Love Starts with Elle(32)
“She’s just teasing, baby.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. Want to knock out the fish-food chatter?
She winced. Sorry.
“We’re going to see dolphin and fish and birds.” Elle tugged the tie from her hair and, angling TL around, finger-combed her hair into a ponytail.
TL stood still, facing the far shore, chatting with Rio. But Heath? He stepped close to watch and learn.
Elle concluded her boating instructions with a whip-twist of her hands and the tie. “If you want something, girls, just ask me or Tracey-Love’s daddy, okay? There, ready to go?”
Just like that a neat ponytail. A miracle, a regular Houdini feat. Seemed easy enough. Ha-ha. He’d practice on TL later.
Elle fired up the motor. “Heath, untie us.”
He jumped to the dock, loosened the rope, tossing it into the boat, hollering, “Ship, ahoy.”
One day he’d look back and wonder what possessed him. Surely he knew better. But instead of jumping from the dock into the boat, Heath jumped straight down into a thick, deep mound of chocolate-looking pluff mud. It slurped him like a straw.
“Heath.” Elle dashed to the side of the idling the boat. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great.” Laughing, he molded a pluff mud ball and lobbed it at her. She ducked even though it didn’t come close.
“You know you’re stuck, don’t you?”
“What? No. I’m going to swim right out.” Heath moved to demonstrate . . . except he couldn’t move. His legs and chest were cemented into a pluff mud grave. “Um, Elle?”
She popped her hands together as she started to laugh. “Are you stuck, Superman? Do not tell me you purposefully jumped.”
“It beckoned me.” His expression pleaded with her. “Want to help a guy out? Laugh later.”
Or now. Elle collapsed against the boat, her lilting laugh bouncing off the water and catching a ride on the breeze.
Meanwhile, Tracey-Loved glared down at him with an enormous frown.
“Hey, Tracey-Love, isn’t Daddy having fun? Elle? Still sinking.”
Still laughing, she tossed him the rope, then nudged the boat forward, easing him gently out of the mud into the sleek water of Factory Creek. It’d been awhile since Granddad had warned him and Mark about the deep pluff mud: “Fall in and I’ll likely never find you to dig you out.” Heath had thought it was a Granddad scare tactic.
Now, some thirty-odd years later, apparently not. Swimming to the side of the boat, he did his best to wash off, then hoisted himself aboard. His finger-and toenails were darkened with mud he’d have to scrub out later, and his hundred-dollar deck shoes would never be seen again.
“Thanks,” he said to Elle, who hovered over the steering wheel, shoulders shaking. “So happy I could amuse you.”
Her cackle filled the air as she pounded her palm against the top of the windshield.
Heath sat on the cushioned bench between TL and Rio, who pinched her nose. “You stink.”
“You don’t say?” Muddy water dripped from his shorts and shirt.
Elle finally composed herself enough to putt-putt down Factory Creek and blast the air horn at a passing sailboat. “Hey, Mr. Crowley.”
“Hey there, Elle. Sorry to hear about your wedding.”
“Old news, Mr. Crowley. Look for me to open a new gallery.”
“Never visited the old one.”
“Then it’s time to start a new tradition.” She gave the engine another rev and an air-horn good-bye blast.
Sitting in the sun, Heath’s wet clothes would be dry soon, though he’d have to live with the smell. Making sure the girls were seated securely, he moved forward next to Elle. “Done laughing?”
She snorted, once. “Sigh. All good things must come to an end.” She handed him a bottle of sunscreen. “I’m sorry, you just looked so funny.”
Heath popped open the lotion. “Think nothing of it, Elle. I’m so happy to oblige your funny bone. Laughter is the best medicine.”
“You know it.” Elle blasted the air horn over her head. “Hey, new day and Elle GARVEY is here to stay.”
“Heath McCORD too.” Yelling felt good. Released some much needed endorphins. “Okay, what am I doing with this lotion.”
“Put it on the girls.”
“Right, right.” Heath slathered Rio and Tracey-Love with white cream, feeling a bit lucky to be sailing with his three favorite girls, and that Elle’s last name wasn’t Franklin.
When he handed the bottle back to Elle, she raised her sunglasses and arched her face to him. “Put some on my nose, will you?”
Okay, a nose. Nothing sexy about a nose. He squirted a dot to his finger, then touched the tip of her slender nose. His heartbeat echoed in his ears love-ly nose, love-ly nose.
“There.” He swallowed, dropping the lotion into the crate anchored to the side of the boat.
She settled her sunglasses back in place. “How do I look?”
“Lovely.” He watched her for a second, inhaling her fresh-flowers scent. If he didn’t know firsthand, he’d never guess a broken heart beat inside her chest.
“How are the girls doing?” Elle peeked over her shoulder. “Y’all stay seated now.”
“I don’t think Tracey-Love could be more wide-eyed with wonder if she was shaking hands with Cinderella.”