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It wasn’t very deep, so I ended up all the way at the bottom and pushed off against the smooth rocks to get back to the surface. Rylee’s camera was pressed against her face as I came up, taking photos of me, which I didn’t mind.
“Come on in,” I said, waving my arm at her.
She shook her head quickly. “There’s no way I’m going to do that.”
“Aww, come on,” I cajoled a bit more. “Live a little. The water feels great.”
Ryle reached down to pull off her shoes. For a moment, I thought that she was actually going to join me, but instead, she rolled up the legs of her slacks and came over to a large rock sticking out of the edge of the water. Taking a seat on it, she placed her bare feet inside the pool. I watched as she wiggled her toes.
She smiled at me, looking more relaxed than earlier. “You’re right, this does feel nice.”
I swam over to where she sat, brushing my wet hair off my forehead as I looked up into her face. “You know, I remember my brother, Dylan, slipping on this rock one summer. Fell forward and busted his chin open. There was blood everywhere. My dad had to call in a helicopter to get him to the hospital for ten stitches.”
She sucked in a horrified breath. “Oh my God, that sounds awful.”
I smiled. “Not really. Dylan was about twelve at the time and trying to prove how tough he was. So, he tied his shirt around his head like a makeshift bandage and kept running around out here with us for a half an hour after the fact. He looked like an idiot.”
She scrunched her nose up at me. “You’re so compassionate.”
Her sarcasm had a playful edge to it, and I was pretty sure she was finally warming up to me.
“Hey, give me a break. I was only ten. It was probably our older brother that should have known better. At least that was what Dad said.”
My father yelled it, actually. Then, he blamed Logan for the accident happening in the first place. My oldest brother was despondent for days. I always thought that was unfair. He was just a teenager and responsibility for a rambunctious twelve-year-old shouldn’t have fallen to him.
But my dad was like that. He didn’t like to be inconvenienced and putting the blame for anything that happened onto others was his go-to move.
“So, you’re close to your brothers?” Rylee asked almost hesitantly, pulling my mind out of the past.
I was grateful. Some shit wasn’t worth my time or energy, especially when it came to my father. “Yeah. We always have been. Logan and I clash sometimes, and I know I drive him a little crazy because he’s always so serious and I’m, well, not, but we’re all just about as close as siblings can be.”
A wistful look passed across Rylee’s features. “I always wished that I had a brother or sister when I was a kid.”
“You’re an only child, huh?” I asked, finding myself wanting to know more about her.
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate, and instead looked around for a moment, taking a couple more pictures of our surroundings. “I guess you spent a lot of time here growing up?”
“Well, we usually came for about a week every summer. My dad didn’t want to be here with us longer than that.” The bitterness in my tone slipped out before I could stop it.
Rylee frowned and met my eyes. I could see the burning questions there, ones I didn’t want to answer.Shit.Why did I say that about my dad?
“And your mom?” she asked, fiddling with the strap attached to her camera. “What’s she like?”
I relaxed and smiled as I told Rylee about my mom’s devotion to charity work and the way she’d been hounding me about giving her grandbabies, even though I was only twenty-eight. Hopefully, now that Logan was married, she’d turn her attention to them instead.
I appreciated that Rylee didn’t press me for details about my dad and assumed that it was because she’d seen something in my eyes to let her know that the subject was a touchy one.
Still, I didn’t like that I’d come so close to opening the door on my personal life when that was something I rarely discussed with any woman. It made me feel uneasy, especially since I tried not to think too much about that negative stuff in my past. So, I changed the subject entirely, defaulting to my normal setting.
Teasing smartass.
“You know, it’s really a shame that you’re such a chicken,” I said, leaning back in the water until I was floating. “You’re missing out. The water feels fantastic.”
“Really?” A grin tugged up the corner of her lips. “You really think that calling me chicken is going to get me to come into the water?”
I shrugged. “Maybe you’re just a prude. Too shy to strip down to your underwear, even though most bikinis are probably more revealing than whatever you’re wearing.”
I was just trying to rile her up, maybe get another glimpse of that fiery passion in her eyes that I’d seen a couple of times in the last twenty-four hours, mostly when I annoyed her. For some reason, I liked seeing that. It made my body feel alive.
