The answer was immediate and obvious. She’d be up front where the riders felt the chop and half of them ended up drenched from the spray. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only daredevil riding the ferry today, and there were too many people to run, so he strode forward, bellowing her name. Heads turned as he worked his way out onto the forward deck. Yeah. He’d apparently left his pride at the dive shop. Again, this was Piper at stake. He was pretty much sure he’d do anything for her.
And...bingo.
Piper stood at the very front of the ferry, fingers wrapped around the guardrail. Thank God—he had an immediate flashback to the summer she’d decided to reenact the Titanic and pretended to be the woman on the masthead. Then, she’d stood on the railings—on the outside—her arms flung wide, hair blowing in the breeze. It had been a testament to her sense of balance and the existence of guardian angels that she hadn’t toppled off and been sucked under the ferry.
She was wearing the business-casual number she’d worn to her Fiesta presentation and the short white dress drove him just as crazy today as it had then. She also had her earbuds in, so once again, she hadn’t heard him bellowing her name. That was apparently going to be a pattern in their relationship. He’d deal with it. He moved up behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged the earbuds free.
“Your music’s too loud.” Shit. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all.
She looked surprised to see him, which didn’t bode well. Then she glared down at his arm. “Let go.”
The ferry gave a deafening warning blast of its horn, and the pace picked up twenty feet away, down on the dock. Fewer than ten minutes until departure. He had no idea how to explain.
“Cal?”
“Stay.” Okay, so his words had come out more order than request. Old habits died hard and she’d probably make him work on his delivery. If he could convince her to stay.
“Excuse me?” Her head snapped up, her mouth opening in shock. Yeah. He definitely needed to work on his delivery.
“With me, Piper. Stay with me. Don’t go.”
She shook her head. “That’s...” She inhaled deeply, her fingers tightening on the railing. “I’m not even sure where to start.”
“Stay with me,” he repeated. Jesus. He had what, nine minutes? He should have prepared a speech. Run through some words in his head instead of hopping on his bike and driving like a man mad.
“For how long, Cal? How well do you think we’d work together at Dream Big and Dive? You won. I lost.”
“This isn’t about winning or losing.” He moved forward, trapping her between his body and the railing. When she wriggled furiously, he wrapped a leg around hers. The move wasn’t nice, but he had only eight minutes.
“The he-man routine isn’t working for me,” she warned.
“I’ll adjust,” he offered.
“Right.” She wriggled again, and he was pretty certain there would be at least a dozen pictures of them on Facebook within the hour.
Her gaze roamed over his face, searching for something. He needed words, directions...a clue. Instead, he got nothing.
“I want a second chance,” he said. “I want you to believe me on this.”
* * *
CAL WRAPPED HIS arms tight around her as he took shameless advantage of being bigger and stronger. She wriggled one more time, just to make the point that she was a strong, independent woman, and then she let herself relax against him. He felt so good, solid and warm, and apparently her inner wild child liked being manhandled—just a little—because she suddenly had a whole lot less interest in being on time for her appointment with the bank officer.
“A second chance at what?” she asked.
His sigh fanned her hair.
“Everything, Piper.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
They’d kissed. They’d made love—okay, it turned out she’d made love and maybe he’d been more in it for the hot sex—and they’d looked out for each other. That wasn’t really a long-term relationship. Cal wasn’t offering her a solid reason to stay. He might say he wanted a second chance at them, but she didn’t know whether he meant at the dive shop—or her heart.
“I need to go,” she said quietly.
He looked down at her. “Is that really what you want?”
She’d spent her whole life competing, in it to win it. She’d always gone all out, because coming in second didn’t count. It had always been about making it to the podium. About being, not just good enough, but the very best. She’d taken chances to get to that point, chances that sometimes paid off and sometimes ended in disaster. It was the nature of the game. Cal was a fighter, too, but he’d fought for people. She’d fought for herself. That didn’t make her like herself very much right now. Worse, her heart broke at the thought of Cal walking away from her. What if having temporarily had him was worse than not having had him at all?