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Chapter
Ten
Bea walked throughwhat she could only describe as a bungalow.It was a step down in size from the cottage, but the air conditioning pumped hard, and she paused in the bedroom, breathing in the coolness as Grant said behind her, “It’s not bad, right?”
She turned and faced him.He hadn’t come with her down the short hallway to the bedroom, which took up the back of the house while the living room and kitchen took up the front.A bathroom connected them, along with that locked owner’s closet.
A smile formed in her soul, and it vibrated through her physical body as it made its way to her face.“Not bad at all,” she said.
“Your friend isn’t coming until Friday, right?”he asked, pulling out his phone.“I should hear from Clinton soon.”
Bea didn’t tell him that five-thirty sat two hours in the future.Instead, she returned to the kitchen and picked up her bag.“Lauren will be here Friday night, late, she said.”
“You’ll be back on the beach by then,” he promised.
“If not, she can sleep on the couch for a night,” Bea said, a new prancing emotion stealing through her.“I’ll be right back.”
His phone had swallowed his attention again, and Bea walked away from him.She tossed her bag on the bed and then ducked into the bathroom.One look at her face showed her how flushed and how smiley she still was.It had been hot on the beach and flying that kite had been a real rush.
So had standing in Grant’s arms, hugging him, and thinking about how it would feel to kiss him.Fear crept through her again, stronger this time.She hadn’t kissed another man besides Nort in over twenty-five years.She’d never wanted to, never been tempted to.
Grant wasn’t like her ex-husband in any way, and yet the attraction between them crackled like a raging bonfire, with the wood snapping and the smoke filling the sky.
Bea washed her hands and told herself not to over-analyze.She didn’t need to make a list of the things she felt when she spent time with Grant.She knew he liked her, and she liked him.As she reached for the professional, if a tad clinical, white towel to dry her hands, her mind raced ahead a week.
She’d told Grant about her plans to go to Austin to see Meredith perform and graduate.Then the wedding planning.There had been zero talk of what she’d do or where she’d go after that.Inside the crazy, irrational part of her mind—the part that whispered to her when she woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep—she’d started to think she could come back here.
Back to Hilton Head Island.Back to the beach.Back to Grant.
As she replaced the towel on the hook, she told herself she wanted to come back here because the mornings held such tranquility and peace.The sun shone brightly, sure, just like Texas, but the air held more possibilities.The wind blew harder, cooling her right when she needed it to.
Her phone chimed out a series of notifications in quick succession, and Bea picked it up from the countertop.Both Grant’s and Curtis’s names sat there, and her smile flew back into place.
She navigated to her son’s texts first, as her youngest rarely called.He much preferred texting, and if she could get him talking, he could text in a fast and furious frenzy.
Weekly update, Curtis had said.Things at Baylor are still happening.Finals in 2 weeks.I think I’m gonna pass all my classes.
She smiled at that one, because Curtis was an extremely bright boy.He simply didn’t like some aspects of organized education.He disliked group work with an intensity that still surprised Bea, and in high school—and probably this first year of college—he’d actually calculated what grade he’d get if he did or didn’t do assignments.
He was satisfied with Bs when he held A-intellect in his head, and on a lot of levels, Bea didn’t understand that.She’d always wanted to do the best she could do, even if she didn’t like the assignment.
But the Lord had a way of giving people the exact children they needed in order to learn and grow, and Bea had learned to work with Curtis’s personality.Just as she’d cultivated Meredith’s love of the piano, she’d helped Curtis do good work on what he chose to do, and then in that last year of high school, she’d showed him that he really could get into Baylor if he got a few As over Bs, and did better on his SAT.
He’d done both, because he sometimes just needed a goal to see, instead of just her or Nort teasing him for being the smartest B-student they knew.
Good news, she sent back to him, and she’d no sooner hit send before another text from him came in.
I think I’m going to stay here for the summer, Mama.How do you feel about that?
Her stomach swooped in response to that.She’d been on Hilton Head for two days, and she’d forgotten that Curtis would be coming home after the semester ended.She wouldn’t be able to come back here after helping Meredith with the wedding plans.
“Except now he’s not coming home,” she told herself, her voice echoing strangely in the bathroom.She looked up, trying to riddle through how she felt about that.
Why?she asked.Delivering pizzas is amazingmoney?
A picture started to load, but it didn’t come through clearly before Curtis’s next text.I met a girl, and we’ve been hanging out.
“Dating,” she corrected him from a thousand miles away.Curtis had never wanted to use the term “dating.”Never ever.He always “hung out” with the girls he liked, and when he started kissing them, he still insisted things weren’t that serious.With his laid-back personality, Bea had learned that kissing for himwasn’tserious.
