Chapter 11 #2
She grinned at him, and his stomach did a backflip. “Isn’t this the best? It’s been ages since they’ve had a lakeside movie night, and even longer since I was at one. I think I was sixteen and came here with… God, what was his name? His tube collapsed.”
Dane scowled. “I can’t guarantee that won’t happen to me, either,” he said, his ass now deeper in the lake than it was before. Wiggling his foot, he told her to grab it. “I’ll pull you into position.”
With Wren holding his foot, he dragged his hands through the water to position them at the back of the many other boats and inflatables. He should’ve organized a canoe or a paddleboard. Something that wasn’t in danger of sinking.
“You’ll be fine,” Wren assured him. “It’s stronger than it looks.”
“I doubt that,” he told her.
Coming across three empty tubes, he frowned. “Why are there empty floats on the water?” he asked.
“Probably kids messing around,” Wren replied. “Look, Tad and Gina are in the float in front of us.”
Dane eyed the teenagers and grimaced. He really didn’t want to see them getting handsy every time he dropped his eyes from the screen. And if he wasn’t mistaken, Tad was about to hit second base.
“Tad!” The kids shot up and looked around, instantly alert. In the dim light, he saw their wide eyes and flushed faces. They both turned to him and Wren, identical expressions of defiance and chagrin.
“Dude, there’s a time and place,” Dane said, using his I-am-a-God-in-my-operating-room voice. “This is not the time nor the place.”
Tad swallowed and ducked his head. “Yes, sir,” he muttered.
They turned away, both with folded arms and red faces. Dane leaned sideways and spoke in Wren’s ear, conscious that sound carried clearly across water. “I hope they have a condom and know how to use it.”
Wren grinned. “You should ask him,” she suggested, her smile naughty.
“That’s family-medicine shit and I’d rather stab myself in the eye,” he replied. Water was now lapping his hips. “I swear this boat is losing air.”
Wren squeezed the rim of his inflatable and winced. “I think it is.”
He swore and looked toward the bank, where only one double inflatable remained on the bank. If he didn’t get there fast, they’d be shit out of luck. “I’m going to swim to shore to grab that double inflatable,” he told her.
“There are three behind us,” Wren told him. “Just hop into one of those.”
Dane looked around. Huh. The three empty inflatables were now a long way from them, at least double the distance from where he was to the shore.
Weird because they’d been just behind them a few minutes ago.
It would be far quicker to swim to shore than to rescue the boats.
And if Tad got too handsy, he’d send him to bring them in. A swim would cool him down.
Wren placed her hand on her inflatable and frowned. “Mine is also a little soft,” she said, frowning. “It was perfectly hard a minute ago.”
Dane slipped out of the boat and stood in the water; it only came up to his waist. He spun her around and looked for the plug; it had come loose.
He didn’t understand it; he’d checked the plugs on both boats before they left the shore.
The plug on his was intact, and it had been firm when they entered the water.
“That is so freaking weird,” he said, surprised at how unsurprised he was.
He’d felt cold spots, sensed someone was watching him, the bugle blast in the studio, the freakin’ ghost Wren saw.
His glimpse of the Civil War soldier the other night.
Bizarre things kept happening, but he’d stopped reacting weeks ago. It was what it was.
Dane pulled Wren to shore, powering through the water. “Do you mind sharing a float with me?” he asked. “Or is being up close and personal with you off limits?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought we covered that before?”
He grimaced.
“Going forward, can you not refer to that night, what happened, and any decisions I need to make?” she asked, her tone cool.
He wanted to push her, to make her choose him, here, now, on the spot.
But the thing was, he couldn’t offer her more than a fling, a few weeks together, because his job wasn’t conducive to a relationship, and he wasn’t sure he wanted one, or was ready for one.
Pushing her for answers was a dick move, and he did try his best to keep his dickish behavior to a minimum.
Yeah, maybe she was still thinking about the other guy, but she wasn’t with him yet. She was here, with him. And that was all that mattered.
“Fair point,” he conceded. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded but lifted an eyebrow, seemingly surprised by his apology. Why? Apologizing was the right, and adult, thing to do. “Let me ask you again … double boat or single?” he asked.
He watched Wren’s face as she looked from the bigger boat to him, and back again. Her throat bobbed, and in the semi-darkness, he swore he saw her cheeks color. “It might be a bit of a squeeze, because you’re like one-and-a-half people,” she said, and he was grateful that she’d accepted the reset.
“Is that an insult or a compliment?” he teased her, smiling.
She flicked water at him and grinned. “You can take it any way you want,” she cheekily told him.
Dane shook his head, smiled, and reached up to pull the double inflatable from the bank.
He placed it in the water next to Wren and eyed the boat.
It definitely would mean them getting up close and too damn personal.
Great, because he couldn’t think of anything better than having her head tucked under his chin, his legs against hers, his arms around her waist.
Well, apart from them being naked and sweaty, with her under him…
Keep it tidy, Trafford.
After getting Wren settled, he pulled her back out to their place behind Tad and Gina, happy to see that there was enough space for Jesus between them. At the first scream, he knew that would change, but as long as lips and hands didn’t stray…
After using his upper-body strength to settle into the float, Wren handed him a beer, and he raised his can.
“Cheers.”
Wren bumped her can against his, and Dane wriggled down, resting his neck on the boat’s rim. This was actually quite comfortable. He glanced at his watch and saw they had at least twenty minutes before the movie started.
“How has your week been?” he asked, a little surprised when she tucked herself into his side and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Is this okay, me lying like this?” she asked, sounding hesitant. “There’s not much room.”
And for that, he was grateful. His arm curled around her back and rested on her hip. “Very okay.”
She rested her beer can on his stomach and angled her head to look at him. “To answer your question: good, I guess. Luna’s been bugging me to help with the setup for the main festival.”
“She ambushed me outside Cobwebs and Curiosities and told me to report to the medical tent,” Dane said.
“She also told me to take inventory and to tell her whether they had all the necessary medical supplies, and to let her know if anything was missing.” He smiled.
“I was tempted to ask for a portable ultrasound and an LED surgical light to see how she’d react. ”
“She probably wouldn’t bat an eye, and would place the order immediately,” Wren said. “You could ask for the moon, and she’d give it to you.”
“As long as I offered to take over Dr. Morris’s practice,” he replied. “Have I told you that I am absolutely not ever going to become a family doctor?”
She patted his chest, as if placating a child. “Yeah, yeah.”
He chuckled, and Dane tipped his head back to look at the sky, filled with stars.
They hung heavy, bright, and cheerful. The last time he’d seen a night so star-filled was in the Sudan, providing medical care in that shitshow of a conflict zone.
He’d taken a break between an amputation and a bullet-to-the-chest wound to go outside and look up.
Of course, after ten minutes, he started shifting from foot to foot, thinking of everything he had to do, itching to get inside.
But right now, there was nothing he wanted more than to lie here with Wren tucked into his side, a beer in his hand.
Well, nothing but her naked, screaming his name. Crap.
“Why don’t you ever ask me to explain, Dane?”
He frowned at her out-of-the-blue question and lifted his head to look down at her. Unfortunately, he could only see the top of her head. “What do you mean?”
“Things happen, but you don’t ask for clarification,” she said. “I mean, I screamed in the studio, and you didn’t ask why. Alex rocked up unexpectedly last weekend, and you just accepted the minimal information I gave you. You don’t push.”
This was one of those conversations where he wasn’t sure how to respond. Did she want him to ask, or was she happy he hadn’t pried? “If I did ask, would you tell me?”
Wren pushed herself up, swung both her legs over his thighs, and sat at a right angle to him. She took a long sip of beer and looked at the still white screen. “I’m not a good talker or explainer, but I could try,” she quietly replied. “If you are interested and if you ask.”
He’d hit a fork in the road, and he could either veer left—keeping things light and surface-based—or right, and find out what happened between Alex and Wren. He knew he should keep emotionally distant, but his curiosity was killing him. But first things first.
“Start by telling me why you screamed in the studio,” he said, pushing himself up to sit up straight, his legs still under hers.
She grimaced. “Ah, that was because, out of the corner of my eye, just for a minute, and in the mirror, I saw the image of a woman, dressed in a sequined, old-fashioned leotard. She wore bright red lipstick and an elaborate ostrich-feather headdress.” Wren scowled at him.
“And if you suggest that I saw a ghost, I will tip you into the water.”