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“Good job,” Gabi said. “High five.”
She squatted down to Conner’s level and held her hand up. He gave her a high five and then skipped over to Kingsley and smiled up at him.
Kingsley ruffled his son’s hair. “I’ll watch him while you change.”
“Thanks.”
Gabi left the room and when she returned a few minutes later, he wasn’t disappointed. She had on pair of khaki shorts that ended midthigh, showing off her long, tanned legs, and a loose-fitting off-the-shoulder white top that revealed her bikini strap and her tanned shoulders.
He wanted to cancel his trip and stay with them. And he promised himself soon he’d be able to do just that. He said goodbye to Gabi and his son and left for the airport, in pursuit of answers to questions still lingering from the past.
Six
Gabi fell into a routine, and she soon learned that like every toddler, Conner had his temper tantrums when he was hungry or unable to get his point across to her. But on the whole, he was a good kid.
What unnerved her were some of the mannerisms she knew he shared with his father. Watching him eat a bowl of ice cream was like watching Kingsley do it. Then other times he would give her a look when she made him laugh that also reminded her of Kingsley.
She missed him.
Silly, she knew. But there it was. The house was too big when he was gone. It had felt too small when he’d been there but now she realized it was his presence and not the house that was making her so aware of the space around her.
Kingsley video chatted with Conner every day at least once. Sometimes more. When she and Conner went for a walk on the beach and found an interesting piece of driftwood, Conner needed to send a picture to his dad and then talk to him. When Conner taught her how to play a racing video game, he wanted his dad to know. And every night after she finished reading him whatever book he’d chosen—his current favorite was Good Night, Knight after Gabi had told him she liked knights in shining armor—he had to call his dad and do their One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish rap.
She knew that when the time came for her to go back to her house in Carmel and her regular life she was going to miss the little boy. But that didn’t mean she was going to let his father walk all over her.
She and Conner had been to the beach, the park and had played video games but he didn’t want to go to bed. She’d done all she could to get him ready but he wasn’t having any of it.
She suspected it was because they hadn’t been able to video chat with Kingsley all day. She got it—the kid missed his dad. She missed him, too, but he was in New York on business. And he’d warned them both that he might not be able to chat today.
“Let’s try to call your dad one more time and then it’s time for bed.”
“Gammi, I can’t sleep.”
“You haven’t tried.”
“I just know I can’t,” he said with a big sigh.
“Your dad might answer,” she said.
“I might get sleepy then.”
She hoped so but she could tell by the way he watched her dial Kingsley’s number from the iPad app that he was getting nervous.
She put her hand on his shoulder while they waited for Kingsley to answer. “Do you always get to see your daddy before bed?”
This was the first night they hadn’t been able to talk to him.
“Yes,” Conner said, nodding. He wrapped his arms around himself and she stretched to reach his little stuffed pig and hand it to him. He pulled it close and kept staring at the screen.
Kingsley wasn’t answering. On a hunch she hit the favorites button and noticed that Hunter was listed there.
“Would talking to Uncle Hunter help?” she asked.
Conner nodded. “Maybe he knows where Daddy is.”
“Your daddy is fine. Remember he sent us that text around dinnertime? He said he’d be in a meeting until after your bedtime.”
“I know. But maybe he got out early.”
Gabi knew that men and women with demanding jobs couldn’t pop out of meetings to talk to their kids. Intellectually that made perfect sense to her. So she could either text him that it was an emergency or come up with another distraction for Conner until Kingsley was out of his meeting.
“Want to roast marshmallows?”
“Yes! Like cowboys do when they are with the cows?”
“Just like the cattle drive,” she said. They’d watched a video earlier that had depicted one.
