Liz Talley – The Sweetest September (страница 14)

Good gracious. If the child fell, she’d break her neck.

Surely, Abigail didn’t allow her daughter to sit in trees without...did they make tree seat belts?

Birdie was partly visible through the half-bare branches. Shelby watched with bated breath as the child pulled off the backpack, sat a sketch pad on her lap and lifted her binoculars, training them on something to Shelby’s right. Adjusting the knob thing on top, the girl grew still and focused.

Shelby sighed and wondered if she should say something to Abigail about the child being so high in the tree. Then again, Abigail seemed to know about her daughter’s daredevil antics.

Turning away, Shelby looked around the room for something to do. Her phone had only 5 percent battery life remaining, and she’d left the charger in the rental car, which was parked at John’s house. No playing on her phone. She glanced at Birdie one last time. The kid still perched, binoculars focused on the distance behind the house. Shelby pressed her face against the window and tried to see what the girl watched, but she couldn’t see beyond the edge of the woods.

Something in the girl’s demeanor nagged at Shelby so she glanced back at Birdie, waiting for the girl to pick up her sketch pad and start working, but she never did. Instead the girl’s mouth fell open in that age-old expression of “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Shelby wrinkled her nose.

What the devil was Birdie watching that would render her so engrossed?

Any other time and Shelby wouldn’t care. But she was bored out of her gourd. Not to mention, some inner teacher Spidey sense told her this was not about birds.

So she pulled the oversize T-shirt serving as her nightgown over her head and scooped up the dress she’d worn yesterday. Thankfully, the dress was a rayon blend and didn’t wrinkle, but the stained tights were hopeless. She netted three points tossing her balled-up tights into the metal trash bin. The new cotton undies were a bit blousy, but the hot-pink socks featuring a popular boy band logo, which she’d grabbed at the Dollar Store, would work fine for stealth. She left her knee-high boots beside her purse and sneaked out the door.

No one was in the hall. Abigail had said she wasn’t full until next week so no surprise there. A soft runner ran the length of the shiny floor. Shelby padded to the end of the hall where an antique rocker and a bookshelf nestled near a wavy-paned window. She peered out, cursing the authentic glass. Despite this, she could still make out the large privacy fence and the houses backing up to it. There appeared to be a small subdivision with cookie-cutter houses and requisite postage-stamp backyards directly behind Laurel Woods.

So Birdie wasn’t bird-watching. She was people watching.

The little spy.

Shelby chuckled and craned her neck to see if she could make out who the child watched with such fascination. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone plunge into a lap pool. Someone naked. Not just naked...but tight male ass naked.

Whoa. Birdie wasn’t just spying—she was a peeping, uh, Birdie. So what to do about that?

This was a child and a naked dude. A responsible adult would find Abigail and squeal. But maybe not yet. Maybe she needed to know more. Something about the girl’s pluck and natural curiosity carved a tender place in Shelby’s heart. Had to be hard having a mother like Abigail. Again, teacher Spidey sense blipped and she decided to track down Birdie later to suggest she not spy on naked dudes in their lap pool no matter how nice the view was.

“Shelby?”

She jerked around to find Abigail standing at the head of the stairs holding a tray. John’s sister wore her hair pulled back into a knot, a deep blue sweater and the same flats from the evening before. She looked like a librarian catching someone making out in the stacks.

“Oh, hey,” Shelby said, turning with hopefully a nonguilty smile. “Just checking out the, uh, view.”

Abigail snorted. “No view out that window. I fought like the devil trying to preserve this historical area, but I didn’t win. They built that subdivision last fall. I tried to fence them out and mask the sounds of a busy neighborhood with the water feature out back.”

Shelby moved toward her room, abandoning her own spying on the very interesting Birdie. “Well, my view’s lovely and I didn’t hear anything.”

“I’m lucky most of the rooms face the woods on either side of the house. I haven’t had trouble, but I would have preferred the solitude.” Abigail set the tray on the bedside table. “Nice socks.”

Shelby lifted her foot and wiggled the One Direction socks. “I feel cool, but maybe I’ll leave them for Birdie.”

“Don’t bother. She thinks boy bands are stupid...and boys are disgusting.”

Yeah. Right. “Well, she’s only...eight or nine?”

“Try twelve,” Abigail said with a smile. “A little small for her age.”

Twelve? Shelby thought she had stretched it by suggesting eight. Of course, Shelby didn’t know a lot about elementary-aged kids. Neither of her siblings had procreated, professing no urge to overpopulate the earth—something about the ozone layer and stretch marks. And by the time students hit high school and Shelby’s desks, most had gone through puberty.

“I brought you some oatmeal, a soft boiled egg and dry toast. John said you were sick or something and I didn’t know if you wanted anything rich. I have some Bananas Foster French toast if you’d rather that?”

Oh, yum. Shelby’s stomach growled...but then she thought about the diet guidelines in her healthy pregnancy books. Maybe something low fat and easy on her stomach would be a good idea. “This is fine. Thank you.”

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