Free Dipping In A Toe by Linda Carroll-Bradd

Chapter One
    The minute I pulled into a parking slot at the Lorenzo Community Aquatics Center, both back car doors flew open. Two sets of tennis shoes hit the asphalt and pounding footsteps hit the pavement as my kids sped off. “Bye, Mom.”
    “Careful. Watch out—” I bit my lip to keep from uttering more words of caution. Of course, they’d run—what teen wants to be seen with their mom? Over the last six months, they’d regained their independence and were more spontaneous about venturing from my side. I swallowed against the dry lump threatening to close off my throat.
    The effects of their father’s sudden death three years earlier were finally ebbing—only to present new challenges that I sometimes felt unskilled to tackle. How long before I—Jessa Langdon, struggling single mother—stopped worrying about circumstances I couldn’t change?
    With jerky moves, I gathered my slouch purse and a fluffy beach towel then slammed the door to my ancient compact car and punched the lock on the key fob.
    A late Indian summer heated the northern California air and today promised to be another warm one. For the umpteenth time since putting it on this morning, I tugged at the neckline of my new aqua tank top. An impulse buy on the clearance rack at the department store, the clingy top had a cut lower than I usually wore.
    “Hi, Jessa.” Her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, Christy Simms waited at the gate to the city swimming pool, grinning. “Whoa, looking good.”
    Leave it to a best friend to notice the fashion details. Grinning, I fingered the shirt’s hem. “Thanks. I couldn’t resist the color.” Or the way the top, paired with my white walking shorts, highlighted the tan I’d earned watching Adam and Sadie’s swim team practices for the past two months. The same practices being coached by the first man who’d caught my eye and made my blood pump a bit faster since I became a widow.
    With a nod at Christy, I walked through the open gate and immediately scanned the area for my kids. God, I really had to start thinking of them as teens or youth. They hated the term kids and weren’t shy about telling me so.
    They’d separated into their respective age groups and chatted with their teammates waiting on the pool deck.
    Adam, wiry and brown-haired like his dad, struggled to match the speed of the older boys in the fifteen- to sixteen-year-old group. Sadie, blue-eyed and with a body that copied my more athletic one, was just happy to be with her friends in the twelve-year-old group. Competition wasn’t her thing.
    As if pulled by an invisible thread, my gaze went to the tall, fit man with the ever-present clipboard in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. Normally, an adult wearing tropical-print board shorts and a faded T-shirt appeared to cling with desperation to his youth. Instead, Rick Grant wore the attire as a soldier would a medal of honor—like he’d earned the right to promote a decade earlier Hawaiian surfing competition.
    Maybe he had. The image of his tan, lean body balancing on top of a surfboard flittered through my mind. I pictured him, thinner but still muscular, body sparkling with water droplets, wavy hair streaked with blonde highlights, outlined against a cerulean blue sky. Wonder if he wore a goatee back then? But who was I kidding? This guy was several years younger than I. A heartfelt sigh escaped.
    Christy stopped in her ascent up the metal bleachers, glanced over her shoulder, and cocked her head. “You okay?”
    Caught . I whirled toward the tiered viewing area and set a foot on the lowest step. “I’m fine. Where do you want to sit?” Heat burned my cheeks. I held my long hair away from my face and ducked my head, pretending the need to focus on placing my wedge sandals on each step. I didn’t want the other mothers to learn about my pathetic infatuation with the swim coach.
    An infatuation I kept telling myself was wrong. Didn’t I have enough to do between my