the shoulder. “How’s it feel to be a stay-at-home dad?” he asks.

“It’s good,” I say. “I’ve got my mermaid, my big girl, and now my son. I’ve got money in the bank against a rainy day, and I’ve got friends in case the banks fail.”

Pops cackles out his old man’s laugh. “Bed, bannock, and thee, eh?” he says, poking fun at me.

“Pretty much,” I say.

“He’s full, and he needs to be burped,” Lee says. “Anyone want to hold the baby?”

“Oh, yes, please!” Mimi says. “Give me that little man!”

Her words are impetuous, but she eases the baby out of Lee’s arms and expertly balances him over one shoulder, rubbing and patting his back.

I watch as Al gives a mighty burp, milk bubbling on his lips, then he snuggles into the side of Mimi’s neck and falls asleep.

I long to hold him in my own arms, but I know that I have months ahead to cuddle my son, and years beyond that to watch him grow. Mimi and Pops Quinn are in their twilight years.

Speaking of Pops…I wonder what Pops McKinney will make of the new addition? I know that Mrs. Hubbard and the Turners will welcome our son. Pops McKinny probably will, too.

Pops Quinn must be reading my thoughts because he says, “You kids going to live down there on the beach?”

“For the summer, at least,” I say.

“You’re welcome to stay in the vineyard cottage,” he says. I think I can hear a little wistfulness in his voice.

“We like the ocean,” I say. “Don’t want to take my mermaid too far away from her water. But you and Mimi are welcome to visit anytime. I’d like to introduce you to Pops McKinney. I think the two of you might have a thing or two in common.”

“Besides both being called Pops?” he says.

“Yeah, besides that,” I say. “Anyway, if you and Mimi want to visit for a week or two, I’ll get one of those inflatable tents with an air conditioner and it’s own pop-up bathroom. All the comforts of home.”

He laughs. “We just might take you up on that. Kandy and Richie do a good job running the vineyard. We aren’t near so tied down these days as we used to be. Say, what is it exactly you do for a living?”

“I trade stocks and make investments,” I say. “Here lately I’ve taken part interest in more tangible assets.”

“Good plan,” he says. “You can maybe get a sizeable loan using stocks and bonds as collateral, but you’ll have a hard time eating them if the world falls apart.”

I laugh. “I kinda already figured that out,” I say, thinking of the community farm plots on the north side of the village, not too far from the Quinn vineyards. “I have something of a brown thumb when it comes to plants, so I’ve been cultivating good neighbors.”

Pops Quinn cackles out that old man laugh again. “That’s probably the best investment anyone can make.”

“Yeah,” I say. Then I marvel at myself — me, the guy with itchy feet, the man who couldn’t stand people.

Well, I’m still picky about the people I have around me. Julia is my daughter. I’ve an obligation to her, even if I didn’t love her — which I do.

Rylie is my gift from the sea, my selkie woman. I have her strands of pink hair put away in a box, and I’m mindful that selkies come with a set of rules that if violated will send them running back to their element and away from their land-bound lovers.

Lee must feel some of what I’m thinking because she turns those ocean blue eyes toward me. “What do you suppose Ark is doing?” she asks.

“Pops McKinney has him. They get along well together, and they’ll take care of the Beach until we get back.”

“You mean the Beach and all its people will take care of them.” Her eyes crinkle up at the corners and her mouth smiles. I see the adorable cherub I found at the ocean’s edge.

I lean over, put my arm around her, and she scoots closer to me. “That’s how it should be,” I say. “People and places taking care of each other.”

“When can we go home?” she asks.

“In a day or two,” I say. “Artie wants to be sure that you are healing well, and she wants to get all the well-baby tests back from the labs so that we know Al is growing and developing the way he should.”

“Artie is good people,” Lee says.

“She is,” I reply. “But I don’t ever want to be on the wrong end of her gun again.”

Richard laughs at me from across the room. “She is fierce, isn’t she?”

“Say,” Pops puts in. “Whatever happened to that Jason feller?”

“Tucked away in prison for a very long time,” Richard replies.

“When they got him into custody and started investigating, we found that he was wanted for murder of two women, and that he had beaten and badly maimed a third. It seems he would find a woman with money. Flatter her, wine and dine, get her to sign her money over to him, and then he’d do her in.

If they ran, he had an arrangement with a guy who would write up papers to have them committed for mental problems.”

I think of Lee’s panic attacks. “And Lee was just the kind of person he liked to prey on,” I say, tightening my embrace just a little. “She gets a little ditzy under pressure.”

“Do not,” she says, and elbows me in the ribs. “I have an excellent sense of self-preservation, and I know when to run.”

Richard frowns at her. “What exactly used to happen in those schools?” he asks.

“You don’t want to know,” she says. “I think Mom and Dad had some idea, because they never put me back into the same one after I ran. The only problem is, they were kind of like copies of each other. I was so glad to live independently. You have no idea.”

“I should have paid more attention,” Richard says.

“What could you have done?” Lee asks. “You were in college through the worst of it. Then I was in college, trying to get along on my allowance.”

I run my hand through her short hair, and kiss the top of her curls. “Anything you want, you can have,” I say.

She laughs up at me. “Can I have an elephant?”

I freeze in panic. How would I keep an elephant well and happy? My instant of terror must have shown on my face.

Lee relents, and pokes me in the ribs with one finger. Gently, this time. “I’m teasing,” she says. “Although an elephant might be handy sometimes. Ark is as big an animal as I think I want to take care of.”

“Can we have a horse?” Julia asks. “They aren’t as big as an elephant, and they eat grass.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

Julia pouts. “That means no,” she says, then sticks her lower lip out.

“Mostly no for right now,” I say. “We aren’t living in a good place for a horse, and I know more about electric motors and dogs than horses. Let’s wait until you are a little older and see if you still want one.”