The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(37)

“Bad timing for a walk on the sand,” Garrett said. Then he turned and eyed the stairs to the top of the bluffs, where the hiking trails Brooke had once upon a time known better than her own hand seemed to mock her.

“Yeah!” Millie shouted. “Let’s go up there.”

“Up there” was a problem. “Up” anything was a problem, and had been since the crash. Brooke got vertigo like no other now. She wouldn’t call it a phobia. It wasn’t a phobia. She refused to have it be a phobia. After all, she was going to leave here soon and go back to having wild adventures, where there would be lots of “up.”

Garrett leaned in close. “I can put Maddox in his backpack on my shoulders and hold on to Mason’s and Millie’s hands. We could head east so the sun isn’t slanting into our faces.”

She was still staring at the stairs, her heart pounding in her ears. “I hate it when someone says something like ‘head east.’ Who am I, Lewis and Clark? Do we turn right or left from the food truck in the parking lot?”

Garrett smiled. “I forgot that you could locate any food source without direction, but other than that, you get lost finding your way out of a paper bag.”

Annoyingly true.

“I don’t need my hand held,” Millie announced. “I don’t like to hold hands. You hold Auntie Brooke’s hand, Garrett, okay?”

“I’ll have to ask first,” Garrett said very seriously, and when Millie nodded in approval with all her eight-year-old feminist heart, Garrett turned to Brooke. “May I hold your hand?”

Brooke couldn’t seem to take her gaze off the stairs. From the corner of her eye, she could see Garrett’s proffered hand. Truth be told, normally she wasn’t a fan of hand-holding any more than Millie was, but at that moment, his hand felt like a life-saving flotation device, and she grasped it like she was going down for the count.

“Are you two going to get married?” Millie asked. “Because Grandpa holds Grandma’s hand and they might get married again. And Daddy holds Momma’s hand and they’re married.”

Brooke volleyed that one to Garrett by looking at him. Let’s see you handle this one, Ace . . .

“Holding hands can also be a just-friends thing,” he said, very calmly.

Show-off.

“And usually people fall in love before they get married,” Garrett added.

Unimpressed, Millie wrinkled her nose. “Love seems kinda dumb.”

“You don’t plan to fall in love someday?” Garrett asked her.

Millie shrugged. “Maybe. If the person can make pancakes as good as Brittney’s.”

Garrett nodded. “Wise. Always hold out for what you want.” He met Brooke’s eyes, his own filled with something, but hell if she knew what.

A couple of seagulls landed near them with a squawk and began to stalk them.

Maddox pointed at them. “Bad dog!” he yelled.

Everyone stared at him.

“You can talk?” Brooke finally asked.

“Well, sure he can,” Millie said. “He’s almost three, you know.”

“But I’ve only ever heard him bark.”

Millie shrugged. “He likes to bark.”

Okay, then.

Two women and a gaggle of kids got out of their cars. One of the women stopped and smiled at Mason’s pink dinosaur pj’s. “Cute. Is that a boy or girl?”

“It’s a T-rex,” Brooke said.

The group moved on, and Garrett looped an arm around her neck and tugged her into him. He smelled heart-stoppingly amazing, damn him, as he brushed a warm kiss to her temple. “Like the way you operate,” he murmured.

Millie pointed at them. “You just kissed. See? You do like each other.”

Brooke decided to play deaf on that one. She was too busy facing the trail with all the enthusiasm of someone walking to the guillotine.

“You okay?” Garrett asked softly.

“Of course. This is nothing.” She looked at him, daring him to say otherwise.

He merely gestured for her to go first.

So she did. Three steps in, she made the mistake of looking back, because in doing so she could see what felt like miles and miles of blue Pacific, outlined by an unending line of bluffs. She gulped and began to count to herself. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four—

“Brooke?”

She waved off Garrett’s low tone of concern. Hell no, would she give in now, not in front of an audience. One, two, three, four. “I’m good.” And then she proved it to herself by walking the damn trail.

An hour later, she was shocked to admit to herself that it had gone well. Unlike any other mountain adventure in her life, this one had been extremely tame and very easy and . . . a lot of fun.

After, they sat on the low stone wall between the parking lot and beach, eating Brooke’s snacks, de-dusting, and drinking water. A couple came down the trail behind them, carrying hiking sticks and wearing hydration packs and vests with a lot of pockets, all bulging with supplies.

“Glad to see you hydrating the kids,” the woman said with a little bit of judgment in her voice, prompting Brooke to look over her motley crew.

Millie had walked the trail in Crocs. Mason was carrying his stuffed unicorn. Maddox was filthy from happily rolling in the dirt as often as possible. Not a single one of them had suffered in any way. In fact, they’d all enjoyed themselves and were still grinning, which meant the fun police needed a chill pill, though Brooke refrained from telling her so.