by Laura Drewry
“Me?” he choked.
“Y-yes, you.”
Finn laughed again, soft and low, and was halfway to ecstatic when she finally smiled back at him, her next breath significantly easier than the last.
“Well, okay, then, Pot,” he chuckled. “You want to go there? Let’s go.”
“Oh, don’t even.” Her gaze dropped toward the water, making her cheeks pale, before she blinked hard and looked at him again. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and when he did, it was all he could do to force the words out in a murmur.
“Yeah, you are.”
“And I’m trusting that you’re going to get me onto dry land sometime soon. Like really soon.”
“Soon enough.”
“You’d never—” One more step and her knees were underwater. This time she moved straight past shivering and was in a full-on body shake, but she didn’t back up; she just closed her eyes again and focused on her breathing. “Never trust anyone this much.”
“Sure I would.” It sounded weak even to him, and even though she didn’t call him on it, the small frown puckering her forehead said everything she didn’t.
She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t exactly trusting him completely, either. She hadn’t said a single word about why she was so terrified of water in the first place.
And as much as Finn wanted to know, as much as he believed she’d need to talk about it to truly get over it, he also knew that standing here in the lake with water lapping over her knees, and her fingernails carving semicircles into his hands, was not the best time to bring it up.
So instead he let his gaze drift to her lips, to the way she pressed them lightly together with each intake of breath and then made them into a small “o” with each exhale.
He’d about give his right nut to find out if her mouth was half as soft as it looked. It’d be easy enough to kiss her right there and then. With only about a foot of space between them, he could easily pull her up against his chest, wrap his arms around her, and—
What the fuck?
Wasn’t more than half an hour ago that she’d been on the phone with Sam—who might or might not be her boyfriend again—so what the hell was Finn thinking?
Besides the fact that he’d never horned in on another guy’s girl, this wasn’t just any girl—it was Jess! She’d probably bust his balls if she had any idea what he was thinking, and if she didn’t do it, Liam had made it pretty clear he would.
“What’s wrong?” Jess’s worried voice jarred him back to reality.
“What? Nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
Great. He’d been so busy staring at her lips, he had no idea she’d opened her eyes again.
Jess started moving again, not any deeper but sideways, keeping the water just shy of the hem of her shorts.
“Kinda seemed like you were looking for something to punch,” she said.
She wasn’t far wrong on that, but there was no way he was going to cop to anything. Instead, he chuckled quietly as he turned her around and started walking back the way they’d come. They’d only gone a couple of steps before he stopped so suddenly that water sloshed up the front and back of her shorts.
Silencing her with a raised finger, he strained his ears, trying to decide if he’d actually heard something or not. It was a little hard to hear anything over the sound of his heart thrashing in his chest, but, yup, that was definitely a twig snapping. And that was most definitely a voice.
“Someone’s coming.” He didn’t even wait for Jess to react, just scooped her into his arms and hustled up to where she’d dropped her stuff.
He refused to think about how stupid he must look hauling her out of the water as if he were a character in one of those What’s-His-Name Sparks movies she liked so much. ’Course, if he really was the dude in one of those movies, he’d be rolling around with her on that damn towel right about now instead of dumping her there and running off, barefoot, down the trail.
It took him all of about twenty seconds to convince Marlene and Norma that they’d better turn around and head to their cabin, but by the time he got back to Jess, she’d already pulled her sweatpants over her shorts and was tugging on her boots.
“Do you not have pain sensors in your feet?” she asked, pointing down at the rocks. “You walk over them like you’re walking on plush carpet instead of on the razor-sharp little bits of hell that they are.”
He knew exactly how sharp the damn things were, but he wasn’t about to tell her that, because if he did, she’d lose that slightly amazed expression on her face. And he liked it when she looked at him like that—even if it was only for something stupid like this.
But holy mother of God, his feet were happy when he finally slid them back into his sneakers.
“It was just Marlene and Norma out for a walk,” he said. “I turned them around.”
“What’d you do, tell them they weren’t allowed down here?”
“No. I told them there’s a bear and her cub wandering around down here.”
“So you lied.”
“Wow,” he laughed. “Again with the trust issues.”
Dropping to a squat, he pulled her down next to him and pointed out across the lake, about a quarter of the way around from them. It was hard to see anything but shadows at first, then slowly, as they watched, the low-growing bushes started to move, until, sure enough, the sow’s big black head moved into the last weak thread of daylight.
He knew the instant Jess saw her, because she wrapped her hand around his forearm and sucked in a breath.
The funny thing was, she was the one who’d made Liam add the bear-aware info to his welcome speech, and she’d be the first one to stand up and tell everyone who set foot on their island that the best thing to do was to make lots of noise so the bears know you’re around and to give them as much space as possible.
But what she told guests to do and what she did herself were usually two different things, and if Finn didn’t get her out of here, she’d no doubt stay all night—or at least until the bear ate her.
“Come on,” he said. “Before they realize you smell better than that berry bush.”
For a second there, he let himself believe he hadn’t actually said that out loud, but then Jess’s gaze met his and she snorted as she pushed to her feet.
“Well, jeez, I sure as hell hope I smell better than something every animal on the island has probably peed on.”
Laughing, he tugged her towel out of her grasp and waved her toward the path ahead of him before he said something else stupid.
But walking downwind of her wasn’t helping, because, damn, she smelled good.
Chapter 7
“Spare the rod, spoil the day.”
Finn’s first group consisted of Les and Ken Dryden, the brothers from Tacoma, and the three women from Edmonton, who made it clear right from the start that they weren’t even a little bit happy about being up so early and that they had no intention of doing anything other than relaxing. And they chose to do most of their relaxing up on the bow.
The good thing about that was it gave Les and Ken plenty of room on the stern to work their rods; the bad thing about it was that the women’s idea of relaxing meant talking pretty much nonstop all day, and there wasn’t a single topic that was off-limits.
They’d paid the same money as everyone to be out on the water, so if they wanted to talk about the “performance problems” Patsy’s boyfriend had the night before she left, or the pros and cons of threading versus waxing (Finn didn’t even want to know what that meant), that was their prerogative, but it sure made for some awkward moments for the men.
Finn had never had a situation like this on his boat before; people didn’t pay not to fish at the Buoys, and they sure as hell never lounged across the bow of his boat in the hopes of catching rays instead of salmon.
During a particularly uncomfortable discussion, where Jacqui was detailing her night
with some dude she picked up at a club a few weeks earlier, Ken and Les both chuckled quietly and offered Finn sympathetic looks.
“Nothing you can do about it,” Ken murmured. “If it was guys talking like that, we probably wouldn’t even notice.”
He was right, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. Halfway through their day, Finn even offered to run the women back to the lodge, but they declined, saying they were quite happy where they were.
It was the first time Finn could ever remember counting the minutes until he could turn the boat around and head in. It was also the first time he ever asked Jess to rejuggle the groups.
And as she did with everything else around the Buoys, Jess had everyone sorted out lickety-split, with minimal inconvenience to any of them. The next morning, Finn’s boat left right on time, loaded down with his scheduled six passengers, plus the added Ken and Les, while Kate got to sleep in because her three passengers were only too happy to wait for the sun to get a little higher before they headed out.
The weather held, the fish were biting, and spirits were high, making it infinitely easier for Finn to make damn good and sure everyone on Fishin’ Impossible had a great day.
He made sure he enjoyed it, too, because he knew his turn with the three Green-cabin women was coming again, and going by Kate’s expression when she met Finn later in the restaurant, it wasn’t something he was looking forward to one little bit.
“Good luck tomorrow,” she muttered. “And you better not make plans to be anywhere at a specific time. You’ll be lucky to pull away from the dock before noon.”
Sure enough, it was well after ten the next morning and Finn was still pacing the length of the lobby, waiting for the three women.
“The day’s wasting away,” he muttered. “Where the hell are they?”
“Relax,” Jess said, laughing lightly as she pointed out the front window. “They’re coming up now.”
“ ’Bout damn time.” He pulled the door open, then twisted to look over his shoulder. “You better have a pint ready for me when I get back.”
“I always do.”
And just like that, his foul mood melted, because she was right; somehow she always seemed to know when to have a pint ready for him.
His mood was so much better that he actually waited until the three women made it up to the lodge so he could wish them a good morning before heading down to his boat.
“Grab some breakfast and meet me down on the dock,” he said, even managing a smile. “We’ll leave in fifteen. See ya, Jess.”
The door swung shut slowly behind him but not before he heard one of them whistle quietly, followed by Jacqui’s clear, unapologetic voice.
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
Finn didn’t hang around to hear anything else, just headed down to his boat and waited. And waited.
Well over an hour later, he finally steered Fishin’ Impossible through Fitzhugh Sound and out toward the open water that had always been his refuge, the place he always felt free.
At least that’s how it used to be, right up until he found himself saddled with three early-twenty-somethings who weren’t happy to lounge up on the bow this time but chose to crowd around the helm while he piloted them around Calvert Island.
“So Jessie says you’re single, is that right?”
Patsy shimmied over in her seat to let Jacqui squeeze in beside her, while Charlotte stood between their seat and Finn’s, holding on to the backs.
“Uh, yeah,” Finn said, a little warily. “That would be right.”
“Jacqui’s single, too.”
“Patsy!” Charlotte croaked.
“What? I’m just saying; in case he was wondering—”
“I wasn’t.” Finn tried to keep his voice gentle but firm. “But thank you.”
“Are you gay?”
The rest of his day probably would have been a hell of a lot easier if he’d said yes. Instead, he spent far too much of the afternoon politely deflecting Patsy’s attempts to get him and Jacqui together.
Yes, he was sure Jacqui was a great girl, yes, she was pretty (in truth, she was supermodel gorgeous), but, no, he still wasn’t going to hook up with her.
“Company policy,” he lied.
“Enough already, Pats,” Charlotte said with a click of her tongue. “You sound like her pimp, and you’re making all of us look like idiots.”
Finally—someone with an ounce of sense.
For her part, Jacqui just laughed every time Patsy lobbed another question at him. Finn tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, but the three of them weren’t the least bit interested in the history of the area, the cruise ships heading past them on their way to Alaska, or the pods of whales they passed. Apparently they’d already seen whales and dolphins the day before with Kate and they were of the “seen one whale you’ve seen them all” school of thinking.
They weren’t even the least bit impressed that Sam Ross was going to be filming his show at the Buoys, because they didn’t know who Sam Ross was.
The only thing that helped Finn stay sane was that at the top of every hour, Jess would radio in to check on them. He doubted that Jacqui and the others could tell, but there was no question Jess was trying not to laugh at him every time she radioed in; he didn’t care, though, because the sound of her voice for those few moments got him through the next hour until she radioed again.
“So tell me, Patsy,” he said. “Why come all the way up to a fishing lodge if none of you want to fish?”
“Easy. We had to get Charlotte somewhere her dingledorf of a fiancé couldn’t reach her by cellphone, and your place was the farthest we could afford.”
A quick glance over his shoulder showed Charlotte looking about as miserable as a girl could.
“Hey,” he said. “Anytime you want to call him, Jess has a landline in the office. Help yourself.”
And just like that, her frown melted.
Finn stopped the boat at least a dozen times, hoping they’d want to throw out a line somewhere, but they never did. All they wanted to do was ride around in the boat and talk—but at least they’d stopped talking about him getting together with Jacqui. And he was so thankful for that, he didn’t even care that they went into great detail about how awful Patsy’s last period had been.
Exhausted, his head pounding, Finn almost cheered when the dock finally came into sight again. But just when he thought he’d be free of them, they putzed around for almost another fifteen minutes, laughing and collecting their stuff after he’d secured Fishin’ Impossible to its spot.
“Too bad,” Patsy sighed, as he finally helped her off the boat. “I bet you and Jacqui would be great together.”
Finn hoped he wasn’t expected to respond to that, because he didn’t. Jacqui, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious.
“She says that to every guy she tries to hook me up with.”
Still stuck for a response, all he could manage was a tip of his head and a tight forced smile.
“Great day, Finn, thanks!” Charlotte waved back at him as she hurried after her friends, leaving him to wonder if she was actually serious or if she was messing with him.
He’d rather have an ice pick shoved through his ear than spend another day like that. The only good thing about it was that Jess not only kept her promise to have a pint waiting for him, she brought it down to him while he cleaned up his boat.
“They leave tomorrow,” she said.
If anyone else had laughed at him like that, he probably would’ve clocked them, but for reasons he refused to let himself think about, hearing her soft breathy laugh loosened some of the knots in his neck and eased a little of the pounding in his head.
He knew Jess wouldn’t join him on the boat, so he hopped out and they sat side by side on the dock, she cross-legged, he with his feet dangling over the side.
After a long pull on his beer, he set the glass down, then lay back on the deck and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
&n
bsp; “God, I must be getting old.”
“Easy there,” Jess warned. “We’re the same age.”
“I sure don’t remember girls being like that when I was that age.”
“Like what? Confident? Bold?”
“I was going to say brazen and scary.” He bent his knees up, then pulled himself to a sit again. “Nothing’s off-limits anymore, is it? It’s like…I don’t know…it’s like they don’t have a filter; they just blurt out whatever’s on their mind, whether it’s appropriate or not.”
“Appropriate?” Jess snorted. “Now, that makes you sound old.”
Finn shook his head slowly as he blew out a low breath. “Maybe, but I learned more about Patsy’s period today than the three of them combined learned about baiting a hook.”
He was serious, but the sound of Jess’s laugh again had him laughing, too.
“Sounds like you’ve had a day of it,” she snickered. “Why don’t you take the night off after dinner and we’ll—”
“No!” He didn’t mean to bark like that, but it didn’t matter what his day had been like—he wasn’t giving up those few minutes alone with Jess in the lake for anything.
“You sure?” A tiny frown puckered her forehead as she stared back at him, no doubt looking for the slightest hint of hesitation from him.
“Absolutely,” he said. “So don’t even think about standing me up.”
It took a few seconds, but her frown slowly smoothed out.
“Okay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’ll see you there.”
She pushed to her feet and headed up toward the lodge, leaving Finn sitting there staring after her, watching the way her hips swayed ever so slightly and the way her hair blew out behind her in the wind.
He didn’t even realize he was smiling until she looked over her shoulder and smiled back at him.
—
This would be their fifth time in the lake, and even though she knew she was making progress, Jessie was already getting impatient with herself. She’d managed to get in waist-deep, but all she’d done so far was walk around in the water, clutching Finn’s hands for dear life.