Page 55 of Her Summer Hope

“I wasn’t suggesting that she was going to be doing keg stands. We can get her some milk or something,” Wyatt teased.

“What’s going on in here?”

They spun around guiltily as Kyle snuck up on them.

“Nothing,” Evans said quickly, winking at her.

She rolled her eyes and moved away from the guys.

Murdock appeared from the shadows on the back deck, making her jump again. “Not much. John was suggesting that Maddy bring the baby here on Monday.”

She felt her pulse racing as the baby was mentioned so openly for the first time in front of Kyle. “Yeah, so he could teach her something about a sear and then play beer pong.”

Kyle looked incredulously at John, who raised his hands. “In my defense, I only suggested a mock SERE course and maybe some shooting. Doofus is the one who wants to teach the baby drinking games.”

Kyle still looked nonplussed.

“What’s a sear?” she asked suddenly.

“It’s a military school. It means Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape…it’s usually for people who have a higher-risk MOS…uh, job. It teaches them how to survive behind enemy lines and how to escape should they be captured—”

“It means they teach you how to eat snakes,” Wyatt said, and he looked completely serious.

John shook his head. “It’s more than that and you know it.” He looked at her. “Don’t listen to him, Mads.”

Mads?

“Mads? That nickname makes me sound insane.”

“No, it makes you sound like you have mad skills…which you do. This fried chicken is the best I’ve ever eaten.”

Kyle moved farther into the room, looking from one to the next with a perplexed expression before finally letting go of whatever was confusing him.

“I need to talk to Madison. Alone,” he emphasized.

Wyatt winked at her again and John had a smug smirk on his face as he saluted Kyle. She had no idea why. Murdoch faded out into the evening as silently as he had come.

After they left—with more chicken— Kyle relaxed a little. He stared at her so long that she began to wonder if she had something on her face. He looked a little tense and she felt a sense of something barely leashed inside him.

Anger?

“I’d like you to bring the baby on Monday,” he finally said, studying the wall in front of them.

She was surprised. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

She smirked. “Are you always this difficult?”

He lifted himself to sit on the island and after a moment’s hesitation, she did as well. They weren’t touching, but their hands were a hairsbreadth apart. His closeness was slightly intoxicating.

She berated herself for acting like a preteen girl with a crush. Nothing could ever happen between them.

Honestly! His hand, Madison?

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