Chapter 9
9
“Do you need help?”
I hear the words, but I must be in shock because all I can do is stare. The man from the grocery store is here, shirtless, in the yellow boat from my picture.
His body is absurd. It’s big and broad yet tight and toned, and it fills six feet of space better than any other body.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I wrestle my attention back to his face, wondering if he’s one of the boys in the photo. That fierce jaw, those full lips, the upper one bowed and sweet—at odds with the mischievous grin tugging at its corners. His strange green eyes are even brighter in the sun. I blink before I get lost in them.
“I’m fine.” I twist my arms around. Bruises bloom on both elbows. Between the scrapes on my legs and this, I’m a disaster. “Just a little banged up.”
He leans over the side of his boat, inspecting the damage on mine. “I think you’ll be all right. You should be able to use an oar to push off the rock.” He meets my gaze, eyes shimmering like this is all very funny.
I pick up one of the wooden oars with the confidence of someone who knows what she’s doing. But it’s heavier than it looks, and I lose my grip, almost dropping it into the lake.
“I can help if you want,” I hear him say as if smothering his laughter.
“No need.”
Gripping the oar tight, I push against the rock and end up stumbling back a step. I hear a low whistle. I put all my strength into the next push and move the boat precisely nowhere.
“You sure I can’t give you a shove?”
I glance over my shoulder. The man’s pretty mouth is curved into a lazy grin, arms crossed over his superb chest. My gaze falls to the hard ridges of his stomach, to the waistband of his red bathing suit.
A laugh, and then: “Eyes up.”
I immediately turn as scarlet as a rose on February 14.
His eyes wander to the flaming mass of hair tumbling out from under my hat. “That’s okay, Red,” he says. “I was checking you out, too.”
I hate when people call me Red, though I never say anything about it. But there’s something about the way he’s looking at me, so smug and amused, that has me snapping back.
“Do. Not. Call. Me. That.” I push and push with every muscle in my body. Nothing.
“I’d be happy to give you a hand,” he purrs.
“You can keep your hands to yourself,” I bite out, and then with one final push, the boat slides off the rock.
He claps slowly. “Well done, Red.”
“Are you serious?” I glare at him from beneath the brim of my hat.
“Not usually.”
Not usually.
I’ve heard those words before. I blink at him.
“Charlie?”
Dimples firing, he taps his temple with two fingers. “At your service, Alice Everly.”
My cheeks heat at the way he says my name. The Alice is as smooth as melted butter, but Everly sounds like it’s being scraped over his tongue.
“How do you know who I am?” I ask.
“You sent me your photo, remember? And that’s John Kalinski’s skiff you just crashed.”
I wince.
“You’re having quite the day,” he says. “Destroying produce displays and crashing boats. Do you always wreak such havoc?”
“Hardly.”
“I don’t know,” he says, his smile teasing. “You seem like trouble. I think I’ll have to be careful when I’m around you.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “There’s no need to be around me at all.”
I give him a close-lipped smile that we both know means, Now please leave .
He lifts his brows in response.
With an eye roll, I sit on the bench and give the engine cord a tug, but the motor doesn’t start. I give it another yank, and still nothing.
“I’d be happy to assist you.” He doesn’t add City Girl , but I can hear it.
“No, I’m good,” I reply through clenched teeth. Of all the people on the lake to come to my aid, it had to be him. I pull the cord again. And again. And again.
“You might want to wait,” he says. “Or else you’ll—”
I try once more, and the engine falls silent. The smell of gasoline drenches the air.
I look at Charlie.
“Or else you’ll flood the motor.”
“You’ll need to wait about twenty minutes before you can give it another go,” Charlie informs me with a highly satisfied smile.
“You don’t have to look so happy about this.”
“Why not? Now I can give you a ride home.” He winks. “It’s not every day I get to stage a rescue.”
I snort. “I’ll wait it out, thanks. It’s a gorgeous afternoon.”
He studies me for a second, his gaze so direct I almost look away. When he speaks, all the teasing has vanished from his voice. “You can trust me to take you back to your cottage, Alice. Let me get the rope so I can give you a tow. Looks like you’ve had enough sun.”
I follow his eyeline to my reddened skin. He’s right. I’ll need to slather myself with aloe vera later.
“All right.” I acquiesce.
With abundant inelegance, I manage to row my boat next to Charlie’s. As he tethers the vessels together with a length of nylon rope, my eyes journey down his biceps and sculpted forearms to his massive hands. He grins again when he sees me staring.
And then reaches for me.
“What are you doing?”
His smile cracks like lightning. “Lifting you on board.”
In a flash, Charlie hooks his hands under my armpits and, without so much as a grunt, has me in the air. I reach for his shoulders with a yelp as he sets me on my feet. His skin is warm under my hands. I’m so close the brim of my straw hat touches his chest. He smells like sun and soap and something expensive and plantlike that I can’t identify. I tilt my chin, and for a second, we both stare. Charlie looks down between us, to where my palms rest flat against his chest, and I take a sudden step back, dropping onto a seat.
Charlie chuckles. “Are you always clumsy?”
“Not really.”
“Must be me, then.”
I roll my eyes, and his smile broadens. “Don’t worry, Alice. I have this effect on people.”
He reaches over me, picking up a striped towel from the floor at my feet. His knuckles brush innocently over my calf, and I resist a shiver. He hands me the towel. “Throw this over your shoulders. You probably burn if you so much as look at the sun.”
“I burn if I consider the possibility of going outside,” I tell him, and his dimples appear.
Charlie starts the engine, and on the way back to the cottage, he points out a sandy bit of crown land that’s nice for picnics. He drives with one hand on the wheel, like the boat is an extension of his body, knees turned to me, paying attention to the water as much as he does me.
“So you’re here with your grandmother for the summer. Will you have any guests joining you?”
I look at him from the corner of my eye.
“Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Husband? Wife? Partner?”
“Subtle,” I tell him.
“Not my forte.” When I don’t respond, he asks, “Maybe a distant cousin on your mother’s side?”
“The wedding’s next Saturday,” I say, deadpan.
Charlie looks at me strangely. His dimples are in place, but something shifts in his eyes. “You’re funny.”
“I’m not really.” I don’t think anyone has accused me of being funny before.
“I disagree.”
“Believe me,” I tell him. “I’m the kind of person who, when I tell a joke, someone will say, ‘That’s funny,’ but they don’t actually laugh.”
“You are funny.” He says it like it’s a revelation.
“And yet you still didn’t laugh.”
At that, he chuckles. The sound is deeper than the engine’s rumble. It settles low in my belly, a feeling I quickly dismiss.
“So we’ve established that you’re funny,” he says.
I shrug.
“And single?” Charlie winks.
“Single. No boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, partner, or questionable relationship with a distant cousin on my mother’s side.”
“It’s the cousin on your dad’s side I need to be concerned about, right?”
Before I can stop myself, I bark out a singular “Ha!”
Charlie grins like he’s won a round, and the expression zings through me. I’ve seen the same smirk, on the same face, only it was sixteen years younger.
The realization knocks me over like a tidal wave. Charlie is the older brother from my photo, the one I wove elaborate fantasies about. My mouth falls open in slow motion, and I snap it shut before he sees me gaping. I flash several degrees hotter, suddenly nervous, suddenly seventeen.
“A summer with just you and your grandmother,” Charlie says, jerking me back to the present. “That’s unusual.”
I blink at him, finding it difficult to get words past my lips, before coming up with, “Is it?”
“I’d say so.”
I take a deep breath, pulling myself together. “We’re close. The least I could do was get her out of her house.”
Charlie’s gaze travels my face; his brows are pulled together slightly. “That doesn’t seem like the least you could do.”
I hum, not fully agreeing. “She’s family. I did what anyone would.”
“I doubt that.” His eyes find mine, piercing as lasers, as if he can see deep inside. It’s unsettling. “I bet you’re not like anyone else, Alice Everly.”