“What just happened?” Kendra asked, still in disbelief as she stared at the retreating back of their honeymoon coordinator.
“I hear we’re going kayaking,” Lucas said dryly.
“I tried to stop her.” Kendra glanced at him guiltily. “But she wasn’t hearing any of it. I think we have to go.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll get changed.” Lucas headed off to the bedroom while Kendra glanced down at her bathing suit and cover-up. So much for a relaxing afternoon by the pool. Instead, she was going kayaking with the last person she wanted to be stuck on a small boat with — or perhaps the second-to-last person. She was still upset with Aaron.
“We haveto paddle at the same time!” Kendra called over her shoulder, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “You keep hitting my paddle with yours.”
“Because you have no pattern that I can figure out,” Lucas replied. He was sitting behind her in the kayak. “Do one stroke on the left and then one on the right. It shouldn’t be this complicated.”
“If I do that,” Kendra snapped back, “we’ll start to spin again. I have to do more on the left side because of the current!”
The neon-orange kayak was currently floating on turquoise waves, bobbing gently up and down as it made little progressin any direction. They were on the water in front of the resort, close enough to the shore to see a few sunbathing resort guests watching them with expressions of amusement.
Kendra, though, was not amused. Not one bit. She just wanted to lie by the pool and maybe eat a giant cone of ice cream, her go-to food when she was sad. Mint chip was the best, but she’d even have gone for plain vanilla at this point.
“You have to put more pressure on your paddling to keep us straight,” Lucas told her. “Not more paddling. Justbetterpaddling.”
“Right, because you’re suddenly an expert in this.” Kendra glared ahead, wishing she could twist back and glare directly at him. “You told Susie you’d never been kayaking.”
“I haven’t, but this is just plain common sense.” Lucas was clearly just as annoyed as she was. Kendra dug her paddle into the water, clacking it against Lucas’s in the back, and tried to propel them forward. The kayak drifted lazily to the left.
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
“Trying to take us back to shore!” Kendra dug her paddle in again. “We’ve been at this for half an hour. Surely, that’s enough torture for one day. I haven’t even had lunch.” Or breakfast, for that matter — she’d been too nervous to eat the pre-wedding spread that morning. And she’d been looking forward to the post-wedding lunch of ribeye steak with potatoes and garlic greens that she’d picked out.
“Neither have I,” Lucas retorted. “But we’re here, so I want to see those rocks.” He started paddling in the opposite direction — or Kendra assumed that was what he was doing. She couldn’t really see him.
“We’re going back to shore.” She dug her own paddle into the water, causing the kayak to spin.
“I don’t understand why we’re even doing this. Did you plan to go kayaking with your husband?”
“Don’t talk about him.” Kendra twisted to look back at him, her blood boiling. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“You’re right, I don’t, because you refuse to tell me anything, even though it would have been helpful to know that I was supposed to pretend to be your husband, not just a boyfriend.”
Kendra twisted far enough to meet Lucas’s blue eyes, which flashed with annoyance.
“We agreed not to get to know each other,” she said. “I figured that telling you all my secrets would count as getting to know each other.”
“This is unbelievable. I thought this day couldn’t get any worse, but clearly, I was wrong.” Lucas threw his hands up. As he did so, his paddle slipped from his grip and splashed into the water.
“Dude!” Kendra reached for the dropped paddle, but it was already drifting away. “What are you doing? We need to get that back.”
“Dude?” Lucas snorted. “What are you, an eighties surfer?”
“What areyou, an inconsiderate jerk? Oh, right, that’s exactly what you are.” Kendra reached for the paddle again. This time, she was close enough to brush her fingertips against the handle. Heart pounding, she stretched an extra inch or two. She was so close?—
Then the water whooshed up to meet her. Kendra toppled headfirst into the ocean, her arms flailing wildly as the cold water closed over her. Unprepared for her sudden dip, she swallowed a mouthful of seawater as she desperately tried to right herself. She tried to open her eyes, but the salt water made them burn, and she squeezed them closed again.
Though Kendra was a decent swimmer, she was near panicking now. The waves pushed her from side to side and, when she made it to the surface, the kayak nudged against her head, pushing her back under. Fear clawed at her. She tried to grab the kayak but couldn’t get the edge.
Then, a pair of strong arms closed around her, pulling her to the surface at the side of the kayak. Gasping, her throat burning from swallowing the salt water, Kendra held tight to her rescuer. She managed to open her eyes and saw Lucas holding her with one hand and the edge of the kayak with the other. The water had plastered his hair to his head, which somehow made him look more human. His blue eyes, the same color as the clear sky above, looked at her with concern as he held her tightly against him.
“Kendra? Are you okay?” His voice was soft and warm.
“Yes,” she gasped, managing to grab the kayak.
