78. Chapter 78
Lindsey found the Young brothers in a paddle boat facing a sun that had crested the horizon. She stopped in the tall grass and considered going back to the house instead of interrupting what looked like a peaceful, profoundly private moment.
“You’re up early,” Jase called over his shoulder as if he heard her footfalls.
Graham glanced behind him and stretched his arms over his head.
“I brought coffee,” Lindsey said. “I’ll leave it on shore for you.”
“No,” Graham said. They spun slowly on the water to face her. “I’m done. You can have my seat.”
“Oh, you’re…almost naked,” Lindsey realized.
“Nothing you haven’t seen,” Graham pointed out.
“Hey,” Jase warned.
The boat bobbed in the cattails and Graham stepped barefoot onto the bank. Jase was shirtless in jeans. With the sunrise as a backdrop, the view looked like a sexy ad for paddle boats.
“Is Helen up?” Graham asked.
“I don’t think so,” Lindsey said. “Your door is shut.”
Graham held her elbow as she handed Jase the coffee mugs she was carrying, and both men took a hand to help her into the seat next to Jase.
“Want to go for a spin?” he asked with a wink. The perfect tagline for that paddle boat business.
“Have you ever thought about going into sales?” she asked. “I’d buy a boat from you.”
“You want to buy a boat?” he asked.
“I didn’t until now.”
His cheeks were splotchy. Jase traded a look with Graham that Lindsey was unable to decipher—gratitude, maybe?—and Graham tromped through the weeds toward the house.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Jase asked.
“Not really,” Lindsey said. “Are you sure I’m not interrupting? If you’d rather be alone…”
“No.” Jase took her hand and entwined their fingers. “Stay and paddle with me.”
She put her feet on the pedals and they inched through the water.
“Did my dad ever tell you what happened when we took this out the first time?”
She shook her head.
Jase sipped his coffee with his free hand and said, “He got it on a trade for some work he did on a friend’s Chevelle. The guy dropped it off and Dad made me and Graham paddle him across the pond.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t remember. Teenagers, both of us, for sure. And totally unimpressed by this hunk of junk. We busted our asses pedaling and the damn thing barely made it to the other side. Dad, of course, called us pussies and tossed us overboard.”
“He did not!”
“He did. Yeah. And then we ended up pushing him back to shore when he couldn’t do anything but spin in circles. Should’ve left him to swim.”
His eyes glistened at the memory.
“Turns out,” he said, clearing the thickness from his throat, “the paddle blades were busted and the rudder was bent. Dad was so pissed that his friend screwed him over, he flipped the boat on the shore and drove to the guy’s house with his tools to take the part out of the Chevelle.”
“I can’t picture your dad mad,” Lindsey said.
“You’re a woman. I’m sure you only ever got his good side.”
“Did he get the part back?” Lindsey asked.
Jase shook his head. “No. The guy swore he didn’t know the boat was busted. He ended up giving my dad a bottle of Weller and they called it even.”
“Bourbon. Of course.”
“Yeah.” Jase slapped the side of the boat. “Not sure why he kept this damn thing. Probably too much work to throw it away. But, hey, it’s good for another first ride, right?”
“Not this time,” Lindsey said. “Your dad took me out in it when the pond thawed.”
“Just the two of you?”
“No, we tied Graham to the back with a rope,” she chided. “Yes, just the two of us.”
“That son of a bitch,” Jase muttered.
“Is that a problem?”
“You weren’t, like, dating him too, were you?” Jase asked.
Coffee almost shot out of her nose. Smirking, she said, “He was such a gentleman, how could I resist?”
Jase’s eyebrows shot up.
“He was sweet,” she went on. “A hell of a dancer. The voice of an angel. The tongue—”
He pinched her thigh, cutting her off with a squeal.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered.
“He used to say that,” Lindsey said. “So does Graham, actually. I’ve never heard you say it, though. Jesus H. Christ.”
“I don’t usually,” he said. “Thinking about you with my dad…You’re not allowed to talk about his tongue.”
He shook his head and sipped his coffee.
“I loved him,” she said seriously. “Just…not that way.”
“I know.”
“If he was twenty years younger and not hung up on your mom, though…”
“Sundress.”
“I still think you take after him. You can be a gentleman when you want to be, like last—”
“Don’t say last night,” Jase said. “That was not me being a gentleman.”
“What was it then?” she asked.
“Pure caveman.”
“I’ll take you however I can get you,” Lindsey said. “Speaking of last night, how was the tent adventure?”
It took Jase a moment to answer. He narrowed his eyes at the horizon.
“Smelly,” he said finally.
Lindsey glanced back at the small green dome that barely looked big enough for one grown man, let alone two.
“So you got up and took a naked boat ride?” she asked.
“Not naked,” he clarified. “And that wasn’t a boat ride, we were…airing dirty laundry.”
“Laundry, huh? Can I help? I’m actually getting pretty good at getting your old washing machine to work.”
“Not that kind of laundry, Sundress.”
“I know,” she said, though she didn’t have a clue what actually happened last night or this morning.
Whatever it was, Jase was different. He wasn’t scoping her out like he meant to make a meal of her in the pajama shorts he usually praised for their easy access to her body.
His attention was more loving than sexual, which was a conundrum when Lindsey was very distracted by his bare chest, those muscles in his stomach clenching as he skimmed her cheek with his palm.
“Come here,” he said, curling his fingers into her hair. Shivers coasted down her neck. This Jase, loving Jase, was very dangerous. An experience Lindsey didn’t think she’d come back from.
The first touch of his lips was gentle, and his mouth opened just enough to take her all the way in.
She shook, holding herself back from demanding more from the slow caress.
If this kiss could speak, it’d say the three words that had been poised on the tip of Lindsey’s tongue since “Sister Christian” last night.
His fingers released her hair and curled into it again.
His hands didn’t roam. There was no rush to get naked—or, more naked in Jase’s case.
Just kissing on a boat they weren’t paddling anymore in the middle of a shallow pond.
And someone yelling at the top of their lungs.
They broke apart and looked behind them. Graham was still in his boxers, running through the overgrown grass.
“She’s gone,” he hollered, waving a piece of paper in the air. “Helen’s gone.”