“Ugh, can we not?” Sean hung his head and tried to force back his smile. “I don’t need to discuss those things with you, do I? We haven’t gotten that personal.”
“True enough.”
When Charlotte walked away his attention was caught by the distinct sound of girlish squealing out on the water. It took him a bit of squinting, but he caught sight of a small boat off to the right side of his family’s yacht. It was surprising that anyone else was out so far so late in the day. A majority of the population would either be hiding under an umbrella on the sand or starting their party early in an all-hours club.
Instead, these girls seemed to be having the time of their lives out on the ocean. Clearly a bunch of college kids deciding to go against the other spring-break sheep.
“I’ll get you, so help me!” A feisty-looking redhead sitting in the middle of the canoe swept her hand through the ocean and splashed her blonde friend in the face.
“Oh my God, you crazy freak!” The blonde laughed and reared back as the canoe tipped perilously and everyone went very still. “That was close, Kenzie. Be careful! I don’t want to wind up in the middle of the ocean.”
“We’re fine. Everything’s fine.” A tanned brunette hung her head back with the most beautiful laugh he had ever heard in his life. “Do you want to keep going or should we turn back?”
The redhead giggled and attempted to do splash her friend again before her head fell back into her blonde friend’s lap. Their voices carried on the wind. Strong enough for him to feel like a voyeur and he found himself smiling, despite the disturbance in his day.
“More, more!” The redhead giggled some more and her friends were clearly humoring her as they continued rowing past his boat.
Soon they would be gone. The idea weirdly made a pang go through him.
It was kind of nice to see someone having fun. Good, wholesome fun instead of his hard-partying ways. But he couldn’t drag his eyes away from the gorgeous brunette who was clearly holding the bulk of the rowing effort. Words rose up and became caught in his throat.
The wind picked up and Sean looked over his shoulder toward the sky.
“Ah, shit.”
When the temperature dropped abruptly, dark clouds on the horizon blocking out the sun, he knew they were in trouble.
Chapter 3
Emma
“Uh-oh, that’s, uh, not great…” Allison’s face went slightly pale.
“What?” Emma caught her breath on a laugh, not liking the way her friend looked as they continued rowing.
A tight shiver rippled down her spine. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees and she looked over her shoulder, watching as the storm clouds descended over their perfectly sunny, super lovely day. Well, this was going to put a dent in things.
Emma bit her lip and looked to her friends. For someone who could only swim passably well, this was the worst-case scenario.
“We should bring it in,” Emma said. “That doesn’t look great.” She looked back to shore, which suddenly seemed an awfully long way away.
“Are we gonna capsize?” Makenzie’s lower lip shook and she looked back and forth between her two friends.
“We’ll be okay,” Allison said. “We just have to turn this thing around now and motor like our lives depend on it.” She met Emma’s gaze across their friend’s head.
Emma nodded and switched her paddle to her other hand. “How do we do this?”
The next several minutes were a frenzied flurry of trying to turn the small boat around against the suddenly choppy current. Thick drops of rain stung Emma’s eyes as she peered out toward the shore which was quickly thinning of the tons of people that had been there as the storm crested over their heads.
They were running out of time. Sheets of rain were making it almost impossible to see anything now. Wind sliced through Emma’s thin T-shirt and made her teeth chatter.
“We’re almost there. We’re almost there,” Makenzie whispered to herself, dipping her hand in the water to try to paddle with them. “We need to go faster!”
Useless, but the effort was appreciated nonetheless.
A crack of thunder shook the boat and they all scrambled to hold on. God, Emma was shaking so hard she could barely hold her paddle.
The waves bobbed them as she fought to see the shore. Please be close, Emma thought. All they needed to do was be close enough. Every muscle in her body tightened and pulsed with terror.
Waves rolled under the canoe as she fought to maintain their weight distribution. This was it. She knew there wasn’t enough time to get to shore. A feeling of foreboding wormed its way into her stomach. She looked all around them, frantically paddling as raindrops hit her cheeks like tiny icicles. Everything was blurry, and she could only hope that they were paddling in the right direction.
“Everybody brace!” Allison screamed from behind Emma, her voice barely audible over the wind.
“What?” Makenzie yelped, looking back at her best friend. “Oh—”
That was the last thing Emma heard before a wave crashed over her shoulders, throwing her out of the boat and into the swirling, choppy water.
Wave after wave dunked her down, and her lungs screamed as she fought to kick her legs, sloppily crawling her way up to the surface with only the most basic swimming skills to call on.
The second her head poked through the surface, she started coughing. Her mouth and throat burned from the salt water as her pulse beat against her temples, roaring and blocking out anything else within the storm.
Instinct made her slice her arms and legs through the water. But when she looked around, she couldn’t see either of her friends through the driving rain. A whimper died in her throat. Her limbs grew weaker by the second as she fought for her life.
A flash of darkness shifted over her eyes. A tiny spackle of black and dots on either side of her peripheral vision. Each second, she could sense the current dragging her further and further away from where she thought she needed to be to get out of this mess.
Every breath seared through her lungs. God, she couldn’t see a thing.
A fresh wave crashed over her head, and Emma tried to snatch a breath before she was dragged under again. She couldn’t think, couldn’t function.
Another wave of darkness and dizzy nausea nearly made her throw up. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that if she opened her mouth, more water would flood into her lungs and she would be done for. It would all be over. A fatigue she had never known climbed through her brain at the idea of being done. Of giving up what seemed like an impossible fight.
She scrambled helplessly, numb to the cold soaking her clothes.
Then she could breathe. A gasping, shaky breath that rattled and wheezed as strong hands gripped her shirt and dragged her up, up, out of the ocean. Emma kicked out, desperately summoning the last of her energy to help whoever was saving her.
Someone was speaking, but she couldn’t hear anything. Everything sounded like waterlogged, bass noises.
And then she felt sand beneath her. She struggled to get a solid breath, rolling over as someone stroked her back, making soft, intoning noises against her ear. When she could finally blink and refocus on her surroundings, she saw that her friends and a small crowd had gathered around her as she lay flopped on the sand.
“Are you okay? Oh my God.” Allison stroked her hair as Emma kept coughing, desperate to get all the burning, salty water out of her chest. “You’re shaking, Emma. Are you hurt?”
Emma shook her head. Positive that the only thing hurt was her lungs, her muscles, and her pride.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” a male voice sounded over her shoulder. “It was rougher out there than I thought.”
Emma’s hurt pride tipped over into complete mortification. She ran a trembling hand through her soaked hair and turned to face the unknown voice that was behind her shoulder.
“You seem to be doing okay now. Can you breathe okay?” He bent down close, but not touchin
g, as their eyes met. “I’d offer you some water, but I imagine that’s the last thing you want right now.”
“Yeah,” Emma said absently, unable to look away from his piercing hazel eyes. “You would be correct.”
His smile was something out of a toothpaste commercial, the brilliance of it made her go into another embarrassing coughing jag, prompting Allison to pat her on the back until she could breathe again. The horrible storm was petering out into soft, light rain. As if someone up in the sky was mocking her for what she had just gone through.
“Yeah, no big deal. Thanks,” Emma muttered up the sky. “Everyone else okay?”
Allison nodded and kissed her cheek, gently helping Emma sit up before helping her to her feet as the hottie who had saved her life stood up too.
“Thank you so much for helping her, you have no idea—”
The stranger made a motion with one hand and another broad, kind smile.
“Really no reason to thank me. I was in the right place at the right time is all.”
“No, seriously, it’s not every day a hero saves my best friend. I don’t know what I would do without her in my life. You have no idea what you just did, how much it means—”
“What she’s trying to say is thanks and we’ll be over here.” Makenzie grabbed Allison’s upper arm with a glare, quickly switching her expression to an innocent smile when Emma met her eyes. “Far, far over here.”
She dragged Allison away across the sand. Obviously leaving Emma with the hero so that she could…do what, exactly?
Emma cleared her throat and started ringing out her tank top. Anything to avoid the man who was looking at her, his head half-cocked, as if examining her for…something.
“I’m okay, really,” she said. “But I don’t know… I mean there’s no way… If you hadn’t…”
“But I did.” He shrugged, tucking his large hands into the soaked pockets of his shorts. “We shouldn’t think about anything else. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Beyond tired. You must—”
“Stop worrying about me. My job is to worry about you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“What’s your name?” The man grinned again, an infectious, charming grin that made the ends of her mouth tip involuntarily. “It’s the least you can do for the guy who saved your life, right?”
Emma shook her head in disbelief and rolled her eyes.
“My name’s Emma.”
“Sean, nice to meet you.”
He stuck out his hand and they shook, a spark of rare chemistry zinging up her forearm and into her shoulder as she extracted her hand, shyly looking down into the sand.
“Sean, I seriously can’t thank you enough. I would have been a goner out there without your intervention. How can I make this even between us?”
The words left her mouth before her brain was even on track and she crossed her arms, watching her two best friends with their heads huddled together, their attention fixed on them as they talked together. God, those two were super subtle. What, did they think that Emma would wind up on the next episode of The Bachelor with Sean? That’s not real life—and she didn’t think her friend’s little setup was going to work out.
“You really don’t need to worry about it, Emma. I would have done it for anyone.”
Well, didn’t that make her feel like absolute crap. Jeez.
“I mean, uh…” Sean ran a hand through his still wet hair, chuckling low.
The small sound vibrated all the way up her spine and Emma caught her breath on a gasp.
“I would like to take you to dinner,” he finished.
Emma blinked a few times and cleared her throat, stalling to make sure she had heard right. But his expression was expectant. As if he was waiting for her to answer him, either way. Wow, this was really her life.
She took a second to digest the freakiness that had enveloped her since she decided to have an adventure on a canoe a little over an hour ago—this was not what she had in mind.
Sean spoke again, filling the silence that stretched out. “I have a yacht, I’d love to take you on it for dinner…or we could try something on land, if you prefer. Given the circumstances.”
Emma burst out with a short, little laugh and covered her mouth.
“I would imagine being near the ocean wouldn’t be comforting right now, would it?” Sean went on. “I should have considered that when I offered—”
“No, it’s fine. I would like that, thanks.”
“You really don’t need to thank me again.”
Emma blushed and shuffled awkwardly, watching over Sean’s shoulder as her best friends jumped up and down on the beach with big, cheesy grins on their faces.
She blinked and shielded her eyes as the glare of the mid-afternoon sun crested through the storm. Just as quickly as it had appeared, it had vanished, but it had certainly brought with it some new opportunities.
“Okay, next time we see each other, I’ll be super ungrateful. Is that better?” Emma raised one eyebrow, laughing at him.
“That’s perfect. In fact, throw bratty into the mix and we’ll have an amazing dinner.”
“Do you have an age preference? Like teenage brat or bridezilla?”
“Whichever one speaks best to you is fine.” Sean rocked back on his heels, clearly trying not to laugh.
“Glad to have your approval. What time?”
“How about eight? That give you enough time to work through all of this?” Sean made a motion his with index finger encompassing the whole hubbub that was slowly clearing out around them. “I heard after a near-death experience, food can taste better.”
“Well then, you better break out the good stuff,” Emma teased.
“Only the surf and turf for you, understood.”
“And big shrimp or no deal.” She crossed her arms playfully.
“You drive a hard bargain, Emma.”
“Only when I know what I can get out of it, Sean.”
“Smart women. I’ll have them pull out all the stops. Eight tonight. My yacht, The Pearl, will be docked in the far harbor next to the beach. The security guard on duty will show you the way.”
“Sure.”
Sean clapped his hands together lightly, tipped his head, and turned on one foot to suavely walk back to his yacht, Emma assumed. Just as she was about to head toward her friends, he looked over his shoulder.
“Try not to die again before tonight. I’m not big on corpses.”
“No promises,” Emma called out, watching his extraordinary backside as he walked off into the literal sunset.
No sooner had he stepped away, Allison and Makenzie rushed across the sand clutching towels that someone must have given them. Makenzie thrust one into her hands.
“Are you kidding me?” she cried. “What did he say?! Tell us everything!”
Her teeth still chattering, Emma clutched the towel around her shoulders and rolled her eyes.
“So my welfare is completely out the window. All we care about is the hot guy, huh?”
“Damn right,” said Makenzie. “Does he have a name?”
Chapter 4
Emma
Just act cool and everything will be fine.
Emma replayed Makenzie’s advice in her head, rolling her eyes at the useless, albeit well-meaning little speech.
She played with her hands as she stood at the entrance to the marina, gazing up at the large sign. There was a hush over the water, only the sound of waves lapping at wood and bobbing boats. If she strained, she thought she could hear laughter coming from the yacht club. A strain of tinkling classical music. Much fancier than anything she had been involved with since they got off the plane prepared for a spring break to end all spring breaks.
Dinner on a yacht with a hunk? That hadn’t been in the itinerary.
She took a deep breath, staring off into the seemingly unending dock. At least she knew she looked good. Allison and Makenzie had wasted no time in dragging her back to the hotel
to get ready. They had struggled through trying on everything in her suitcase before deciding she needed something special for the occasion. As much as Emma had tried to argue, the idea was insane, Makenzie had shoved her father’s credit card in her hand and they had taken the rest of the night to get Emma ready for this moment.
No pressure. Nope. Not even a little bit.
Emma looked down at the white cotton summer dress, tiny cherry blossoms scattered all over the fabric. The strapless dress hugged her body in all the right places and cascaded a little past her knees. Allison had given her a blowout and Makenzie had insisted on doing her makeup. Now she was regretting letting her friends tart her up way more than her usual jeans-and-a-nice-T-shirt combination. But she took a deep breath and soldiered on, knowing full well she wasn’t going to turn right around and grab another cab.
Her roommates would be waiting—and she would have them to answer to if she came back early.
With that as her driving force, Emma took one shaky step forward and then another. Until she was halfway down the marina dock, the creaking wood bobbing lightly underneath her heels. She swallowed tightly, remembering all too clearly the sensation of ocean water dragging her down into the deep. But she stuck to the middle of the line, careful not to go tumbling into the ocean again.
“You look like a cat on a hot tin roof,” Sean called out, making her abruptly shift her focus from her feet to the man who was standing right in front of her, offering her his arm. “Take it. I couldn’t wait for the guard on duty and I wanted to see you got to my boat safely—I kind of consider it a duty of mine now.”
Emma licked her lips and took a short breath, winding her arm around Sean’s.
“So you’re saying I need a babysitter now?”
“No, merely a gentleman.” Sean grinned and started leading them forward, toward his yacht.
The Baby Plan Page 2
