Page 17 of Faking It at Sea

When the couple on the four-wheeler behind us blared their obnoxious horn, June waved them past with a yelled, “Sorry, I’m just feeling a little queasy.”

“You don’t have to lie for me.”

“And they don’t have to be dicks. We’re all going to the same place.”

She had a point, but still. She was standing up for me, taking the blame for slowing everyone else down so I could have a minute. It was something I wasn’t used to.

In my past relationships—of which there weren’t many, admittedly—I was always the one doing the defending. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to do it. Even when I was an asshole twenty-something who was riding high on his own delusions of grandeur, I took my role as a protector seriously.

No one fucked with my family, friends, or girlfriend and got away with it, which was part of what made the fallout from my accident so rough. I learned the hard way that just because I was willing to put myself on the line for someone, it didn’t mean they would be there for me when the time came.

“Would you be better off driving?” she asked.

I forced my gaze up. “On the road maybe. Out here?” I shook my head.

“Have you tried since the accident?” The softness in her golden-brown eyes was like a punch to the gut.

I peeled my fingers away from where they’d migrated to clutching my own thighs and stretched them out wide. “Yeah, but not for a long time. In the first couple of years after, anytime I so much as drove down a gravel road in a car I would get these horrible panic attacks. I’m fine walking or hiking but strap me to something with wheels and an engine and it’s like I’m back there on that racetrack.”

She studied me thoughtfully. “Do you want to walk the rest of the way? I can drive this thing super slow so I’m right beside you the whole time.”

It was tempting, but I refused to let a decade-old fear steal this day from both of us. “I can make it to the beach,” I said with a hell of a lot more confidence than I felt.

Her responding smile was enough to steal the breath I’d just managed to catch. “I thought you might say that, but if we need to stop again, just say the word. I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere,” she said, turning around to face the trail ahead.

This time, when I put my hands on her hips, she didn’t jump. Before she hit the throttle lever and got us moving again, she reached down and laced her fingers through mine, giving my hand a little squeeze. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”

When we took off again, she kept the four-wheeler cruising at a mellow pace. She tried to dodge the worst of the ruts without jerking the handlebars, and while every muscle in my body was pulled tight, it was easier to breathe.

We were slow, though, and when we made it to the beach, the others from our group were already off their machines and playing in the water.

I let go of June and climbed off, grateful that my knees were solid. There weren’t many things I truly hated in the world, but feeling weak was high on the list.

“How was that?” she asked, swinging her leg over the seat.

“Better.”

She eyed me before checking her watch. “We’ve got half an hour left here. Are you up for a swim?”

Now that my feet were on solid ground and my nerve endings weren’t on fire, I was feeling more like myself with every passing second. Which included realizing that if we went swimming, I might get to see the rest of the bikini peeking out from under her tank top.

Right back to being a heathen, in other words.

I reached back and pulled my shirt off over my head before tossing it on the handlebars. “Absolutely.”

7

JUNE

Sutton was still tense, but at least he was trying to make the best of the situation. Trauma had a way of getting its hooks into people, and one of the crappiest parts of recovery was digging those hooks out. It was hard and painful. It was also a necessary evil if a person wanted to overcome it.

I couldn’t imagine what he went through after his accident, but the fact that he had it in him to drop me a wink before turning his attention to the beach—especially after the panic I’d seen written all over his face twenty minutes earlier—spoke volumes about the man.

So did the intricate tattoo covering his back.

When he first pulled off his shirt, I made an effort not to stare, but when he turned away, the yin-yang symbol spanning the width of his shoulders commanded my attention. Instead of the traditional, simple black and white, one side of the bisected circle was filled with the image of a fierce white wolf with golden eyes and wisps of golden smoke swirling from its fur. The other was a focused black wolf, again with those startling golden eyes.

It was stunning. The contrast in the imagery was stark, and yet so artfully done that the meaning was unmistakable. He was a man learning to live with two sides of himself. And hiddenbeneath all that beautiful symbolism lived the outlines of old scars. A few looked like they were from surgeries, judging by the shape and size, but not all.

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