Margot Early - Mr. Family

Kal nodded. The air in the room felt oppressive, stuffy, and he knew it was because of the topic, the future he’d planned, the prison of a marriage without touch, a marriage to a stranger.

He said, “I’ll leave you alone. Maybe we can go swimming later.”

She nodded and so did he. Kal hurried out of the room, then the house. Moments later as he stood on the lanai quaffing the air, he realized he hadn’t been fleeing the awkwardness. He’d been getting away from Erika Blade’s tawny arms and legs, her narrow bare feet, her brown hair and eyes. He was fleeing the woman herself.

Because he found her very beautiful, which was the last thing he’d expected.

THEY AGREED ON A SWIM before dinner.

At five Kal threw on some faded red surfing trunks and went into Hiialo’s room to tell her to put on her swimsuit. She was playing with her new stuffed puppy, whom she’d named Fluff. Kal wondered if Erika liked dogs.

“Hiialo, want to go swimming?”

“Yes! Hooray!” She tucked Fluff in a shoe box she’d lined with doll blankets, and then hurried to her closet, which looked about like his, a pit, and began throwing her clothes around, looking for a swimsuit.

Kal went out into the front room.

Erika was on the lanai, dressed in a coral swimsuit, a sarong around her waist. He could see the muscles in her suntanned back. Strong. Unaware of him, she crouched to touch a Mexican creeper growing beside the veranda. She studied it with the intense concentration he’d noticed before, as though she had to take a test on it later. He saw her eyes drop slightly, her lids brush her cheeks, and she swallowed.

Emotional…Whatever she felt, Kal understood. She’d just moved in with a stranger she’d met through a want ad.

He walked out onto the lanai and Erika straightened. He said, “You’ve got a towel. I was going to ask if you needed one.”

“No, I—I brought everything.”

“Literally?”

Erika met his eyes, and her heart moved from her chest to her throat. “Yes.” She’d even sold the Karmann Ghia. “I don’t own much. I’ve always lived on boats.”

The way she said it made him wonder. She must have traveled all the time as a kid. No neighborhood. No best friend, unless it was her brother. Kal had never known anyone who could put all her worldly goods in four pieces of luggage and a cardboard box. “This house is kind of like a boat,” he said, “that stays in one place.”

His half smile, combined with the sober look in his eyes, made Erika feel he knew things she’d never told him.

Hiialo bounded out of the house, clutching her Pocahontas beach towel. “Let’s go. Come on, Eduardo.” She shouted, “Can we go in the outrigger, Daddy?”

Erika made the kind of involuntary wince someone does when the music comes on too loud. Because of Hiialo? Kal wondered. That would be bad. If his daughter was an amplifier, she would go up to eleven. Higher than high, louder than loud. “Not today.”

Barefoot, Erika stepped down to the soft green lawn. The thatch was short and dense, different grass than she knew on the mainland. The warm earth invited her to sink in roots. She wanted to. She could be happy surrounded by so much color.

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