by Teri Wilson
Probably the latter, but Lucas liked to think it might be all of the above.
“Me, too.”
Chapter Four
Nick’s request for help with his swim lessons had nothing to do with Lucas’s decision to stop by the summer camp for lunch a few days later. Zero. He had every right to be there, and it wasn’t as if he’d never dropped by before.
After all, he owned the place.
Contrary to whatever Jenna Turner believed, Lucas wasn’t a worthless beach bum. Sure, he liked to surf. And admittedly, his daily schedule wasn’t always set in stone. But that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t work for a living. He just typically took a more hands-off approach where the summer camp was concerned. Kayla was the best employee he’d ever had. Every summer for the past three years, she’d had the camp running like clockwork.
Still. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to pop in and check on things.
The wooden planks of the deck creaked beneath his feet as he made his way from the shore to the summer camp entrance. As usual, the railing was lined with campers’ colorful beach towels, left out to dry in the sun. The bright rows of flags strung overhead flapped in the cool ocean breeze.
As fate would have it, he got there just as Nick was nearing the end of a lap in the pool. At least Lucas told himself it was fate, because he still wasn’t quite ready to accept that he was seriously thinking about helping the kid.
He hung back by the bleachers and watched as Nick made a slow crawl to the end of his lane. All the other kids were already out of the water and peeling off their goggles by the time Nick grabbed onto the concrete edge of the pool, panting for breath.
Kayla blew her whistle. “Good job, guys. Let’s break for lunch.”
The campers hustled toward the picnic tables, barely managing to follow the pool’s no running rule. Kayla kept an eye on them and waited for Nick to drag himself out of the cool blue water.
“Come on, dude. Those fish tacos are calling your name.” She gave him a playful tap as he stood dripping on the deck.
Shoulders slumped and eyes downcast, he clearly wasn’t in any hurry to get something to eat. “I’m not really that hungry.”
Inwardly, Lucas winced. The kid must be really upset if a fish taco couldn’t pull him out of his funk. They were the camp specialty.
Kayla shot him a sympathetic grin. “I can’t have anyone passing out on my watch, so you’re gonna have to eat something.”
Nick sighed. He looked so small out there, so vulnerable. His shark-pattered swimsuit hung all the way down to his knees.
A strange ache churned in the pit of Lucas’s stomach. He’d been that kid once, and it hadn’t been fun.
“I promise, they’re worth it,” Kayla said.
Lucas kept his gaze trained on Nick as he trudged toward the picnic tables, then slouched onto a bench. The boy didn’t so much as glance toward the tacos, the cooler full of juice boxes or the dessert table.
“Hi!” Kayla waved her arms, dragging Lucas’s attention away from Nick.
Uh oh.
Why did he feel so self-conscious all of a sudden? This was his camp. He was allowed to drop in and check on the campers.
He cleared his throat. “Hey you, looks like I’m just in time for fish tacos.”
Kayla cast a pointed glance at the cluster of boys and girls gathered around the grill. “At this rate, you may have to cut in line. They’re a hungry bunch.”
Lucas shook his head. “What? You didn’t save me one? Maybe I need to find some new friends.”
Nick’s dejected face flashed briefly in his mind, followed by the image of Jenna standing on the deck of the beach house, her dark hair tossed by the sea air and eyes as stormy as a tempest.
Lucas blinked. Hard.
“Good luck with that, McKinnon,” Kayla said.
He peered past her toward Nick, still sitting by himself. “How’s Nick doing out there?”
Kayla’s eyebrows drew together. “You know him?”
“Neighbor of the month.” Lucas had become accustomed to the revolving door that was the other half of the beach house. He thought he had anyway, until Jenna and her kids turned up.
“Well, he starts off strong and then just sort of gives up.” Kayla fiddled with the red lanyard of the whistle around her neck. “But I’m sure he’ll get there.”
“I’m sure he will.” Lucas nodded.
He didn’t want to give Kayla the impression that he thought she wasn’t doing a good job. She was great with the kids. He couldn’t run the summer day camp without her.
Lucas had no reason to interfere. If Kayla thought Nick would improve on his own, chances were he would. She had far more experience with this sort of thing than Lucas did. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Nick he wasn’t exactly a teacher. Yes, he owned a summer day camp, but he was strictly hands-off when it came to the campers. The camp at Tybee was a way for him to turn his love for the beach into a way to make a living. Sharing his passion for nature and the shore with the younger generation meant the world to him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to get personally involved with all of the campers. Or any of them, really. He didn’t need that kind of pressure.
The reasonable thing to do—the smart thing to do—would be to let Kayla do what she did best and just stay out of it. But as she grinned and headed toward the picnic area, Lucas found himself watching Nick again. And the sadder the little boy looked, the more the ache in Lucas’s gut nagged at him.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that there weren’t any fish tacos left.
Lucas wasn’t hungry anymore.
Just like Nick.
Jenna pushed through the screen door of the beach house and headed out onto the patio, ice-cold glass of lemonade in hand. She paused and looked down at the picnic table, once again perfectly arranged for a productive afternoon writing session. Laptop? Check. Thesaurus? Check. Her grandpa’s old typewriter for added inspiration? Check.
She sat down and started typing, eager to get at least a chapter written before it was time to pick up Nick and Ally from camp. Her deadline was beginning to weigh on her. They’d been at the beach for almost a week now, and she still hadn’t made any real progress. Her manuscript was due the day before they were scheduled to drive back to Savannah. If she kept letting time slip away, she’d never make her deadline.
As much as Jenna would have liked to continue to blame Lucas, she couldn’t. Since the fence had gone up, he hadn’t given her any real problems. Part of her was tempted to believe she’d overreacted. But the other part of her—the sensible part that couldn’t be swayed by his cute doggy-dad vibe—knew she’d been right.
Then why is your word count still so pathetic?
Jenna banged out another sentence. Her word count wasn’t that bad. She could still finish on time. If she started thinking more about her plot and less about Lucas and Tank.
Which she would.
Starting right now.
She typed a third sentence and smiled to herself. There. She was feeling better already.
Her self-satisfaction was short-lived, though. Before she could get going on her second paragraph, a loud guitar riff interrupted the soothing beach sounds of gulls crying and waves tumbling on the shore. And this time, it wasn’t coming from Lucas’s side of the duplex. It seemed closer, if that was even possible.
“What the heck?” She rose from her cozy picnic bench and walked to the end of the patio to investigate.
Just beyond the dune, a beach volleyball game was in full swing. Players in swimsuits high-fived each other and batted a ball back and forth over a net anchored in the sand. Someone had propped stereo speakers nearby, making the whole scene into a perfect beach party.
And Lucas McKinnon was right there in the center of it. Because of course he was.
Jenna sighed. “Come on, man. I�
��m trying to work.”
She waved her arms, hoping to catch his attention. Was there a universal gesture for turn the music down? There had to be, right?
Whether there was or wasn’t didn’t matter because Lucas didn’t bat an eye in her direction. Nor did his friends. They were too caught up in the game to worry about Jenna and her teen fiction novel that was due in four short weeks.
She crossed her arms. She was going to have to go down there, wasn’t she?
“I got it! I got it!” One of the players dove into the sand and managed to get to the ball just time.
As soon as it crossed the net, Lucas spiked it back. Jenna might have been impressed…if she hadn’t had thousands of unwritten words to worry about. She stomped from the deck to the dune in record time, feet sinking into the sand as she made her way toward the noisy spectacle.
“My man!” A guy in a white tank top gave Lucas an appreciative slap on the back.
He didn’t seem to notice because he was too busy staring at Jenna with a wary look on his face. “Uh oh. Here we go.”
She forced a smile, since she apparently had a reputation as a complete and total killjoy. “Am I the only one who works around here?”
He laughed.
“Just kidding.” They were, after all, at the beach, where people usually went for vacation. “But seriously, am I?”
She glanced toward the shore, dotted with sandcastles and beach umbrellas. Children darted in and out of the surf chasing foamy waves while a group of nearby beachcombers collected shells in a big wicker basket. Jenna let out a wistful sigh. The summer was passing by so quickly. She should be slathered in sunscreen right now with bare feet and beach hair, not chastising her neighbor for having a little fun.
“In case you haven’t noticed, volleyball is hard work.” Lucas’s dimples flashed and he raked a hand through his dark hair.
“Especially when you’re winning,” Tank top guy chimed in.
Another player on their team shook her head. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We just started.”
So Jenna was in for more of this noise all afternoon. Marvelous. “Great. Well, I just started working, and it’s not going so well. So, if you could just turn the music…”
“Down a bit?” Lucas mimed turning down a volume knob.
The universal keep it down gesture! She knew one existed. He was totally speaking her language. For once.
“That would be awesome.”
“You got it.” He winked.
Her face went hot for some weird reason. She swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Seriously, why was she so warm all of a sudden?
He nodded, turned down the music with a few taps on his cell phone and headed back to the game.
“Great. Thanks.” Well, that was a million times easier than she thought it would be.
A player on the other side of the net tossed the ball into the air, preparing to serve. “Four-four!” he yelled.
Instead of watching the ball, Lucas shot Jenna a cheeky grin. “What? Too loud?”
She mirrored his volume knob signal. “Little bit.”
“We’ll keep it down.” The ball whizzed past his head.
Jenna couldn’t help but laugh. As she made her way back over the dune, she could have sworn she felt Lucas’s gaze on her back, as warm as the summer sun.
But she refused to look. She was probably imagining things, anyway. Just because they were finally getting along didn’t mean he thought of her as anyone but the cranky lady who’d moved in next door.
Correction: the cranky mom who’d moved in next door.
Lucas was only being polite. He tolerated her kids about as well as she tolerated his slacker surfer lifestyle. And nothing was more important in the world to Jenna than Nick and Ally.
Whatever he thought about her, he kindly kept the noise to a minimum for the rest of the afternoon. Once Jenna could hear herself think, she managed to make some actual progress on her manuscript. After a few intense timed writing sprints, she had a shiny new chapter under her belt. She just wished she could come up with a solid ending to the story. That major detail was still eluding her.
When at last she’d written ten pages—ten!—she couldn’t wait to pick up the kids. She considered a few potential endings as she steered the car along the sand-swept road to the beach camp. The trip was a slow crawl through summer, island traffic, but she arrived just as Nick, Ally and the other campers were making their way from the shore to the camp’s wooden deck with beach towels wrapped around their slim shoulders and popsicles in their hands. On the way home, Ally gushed about the new turtle nest they’d discovered high up on the dunes and the tracks the mama turtle had left in the sand—deep trenches winding from the shore to the nest and back out to sea again.
While the kids showered and changed into fresh clothes, Jenna set three place settings on the picnic table out on the deck. Then she fired up the grill for steaks, Nick’s favorite. By the time the kids were ready, she’d managed to add fresh-squeezed lemonade, salad, veggies and cold sliced watermelon. The perfect summer spread.
“Here’s to my beach warriors and a fantastic summer at camp.” Jenna raised her glass.
“How long is it again?” Nick stared down at his plate.
Jenna frowned. He’d been awfully quiet since he’d trudged to the car after camp with his damp towel slung around his neck. She’d thought he was simply tired after a busy day in the pool and at the beach, content to let Ally dominate the conversation. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Can we cheers now?” Ally’s glass of lemonade hovered above the table.
Jenna tapped hers against it. “Yes. Cheers!”
Nick clinked his glass too, but instead of taking a sip, he sat staring over Jenna’s shoulder toward the shore. “Maybe I should just learn to surf instead.”
This was new. He’d talked about nothing but swim team for the past year and a half. His heart had been set on making the qualifying time at the trial at the end of summer, so he’d be prepared going into tryouts for the school swim team in the fall.
Worry gnawed at Jenna as she dished salad onto his plate. “Why would you want to do that? We don’t normally live near the beach.”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. Our neighbor does it.”
So this was about Lucas. Of course. Why hadn’t she seen it coming?
She glanced over her shoulder to follow Nick’s gaze. Sure enough, Lucas was making his way over the dune with a surfboard tucked under his arm. He was wearing his wetsuit and flip-flops. Again.
No wonder Nick had started looking at him as if he was some kind of hero. His life was one big beach volleyball game. As nice as it seemed, it wasn’t exactly realistic. Or responsible.
Or safe.
It had been a while since Nick had a male role model to look up to, though. Under the terms of the divorce, Jenna had primary custody of the kids, but she encouraged them to see their dad as much as possible. She wanted them to have a normal, happy childhood, despite the fact that their parents were no longer together. But her ex-husband traveled all over the world for work. Last month, he’d been in Sweden, and now he’d be in Tokyo for the rest of the summer. Jenna knew Nick missed him. Having a man in such close proximity probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Still, the last thing she needed was Nick on a surfboard. She worried enough about him swimming across the pool without tethering him to a heavy board and putting him in the ocean. Maybe she should see if Ian could teach him how to build something instead.
“I’d rather you not try anything our neighbor does.” Jenna arched an eyebrow. “Ever.”
“Okay.” Nick grinned. “Now tell me how you really feel.”
Jenna shook her head. “No. That isn’t a feeling thing, it’s a health and safety thing.”
She
didn’t have any feelings about Lucas one way or another.
“Suuuure.” Nick’s grin widened and he bit into a slice of watermelon.
“What? It is.” Of course it was. She was only being logical…a rational, reasonable adult. Because someone in the beach house needed to act like a grown-up.
Still, a change of subject was in order. For some reason, she wasn’t sure she wanted her kids prying into her thoughts where Lucas was concerned. She wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to pry into them herself.
“Who wants steak?” She smiled brightly and passed the platter across the table to Nick.
Luckily, a sirloin fresh off the grill was enough to make him forget about becoming Lucas’s mini-me.
At least temporarily.
Tank could’ve smelled Jenna’s steaks from a mile away. Unfortunately for Lucas, her sirloins were much closer in proximity and, therefore, all the more tempting.
At first, Tank’s interest in what was happening on the opposite side of the picket fence was limited to a few subtle twitches of his nose. As Lucas sprawled on one of his patio chairs with a book in his hand and his feet propped on the driftwood coffee cable, Tank tiptoed closer and closer to the fence. Lucas, pretending not to notice, hoped his pup would give up on the idea of a doggy bag. The odds of that happening were slim to none, considering Tank was supposed to be the entire reason the fence had been constructed in the first place.
Right. Lucas still wasn’t buying that flimsy explanation. He saw the way Jenna Turner looked at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention—like she’d forgotten all about his messy porch and lack of houseplants. Every now and then she actually smiled, as if maybe he wasn’t the absolute last person she’d wish to stumble upon in her shared outdoor shower. In those moments, he had a sneaking suspicion that the fence had more to do with him than it did Tank. In all likelihood, the poor dog was just an innocent bystander.
An innocent bystander with a sudden craving for steak.
