Eyeing the red arrows looping around the deck, I regripped my partner’s hand. “Cade? I’m nervous.”
His brows rose. “What’s there to be nervous about? There aren’t any snakes here. No heights or swimming. It’s just a race and some games.”
“Well, running isn’t really my thing. I used to sneak crochet supplies into gym class?—”
“Ellie.” He squeezed my hand, and a smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “Relax. We’ve got this.”
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Right. Absolutely. Totally got this.”
Now I just needed to resist the urge to throw up.
Out of nowhere, a loudpopmade me jump a foot in the air—whichhurtsince the bandanas kept me tied to Cade, who hadn’t flinched.
We all whipped toward the sound. Dr. Lovejoy stood with a smoking flare gun pointed to the sky.
“What the hell was that?” Harrison asked, rubbing his ears.
“That was the signal!” She waved at us to move. “Go,go!”
Mac appeared behind her and plucked the gun from her hand with a disapproving stare, and Cade tugged me forward. “Come on.”
It was instantly obvious that our height difference was an issue, and I did my best to keep up with Cade’s longer strides. There was no rhyme or reason or synchronization to our running. We just looked like two headless chickens hobbling around the track, while the other three couples jogged straight past us.
“We’ll send you a postcard from Saint-Tropez!” Harrison yelled back with a laugh.
An alarming sound—something between a growl and a snarl—came from Cade before he tightened his arm around my waist and hauled me up against his side. He barely gave me enoughtime to wrap my arms around him before he took off down the track. It was a repeat of the ropes course, but with my left leg awkwardly pinned to his while the other hung limply in the air.
I couldn’t help giggling at just how ridiculous we must look.
Our first obstacle was a limbo bar at about chest height—which Cade and I easily ducked under. The following hurdle was a little trickier, but he helped lift me while angling our tied legs over it.
Vlad and Piper struggled to clear the hurdle, allowing us to hobble into third place.
“This is so fun.” I grinned while Cade ran, even though I wasn’t doing much of the work. We were even gaining on the two other couples, who were crawling through the ball pit, flinging balls every which way in search of their keys.
Cade and I raced up to join them, crashed over the ball pit wall at full speed and landed inside.
Another laugh burst out of me, and I joined Cade in searching.
The ball pit was as large as our cabin and could easily fit four couples. I had no idea how big the key was, but we dug through plastic balls and crawled on our knees through the madness. By now, the bandanas holding me and Cade together were cutting off my circulation.
“I found one!” Madison yelled right before Harrison pulled her up out of the pit.
My heart thundered in my chest with adrenaline, especially when Fletcher held up another key with a victorious shout. Candace sighed, and he practically dragged her out of the pit.
Cade swept his arms across the floor meticulously, sending balls flying. Both keys so far had been found on the left side of the pit, so I sped up my crawling to pull him toward the opposite side. Digging did nothing. Trying to see anything through theballs was impossible. So I blindly ran my hands over the bottom of the pit, until my fingers brushed against something solid?—
“I got it!” I cried, holding up a wooden heart with a key attached.
“Good girl,” Cade praised quickly, already pulling me out of the ball pit. “We can still catch them. Come on.”
He hauled me up against his side, and I lifted my other foot. “Go, go!”
Cade sprinted the rest of the way, and we didn’t run into any other obstacles before reaching Dr. Lovejoy back at the track’s beginning.
“Second station is right here!” She pointed us toward the row of tiki torches, where Harrison and Madison had already unlocked one of four small safes. Fletcher and Candace trotted up to another one just ahead of us, so Cade and I hobbled over to the safe between them with the key clenched tightly in my fist.
I unlocked the safe, while Cade quickly undid the knots keeping our legs together.
