Sunny Says by Jan Hudson Read Free Book Online Page A

bottled
water to drink. At least I didn’t get cholera or dysentery.”
    “Sounds grim.”
    “Foreign news events don’t
always develop near a luxury hotel.”
    Sunny had the strangest urge to
smooth the lines on his brow with her thumb and stroke his rumpled hair.
Instead she took a sip of beer. “Where are you going when you leave Corpus?”
    He shrugged. “It depends on what’s
happening in two weeks. Could be anywhere.” He stretched out sideways on the
beach towel and propped his head on his hand. “Tell me about this niece we’re
collecting shells for.”
    She smiled, thinking about her. “She’s
eight, the daughter of my oldest sister, and my namesake.”
    “You have another Sunny in the
family?”
    “No, my name is really Virginia .”
    He scanned her face and frowned.
“ Virginia doesn’t suit you. Why are you called Sunny?”
    “Because I was such a happy
baby. My dad started calling me Little Miss Sunshine, which got shortened to
Sunny, and it stuck. I’ve always been cheerful.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Unlike
some people I could name.”
    “We can’t all be cheerleaders,
Little Miss Sunshine.”
    “I was never a cheerleader,” she
informed him.
    “Why not? You’re a natural for
jumping around and shaking pom-poms at the Friday night football games.”
    “Shows what you know. On Friday
nights I was too busy making hot dogs and hamburgers at the local Dairy Queen.
With six kids in the family, everybody had to help if we wanted school clothes
and food on the table.” She jumped up. “Speaking of food, the coals should be
ready. I’m starved.”
    *    *    *
    After they’d eaten and had
another beer, they expanded their exploration in a direction different from the
one they’d tried earlier, walking a mile or more south of the car.
    “Oh, look,” she squealed,
kneeling in the sand. “We’ve hit pay dirt.” She picked up several shells and
added them to her bag. They gathered specimens for another half hour, walking
farther south in their search.
    “How about this one?” Kale held
out his hand to show her his find.
    “Oh, it’s a sand dollar, and it’s
absolutely perfect. I wish we had time to look for more, but we’d better go
back to the car. We’ve come a long way, and it’s going to start raining in a
few minutes.”
    He looked up at the placid sky
and frowned. “It’s not going to rain.”
    “Yes, it is. Trust me.”
    “It’s not going to rain.
I checked with the Weather Service. Let’s see if we can find another sand
dollar.”
    “But, Kale—”
    He glowered at her.
    She shrugged. “If you don’t mind
getting wet, I certainly won’t melt, but I’d hate for the inside of the
convertible to get soggy.”
    “It’s not going to rain.”
    “That’s not what my ear says,”
she mumbled, tugging at her left lobe.
    “Your ear ? What does your
ear have to do with anything?”
    She sighed. “Never mind.”
    “No, I want to know exactly what
in the hell you’re—”
    A sudden hard gust caught her
hat and snatched it from her head. “My hat!” she yelped, making a grab for it.
    “I’ll get it,” Kale yelled, but
it sailed past him. He thrust his bag of shells into her hand, ran, and lunged
for the tumbling straw, but another gust lifted it and swept it toward the
dunes.
    They both scuttled up the high
sandbank after it. Kale made a flying tackle, but the wind whisked the elusive
quarry from his grasp, and he landed on his face. He cursed, spit sand, and
shoved himself to his feet.
    “There it goes!” Sunny shouted,
laughing and tearing up the crest of another dune.
    The yellow straw hat seemed
alive, playing tag like a mischievous fairy, waiting for them to catch up, then
soaring away as they neared.
    They spied the yellow rascal at
the top of another dune, caught in a bit of vine with chiffon streamers
fluttering in the breeze, teasing and taunting.
    “I’ve got you now,” Kale ground
out, muttering curses and scrambling up the embankment