Page 14 of Forged By Sacrifice

I shook my head. “Thank you. You know Ava. She won’t if we’re here. I’ll tell her I planned on spending the day downtown at the shops.”

“She’ll just want to go with you. That’ll be even worse. All that walking.”

He poured enough syrup on his French toast that it could have floated out to sea by itself. He saw me watching and smiled. “I have a sweet tooth.”

I grinned. “That definitely does not fit with your image.” I waved a hand at his fit frame.

“I know,” he said before diving into his food.

Ava and Eli continued their conversation on the deck. Ava had her forehead pressed against his chest. He had his arms around her as if he could hold her and the whole world up at the same time.

“What do you say about taking a sail with me?” Mac asked.

“What?”

“It’ll get us out of her hair and allow Eli to go to work. No one will feel obligated to entertain us.”

It was a good idea. But that just meant a good chunk of the day in his company.

Ava pushed Eli away and went running toward their bathroom. Eli followed, almost forgetting we were there. “Do you really think he’ll leave with her feeling this way?” I asked.

Mac shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t want him worrying about me and her at the same time.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yep. But I have to warn you. I’ve never been on a boat before.”

“Wait. Like never?”

“Well, I’ve been on a ferry—the ones around New York—but never a small boat. And never a sailing boat.”

He smiled. “I’m a good teacher.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Have you ever gotten seasick?”

“Not on the ferries.”

We finished our breakfast in silence, left a plate in the oven on warm for Eli, and cleaned up the kitchen together.

“Should I change?” I asked him.

He looked me over in a lazy way that had all my senses firing. But like I told Mac the night before, I rarely trusted my senses. They usually had me running in the opposite direction. I ran a hand over my hair.

“You look perfect to me,” he said finally.

It made me want to roll my eyes again, but I’d given up rolling my eyes when I was a teen. Grandma had made me do extra chores at the shop every time I’d rolled them at her. The memory struck me hard for some reason today. The hurt still there even after all these years without her.

“Let me be more specific, Mac-Macauley. Do I need to wear something different to go sailing?”

“Maybe bring a bathing suit? And if you have some non-slippery soled shoes. But barefoot works as well.”

We headed down the hall to the bedrooms, and I was surprised when he followed me into the bedroom I’d taken up residence in. “Um. Excuse me?”

He smiled again. A smile that pulled at the shadow of a beard that had coursed over his face as he’d slept. A smile that made his eyes—which were a sparkling blue today—crinkle in response. My belly flopped over.

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