Near and Far (Lost & Found 2)

“I need to cool down.”

My eyebrows pinched together in confusion. His h*ps rocked gently into me, and I understood. “Super. Now I’m in need of cooling down.”

“Good timing, then.”

“Good timing for what?”

Jesse’s arms tightened around me before he leapt into the air. “For this!”

That water wasn’t just glacial; it was something else. My skin was unable to decide if it was closer to burning or freezing, but I couldn’t have cared less if my skin was actually on fire. When Jesse held me that close, nothing else seemed important. When our heads burst to the surface, we sucked in gulp of air. Jesse let me have a second breath before his mouth covered mine. I didn’t even realize we were in water anymore, let alone that it was freezing cold. I loosened my legs around him just enough to drop a few inches. From the feel of it, the water wasn’t cooling him down much.

“Hey! I didn’t sign up to watch the two of you suck face all afternoon. Detach and behave yourselves,” Josie shouted from the dock.

“Then don’t watch!” I broke away from Jesse long enough to yell back. “We didn’t sign up to have a third wheel times three this afternoon!”

Josie waved dismissively. “Whatevs. Get over yourselves and your all-consuming love for each other thingy. We get it already.” Josie stood, stretched, and tested the water with her toes. “Let’s do something fun.” Jesse and I lifted her eyebrows. “Fun for all of us. Not just the horn-dogs in the bunch.”

“You look like you’re having a blast up there on that dock,” I said.

“I’m bored, and we’ve been here a grand total of two minutes.”

I don’t know why Josie had been so eager to tag along. She knew we were going to the swimming hole. As far as entertainment went, she needed to get creative.

“What did you have in mind, Josie?” Jesse asked, swimming us toward the shore until we could touch bottom.

“Ooo, I know!” Jolene interjected in her excited voice, with her excited face and her excited eyes. Excited. Bleh. “Let’s have a camel fight.”

Could the girl get anymore Girls Gone Wild? First the slow, porn-quality strip, and now this? A camel fight? Jiminy Christmas.

“Sold. That sounds ten times better than sitting on this rickety old dock just waiting for it to sink.” With that, Josie tossed her sunglasses aside and jumped in.

Jolene took a minute longer, having to take off her ankle wrap and pull her hair into a bun. After adjusting her swimsuit—for the bajillionth time—she hurried to the shallow end of the dock and stepped in where the water was at knee level. The way she’d booked it down the dock further confirmed my theory that she was milking her ankle injury for all it was worth. Especially if it was worth a ride in Jesse Walker’s arms.

“Are we really doing this?” I asked Josie when she paddled up to Jesse and me.

“You better believe your grumpy ass we are.”

“I call shoulders since I’m temporarily handicapped,” Jolene said, wading toward us.

She was going to wind up permanently handicapped before the week was over.

“Well you’re not riding my shoulders because that ass of yours might be bony, but you’re as tall as an Amazon. Find another pair of shoulders,” Josie said.

“Looks like it’s you and me then, Jesse.”

And just like that, we’d all walked right into her web.

“Hello.” I waved. “There is one other person here.” As much as I knew she’d like to ignore me.

“Oh. Yeah. I know. Sorry, Rowen, and no offense, but”—Jolene’s smile screamed condescension—“you’re the littlest of us. I didn’t think you’d be strong enough to take me. Why don’t you ride on Josie’s shoulders?”

I had to bite my lip. I had to bite it so damn hard to keep from spewing what I wanted to reply. I hadn’t missed her choice of wording with take me, and from the tilt of her brow, she hadn’t wanted me to miss it either.

“Lean down a bit, Jesse.” Practically shoving onto his shoulders, Jolene finagled her way up them in two seconds flat. Sprained ankle, my ass. “Hold on tight to my legs. The tighter the better because I do not, and I repeat do not, want to get my hair wet.”

Jolene was just rising to every one of my cliché standards for her.

Jesse gave me that look, one I was getting familiar with. The look that said Is this okay? The one that asked What do you want me to do? That look endeared him to me that much more.

Replying with one nod, I practically dunked Josie while climbing on her shoulders. Josie grumbled a few words, gave me a hard pinch, and grabbed hold of my knees.

“I hope you don’t mind the wet poodle look,” I warned Jolene. I capped my warning with a smile as Josie marched toward Jesse and Jolene.

“You obviously don’t.” Jolene capped hers with just as overdone a smile.

Jesse was holding her ankles and his forehead was wrinkled like he wasn’t sure there’d ever been such a bad idea.

“You’re going down.” I extended my arms, eager to knock Jolene from her high tower atop my man’s shoulders.

“No. You are.” With that, Jolene’s arms thrust forward, and her hands landed square above my swimsuit top. I was falling through the water before I’d even gotten out a scream.

When I resurfaced, Jesse was rushing my way with Jolene still atop him. “Rowen? Are you okay?”

Josie sputtered to the surface beside me. “I’m okay,” I said, spitting out a liter of lake water.

“She’s okay,” Jolene repeated, grinning down at me. “Again?”

“Again.” Climbing on top of Josie again, I felt something new trickle into my veins. Revenge? Resolve? I didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt. “Hold on tighter, Josie.”

Josie huffed. “Yeah. And don’t take a direct hit like that next time.”

“One, two, three, four. I declare a camel-fight war,” Jolene sing-sung as Josie and I came at them.

“It’s war, all right.” That time, I wouldn’t underestimate how long her go-go-gadget arms were. Or her strength. She might have puny arms, but I’d forgotten how strong ranch life made a person.

“Yes, it is”—Jolene dodged my arms when they came at her—“and you’re the loser.”

That time, I took the hit to my abdomen. My back actually stung from how hard I slapped the water. I’d never felt anger how I felt it when I broke through the surface. I ignored Jesse’s concern and Jolene’s triumphant expression when I climbed on top of Josie for the third time. I wouldn’t be the first to go down again. That was final. I didn’t care if she ripped out my hair or broke my collar bone. I wasn’t losing to Jolene.

“Get that bitch off her high horse, Rowen,” Josie muttered up at me, sliding wet streaks of hair from her face. “Or off your hot boyfriend.”

“Planning on it.”

Jolene had her hands on her h*ps as Josie and I came at them. “If you could’a, you would’a.”

That time when I came at her, she came at me. My hands locked on her shoulders and hers shoved into my collar bone. I might not have been too far off on that whole collar bone-breaking premonition.

I pushed her with all I had; she shoved at me with all she had. Just when I was sure she was about to topple back, she righted herself. Same went for me. We were at it for a good minute, at an obvious stalemate, when one of her hands moved lower. The next thing I knew, I was topless, and Jolene was swinging my bandeau top over her head.

Jesse’s eyes bulged as mine narrowed.

My instinct was to cover my chest, and that’s what I did for a few moments. Sitting like that, I was an easy target. Forgoing all pride and inhibition, I dropped my arms and sharpened my glower.

Giving my top one last twirl, she flung it behind her. “Oops.” Pasting on an all too familiar smile, Jolene wove her fingers into Jesse’s hair. The hair that I was all kinds of territorial over.

Bad move.

I let out a low growl, urged Josie forward, and went at that smiling, hair-petting bimbo with both arms. I was about a foot away from making contact when Jolene toppled off of Jesse’s back. Her shriek right before she crashed into the water was one of the sweetest sounds I’d ever heard.

When I glanced down at a sheepish cowboy, I found Jesse’s hands still open where they’d just been fixed around Jolene’s ankles. Shrugging, he winked up at me. “No one messes with my girl.”

When Jolene surfaced, I gave her one of my own smiles of victory. So much for not getting her hair wet. Josie bounced up and down in celebration, which was all well and fine except . . . I was still topless.

Of course, that would be the moment Garth emerged from the willow trees, and, of course, me and my bare chest would be the first thing he’d zero in on. “Woohoo! Just in time for the free show! Good timing on my part!” Garth shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Go to hell, Garth!” I yelled back, covering myself a moment before Jesse’s hands were about to do the same.

“Now why would I do that when I just landed myself in heaven?” Garth had lost his shirt somewhere along the way. Stepping out of his boots, he hung his hat on a branch before sauntering down the dock. “Jess, I’m disappointed. You never told me Rowen had such a fine rack.”

“Black . . .” Jesse warned, heading toward Garth.

“Walker,” Garth mimicked. “I mean, those are a pair of serious fun-bags if I’ve ever seen some.”

Moving so fast he was a blur, Jesse grabbed Garth’s calf and pulled him into the water. Garth toppled into the water, miraculously managing not to utter a curse. Josie and I cheered. When Garth kicked to the surface and Jesse was ready and dunked him, we cheered even louder.

“I’m going to kick your backside!” If hearing Garth substituting “backside” for “ass” wasn’t funny enough, hearing him do it while sputtering out water was even better.

“Not before I dunk yours.”

Jesse and Garth continued with their man war while I dropped into the water. Time to look for a missing swimsuit top.

“Hey, Jolene. Mind telling me where my top is?” I swam toward her.

Jolene pulled the rubber-band from her hair and ran her fingers through it. She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Back there.”

“Yeah, I guessed that since you hurled it over your back. Mind going and finding it?”

“Yeah. I do mind. I’m not the one who lost it.” She was furiously working to make her hair less of a soaking wet mess.

“No, you’re the one who tore it off and tossed it into dark water.”

Without so much as a screw you or a good-bye, Jolene headed for the shore.

Jesse and Garth were about to have company duking it out in the water.

Josie swam up beside me. “Come on. I’ll help you find it. She must be hardcore PMS’ing.”

“Or has a hardcore crush on my boyfriend who she’s realizing is hardcore in love with me.”

o;I need to cool down.”

My eyebrows pinched together in confusion. His h*ps rocked gently into me, and I understood. “Super. Now I’m in need of cooling down.”

“Good timing, then.”

“Good timing for what?”

Jesse’s arms tightened around me before he leapt into the air. “For this!”

That water wasn’t just glacial; it was something else. My skin was unable to decide if it was closer to burning or freezing, but I couldn’t have cared less if my skin was actually on fire. When Jesse held me that close, nothing else seemed important. When our heads burst to the surface, we sucked in gulp of air. Jesse let me have a second breath before his mouth covered mine. I didn’t even realize we were in water anymore, let alone that it was freezing cold. I loosened my legs around him just enough to drop a few inches. From the feel of it, the water wasn’t cooling him down much.

“Hey! I didn’t sign up to watch the two of you suck face all afternoon. Detach and behave yourselves,” Josie shouted from the dock.

“Then don’t watch!” I broke away from Jesse long enough to yell back. “We didn’t sign up to have a third wheel times three this afternoon!”

Josie waved dismissively. “Whatevs. Get over yourselves and your all-consuming love for each other thingy. We get it already.” Josie stood, stretched, and tested the water with her toes. “Let’s do something fun.” Jesse and I lifted her eyebrows. “Fun for all of us. Not just the horn-dogs in the bunch.”

“You look like you’re having a blast up there on that dock,” I said.

“I’m bored, and we’ve been here a grand total of two minutes.”

I don’t know why Josie had been so eager to tag along. She knew we were going to the swimming hole. As far as entertainment went, she needed to get creative.

“What did you have in mind, Josie?” Jesse asked, swimming us toward the shore until we could touch bottom.

“Ooo, I know!” Jolene interjected in her excited voice, with her excited face and her excited eyes. Excited. Bleh. “Let’s have a camel fight.”

Could the girl get anymore Girls Gone Wild? First the slow, porn-quality strip, and now this? A camel fight? Jiminy Christmas.

“Sold. That sounds ten times better than sitting on this rickety old dock just waiting for it to sink.” With that, Josie tossed her sunglasses aside and jumped in.

Jolene took a minute longer, having to take off her ankle wrap and pull her hair into a bun. After adjusting her swimsuit—for the bajillionth time—she hurried to the shallow end of the dock and stepped in where the water was at knee level. The way she’d booked it down the dock further confirmed my theory that she was milking her ankle injury for all it was worth. Especially if it was worth a ride in Jesse Walker’s arms.

“Are we really doing this?” I asked Josie when she paddled up to Jesse and me.

“You better believe your grumpy ass we are.”

“I call shoulders since I’m temporarily handicapped,” Jolene said, wading toward us.

She was going to wind up permanently handicapped before the week was over.

“Well you’re not riding my shoulders because that ass of yours might be bony, but you’re as tall as an Amazon. Find another pair of shoulders,” Josie said.

“Looks like it’s you and me then, Jesse.”

And just like that, we’d all walked right into her web.

“Hello.” I waved. “There is one other person here.” As much as I knew she’d like to ignore me.

“Oh. Yeah. I know. Sorry, Rowen, and no offense, but”—Jolene’s smile screamed condescension—“you’re the littlest of us. I didn’t think you’d be strong enough to take me. Why don’t you ride on Josie’s shoulders?”

I had to bite my lip. I had to bite it so damn hard to keep from spewing what I wanted to reply. I hadn’t missed her choice of wording with take me, and from the tilt of her brow, she hadn’t wanted me to miss it either.

“Lean down a bit, Jesse.” Practically shoving onto his shoulders, Jolene finagled her way up them in two seconds flat. Sprained ankle, my ass. “Hold on tight to my legs. The tighter the better because I do not, and I repeat do not, want to get my hair wet.”

Jolene was just rising to every one of my cliché standards for her.

Jesse gave me that look, one I was getting familiar with. The look that said Is this okay? The one that asked What do you want me to do? That look endeared him to me that much more.

Replying with one nod, I practically dunked Josie while climbing on her shoulders. Josie grumbled a few words, gave me a hard pinch, and grabbed hold of my knees.

“I hope you don’t mind the wet poodle look,” I warned Jolene. I capped my warning with a smile as Josie marched toward Jesse and Jolene.

“You obviously don’t.” Jolene capped hers with just as overdone a smile.

Jesse was holding her ankles and his forehead was wrinkled like he wasn’t sure there’d ever been such a bad idea.

“You’re going down.” I extended my arms, eager to knock Jolene from her high tower atop my man’s shoulders.

“No. You are.” With that, Jolene’s arms thrust forward, and her hands landed square above my swimsuit top. I was falling through the water before I’d even gotten out a scream.

When I resurfaced, Jesse was rushing my way with Jolene still atop him. “Rowen? Are you okay?”

Josie sputtered to the surface beside me. “I’m okay,” I said, spitting out a liter of lake water.

“She’s okay,” Jolene repeated, grinning down at me. “Again?”

“Again.” Climbing on top of Josie again, I felt something new trickle into my veins. Revenge? Resolve? I didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt. “Hold on tighter, Josie.”

Josie huffed. “Yeah. And don’t take a direct hit like that next time.”

“One, two, three, four. I declare a camel-fight war,” Jolene sing-sung as Josie and I came at them.

“It’s war, all right.” That time, I wouldn’t underestimate how long her go-go-gadget arms were. Or her strength. She might have puny arms, but I’d forgotten how strong ranch life made a person.

“Yes, it is”—Jolene dodged my arms when they came at her—“and you’re the loser.”

That time, I took the hit to my abdomen. My back actually stung from how hard I slapped the water. I’d never felt anger how I felt it when I broke through the surface. I ignored Jesse’s concern and Jolene’s triumphant expression when I climbed on top of Josie for the third time. I wouldn’t be the first to go down again. That was final. I didn’t care if she ripped out my hair or broke my collar bone. I wasn’t losing to Jolene.

“Get that bitch off her high horse, Rowen,” Josie muttered up at me, sliding wet streaks of hair from her face. “Or off your hot boyfriend.”

“Planning on it.”

Jolene had her hands on her h*ps as Josie and I came at them. “If you could’a, you would’a.”

That time when I came at her, she came at me. My hands locked on her shoulders and hers shoved into my collar bone. I might not have been too far off on that whole collar bone-breaking premonition.

I pushed her with all I had; she shoved at me with all she had. Just when I was sure she was about to topple back, she righted herself. Same went for me. We were at it for a good minute, at an obvious stalemate, when one of her hands moved lower. The next thing I knew, I was topless, and Jolene was swinging my bandeau top over her head.

Jesse’s eyes bulged as mine narrowed.

My instinct was to cover my chest, and that’s what I did for a few moments. Sitting like that, I was an easy target. Forgoing all pride and inhibition, I dropped my arms and sharpened my glower.

Giving my top one last twirl, she flung it behind her. “Oops.” Pasting on an all too familiar smile, Jolene wove her fingers into Jesse’s hair. The hair that I was all kinds of territorial over.

Bad move.

I let out a low growl, urged Josie forward, and went at that smiling, hair-petting bimbo with both arms. I was about a foot away from making contact when Jolene toppled off of Jesse’s back. Her shriek right before she crashed into the water was one of the sweetest sounds I’d ever heard.

When I glanced down at a sheepish cowboy, I found Jesse’s hands still open where they’d just been fixed around Jolene’s ankles. Shrugging, he winked up at me. “No one messes with my girl.”

When Jolene surfaced, I gave her one of my own smiles of victory. So much for not getting her hair wet. Josie bounced up and down in celebration, which was all well and fine except . . . I was still topless.

Of course, that would be the moment Garth emerged from the willow trees, and, of course, me and my bare chest would be the first thing he’d zero in on. “Woohoo! Just in time for the free show! Good timing on my part!” Garth shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Go to hell, Garth!” I yelled back, covering myself a moment before Jesse’s hands were about to do the same.

“Now why would I do that when I just landed myself in heaven?” Garth had lost his shirt somewhere along the way. Stepping out of his boots, he hung his hat on a branch before sauntering down the dock. “Jess, I’m disappointed. You never told me Rowen had such a fine rack.”

“Black . . .” Jesse warned, heading toward Garth.

“Walker,” Garth mimicked. “I mean, those are a pair of serious fun-bags if I’ve ever seen some.”

Moving so fast he was a blur, Jesse grabbed Garth’s calf and pulled him into the water. Garth toppled into the water, miraculously managing not to utter a curse. Josie and I cheered. When Garth kicked to the surface and Jesse was ready and dunked him, we cheered even louder.

“I’m going to kick your backside!” If hearing Garth substituting “backside” for “ass” wasn’t funny enough, hearing him do it while sputtering out water was even better.

“Not before I dunk yours.”

Jesse and Garth continued with their man war while I dropped into the water. Time to look for a missing swimsuit top.

“Hey, Jolene. Mind telling me where my top is?” I swam toward her.

Jolene pulled the rubber-band from her hair and ran her fingers through it. She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Back there.”

“Yeah, I guessed that since you hurled it over your back. Mind going and finding it?”

“Yeah. I do mind. I’m not the one who lost it.” She was furiously working to make her hair less of a soaking wet mess.

“No, you’re the one who tore it off and tossed it into dark water.”

Without so much as a screw you or a good-bye, Jolene headed for the shore.

Jesse and Garth were about to have company duking it out in the water.

Josie swam up beside me. “Come on. I’ll help you find it. She must be hardcore PMS’ing.”

“Or has a hardcore crush on my boyfriend who she’s realizing is hardcore in love with me.”