Nobody But You(73)

Kenna squeezed her tight. “Yes.”

“And what exactly are we hugging out?”

“You and Jacob are going to be good for each other,” Kenna said softly. “You’re going to heal each other too.”

Why did she feel like Kenna had just told her something very important and she’d missed it? “Kenna—”

“Shh! He’s watching us with those eagle eyes of his. Don’t look! He’ll know I told you. You can’t tell him I told you, Sophie.”

Sophie shook her head and lifted her hands. “Even if I wanted to,” she said honestly.

Kenna laughed. “What you can tell him is that I approve. No, wait. Don’t tell him that either. He’s just ornery enough to do the opposite of what I want, just to spite me.”

“The opposite of…?”

Kenna grinned. “You don’t have brothers. I can totally tell.”

Sophie laughed. “Are you speaking English? Because I swear it sounds like English, but…”

Kenna laughed, and then they were dragged into refereeing a wild game of Frisbee golf with five army vets. It took both of them to keep the group from cheating and all-out brawling as they seemed to want to do.

Halfway through the game, Sophie’s attention was drawn to the wakeboarding boat buzzing the shore.

Jacob was behind the wheel, Chris riding shotgun, holding up a flag signaling they had someone in the water.

“That’s Hud,” Kenna said. “He’s a maniac on a wakeboard. How much you want to bet that he and Jacob are in some sort of do-or-die competition?”

Sophie turned and stared at her. “Why would they do that?”

“Uh, because they each have a penis?” Kenna asked.

The guys with them burst out laughing.

“Don’t even think about denying it,” Kenna told them.

Sure enough, two minutes later the boat whipped past the shore towing Hud. He whooped it up, and everyone onshore whooped back at him.

Then he hunkered down on his board and flew at the boat’s wake, jumping it at a jaw-dropping height.

“Nice,” Kenna said.

“I could do better,” a guy said, coming up on Kenna’s side. His badge said MITCH, and he flashed Kenna a sexy grin.

So this was the guy, the one Kenna liked too much.

Kenna rolled her eyes at him. “Must everything be a competition?”

“Competition used to be your life,” he said. “You gave it one hundred percent of you, and you were the best in the country.”

“And then I learned that not everything has to be won,” she said. “Some things have to be earned.”

Mitch’s smile warmed as he touched Kenna’s nose with his finger. “Bingo,” he said quietly, and walked away.

Kenna was still standing there with her mouth open when Gray came up. “What’s up?” he asked. “You okay?”

“Peachy.”

He started to say something, but just then Hud wiped out spectacularly on a buoy and cartwheeled across the surface of the water away from the boat.

And not on purpose.

From the beach rose a collective “Ooooh…”

Kenna winced and shook her head. “That’s gonna hurt.”

Jacob whipped the boat around with impressive skill and hit the gas hard to get back to his brother quickly.

“Progress,” Kenna said. “In the old days, the harder they wiped out, the harder the other one would point and laugh.”

The boat pulled up alongside Hud, who vehemently shook his head.

“He doesn’t want to get back in the boat,” Kenna translated. “He wants to go again.”

“So he’s crazy too,” Sophie said.

“Crazy as they come,” Kenna said.

Jacob stood up from the captain’s chair, strode to the stern of the boat, and started pulling Hud in by the tow rope.

“And as you can see,” Kenna said dryly, “Jacob disagrees with Hud.”

From in the water Hud yelled something at Jacob.

Jacob kept towing Hud in.

So Hud let go of the rope.

Kenna laughed softly. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the Kincaids get their stubborn-ass reputation from.”

On the boat, Jacob tossed up his hands and returned to the boat’s controls. A minute later, Hud was back up on the surface of the water, once again hotdogging it behind the boat.

“Remember that time we sneaked out and borrowed a friend’s boat?” Kenna asked Gray.

“We were all punk-asses,” Gray said with a fond smile.

“Hud tried for a flip on the water,” Kenna told Sophie, “and face-planted instead. Jacob had to dive in and save him, then ride him to the ER on his bike’s handlebars. At that time we were being raised by Char, Aidan and Gray’s mom. She yelled at us something fierce when she finally got to the ER and then burst into tears.”

“We thought we’d gotten off scot-free,” Gray said.

“But hell no,” Kenna said. “Char’s got a softie side, but she’s also got a spine made of sheer steel. We were all grounded from life for a month.”

“I got two months,” Gray said. “Because I was oldest and supposedly knew better.”

Kenna laughed.