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“Excuse me?” Violet said. “We were talking about jumping. The trampoline has a six-hundred-fifty-pound weight limit, and we’re probably less than three hundred all together. The kids, I mean. How much do you guys weigh?”
Micah said, “You can’t ask people how much they weigh!” The flush was deeper now.
Janey said, “It’s OK. I weigh seventy-nine pounds.”
“OK,” Micah said. “But Quinn— Sorry,” he told her. “You know how Violet is.”
Quinn was the one laughing this time. “A hundred forty-three stark naked. Which I’m not. Call it a good hundred forty-five with clothes.” Which made another first for Beckett—a woman volunteering her weight when she weighed more than fifty kilograms. And volunteering the “stark naked” bit, too. That was a nice image.
“So that’s less than five hundred,” Micah said. “You’re too big added in, but I can take turns with you,” he told Beckett.
“Geez, this is a lot of negotiating,” Quinn said. “Tell you what—I’lltake turns with Beckett, if he wants to get out of the stodgy zone and have some fun. Right now, I’m going to climb the nets and swing across on the rings.”
An hour later, the older kids were the ones climbing the nets, and Beckett was spending his date bouncing on the biggest trampoline he’d ever seen with a woman who’d apparently never learned the meaning of fear.
She started out easily enough, jumping with Troy and Claire, holding their hands, then saying, “This one’s fun, Troy. See what you think,” dropping onto her knees and bouncing to her feet again, then clapping for Troy when he did it, doing a joyful spin in the air, and laughing like this reallywasthe most fun she could imagine. She told Beckett, “Come on. Try it,” so he did. What the hell.
It was really startlingly exhilarating, and he was laughing, too, doing Quinn’s tricks along with the kids. Leaping into the air and bending forward, legs straight, like a pike dive. And when Quinn was jumping high and nearly doing the splits in the air, he had to try that, too, didn’t he?
“Ouch,” he said when he’d come down again. “Not sure I’m flexible enough anymore for that.”
Before long, the kids had jumped down and run off to find the snacks, and it was just Beckett and Quinn, bouncing along together. She said, “All right. I’ve got room now. Want a challenge?” with a glint in her eye that boded nothing good.
“Too right,” he said, because what the hell.
“One jumper at a time for this one,” she said, then bounced high and flipped neatly over, landing on her feet again. “A front flip’s easiest,” she told him. “Just bounce high, tuck, and over you go.”
He grinned. “This would be,” he told her, “like the dentist telling you how to paddleboard.” And did it.
“You’re joking,” she said, but she was laughing again. “Do I have a ringer here? Were you the Australian under-16 trampoline champion?”
“No, but I wasn’t a bad diver. I’m an Aussie. Show me your back flip, then.”
And that was it. Front flips. Back flips. Handsprings, where she was much better, because the woman could bend herback.He tried, fell on his arse, bounced up again, and said, “Damn, girl, you’re good.”
“You’ve got to be flexible, swimming,” she said, and did the handspring again, graceful as you like. “Start with donkey kicks,” she said, and showed him. “Drop down onto your hands and kick back with your legs, and then, once you’re warmed up, take it a little higher and do a handstand.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her straight dark hair falling around her face, her top riding up with every revolution, and bloody hell, did she have a taut, pretty, tanned belly. No ring in there, and no tattoos. Just that toasted-marshmallow skin, beaded with a bit of moisture now. What man in the world wouldn’t have done a handstand?
Until she turned around again and did a donkey kick straight to his groin.
* * *
She didn’t realizewhat was wrong at first. She felt the contact, came down, and saw him. On his knees, bent double.
“Beckett!” she called in alarm. “What’s wrong?” She was on her own knees now, right beside him, her arm around him. “Did I kick you in the stomach, or did you step wrong? Strain something?”
“Not … exactly,” he ground out. “Though it’s … good I’ve already had kids.”
“Oh.Oh.Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Half of her wanted to laugh. She was a bad dater, but this was a new low.
Roxanne and Bram were there, then, Roxanne asking, “What’s happened?”
“Never … mind,” Beckett said, sitting up on his knees with what Quinn could tell was a major effort.
“I kicked him in the balls,” Quinn said.
Beckett groaned. “Cheers for the dignity retention.”
