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“You hungry?” she asked.
“Starving.”
“Let me get you some soup.”
She went to step out of my arms that were boxing her against the counter, but I shook my head. “Not yet.” I tugged her to me, holding her tight, savoring her apple scent, grateful that not even my blunt-to-a-fault sister could drive her away.
Less than forty-eight hours later, and Gio was back to his energetic self. We spent the day at the lake, playing in the water, making sandcastles, tossing the football, and looking for rocks to match the ones in his book. Gio really liked when I skipped the rocks across the surface of the water. He was still learning, but I had no doubt by the end of summer, he would be a pro.
We got in the SUV, and I tried not to think about how my car was an oversized lawn ornament. I had no idea what I was going to do. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Franc buy me a car, nor was I going to take his. For now, it was convenient to be able to get Gio out of the house for the day. Still, I needed to come up with a plan.
With what Franc was paying me, I could technically afford a new car payment, but when Gio started school in the fall, my hours would inevitably be cut, and there was no way I could afford it. I pulled out of the parking lot and caught Gio’s eye in the backseat.
“What do you say we get some ice cream?” Drowning my sorrows in some butter pecan sounded like a good idea to me.
“Before dinner?” His mouth hung open, like I suggested we go rob a store and steal the ice cream.
“It’s still early. I don’t think it’ll spoil your dinner.”
Gio threw his fist in the air. “Yes!”
I laughed and mentally made a note not to make this a habit.
“What flavor are you going to get?” I asked.
Gio tapped a finger against his chin. “Cotton candy. No! Cookies and cream.” He tapped his chin again. “Or birthday cake! Yeah, birthday cake!”
“You have a little while before we get there to make your final decision, but birthday cake sounds like a good choice to me.”
“What flavor are you getting?” Gio asked.
“Butter pecan.”
“That’s not a favorite,” he said, and I laughed.
“It might not beyourfavorite, but it’s one of my favorites. Did you know ice cream was invented in seventh century China, which was over thirteen hundred years ago?”
“That’s a lot of years!”
“It is a lot of years. And did you know the Romans would send people up to the mountain tops to collect snow so they could make their version of ice cream with fruits and juices?”
“Fruit in ice cream? That’s not ice cream.” He shook his head, that floppy hair of his whipping about.
“Yes, it is. There are plenty of flavors with fruit.”
He tilted his head, lips smushing upward. “They probably aren’t that good.”
“You can’t knock it until you’ve tried—”
My body flung to the left, my seatbelt cutting into my collarbone. The sound of crunching metal pierced through the air. A rainfall of car parts flew out around us. The truck spun, the world outside a blur of color that wouldn’t stop spinning.
“Gio!”
I bolted through the emergency room, running straight for the desk, bypassing a man who looked as if he had been waiting. I didn’t care. My heart was in my throat from the minute I got the call.
“My son,” I said to the brunette behind the counter. “The ambulance brought my son and his nanny in. Quinn St. Clair and Gio Grasso.”
“We don’t have a Quinn St. Clair.”
