Child of Her Heart. Cheryl St.John
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she makes macaroni and cheese without a box.” Jonah looked up at his dad. “Doesn’t she, Dad?”
Justin nodded.
Meredith smiled at their exuberant praise of their nanny. “She sounds like a prize.”
“Couldn’t get along without her,” the man said.
“Is she traveling with you?”
“Oh, yes.” Justin glanced in the direction of the road that led away from the beach. “She’s shopping. She gets plenty of time to herself while we’re on vacation. Trips are one of her job perks.”
“That’s nice for her.”
He nodded. “Well, boys, we’d better leave Miss…Meredith to her book and finish our walk. It was nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
“We’re going to see the lighthouse now,” Lamond said.
“Have a good time.”
“You could come with us,” Lamond added, in the innocent fashion of a child. “It’ll be really cool.”
Again she met their father’s eyes, but the man seemed a little uncomfortable this time.
She smiled. “Thank you, but I’ve planned to rest today. Anna and I are enjoying the beach. You have a good time.”
“When we see you, we’ll tell you all about it.”
His innocent assumption that she would just naturally be interested in his account of their sight-seeing trip was endearing. “I’ll look forward to it.”
They said their goodbyes, and Justin straightened to walk away. Lamond tugged on his arm, and he swept the boy up onto his shoulders.
Meredith watched the small family as they strolled away on the tawny sand, and couldn’t help noticing Justin Weber’s fine form—broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. Sad that they’d lost their wife and mother. Nice that they were all the same color.
Whoa! Where that thought had come from, she didn’t know, but she’d surprised herself with it.
Anna made tiny waking noises, and Meredith glanced at her watch. She’d planned to stay on the beach for another couple of hours, so she changed Anna and nursed her.
Occasionally someone on the beach nodded a hello, but she enjoyed the tranquility of the crashing waves and the solitude. She’d left her cell phone in her room because she didn’t want Veronica to reach her and ask where she was.
Finally getting hungry, she packed up her belongings, slid Anna into the sling she wore to carry her and made her way back to the inn. As she kicked off her shoes and shook out sand at the entrance, a young male employee hurried to help her and store her beach rentals.
Meredith went to her room where she locked the door and placed Anna in the crib the inn had provided. There were four messages on her cell phone, all from Veronica, all pleading with her to call and listen to reason. Meredith deleted them, turned off her phone and took a nap.
Waking rested, she fed Anna, took a quick shower and dressed in trousers and a silky blouse. She carried Anna out to the car and glanced at the food and entertainment guide she’d discovered in a rack inside the inn. They all looked good and the addresses were meaningless, so she headed down a main street.
The first restaurant she found was a seafood place with weathered clapboard siding, a wooden walk-way with posts and rope strung between them to mimic a wharf, and a shark’s jawbone over the door. Meredith liked the authentic look and it had a good rating in the guidebook, so she parked and entered.
A hostess asked her seating preferences just as a young voice called, “Miss Meredith! Miss Meredith!”
She turned to discover Lamond Weber racing across the foyer toward her. She shifted Anna’s seat to her other hand. “Well, hello.”
Dressed in a fresh white sport shirt, Justin walked forward and greeted her with a warm smile. “We were just being shown to a table. Will you join us?”
Meredith glanced from Justin to Lamond to the hostess and couldn’t think of a single reason not to accept his offer. “Thank you. I’d love to.”
“Great. We’ll need another chair, miss,” he said. “And one of those bases to put the car seat on.”
“What’s that?” Meredith asked.
He stepped beside her and touched his hand to the small of her back to guide her through the tables. She was keenly aware of his warm touch through her clothing.
“They have high chairs that flip over so you can fasten your infant seat on top,” Justin explained. “Some places have an aluminum or wooden frame for the same purpose. Gets the baby up on your level, and you don’t have to leave her in her seat on the floor or try to hold her while you eat.”
The hostess appeared then with just such an invention and showed Meredith how to safely place Anna’s carrier into the base.
“Isn’t that ingenious?” Feeling like the novice she was, Meredith smiled and thanked the young woman.
In a gentlemanly gesture, Justin held Meredith’s chair, then helped Lamond get settled on a booster seat.
“I take it you haven’t been out to eat much since Anna’s arrival,” he said with a good-natured smile.
“If you don’t count carryout or drive through, this is my first dinner out.” She picked up a menu and glanced at the selections. The list of grilled salmon, albacore tuna and fresh salads made her mouth water.
“What’s Anna going to eat?” Lamond asked.
“She won’t be hungry for a while,” Meredith replied. “I fed her right before we came here.”
“Oh. Read me the kids’ food, Dad. Please?”
Justin opened his menu and read the selection of children’s dinners.
“I want the tuna melt. Can I have two?”
Justin raised an ebony brow at his son. “You’re going to be growing out of all your clothes again, you keep eating so much.”
Lamond giggled.
Jonah opened a backpack he’d carried in and took out two coloring books and a box of crayons. The boys settled down to color brightly hued racing cars.
Meredith thanked the waitress who set glasses of water before them. She took a sip. “What a good idea to bring along something to entertain them.”
Justin had a nice smile that revealed even white teeth and disturbed her comfort level. He had a manner of looking at her that made her feel he was thinking more than he was saying. “It’s either that or constantly be nagging them not to play with the silverware and the condiments. Mauli’s great about picking up things to amuse them. She seems to know just what they like.”
“Where is Mauli tonight?”
“Taking in a movie with a girlfriend she met yesterday.”
Studying the menu, Meredith intuitively sensed stares from a nearby table and glanced in that direction. A couple with three children were seated at a round table. The youngest of the children played with an action figure on the tabletop, but the other two, a boy and girl of about seven and nine, stared at Jonah and Lamond, then at Anna in her seat and gave Meredith and Justin inquiring looks.
Their mother caught their attention and whispered something Meredith could only partially hear, but they reluctantly turned away. Meredith locked gazes with the woman momentarily, and seeming embarrassed, the young mother looked away quickly.
It was all those two children could do not to turn their heads and stare again. The woman had taken hold of the younger boy’s wrist on the tabletop as though warning him.
Discomfort at being the center