The French language didn’t bother her as much, now that she was in love and being taught Evan’s native tongue. She actually looked forward to hearing him speak French. Leah lifted her chin, shrugging her head to one side. “I believe you.” She didn’t really, but it was one of those things that it was pointless to argue about.
Leah mentally picked out the words she could easily recognize — très bien and français — and was able to piece together the rest of the sentence. She smiled at her own accomplishment. “Merci beaucoup.”
Leah laughed lightly at his indignation, her prior annoyance already faded. “If it bothered me any more than it did, my warning would’ve been a lot more severe,” she said in a mockingly serious tone.
Marigold smiled and nodded her agreement when Evan called her a princess. It made Leah snort a soft laugh. “She certainly is. A lot more royal than her mommy is, anyway.” Way more of a girly girl than Leah had expected. It was taking some getting used to because she wasn’t really on the up-and-up with girly things, but it was worth it when it came to her daughter.
“It’s a good kingdom,” Marigold answered, patting one of the walls of the sandcastle for emphasis. She left behind a hand-shaped dent in the sand wall. The girl found this funny and began tapping the handprint with her plastic shovel.
Leah had to turn her head away from the scene so that she wouldn’t burst out laughing. As it was, her shoulders shook with silent laughter. The moment was beyond adorable, with the four-year-old giving Evan a pretend lecture on the consequences of tickling. She took a deep breath to settle her amusement and turned back to face the other two as if nothing funny had happened at all.
Her smile became thoughtful when she realized how often they had to resort to giving Marigold a distraction in order to have some semi-private time. With Ben, she probably wouldn’t have had to think twice about it, but she had to wonder if it would start to bother Evan that he was essentially guaranteed no time alone with her anymore.
Pushing those thoughts away, she leaned over and dipped her head to the side to give him a kiss. “I’m enjoying myself as much as I can while trying not to think about how the rest of our families are back at Sing Sing.” A weekend vacation was a lot different than a night spent in a different safehouse in New York, or the day Leah had spent with Evan and David hunting for a bear in another state.
Smirking, Leah used the back of her hand to brush some flecks of sand from Evan’s face. “The beach is nice, even if I do have sand creeping into unmentionable places.”