Okay, maybe they could get past this uncomfortable strain.
“How did you know where your donkeys went?” Oscar pressed, his voice, thankfully, not in a grating British accent.
Sebastian schooled his features and squared his jaw, looking properly formidable. “First, I tracked their prints. Then, when the hoofprints disappeared, I told Augie and Luanne that I thought the donkeys may have strayed off the main trail. Donkeys are smart. They like to explore new places. And I was right. I found the donkeys in an old barn on the side of the mountain, eating wild strawberries. My dad and Mibby were there, too, but they were busy.”
“What were they doing in the barn?” Phoebe demanded, her accent now sounding like an uppity French maître d’.
“Libby got an itchy bug bite on her neck, and my dad was helping her scratch it,” Sebastian explained.
Raz flinched. He’d come up with that crock of shit on the fly.
“Do you know what that makes me think of?” Phoebe replied, sticking with the French maître d’ voice.
Libby inhaled an audible breath. And he was right there with her. God only knew what was about to fly out of the child’s mouth.
“What?” Sebastian queried.
“Bergen Summer Adventure Camp in Aspen. The camp you, me, and Oscar get to go to,” the girl spouted, going back to her normal voice.
Libby released her breath as he did the same. There’s one crisis averted.
“The Bergen part is the same name as me and Oscar’s teacher, Mrs. Bergen,” Phoebe explained. “But I don’t think she’ll be at camp. I think teachers stay in their classrooms over the summer. Why would they want to leave? School is the best.”
“Camp is great, too,” Oscar added. “Remember Outdoor Lab in Telluride, Phoebe? You scared all those boys and made them give you their cookies at lunch every day.”
Phoebe sighed. “I really love camp.”
“My Charlotte showed me the brochure for the camp we’re going to,” Oscar continued. “They’ve got woodworking, and we get to decide if we want to build a picture frame or a little step stool.”
A stool.
Raz’s heart twisted in his chest as the image of a boxing ring with two stools crystalized. He stared at the ground and willed the picture away.
“That gives me an idea,” Oscar chimed. “Your birthday is coming up, right, Sebastian?”
“Right-o, mate! My birthday is a few days after the donkey race,” Sebastian answered, puffing up, then paused. “Dad,” the boy whispered, waving him to the bed.
“Yeah?”
“I asked Augie for the dates to make double sure you could come to my donkey birthday party. Remember last year. You had to train.”
Shame came at him from every corner of the room. “I remember. I’ll be there,” he answered, his voice a tight rasp.
Sebastian flashed him a toothy grin, then got back to his friends. “What’s your big idea, Oscar?”
“You know how I’m a photographer like my Charlotte?”
“Yeah, mate, you take a real banger of a picture.”
“I’m going to make you a picture frame for your birthday. If you go back to England, I’ll put a picture of me and Phoebe in it, so you can remember us.”
Raz shifted his stance.
Were they going back to England?
“I don’t want you to go back to England, Sebastian. You’re the only one who calls me Phoebe, Princess of the Hot Dog Fairies, Bearer of Cookies, and Eater of Pizza. I made Oscar try to say it, but it sounds better when you do it.”
Raz chanced a look at his son. The boy wasn’t looking at the screen. The kid had fixed his gaze on Libby.
There was that pang in his heart again. He didn’t need to be awarded Father of the Year to know what the lad was thinking.
He didn’t want to give up his Mibby.
Too bad it wasn’t that easy.
He could buy the child anything—except what the lad truly wanted.
“I’m making a stool,” Phoebe announced, pulling Sebastian’s attention back to the screen. “And then,” the girl mused, “I’m going to give it to my almost aunt, Penny. She’s always asking my uncle Row to get a book off a high shelf for her. And it’s always in a room where the door is locked.”
“Phoebe,” came Rowen’s voice, laced with exasperation, and Raz chuckled. Despite the turmoil in his chest and the buzz of electricity he simply couldn’t turn off between himself and Libby, he couldn’t help but smile. The nerd had his hands full with his firecracker of a niece.
“It happens everywhere,” the girl continued, ignoring her uncle. “In our Denver house, on our big boat, in our Aspen house, and our California house. How many more houses do we have, Uncle Row?” the child bellowed.
“It’s bedtime, Phoebe,” Rowen called. “Say good night to your friends. And do I smell chocolate? Do you have cookies hidden in your room, Phoebe?”
Libby smiled and shook her head as he did the same, delighting in the sweet craziness that was Phoebe Gale. Libby met his gaze, and all he could do was relish the warmth in her amber eyes. In this seemingly mundane parenting moment, on the surface, it was nothing, but experiencing it with Libby felt like home.
“Grimy, I’m busted again!” Phoebe whisper-shouted, switching back to her grating English accent.
Grimy?
“It’s blimey, Phoebe,” Sebastian instructed, grinning at the mobile’s screen like he’d won the lottery.
And maybe he had. Granny Fin had mentioned more than once that the lad didn’t have any mates at school. Could Oscar and Phoebe be his first real friends? He turned his attention to the glass of water and swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“Right-o, tally-ho, cheerio!” Phoebe called, reverting to the French maître d’.
“Bye, Sebastian!” Oscar exclaimed. “I can’t wait for your donkey birthday. My dad and I are going to bake you a cake. I’d bring popsicles, too, but every time I see them in the freezer, they’re gone by morning. My dad and my Charlotte are popsicle maniacs,” the boy added as Mitch’s audible, mock-hotheaded, grouchy groan echoed in the background as the children waved to each other before logging off.
He chanced another look at Libby.
He should have kept his focus on the glass of water.
He’d caught her gazing at Sebastian, eyes shining like she was so happy she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. He knew that look well. It was the same way Mere used to gaze at the boy when he was just a little thing.
Bloody memories.
He ground his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw tightening, then startled when Sebastian cleared his throat.
The boy stared up at him. “Do you need to fart, Dad?”
Fart?
Raz almost fell over. “No, of course, not. Why would you ask?”
The boy studied him closely. “Your face is pinched like you’re holding in a giant whopper of a fart. Beefcake made the same face before he farted in the trailer.”
What was it with boys and farting? Never mind. Part of being a little boy was remarking on farts. Still, he was no child, and he sure as hell wasn’t making a fart face.
“I don’t need to fart,” he announced, then glanced at Libby. Pink-cheeked, with a playful glint in her eyes, she’d pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep from laughing. It was better than watching her fold-a-thon but still blooming embarrassing for him.