Chapter 30
Rhett
I work on the boat most of the afternoon, periodically hearing Bailey and Savannah laugh loud enough to be heard through the walls or pounding on things inside the kitchen.
Each time I catch a glance of Bailey’s face through the window, she’s busy smiling or laughing.
Relaxed. I’m glad they’ve reconnected here.
By mid-afternoon, I have the boat working. I go inside to tell them and to grab that slice of pie my stomach’s been growling for.
“Oh, the boat’s working,” Savannah repeats, but she’s looking at Bailey when she says it with a pair of wide eyes to emphasize the point I’ve just made.
“That boat? Right out there?” She points out the window.
“Imagine that, Bailey, a working boat. We were just talking about places she wants to take that thing once it’s working, right, Bailey? ”
Bailey’s face flushes red, and she rubs that new splotch on her neck.
“You are too much,” she murmurs at Savannah, laughing.
I glance between them, curious which places Bailey was hoping to go.
“Where do you want to take it?” I ask, taking the plate of pie Bailey’s just sliced up for me. I have a bite, and the crust practically melts in my mouth, along with the ice cream she scooped on top.
“Oh,” Savannah exclaims, hopping up off her chair, winking at Bailey. “You want to take the boat right now? That’s my cue to go.”
She beams, while Bailey swats at her with the dish towel off the stove.
“Thank you for the pie,” Bailey tells her loudly, grinning. “And tell your mom her chickens’ eggs were the secret ingredient of something truly extraordinary.”
Savannah gasps happily, as if the compliment was given directly to her.
“You know she’ll be delighted to hear that. My mom lives for compliments like that. She’s also wondering when you’re going to come take a picture for her VIP wall. I keep reminding her that you two are in hiding for a bit longer though. Though, you know how she can be.”
“We’ll figure something out soon, I’m sure,” Bailey answers while eyeing me. “I’m sure it’d be fine to swing by, as long as there’s no mention of it in the paper or anything.”
“Of course,” she says. “Gran can use her connections at the paper to keep it quiet. And no rush. Promise.”
We walk Savannah to the door.
She spins around once it’s open.
“You know, you two have been so cooped up here,” she says, tsking to herself, as if it’s tragic, then she snaps her fingers like some big idea has just occurred to her. “You know what’s extra private and out of this house?”
“Where?” I ask at the same time Bailey swats her again with the tea towel while muttering, “Oh my God, Savannah,” with a chuckle.
“The grotto,” Savannah says, lowering her voice. Then she looks just at me. “Do you remember that place? Now that you have the boat running, it’d be like a trip down memory lane, right?”
“Yeah, I do remember it,” I say, glancing at Bailey, who’s barely holding back a laugh, shaking her head with her eyes closed.
Savannah pretends not to notice.
“God,” she goes on, “that place is gorgeous. Private. Only one way in and one way out. So easy to block it off with the boat and not have any unwanted visitors . . . Right? Anyway, thanks for having me!”
She spins out the door and waves over her shoulder, grinning at us both.
When I close the door behind her, I turn to Bailey, finally getting to pull her in for a kiss. Already feeling like one afternoon away from her is too long.
“Well, that was kind of weird,” I say, smiling into her hair. “She must really like it there. You hungry for dinner in a bit?”
“Not really, I’m full of that pie,” she says, then she pulls back to look up at me. “And with the boat working again, maybe that’s not such a crazy idea? I was thinking that maybe we could go where Savannah was just talking about?”
“To the lodge for a photo op?” I ask.
She frowns, then gets a funny look on her face.
Oh.
“Let’s go to the grotto,” she says. Then she pauses to kiss me like it’s no big deal to suggest it.
The grotto. Of all the places.
It was a secret little spot the four of us had retreated to time and time again when we wanted privacy from our parents.
Jumping off the tall cliff rocks around it and into the little pool that was almost like a cave, tucked back from the rest of the lake and protected by a narrow inlet.
Unless you were a local or a summer family, you didn’t know about it.
It was one of Cedar Shores’ best-kept secrets, since the inlet was small and hard to see from the main drag of the lake, where most of the other boaters stayed.
As soon as I’d learned to drive the boat myself, it became our hang-out spot.
“You want to go to the grotto?” I repeat, a bit breathlessly, just imagining her there. The main characters in Bailey’s book lost their virginity to each other there, tucked into a nook behind the waterfall.
Of all the spots on this lake, that one is the most protected.
Even more than these cabins. There are no windows or doors to break into, and only one way in or out.
But it’s also a bit trickier since the cliffs around it don’t allow for hiking in, so you have to take a boat to get there.
It sounds like the perfect place to go to get out of here for a bit without having to go into town.
“Let’s go,” she says, pulling me in again.
Her kiss tells me everything.
Twenty minutes later, after we’ve changed into swimsuits and grabbed towels and water, we’re back out on the dock. The boat bobs beneath our weight when we step in, and the engine’s profile dips even lower into the water.
We sit side by side on the vintage red and white vinyl bench seat behind the wheel. The chrome mufflers roar to life when I turn the old keys in the dash, making water shoot out the back.
Bailey cheers, then snuggles into me as I back the boat out of our bay.
“I’m so glad you got this working,” she tells me.
Once we’re out of the no-wake zone, I clutch the wheel with one hand and the throttle with the other.
“Hang on,” I tell her, nipping her ear.
I push the throttle down.
She grabs on to my arm and shrieks when we take off like a shot, mufflers bucking to lift the boat as we pick up speed, bouncing across the water.
The wind whips her copper hair, making it billow out behind us like a flag, finally surrendering our freedom to the lake.
She wraps a fist around it, keeping the strands low at the nape of her neck, and I make a hard turn to pick up speed, spraying water out the side, then shift it to the other, making her laugh as we bump along the waves our engine just made.
I can’t remember why I thought I should ever leave this place.
Or leave her.
Bailey yelps when I press the throttle down, and the front end pops up before dumping back down, shooting water out on either side before the boat evens out and, at speed, we begin to smoothly cut across the surface like glass.
She turns to look at me, and I’m happy to see the wild look in her eyes mirrors mine.
Wild, and still impossibly young. As if just being away from everything in the city has dropped five years off each of her shoulders.
She kneels and turns to shift onto my lap, then lifts herself up over me to straddle my hips.
Her back faces the steering wheel and throttle as I drive, and I have to tilt around her to see out the windshield, but I couldn’t care less.
She leans in to kiss me, wrapping her body tighter around mine, pressing me into a hug with her knees on either side.
Then she rests her chin on my shoulder to watch the wake spread out behind us.
Though it’s barely early dusk, the sky is already starting to glow bright orange.
She lets out a contented little sigh near my ear, and I squeeze her in closer, knowing there’s truly nowhere else in the world I’d rather be other than right here.
“You always looked best driving a boat,” she says, right into my ear. Then she grabs a hold of my earlobe with her teeth before kissing the spot just beside it.
When we get to the middle of the lake, I cut the engine, and the whole boat dips before buoying back up.
She stays perched on my lap, but I turn her face toward mine, allowing the boat to drift on the water while I kiss her, the surface around us glistening in the light.
Out here, we’re a mile or two from any shoreline, with no other boats in sight.
The summer season is still early, and most of the vacation crowd won’t start showing up for a few more weeks.
But I like it like this. Almost totally empty and quiet as can be.
I’m tempted to stay right where we’re at and skip out on the rest of the plan when her kisses grow more desperate.
I lean away, keeping my head still on a swivel, but I can feel myself growing harder, with just the thin fabric of her bikini bottoms and my swim trunks to stop anything real from happening.
It would almost be too easy, just to push them aside, not exposing anything beneath the boat line for any prying eyes, but the idea of having me inside her, just to see how it feels for one fucking second, makes it almost impossible for me to keep driving.
But somehow I do, and within minutes, we’re already there.