Chapter Seven
As soon as they were out of earshot, Vanessa started giggling.
Once she started, she couldn’t stop. She doubled over, picturing Paul’s scowling face. He wasn’t as grumpy or standoffish as he let on. He seemed to be mocking himself, as well as her, with that bit about eating lemons.
Emily laughed with her, skipping along happily.
She was a friendly child, quick to smile and chat with strangers.
Like most four-year-olds, she said whatever came to mind.
Vanessa worried about her being too fearless, but she didn’t have the heart to quell her spirit.
She was glad Paul Murphy wasn’t the ogre he pretended to be.
They sat down at the picnic table near the shore to wait for Jackson.
Paul drove away in his work truck with the boat hitched to the back.
Emily started chattering about plans for a lemonade stand.
Vanessa replayed the highlights of the odd exchange with Paul, and tried to pinpoint what had passed between them.
For a moment she thought he was making an innuendo, and his gaze had scorched through her.
Then he’d continued his silly story and she’d been hard-pressed not to laugh.
He was an interesting character, intense and inscrutable. While Vanessa daydreamed, Emily scribbled in her notebook. Brow furrowed in concentration, she drew a picture of a man with his face on backwards.
Jackson returned in his truck with an array of camping gear. He’d brought the tent and sleeping mats. Although he wanted to depart to the campground immediately, Vanessa wasn’t ready to concede defeat. She pulled him aside for a private conversation.
“Did you talk to him?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I offered to pay for one of the cabins, and he declined. He wants peace and quiet. He also thinks you’re in trouble.”
She fell silent, annoyed with the accurate assessment.
Jackson searched her face. “Are you?”
“Let’s discuss that later.”
“All right,” Jackson said. “I told him our dad is the sheriff.”
“You told him about Dad?”
He gave a sheepish nod. “I’m not sure it had any effect. I get the feeling he won’t respond to pressure.”
She tugged on one of her braids, anxious.
“Your insistence on staying here might make things worse.”
“Are you saying that because you want me to go to your place?”
“No. I’m saying it because you’re behaving irrationally, and I don’t think that guy is a fan of theatrics.”
Vanessa didn’t agree with Jackson’s assessment, but she considered his point. Her brother understood the male perspective. Paul wasn’t an ogre. Neither was he a pushover. She couldn’t bulldoze a man like him into doing her bidding. She had to use finesse.
“Fine,” Vanessa said. “I’ll change my approach.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m willing to go to the campground tonight. But I want to talk to him one more time first.”
Jackson didn’t tell her she was wasting her time. He gave her a hug and retrieved the charcoal for the cooking grill. After he lit the briquettes, she washed her hands to assist him in dinner preparations. He’d brought hot dogs and cucumber salad.
Vanessa’s stomach rumbled with hunger. “This looks great.”
“I want lemonade,” Emily said.
“We’ll make some tomorrow,” Vanessa said.
Their exchange was interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine. Paul appeared with his fishing boat, which Jackson hadn’t seen yet. He cut across the choppy water and drifted toward the dock, where he tied off.
“He rented a boat?” Jackson asked.
“He bought it,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
While she watched, Paul stepped from the boat onto the dock. He took off his cowboy hat and tossed it aside. He stood at the edge of the platform, wearing a pair of faded cargo shorts. His body made a dark outline against the vibrant orange horizon as he dove off the side, into the water.
Feigning disinterest, Vanessa arranged the hot dogs on the grill. Ten minutes later, the dogs were sizzling-hot, crosshatched with black marks. Jackson turned them with a grilling fork. In the close distance, Paul had climbed out of the lake and was sprawled on the dock, drip-drying.
“Mr. Paul likes to eat lemons,” Emily said.
“You shouldn’t tell someone their face looks sour,” Vanessa said.
“Why not?”
“It’s not nice.”
“Okay,” Emily said, still doodling.
Vanessa glanced in Paul’s direction again.
She needed to win him over. Giving up without a fight wasn’t an option.
He was attractive and intimidating. Everything about him disturbed her, but so what?
She was an ER nurse. She dealt with difficult patients every shift.
She could handle a hot cowboy with a dry sense of humor.
She didn’t agree that she was being irrational or dramatic, but she knew one thing: you caught more flies with honey than vinegar.
She loaded up a plate with three hot dogs, squirted some ketchup on them, and grabbed a soda from the cooler.
Then she gestured toward the dock. “I’m feeling neighborly. ”
“Good luck,” Jackson said.
“Where are you going?” Emily asked.
“To see a man about a dog,” she said.
“Can I come?”
“Stay with Uncle Jack.”
Emily obeyed without complaint. She was fixated on drawing a trio of lemons with happy faces.
Vanessa’s nerves jangled as she stepped onto the dock. She could feel the heat of the sun-warmed path through the soles of her sandals. The planks were weathered, worn smooth in some places.
Paul must have heard her approach, because he rose to a sitting position on the platform and draped his T-shirt over one shoulder.
The water from his body had created a damp outline on the wooden dock.
His eyes caught the unfiltered light of sunset.
They were a cold, gray-blue, without a hint of invitation.
Vanessa offered him the plate anyway. “My brother cooked hot dogs.”
He glanced toward the shore. Jackson waved at them. Paul didn’t wave back, but he accepted the plate. Encouraged, Vanessa sat down beside him. He set the plate between them like a buffer, and ate one of the hot dogs in four bites.
Instead of staring at the hard lines of his face, she studied his strong forearms, and the way the veins stood out on the backs of his hands.
In addition to being anatomically gifted, he was a phlebotomist’s dream patient.
Vanessa could draw blood from him with her eyes closed.
He smelled like wet cotton and warm male skin.
She wished he wasn’t quite so handsome. It was disconcerting.
After he demolished a second hot dog, he gave her an expectant look. She picked up the third dog and took a bite. The fire-grilled taste reminded her of childhood summers at the shore. She chewed and swallowed with relish.
“How was your boat ride?” she asked.
“Fine.”
She cracked open the soda to quench her thirst. The exchange they’d shared earlier about lemons seemed like a distant memory, or a figment of her imagination.
He was still a brick wall, impenetrable.
He also looked fantastic in wet shorts, with his shirt draped over one shoulder.
She tried not to stare at his bare chest.
“I’m sorry about Emily,” she said, self-consciously. “I didn’t put her up to that.”
He frowned at her. “I know.”
She wished she’d brought napkins, because she had ketchup on her fingertips. She abandoned ladylike behavior and licked them. His eyes darkened as they followed the motion. She stilled at his perusal, which only served to drag out the moment. Flushing, she dropped her hand to her side.
“I have two nephews,” he said.
His volunteering of personal information surprised her. “What ages?”
“Eight and ten.”
“Emily is four.”
“Hm.”
Silence stretched between them once again.
“I used to come here when I was a kid,” she said, looking out at the water.
She had to try to make him understand how much she needed this vacation, at this time, in this particular place.
It was worth a shot. “We spent two weeks at the lake every summer. I haven’t been here since my parents got divorced. ”
He didn’t ask any follow-up questions.
Vanessa continued, undeterred. “My dad is the sheriff of Lost Lake.”
“Your brother told me.”
“We don’t get along. He cheated on my mom. Like, a lot.”
Paul squinted into the distance. It was clear he didn’t want to hear this.
“After my parents split up, I went to live with my mother in Colorado,” she said. “I didn’t forgive my dad for a long time. We started talking again when I was in college.”
“Did he pay your tuition?”
“He did,” she admitted, though the cynical question irked her. “I got engaged shortly after graduation. My dad didn’t approve of my choice of husband, which was pretty ironic. He said that Bennett was a liar and a fake, and I’d regret marrying him.”
“Was he right?”
“Yes,” she said coolly. “He was.”
“Let me get this straight,” Paul said. “You’re mad at your father for trying to help you avoid catastrophe?”
“That’s a generous interpretation of his actions.”
Paul arched a brow. “He gave you good advice, and you didn’t take it. Now you won’t speak to him because you’re afraid he’ll say I told you so?”
“I know he’ll say it. He can’t resist saying it.”
“You’d rather continue to punish him than admit you were wrong.”
Vanessa gaped at him in surprise. “He wanted me to cancel my wedding based on his vague suspicions, with zero evidence. It was the most hypocritical accusation I’d ever heard, from the biggest liar I’ve ever met!”
Paul massaged his left arm in silence. The motion dislodged the T-shirt he’d draped over his shoulder, revealing a square bandage on his back.
It was a pain-relief patch, she realized.
She recognized the faint medicinal smell she’d noticed last night.
Wet from the lake, it had lost some adhesion, and was peeling away at the corner.
“What happened to your shoulder?”
He dropped his hand abruptly. Although he rearranged the fabric of his T-shirt to cover it, she caught a glimpse of a fresh scar beneath his collarbone. “I had surgery.”