Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
A beautiful change, to be sure.
It was still a lot.
Cece went back to her nephew, the sway of her body keeping the baby settled and happy as her husband came to stand by her side. The two of them ohh’d and ahh’d over the baby as they should. Seeing little Cross reminded her all over again about her own child and what it had been like to become a new mother.
“Planning a second anytime soon?” Naz asked where he leaned against the entry to the living room. “Ma and Dad would like that.”
Cece wanted to laugh.
She wanted to say nope.
One and done.
That had been her plan. Juan never said anything different. Life was busy. Crazy. They were always moving. Nonstop. She never complained about it, but that didn’t make it any less true. Yet, the longer she stood there with her nephew, the more she felt like ... maybe.
Cece smiled at her brother, shrugging. “You never know. We might.”
One More Time
“Are you looking, Ma? Are you watching?”
The shouts of her sweet girl had Cece lifting her gaze from the thread that she’d been picking at on the blanket keeping her safe from the sand. She found her daughter running across the beach, each step sending sand flying up around her bare feet. She would never understand why she kept trying to keep the sand out when frankly, it always found a way in. Like right from her daughter’s feet.
She really didn’t mind.
Juan was quick on Catherina’s heels, ready to catch their daughter, or the kite she had finally managed to get into the air, should he need to. He came to a stop when it was clear their girl had everything handled. Her kite flew higher and higher ... until it was probably at the end of its string. The wide smile that stretched across her daughter’s face matched her father’s while the two stared up at the cloudy sky.
For once, she was thankful that the sun decided to hide behind the clouds. They could appreciate all Catherina’s practice finally coming to fruition now that her kite was up in the air and actually staying there. Every day this week, they walked down to the beach with Catherina’s new kite in hand. She wanted to do it herself, though. She didn’t want her parents to make the kite fly for her.
They always gave the girl what she wanted.
Especially when it was something like this.
Already, she was learning to be independent.
The beach was their happy place. It didn’t matter if it was a beach in Cali, one across the country in New York, or even a beach in an entirely different country ... Cece’s family found happiness in warm sand and whispering waves.
“I see you!” Cece called back.
Catherina kept one hand tight on the spool attached to the string but used her other to wave wildly at her ma.
“Hold on a sec, Ma,” Cece said to her own mother who’d she had been having a conversation with while her kid tried for the fourth time this week to get the kite into the air. “I gotta take a picture of this.”
She could hear her mother’s question even as she took the phone away from her ear and held it out with the camera up to snap a quick photo of Juan overlooking their very proud daughter flying her kite.
“Did she get it up in the air?” Catherine asked.
Cece laughed.
Even her parents had been invested in this moment. From afar, of course. They were always on one call or another, either with her mom, dad, or brother. Someone from back home. It was the only way they could feel present despite living in California.
“She did,” Cece said when she brought the phone back. “Just the right gust of wind, I think. I was distracted for a second and missed it going up into the air.”
Catherine sighed on the phone. “Motherhood in a nutshell. We spent immeasurable time teaching you things that you finally learn to do when we’re not watching. She’ll fly it again, no worries.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
Then, Cece’s mother asked another question. One that had her attention drifting away from her still smiling daughter and husband.
“Have you told him yet?”
“Today,” she replied, offering nothing else. “I bought him a gift to tell him.”
“Oh?”
“He’ll love it.”
She swore she could see her mother smile when Catherine replied, “Oh, I have no doubt. Love you, hmm?”
“Forever and ever, Ma.”
Cece hung up the phone and tossed it aside on the blanket knowing good and well she would likely be back on the phone with someone from New York before the evening was out. Smiling to herself, she didn’t even hear Juan’s approach until he dropped down beside her on the blanket.
Bringing sand with him.
Because of course.
Cece’s laughter was quickly swallowed up by the kiss Juan leaned over to plant on her lips. All over again, she was reminded why she loved the beach and this man so much as sand tickled over her feet and legs while her husband kissed the very breath out of her lungs.