Wild Honey. Veronica Sattler
“Uh-huh.” Travis flashed the familiar roguish grin and stood, the movement all catlike grace, despite his size.
“Wish me luck, ol’ buddy,” he drawled. He gave Jason a flippant two-fingered salute and headed for the door.
“Now, wait a minute, McLean!” his superior growled. “Did I say…”
But Travis was already out the door. Muttering something about cocky Southern bastards, Jason sighed and returned to his paperwork.
FROM THE BACK of her Jeep Cherokee, Randi hauled out the last of the bags she’d packed. Matt was in the open doorway of their rental cottage dancing with excitement. He’d already changed into the new swim trunks she’d bought him. Since Matt’s suitcase had been the first she’d unloaded, he was way ahead of her. Randi grinned as she approached him. “Ready for the beach, huh?”
“Yeah! Can we go now, Mom? Can we?” Matt looked at the dunes visible beyond the Jeep, then back at his mother. “It’s awful sweaty here, y’know!”
Randi chuckled as he followed her inside. “That’s because this place was all closed up, sweetheart.” The air in the five rooms had been stifling, and opening windows had been the first thing she’d done; already she could feel the fresh ocean breeze sweeping through the cottage.
“Besides,” she added as she headed for the bedroom that Matt would occupy, “you might want to check out a couple of the things in this bag.” She set the bag down beside one of a pair of twin beds, and Matt tore into it.
“Barney! Yippee!” The four-year-old pulled out a pillow case decorated with a magenta dinosaur and waved it at her. “Thanks, Mom!” He began singing the Barney song as he dug through the rest of the bag.
It contained beach towels and Matt’s sheets and pillowcases from home. The cottage came furnished with linens and towels, but she knew Matt preferred sleeping between sheets decorated with Barney, his favorite TV personality.
“You bet, son,” she murmured, then went to her own room to change into her swimsuit.
The sweetly sung lyrics followed her out the door, and when she reached the other bedroom, she paused and reflected on the Barney phenomenon. Why did kids love it so? The answer came at once. Barney’s message was simple and clear: love. The eternally smiling dinosaur embodied the very bedrock of the only thing children really needed. Love, especially within a happy family.
A tiny frown knitted Randi’s brow as she absently reached for the bikini Jill had talked her into. Matt was still singing. About a happy family. Are we a happy family? a voice in Randi’s head asked. Of course we are! her rational self countered. Matt and Jill and I, we’re exactly that.
But Jill will be leaving to make a home of her own in a few months, the voice whispered. A family of her own. And then where will you be?
“Right where I’ve always been—beside my son,” she found herself saying aloud. “We’ll still be a family, and a darned happy one!” To emphasize her certainty of this, she pulled off her T-shirt with gusto and flung it on the bed. “Who says what size families have to be?”
She could still hear Matt singing about love. Right, she thought, as she peeled off her jeans. Matt loved her and she loved him—unconditionally. It was all they needed.
But as she continued to get ready for the beach, the questions wouldn’t go away. All you need? the silent voice nagged. Is it really?
THE WEATHER was perfect for the beach. With temperatures in the eighties and a good breeze off the ocean, they couldn’t have asked for better.
Randi slathered Matt’s back and shoulders with sunscreen. “There, that ought to do it, honey,” she said at last, recapping the bottle of lotion. “Wanna get wet?”
Matt didn’t answer. She was about to repeat the question when she saw where his attention was focused. A pair of boys not much bigger than Matt were tossing a beach ball. With them was a man whose matching red hair and freckles plainly marked him as their father.
Randi flicked a glance at Matt’s beach ball, a red-andyellow affair lying next to their blanket beside a plastic pail and shovel. She touched her son on the shoulder. “Want to toss your ball?” she asked.
Tearing his gaze away from the redheads, Matt glanced at the ball. “Nah,” he said with a hint of diffidence. “It’s still sweaty out here.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Randi grinned. “Race you to the water!”
Matt’s answering grin was instantaneous. With a whoop, he took off running, the trio with the ball forgotten. Randi laughed as she followed suit. She’d make it a close race but let her four-year-old win.
They shrieked happily as they splashed into the water, Matt a step ahead of her. “It’s cold!” Randi shouted with an exaggerated shiver.
“Oh, Mom, girls always say that!”
“Oh, yeah?” A handful of other bathers frolicked in the waves nearby, and she had to raise her voice above their excited shrieks and yells. “Says who?”
“David ‘n’ me! You ‘n’ Aunt Jill both said it when we went swimmin’ in David’s pool, ‘member?”
He chortled as she made a face at him. Randi was secretly pleased, however, that Matt remembered this so clearly; it had occurred when he was only three. He was bright and observant, not to mention remarkably coordinated for his age, she thought as he dodged a wave and swam a few yards. The mother-and-child swim classes they’d attended at the local Y had paid off.
They spent a good hour in the water before Matt opted for building a sand castle. Stopping to give him another. application of sunscreen first, Randi was surprised to hear him offer to coat her back with the lotion.
“Sure,” she answered. She handed him the sunscreen and plopped down on her stomach. As he went diligently to work applying the lotion, however, she saw what had likely prompted this: the red-haired father was in the process of applying lotion to the back of a woman who shared a blanket with him and his boys. Aware his own mother had no husband to help with the task, Matt had assumed the role.
Randi’s reaction was ambivalent. On the one hand, she was warmed that her son would be so solicitous of her; on the other, she wondered if Matt was beginning to think of himself as the “man of the family.” Had the lack of an adult to fill that role settled more firmly into his consciousness? Was this a fair burden to place on a four-year-old? She frowned.
Without warning, an image came to mind. Of a big blond man who resembled her son. Travis McLean. Randi stiffened. She’d actually pictured him sitting on the blanket with them!
“That’s great, son,” she said hastily, banishing the image as she rose to her feet. She reached for the pail and shovel. “Let’s see about that sand castle, okay?”
But as Matt followed her cheerfully to the wet sand near the water’s edge, McLean’s lean handsome face hovered at the fringes of her mind. Kneeling in the sand beside her son, she began digging with a spurt of energy meant to drive the image away. That, and something else. Something that felt suspiciously like guilt.
Don’t be silly, she told herself as she molded the damp sand. Matt can’t miss what he’s never had. As for McLean, what he doesn’t know isn’t hurting him, either.
Yet the argument in her head persisted. She told herself McLean’s actions precluded his right to know of the son he’d fathered. He’d chosen to donate his sperm, chosen to be an anonymous father, hadn’t he?
But far more disturbing was the question of whether it was right for her to choose to bring a fatherless child into the world. Unbidden, more questions came, try as she might to ignore them. Had she robbed her son of one of life’s inalienable rights? The right to have and know a