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She was just thinking,Now I’m cold, which is good, because we can end this part of it sooner. Do I suggest we go for a beer, or can I just go home? How open-minded am I required to be?
Going for a beer would be good, she decided, if only for the report to Martin. Objective analysis of results was important if you wanted to improve your performance. She’d also find out if Ryan enjoyed hanging out after exercise with a woman in sweats. She was betting the answer was “no.” Men who thought women were too high-maintenance also tended to believe that women naturally had shiny, well-behaved hair and defined eyes and lips, even after climbing out of a freezing lake. She knew what she looked like after swimming, and unless they went to the Lucky Tavern, she didn’t think she’d be up to par.
She was still mulling it over when he came paddling up beside her and said, “You could have told me that you’d paddleboarded before, not set me up like that.” Sounding stiff.
She said, “I haven’t. It doesn’t seem too hard, though, so far. In fact, I’m enjoying it. Good date idea. Thanks.” Yes, her teeth were chattering a bit, but she was used to chattering teeth. And see? She was being diplomatic!
He said, still going for cheerfully sure of himself, like an orthodontist insisting on showing you how to brush your teeth in your braces despite your adolescent sullenness, “You really don’t have an idea yet how hard it is. If you get into choppier water, if you step wrong—like, you look back over your shoulder”—he demonstrated—“you can—”
She thought he was kidding around. That was why she laughed. Honestly. Not because he was teetering on one leg, trying to balance himself on his paddle, shoving it nearly under his board, so it threw him off more, and … falling in.
Flailing all the way.
The splash was enormous.
8
OUTRUNNING THE SHARKS
First the judge went in. Gracefully, almost, launching herself sideways and flying through the air, her paddle held tight in one hand. She came up, swam for the board, and heaved herself up onto it, and if Beckett watched that performance? What man wouldn’t have watched it?
She really did have the best arse in the world, and her thighs should’ve been in a museum.
That water had to be cold. It had been pretty cold on the three August occasions when he’d swum in it—impulsively, at the end of a hard, hot day, stopping the work truck, stripping off his shirt and jeans, and jumping in—and it would be colder now, with snow in the mountains. If she cared, though, she didn’t show it. He couldn’t see, but her body language looked … happy.
Oh. Kids. He glanced in their direction. Troy was climbing up the structure, and Janey and Alexis were still talking as if there’d be a prize for it. Fine, then.
He almost missed the bloke falling off. That would’ve been a pity, because it was spectacular. He didn’t manage nearly as graceful an entry into the water as the woman had. His paddle flew out of his hand, for one thing, and his board shot away. He came up spluttering and splashing, rising to look for his paddle, probably. Should’ve looked for his board instead, because it was drifting away at a steady clip. No PFD, and no leash. Wanker.
Beckett would’ve done something if it had been necessary, of course. He didn’t need to, because Quinn had it under control. She’d already got over to the paddle, and as he watched, she dropped to her knees to retrieve it, then paddled back over, still on her knees, and handed it to the bloke. She was talking, because she was waving her arm at the shore, and the bloke was waving his own arm and not seeming happy. If a disembodied head and arm could look frustrated, that was how his looked. After that, though, he swam for shore, and she stood up again and paddled out toward the center of the lake. An evening breeze had risen, and there was a little bit of chop out there, but she didn’t seem to mind.
When she got to the board, he thought,Wait. How’s she going to tow that? No rope on those things.He was loping over to the ute on the thought and grabbing a rope from the back, thinking,Stand on shore and wave it at her, I reckon, but when he turned around, she was already doing … something.
He headed down to the water’s edge anyway, still holding Bacon’s lead. The man came splashing out of the water, shivering hard, his expression murderous, and Beckett asked, “All right?”
“What? I’m fine,” the man said, heaps of snap in his voice. “Except for dating the world’s most wrong woman.”
Beckett looked out over the water, where Quinn was removing something from around her ankle—the leash, that would be—and using it as a tow rope, fastening it to the bungee on the other board. “Clever girl,” he muttered, as she turned with a couple of sweeps of her paddle, then began stroking her way toward shore. That had to be awkward, towing a second board, but she was managing it.
The bloke said, “Clever’s one word for it,” and went for his things. He grabbed his bag and hauled out the sort of hand towel you brought to wipe sand off feet, and Beckett said, “Better to bring a bigger towel, going out on the water. Got to assume something could go wrong.”
The bloke muttered something else. Those words were the same everywhere. Beckett wasn’t listening, though, because Quinn had made it close to shore and was hopping off her board, then starting to drag both of them in.
Beckett was halfway out to her when she shouted, “Hey!” Not sounding happy for his help. Sounding, in fact, alarmed.
“What?” he asked, then whirled to check on the kids, his heart suddenly pounding.
Oh. No. They were fine. It was Bacon, paddling for all he was worth behind him with his short little legs, grunting from his entire mashed-in face at the effort. Because Beckett was still holding the lead.
“Shit,”It was an exhalation of breath, and Beckett had lunged back through the water and grabbed the little dog. After that, he had to hold him next to his chest to warm him up, and, yes, the water was cold.
The woman—Quinn—put out a hand and said, “You OK, baby? You all right?” in a tone Beckett hadn’t heard before. Not to him, of course. To Bacon.
Beckett said, “He’s OK. Reckon I found out he knows how to swim. Forgot I had him back there.”
Quinn was making more “poor baby” noises, and Bacon, who was snuggled up against Beckett as if his mission in life was to get him as wet as possible, licked at her fingers with his pink tongue and made little whimpering sounds. Beckett could have told her that those were the same sounds Bacon made when his dinner went into the dish, but he didn’t. He was maintaining his dignity.
“I noticed,” she said. “Another brilliant move.” She was laughing, and now, so was he. No choice. “First the train, and now this? I could start to doubt Brett Hunter’s hiring expertise, because judgment-wise …”
