Chapter 11
West
Jagger McNamara and I had been friends since kindergarten, but we didn’t get to hang out often anymore, thanks to work schedules and me being a dad.
He might’ve been a wild child growing up, but he had a good heart and a soft spot for my princesses. He made a point of taking us out on his boat at least a couple of times each summer. This evening was our first such ride of the season.
I’d finished work at Presley’s and left at four to pick up a picnic dinner from Country Market’s deli—cold fried chicken that Sienna would turn her nose up at, cheese cubes, dinner rolls, and grapes.
Wanting to give the girls an extra treat, I’d stopped by Sugar and bought a dozen cookies.
Then I’d relieved Allie a few minutes earlier than usual.
Jagger had zipped us across the lake in his bowrider to a quiet cove where we swam off the back of the boat then devoured our dinner.
I’d managed to keep the bakery box hidden until now, so as I slid it out of a Country Market bag, Scarlet gasped.
“Daddy got cookies!” she hollered.
“Yummy,” Nova shouted.
“Did you get us Esmerelda’s favorite kind?” Sienna asked, blessedly quieter than her sisters.
“I got something even better,” I said, holding the box up, the lid still closed.
The three little piglets, who’d eaten big dinners—even Sienna had filled up on everything but the chicken—their appetites undoubtedly increased by swimming, clamored around me as if I hadn’t fed them for a week.
“Go sit in your places in the bow, and I’ll bring the cookies,” I said, hoping to limit crumbs to that section.
I didn’t have to tell them twice. All three bounced to the front, sat on the cushioned benches, and looked up at me expectantly like little birds. I bent down and flipped the lid open with fanfare so they could see.
Nova’s mouth popped open.
Sienna sucked in her breath.
Scarlet squealed and said, “They’re shaped like llamas!”
“I want a Betty one,” Nova said, her eyes on the chocolate frosted.
“The white ones are Esmerelda,” Sienna said, helping herself to one of those.
“Can we have one of each?” Scarlet asked.
“Pick one to start,” I said, knowing I’d give in to seconds eventually.
Once the girls were munching on their dessert, I sat next to Jagger and held the box out. His brows rose as he surveyed the cookies and laughed.
“Whoever thought up making them llama shaped is a genius,” he said. “That’s a marketing coup.”
He chose a chocolate one. I took a vanilla. Someone had decorated them with facial details including heart-shaped sunglasses and a rainbow-sprinkled blanket on each llama’s back.
“I didn’t think you liked the girls to have a lot of sugar,” Jagger said so the girls, who were jabbering ninety miles an hour between them, couldn’t hear.
“I wanted to give them a treat. Dad guilt lives. I’m working on that extra project in the evenings and on weekends. Just really got started on it this week, so they had a sitter Tuesday and Thursday evening. Tomorrow they’re going to my mom’s for the weekend.”
“So you got them a dozen cookies.” Jagger shrugged. “No judgment from me. These are good.”
“It’s a relief they like their babysitters so much. It seems like babysitters are raising my kids instead of me this summer.”
“You’re working your a—butt off to provide for them.
When you’re not working, you’re taking them on boat rides and hikes in the woods.
They’re lucky to have you, West.” He looked at the sky and the clock.
“We’ve got about an hour of daylight left.
Ready to make our way back? I’ll take the long way. ”
“Sounds good.”
“Who’s ready to fly?” Jagger asked the girls.
All three of them raised their hands and laughed and made little-girl happy sounds. Once they were seated, we took off across the water, waving at fellow boaters. The number of boats out here had dropped to half while we were anchored in the cove.
“You think they’d like to go by the hotel?” Jagger asked.
“Not a doubt in my mind,” I said.
The girls loved peering up at the sprawling veranda of the impressive Marks and peeping at the guests of the fancy hotel.
As we neared the shore, Jagger slowed down to wake speed.
“It’s the Marks!” Scarlet yelled loudly enough for every last person on that veranda to hear her.
The property was crawling with people, from the upper-level balconies to the veranda and all the way down to the docks.
“People-watching the rich folks is always a good time,” Jagger muttered with a grin.
My gaze strayed down the shore, trying to make out Presley’s dock.
“Speaking of rich folks, if you keep going toward Max Dawson’s, I can show the girls Presley’s house.”
“Presley,” he repeated. “How’s that going?”
“Mostly smooth sailing. Weather’s not a factor so we’re on schedule so far.”
Presley’s house was about ten expansive lots down from the hotel’s property. Max lived two houses farther down from her, on the side toward the marina, so we’d go by both.
“Hey, girls,” I said once we were past the hotel and into the residential area. “Want to see the house I’ve been working on?”
“Miss Presley’s house?” Nova asked.
“That’s right,” I said.
“Yes!” they all yelled.
“Remind me not to take them fishing,” Jagger said with a chuckle. “You ladies have scared every last fish away from this end of the lake.”
Sienna looked alarmed, while Scarlet laughed, and Nova eyed the water and yelled a boisterous, “Hello down there, fishies!”
As we got closer to Presley’s, I noticed kayaks lying on a flat part of the grassy yard. Those hadn’t been there earlier in the day. Someone had gone shopping, it appeared.
It wasn’t until we were nearly even with her house that I noticed movement on the other side of her dock.
Presley herself appeared, straightening to a stand in the ankle-deep water, and I held in a swear word. I hadn’t bargained for getting busted going by her house.
When I realized she was wearing a bikini top and shorts, I lost my ability to form words for a few seconds. Maybe stopped breathing as well. All my blood was headed somewhere besides my brain and lungs.
Her string bikini top was an innocent shade of soft pink. Two triangles of fabric covered her tits, which weren’t all that large, but that didn’t stop me from wanting my tongue on them.
“It’s Miss Presley,” Scarlet said.
“She has tie-dye boats!” Nova hollered.
That wasn’t all she had. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Presley turned our way, took a moment to figure out who we were, then broke out into a beautiful, welcoming smile that reached right down to my dick.
I coached myself to calm the fuck down and quit acting like a teenage boy who got off to pictures of girls in swimsuits even as I knew the image of her looking like that would burn bright in my head tonight, and my hand would get another workout.
“Hey, it’s my favorite smart-girl brigade,” Presley called out, waving.
“Daddy, can we visit her, pretty please?” Scarlet asked.
“I want to see her kayaks,” Sienna said. “They’re so pretty!”
Jagger looked over at me. “We stopping?”
Hell, this had backfired. “For a minute. If you don’t mind.”
His brows shot up as if to say, What in the hell is there to mind about stopping to talk to a woman who looks like that?, which made me want to shove him overboard. He pulled the boat up alongside the dock.
“We were showing the girls where I’m working,” I explained.
“You have a rainbow boat,” Nova said, her voice filled with awe.
Presley laughed. “I sure do. I bought three new kayaks today. Want to come see them?”
“Oh, they noticed,” I told her.
“They’re much prettier than the ones we rent from the marina,” Scarlet said.
“Hey, now,” Jagger said. “Don’t be talking bad about our boats.”
“They’re all orange, Uncle Jag,” Scarlet said as if the problem was evident.
“You think we need swirly pink ones?” he asked her.
“Yes! And purple and blue and green,” Scarlet said.
“All the colors!” Nova shouted.
Jagger eyed me with a grin and a head shake. “We’ll take that under advisement, princesses.”
Presley bent and slid a purple-pink tie-dye kayak from the water onto the shore. I did my best not to watch her in action, instead turning to Jagger.
“You in a hurry?” I asked.
“Nope. This has the potential to be an interesting show.” He shot me a look that was curious bordering on knowing, as if he had me figured out.
He likely fucking did.
It didn’t take a genius to lay eyes on Presley Holiday and guess that I or any heterosexual guy might have thoughts involving her.
Presley walked out onto her dock, talking to the girls as Jagger maneuvered the boat close enough for us to disembark.
Realizing Presley probably didn’t know the first thing about mooring a boat, I moved toward the dock side and hopped off.
I grabbed the line at the bow, tied it to the cleat, then did the same near the stern, acting like the task took all my concentration.
In reality, I was striving to get my shit together and ignore that Presley was eighty percent bare-skinned and just a few feet away from me.
When the boat was secured, I stood and faced Presley, determined to keep my gaze on her face. “You sure it’s okay to unleash them?”
She laughed. “If you mean let the girls out of the boat, absolutely. I want to show off my pretty new kayaks.”
“You realize you could fit something bigger in your boathouse?” I asked as I helped my girls to the dock one by one, with Jagger pulling up the rear.
“I haven’t ruled that out,” she said. “I decided to start small.”
“With three kayaks,” I teased. “Have you figured which one is just right, Goldilocks?”
Jagger hopped onto the deck and came up next to me.
“This is Jagger McNamara,” I told her. “Jagger, meet Presley Holiday.”
They shook hands and exchanged niceties. I forced myself to follow my daughters off the dock and not think about the fact that Jagger was touching Presley, even if it was just a handshake.