Lady of the Lake

by Erin McCarthy

  It was damn depressing.

  “Take your bikini top off,” he said.

  “What?” Oh Lord, it just figured. Why did things like this happen to her? She was a good girl. She was nice to her neighbors. She taught small children. She paid her bills on time. She led perhaps the most boring life in all of humanity outside of a penitentiary prisoner, and yet she had managed to fall off a boat and get rescued by a pervert. “No!”

  “You’re shivering, you have goose bumps.” He pointed to her bump-covered arms. “And you’ve been in the water for who knows how long. Take your wet top off and put on my dry T-shirt.” He held it out to her.

  “Oh.” He didn’t want to see her breasts. He didn’t care about her breasts, any more than Frank did. Violet wondered why she’d spent so much time camouflaging her overgrown chest if it faded into the wallpaper just like the rest of her. Not that she should care. She should be glad that he wasn’t looking at her breasts. Somehow that message wasn’t quite making its way to her brain, though, because she felt mildly offended.

  “Thank you.” She took the T-shirt and dried her glasses off on it. The clarity of her vision when she popped them back on her nose made her wish she’d lost them altogether. Oh, my he was hot.

  “Your boyfriend is an asshole,” he said.

  “Well, he doesn’t mean to be,” Violet assured him.

  He scoffed. “You shouldn’t let him treat you like that.”

  “It was an accident.” And why was she defending Frank? She’d already decided she wasn’t going to see him again. Sperm wasn’t worth this level of humiliation.

  “I would notice if you fell overboard. He should have, too.”

  Yeah, sure he would have noticed. Please. Violet knew the kind of woman she was. She was the kind of woman whom men only saw when they sat down across from her for their child’s kindergarten conference. Then she was Miss Caruthers, their child’s starchy, sweet teacher. Other than that, she was invisible to men of all ages.

  Completely and utterly invisible. She was a spider web. You never saw it until you walked into it.

  But still, she knew that Frank should have noticed. She deserved that much.

  “You’re right.”

  He nodded firmly. “I know I am. I’m Dylan Diaz, by the way. What’s your name?”

  “Violet.” Why did his name sound familiar? Violet was sure she’d heard it somewhere before, but at the same time she was positive she’d never met a gorgeous, buff Latino. She was so distracted trying to place his name, she forgot to be shy. “It’s odd, but I feel like I’ve heard your name before.”

  Dylan tugged at the T-shirt she was holding in her hand. “Don’t forget to put this on. You’ll feel better when you’re warmer.”

  “Thank you.” Not that she had any intention of taking her bikini top off. Not until she got home and she could stuff it in her garbage disposal and flick the ON switch.

  Violet pulled the sun-warmed shirt over her head and almost choked as the masculine smell of sport deodorant filled her nostrils. She was blushing it, damn it, she was blushing. But at least her breasts were covered, and in another ten minutes or so she might actually be able to look him in the eye again. Maybe.

  “I’m sorry to be so much trouble. You can just…pull over and I’ll swim to shore.”

  When she chanced a look at him, he was staring at her, dark eyebrows lifted. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to do that.” Then he swirled his finger in a circle. “Turn around.”

  “Why?” But she did it anyway, because turning was better than looking at him. Because he was gorgeous and she was a nun trapped inside a stripper’s body, with a chess club president’s head.

  It was the prim part of her that squawked in horror when his fingers jerked the ties of her bikini top loose at her neck, then deftly slid under the T-shirt and made fast work of the bottom strings, warm fingers brushing over her clammy skin. He harvested the whole dang thing with one last yank, and Violet swallowed hard.

  “I’ll just lay it on the deck in the sun to dry.” He did just that, and then grinned at her when she turned back around. “You gave me a heart attack, you know. I thought you were a dead body. Scared five years off my life when you lifted your head up.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, hunkering her shoulders over so that her tight nipples wouldn’t jut out like twin thimbles. Despite the fact that it was July the water was still cold, causing her to shiver, and well, pucker.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting your night. Like I said, if you just take me to the nearest dock or whatever, I’ll get out of your hair. Thank you for…rescuing me.”

  He was laughing. Why was he laughing? Embarrassed, Violet stopped talking. Glancing down to avoid his eyes, she saw the T-shirt had plastered to her breasts in two round wet spots, nipples centered like pornographic bull’s eyes.

  She almost wished she had drowned.

  Dylan wasn’t sure why he was laughing, but it was better than drooling, which was what he really wanted to do.

  Violet wasn’t anything like any woman he’d ever met. She wasn’t screaming or ranting or squawking or crying over what had happened to her. She wasn’t pissed off.

  She was apologizing for inconveniencing him.

  And she was self-conscious about the T-shirt plastered to her chest. His shirt. Clinging to that beautiful chest. Dylan had had so many ta-tas flashed at him over the years, he was damn near immune to the sight. But Violet had him hard, simply because her breasts were naturally beautiful, and because she was shy about a stranger seeing them.

  He’d had so many women and their body parts just shoved right smack into his face, that he liked the allure of knowing there was something gorgeous under there that he wasn’t allowed to see. When she’d been on top of him, he’d felt her flesh, but again it had been just a hint, just a tease, enough to make him want to explore her slowly and thoroughly.

  Which he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t a total pig, and she had a boyfriend, no matter how much of an ass he was.

  “You’re welcome, Vi. But you don’t need to feel bad. It’s not your fault.” He shouldn’t say it, but he couldn’t help it. Any man who didn’t notice his girlfriend was missing was a first-class jerk-off. “It’s your boyfriend’s fault.”

  She shook her head. “I’m the one who tripped. And I’m sure he noticed after a minute or two. He’s probably looking for me right now.”

  Violet squeezed the water out of her long hair while Dylan groped in his pocket for his cell phone. She wasn’t exactly gorgeous, but more like pretty. Soft. With pale skin and pink cheeks, a pert nose, and a pair of rosebud lips.

  Jesus, he was attracted to her. It completely amused him. Maybe he was just feeling protective of her because he’d rescued her.

  She licked her lips and tossed her hair over her shoulder, causing her breasts to thrust forward before she realized it and sucked them back in.

  Schwing. He could practically hear his dick popping up. Nope, it wasn’t a misplaced hero thing. He was really, really attracted to her.

  “Why don’t you call him and put his mind at ease then?” He handed her the phone.

  There was only a slight hesitation, then she took the phone from him, dialed a number, and turned a little away from him.

  “Frank? This is Violet.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes in the opposite direction and reached for his bottle of water.

  “Oh, I know, I’m sorry, it was an accident. But someone found me and picked me up.” Her voice dropped lower. “No, no, you don’t have to stop fishing. I’ll just get to shore and call Kindra to pick me up.”

  Asshole. Dylan sucked down half his water and fought the urge to grab the phone from Violet and tell Frank to go fuck himself.

  Two bright red spots of color were in her cheeks now, and behind her glasses her eyes looked sharp and angry, despite the mild tone to her voice. “No, don’t come over tonight. I’m not in the mood. But you can stop over tomorrow and we’ll talk.”


  After saying good-bye she pushed the end button and just clutched the telephone for a minute, her breathing a little quick.

  It was none of his business, but he didn’t suppose that had ever stopped him before. “You’re going to ditch him, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re through with him.”

  She gave a little sigh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “No guessing. You deserve better than that, Violet. He doesn’t appreciate you and you need to stand up for yourself here.”

  And since when had he become an inspirational speaker?

  “It’s not Frank, it’s…something else.” She pushed her glasses up. “It’s complicated. There’s something I want and I can’t have, unless I do something I really don’t want to do because it seems a little risky and unnatural to me.”

  She’d lost him with that sentence. “We’ve got a bit of a boat ride ahead of us. You can tell me all about it, Violet. We’re an hour from Sandusky and an hour from Cleveland. Which way do you live?”

  “ Cleveland. I live in Westlake.”

  “I’m east of that.” The thought of spending another hour on the boat with her was very appealing. And they were really only forty minutes away, but if he held the sail in a little, it would slow them down. Plus, he would have to keep her with him until someone came to pick her up. Maybe his birthday would shake out better than he’d thought it would.

  “I live in an apartment right by Burke Airport, with a dock for my boat.”

  “Those apartments right on the water there?” Her eyes had widened.

  He nodded.

  “I know where I’ve heard your name before.” She put her hand on her throat and tugged at the neck of his shirt. “You play for the Indians, don’t you?”

  He gave another nod. “Catcher.”

  Her breath caught and she looked like she was in pain. “Oh, Lord.”

  Usually this was the part where women gushed or flashed him. Instead of giggling or asking him how much money he made, Violet closed her eyes.

  And kept them closed.

  Damn, she was cute. Dylan reached for another bottle of water from his cooler. “Do you want some water?” He put the cold bottle against the skin of her cheek. “You look flushed.”

  She jerked back and opened her eyes. “I don’t want any water.”

  “What do you want?” Dylan gave her a slow, lazy smile, and let his eyes linger over her lips. They looked so kissable, so smooth and shiny.

  “I want you to push me back into the water and let me drown.”

  Dylan laughed. She had a quirky little sense of humor.

  He liked that about her. So far, he’d have to say he liked a lot about her, and it had only been ten minutes since he’d fished her out of the water.

  Just think what he could like in the next thirty.

  Three

  Violet didn’t have a sense of humor. It was yet another thing that separated her from the masses and made her feel like a misfit. The first was that she didn’t really like sex, and stood around puzzled a lot of times when her friends talked about it, their eyes rolling back in their heads.

  If her eyes were rolling back, chances were she was having a seizure and 911 should be called.

  She felt capable of a convulsion right now, because she, Violet Caruthers, kindergarten teacher and the epitome of the social wallflower, was trapped on a sailboat with a gorgeous professional baseball player.

  It would have been smarter to die wearing the bikini.

  “What do you do, Vi?”

  No one called her Vi. It made her sound like a fifties film star, which wasn’t a good fit. She wouldn’t know sassy and sultry if it bit her on the butt.

  She chanced a look at Dylan. She wasn’t a rabid baseball fan, but she went to several games a season and caught a few on TV. She remembered seeing him at bat, noticing him precisely because he was so good-looking. It wasn’t a stretch to picture him wearing a tight uniform and dropping down into that catcher squat, his face confident and serious.

  This couldn’t possibly be happening to her. “I’m a kindergarten teacher.”

  He untwisted the top of the water bottle and handed it to her. “Really? Now, that’s a worthwhile profession. I bet you’re great at it.”

  “I enjoy my job.” She took a sip of the water because it seemed rude not to, and she was really hot. The sun was heating her skin from the inside out. Which didn’t make sense, because five minutes ago she’d been shivering.

  “I like my job, too.” He studied the horizon.

  “Then I guess we’re both lucky.”

  The easy grin covered his face again. “Yeah, I guess so. Though I don’t think luck has a whole lot to do with it. People make choices.”

  “That’s true.” She had made a choice to have a baby, without a husband, because she wanted a child that desperately. And she was practical enough to know that when you went on a date every three years, the probability of meeting Mr. Right was very small.

  The sperm bank hadn’t appealed to her because of the element of the unknown, but after this fiasco with Frank, she was starting to think that might be her only option.

  She searched for something to say. “So, how long have you been with the Indians?”

  “Three years. It’s a good club.” Dylan tipped his bottle back and forth, back and forth. “So how many kids are in your class? Do you have an apple with your name on it?”

  Violet gave a nervous laugh. What a geek she must seem like to a pro athlete. “No apple. Lots of ‘Best Teacher’ mugs, though. And I have twenty students each year.”

  “How have you been spending your summer break?”

  Conceiving a baby. “Relaxing. Reading. Working in my garden.”

  Which suddenly sounded very lame and tame.

  Dylan tilted his head. “Sounds nice. Normal. Does Frank live with you?”

  “No.” Violet picked at the T-shirt and sighed. “If I can borrow your phone again, I’ll call my friends and see if someone can come meet me at the dock.” So she didn’t have to spend one more second than was necessary with Dylan Diaz, catcher for the Cleveland Indians. Her company must be close to putting him in a coma.

  He hesitated, but then handed the phone to her. “There’s no hurry, you know.”

  Yes, there was.

  In rapid succession, Violet got the voice mail for Kindra, Ashley, and Trish. Damn it. None of them were home, and she couldn’t remember any of their cell phone numbers. She had those programmed into her own phone, which was sitting in her purse on Frank’s fishing boat. She didn’t know what she could possibly say in a message so she just hung up.

  “No one home?” Dylan asked.

  She shook her head. Her friends all had social lives, darn them. They should all be losers like her.

  “No big deal. I can take you home.”

  Ye-ah. Like he had nothing better to do. Geez, how humiliating. “Oh, that’s okay. I can call a taxi or take the bus or something.” She had no idea how to take the bus from downtown to Westlake. Not a clue. But she’d rather walk than force a gorgeous millionaire to baby-sit her.

  Dylan let go of the whatever sailors hold and moved towards her. “I’m not letting you take the bus home. First of all, my mother would fly up from Miami and beat the hell out of me. Second, I want to spend more time with you.”

  “Why?” she asked stupidly, thinking she must have flooded some brain cells during her soak in the lake. What he was saying didn’t make sense.

  “Because I want to get to know you better.”

  “Why?” To underscore how truly thrilling his life was compared to hers?

  But he just picked at the paper label on his water bottle. “It’s my birthday today, you know.”

  “It is?”

  He nodded. “Twenty-seven today.”

  “Well, happy birthday, then. I’m so, so sorry I ruined your birthday by almost drowning.” Could she be any more mortified? Maybe she could vomit on him while she was at it.

  But Dy
lan laughed. “You weren’t interrupting anything. I was just out sailing by myself.”

  Now that he mentioned it, he was alone. “Are you having a party later with your friends? I’ll definitely take a cab then.”

  “No party. My family all called me this morning. That’s the extent of the celebrating.”

  He didn’t sound happy and that made Violet forget that he was a baseball player, that he was gorgeous, that she was a geek. She moved just a little closer to him. “Don’t you like birthdays?”

  “Sure. But I don’t have anyone to spend it with this year. It’s a little tough to make friends when you’re on the road all the time.”

  “And then I landed in your lap.” Literally. “Not exactly what you wished for, I’m sure.”

  He set his water down and locked eyes with her. He was smiling, a smile she didn’t really understand. “Actually, I think you’re the best thing that’s happened to me today.”

  “That’s not saying much for your day.”

  “I was having a very unexciting day until you floated along.” Dylan touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “But I’m thinking you’re a damn good birthday surprise.”

  “But…”

  “I’m attracted to you, can’t you tell?”

  Violet was tempted to glance around the boat to make sure she hadn’t missed a gorgeous blonde hiding behind a sail. “I hadn’t noticed that, no.”

  His eyes narrowed, got darker. Hotter. “Do you find me at all attractive?”

  She could only stare. Was he absolutely joking? Of course she did. A woman in her nineties with cataracts would find him attractive. She was so amazed, she didn’t hesitate to answer. “Well, sure, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” Because it was like staring through the window at a two-thousand-dollar dress. You could want it, but it could never be yours. Maybe he did find her mildly attractive because she was sitting right in front of him and he liked women, in whatever form they took. Maybe he saw her as just another easy conquest, a little Friday night fun. A staid boring woman, easy to manipulate. And maybe she was all of those things.