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“The kayak race, Mommy. I really want to do it. Caleb is doing it with his daddy and so is David. They told me when I saw them at the parade yesterday.”
Damn. Heart in her throat, Sabrina tried to be gentle. “We can’t bother Teague with that, Harry.”
“But I already did.” Her son’s face crinkled up. “I told him that you can’t swim. Only Daddy could, but that Daddy is in heaven and he can’t do it with me anymore.”
Okay, Sabrina wasn’t sure that the lump in her throat was ever going to go away. She exhaled slowly and knelt down in front of her son. The kayak race. Damn she’d forgotten all about it. Now she knew why he’d been so sad the night before.
“Harry, I’d take you if I could but even with a life jacket, I wouldn’t feel safe.”
“But…” His chin trembled. “I really want to go.”
“We can’t bother Teague with this.”
“Why not?” That came from Teague.
Surprised, Sabrina glanced up at him. Teague’s face was unreadable but those eyes were as intense as ever. “Well, I just…we don’t want to bother you.”
“But I want to bother him,” Harry piped up, with Bingo barking for good measure.
His dark eyes widened a bit, before settling on Harry. “I’m up for the kayak race if you are, but I don’t think we can do it superman pajamas.”
Harry’s face lit up like the fourth of July and he nearly knocked Sabrina over in his haste to get back to the cottage and change.
Sabrina slowly got to her feet. “Thank you,” she said slowly. “It means a lot to him. Brent took him out two years ago, as sick as he was, and they couldn’t finish. And last year, well, it was only me so….”
She blinked rapidly, because dammit she would not cry in front of this man.
“It’s all good,” Teague said.
Sabrina shivered. She was hot and yet cold.
“I just have one question.”
“What’s that?” she asked haltingly.
“You live at a lake and you own a boat, yet you can’t swim?”
“Ironic isn’t it?” She attempted a smile as she turned around, but the smile died and her throat closed up at the look in his eyes.
She waited a few moments—for her heart to settle and her throat to clear. “I moved here from the city when I was a kid. Swimming wasn’t exactly on my list of things to learn.” She paused and glanced back to her cottage. “This place, the boat and everything, it was all Brent. I didn’t bother to learn how to swim because I had him to take the kids out on the boat.”
But he ’s gone.
“You should learn to swim,” Teague said.
“I guess. Maybe one day I’ll find the time.”
“I’ll teach you.” A ghost of a smile touched his face, when she automatically crossed her arms over her chest.
“No,” she said sharply.
His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t want to learn?”
“I do, but…you don’t have to…”
“Trust me, Sabrina. I don’t do anything that I don’t want to. But first I have this kayak race thing.” He nodded toward her cottage. “Tell the little guy I’ll load the kayak onto my truck and I’ll be ready to head to town in twenty minutes.”
He took a step back and held up his hands in the Vulcan sign that Spock had made famous all those years ago, before heading up the stairs. She watched him until he disappeared, enjoying the view—muscular back, wide shoulders—and then smiled to herself as she headed up to her own place.
