* * *
Jack lifted Candy out of the water, laughing as her diaper, hanging low underneath her one-piece sunsuit, dripped water back into the pool. The baby kicked her legs, waved her hands, and jack lowered her once more, then lifted her, lowered her, bobbing her up and down as Candy giggled.
“Up and down, up and down. Whee, Candy! Up and down, up and down. Silly Aunt Keely. I’ve got you, don’t I, Candy? Up and down, up and down—oh, shit!”
Jack grabbed at the back of Candy’s sunsuit, pulling her out of the water, lifting her high against his chest. Water streamed off the baby’s face and she sucked in her breath... sucked it in, sucked it in, sucked it in... until at last she let out with a wail that could probably be heard in isolated caves in Tibet.
“It’s all right, honey, it’s all right,” Jack soothed frantically, wiping at her face, pushing her drenched curls back from her forehead. His heart was beating so fast and hard he could hear it in his ears. “I just lost my grip for a second there, that’s all. Aw, come on, Candy, please cut it out. Aunt Doomsayer will be back any minute, and if Cousin Jack has to hear her say ‘I told you so,’ you probably won’t see this pool again until you’re sixteen.”
Candy cried for another few minutes, then slowly stopped as Jack tickled her belly, let her shove her hand in his mouth. The kid seemed to have a real desire to see if she could pull his bottom teeth out of his head.
“Ah, swee? Dwat’s bether,” Jack told her, speaking around the baby’s fingers until she let go. “And that’s better yet, thank you. And look, Candy, it’s only water.” He cupped his hand, dipped it into the pool, then splashed himself in the face. “See? Only water. Now you do it.”
He took Candy’s hand, dipped it in the water, then pretended to be shocked, made a face, when he helped her splash him. “That’s it,” he said as Candy laughed, leaned half out of his arms, splashed again.
God, he loved how this kid felt in his arms. Her skin smooth and cool, her small weight made even less as her chubbiness was made buoyant by the water.
And she was smart. Damn, this kid was smart. She picked up on the splashing bit right away. Obviously she wasn’t overloaded with Morretti genes and had gotten her brains from the Trehan side of the family.
Jack heard the back door open and watched as Keely walked toward the pool area, not really feeling Candy’s little fingernails digging into his gums once more, as his jaw involuntarily dropped open. Where the hell had he had his head for the past week? Up his—?
He’d known Keely McBride was pretty, had already appreciated her long legs, her curly blond hair, whether she wore it loose or scraped it back and pinned it to her head, trying to look professional. He already knew he could be attracted to her, was attracted to her.
But Keely McBride in a bathing suit was a revelation to him. She walked with her spine straight, her chin lifted, her arms moving easily at her sides. And her skin! So creamy white against the navy blue of her swimsuit. Jack’s mind went on overload, along with his hormones. The swell of her breasts. The remarkable straightness of her legs. The slimness of her waist. The flare of her hips. The whole package. He sank lower in the pool, hoping it was colder down there.
“You look...” he began as Keely halted on the second cement step, the water coming up just past her ankles.
“Like the underbelly of a fish, I know,” Keely supplied when Jack lost his train of thought. Hell, he’d just about lost his mind. “According to the experts, I’ll be very happy when I’m ninety and have the best skin in the nursing home, but for now, having to slap on sunscreen because otherwise I burn badly just makes me look like I’ve spent most of my life in a dark cave.”
“Petra put sunscreen on Candy before she left for the dentist,” Jack said, feeling ridiculously eager to score points with Keely. “I—I made her do it.”
Keely walked down two more steps, tipped her head, looked at him.
“Oh, okay, so Petra thought of it. I didn’t have a clue. Still, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Do you mind if I swim a couple of laps, to warm up?” Keely asked, then, pushed herself forward, striking out into the center of the pool without waiting for an answer.
“Can you say rhetorical question, Candy?” Jack asked his cousin as he watched Keely slicing neatly through the water. “Because that’s what Aunt Keely asks, rhetorical questions—the kind that, to her at least, don’t require an answer. Like, ‘Do you mind if I waltz in here, take over your life, and tell you how to live it?’ That sort of question.”
Candy giggled and slapped her hands on the surface of the pool.
“Yeah, I know, you like her. I like her, too. Sort of. So what’ll we do about this, huh?”
Keely swam two laps before she stopped in front of Jack and Candy, reached out so that the baby squirmed away from her cousin and let Keely hold her.
“Oh! She feels so good,” Keely said, her brown eyes wide with amazement as Candy wrapped slippery wet arms around her neck. “Are you having fun, sweetie?” she asked as Candy pressed her forehead against Keely’s cheek.
Jack just stood there, waist deep in water, looking at the two of them. Both blond. Both with their hair darkened by the water, yet already forming into ringlets. Keely sank down into the pool, so that just their two heads were visible, put her arms beneath Candy’s, and slowly turned in a circle, playing tugboat with Candy or something like that. His dad used to call it tugboat when he’d pull him and Tim around the local public pool.
And while their mother stood on the edge, yelling, “Frank! Hold on to them. Frank, you’re going to drown those two boys!”
Jack smiled, shook his head. Memories.
“Here, let me do that,” he said, and took hold of Candy’s hands, half-supporting her on one bent knee as he pulled her through the water, not realizing he was saying, much as his father had said years earlier, “Putt-putt, putt-putt, toot, toot, here comes Candy the tugboat.”
And not realizing that not all the moisture on Keely’s cheeks was from the water in the pool...