by Jill Shalvis
“Okay.”
That simple. It always was with Deck. He didn’t buy into her living her life around her disability. Unlike everyone else, who’d wrap her up in bubble wrap if they could, Deck expected her to live her life exactly how she wanted to, on her terms. If she felt like she could stand up, keep her balance, and use the paddle, he was going to support her doing that. Because he thought of her as an adult capable of making her own decisions.
She could love him for that alone.
If she believed she could love at all.
Or be loved . . .
But not even Deck could ignore the very real fact that she had an expiration date. Which meant that no matter how much she might be tempted, she couldn’t allow him to fall for her.
The problem was, she’d forgotten to remind herself not to fall for him. But loving him was her own private burden, and she wasn’t sorry about it. She was just sorry she couldn’t say it. Holding those three words back had only gotten more and more difficult as time went on.
She struggled from her seated position onto her knees. Sitting on the paddleboard while having a big, strong guy stand behind you and do all the work of paddling was one thing. It was another entirely to stand up, hold her balance, and not knock them both into the water.
When she finally rose a bit unsteadily to her feet, Deck immediately wrapped an arm around her waist to anchor her. Grateful, she backed up a few inches so that her back was plastered to his front. He ran warm anyway, but all that skin and sinew was deliciously heated from the sun. Seeing as he wore only a pair of black board shorts, slung low on his hips, there was a lot to rub up against. “Mmm,” she murmured.
With a low laugh, he lifted the long paddle over her head and held it out in front of her. The minute she took it, his hands went to her hips. One palm slid to her belly.
“Kins.”
“Hmm?”
His mouth was at her ear. “You gotta put the paddle in the water, babe, or that swell is going to take us down.”
She blinked away the sexual haze he always put her in so effortlessly and put the paddle into the ocean, trying to plow it through the water.
“It’s backward.”
She shifted the paddle the other way and still could barely force the paddle through the water. “How in the hell do you make this look so easy?”
With his left hand still on her belly, giving her goose bumps, his right hand traced its way down her right arm, better positioning her hands on the paddle. “Loose knees,” he said, bending his a little, which forced her to do the same. “Now stroke like you mean business.”
“I know how to stroke.”
His laugh rumbled from his chest into hers. “Yeah, you do. You’re doing great.”
She was. Thanks to his hand on hers, guiding the paddle through the water. They were parallel to the shore, at least a hundred yards out. If she’d been on her own, she’d have been terrified. But when she was with him like this, she could do anything. “Deck?”
“Yeah?”
“Take the paddle.”
When he took the paddle, she carefully turned to face him.
Deck, quiet, tough, practical, resilient, self-sufficient . . . stood there with all his tats and muscles looking like a pagan god as he gazed down at her, one brow raised like he was thinking, Now what are you up to, woman?
She kissed the part of him she could reach. A pec, right above a pierced nipple. Then his throat. God, his body was a work of art. He ran most mornings. He lifted weights at least three times a week. His body was a temple, and she was always ready to worship it. With a little tiptoe action and some careful balancing, she fisted her hands in his thick, wavy hair that was weeks, maybe months past needing a cut, and tugged his face down so she could kiss him.
She felt his muscles bunch and shift as he adjusted, since she’d basically abandoned her post, leaving it up to him to keep them upright.
“Thought you wanted to do this,” he said.
“Yes, but what I really wanted to do was see you all wet and gorgeous.”
He grinned down at her. “That’s my line.” He ran a callused finger over the bruise in the center of her forehead, the one her sister had given to her in their volleyball game.
She’d never admit it, but she’d loved every moment of that game. Nipping Deck’s lower lip to distract him, she stuck both of her very cold hands down the front of his board shorts, taking hold of his very favorite body part.
This had him going still while sucking in a breath, carefully hissing it out through his teeth.
She smiled and gave him a playful tug.
“You’re a cruel, heartless woman.”
This had her laughing out loud. His words didn’t match the reaction she’d gotten out of him.
At her smile, his expression softened—unlike what was in her hand!—and he bent his head and nuzzled his face in her hair. “Love it when you laugh.” He stopped paddling and one hand slid down her back to her butt, which he squeezed.
“Deck—”
“You started this, babe.”
“We’re going to fall.”
“Trust me, I’ve got you.”
Trust him . . . That was the thing. She did. So much it was terrifying. “Pretty full of yourself.”
“Maybe I just know I’m right for you.”
That had her heart squeezing painfully hard. Because he was right. But she wasn’t right for him. “Remember what you promised me.”
A look of pain and frustration crossed his face. “Kins.”
“You promised me, Deck. You did. On our third date, when I tried to cancel on you. You came and got me anyway and then took me up in your friend’s helicopter, letting me sit in the copilot seat so I could be on top of the world. I made you promise not to fall in love with me.”
He wasn’t paddling now. They were drifting freely, the two of them staring at each other, inches apart.
“Tell me you won’t break your promise,” she said softly.
“You made me an oath as well,” he reminded her instead.
“That one doesn’t count.”
“Bullshit.”
On their fourth date, they’d gone horseback riding in the green, rolling hills that backed Wildstone. They’d had a picnic for dinner and watched the sunset, and she’d had the time of her life. Seriously. The time of her life. And she’d known then that she’d never be able to protect her heart from him. So afterward, when he’d taken her to a friend’s pub, she’d gotten drunk. It’d been a rare misstep, something she wasn’t supposed to do, but she’d needed the escape. And somehow he’d gotten her to promise that she wouldn’t die before she was old and gray. “Promises made under the influence don’t count.”
He let out a rough breath. “Fine. We’ll drop it. For now.”
“There’s something else I’d like to drop.”
“What?”
“You,” she said sweetly, and then she shoved him into the water. Only she didn’t count on him grabbing her as he went, so that they both flew off the board.
She was laughing when she surfaced and hooked an arm on the board to hold her upright. Which didn’t turn out to be necessary since Deck surfaced with her, keeping one arm tight around her, and one hand on the board as well.
“You fight dirty,” he said, but he was looking amused.
Relieved to see that tortured look in his eyes gone, she pressed herself up against him and kissed him, long and deep. “Dirty is the only way to fight,” she murmured when they broke free to breathe. “Wanna go have a late lunch with me?”
“Wanna have you for lunch.”
She laughed, because he always said that, but . . . this lunch turned out to be the best in recent memory.
BRYNN GOT TO her moms’ house by midday, knowing they’d be in full company mode about the night’s “family” enchilada dinner. Brynn herself was still thinking about the previous night’s dinner. After her and Kinsey’s impromptu volleyball game, Eli had taken her out. They’d had dinn
er on the water, then gone for a sunset hike to the top of the bluffs. And after . . . after, back in his bed by moonlight had been her favorite part.
Her moms were rushing around the house. “Don’t go to any trouble,” Brynn told them for the millionth time as she dug in to help.
“Of course we’re going to trouble,” Raina said.
“We want to get to know your friends,” Olive said from her perch at the table, where she sat with her laptop and a stack of bills.
“They’re all coming, right?” Raina asked Brynn.
“I think so. But, Mom, don’t read too much into this, okay? You know I’m a really crappy judge of character. I don’t really know them all that well.”
A fib, of course. Whoever had said that childhood relationships were the deepest relationships a person could ever have had been onto something. She and Kinsey and Eli were forever linked from all those years they’d spent at summer camp. Whether the three of them had liked each other or not back then no longer mattered.
Even after this short amount of time of being back in each other’s orbits, they now knew each other better than she did just about anyone else.
And then there were the current relationships. The adult ones. A few of them more adult than others. She’d slept with Eli now. They’d done things to each other that she’d only read about. Their chemistry was so far off the charts, she couldn’t even see the chart.
Terrifying.
Raina’s gaze softened and she cupped Brynn’s face. “You’ve known two of them forever, and you’ve made peace with your past. I’m sure they love you. You’re so lovable, how could they not?”
Brynn laughed and shook her head. And then spent the next hour running around doing Raina’s bidding. The food was just about ready and she’d set the table, twice—“The good silverware, Brynn, honey, what’s wrong with you?”—when the doorbell rang.
Raina clapped her hands with glee.
“Mom,” Brynn implored. “Please don’t get your hopes up.”
“I’m just saying . . .”
Brynn gave up and headed to the door, looking through the peephole. Eli stood there holding a bottle of wine and looking delectable in a pair of sexy faded jeans and an untucked Henley the exact color of his slate eyes.
Kinsey stood on the step behind him with Max, who was holding a small bouquet of flowers. Suddenly nervous as hell to have her two worlds collide, Brynn did a turnabout and rushed back to the kitchen.
Both of her moms stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.
“You’re not going to let them in for family dinner night?” Olive asked.
“I’m trying to decide.”
“Oh, no,” Raina said. “I made some seriously kick-ass enchiladas and I need an audience to fawn over them.”
“I’ll fawn over them,” Brynn promised.
Raina pointed to the door.
With a sigh, Brynn headed back to the door, hoping she wasn’t making a big mistake.
AFTER RINGING THE bell, Eli took a deep breath.
“He feels really nervous to me,” Max said to Kinsey.
Kinsey tugged on the back of Eli’s shirt. He turned. “What?”
She looked him over. “Yeah,” she said to Max. “You’re right. He’s nervous. Haven’t seen that since . . . ever.”
“I’m not nervous.” He turned back to the door so as to not give himself away. Because he was nervous as hell, and it was ridiculous, because he didn’t know why.
Except he did. He liked her. Too much. Way too much. He turned back to Kinsey. “You need to tell her. Why haven’t you told her yet?”
“I’m working on making her like me first.”
“But that could take forever.”
“Hey,” she said, pointing at him. “It’s not my fault you’re falling for my sister.”
Eli slid Max a look.
Max lifted his hands in surrender. “Not me.”
“Please,” Kinsey said. “Like I couldn’t see it for myself. She’s giddy, and you’re so mellow I nearly checked you for a pulse earlier.”
“Which is why you have to tell her.”
Kinsey stared at him. “You do realize that this is actually about me and not you, right?”
“Kins, everything’s about you.”
“So why haven’t you told her yourself if you think I’m so bad for not doing so?”
“I almost did.”
“Yeah? And what stopped you?”
He gave her a “get real” look. “We both know it needs to come from you. And besides, it’s not about me, remember? It’s actually not about you either, princess. It’s about her right now. You need to step out of the center of your universe for a minute and see the bigger picture.”
“The bigger picture is that you’re falling for my sister.”
“Guilty,” he said, and knew he shocked her by admitting that because her eyes widened. And it was true. He wanted to stay up late and eat chocolate chip pancakes at midnight with her, talking about everything and nothing at all. He wanted to kiss that spot behind her ear, the one he knew drove her crazy, then work his way to her lips, watching them curve for him. He wanted to watch her sleep in his bed. She was a bed hog. She slept on her stomach spread out wide, and he didn’t care. He wanted to kiss that spot along her tailbone where her shirt rode up in her sleep . . .
“You really are falling for her,” Kinsey said again, slowly this time, not a question, but a statement of fact.
He nodded just as the front door opened.
Brynn stood there in her denim sundress with her beat-up white sneakers on her feet. She took in the three of them with one sweeping glance and then her eyes landed on Eli, and she smiled like maybe he was the best thing she’d seen all day.
She was certainly the best thing he’d seen all day.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He smiled. “Hey.”
Behind him, Kinsey made a sound that spoke volumes. He could almost hear her eyes roll as she brushed past him and headed inside. “Smooth,” she whispered. “Real smooth.”
Brynn’s moms were sweet, easygoing hosts, taking everyone into the backyard, which was a wide, open grassy area, broken up by a tetherball and a bocce court. They plied everyone with drinks and set them all off to play a tournament.
Brynn shocked the hell out of Eli by beating him at bocce.
Olive beamed proudly. “She doesn’t have an athletic bone in her body, my sweet baby, but she’s got a lot of luck.”
“Hey,” Brynn said. “I’ve got plenty of athletic ability.”
“Is that so, honey? In what?” Raina asked sweetly.
Brynn pointed at her with her drink. “I can play a mean game of volleyball.”
Kinsey laughed.
“What?” Brynn said, looking offended. “I beat you, didn’t I?”
“Barely.”
Brynn narrowed her eyes. “If you’re going to rewrite history, at least make it believable.”
Raina stood to refill everyone’s glass from the wine bottle, looking confused when she saw that Kinsey hadn’t taken so much as a sip. “Honey, would you like a different kind? Red? I’ve also got vodka.”
“No, I’m good, thanks.” Kinsey shook her head. “I already had my quota of alcohol this week.”
“Me too,” Raina said. “But that’s not stopping me.”
“Mom, she’s on dialysis.”
“Oh, so sorry,” Raina murmured. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Kinsey said, sending a glare at Brynn.
“I can understand that, but it’s not good to hold these things in,” Raina said. “It only makes things worse.”
“No worries there,” Kinsey said, and Raina looked relieved. But Eli knew that Kinsey had said that because she knew things couldn’t get much worse.
A fact he hated.
BRYNN LOCKED HERSELF in the downstairs guest bathroom. She needed a few minutes. She hadn’t meant to bring up Kinsey’s illness, hadn’
t even realized that’s what she’d done until she saw Kinsey’s expression just before she masked it.
Anxiety.
Kinsey, who by all counts seemed on top of her world at all times, who wanted everyone to know she was in control and didn’t give a single shit, was upset. Maybe scared.
And that killed Brynn.
Kinsey had never been her favorite person. But she’d been in Brynn’s life far longer than most. Other than her moms and Eli, Kinsey was one of her oldest relationships. And whether she liked it or not, they were in a relationship.
She hadn’t let herself understand or come to terms with what Kinsey was facing, but it hit her now, hard. Kinsey’s life wasn’t her own, not really. And the implications of that, realizing how much her own life would have to change if she were in Kinsey’s shoes, was . . . well, terrifying and devastating.
Kinsey’s health crisis was serious, and Brynn wanted to get tested to see if she was a match. If she could help, she wanted to. Needed to. Because the thought of Kinsey not beating this thing . . .
She put her hands on the counter and counted to ten. When that didn’t work, she kept going. She’d gotten to a hundred when she heard Raina calling for her.
She swiped under her eyes and went into the kitchen.
“You okay, baby?” her mom asked.
“Sure. Of course.”
Raina gave her a “get real” look and reached for Brynn’s hand, pulling her closer. “Try again.”
Brynn shook her head. “I feel . . . discombobulated.”
“You care about Kinsey. And Max. And maybe especially Eli.”
“Mom—”
“It’s a good thing, Brynn. Such a good thing.” Raina paused. “Look, I know something big happened with Albert.”
Brynn opened her mouth to correct the name, but saw the light in Raina’s eyes.
“I know his goddamn name,” her mom said softly. “I just refuse to say it. Because he hurt you.”
“Not like you think.”
“Then tell me.”
“Mom—”
“Baby, please. My imagination is killing me. I need to know all of it. What happened before you left him?”
Brynn looked away. “I . . . didn’t leave him. He left me. Actually, he vanished, with everything. He ran up my credit card, withdrew my savings, and even cashed my bond from grandma. He took anything I had of value, including great-grandma’s necklace. He was charming and charismatic and sweet, and I didn’t see it coming or suspect a thing.”