Page 67 of Catching the Captain

“I’ll keep it out of the water.”

“I’m game if you are.” She rolls out of the hammock to her feet as if she’s a professional hammock exiter. Every time I’ve been in that thing, I’ve almost fallen on my face trying to climb out.

We step out into the sunshine and my spirit instantly lightens. Not that I’ve been in a bad mood or feeling depressed, but I’m still shook from what happened the other night.

Serena dives into the pool while I walk down the stairs into the shallow end to sit on one of the wide steps. I enviously watch her swim around and curse the man who broke my arm. I’m looking at being stuck in a cast for most of the summer, and that just plain sucks.

Serena swims my way and sits on the step below mine, looking up at me. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to upset you.”

“Ask.”

“Do you know who attacked you?”

“Yeah. He’s come to the bar a few times. The police arrested him the next day. The cameras inside the bar gave a clear image of him being there that night. And the cameras in the main parking lot got video of him throwing my purse down before getting in his car.”

“I hope he gets ass raped in prison,” she says.

I snort. “You know, when I was waiting on him that night, I got a weird vibe from him. He asked me where my boyfriend was, then went on to let me know he knew I was with Kaiden.”

“Maybe he expected to find a stack of hundreds in your purse now that you’re dating a hockey player,” Serena suggests.

“Maybe. We’ll never know for sure. It’s going to take some time for me to accept what happened and deal with it all. I’ve been having nightmares about it for the past two nights.”

“Having Kaiden with you must help,” she says.

“Oh, for sure. He’s been fantastic. Almost too much so.”

“Can someone really be too fantastic?” Kaiden asks, grinning as he steps outside.

“Pfft. Not in my book,” Serena says. “I’d like to find my own paragon of fantasticness so I can try to get tired of being spoiled.”

“See?” He gestures toward Serena before his gaze returns to me. “It’s clear you don’t appreciate me enough.” His tone is serious, but the left side of his mouth hooks upward, foiling his act.

“Kaiden, when are you going to introduce me to some of your hot friends?” Serena changes the subject.

“I wasn’t aware you were interested in meeting them,” he says.

“Oh, please. I’m single and breathing. Of course, I want to meet them.”

“Not Murphy or Ryder, though,” I say. “I love those guys, but they’d be a bad fit for her. She’s too much for them to handle.”

“It’ll take a special man to wrangle all this woman,” Serena says, pointing out her abundant curves and making me laugh.

“Let me think about it and I’ll see what I can do,” Kaiden says.

She points at me. “Stay on top of this, chickie. I need the fairy tale too.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back. We’ll find you a good guy,” I reassure her.

“At the least, make sure he’s hot so I can have some great sex.”

* * *

“I spoke to my boss about going back to work,” I say to Kaiden. Holding my breath, I wait for the explosion.

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” To his credit, he remains calm, but his matter-of-fact statement angers me.

“What do you mean? I’m an adult who makes her own decisions.”

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