Breathless Magic by Rachel Higginson

of my soul. I was
pissed, I didn’t have time for this first thing in the morning and no doubt we
were going to be late for school- again.
    I slipped off my
pajama pants, hoping whoever had moved into the house- if they were watching-
would be more concerned with the little girl on the verge of drowning than me
flashing my black, bikini briefs at them over morning coffee. I said a few more
choice curses and then dove into the barely warm water after my second born.
    I surfaced, sputtering
water and shivering from the cool morning air pebbling my skin. “Abigail, when
I get you out of this pool, you are going to be in so much trouble.”
    “Ok,” she agreed
happily. “But first you have to catch me.”
    She proceeded to swim
around me in circles while I reached out helplessly for her. First thing I was
doing when I got out of this pool was throwing away every electronic device in
our house just to teach her a lesson. Then I was going to sign her up for a
swim team- because the little hellion was very, very fast.
    We struggled like this
for a few more minutes, well I struggled, she splashed at me and laughed at my
efforts to wrangle her.
    I was aware of a
presence hovering by the edge of the pool but I was equally too embarrassed as
I was preoccupied to look. Images of walking my children into school late
again, kept looping through my head and I cringed at the dirty looks I was
bound to get from teachers and other parents alike.
    “You look hungry,” a
deep masculine voice announced from above me.
    I whipped my head
around to find an incredibly tall man standing by my discarded pajama pants
holding two beach towels and a box of Poptarts in one
arm, while he munched casually on said Poptarts with
the other.
    “I look hungry?” I
screeched in hysterical anger.
    His eyes flickered
down at me for just a second, “No, you look mad.” He pointed at Abby, who had
come to a stop next to me, treading water again with her short child-sized
limbs waving wildly in the water. “She looks hungry.” He grinned at me, his
mouth full of food, and then looked back at Abby. “Want a Poptart ?
They’re brown sugar.”
    Abby nodded excitedly
and swam to the edge of the pool. Not even using the ladder, she heaved herself
out of the water and ran over to the stranger holding out his breakfast to her.
He handed her a towel and she hastily draped it around her shoulders and then
took the offered Poptart .
    A million warnings
about taking food from strangers ran through my head, but in the end I decided
getting us out of his pool was probably more important to him than offing his
brand new neighbors with poisoned Poptarts .
    With a defeated sigh I
swam over to the ladder closest to my pants and robe, then pulled myself from
the water. I was a dripping, limp mess and I was frozen to the bone after my
body adjusted to the temperature of the water.
    Abby took her Poptart and plopped down on one of the loungers that were
still stacked and wrapped in plastic. She began munching on it happily,
grinning at me like she’d just won the lottery.
    She was in so much
trouble.
    I walked over to the
stranger, eying him skeptically. He held out his remaining beach towel to me
and after realizing I was just in a soaking wet tank top and bikini briefs, I
took it quickly and wrapped it around my body. I was shivering, and my dark
blonde hair dripped down my face and back; but I didn’t dare adjust the towel,
afraid I’d give him more of a show than he’d paid for.
    “Good morning,” he
laughed at me.
    “Good morning,” I
replied slowly, carefully.
    Up close, he wasn’t the giant I’d originally thought. Now
that we were both ground level, I could see that even while he was tall, at
least six inches taller than me, he wasn’t freakishly tall- which relieved some
of my concerns. He still wore his pajamas: blue cotton pants and a white
t-shirt that had been stretched out from sleep. He had almost black hair that
appeared still mussed and