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A second later, I hear a woman’s voice coming from up the beach.
“Aaaaannaaa! Anna!”
To my relief, when I look up, I see a woman running directly toward us. She skids to a halt in front of the little girl and drops to her knees in the sand.
“Oh my God, baby, I was so worried. Are you okay, honey? Why did you run off?”
The woman pulls the sobbing girl into her arms and hugs her tightly to her chest.
“I…my…my ball blew away and I…had to…to…” Anna’s voice is quivering as she tries to explain. The poor girl can’t seem to catch her breath.
“She was just chasing her ball, I think,” I say, the beach ball still in my hands.
“That man helped me,” Anna sniffles and points at me.
Her mom looks up at me.
Holy. Fuck.
This woman—this mom—is gorgeous.
When she was running toward us, I was still too busy worrying about her daughter to devote attention to much else. But now that the girl is calming down, the woman’s beauty steals my concentration.
I’ve seen beautiful women before. Plenty of them. But this woman…this woman is different than any of them. She’s got the most striking crystalline blue eyes, and an adorable freckle-smattered nose. She’s wearing a thin peach-colored sundress that does little to disguise her generous curves.
“Thank yousomuch,” she says. “I was terrified. I turned my back for one minute and…” Her voice chokes and she shakes her head. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Anna says, her face crumpling again when she sees the tears in her mom’s eyes.
“Oh, baby, it’s okay.” The woman stands up and then lifts the girl up, settling her onto her hip and giving her another hug. Anna drapes her arms around her mom’s neck and snuggles her head against her shoulder. A second later, Anna’s eyes close, exhaustion taking over.
“Again, thank you so much.” The woman smiles at me. “I know I keep saying that, but it doesn’t feel like enough. When I think of what could have happened…I mean, there’s not even a lifeguard on duty today.”
Her eyes sweep the almost empty beachfront, then return to me.
“Glad I was around,” I say. I hold the beach ball out. “Don’t forget this.”
“Oh, um, would you mind, actually?” She tilts her head at Anna, who’s falling asleep on her shoulder. “Our stuff is just up the beach, near the walkway.”
“Sure.” An excuse to spend a few more minutes with this gorgeous woman? Hell yeah, I’m going to take it.
We begin to walk up the beach together. I steal a few more glances along the way, unable to help my eyes from dropping to her hips. Fuck, the way they’re swaying under her dress…if I watch much longer, it’s going to put me under a spell.
I force my eyes upward. “I’m River, by the way.”
She looks over at me and smiles. “River. I like that.” She chews on her bottom lip for a second, and I swear I see a quick flash of something in her eyes.
Then she clears her throat and says, “I’m Leah. And this is Anna, as you heard.”
“Nice to meet you both.”
“You, too.”
We both slow our pace. We’ve reached the spot on the beach where their stuff is. I help Leah gather it up; she’s still holding Anna in her arms.
Is it inappropriate to ask a woman out when she’s got a kid on her hip? Hell if I know. But if I don’t say something now—
“I’m hungry, Mommy,” Anna murmurs, her eyes still closed.
