Somebody to Love(41)

Then the door opened, and he forgot what he was there for.

She was wearing a bikini.

“You want to come?” she asked.

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Skin. There was a lot of skin. And…curves. Breasts. Shoulders. Legs. His mouth went dry. She gave him an odd look, then scooped up her hair and secured it with an elastic, and his eyes slid down to her rack, because my God, that was a fantastic—

“I know. Cellulite. I’ve gained eleven pounds this past year.” She stared down at her torso, then sighed. “Oh, well. Maybe I can swim some off. Come on, Beauty.” She grabbed a towel and headed through the kitchen.

Her ass was…well, he was unable to summon actual words at the moment, as there was no blood flowing upward. And that scrap of fabric—red fabric—thank you, Jesus. Hard to believe she’d kissed him once, and speaking of hard, she was so beautiful and perfect and luscious, bad enough that he’d had to listen to her shower every morning, and—

But wait, wait, wait.

She couldn’t swim in that water.

“Parker,” he croaked, but she was already halfway down the stairs, the long grass billowing in the breeze, the dog’s feathery tail in the air.

“Parker!” he called, banging out the back door. “That water’s really cold.”

“And I am really hot,” she said. Tell me about it. “I’ve been working like a dog. Right, Beauty?”

“It’s too cold for swimming,” he said, running down the stairs. “Hypothermia cold, Parker. Don’t go in.”

“Oh, come on. People swim in it all the time.”

“Not up here they don’t.” He reached the dock, which was bobbing vigorously, as the tide was coming in hard, slapping against the buoys that held the thing afloat. If he didn’t watch it, he’d fall right in.

“Well, I’m going swimming.” She draped her towel over one of the old wooden porch chairs she’d dragged down here. “Beauty, want to come? Come on, girl!” With that, Parker executed a perfect swimmer’s dive from the dock, the dog sailing in right behind her.

She didn’t surface. He could see her white skin under the water…but no, that was just sunlight. Where was she? Where the hell was she? “Parker!” James stripped off his shirt. “Parker!”

Then her blond head popped up, way too far away from the dock. She pushed her hair out of her face. “Oh, bugger!” she called. “You were right! It’s freezing!” She grinned at him, then saw her dog. “Beauty! Good girl! Good puppy!”

“Parker, get in here. You’ll freeze.”

“I do feel like I’m dying. But eleven pounds, Thing One!” With that, she began swimming in long, hard strokes away from the dock.

James bit his thumbnail. Yes, granted, she’d swum on the Harvard team. There’d been two pools at Grayhurst, one inside and one out. But there were no tides in swimming pools, and they weren’t fifty-two degrees, and they weren’t strewn with buoy lines. What if she got tangled on one? “Parker, don’t be an idiot,” he called, jamming his hands into his pockets.

She didn’t hear him. Kept swimming. Another yard. Another. She was an entire football field away now. No signs of slowing. Damn it all to hell. If he jumped in after her, could he catch her? Probably not. But once she went under, he’d be a lot closer—

Finally she stopped, and the dog swam right up to her. It had a stick, which Parker threw back toward the dock, and the dog zipped right around to find it.

“Time to come in, Parker,” James yelled, sounding like a parent. Then again, she was acting like an idiot child. Like—

“It’s really not bad once you get used to it,” she called.

“That’s what they all say, right before they freeze to death.”

She laughed. He was chewing his thumbnail again.

Finally, she turned in the right direction, diving under the surface of the water in a dolphinlike move, then popping up for breath a few yards closer. Swam efficiently, closer, closer. James didn’t take his eyes off her the entire time.

Then, as she was climbing back onto the dock, she slipped and fell back with a splash, and before he was quite aware of having moved, he had her by the arm and was hauling her up, slopping frigid water against himself, her skin as cold as if she were dead.

“Easy there, Mr. Lifeguard,” she said, stepping back and smoothing the hair off her face. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t make this a habit. It’s too cold. It’s stupid, Parker.”

“I think I will make it a habit, Thing One,” she said, squeezing the saltwater out of her hair. “I love to swim, I own a house on the water, and you’re not the boss of me.” Goose bumps covered her skin, and her ni**les— Shit. Women were not fair, because a perfectly good case of righteous anger was turning into lust.

Without another word, he turned and stalked off the dock.

Time to rip some more shingles.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a baby shark named Swimmy. He asked his mommy, “Does God still love me, even though I eat the other fishies?” and his mommy said, “Who cares?” and ate him, and Swimmy was delicious.

Okay. So the writing wasn’t going that well. Parker put aside the red notebook, which now contained eleven ridiculous and aborted story attempts, considered tossing it off the dock and sighed. Well, maybe her new series would get the green light. Two days ago, against her better judgment, she’d sent her agent and editor a series proposal. The Ark Angels. How did all those animals get along on Noah’s Ark? Why, it was all thanks to a clever lion cub, a singing fox and a crafty kangaroo. Glee meets the Bible meets Animal Farm. We thought it was super awesome, Parker! the HRs chorused. Parker figured it was close enough to the Holy Rollers in its preachy, simpering style, so she had high hopes that the powers-that-be would love it.