RaeLynn so loved the beach, Diandra mused as she sat in the
sand with the happy baby. After Lizbeth had left for work she had found herself
restless. Instead of sitting on the rear deck with her coffee she used the
sliding glass door in the parlor and took the steps down to the beach. She
wanted to play with her daughter instead of sitting idly by watching her play.
RaeLynn dug her fat baby hands into the sand, making little
cooing noises as the dry, warm sand gave way to the colder, damp sand
underneath. Diandra laughed as she watched the baby repeatedly pull her hand
out of one hole in the sand to move it to a fresh spot, cooing again as the
temperature in the new spot changed as well.
Dia shifted her gaze to the Atlantic Ocean stretching out
before her. There was a fog in the distance and even her keen vision couldn't
see past it to the horizon. It was almost as if the sky just continued all the
way down into the water- both sky and ocean were a dark blue color, nearly a
navy blue. She loved mornings like this.
She turned back to RaeLynn. At almost five months old she
looked more like a baby model as she sat in her pretty purple sundress than she
did a baby at play. Her strawberry blond curls caught the light and glinted a
golden color only a few shades lighter than her mother's bronze tones. Her
lavender eyes were bright with excitement as she continued her game of
sand-digging. Suddenly her eyes lost the laughter as she pulled something out
of the sand and held one chubby fist towards her mother.
Diandra took the object gently and a shiver of distaste ran
through her as she realized it was a dead sand crab. Anything that crept or
crawled disturbed her and these little guys definitely qualified.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Mister Crab is dead- he went to
Heaven, that's all. We'll just bury him," she said as she pressed a kiss
to the baby's curls. RaeLynn made distressed noises, tears gathering in her
eyes as she reached for the crab with both hands. "Do you want to say
goodbye? I suppose that's not a bad habit to enforce now," she mumbled to
herself as she reluctantly cradled the dead crab in the palm of her hand and
held it out to her daughter.
RaeLynn took the crab gently again into her hand and closed
her other hand over the top. Her eyes closed tight in concentration before she
let out a giggle and held the crab back out to her mother. Diandra warily let
her deposit the crab's body into her hand once more, nearly dropping it when
she felt the legs scratch against her palm. She let out a shriek more of
surprise than disgust. She would have sworn the damned thing was dead, she
thought as she wiped her hand frantically against her own white sundress. She
watched as the crab scuttled to one of the holes RaeLynn had made in the sand.
It turned a bit almost as though it was watching her daughter, and then the
crab disappeared into the sand once more. RaeLynn let out a giggle as she
filled the hole back in with both hands. The sun shone bright overhead and the
day was going to be a scorcher, yet Diandra shivered in the sunlight without
really knowing why.
*****
A few hours later they still played on the beach. The tide
had come in and the water was closer to them now. RaeLynn giggled to herself
and made happy noises as she piled the wet sand up into her own version of a
sandcastle. A shadow fell over Diandra and she jumped up, scooped RaeLynn into
her arms, turned and hissed all in one smooth motion. Jonah stood behind them
hands held out to show he meant no harm as he chuckled under his breath.
"Easy now, hellcat! I just
wanted to see how you both were doing. I figured on a day like this you'd be
out on the beach." Diandra reluctantly set her daughter back down in the
sand and Jonah lowered himself next to her, still grinning because he'd managed
to scare her.
"What did I tell you about calling first? What if
someone who knew you had been here? You know you can't be seen." Diandra
kicked angrily at the sand, refusing
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