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She eyed his outstretched arm. “What?”
“Chocolate.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go get some chocolate. I hear chicks like to eat a boatload of the stuff when they’re, uh—” he stifled his wince for Mary Elise’s sake “—not swimming.”
A smile so perfect crept across her face and right up to her eyes that a charge of victory shot through him until Daniel forgot about the pool behind him and the swim he’d waited all winter to take.
Mary Elise fitted her hand in his and stood. “Yeah, right, now I get it. You’ve just got your eye on that box of Hostess Ho-Hos in my mom’s pantry.”
“Busted.”
Her laugh swelled then faded as they pushed their way through the ivy-covered gate separating their yards. “You’re not totally grossed out?”
“Maybe a little.”
She punched his arm.
“Hey, I’m joking.” He rubbed his arm, relaxed. He could always do that with Mary Elise, relax, be himself with nothing to prove. Daniel slung an arm around his best friend’s shoulders. “This just means you’re gonna be able to have kids someday. Right? Nothing gross about that.”
She tipped her face up to his. “Thank you, Danny.”
Mary Elise arched onto her toes, soft curves pressed to his side as she grazed a kiss against his cheek right at the corner of his mouth. If he moved his head even…
“Hey! Heads up, Baker.”
Daniel blinked. The volleyball whizzed through the air, straight toward his face.He launched to the side and swung his cupped hands up into the ball with a microsecond to spare.
And, what do ya’ know, his gaze landed right back on Mary Elise to see if she’d been watching. He wasn’t any better than Tag’s son, Chris, drooling over a girl until he lost focus on the rest of the world.
Chris punched the air with a victory shout. “Point, game and match for the visiting team.”
Tag eased out of formation over to the side of the pool. “Perfect timing. We need to hit the road. My daughter’s driving home from college for the weekend, and I promised Rena I’d move boxes out of Nikki’s room before she gets here.”
Daniel waded closer to Tag as Darcy launched out of her chair to join in the game. No doubt those boxes had been pulled down on his account as the loadmaster and his wife sorted through their son’s old clothes to help fill Austin and Trey’s empty closet. He stifled another wince at everything he owed his friends. He was a lot more comfortable being on the giving end. Did Mary Elise feel the same way?
And when had he started analyzingfeelings?
He shook off the thought faster than beading water in his hair. “Hey, make sure you pass along my thanks to Rena for the kids’ clothes.” Since the other marrieds had attended together, he couldn’t help but notice Rena’s absence in light of the conversation with Tag on the flight. “Let Rena know I’ll send ’em back your way once these guys get through with them.”
Tag shook his head with a look of horror. “Don’t come near my house with those things, man. We’ve almost got our nest empty. Our baby-making days are over.” He hauled himself out of the water. “You ready Chris? Chris?”
Christos Price jerked his gaze off Shelby Dawson’s belly button ring and back to his father. A dazed look in his eyes glinted like the water streaming down the olive complexion inherited from his mother’s Greek roots. “Yeah, Pop. I guess so.”
The teen hefted himself from the pool. Right by Mary Elise. Which offered Daniel a convenient excuse to check on her. Just making sure she was comfortable with everyone, of course.
Yeah, right.
She’d settled in with his friends as he’d known she would, already absorbed in conversation with Julia Dawson while they both held sleeping children. Austin snoozed away on Mary Elise’s lap, his soggy body soaking her silk shorts set. Not that she seemed to care or look in the least ruffled. Just natural. She should have kids of her own with some lucky dude who would get to touch her incredible red hair.
Daniel backed into the resuming game as they swapped sides, which gave him a perfect view of Mary Elise’s night-lit lounge chair. When she’d told him about being pregnant with his child, he hadn’t given much thought to the baby itself, or life after the wedding. He’d focused on shutting down thoughts of the future because they contrasted too much with what he’d dreamed for so long.
Yet once she’d lost the baby, once he’d lost Mary Elise in his life, he’d spent the next year thinking about what their baby would have looked like. What she would have looked like holding it.
And that image mirrored the one he was seeing too closely for his peace of mind.
He considered waking Austin up for another round of chicken just so he wouldn’t have to keep staring at Mary Elise holding the little guy. But the boy’s needs came first and man the kid had pitched quite the tantrum when taken away from Mary Elise. The boy was breaking his heart with the tight-fisted clinginess to the only mother figure in his world right now. Maybe he could convince Mary Elise to stay in the area.
