The two women laughed. Caroline was still chuckling when she picked up Michelle.
“You’re late,” the child cried, causing the chuckle to die in Caroline’s throat.
The raven-haired young woman holding Michelle’s hand shot Caroline an accusing glance. “See? I told you your mommy didn’t forget about you.”
Caroline checked her watch. “It’s only a few minutes…”
“Michelle was getting quite anxious.”
“I would never forget about you,” Caroline assured her daughter repeatedly on the elevator ride back to their room.
“I’m not going to kids’ camp anymore,” Michelle said as they walked down the long hall toward their suite.
“Well, we’re leaving first thing in the morning, so you don’t have to.” Caroline fumbled in her canvas tote for her keycard, almost walking into a service cart loaded with towels and linen. “Shit. Where is it?”
“You said a bad word.”
The damn thing must have fallen out at the pool, Caroline thought as they approached their suite, then waited for Hunter to answer her knock on the door. “What—again?” she could almost hear him say. She’d already lost one keycard, earlier in the week. Good thing they were so easy to replace. She knocked again. “Hunter?” She rested her ear against the door, heard the shower running. “Great. Perfect time for a shower.” Hunter was notorious for both the frequency and the length of his showers. “Looks like we’ll have to go back to the lobby and get another card.”
“I don’t want to go back to the lobby.”
Caroline remembered the service cart. Probably the housekeeper had a master keycard. “Come with me,” she said to Michelle.
“No.” The child pulled her hand out of Caroline’s reach, then sank to the floor, her back against the door, her arms crossed in protest.
“Okay, then. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” She raced around the corner, almost colliding with the uniformed woman coming out of an adjacent room, her hands full of towels. “Perdóname, dama. I’m sorry to bother you but I can’t find my keycard. I was wondering if you could let me into my room.”
The woman nodded, dropped the towels onto the cart and followed Caroline around the corner.
Michelle was gone.
“Michelle?” Caroline looked around frantically. “Michelle?”
The door to her suite opened. Hunter stood before her, a large white towel wrapped around his hips, water clinging to his chiseled chest, a bemused look in his eyes. “Relax. She’s inside.”
Caroline breathed a sigh of relief. The housekeeper tucked her master keycard back into her pocket and retreated down the hall. “Thank you,” Caroline called after her.
“Mommy said a bad word. And she was late,” Michelle announced as soon as Caroline stepped inside the living room.
“By all of five minutes,” Caroline explained.
“I’m sure Mommy’s very sorry.”
“And Mommy has apologized repeatedly,” Caroline said. “Where’s the baby?”
“She’s not a baby,” Michelle said.
“In her crib, playing with her toys,” Hunter said. “Happy as a clam.”
“We went hunting for clams,” Michelle said as Caroline crossed into the children’s bedroom.
“Did you? That sounds like fun.”
“I hate clams,” Michelle said.
Of course you do, Caroline thought, approaching Samantha’s crib. Her younger daughter was already standing up, a huge grin on her sweet face, her arms extended in welcome. Caroline lifted her out of her crib, hugged her tight. “Hi, my sweet thing.”
“She’s not a sweet thing. I’m your sweet thing.”
“You’re both my sweet things.”
Samantha leaned her head against Caroline’s shoulder, her breath soft against her mother’s neck. At least I got one good one, Caroline recalled her mother saying to one of her friends, the words still having the power to wound after all these years. Not that her mother had been abusive or neglectful. If anything, she’d been overprotective, hovering over her daughter like a circling wasp, watching her like the proverbial hawk. Unlike Steve, who was granted freedoms Caroline could only dream of. But while she had her mother’s attention, it was Steve who had her affection, and both children knew it, ensuring that they would never be close. Caroline had made a silent vow that she would never be anything like her mother. She wouldn’t be overprotective. She wouldn’t be judgmental. She would never show favoritism.
As if to prove her point, she leaned over to ruffle Michelle’s hair. “I love you,” she told her.
“I don’t love you,” said Michelle, squirming out of her mother’s reach and running from the room.
“Well, that’s too bad, because I love you,” Caroline called after her.
“What’s too bad?” Hunter asked from the doorway.
Caroline lowered Samantha to the floor, then walked into his waiting arms. “I’m a terrible mother.”
He laughed and pulled her closer, the dampness of his bare chest permeating her white lace cover-up. “Next time we leave the kids at home.”