Page 25 of Love on Deck

Her little nose lifted in the air. “You’re impossible.”

“I won,” Cara announced, skipping up to us.

It was too soon to know that, surely. “You don’t know how many points—”

“My score is twelve.”

I reached down to pick up my ball. “Yep, you’ve won.”

Lauren scowled, but she didn’t bother continuing to play either. The rocking ship made it harder, which was a fun challenge, but Sydney’s eyes were boring into me like a laser pointer. Banter with Lauren was much less fun when there was an unhappy audience paying close attention to our every move.

Cara grinned, her white teeth glowing in the sun. “Which means I get to choose what we do tonight. So, get ready for dinner, because we’re eating at seven and then it’s 90s night at the club!”

Oh, joy.

“Are we dressing up?” Lauren asked. “I don’t really have anything for it.”

“Not in 90s clothes,” Cara said, pushing a dark curl out of her face. “I think the music will just be themed.” She leaned closer to Lauren, giving her a quick once-over. “Did you bring anything nice?”

Lauren’s cheeks pinked under her sunglasses. “Amelia told me the dress code. I have... things... to wear.”

Cara looked skeptical. I wanted to turn her by the shoulders and set her off in a different direction.

If Lauren didn’t already feel out of place around Amelia and her friends, she probably did now. I reached for her golf club and ball, taking them from her hands, my fingers swiping over her palms. “I’ll put these away. We need to go see our friend at the help desk anyway now that we’ve left the port.”

“Oh, right,” she said, sounding distracted. “Thanks.”

I put our things away and went back for her. Cara was still talking, telling Lauren what to wear to dinner—I guess it wasn’t Cara’s first cruise—and I slid in between them, slipping my hand into Lauren’s. Her fingers interlocked with mine easily, closing over my hand probably more on impulse than anything else.

“We’ll see you at dinner,” I said, giving the group a little wave and pulling Lauren away.

“You could have let her finish.” She pulled her hand from mine to hold onto the stairs railing as we descended to the deck below. Totally unnecessary, if you asked me. I was a good enough stabilizer on my own.

“I didn’t realize you wanted her fashion advice,” I said.

“It wasn’t fashion advice. It was a dress code.”

“A condescending one.”

Her attention wavered. “You noticed it, too? They all see me as the grandma in the group.”

“You’re my age, I think,” I said carefully. “No one thinks you’re old.”

“To the girls, twenty-eight is ancient. I’m too close to thirty.” She gave a dramatic shiver.

But I stopped listening. Standing in the center of the lobby, waiting for the elevators, was my cousin’s husband, my one-time nemesis, Levi Watson, wearing a tall white cowboy hat. He was, after Sydney and a few other questionable dates I’d had recently, the last person in the world I wanted to see—let alone on a boat where we would be traveling without escape for the next week.

I took Lauren by the shoulders and pivoted her in the other direction, pulling her down a hallway. I did not stay long enough to see if my cousin was with him.

Lauren made a surprised sound. “What the—”

“As I live and breathe!” I heard the thickest Texan accent this side of the Mississippi. “The one and only Jackson Fletcher.”

My shoulders bunched.

“I told you I saw him, sugar, and I was right.”

I turned around to find Levi walking toward us, his Hawaiian shirt flapping open and his arm around my cousin Annie. She was short and blonde, a little package with a lot of fire. Her I didn’t mind. Her husband? I just might need restraints by the end of this cruise.

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