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“Oh, Eddie.” Usually she approved of this son-in-law, but not today. “Beatrix was counting on you.”
“I’m not a car mechanic.” He knew he sounded as tense as he felt, and his voice had started to rise.
“And now you’re not a churchgoer either.”
“I’m done,” he snapped and cut her off. Or had he yelled?
Tony stayed where he was for what had to be five minutes before cooling off enough to go back to the kitchen.
Loading the dishwasher, Beth glanced up. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.”
“It sounded like you were having a fight.”
“My mother managed to push all my buttons.” And he didn’t want to talk about this.
“Are you going to church?”
“No.” He sighed. “Can we let this go?”
“But…doesn’t your family usually do a Sunday dinner?”
“They do.” He was afraid he was coming across as curt, but he couldn’t help himself. “I won’t be there.”
At last, she accepted her cue, nodded timidly and wiped down the counter.
Now he felt like a jackass. “Is there anything you’d like to do today? I’d suggest we go for a swim at the lake, except…” He nodded at her cast.
“That would have felt amazing.” Beth came to sit at the table. “What would you like to do?”
“You know, the lake could still be fun. What if we take a picnic? You could wade in quite a ways, at least cool off.”
“While you plunge in and swim out to the dock.”
Disappointed, he said, “Yeah, that might not be the best idea.”
She laughed at him. “I was kidding, Tony. It does sound like fun. I’m not a very good swimmer, anyway. The park will probably be crowded, but who cares? I haven’t been in ages.”
Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d neither worked nor joined his family on a Sunday. His stress level dropped, while his mood soared.
He suggested they stop at a deli on the way for sandwiches, but Beth insisted she could put together a lunch. He didn’t argue too hard but did insist on helping. Since they had plenty of time, she hard-boiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches and produced some homemade cookies from the freezer.
“I usually freeze most of them,” she explained. “I delude myself that if I have to thaw them before I can take a bite,” she explained, “it’ll give my willpower time to grow, and I won’t stuff my face.”
Tony shook his head. “You’re not fat. Your body is perfect.”
“I could easily be—”
He silenced her mid-sentence with a single look. In fact, she laughed again. “Why am I arguing? What more can I ask out of life than a man who thinks my body is perfect?”
He snugged an arm around her waist, enjoying her softness and the scent of her shampoo. “I can hardly wait to see you in a bathing suit. Do you have a bikini?”
“Not a chance.”
Giving her a little shake, Tony shook his head sternly. “There you go again.”
“Well, I don’t own one, so you’ll have to settle. Although getting a bikini top on over the cast would have been easier.”
Their picnic came near to being drastically delayed when he let himself be tempted into squeezing her breasts, even kissing them, before groaning and helping maneuver the cast through the arm of the relatively modest suit.
Stepping back, he decided he approved of it anyway. It fit snugly over her curved body and was cut high enough on the hip to make any man’s eyes linger. Just enough cleavage was exposed to tantalize. He might need to be careful not to leave her alone for long at the beach, he decided. Other men might decide she needed help.
She went looking for the suntan lotion while he carried their lunches and towels out to his pickup. He’d have to stop at his place to grab his suit, but it wouldn’t take a minute. When he came back inside, he was dismayed to see Beth on her phone, the tube of lotion on the kitchen counter right beside her.
She rolled her eyes toward him and made a face. “Emily,” she whispered, then, into the phone, said, “I am listening. But I don’t understand what brought this on.”
