Page 75 of Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort)
“Mama.”
“What?”
“Who said anything about sleeping with him? That is against resort policy.”
“Weren’t you? If not, I
think you missed out. He’s sex walking!”
“Mama!” Leona exclaimed, taken aback by her mother’s bold admission. Things you never expect to hear come out of your mother’s mouth… “Could you not say that about—”
“Your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she clarified.
“Could have fooled me. I saw you two when I picked Josef up from camp. You seemed pretty cozy. Very couple-like.”
Leona threw her head back with mild annoyance. Had they really been giving off those vibes? The one camper had asked the question, but at the time she’d taken it as teenage curiosity and nothing more. Or was it just that her mother knew her well enough to see straight through all the lies, even the ones she told herself? That had always been her mom’s superpower.
“Leona, fess up. Tell me what is going on,” Anna said after a moment of silence from Leona.
“Ok, yes, we were…I don’t know, hanging out?” she shrugged.
“Okay…?”
“And things were going well, or so I thought. We went from me hating him and him trying to annoy me all the time to…friends.”
Anna shot a look at her daughter that screamed “really?” and it cut Leona to the core. Her mom really did see straight through, and she couldn’t help but let her guard down.
“Okay, fine, more than friends,” she admitted. “I just don’t know what you would call us. But we spent my days off together, and I would bring him dinner at the end of the day and we’d been spending our nights together too. It was pretty great. And yes, against my better judgment, I developed feelings. It’s just that he’s a very different person when you get to know him. Did you know his mom was a housekeeper?” She turned to look at Anna.
“He told me,” her mother answered.
“What? When?”
“When he asked if I would allow Josef to come back to camp that second week.”
“Oh. Well, she was also apparently a single mother. His dad died when he was really young. I had no idea,” Leona added, still looking at Anna, who gave her an “I’m listening, keep going” smile. “It was fun to get to see a side of him that no one else does. He might be some superstar, but underneath it all, he’s just…normal.”
“So what happened?”
“He had this job offer from a team in Atlanta who wants him to be their new coach since he’s ‘retiring’ and all,” she said, making the air quotes with her fingers. “They wanted an answer by today, and he was on the fence about it, because he wasn't sure it was the route he wanted to go—even though he loved the two weeks with Josef and all the other kids. But then this chick, who, by the way—plot twist—is apparently Dalton's sister! Anyway, this chick from the team in Atlanta flew in to get his answer, and he took the job and left with her. He's off to start the next chapter in his life.”
“Not that I got to know him very well, but the man who approached me about wanting to help coach your brother did not seem the type to just up and leave,” Anna commented.
“He’s not,” she sighed. “It's not like I ever thought he would stay. I always knew that at the end of this week he would leave. And he told me about the job. I knew days ago he was thinking about it. He asked my opinion, and I told him to take it. Both when he told me and earlier today when Felicity showed up.”
“Even though your heart is breaking knowing that he’s gone.”
Leona nodded, fighting back the tears she could feel starting to form. “Yes, because that’s what you do when you love someone. You let them go. You don’t stand in their way.”
“No, baby,” Anna said, reaching out and taking her daughter’s hand. “When you love someone, you tell them. And I don’t mean tell them how to live their life. Unless you are asking that they be a part of yours.”
Leona turned and looked at her mom, unsure how to respond to what she had just said. She thought Leona should tell Cullen she loved him? There was no way that’s what her mother thought. Her mother was the one who taught her how to keep her guard up and not to let her heart rule her actions. And now, after all these years, she was telling her the opposite?
“Lee, you have such a big heart. I know you do a damn good job at hiding it most days. You get that from me, and I’m sorry I passed that along. You were never, ever a selfish child. Everyone warned us about ‘only child syndrome,’ but we never saw any of that. You were always ready and willing to help out and share. Even how you picked Drea, you were taking care of her. I remember when you introduced me to her on that first day of Kindergarten. You dragged that sweet little girl by her hand over to me and said ‘This is Drea. She doesn’t have anyone and I don’t have anyone. So we’re going to belong to each other,’ and that was that. Things didn’t exactly get any easier around here when Josef showed up and we asked you to take on the role of extra caregiver to him. It was wrong of us to ask that of you so young, but we didn’t have much choice if we were going to make it all work.”
“That’s what family does,” Leona retorted. That was something they had instilled in her since forever—family takes care of each other.
