I bring her upright, and she wraps her arms around my neck. For a moment, we just breathe together.
“Okay.” I grin. “I want to try something else.”
“What?”
“You ever seen Dirty Dancing?”
Her eyes widen. “Daniel, no.”
“Daniel, yes.”
“This isn’t Crazy Stupid Love. You’re not Ryan Gosling.”
“I’m better than Ryan Gosling.”
“You’re delusional.” But a smile tugs at her mouth. “You’re not lifting me over your head in the middle of a lake.”
“It’s iconic. Very romantic.”
“It’s romantic when Patrick Swayze does it. Swayze was a professional dancer.” She pokes my chest. “You’re a rancher who trips over his own boots twice a week.”
“Slander. Once a week, maximum.” I position her, hands on her waist. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“It’ll be a disaster.”
“Same thing.”
She laughs, shaking her head even as she lets me guide her. “This is terrible. You’re going to drop me.”
“I’m not going to drop you.”
“You absolutely are. I’ll end up at the bottom of this lake, and my tombstone will say ‘Death by Dirty Dancing.’”
“Ready? On three. You jump, I lift. Simple physics.”
“Simple physics. Says the man who failed calculus.”
“I got a D. That’s passing.” I tighten my grip. “One...”
“Daniel—”
“Two...”
“This is such a bad?—”
“Three!”
She jumps. I lift.
For one glorious second, it works. She rises out of the water, arms extended, and I thinkholy shit, I’m actually doing this?—
Then physics remembers I’m a two-hundred-pound rancher with the grace of a determined ox. My foot slips on a mossy rock. My balance goes sideways.
We go down in a spectacular tangle of limbs and shrieking.
I come up coughing, and the sound that escapes her?—
She snorts.
