Tequila And Tingles: Turtle Pine, Book 2 (8 page)

But the real treasure out of the whole deal happened when he pulled out a little white sack with a gold label that read
Grandpa’s Cookie
.

Katie clasped her hands before her chest. “You weren’t lying!”

He chuckled and handed her one of the biggest no-bake cookies he’d ever seen. “Of course not. Who lies to little boys and girls?”

The big smile disappeared for a minute as she looked down, but by the first bite, the grin was back. He looked to Beth and she gave him a quick shake.
Don’t ask more. Got it.
Kent got his cookie and his eyes were getting heavy again.

He brought the snack to his mouth. The closer he got it to his lips, the limper he went. By the time he actually managed a bite, Kent had leaned over against him. Jason’s arm was awkwardly under the boy, so he maneuvered, and the kid slipped right in and cuddled against his side with the cookie clutched in his hand.

Beth had no silent instructions for him. She just watched the two of them, nervously glancing between him and Kent, and then to Katie. So Jason had never done this before, but he was doing pretty good here, or so he thought. She didn’t have to look so worried.

Snores came from Kent, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say he knew where the toddler got that from, but he caught it in time. Not the most appropriate thing to say in front of a woman’s kids.

While Katie finished the last of her cookie, Beth stood and packed the containers. She gathered trash and turned for the can.

He looked at Kent, sleeping soundly, and puzzled the easiest way out. “Let me help.”

“You’ve done enough. I’ve got it, but thanks.” The response was short and snippy. She whipped the blanket off the table, folded it and tucked it away faster than they had unpacked. Just where had he gone wrong? He couldn’t ask in front of Katie, not that he would have had a chance, because Beth was off to the trash can again. She came back and he started to ask if she had something for Kent to sleep in so they could play until the rain came, but she patted Katie on the back the moment she returned to the table. “Thank Coach Jason for lunch and then hop in the car.”

“Thank you.” She stuffed the last of the cookie in her mouth and his “You’re welcome” was given to her fleeing back.

As good as Beth was at escaping, she’d made one mistake this time. Kent was still here against him and was still sound asleep. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Her voice was a quiet as she lifted Kent off his side.

The warmth from the kid was immediately gone from his hip and he frowned at her. “Then why the quick run off?”

“Just trying to beat the rain.”

“Little rain never hurt anybody.”

“Colds do though.” She settled Kent’s sleeping, limp form on her. “Thanks for lunch. The kids had fun. Katie will probably be better tomorrow.”

“Beth.”

She shook her head. “I need to go.”

Wait. Why was she running from him? “Can we do this again?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He looked to Katie leaning back in the car. Her eyes were getting heavy too. Kent was still out of it. “I think everyone had fun. I thought you did too.”

“It’s just not a good idea. I need to go.” Thunder cracked and she jumped, turned and hurriedly placed Kent in a car seat in the back. “Bye,” she muttered, slipped behind the steering wheel and closed herself in.

He backed away. Fine. Whatever.

Chapter Nine

Beth pulled the curtains together in her daughter’s room while Katie hopped into bed. Between her camouflage jammies and her camo-print bedspread, the only luck Beth had of finding her daughter was by her bright blond hair.

Katie pulled the covers up. “Are we playing at the park with Coach Jason again tomorrow?”

“No. You have swim lessons tomorrow.”

“What about the next day?”

She sat at Katie’s bedside and fielded yet another round of questions from Katie. She’d been answering them all afternoon since Katie had woken from a quick nap after they’d left the park. “The next day is Monday and you’ll be at Nana’s.”

“What about next weekend?”

Oh, how she wanted to. Jason was surprisingly good with kids. Being that he’d claimed not to have dealt with young kids much, he had been a natural. So much that Kent’s new favorite words were
Coach Jason
. If she had known he would be that good with them, she never would have agreed to the park. She didn’t know who he was, where he was going, what he was about. That was too many things she didn’t know, and left her kids open to potential disappointment. “Probably not.”

Katie brought a stuffed dragon closer to her chest and otherwise didn’t answer.

Of all the people who’d disappointed Katie, Beth didn’t like being one of them. She fingered through her daughter’s hair and put it in a ponytail. “Is that okay with you?”

“I guess so.”

She didn’t know what that could possibly mean. While Kent had basically fangirled—fanboyed?—all over Jason, Katie hadn’t said much. “Did you have fun at the park?”

Katie gave a shrug.

Thank God, Katie had a long way to go before she became a teenager. What to do now though? “If you want to play at the park with Jason again, I’m sure he would like that.”

Was that the right answer? Cripes. Her chest tightened. Maybe, maybe not. Or she hoped he would anyway. Jason had asked to get together a couple times. But damn it, she didn’t want to hang Katie’s happiness on the shoulders of a guy. She straightened Katie’s blankets. “Why don’t we go to the park one day and have a picnic? Just you, me and Kent?”

Katie gave another one of those less-than-fantastic shrugs and then slid down in bed and pulled her covers to her chin.

Beth kissed Katie’s head good night and slipped from her room. On Beth’s way back to the kitchen, she checked on Kent to find him fast asleep too. If he had his way, he’d no doubt have dreams of Jason pushing him on the swings. Beth didn’t want that dream, but that’s what she’d more than likely get stuck with too. And she’d love every moment of it. At least until she woke up.

Feeling like the biggest heel in the world, Beth went ahead and dropped her forehead against the bar in the kitchen. “That was awful.”

Tina came around the corner. “I wish I knew what ‘that’ was. You’ve been moping since I got here. Now that the kids are in bed, I hope you plan to tell me what went wrong. It was all Kent could talk about. I swear I even saw Katie smile when Kent talked about him. It sounds like they had fun.”

“It was fun. Too much fun.” She pushed off the bar and rested her face in her hands. “He was great with them. So great, like I wasn’t even expecting just how great.”

Tina tipped her wineglass to the side. “I don’t see the problem.”

“He’s not sure if he’ll stay in town.”

And just like that, the crease in Tina’s brows eased and she nodded. “I see.” She leaned against the counter. “That doesn’t mean he won’t stay here. I mean, if he likes it here, he’ll be more likely to stay.”

“Until he figures that out, I can’t risk Katie and Kent getting attached to him or getting even more infatuated than they already are. I never would have guessed they would just fall all over him. Katie hasn’t talked about him like Kent, but she certainly warmed up to him.” She put her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Kent took a nap on him, Tina. A nap.”

“Really?” Tina blinked at her. “That little punk.”

“I know. Boy who only naps if a movie is on or if he’s on the swings, cuddled right up next to Jason and conked out. He was snoring and everything.”

Tina winced and then shrugged. “So don’t let him see the kids anymore—except for during Katie’s class—and you keep seeing him.”

Chills went over her arms, but she couldn’t distinguish if they were the feel-good kind or the rabbit-running-over-grave ones. “He asked to see us again.” She shook her head. “But I told him no.”

“Text him Monday and ask him for lunch. Then explain you don’t want him near your kids.”

“That sounds like a nice thing to say.” A true thing, but mean. Beth rested her elbows on the counter and pushed hair away from her face. “This is a problem I don’t need right now.”

Tina just looked at her. “You have a hot guy begging to see you again. That is not a problem.”

“Yes, it is.” Because Beth didn’t do that sort of thing. She didn’t do one-night stands or hookups. Except that dirty little voice in the back of her head said she should be doing that with Jason. Only maybe not stop at just one night. “I can’t. Because of Katie and Kent.”

“Leave those two out of it. Look, if nothing else comes out of it than a few great dates and maybe some awesome nights, what have you lost? Nothing. I think you’ll actually gain a lot.”

“That’s just not me. I’m not that girl who can hook up with a guy and happily leave the next morning. And I actually like Jason.” What if she started liking him a whole lot and he didn’t stay? What if he left like Bill had? Beth could hide behind her kids all she wanted, but she really didn’t want to go through heartache again. Not so soon.

Tina rested one of her hands against her hip. “Honey. I chased after a man for six months and got a front-row seat to watch him marry my younger sister.”

Beth snorted and then covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.”

Tina’s eyes narrowed. “You say that every time this topic comes up and you still always laugh.”

“I’m sorry.” Beth couldn’t help it and she laughed some more. She latched on to Tina’s issue with hope of leaving hers in the past. “I told you in the beginning that I didn’t think my brother would go for Dad’s idea to get married to further his career.”

“No—” Tina pointed at her, “—you said you didn’t think Cade would, even though your dad said it would help Cade get the position to be pictured as a family man,
but
you could see that as an option.”

“True. I did say that. And you would make a great political wife.”

Tina nodded. “I darn sure would. But there was never a good time to suggest my idea to him. No doubt, he thinks I’m crazy, and God knows what he might have told Annie.”

Beth chuckled and leaned back in her seat. “We’re a mess.”

Tina saluted her with a glass. “At least we’re a mess together.”

“Hear, hear!”

Tina spun Beth’s phone around and slid it across the table to her. “Let’s be a bigger mess and text him for lunch.”

“I don’t know.”

“If you want to see him again even a little bit, and I think you do, then text him. Don’t punish yourself for no reason.”

Chapter Ten

Jason pushed his hands in his pockets and stood behind the big windows of his office as people entered and exited TPC. They couldn’t see him. To the outside, the windows were coated and shone like brass. He could stand here all day and nobody would see him. Something he’d been doing a lot of since the horrible end to his date with Beth and her kids.

He’d told people he was unpacking and putting his office together. More like hiding and trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong yesterday. Why she’d suddenly pulled away and why she’d practically leaped into her car to get away from him. He turned to look at the clock sitting on the empty shelves. He supposed he’d find out in an hour when she came for today’s swim lesson. If she came. Surely she would. The whole point to yesterday had been for these swim lessons.

He pushed off the front of his desk and walked behind it, stepping around boxes he hadn’t unpacked yet. Trophies, medals, certificates, graduation plaques. Boxes full of items he was supposed to fill this room with. Doing so would put him another step closer to staying here, settling down in TPC. To giving up the dream of training future swimming Olympians. Forget thoughts that had kept him awake at night where he was on the sidelines in a USA jacket cheering on kids he’d spent years training for their glory moment. That had been his plan until he was too old to squat by a pool. After that, a life of luxury spent on a beach chair under a tropical sun.

But now here he was in a tiny community in his prime, where the odds of finding that kind of natural talent with the needed drive would be slim to none. Sure, he’d come out of a small community, but he hadn’t gone unnoticed and had been picked up for the chance of a lifetime at a swim meet.

Setting his trophies on that counter would mean he was giving up on that dream and settling for teaching the doggie paddle on the sidelines, with most of his time spent testing chemicals, poring over regulations and locking and unlocking the front door. Turtle Pine School didn’t even have a swim team, best he could tell. Every now and then, a few kids would ask TPC to sponsor them if they wanted to compete.

He’d had the coaching dream of a lifetime and it had been wrecked by a stupid, spoiled teenager. That just made this whole situation even more of a bitter pill to swallow. He didn’t want to be here. And the one woman in town who made the place a hundred times more livable was playing the avoidance game.

With his mood even sourer than yesterday, when Beth had walked away from him, he went to the pool for that evening’s lesson. On the upside, there were going to be ten giggling little kids thrilled to see him, and they would no doubt improve his mood.

It took less than an instant for him to look across the sparkling water and to the stands, where he found Beth. She sat in her usual spot, feet propped up on the empty place in front of her and arms rested on her knees. He turned away. Dealing with her and her unexplained running wasn’t in the cards for today. Instead, he skipped his usual how-do-you-do with the parents and settled for a wave and then turned his back on them.

His charges floated in the pool, and as heavy as his mind weighed today, seeing them splash and laugh lightened him. He blew his whistle and they turned for instructions. He rubbed his hands together and changed up the plans for today. Instead of letting them have two more lessons before tossing their jackets, he was moving that up. He was in the mood for a solid distraction, and having a couple kids in the water like that would do just fine.

“Who’s ready to take off their life jacket?” Every arm shot up and waved, and squeals went with it. He chuckled. “All right. We’re going to take turns. Everyone else get a kickboard, except Katie and Tim. You two want to go first?”

Eager smiles met him, even from Katie. The nasty storm that had been brewing in his mind lifted. The others were already back with their boards and stepping in the water. “While I work with Katie and Tim, I want the rest of you to practice on your boards like you know. You all should be able to get on them by yourself now.” He pointed to the lifeguard in the chair. “And Mr. Griggs, our lifeguard today, is going to keep a close eye on you. He’s going to blow his whistle if you start playing.”

Eyes wide, they settled on their boards and started their laps. He faced Katie and Tim. “Let’s take these off for a few minutes and see what you can do.”

They got their vests off and he walked them out to the water until they were about chest deep. “I bet you’ve been in water this deep before without a life jacket.”

He got nods from them and Tim’s arm went up. “I go deeper than this!”

“All right. Today, we’re going to stay about this level so I know what you can do and you’ll stay safe.” He pointed to the nearest wall. “I want you to swim to that wall and back to me, the best you can,
without
touching the bottom. You think you can do that?”

“Yeah!” Tim yelled and went off. Katie offered a smile and started for the wall.

Jason moved alongside them as they swam in zigzagging lines. “Careful not to run into each other. If you get tired, you can put your feet down. Swim as much as you can though. I want to see you swim from that wall to the other side.”

Busy swimming, only little grunts and heavy breaths escaped them. It took a little longer than he would have expected, but their tiny arms and legs finally got them across. “Good job!”

He high-fived Tim. Katie ducked her head and a big grin split her face. He held his hand up and she returned his five. He clapped for them as he backed to their starting spot. “All right. Let’s see you come back to me now. Try not to touch the bottom.”

Heads barely peeking out of the water, they slowly made their way to him. He clapped and high-fived them once more and sent them to their parents to get life vests back on. He got two more kids and started over. By the time the fifth group had taken their turns back and forth, the hour was nearly up, and he took a few moments to cover floating.

“When you get tired of swimming, who knows what you’re supposed to do?”

“Get out of the pool,” three of them yelled at once.

“That’s right. But what happens if you get tired before you get to the side?”

“Your mommy or daddy gets you out.”

He smiled. “That’s true too, but there’s something else you can do.” He leaned back in the water, relaxed and floated to the top. “You can float. It’s like lying on the couch for a few minutes. See, I’m not swimming. Floating lets me rest and be safe in the water.” He stood. “There’s just one thing that’s important with floating. You have to be still. Who thinks they can do this?”

Over half flipped to their backs instantly. He went around and helped the last three turn over and confirmed that their life jackets would hold them up. “Now we have about three minutes left. If you can stay still and float for three whole minutes, you can get a prize out of the treasure box.”

As the minutes passed, he walked around each of them and made constant reminders to be still, no splashing and no kicking. The seconds ticked off, and when there were ten left, he counted them down for the kids. He hit zero and got shouts and screams. He sent them to their parents to get the jackets off while he fetched the prizes.

The box contained pencils, candy, bounce balls and other small toys. Each kid grabbed something and ran off. Katie stood last and peered into the box. With the other kids distracted while telling their parents what they’d gotten, he leaned closer to Katie. “Can you keep a secret?”

Her eyes widened and she nodded.

“Why don’t you pick two? One for you and one for Kent. Do you know what he would like?”

Immediately, she picked up a roll of candy. “This is his favorite.”

“And for you?”

After digging through the box like all the other kids for several moments, she came out with a black bouncy ball. “This one.”

“Perfect.” He shut the box and stood and found Beth waiting behind him.

She fumbled with her fingers. “Can we talk?”

He was still irritated enough with her that he probably shouldn’t talk right now. Since Katie stood there listening in, he didn’t want to risk something nasty coming out by accident. “I have a couple things to check, but I can in about thirty minutes.”

She glanced to Katie and directed her to find her towel and dry off. “I was thinking tomorrow. Maybe during lunch?”

An offer for a lunch date? That was not what he’d been expecting. “Sure. You want to come here?”

“Here? I was thinking of Jaspers. Or there’s a place in town that sells sandwiches.”

“Jaspers was busy last time. I figure if you’re asking to talk, it must be about something personal. My office here would be private, unless you’d rather go somewhere else?”

“No.” She said it loud enough that a couple of people nearby turned. She cleared her throat. “You’re right. Here would be fine. I’ll grab you something on my way. Turkey sandwich? I can order it and bring it. Won’t take but a second.”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” She walked backward a few steps. “Tomorrow then.”

“I’ll be here.”

Finally, she nodded and turned away, found Katie and took her out. He had enough time to see them go before Rebecca cornered him. She was shorter than Beth, and he found he had to look down at her. And also resist an irritated sigh. She needed him for something after every lesson. “Coach Jason, I was wondering if there was anything we needed to work with Tim on before the next class?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that I can think of. They’re all doing really well. You can take him swimming if you want and let him enjoy his time, but there’s not anything specific you need to worry with.”

“I just wanted to make sure so he’s not behind.”

“He’s doing really great. At this age, we just want them to have fun in the water, respect it and be confident in what they can do, so they can get themselves to safety in case of an emergency. The more they swim, the better they’ll be.”

“Sounds good. Do you think after this class ends, he can take more lessons?”

“Sure. After this class they’ll be guppies. They’ll learn a few more skills in here. I’ll teach them things like stronger swim strokes.”
He
would teach them? Where had that come from? He hadn’t even unpacked yet, and until that happened, he wasn’t staying. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Anything else?”

She smiled and her head tipped slightly to the side. “I meant private lessons.”

“Since I’m just settling in, I’m not offering private lessons for now. Maybe later in the year once I get going here. Or I’ll train someone to offer private sessions.”

“Oh, all right then.” She shouldered her bag higher. “Thanks for today. We’ll certainly sign up for the next set too.”

“Sounds great.” He started away and lifted his clipboard from the side of the pool before he got trapped in another conversation. He really wanted to get out of here and think over his date with Beth tomorrow and what it could be about. The farther he got from the pool though, the more complicated things seemed to be. He scrubbed over his head and itched to get back in the water. It was his one true love and he’d been away from it too long.

He traded his clipboard for goggles and hit the training pool at the back for one of the lanes. Keeping a casual warm-up, he passed other swimmers in the neighboring lane. He came to the wall, flipped and kicked off for four laps. By a sixth lap, his blood pumped at a comfortable speed to warm his muscles. He turned at the wall, gave a solid push and dolphin kicked over half the length of his lane before he had to turn again. He stroked four times and came up on the edge.

Maybe if he kept this up until tomorrow, he’d be ready before meeting Beth.