Gifts
Four Years Later
Keelie
I jump as cold water droplets hit my overheated skin. Lifting the enormous hat from my face, all I see is my nine-year-old daughter leaning over me, soaking wet from the turquoise waters of the South of France.
“Are you gonna swim or what?”
I squint from the sun shining around her like a halo, but in true Saylor Hollingsworth fashion, she’s no angel and shakes her long blond hair all over me.
I jump in my lounge. “Stop it, baby. That’s cold.”
“It’s not cold. The water’s really warm.” She takes my hand and gives me a tug. “Come on, you promised.”
I did promise, but I also secretly promised myself a nap since this is our last day and we go home tomorrow.
In what has become our new normal since we’ve become Hollingsworths, we’re vacationing. Asa likes to vacation. Even more than that, he loves to show his family the world. We’re coming to the end of our two weeks in Europe, and as much history as he packed into our itinerary, he gave us a few days at the beach to relax before going home to start school in a few weeks.
Traveling like this is new for my kids and Knox eats it up like candy. He still inhales every bit of information he can out of life. Asa sees this, feeding it to Knox as fast as he can take it. This trip was for all of us, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize our activities were centered around Knox and his interests.
When Asa first came to me with the list of things we were going to do, he said, “I know it’s a lot but, baby, if we show him the world, he’ll know there’s nothing too big for him. He’s got the head on his shoulders to do anything he wants—let’s show him he can.”
Of course, that made me cry.
As much as I still hate crying, when Asa does shit like that, he brings me to my knees. Not only did he make Knox and Saylor legally his, he’s claimed them as his by doing what he does best—giving himself in everything he does.
Knox and Saylor have taken it all. Every trip, every book, every cuddle, and every ounce of love and attention. They’ve declared him as theirs, wanted to take his name, and with Levi and Emma to love on, too—we’re complete.
A family.
And our family has grown since that day I married Asa in our backyard with only our immediate friends and family watching. Levi surprised us a year ago when he announced he and Carissa were engaged.
Asa doesn’t lose his shit often, but he did that day.
Levi was barely twenty-one and Carissa wasn’t even twenty. She followed him to Hopkins and, just like in high school, they were inseparable. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why we were surprised, but as much as Asa tried to convince them they were too young and as dramatic as Danielle’s antics became—Levi was adamant.
I kept my mouth shut and did the only thing I knew to do. Later, when we were alone, I calmed my husband. Levi was an adult who got great grades, majoring in molecular and cellular biology, for goodness’ sake. As horrid as molecules and anything biology sounds to me, he’s smart and Asa and Danielle both needed to trust him in everything. He’s focused and hardworking like his father—I just had to make Asa see it.
Levi and Carissa have been married for eight months now, and as I toss my hat to the lounge I was napping on, I see them walking along the beach, Carissa in a tiny bikini and both of them tan from our days lounging by the ocean. Levi is holding Carissa’s hand while she has her other rested on her bare, four-month baby bump.
They’re moving in fast-forward, even if they don’t see it that way. Levi is about to start medical school in the fall and Carissa graduates in a year with a degree in speech therapy. I’m not sure if they could be any happier and my husband finally realizes it, too. How could he not? We’ll have a grandchild to spoil soon.
“You coming, Emma?” I look back at my stepdaughter who’s about to start her sophomore year at UVA.
Emma turned it around in high school and was back on the honor roll the following year after her nightmare experience as a freshman. She found a good group of friends who stayed out of trouble, and unlike her older brother who went to college and was only about Carissa and his grades, Emma is all about the social scene. Unlike the quiet, meek girl I met more than four years ago, she’s got a million girlfriends in her sorority and enough young men banging down her door to drive her father to hell and back in a nanosecond.
Emma’s lying face down in her lounge and doesn’t even open her eyes when she waves me off. “This vacation has been a marathon. I’m not moving from this spot until the sun goes down and then it’s only to find food. Would you please not let him plan trips like this anymore? I’m exhausted.”
I grin at her and can’t argue. We’ve gone ninety-to-nothing the whole time.
I follow Saylor through the pristine sand with my eyes on my husband. He hasn’t changed a bit since the day I met him on the side of the road. Standing knee-deep in the water, he throws a frisbee to Knox before looking our way. Saylor gets just close enough when he reaches for her and tosses her into deeper waters—her little girl arms and legs flying as she screams with delight until the water swallows her up. They’ve been doing this for hours.
Asa grins. “Maybe we should put in a pool. As big as she’s getting, I’ll just throw her around and won’t have to lift anymore.” His eyes drop to my body. “And only seeing you in a bikini on vacation should be against the law. I’ve just decided we’re putting in a pool.”
I shake my head because the last time he added on to our house it was only supposed to be an extension off the garage. We ended up with an additional bathroom, media room and a game room. Who knows what we’ll end up with if he says he’s going to put in a pool.
I tuck myself into his side and wrap my arms around him. “As much as I’m afraid we’ll end up with a waterpark the way you do things, I do think a pool would be great.”
He ignores my comment, which makes me worried about the waterpark, and pulls me close. “Did you get a nap?”
I smile. “I did until Saylor came over dripping water all over me.”
He grins and leans down to kiss me when I hear Knox yell, “Dad, it’s coming your way.”
He pulls away and I try to duck so I don’t get a frisbee concussion, but Asa puts his hands to my hips and before I know what’s happening, I’m flying through the air in the same direction he threw Saylor. I scream as I hit the water, and when I come up gasping for air, my husband and all our children are laughing. Wiping the saltwater out of my eyes, it’s hard not to smile as I try to glare at him. “Oh, you’re in trouble.”
He raises his brows from behind his sunglasses as a dare. “Come do your worst, baby.”
Knowing I couldn’t possibly manage to bend his little finger backward if I tried, I do the only thing I can think of and splash water in his face. It doesn’t faze him and he reaches up to catch the frisbee. Right after he tosses it back to Knox, he takes the three strides to get to me and pulls me to him at the same time he circles and I end up on top of him in the water.
“Let’s leave the kids with Emma in the suite and go out by ourselves for our last night.” He slides his hand into the back of my bikini bottoms under the water. “You good with that?”
“Maybe.” I lean in to kiss him. “If I forgive you for dunking me by then.”
He gives my ass a tight squeeze. “You were hot. You needed cooling off.”
I roll my eyes and start to complain again, but Saylor pounces on my back and all three of us roll in the water.
My daughter—she still doesn’t understand personal space. Going out by ourselves tonight sounds perfect.
*****
Asa
I look to her through the moonlight where we’re sitting alone on the beach. “We’ll come back, just you and me.”
She smiles from where she’s tucked between my legs. Her long hair is blowing in the breeze, and just like every time since the first day she gifted me with her blue eyes, my chest constricts. Never experienced a pain so beautiful.
“We haven’t been anywhere by ourselves since our honeymoon. We should come back—or we could go somewhere else. I don’t care.” She looks back out to the ocean and settles into my chest. “We can stay home for all that matters. As long as I’m with you.”
I wrap her up and we listen to the ocean lick the sand.
“Asa?”
“Yeah?”
She shifts in my arms and puts her hands to my face before kissing me. “Thank you.”
I shrug. “It was just a trip.”
She shakes her head. “No. I mean you. I’ll never know or understand how life led me to you. I’m grateful every single day that it did.”
It’s my turn to kiss her. She doesn’t know the half of it. Keelie, Knox, Saylor—all three of them are gifts I didn’t deserve. I’m never letting them go.
~
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for the next novel in the Killer Series —
the story of Jarvis and Gracie.