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“There are cookies in the box lunches, you know,” the girl said with a laugh.
“Might not be enough.” He took out his wallet and put two twenties on the counter.
She rang up everything. “You must be feeding an army.”
“No. Just my best girls. Sweets for the sweet.”
Molly and Bridget were waiting on the porch of the A-frame when he pulled up, backpacks at their sides. He leaned out the window to say a quick hi, but they didn’t give him time to get out and open the doors for them.
Molly clambered into the back and Bridget took the front seat, looking great with her chestnut hair pulled up in a flyaway ponytail. She wore a frayed plaid shirt tied in a knot around her middle, and cutoff jeans shorts that revealed firm, well-rounded thighs. Jonas had to take a deep, self-disciplining breath before he looked in the rearview mirror to back out onto the road.
What she had on was what everyone around here would wear for a day on the river, but on her … the outfit was fit for a centerfold.
He kept his eyes on the road and they made small talk about lucking out on the weather and things like that for the first few miles.
Bored with listening to them and looking out the window, Molly gave him a detailed update on Satin’s injury, which had healed nicely. Jonas was glad to hear it.
He was even more glad just to be with them on a perfect day. No stress. No drama. Just the three of them, heading down a country road with tall trees arching overhead, their leafy tops moving slightly in the late summer breeze. Here and there a solitary leaf had turned scarlet or gold, a brilliant harbinger of the season to come, but the overall effect was dappled green, shot through with sunlight.
They reached the parking area by the river, but Bridget told him to go another half-mile. There was a turnout where they could park under trees, and have a more secluded part of the river to themselves, where it widened and the water slowed.
Sounded good to Jonas. He pulled in where she pointed and they began to unload, leaving the food in the cooler and bouncing the inner tubes out of the back.
“I wanna go tubing!” Molly said excitedly. She wore a bathing suit under her shorts and T-shirt and was ready to get in the water in under a minute.
Jonas watched Bridget slip off her ragged shorts, kicking them over unlaced sneakers with a hole in one toe. She had a bathing suit underneath, of course, but the sight of a small-town goddess getting ready to go tubing was sexier than any striptease. Her sneakers came off next.
She and Molly tossed the tubes into the water and wriggled into them, managing to end up with their butts in the water, and their arms and legs over the sides. They splashed and moved in lazy circles as he watched, grinning.
So far, so good.
He went around the other side of the car, under the low trees where no one could see him, and changed into swim trunks. Then he rolled his own tube down to the river, getting into it more awkwardly than the lithe O’Sheas. They laughed at him and Bridget kicked her feet to splash him when he drifted by.
Okay, he was ready to kiss his dignity good-bye. And his troubles. The peaceful river was slow here, eddying around the three of them as they rotated. Molly bumped gently against her mother’s tube, then floated off, letting her head loll back on the warm rubber.
“I’m going to check around these rocks, ladies,” he called to them. “See if there’s trout.”
“They’re going to see you first,” Molly called.
“Can’t be helped.” He reached into the water and pad-died with his hands to an outcropping of rocks that extended into the water. There was no direct sunlight on the surface and he could see several feet down.
Aha. A flicker of movement at the base of a big rock half-in, half-out of the water caught his eye. Could be a trout. The problem was how to get the gear over to this side. He suspected the fish avoided the bank where they had unloaded, preferring this side for that very reason.
He heard light splashing as Molly paddled over.
“Do you see a fish?”
“I think so.”
“Want me to go get the poles?”
Jonas shook his head, looking down under the rock again. There it was: a silvery, speckled flash. Definitely a trout. “I’ll do it.”
“Let’s do it together.”
Jonas looked up with surprise. That was a start. “Okay, Molly. I could use your help.”
They paddled back, parting to go around Bridget, who was blissfully lazy, her eyes closed and her arms and legs flung out.
