Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(66)

I hadn’t given it much thought. Hadn’t thought to ask.

“She cares too much and worries too little,” George said. “The whole thing scared the hell out of me and our parents.”

“She ever talk about it?” I asked, thinking about her diagnosis, her reluctance to discuss it.

He shook his head. “I think she thinks she’s past it, but you’ll see that fear every once in a while if something startles her.”

I’d seen it and written it off.

“Brave girl,” I said.

“The bravest. Sometimes I wish she weren’t so brave. That she didn’t think she had to handle everything on her own. She was always big on proving herself. And after seeing how worried we were when she was attacked, well, she’d probably never willingly tell us anything again. We hovered and smothered, did the family thing.”

And that explained a lot. But it sure as hell didn’t excuse her for shutting out the family that loved her.

“Well, she’s safe here. She’s got you, me, and an entire town of weirdos ready to back her up,” I said lightly. But I meant it. I didn’t know exactly what was happening between the two of us. But I was invested enough to make sure she never had to face that fear again.





36





Shelby





The lake was bathwater warm, but I sure as hell wasn’t lounging in it. No, I was dragging my butt through it like it was molasses and I was a wrecking ball.

Something grabbed my ankle, and I shrieked under the surface. I surfaced sputtering.

“Shelby, honey, you gotta pull your face out of the water every once in a while. You don’t have gills,” Jonah said calmly as he tread water next to me. I got a good grip on his muscled shoulder and held on for dear life.

Purposely depriving myself of oxygen while traveling through water that I could have easily crossed in a boat was stupid. Who invented triathlons anyway?

“How far did I go?” I gasped, spitting out another mouthful of fishy lake water. I was swimming off Scarlett’s dock.

“A hundred yards or so,” Jonah gauged. We’d been working on speed to break up the monotony of the endurance workouts. He’d been yelling instructions from the end of the dock until I apparently stopped listening.

He was shirtless. Just the way I liked him. I tried to take a peek beneath the lake’s surface to see if he’d lost his shorts, too.

“You’re doing great,” he said. “You just need to pull up more often. The more oxygen you get, the better you’ll feel in the water.”

“You jumped in here just to tell me that?” I asked, still breathing heavily. I wanted to try winking at him, but there was too much water on my eyelashes, and I ended up just blinking fast.

His eyes warmed as they skimmed my body beneath the surface.

“Maybe I had a few other thoughts I wanted to share with you,” he said.

“I would very much like to hear those thoughts,” I said, trailing a finger over his shoulder.

Was there anything sexier than a smiling, turned-on Jonah Bodine? I was willing to do some research, but I had a feeling it wasn’t necessary.

“Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?” I asked suddenly.

He grinned at me, and my bikini bottoms got unrealistically wetter. “Not since my wayward teenage years. And, let me tell you, Jetty Beach water isn’t nearly as warm as this lake.”

“You know, if we weren’t swimming off your sister’s dock, I’d dare you to skinny-dip with me.” I let my fingers take a wet little stroll up his chest and over his shoulder. He grabbed my hand, brought my fingers to his mouth, and sucked.

“Gah!” I forgot to tread water and went under.

Laughing, he pulled me back to the surface. We both looked back at Scarlett’s house. It was awfully close to the water. And Devlin’s SUV was parked in the driveway.

So much for a skinny-dipping fantasy.

“Let’s focus on what we’re here to do,” he suggested, reaching beneath the surface and skimming fingers over the bottom edge of my bikini. I grabbed onto his shoulders to keep my head above water.

His eyes were watchful, sharp as I wrapped my legs loosely around his waist.

“I like swimming better than running,” I confessed. His finger traced over my folds through the bathing suit bottom. My legs trembled. “And I like this better than swimming.”

He grinned. “If we weren’t in full view of my sister’s house.” He sighed.

“What about those hot springs everyone’s always talking about?” I asked, sliding in for a wet kiss.

“You mean the secret hot springs that only the residents know about?” Jonah teased.

“I mean the hot springs where my brother met June and she asked him if he was masturbating.”

He winced. “I really don’t want to think about what other people do in the springs.”

“But we could be doing it, too,” I said, looping my arms around his neck.

“I tell you what. After you finish your triathlon, I’ll take you to the hot springs.”

“What if I don’t finish?” I asked, biting my lip.

He spun us around so our backs were to the land and the lake stretched out before us. “You gotta play the mental game, too, Shelby. Don’t just focus on the physical training. See yourself running. See yourself finishing.”