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I could feel Kenna bristle next to me, and even though I didn’t want the upgrades and marketing upheaval that Kenna certainly had planned, I didn’t want these people harassing her either. Before I could assure them that repainting the letters on a sign wasn’t something to be worried about—and that this boat club wasn’t actually theirs—Kenna beat me to it.
“I’m merely making this sign legible again, something you should have done eons ago if you cared about your boat club. Or did you expect my ailing aunt to do all the work?”
Carl whistled through his dentures while Irene cackled. “Well, hell, Kenna. We didn’t mean any harm.”
Kenna surprised me, reaching out to touch Carl’s arm. “How about this? If you want a say in how this sign gets refreshed, how about we work on the project together? Tomorrow afternoon, say two o’clock? I’ll bring the paint, glue, and shells. You bring the donuts.”
Sam grinned, elbowing his fellow geriatric thugs. “Sounds like a plan, Kenna.”
Crisis averted, the boys shuffled off, probably searching for someone else they could harass. Irene regretfully peeled herself off me and returned to the club office, not to work, but to place her chair outside and sun herself into an even darker tan. Kenna shook her head.
“You’d think I took a bulldozer to it,” she drawled.
I shrugged, just happy they hadn’t made her cry. Then again, she hadn’t cried in awhile, so maybe she was getting a sturdier backbone. “People don’t like change around here.”
Kenna gave me a slow once-over that had me wishing we were alone so I could kiss her again. “I’m starting to see that.”
I stared back, enjoying the way her eyes sparkled with ideas. The twin spots of color in her pale cheeks that gave away her excitement to work on her plans for the club. It was a stark difference to the day she’d arrived in town. I quite liked this new side of Kenna, but sadly, her succeeding with this club meant me losing my quiet town. If it was crawling with tourists, I couldn’t exactly hide out any longer. And I wasn’t sure I was ready to be as brave as Kenna.
“No rain showers expected this afternoon,” I said quietly, wanting to bury my head in the sand and keep Kenna all to myself.
“Thank God for small miracles, eh?” Kenna swiped a lock of hair out of her face, a faint sheen of sweat on her brow already.
“You got a swimsuit on?”
Kenna wrinkled her nose. The freckles there had begun to multiply, and with each new one that appeared, she looked happier. “No. I don’t dress for the office any longer, but waltzing into the boat club in a swimsuit is taking casual dress a little too far, don’t you think?”
I chuckled under my breath. “Agreed. How about we head home. You change and I’ll pack a lunch.”
Kenna tilted her head, squinting up at me. “Are you suggesting we play hooky, Mr. Boggs?”
I stepped closer, blocking the sun for her with my body and pushing hair behind her ear just so I had an excuse to touch her. “As owners, I say we call it an owners’ lunch meeting. Definitely not playing hooky.”
Kenna’s lips quirked up but she sighed. “Well, that kind of takes the fun out of it.”
There was something magical about seeing Kenna be playful. “Where is Ms. Ryan and her ballet flats and sour mood?”
Kenna was most definitely smiling now. “I think I divorced all that too.”
The small spoil was deserted as I knew it would be. There were reported to be over seventeen hundred islands that made up the Florida Keys, and quite a few of them were as small as this uninhabited spoil a good half-hour boat ride from Sunshine Key. This was my favorite island, the one Harley and I had been to countless times before.
Kenna squealed as she went down the ladder at the back of the boat, hurrying through the thigh-high water to the island with two towels held over her head. I tried to keep my gaze off of her ass in that emerald-green two-piece swimsuit. Kenna’s curves were in all the right places and I mightily approved.
“No sharks, right?” she shouted over her shoulder.
I’d already scanned the water as I anchored the boat before the sandbar leading to the spoil. “No sharks playing hooky today, don’t worry!” We’d spotted sharks here before but they usually stayed further out. Not that I’d be mentioning that fact to Kenna.
She had the towels spread out by the time I made it onto the sand with the cooler holding our lunch. We sat together and dug in, enjoying the cold grapes, hastily made turkey sandwiches, and a bag of chips. Kenna was already turning pink by the time we finished our lunch. She squirted gobs of sunblock on her legs and arms, rubbing in the white goo until she took on a faint ghostly quality.
“Let me get your back,” I said, gesturing for the bottle of sunblock.
She passed it to me, spinning on the towel to give me her back side. I squirted the lotion on my hands, rubbing them together and then touching her right by the shoulder blades, between the straps of her swimsuit. Her skin was so soft and warm I could have spent an hour massaging in the sunblock. The skin on her arms pebbled into goose bumps at my touch. It could have been my imagination, but she seemed to sway back toward me.
Eventually, there was no more white goo to massage into her skin, so I sat back, wrapping an arm around her waist and positioned her between my legs where I could shade her from most of the sun. She let me, a squeak the only sound before she settled in my arms. The ocean sprawled out before us in all directions. Small waves lapped at the shoreline, creating a hypnotic rhythm that instantly made me feel relaxed. Kenna finally lay back against my chest, her auburn hair flicking against my neck in the breeze.
“This is gorgeous,” she breathed, a reverent whisper to her tone.
I nodded. “Harley and I like to come here whenever one of us is stressed out. It’s an instant way to let go of all the details in life that don’t matter.” I nuzzled her ear, planting a kiss on her temple. “Where did you go in California to destress?”
