by Jill Shalvis
And not on purpose.
From the beach rose a collective “Ooooh…”
Kenna winced and shook her head. “That’s gonna hurt.”
Jacob whipped the boat around with impressive skill and hit the gas hard to get back to his brother quickly.
“Progress,” Kenna said. “In the old days, the harder they wiped out, the harder the other one would point and laugh.”
The boat pulled up alongside Hud, who vehemently shook his head.
“He doesn’t want to get back in the boat,” Kenna translated. “He wants to go again.”
“So he’s crazy too,” Sophie said.
“Crazy as they come,” Kenna said.
Jacob stood up from the captain’s chair, strode to the stern of the boat, and started pulling Hud in by the tow rope.
“And as you can see,” Kenna said dryly, “Jacob disagrees with Hud.”
From in the water Hud yelled something at Jacob.
Jacob kept towing Hud in.
So Hud let go of the rope.
Kenna laughed softly. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the Kincaids get their stubborn-ass reputation from.”
On the boat, Jacob tossed up his hands and returned to the boat’s controls. A minute later, Hud was back up on the surface of the water, once again hotdogging it behind the boat.
“Remember that time we sneaked out and borrowed a friend’s boat?” Kenna asked Gray.
“We were all punk-asses,” Gray said with a fond smile.
“Hud tried for a flip on the water,” Kenna told Sophie, “and face-planted instead. Jacob had to dive in and save him, then ride him to the ER on his bike’s handlebars. At that time we were being raised by Char, Aidan and Gray’s mom. She yelled at us something fierce when she finally got to the ER and then burst into tears.”
“We thought we’d gotten off scot-free,” Gray said.
“But hell no,” Kenna said. “Char’s got a softie side, but she’s also got a spine made of sheer steel. We were all grounded from life for a month.”
“I got two months,” Gray said. “Because I was oldest and supposedly knew better.”
Kenna laughed.
Gray smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I never knew better.”
“Still don’t,” Kenna said.
Five minutes later the boat had made a huge circle on the lake, stopping too far out for them to see what was going on. They’d shifted positions, Sophie realized. This time Hud was driving.
Jacob was now behind the boat on a wakeboard. He was wearing a life vest and board shorts that were wet and clinging to his body, plastered against him from the wind and speed. Going what seemed like a hundred miles an hour, he maneuvered right into the boat’s wake and…popped up in the air like he’d been shot out of a canon, his body fluid as he literally flew up, up, up and then…holy crap, executed a three-sixty before landing lithely back onto the surface of the water.
Stunned, Sophie stood there gaping.
“I used to be able do that,” one of the guys playing Frisbee golf said from his wheelchair, voice nostalgic.
Kenna reached for his hand. “Don’t even worry about it,” she told him. “Girls will like you better now that you’re not a show-off.”
The guy slipped an arm around her with a shy but hopeful smile. “Want to prove it by going out with me tonight?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “First round’s on me.”
The other guys groaned, and someone whispered, “Ah, man, I didn’t know we could ask her out!”
Mitch, who was standing close by, looked at Kenna for a long beat, his jaw a little tight, his smile definitely not matching the fire in his eyes.
“Sorry, boys,” she said to everyone else, although her gaze was locked on Mitch. “You snooze, you lose.”
Mitch swore, strode straight for her and yanked her into his arms, planting a hard kiss right on her mouth. When he pulled back an inch, he said, “The move has always been yours, since the night you let me into and then kicked me out of your bed, and you know it.”
“Hey, man, sorry,” the guy in the wheelchair said. “I didn’t know. She’s all yours.”
Kenna narrowed her gaze on Mitch. “We both agreed that night was stupid and that we’d never tell another soul.”
“The move is yours,” Mitch repeated. “Use it or lose it.” And then he walked away.
Kenna stared after him.
“You going to use it?” Sophie asked.
Kenna was still watching Mitch go, her expression filled with both longing and fear. “I can’t.”
Sophie reached out to touch her, but Kenna shrugged her off. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I need a moment.” And then she, too, was gone, leaving Sophie sure of only one thing.
She wasn’t the only chicken in Cedar Ridge.
Chapter 27
When the sun began to sink in the sky, Jacob lit a bonfire and then sat with Hud and Chris. He was feeling a little sunburned and a whole lot tired, but also pumped up, like he’d been a part of something really great today, something that had reached deep inside to the heart he’d kept locked up as tight as he could get it.
He and Hud had nearly killed themselves behind the boat earlier, trying to best each other, and it had felt so much like old times that he could hardly believe it.
How had he stayed away so long?
Why had he stayed away so long? It was getting so that his reasons no longer made any sense at all.
And having Chris here today meant the world to him, showed him that in spite of not being able to see it for so long, there was life after combat.
And he wanted that life, badly.
His gaze sought out Sophie, who was with Kenna—and shit, Hud was right: That combo was guaranteed trouble. The two of them were directing what looked like a very serious competition of horseshoes.
As if she could feel his gaze, Sophie turned her head and unerringly found him. Right in the middle of her horseshoe game, she cocked her head at him and silently but effectively asked across the span of one hundred feet, What’s wrong?
Was she kidding? She’d given him this. Chris. Laughter with Hud. The feeling of being important to her.
Don’t let your glass be half empty…
Remembering that, he shook his head and smiled at her. In response she sent her best, sexy, happy, two-hundred-watt smile before she turned back to her game.
A local band that was donating their time had set up on the dock behind them and was warming up. More food had arrived and was being barbecued and spread out for dinner. They all ate together, laughing at the pics Sophie had gone around and taken during the day and then projected with her laptop onto a makeshift screen of canvas she’d commandeered from one of the tents.
She amazed him, completely amazed him.
“You should marry her,” Hud said, coming back from the food table with his second plate, sitting next to Jacob with their old ease. “Because if you don’t, I know at least two guys who would.”
WTF. “Who?”
Hud grinned at him.
“Who?” Jacob demanded.
“Mitch and Chris, for starters.”
Just because Mitch was an old family friend who’d become invaluable to the resort over the past few years wouldn’t stop Jacob from pounding him into the ground if he made a move on Sophie.
Chris would be tougher to beat, but he’d find a way.
The band had kicked into play and more than a few people were dancing. Chris tugged one of the resort workers out there and made a move, pulling her along to the music. Gray did the same with Penny.
Mitch approached Kenna and Jacob braced for Kenna to punch the guy, but to Jacob’s surprise, she stood up. “You want to dance with me?” she asked.
“Actually,” Mitch said, “I want to date you until you’re convinced you’re mine, something I’ve known forever. And then I want to put a ring on your finger so the whole world knows. But yeah, I’ll settle for a dance for now.”
Kenna s
tared at him for a long beat, and then she did the most amazing thing. She smiled a warm, sweet, adorable smile that Jacob hadn’t seen for a very, very long time. And then she put her hand in Mitch’s and let him lead her to the dance floor.
“What the hell?” Jacob asked.
Hud grinned. “Love’s in the air, man,” and with that, he went after Bailey, snatching her by the wrist, tugging her in to him.
Everywhere, guys were claiming their women left and right. Or, more accurately, their women were allowing themselves to be claimed. Jacob knew one woman he wouldn’t mind being claimed by and sought her out in the crowd, finding her slow dancing with—shit—Chris now.
They were looking pretty cozy too. As Jacob walked up to them, Sophie was laughing at something Chris had just said while Chris held her way too close. The ass saw Jacob coming, too, and kept Sophie tight to him, shooting Jacob an innocent grin over her shoulder. “Go get your own woman, Kincaid,” he said.
“That’s what I’m doing. Get your mitts off what’s mine.”
Laughing, Chris brushed a kiss to Sophie’s cheek and walked away.
Good man.
Sophie didn’t move into Jacob’s arms. She stood there, brow arched. “Get your mitts off what’s yours?” she repeated with more than a hint of disbelief.
“We’ve had this talk.” He tugged her in to him. “You are mine.”
Her arms were still crossed. A barrier between them. “And?” she inquired.
He smiled into her chilly features. “And I’m yours.”
She softened at that, letting her arms fall to her sides. “One more question,” she said.
“Go.”
“Were you really upset that I was dancing with Chris?”
“No,” he said, and paused. “You made him smile.”
She stared at him for a moment before she touched him, her hands gliding up to tighten around his neck as she pressed her face to his throat.
As she relaxed in his arms, he let the beat of the music carry them around for a few minutes. It was ridiculous, but he wanted the song to go on forever just so that he didn’t have to lose contact with the feel of her skin.
She wriggled in a little, like maybe she didn’t want it to end either, like she couldn’t get close enough. Tightening his grip on her, he was just about to whisper a naughty nothing in her ear when he felt the wetness of tears against his skin.
And his heart dropped straight out of his chest. “Hey,” he said quietly. “What’s this?”
She shook her head and kept her face buried against him, clearly struggling for composure. He waited her out, holding on to her with a grip he hoped conveyed some of his feelings since his mouth had never been any good at doing that for him.
Finally she gave a last sniff and lifted her head. “You make me smile too.”
“You sure? Because at the moment, it looks like I made you cry.”
Her eyes filled again, but she blinked back the tears. “It’s a good cry,” she whispered.
She killed him. “Soph,” he whispered, swiping a thumb over her cheek.
She shook her head again and looked at him, eyes clear now. “And just so we’re clear, I wouldn’t have been so gracious about you slow dirty dancing with someone else.”
“No?” he asked, finding that kernel of knowledge fascinating. And also a little hot. “What would have happened?”
“Well, for starters, I’d be appropriately grief stricken at your funeral.”
He burst out laughing.
Smiling, she slipped her arms around his neck. “But realistically? I’m happy to have you,” she said. “For the duration.”
It was the second time she’d made the distinction. Definitely time to put that to bed. “How about for as long as it works instead?”
She just looked at him for a long beat, and then without saying a word, set her head on his shoulder and sighed, cuddling in like everything was okay in her world.
And it sure as hell was in his. He opened his mouth to say so, but one of the Wounded Warriors cut in. And after that, Gray cut in. And then the music slowed again and he claimed her back with a scowl that made Gray smirk.
Flipping his brother off, Jacob tugged Sophie out onto the sandy beach for privacy. There he pulled her into his arms, where they swayed to the music drifting over them in tune to the water slapping the shore.
Pressed up against her warm, giving body, he couldn’t think of another place in the entire world he’d rather be, and when she sighed in sheer pleasure, he hoped that meant she felt the same.
She smiled against his throat. “Pretty nice day,” she said.
“Better than nice,” he murmured, and stroked a finger along her jaw, lifting her face to his. Her eyes were deep, dark, and full of things, things she felt for him, he realized, his heart taking a good, hard knock against his ribs. “What you did for me today, getting Chris here—”
“That was all Hud and Aidan,” she said.
“No,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “It started with you, and I can’t even find the words to tell you what it means to me that you did that. I didn’t realize a part of me was broken. Not until I saw Chris looking whole and…okay.”
Her eyes shimmered with emotion. “You found the words just fine,” she whispered, and gave him a soft smile, holding his gaze until it was…too much, and he dropped it to look at her mouth instead.
Her lips curved slowly, and he kissed her. And then again, still moving her to the beat, his body shifting against her in a way that had her letting out a soft moan, which he caught with his mouth.
“Let’s go home,” he said against those lips.
“The party—”
“Is going to be fine without us.”
She lifted her head and stared at him, and he did the best he could to look like something she couldn’t live without. When she smiled and took his hand, he felt like he’d just won an amazing prize.
Chapter 28
Jacob brought Sophie to his cabin, a place that felt more like home to him than any other place ever had. And if he played his cards right and also got very, very lucky, it might someday be the place she felt that way about as well.
He left the lights off. He opened the windows so that they could hear the music from the beach but kept the shutters closed enough that no one could see in. Then he slowly pulled Sophie in to him. They spent long moments swaying to the beat before he nudged her face to his and kissed her.
When they broke apart for air, he stared into her eyes and felt his heart roll over in his chest and expose its underbelly. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that, Jacob. I’m here. I’m a sure thing tonight.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “I’ll cancel the string quartet and five dozen roses about to be delivered, and I’ll stop wondering if you’re going to be scared off by the ten cases of condoms I just bought.”
She laughed, her fingers smoothing their way up his chest, around his shoulders, and into his hair, making him want to purr. “Ten cases, huh?” she teased. “Cocky much?”
“Okay, maybe just one case. And it’s called ‘hopeful.’”