“Are you bionic?”
ísa’s question had him laughing. “Pure Kiwi male,” he said, but his chest puffed up a little at her admiring tone. “You want to paddle some more? It’s a straight shot to the beach now.”
Nodding, ísa picked up her oar.
He matched his rhythm to her gentle one, enjoying himself in a way he would’ve never expected at such a lazy pace. Usually when he kayaked, it was all about the burn in his muscles, his speed punishing in an effort to drown out the demons. “Stay in the kayak,” he told ísa when they got close to landing.
Jumping out into the water himself, he pushed the kayak onto the sand with her in it. She laughed in delight, and his heart, it flip-flopped in a way it had never done in his twenty-three years of life.
Yeah, she was it for him.
Didn’t matter how many years he’d had on this earth.
He knew.
Extending a hand, he helped her out onto the soft sand. “Now,” he said, “we relax.”
First, however, they put their lifejackets in the kayak, then hauled the kayak up the beach to park it under the shade of a large pōhutukawa tree. Taking out ísa’s tote, he placed it on the sand. Next, he retrieved his duffel bag and pulled out a small waterproof sheet he’d brought along.
He placed the sandwiches he’d prepared onto the makeshift mat, bottles of orange juice beside them, then added apples and oranges plus fudge squares for dessert. “Jake,” he said in explanation. “He’s working part-time at a restaurant over the summer and keeps coming home with ideas he wants to try.”
ísa picked up a piece of the rich sweet and bit in. “Oh, this is divine.” A throaty sound that made his cock want to rise to attention.
“Hey, eat your lunch before dessert,” he growled at her. “But first…” He took out a lumpy cupcake with orange icing that looked even worse than it had in the early-morning light. “I tried to bake you a birthday cupcake. You don’t have to eat it. But we can still blow out a candle.”
Hands flying to her mouth, ísa looked at him with wet eyes.
“Hey. It’s not that bad,” Sailor protested. “It kind of even looks cupcake-shaped if you squint really hard.”
Laughing and crying at the same time, ísa grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him all over. “You’re wonderful, Sailor Bishop. And I’ll eat your cake.”
He felt like a well-petted cat. “No, seriously. I think I mixed up the salt with the sugar. And possibly the baking powder with the baking soda.”
Her shoulders shook. “Light the candle,” she ordered, all but bouncing on her knees.
Placing the cupcake between them, he poked a thin pink candle into the orange icing, then used a lighter to set it aflame, his other hand cupped around it to protect it from the faint sea breeze. “Make a wish, ísalind.”
Face aglow, ísa squeezed her eyes shut for three long seconds. “Okay, I’m ready to blow out the candle.”
“Not before the birthday song.” He launched into it with gusto, ísa listening with her hands fisted and crossed over her heart, as if he’d given her diamonds instead of a mutant cupcake.
After blowing out the candle in one puff once the song was over, she took a careful bite. He waited for her to spit it back out, but she actually swallowed, then took a second bite. “Try it,” she said around the mouthful. “It’s pretty good.”
Sailor figured she was pulling his leg, but it was her birthday after all. He took a bite. And felt his eyes widen. “I’m a culinary genius.” Actually, the cake was chewy and dense, but there was no salt instead of sugar, which, in his book made this a win.
But even better was seeing ísa smile with open happiness.
Inside his heart, he cupped his hands, trying to hold the delicate mist of her. And those hands, they were callused and marked with nicks and cuts from his work. Work that had consumed him since he was a fifteen-year-old haunted by the knowledge that within him lay the capacity for betrayal, for disloyalty, for cowardice.
30
Sailor’s Mighty Horn
TEN MINUTES LATER AND SAILOR had banished his dark thoughts into the dungeon where he usually kept them. Today was for him and ísa and happiness. Shadows not invited.
When ísa took out her phone to glance at it, he managed to keep a straight face. Until twenty minutes afterward when she said, “Catie usually messages me a few times a day. I wonder if she’s okay.”
Busted.
“I told her I was kidnapping you,” Sailor said. “She gave me her number when we went to Hamilton.”
Sailor had given Catie his in turn and told her that if anything ever happened and she couldn’t get ahold of ísa, she wasn’t to hesitate to call him. He didn’t know if she would, but he’d wanted her to have the option. “She and Harlow will only message or call if it’s an emergency.”
ísa’s eyebrows drew together over her eyes. “Are you managing me, Sailor Bishop?”
“Yep,” he said without any feelings of guilt whatsoever. “I know you’re pretty much in loco parentis”—had probably been since Catie’s birth—“but parents of teenagers occasionally leave them alone and trust them not to burn down the house.” He pointed at himself. “My mother once left me responsible for Jake and Danny while she and Dad went to watch one of Gabe’s out-of-town games.”
“Did you set your brothers’ hair on fire?” ísa asked suspiciously.
Sailor gave her an indignant look. “Of course not. I only let them dye their hair peroxide blond. They asked, and I didn’t see a problem with it—I just told them to use the garage sink so they wouldn’t mess up my mom’s nice new bathroom. See? Responsible.”
Lips pressed tightly together, ísa was clearly struggling not to laugh. “You’re making that up,” she said at last.
“Scout’s honor. I’ve got pictures to prove it.” He’d show them to her when he took her to visit his family. “Catie and Harlow will be fine, spitfire. Neither one of them is an infant.”
Her face fell. “Did they say something? Does Catie feel like I’m smothering her? I know I’m overprotective with her.”
“All Catie said in reply to my request was ‘Cool. I’ll tell Harlow too.’ Oh, and she sent a set of emojis.” Taking out his phone, he showed her the response: Heart eyes, kissy faces, fireworks, a tree, big kissy lips, and a unicorn. “The only one I don’t get is the unicorn. Does she think I’m a unicorn, or is that a sly teenage reference to my mighty horn?”
ísa snorted out laughing.
Pushing at his chest, she tried to speak but was giggling too hard to create words.
Delighted with her, Sailor pounced and stole a kiss, two. “Admit it, you like my mighty horn.”
“You make Devil ísa take over my brain” was the response.
Sailor grinned. “Good. Now, let’s make out and scandalize anyone on those yachts who might be watching.”
* * *