Page 20 of The Wedding Deal
She kicked harder, the water hitting his legs this time. A laugh spilled out of her, so loud she nearly startled herself. It’d been a long time since she’d laughed that loud.
He stepped into the oncoming tide, the water drifting up to mid-calf range and lapping at his rolled-up pants—they were both going to be wet by the end of this, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Why travel all the way to the beach if they weren’t going to get a few minutes of ocean and sun?
The bikini she’d thrown in her suitcase on a whim needed to be broken out and worn, in theory. Wearing it was another story, especially if she thought about wearing it in front of her boss.Maybe I should’ve bought a one-piece.
Too late now.
Lance pushed up his sleeves a few more inches, exposing more of his forearms to the sun and her disobedient eyes. “It seems you’re assuming that as a former quarterback, I don’t know how to tackle. If you want to find out how good I am at it, go ahead and kick more water at me.”
“Tackling definitely breaches section two of the handbook,” she said with a grin, and then she swung her foot through the water, sending another stream at him.
He lunged for her, and she squealed, the same way she’d accidentally done as they’d taken off in the plane. Her dang skirt kept her legs bound together, and she wobbled. Her stomach dropped as she flung out her arms, her hands searching for purchase.
Lance snagged her wrist and steadied her.
Water seeped into her skirt, the wave soaking the fabric before the tide took the swell away.
“Don’t tackle me, okay?” she said, her eyes imploring his.
“Like you stopped splashing me?”
“You can splash me.”
He leaned down like he was going to cup the water, and she threw up her hands. “No, wait!”
“That’s what I thought.”
She laughed again, happiness floating through her as she stared at him. Regardless of whether or not he would admit it, she could see his shoulders were looser, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with his smile. Another, stronger wave crashed into them, and she gripped his biceps to keep her legs from getting swept out from under her, gasping as the water hit high on her thighs. “I got a little wetter than I meant to.”
“I’m sure there’s a section of the handbook that would advise me against turning that into an innuendo and delivering a line about how that happens a lot when women are around me.”
A combination of embarrassment and surprise twisted through her, but she covered it the best she could and rolled her eyes. She carefully removed her hands from the biceps she couldn’t help noticing were quite firm. “Thank you for not tackling me or letting me fall. This outfit isn’t really meant for swimming.”
“Hey, I suggested we change.”
“I was trying to save time.” A piece of hair stuck to her lip gloss, and she swiped at it—or what she thought was it. “And patience isn’t exactly my strong suit.”
“No,” he said, putting way too much fake shock into it.
“I’m going to splash you again.” She took another swipe at the stubborn strand of hair stuck to her lip, but she couldn’t find where it was coming from and—
Lance reached out and swept it off her face. His fingers brushed the shell of her ear as he tucked the hair behind it, and in a low, challenging voice, he said, “Bring it.”
A shock of awareness traveled down her spine, and she was caught in his gaze, unable to look away.
“Lance? Is that you?”
His spine straightened, and he dropped his hand like she was a hot coal that’d burned him. A group of people was coming toward them, a lean dark-haired woman at the front of the crowd.
Lance made his way toward the shore, and she followed. As they neared the group, the woman’s sharp eyes moved from him to Charlotte. Instinctually, she wanted to wrap herself around his arm and use him as a shield, but she knew that’d give everyone the wrong idea.
The woman threw her arms around Lance and squeezed him tight. “How long have you been here? And why didn’t you text to say you’d arrived already?” Her features softened as she peered over Lance’s shoulder at Charlotte. “And who is this beautiful woman by your side?”
“We haven’t been here long,” Lance said, giving his mom a tight squeeze before breaking the hug and angling his head in Charlotte’s direction. “Charlotte and I have been working since we checked in, but we decided to take a quick break and get some air.”
“I’ll bet,” the guy in the group said. If she was the betting type—which she wasn’t, for the record—she’d put her money on the dark-haired guy being Lance’s brother and the groom-to-be. He stepped forward, and they exchanged a bro-hug. Then he gave the woman holding his brother’s hand a quick hug before turning to the couple with two young boys and embracing the female in their group, who also had dark hair and matching blue eyes.
He squatted to talk to the boys, and Charlotte couldn’t help grinning as they called him Uncle Lance and immediately began regaling him with stories of seagulls and sand castles.
