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Looking up at the painting, she let herself get lost in it, because she definitely didn’t want to get lost in him.
10
“Rich, look!” A high voice echoed from the pool as he walked back from his afternoon run on the beach. “I’m allowed to swim again. I’m all healed, see? Mom says I can go in the ocean next week. How cool is that?”
“That’s very cool.” Rich nodded, trying to keep his face serious.
“Will you come, too? Mom said you might.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Isla padded across the concrete pool area, weaving in and out of the mostly-empty beds. Water was dripping off of her, leaving a dark wet trail from the pool to where he was standing.
She lifted her foot, twisting her leg to try to show him her sole, but then she started to wobble, her arms windmilling in an attempt to stop herself from falling. Scooting down, he reached for her, clasping her tiny body to steady her, and she grinned, her hair dripping water onto his sneakers.
“Whoa there. You okay?”
She grinned. “Yep. But I got to show you. It’s so cool. Mom thinks I’m going to have a tiny scar. Did you know that scars tell the story of your past? Mom has a scar from when I was born, but she hides it beneath her clothes.” Isla finally took a breath. “Do you have any scars?”
“A couple. One on my arm where I fell off my bike when I was your age. And another on my eyebrow.”
“Let me see.”
He smiled at her bossiness. “Where’s your mom?” He hadn’t seen Meghan since Saturday, though he’d thought about her a lot. Thought about the way she looked at him in the art gallery, and how good it had felt to kiss her soft skin. It had made him want more.
So much more.
And this was why he shouldn’t play with fire.
“She’s still at work. Gloria brought me down. See?” She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb, like she was hitching a ride.
He looked in the direction she was pointing, and sure enough Gloria was sitting on one of the sun beds, fully dressed, clashing her knitting needles together in a fury. She gave him a wave, and he grinned back.
“Gloria says it’s fine for me to swim without her as long as the lifeguard is here. I’m a strong swimmer. I got my hundred meter badge before anybody else my age. My mom says I’m like a porpo…” She frowned. “Por…”
“Porpoise?” Rich suggested.
“That’s it.” Isla nodded. “Can I see your scar?”
“Sure.” He leaned down and she studied his eyebrow carefully, her face pinched as though she was concentrating hard.
“There’s no hair there,” she said.
“Hair can’t grow on a scar,” he told her. “That’s why it looks a bit strange.”
She traced it with her finger, her own brows pulling together. “Why can’t hair grow?”
He smiled. He was used to answering kids’ questions in the ER, but not by the pool. He rarely spoke to people here. He wasn’t around enough to make friends with his neighbors, and he was all too aware of what some of the women around here called him.
“Because scar tissue is a little different than normal skin tissue. It’s kind of like a layer of protection. It doesn’t have hair follicles or blood vessels to help hair grow. So it’ll always stay bare.”
“Does that mean my scar won’t get hair either?”
He was trying not to laugh. “That’s right. It’ll stay hair free, like the rest of your foot.”
“Gloria has hairy feet,” Isla whispered. “I saw them the other day when she took off her slippers.”
This time the laugh escaped. Isla started laughing, too, her eyes shining with amusement. “Mom says you’re really smart.”
