Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bower
Mia hadn’t been wearing her ring, but she was still attached to that guy. The one who’d showed up in clothes that cost more than the salary I could pay Dean. She hadn’t fully ended it with him, stringing him along as a backup—for what? If things didn’t work out between us?
She wasn’t all in like I was. There was no one else for me. I had laid it out there the night of her bachelorette. When she’d showed up this week without her ring, I’d let myself believe she was all in too.
I pushed the pool vacuum down the bottom of the deep end of the resort’s pool. Just another of the way too many jobs I took on here. But at least it gave me something to do while I thought through this mess with Mia.
It felt right having her here at the resort. In my cabin. Taking a shower in my bathroom, where it had taken an enormous amount of willpower not to join her.
And the way she melded into my body when I’d pulled her close? She had wanted me to kiss her.
At that, I shook my head. Yesterday I’d almost kissed an engaged woman.
Thankfully we had been interrupted. I didn’t kiss engaged women—married or taken either.
It had never been my style. Growing up watching my grandparents’ devotion to each other made the thought of breaking up a union unforgiveable.
Why would Mia put me in a situation like that?
A child screamed from one of the cabins near the pool.
I looked over at the clock that was zip-tied onto the fence that surrounded the pool.
It was early, but soon families would descend, parents ready to get their kids into the water and out of their hair.
I picked up my pace but still made sure to go slow enough not to cloud the water.
The whole situation with Mia was just as cloudy.
Was she up here, testing the waters, trying me out to see if I would be boyfriend material?
I would never share a girl with any other man.
The thought of that man touching Mia, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, proposing marriage…
It made me sick. The whole situation made me sick.
And if she hadn’t fully ended it with him before coming here, did that mean that was the type of guy she wanted—clean cut, rich, asshole?
Maybe she had changed in the last nine years.
I was the boy from years ago, a childhood crush, that she had to see one more time just to make sure she was making the right decision.
I guess I hadn’t passed the test.
I’d left Mia and Archer at my cabin to let them figure out whatever was going on between them. They could ride off into the sunset together for all I cared.
Well, I did care, but her test run, or whatever this was, was over. I wasn’t going to be jerked around by Mia anymore. If I wasn’t her choice, I’d have to live with that.
And if she eventually brought her and Archer’s kids up here? Maybe I’d sell the fucking resort.
It was late afternoon, and I hadn’t seen Mia for nearly two days. I could avoid her and her fiancé for the next two days before they left on Saturday, that’d be great. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing the two of them together in any capacity.
My phone rang, and I flipped it open, seeing that Grandpa was calling. He was out fishing. Probably ran out of beer or bait.
“Hey,” I said. “Need more Bud Light?”
“Uhh, Bower—” Background noises, muffled talking, twangs of country music. “Imma need you to pick me up. I got the boat docked at—” More muffled noises, cheering, shuffling noises. Silence. The phone beeped three times, showing a dropped call.
Cell service was terrible up here on a good day. Fuck. Where was he? I didn’t mind picking him up—better that than him getting a DUI or crashing the boat—but there were several bars he could be at. So many bars and restaurants up here had docks you could just pull your boat up to.
I tried to call him again, but it immediately went to voicemail. A dead phone or no service. Best to start checking off bars one at a time.
His usual haunts were close together toward the middle of the lake. The drink specials were great—all the restaurants and bars competing for business. Many of the locals bar hopped by boat from one to another.
I jogged down the stairs to the marina and grabbed a key to one of the resort’s motorboats from the lockbox Caleb had just installed and headed to the boat.
Our boats were a mix of older vessels and newer ones we liked to save for guests to rent.
I’d picked an older boat that I knew was still in good condition.
Like every time I turned a key, I held my breath, bracing my body for any sounds that might trigger me.
The key turned smoothly, and the engine started right up—the only sound was the soft purr of the motor.
I puttered out of the marina and into the bay. No Wake buoys floated every hundred feet, so I kept the speed to a minimum. There were huge houses with sandy beaches built around the bay. Every house was a cookie cutter of the previous one, complete with Adirondack chairs circled around a firepit.
Taxes were high up here because of these big houses.
They weren’t the small cabins at Agate Harbors, although the owners probably spent as much time up here as any of the guests at our resort.
Their docks housed multiple Jet Skis and hundred-thousand-dollar pontoons with big motors and fancy lighting.
I stood, keeping my head above the boat’s windshield, scanning the bay. Tiny ripples broke the surface tension of the water when a turtle’s head poked above the surface before diving back under. The lake was alive but quiet, with so much going on under the surface that we couldn’t see.
Larger ripples, more than just a turtle’s nose poking through the surface, hit the hull of my boat.
I glanced in the direction they were coming from.
A paddleboat, one of the resort’s, floated nearby, its exposed rudder tangled in green weeds.
Its operator, obviously frustrated, rocked the boat from side to side, trying to dislodge it.
It wasn’t any use. I could see the weeds wrapped around the rudder.
We would need to bring a knife out here to cut through them.
I turned the wheel of my boat to steer toward the guest who’d gotten in over their head.
It wasn’t the first time. Overzealous guests from the Cities always thought they could navigate the lake.
Often they ended up lost in the chain of lakes or bottomed out on an unmarked sandbar.
The closer I got to the paddleboat, the faster my heart started to beat in my chest. I recognized the back of the guest’s head.
The blonde hair that was a little too blonde.
The frustrated tension in her shoulders—her bright red shoulders. How long had she been out here, stuck?
My boat’s wake sent waves to shore, rocking her paddleboat unnaturally. She looked over her shoulder quickly before turning around and curling her body in, trying to make herself smaller. There was no hiding on this lake. This was my stomping ground. I knew every lily pad and every tree.
“Mia!” I called out. I saw her body freeze, tense, and then slowly turn toward me. I killed the motor, letting my boat drift toward hers. “Are you stuck?”
“Bower?” Her nose and cheeks were red with sunburn. She never wore sunblock because the feel of it on her skin made her uncomfortable. Mia must not have thought she’d be on the lake long.
A part of me liked seeing her like this, helpless, without her fancy fiancé to save her.
I was the only one with the boat. Without me, she’d be stuck out here until someone else was kind enough to ask if she was okay.
Judging by the empty beaches of the mansions behind me and the boats still up in their lifts, it wouldn’t be anytime soon.
My boat floated right behind Mia’s paddleboat, nudging it with its tip. She squealed at the jolt, slightly falling forward.
“Where’s that fiancé of yours?” I asked.
“He went home.”
My jaw dropped. Archer wasn’t here? What did that mean?
“Hop in,” I said. Regardless of how weird things were between us, I couldn’t leave her stranded in the sun. I left the steering wheel and came to the bow of the boat, extending a hand.
She stared at me in surprise. “Aren’t you—aren’t you mad at me?”
“Mad?” I asked. Annoyed and upset, yes, but I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t sure I could ever be mad at Mia.
“I thought since you didn’t come looking for me yesterday…” She looked down at her feet. “I wanted a chance to talk to you—to explain everything.”
I hadn’t searched her out because I’d thought she’d been with her fiancé—that she’d chosen her fiancé over me. But here she was, no fiancé in sight. If she wanted to talk, I’d hear what she had to say. Though first, we needed to look for my grandpa.
“Well, here I am,” I said. “Jump in my boat.”
Mia looked like she might choose to stay out on the paddleboat, sunburn and all.
“Come on, Mia. Come with me.” I stood at the side of the boat, extending a hand to her. Her fiancé might’ve gone home, left her up here all alone, but I wasn’t going to leave her.
My boat rocked as waves crashed toward the shore. I only had a minute before I’d have to back out the boat so I wouldn’t get stuck along the shoreline myself. “It’s okay if things feel weird after what happened the other day. I get it—it’s weird for me too.”
Mia glanced up at me before looking back down at the water.
“Look, the situation is shitty. We can be upset with each other later,” I said, “but we’ve got to get going. I’ve got to find my grandpa.”
Her eyes widened. “He hasn’t wandered off too, has he?”
I chuckled. “Only to his favorite watering hole. We need to go pick him up. Can you help me?” I made the decision that we’d get this whole mess figured out, but first I needed to get her to talk to me. If it took using my lost grandpa as an excuse, I’d take it.
Mia looked up at me from the paddleboat that sat low in the water. She let out a final breath of defeat before looking at me, those brown eyes surrounded by the pink of her sunburned skin.
She stood up in the paddleboat, the boat wiggling beneath her feet.
Her hand met mine, our fingers interlocking.
Mia stepped onto the side of the boat, my arm pulling her up and in.
Once her feet hit the carpeted bottom of the boat, she pulled her hand out of mine and brushed it off on the black bike shorts she was wearing.
I motioned for her to come behind the windshield toward the back of the boat, but she sat down on the seats near the bow, her face pointing toward shore.
So I took the hat from my head and set it on top of Mia’s, making sure the bill blocked the sun from her face.
She turned and looked up at me, the bill directing my eyes right down into hers.
She looked away once she realized I was staring.
Finding my way back to the captain’s chair, I drove the boat past the no-wake zone and pressed on the throttle.
Standing above the windshield, I let the wind hit my face.
Mia grabbed onto the side rail—and to the top of the hat on her head as the boat picked up speed, bouncing over waves and other boat’s wakes.
Her blonde hair flew behind her, escaping the tight ponytail she kept her strands in.
She’d wanted to sit in the front of the boat. I hoped she knew how to hold on.