Glancing down at her, I grin. “Really? I couldn’t tell.” Even at her age, she gets my humor.
Her eyebrow goes up and she smirks slightly. “Stop, Gunny.”
In actuality, I can’t stand the nickname she’s given me, but when she was learning how to talk, she couldn’t say my name, and it got shortened to what she calls me now. I’m contemplating whether I should text Amy as we approach the entrance of the boardwalk, and it’s then I see her.
“Damn…”
Luckily the word is whispered under my breath. If it hadn’t been, Cora would have called me on it. She’s become the bad-word police and has taken to making people put money in a jarif she catches them. What she fails to tell everyone at first is the little entrepreneur is going to use that money to buy herself a bike. While I’m proud of her ingenuity, I’m pissed she’s gotten me on more than one occasion.
Amy is a ten if anyone were to ask me. Everything about her ticks each box I have when it comes to women who attract me. Strong legs, hips I can hang onto, a waist that’s not so small I can fit my hands completely around it, hair that comes down, hanging slightly lower than her breasts, and fuck—speaking of her tits. She’s wearing a shirt that hugs them, not obscenely, but there they are. Coupled with the pair of jean shorts molded to her thighs—I’m going to be discreetly adjusting my package today, bet.
“Hey.” She waves, almost shyly, toward me.
Rosa stands next to her, waving the exact same way her mom does. I wave back at them before scooping up Cora in my arms and jogging over to where they stand.
“We would have waited for you.” Amy raises an eyebrow at me, a smirk on her lips. “Not like we were going to make you chase us down the boardwalk.”
“I would,” I grin.
“You’ve already got me on a date; you don’t have to impress me still,” she grins back.
“Oh, you have no idea, Amy. I plan on impressing you for years to come.”
There’s a flash in her eyes, and I wonder what it is, but it’s gone before I can ask her. “Who is this?” She bends over at the waist, looking down at Cora.
“This is Cora.” She buries her face in my thigh. “Or Corabelle.” I grab at her pigtail, causing her to giggle.
“Corabelle isn’t my name,” she protests.
“Gunny isn’t mine,” I fire back at her.
“Nice to meet you, Cora.” Amy gives me a look as she holds out her hand for Cora. “This is my daughter, Rosa.”
The two girls wave shyly at one another.
“Want to walk all the way down to the end, then work back?” I ask the group of ladies I’m with for the day.
When everyone agrees, we all take off together at a walk. Not even halfway down, the two girls are in front of us, talking away, running a little ahead of us. “I’m glad they seem to like each other. Cora’s usually pretty reserved. She’s had a tough year and a half.”
“What happened?”
“My sister and her husband got divorced, and he’s completely disappeared from Cora’s life. I don’t even know all the details, but it wasn’t a pretty situation. I’ve been doing my best to help my sister out, but I worry about Cora, how she’s adapting. She hasn’t seen him since he left, and she’s finally stopped asking.”
“Rosa stopped asking after a while too,” Amy says quietly. “And she’s very well adjusted now.”
“I haven’t wanted to pry…”
She looks at me, a sad smile on her face. “It’s normal to be curious, and I haven’t volunteered much about my life.”
“Gunny, can we get cotton candy?”
Cora picks that moment to interrupt us, and I do my best not to show her how irritated I am. “Sure.” I reach into my pocket for my wallet.
After getting two bags of cotton candy—one for us, one for them—we continue our walk down. The boardwalk extends for roughly two miles; not all of it is on land, a good portion extends out into the ocean. I know because in training, we have to run it with full gear on. Then during swift-water rescue drills, we have to run all the way down before jumping in the water andswimming back. It’s going to take us at least a couple hours with the leisurely pace we’re taking.
Amy reaches over into our bag, grabbing a piece of the sugary treat out. “He died,” she says softly. “My husband.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Truthfully, I am. That’s got to be incredibly difficult to come back from.
