Page 56 of My Star-Crossed Summer

Victoria’s eyes widen as if she’s having the same thought. Her cheeks turn a delightful shade of pink as she quickly ducks her head and fidgets with her life jacket for the hundredth time, as if she’s somehow missed one of the three adjustment straps.

I’m a jerk for enjoying watching her blush like that, but I can’t help it. Seeing that heat bloom in her cheeks and spread down to her collarbones makes me think of all the creative ways that I could coax that out of her when we’re a million miles from this place.

I should just go ahead and dunk myself in the ice-cold river because my body already feels like it’s on fire, and sitting in a little canoe with her for the next few hours is going to be torture.

Sophie whistles loud enough to hail a cab all the way from Asheville, and the kids start climbing into their canoes, eager to get going on their adventure.

“Come on,” I tell Vic. “This’ll be fun.” Judging by the way she arches her brow, she’s not convinced.

After some practicepaddling and steering, the kids make their way downriver at an easy pace. Sophie’s in the lead, nimble enough in the kayak to keep turning around and coming upstream when she needs to lend encouragement. Victoria and I are in the back, keeping an eye on the stragglers. Perched at the bow, Vic looks ethereal—like one of those carved maidens on the prow of a galleon. Her hair’s in two braids, falling just below her shoulders, and each time she turns her head to speak to me, the sunlight catches the gold of her hair, and I feel like I’m staring at the sun.

I’m at the stern because that’s where the more experienced paddler should sit. It’s the steering position, and it makes logical sense. It also means that for the duration of this trip downriver, I’m staring at Victoria’s back, tracing the line of her sculpted shoulders, the delicate curve of her neck, the way her hips flare out from her waist.

Just like I predicted: torture.

I try to focus instead on the pace she sets, thethwackof her paddle as it slaps the water, occasionally sending a spray of cold water across my face. After a while, she takes off her jacket, revealing a tank top with the world’s tiniest shoulder straps. I sigh, hoping she’ll hit me with a big wave of water soon because now I can see a constellation of freckles on her shoulder blade that I want to trace with my tongue.

Six days left. One hundred and forty-four hours. Then no more pretending.

“You must do this all the time,” Vic says, and I’m snapped out of my fantasy fast enough to have whiplash.

“Do what?” I ask. Apparently, my brain has stopped working entirely.

She looks at me over her shoulder and smiles. If I could burn that seductive image into my memory so it would last forever, I’d trade my soul to do it.

“Canoe,” she says, arching her brow. “Are you getting heatstroke back there?”

No. What I have is so much worse.

I scoff at her teasing. “It’s not hot enough for heatstroke.”

“You’re being weird, Valentine.” She’s more relaxed now that everyone else is focused on the river. Most of the tension has left her lovely shoulders, but I hate that there’s any at all.

“You just caught me daydreaming,” I tell her, lowering my voice. “Can you blame me?”

She turns her head just slightly, and the tips of her ears turn pink.

Her paddle hits the water with an indelicatethwack, sending a splash of water over me. That one might have been intentional.

From a few yards ahead comes a shout, followed by laughter. Two canoes have drifted closer to each other, and the kids are splashing each other with their paddles.

“Easy!” I call to them. “Watch for the rocks!”

Six heads swivel toward me and then turn back to the water. One more tiny splash, and then the kids are back on track. This section of the river is calm but still has spots where the rocks stick up like the worn teeth of giants. Aside from the occasional hollow thump of a collision, the kids are doing a good job of steering and staying on course.

I paddle harder to close the gap between us and the kids so we’re just a few yards from the last boat. More shouting erupts aswe come around a bend in the river, and I soon see why: one of the canoes has veered too close to the riverbank on our left.

“Hey y’all,” Victoria shouts. “You need a little help?”

Layla and Priya, at bow and stern, are trying to push off the bank while Derrick, in the middle, paddles on the other side to pull them away. But they’re snagged by a downed tree limb. I steer us over so we’re between their canoe and the bank, where a canopy of low limbs hangs just above our heads.

“We’ll give you a shove,” I tell them. “Get ready to paddle away from shore.” They nod because they learned this maneuver from Jerome and Skylar earlier this morning. “Now!” I tell the kids, and Vic and I push their canoe away from the bank. They paddle hard, and in a few moments, they’re free, full of laughter and high-fives.

Vic uses her paddle to push a brushy limb away from her face while I dig mine into the shallows to pry us away from the bank. It’s all rocky soil here, thick with mountain laurels and scraggly bushes. The foliage is so dense you can barely see daylight through it—just the occasional glint of the silver-white trunks of the river birch.

“Push hard against the shore,” I tell her, and she nods as the muscles in her shoulders flex in that way that pulls my gaze like a magnet. I give us another hard shove as she bats at the low limb again. When we come out from under it, the leaves tickle my neck and something drops onto my shoulder—probably a branch—but when I move to brush it off, it falls into my lap. I see two eyes blinking at me, the flick of a forked tongue—and then the whole world tilts on its axis.

I yelp like a dog smacked with a rolled-up newspaper and feel my heart pound in my throat. There’s not much that I dislike about being in the woods, but snakes are at the top of the list. Even the non-venomous kind, like this one. Black scales, checkered belly, round eyes—this snake is harmless. But it’s fivefeet long, as big as my forearm, and my lap is the last place I want it to be. Because even rat snakes like this one get bitey when they’re surprised.

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