She glanced at her ruined notebook, pages curled and turning to pulp.
“I’ll buy you a bowl of soup,” he coaxed. “We can talk about a foundation to address the effects of climate change on marine mammals or...” He scanned the beach. “What are you doing here?”
“Do you really want to know?” She was embarrassed, but trusted him enough to know that when he laughed at her, it would be in the kindest way possible. “I named them several years ago. I check on them when I’m feeling blue. I like to see who is hooking up with whom and count the new babies.”
His valiant struggle to keep a straight face was love in its purest form.
“I also have a colony of penguins and some polar bears I like to track.” She rubbed her nose where rain was dripping and causing a tickle. “A pod of whales. Way too many dolphins, but they’re so playful and cute.”
“I’m excited to hear all about them,” he assured her with a solemn nod. “Soup?”
She rose, gave a little shrug to knock the worst of the gathered rain off her coat.
“Or we could go to my hotel room,” she suggested. “Warm up in the shower before we dry off and go to bed. Maybe not talk much at all for a while.”
“Then order room service? See, this is why I love being married to a woman who is smarter than me.” He helped her gather her things, then stood with her in the rain a moment longer. Long enough to kiss her senseless.
With his arm firm around her, he drew her from the empty beach into their shared future.
EPILOGUE
Eighteen months later...
“CAN WE HOLD JELLY?” Lily asked, one arm curled trustingly around her Tío Cesar’s neck while he clasped her affectionately against his chest.
Angelo had a very difficult time denying his nieces and nephews anything, particularly sweet Lily with her high voice and innocently batted lashes and her hilarious shortening of Angelica’s name to Jelly.
Tío Cesar was another story. Angelo enjoyed a good-natured trashy relationship with his wife’s brothers, well developed over the year since they’d all had their litter of newborns and he’d partnered with them on an alloy for a gaming console they were jointly developing.
“You’re shameless,” he said to Cesar, nodding at Lily, who coaxed with a wave of her free arm, entreating her younger cousin to join them.
“I like to connect with my nieces. That’s how one keeps the title Favorite Uncle. Pro tip,” Cesar advised in a facetious drawl.
Fighting words. Angelo narrowed his eyes. “Wait until your daughter’s birthday.” He would spoil her enough for a lifetime.
“Please, Jelly?” Lily begged. “Tío Cesar wants to read us a book.”
Angelica peeked from where she had her face buried in Angelo’s neck. She wasn’t particularly shy, but she made strange with her uncles sometimes, mostly because she didn’t see them as often as she saw Poppy and Sorcha and the children.
She had also just woken from her nap to a lot of people and attention, not that they were making a big deal out of her first birthday. Pia had invited her brothers and their families to spend the weekend at their island home because it was the middle of the summer and they all enjoyed an excuse to spend time together. The grandparents had chosen not to make the journey for something so frivolous, which kept it to a laid-back gathering where the children could be as boisterous as they liked.
“Want to cuddle with Lily and Tío?” Angelo asked his daughter.
“Maybe Brenna will join us,” Cesar said of his daughter, noting the little firecracker was working up to fight her brother, Mateo, to the death over a pool noodle.
“You on that, Rico?” Angelo mocked as Angelica went to Cesar and Rico waded into the dispute, his year-old son naked on his hip.
“Tío!” Enrique called from the diving board. “Watch me flip.”
“Where are the women? How did we get outnumbered? Ah, Memo,” Rico muttered as a wet stain appeared on his shirt. “I knew that would happen. Here.” He handed his son to Angelo.
Angelo diapered his nephew while Rico caught Brenna back from chasing her brother down the stairs into deeper water. He plopped Brenna with her father and the girls, then threw off his stained shirt and cannonballed into the pool to soak the boys.
“I told you they’d have everything under control,” Sorcha said as the women appeared with trays of food and drink. Memo went to Poppy, then pointed at his father in the pool so she took him across to hand him in to Rico.
“I’m insulted there was any doubt in us.” Angelo scooped Pia close and stage-whispered, “Thank God you got here when you did.”
She chuckled and looped her arms around his waist, gazing over the convivial chaos of their pool party. “This is nice.”