Deadline (Sandra Brown)

called, was a college student majoring in elementary education. Having grown up in landlocked Kansas, spending three months on an Atlantic beach was her idea of heaven. She’d come with impeccable references.
    Having Stef living with them, and more or less on call twenty-four/seven, had enabled Amelia to live in her beach house on Saint Nelda’s Island for the entire summer, rather than having to go back and forth between the island and the mainland only for weekend stays. Stef kept the boys occupied while Amelia worked in her upstairs office for a few hours each day. If her presence at the museum was required, she had child care while she made the round trip to Savannah by ferry.
    Thanking Stef for the drinks, Amelia thought again what a godsend the young woman had been. The boys adored her, but, being no pushover, she was strict about baths, bedtime, and behavior. During the day, she kept them busy and entertained with educational projects and ample playtime.
    An easy relationship had developed between the two women, more like a friendship than that of employee and employer. As she passed Amelia a bottled iced tea, Stef shook her head with derision. “Beats me why you come to the beach at all, covering up as you do. You look like Lawrence of Arabia.”
    Amelia didn’t take offense, but laughed with self-deprecation as she plucked at the damp hem of her sheer caftan. “I used to tan when I was younger.”
    “I know it’s bad for you. But I love to be bronzed.”
    Amelia assessed Stef’s voluptuous shape, barely contained inside the two pieces of her bikini. “Bronze looks good on you,” she said, to which Stef laughed.
    After lunch and as soon as Amelia had slathered the boys with more sunscreen, they grabbed their pails and shovels and headed toward the shoreline. “Don’t get in the water until I’m down there,” she called after them.
    “Want me to take a shift?” Stef asked.
    “Thanks, but they haven’t had much time with me the past few days. I’ll stay with them if you’ll go to the store.”
    “Sure. I saw your list on the kitchen counter. I added plastic wrap. Have you thought of anything else?”
    “Lightbulbs. The one on the back porch is out. And don’t rush back. I’ve been gone a lot this week. You deserve some ‘you’ time, and I need quality time with the boys.”
    “Thanks, boss.” She saluted Amelia as she started toward the dunes that separated the house from the beach.
    Amelia joined Hunter and Grant and together they waded into the surf. “I thought this beach ball had a leak,” she remarked as she tossed it to Hunter. The last time she’d seen the colorfully striped ball, it had been lying deflated in a corner of the porch.
    “It got fixed.”
    “Did you thank Stef for doing that?”
    “She didn’t do it. It just got fixed,” he said. Then, “Watch, Mom!”
    He executed a belly dive, which Grant imitated and came up choking. They played in the shallows until they were good and pruney, then trooped back onto shore, where Amelia oversaw the building of a sand castle, complete with turrets and a surrounding moat that she filled with seawater. “A moat was used to protect the castle from attacking enemies.”
    “And dragons,” Grant said.
    Hunter rolled his eyes. “There aren’t any dragons, stupid.”
    “Are too!”
    “Hunter, don’t call your brother stupid,” Amelia said. “Never. Understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am. But tell him that dragons are make-believe.”
    “Well, make-believe or not,” she said, “this moat is keeping them out.”
    Later, they lay on the quilt in the shade of the umbrella while she read to them from two storybooks. Before she finished the second one, Grant had fallen asleep, his head in her lap. Hunter rolled over onto his tummy and pillowed his head on his folded arms. In seconds, he, too, was asleep.
    Amelia set the books aside and gazed at the two loves of her life. Hunter’s hair was dark and grew in undisciplined swirls around his head, as her father’s had. Grant’s hair was straighter and lighter with the russet tint of hers.
    Both had blue eyes, a genetic gift. She was glad she didn’t have to look into their eyes and see Jeremy’s. Although, she had once found his dark eyes extremely attractive. It seemed another lifetime ago that he had looked at her with love and adoration. It was another lifetime ago. The last time he’d fixed his eyes on her, they’d been filled with hatred and wrath.
    Pushing the