was hot! Whether he realized it or not was the question. He certainly didn’t act “all that.” In fact, there was something dark and tender about him that put her at ease. And that ease put her on edge.
Laurel glanced at her face in the rearview mirror, horror soon overtaking her. She’d been looking like that? Her hair in a messy ponytail, not a stitch of makeup. Not even lip gloss. The man probably thought of her as a poor, struggling aunt.
She slammed on the brakes, nearly missing a red light. Woman, get a hold of yourself! You’re thirty-five, obviously older than him, and not to mention the mother of three. It doesn’t matter how you look, he’s not interested. Still, there was much to appreciate about Mark Delaney, and she wasn’t blind—or dead—in that department. Yet. Sometimes she thought she might be, so he was a pleasant surprise, after all she’d been through. She tugged the elastic out of her hair and let it fall to her shoulders.
Pulling into the parking lot, she prayed she hadn’t cut it too close and that her kids wouldn’t be the last ones there. They’d dealt with enough abandonment issues losing their father two years ago, and having to live as if the hospital was their second home for a year before that. Now was their time to get back to living a regular life, and nothing would get in Laurel’s way of giving that to her kids. A quick thought of her fourteen-year-old son, Peter, made her chest pinch, but now wasn’t the time to go there. She had to pick up her girls.
She parked and jogged into the kindergarten classroom. Gracie and Claire were happily playing puzzles with the little girl they’d met on Welcome to Kindergarten night, who wore a cast. Anna was it?
“Can Anna come home with us? Her mom’s late, too.” Claire, the oldest by twelve minutes, and clearly the bossiest, spoke first.
“I don’t think the school lets kids go home with just anyone.” Laurel used her diplomatic-mother voice.
“Stranger danger!” Gracie piped up.
“We’re not strangers,” Claire corrected, as she always did with Gracie. “Remember, we played together before.” She used her middle finger to slide her pink glasses up her tiny nose.
“I pre-member. Do you, Annie?”
“It’s Anna.” Claire the clarifier simply couldn’t help herself. “And re-member.”
During Alan’s long remission from the first bout of leukemia, and nearly a decade since Peter had been born, no one had been more shocked to discover she was pregnant with twins than Laurel. But life had always been crazy that way.
When Alan relapsed with a vengeance when the girls were a year old, everyone had been so distracted that Gracie’s chronic ear problems had gotten way out of hand before Laurel had taken her to the pediatrician. She’d been walking around with fluid in her inner ears, which had affected her hearing. It was like listening to people speak underwater and had slowed her speech, while Claire seemed to have been born chatting, and now speaking for and chronically correcting her twin. Since having tubes inserted, Gracie’s hearing had improved, but she still often got words wrong. Claire never let her forget it, either.
“Oh, there you are, Anna.” A breathless voice with a distinct accent spoke from behind. “Sorry I’m late, sweetness.”
“That’s okay, Mom, these are my friends.”
The woman introduced herself to Laurel as Keela. “Thank you for staying with Anna. I don’t want to be accused of running on Irish time, but we had a walk-in at the clinic and it threw things sideways.”
Delighted by Keela’s Irish accent, Laurel grinned. In the week she’d been in town, she’d already heard about the Delaney Physical Medicine Clinic from one of the women at the local farmers’ market, who’d told her, after chatting and discovering Laurel’s B&B was right across Main Street from The Drumcliffe, about Daniel’s recent marriage to an “Irish girl.” Small town. News traveled fast.
“I just got here myself. Honestly, I don’t think the girls missed us a bit.”
“Probably right.”
“We should set up a playdate some afternoon,” Laurel suggested, keeping in mind Keela worked full-time.
“T’would be grand. Maybe a Saturday would be best.”
Ms. Juanita, the young teacher not much taller than her students, wandered over. “Are we all ready now?” she asked diplomatically, dropping the major hint it was past time to leave. So they did. But not before exchanging phone numbers.
* * *
As promised, later that afternoon after he’d finished painting the trim and had gotten a good start on the arbor, Mark headed back over to Laurel’s B&B with his toolbox in hand. He planned to fix her lock. One of the benefits of being raised around a hotel was learning to be a jack-of-all-trades. Otherwise we’d go bankrupt, as his father used to say when he and his brothers griped about spending their Saturday afternoons working around the hotel. It’d always been extra torture when the surf was up and he’d been itching to hit those waves.
Laurel was in the front yard, and two young girls in matching striped leggings and navy blue tops sat on the porch steps, though one wore glasses. Looking stressed, Laurel faced off with a scrawny kid by the yard gate who was somewhere in the early teen stage and who hadn’t yet grown into his nose. He wore cargo shorts and an oversize, ancient-looking T-shirt with a picture of Bart Simpson on the front. Shaggy dark brown waves in an obvious growing-out stage consumed his ears and partially covered his eyes. He leaned forward, confronting her, his mouth tight and chin jutted out.
Mark thought about turning around, leaving them to their personal business, but their heated interchange, and the fact her hair was down and blowing with the breeze, prodded him to keep going. Maybe she could use some backup.
“Peter, I’ve got too much on my plate right now.”
“I’m sick of having to drag those pests around.” His voice warbled between boy and man, cracking over those pests.
“We’re not pests!” The little one with glasses sounded indignant.
“Not pets!” the thinner of the two incorrectly echoed, garnering a confused glance from her twin.
“I need you to watch the girls while I do some errands. Is that too much to ask?”
“I’m sick of being their babysitter.”
The fair-haired girls looked like twins. Identical twins, but with the help of one wearing glasses and one being slightly smaller, to tell them apart. The glasses girl took it upon herself to move in on the ongoing argument. “Sing with us, Peter. Please?” A future peace activist, no doubt.
“Pleee-sio?” Little Miss Echo being creative?
Without waiting, they started singing “Where Is Thumbkin” using their fingers and acting out the verses, oblivious, while Laurel and Peter continued to square off.
“You know it’ll take me twice as long if I bring them.”
“Don’t care.”
What should he do now? Just walk right up and pretend he didn’t have a clue they were fighting? He slowed down. That seemed lame.
“Okay,
