Mitch’s smile warmed as he touched Kenna’s nose with his finger. “Bingo,” he said quietly, and walked away.
Kenna was still standing there with her mouth open when Gray came up. “What’s up?” he asked. “You okay?”
“Peachy.”
He started to say something, but just then Hud wiped out spectacularly on a buoy and cartwheeled across the surface of the water away from the boat.
And not on purpose.
From the beach rose a collective “Ooooh…”
Kenna winced and shook her head. “That’s gonna hurt.”
Jacob whipped the boat around with impressive skill and hit the gas hard to get back to his brother quickly.
“Progress,” Kenna said. “In the old days, the harder they wiped out, the harder the other one would point and laugh.”
The boat pulled up alongside Hud, who vehemently shook his head.
“He doesn’t want to get back in the boat,” Kenna translated. “He wants to go again.”
“So he’s crazy too,” Sophie said.
“Crazy as they come,” Kenna said.
Jacob stood up from the captain’s chair, strode to the stern of the boat, and started pulling Hud in by the tow rope.
“And as you can see,” Kenna said dryly, “Jacob disagrees with Hud.”
From in the water Hud yelled something at Jacob.
Jacob kept towing Hud in.
So Hud let go of the rope.
Kenna laughed softly. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the Kincaids get their stubborn-ass reputation from.”
On the boat, Jacob tossed up his hands and returned to the boat’s controls. A minute later, Hud was back up on the surface of the water, once again hotdogging it behind the boat.
“Remember that time we sneaked out and borrowed a friend’s boat?” Kenna asked Gray.
“We were all punk-asses,” Gray said with a fond smile.
“Hud tried for a flip on the water,” Kenna told Sophie, “and face-planted instead. Jacob had to dive in and save him, then ride him to the ER on his bike’s handlebars. At that time we were being raised by Char, Aidan and Gray’s mom. She yelled at us something fierce when she finally got to the ER and then burst into tears.”
“We thought we’d gotten off scot-free,” Gray said.
“But hell no,” Kenna said. “Char’s got a softie side, but she’s also got a spine made of sheer steel. We were all grounded from life for a month.”
“I got two months,” Gray said. “Because I was oldest and supposedly knew better.”
Kenna laughed.
Gray smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I never knew better.”
“Still don’t,” Kenna said.
Five minutes later the boat had made a huge circle on the lake, stopping too far out for them to see what was going on. They’d shifted positions, Sophie realized. This time Hud was driving.
Jacob was now behind the boat on a wakeboard. He was wearing a life vest and board shorts that were wet and clinging to his body, plastered against him from the wind and speed. Going what seemed like a hundred miles an hour, he maneuvered right into the boat’s wake and…popped up in the air like he’d been shot out of a canon, his body fluid as he literally flew up, up, up and then…holy crap, executed a three-sixty before landing lithely back onto the surface of the water.
Stunned, Sophie stood there gaping.
“I used to be able do that,” one of the guys playing Frisbee golf said from his wheelchair, voice nostalgic.
Kenna reached for his hand. “Don’t even worry about it,” she told him. “Girls will like you better now that you’re not a show-off.”
The guy slipped an arm around her with a shy but hopeful smile. “Want to prove it by going out with me tonight?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “First round’s on me.”
The other guys groaned, and someone whispered, “Ah, man, I didn’t know we could ask her out!”
Mitch, who was standing close by, looked at Kenna for a long beat, his jaw a little tight, his smile definitely not matching the fire in his eyes.
“Sorry, boys,” she said to everyone else, although her gaze was locked on Mitch. “You snooze, you lose.”
Mitch swore, strode straight for her and yanked her into his arms, planting a hard kiss right on her mouth. When he pulled back an inch, he said, “The move has always been yours, since the night you let me into and then kicked me out of your bed, and you know it.”
“Hey, man, sorry,” the guy in the wheelchair said. “I didn’t know. She’s all yours.”