“Redhead problem,” she says after a minute.
I turn back. She is holding out the sunscreen, her expression more practical than playful. More vulnerable too.
“I can get most of it, but not my back.”
There is no good reason for this to feel like a test. It is sunscreen. Sun protection. Basic care. She will burn if she misses the places between her shoulders and along the edges of the suit.
I take the bottle. “Turn around.”
Kara does.
Her back is pale beneath the sun, freckled across the shoulders, the red straps of the swimsuit crossing high between her shoulder blades. Her hair falls over one side of her neck, bright as flame.
I pour sunscreen into my palm and hesitate for a couple of seconds. Then I touch her. I spread the sunscreen across her shoulders first, keeping the pressure even and practical. The sun is strong. Her skin is warm. The boat rocks gently beneath us, and every movement makes me aware of how close she is.
Too close, yet in some way … not close enough.
I work down the center of her back, then out toward her ribs where the suit curves around her body. My thumb brushes a freckle near her shoulder blade, and I catch myself noticing its shape. A tiny brown star. Ridiculous thing to notice. Worse that I know I’ll remember it.
Years ago, Elena used to ask me to rub lotion between her shoulders before we went to the beach on the rare weekends I was home. Back then, I thought home was a place I visited between deployments and assignments. My obligations always seemed urgent enough to outrank whatever she needed from me.
She finally told me the truth while standing in our kitchen with a suitcase by the door.
“You don’t come home, Cole. You report in.”
She had been right. I could cross an ocean for an extraction. Stay awake forty-eight hours with a rifle in my hands. Stand between a client and a weapon without asking what it would cost me. But I had never learned how to sit across from a woman who wanted ordinary things and promise I would still be there next Tuesday.
Elena wanted a life. I was good at missions. Those are not the same thing.
Kara shifts slightly beneath my hands, and the memory breaks.
“You okay?” she asks.
I remove my hands from her back and cap the sunscreen.
“Done.”
She turns, studying me through her sunglasses. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It’s what I answered.”
Her mouth tightens, but not with anger. Something softer. “Cole.”
I set the sunscreen on the console. “You’ll need to reapply later.”
The deflection is obvious. She lets me have it. That may be worse than pressing.
We drink water in the shade of the small canopy, the boat drifting slowly while the island sits bright and unreal in the distance. Kara leans against the rail, one hand wrapped around the bottle, her hair a wild red tangle the wind refuses to leave alone.
“Do you ever get tired of being needed?” she asks.
I look at the water instead of her. “Being needed is simple.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“Then answer the question I asked.”
