“Of course you do.” He held up his palms in surrender. “I understand. You’re not getting in the ocean.”
She stared him down, suspicion dripping from her narrowed eyes.
A teasing grin tugged its way onto his lips, and he waggled his eyebrows. “Not until after I convince you the sharks aren’t dangerous.”
He didn’t see the water glass in her hand until its contents had drenched his face. Without thinking of the consequences, he was out of his chair and chasing her with his own water glass. Squealing, she scurried for the screen door, but he caught her before she escaped, dumping his water on top of her head. With a shocked scream, she froze.
What have I done? She’s going to be furious.
When she swirled to face him, he braced for anger. But instead, she laughed, folding in half and collapsing on the splattered floor, as if her bones had melted. Relieved, he joined in her laughter, sliding his back down the wall to sit beside her. Noting the radiance on her face from the merriment, he determined to make it happen as often as possible.
As she caught her breath, she peered through locks of wavy wet hair and gave him a fond smile—way too brotherly for his taste.
“I haven’t played like that since I was a kid.” Her smile faded at the corners. “In fact, I never played like that. I think you bring out the worst in me.”
He brushed a wet strand off her face, wondering what kind of sad childhood didn’t include play. When her pupils dilated at the brush of his fingers, his heart responded with hopeful palpitations.
“I disagree.” His fingers lingered at the pulsing vessel in her neck. “I think I bring out the best in you.”
5
Katie had one important task to accomplish before she joined the guys on the beach. A short walk up the road brought her to the Indigo Bay Resort complex, where she met Zoe, the woman in charge of guest services, who had to be the nicest person on the planet. She didn’t even blink when Katie queried about the possibility of seeing a spider inside her cottage.
“Thanks for doing this, Zoe.”
“No problem,” she said, fingers flying across
the keyboard. “Let’s see here… It says your cottage had the regular extermination service less than thirty days ago. And… yes, spiders are included on the list.”
“Oh, good. I’m sorry, but I have kind of a phobia about spiders.”
“That’s okay. I don’t like spiders, either.” She looked up from the computer screen with a warm smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“As a matter of fact… you could tell me if I should back out of my kayak trip tomorrow. Gary told me there weren’t any sharks in the river, but I forgot to ask about alligators. I did a little research, and the internet says alligators aren’t aggressive, like crocodiles. I couldn’t find any reports of injuries, but it still makes me nervous.”
Zoe’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “You’ll be happy to know I’ve never heard of a single person getting bitten by an alligator on a kayak tour. When I’ve gone, I’ve seen a few hanging out on the river banks, but they pretty much ignored us.”
“Okay, I’m going to trust you on this one. For some reason they don’t scare me as much as sharks.”
“I’m sure you’ll have a great trip. Gary said he wanted the best, so I arranged for some really nice kayaks.”
“Did they rent the surfboards from you, too? Because they got one for me, and I’m definitely not using it.”
Her head shook slowly from side to side. “I’m positive Gary only rented two surfboards.”
“But Gary told me…” Her voice trailed off as the truth sunk in. “Oh my gosh! He must’ve made up that whole story just to upset me.”
“Surely not,” said Zoe. “He seems like a super nice guy. In fact, he called about an hour ago and changed the kayak reservation. He paid extra so you could be in a tandem.”
“What’s a tandem?”
“It’s a two-person kayak.” Zoe rifled through a drawer and found a flyer with images of people in kayaks. “See, it’s like this one. He mentioned you’d never kayaked before, so he wanted you to be able to relax in the front and not have to paddle if you got tired.”
Since Zoe was sporting an isn’t-that-nice-of-him expression, Katie didn’t tell her it felt like a challenge. Obviously, Gary didn’t believe she was in very good shape from her regular swimming exercise.
She folded her arms. I’ll show him. Won’t he be surprised when I’m not the first one of us to beg for a paddling break?
“Anything else you need?” Zoe asked, brightly.