“Whoa, no way.” Taryn jumped out of her seat, jogged around to Cassie, and put her hands on Cassie’s waist. “My plans aren’t ruined; they’ve just changed.” She nodded toward the car. “Just like they were when you made it clear you didn’t trust me to keep you safe on two wheels. We just changed to your cute little Fiat.”
Cassie opened her mouth to protest, but Taryn placed a finger on her lips.
“No,” she said again, gently. Cassie had been nothing but ultra-confident and sassy to this point. A small show of her vulnerability had Taryn wanting to hold her in her arms and tell her everything would be okay. “We can hire the biggest, slowest boat they’ve got, and we’ll putter around the lake at a snail’s pace. No problem.” She let Cassie go and retrieved their bags from the back seat. “Come on. Let’s change into something more comfortable for this weather.”
Cassie didn’t look a hundred percent convinced, but nor did she look paler than a full moon, which Taryn took as a good sign. She held out her hand, and Cassie took it and squeezed firmly. They began to walk toward the main building.
“Are you sure you’re not going to think this is a waste of your time?” Cassie asked. “Something about what you said back at my place—about having a finite number of heartbeats—makes me feel like you want to make the most of the time you’ve got.”
Taryn gave a sidelong glance and frowned. “Doesn’t everyone?”
Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Not in the same way. I’ve only ever seen you in motion. Even when we first met at the bar, your leg was tapping away under the table like you couldn’t keep still. Do you ever relax?”
Taryn held the main door open, and Cassie entered. “I’m relaxed now.”
“Okay, smart ass.” Cassie punched her shoulder lightly. “Do you ever watch movies or lie in bed to read? How many hours of sleep do you get every night?”
Taryn raised her eyes to the ceiling. She didn’twantto lie, but it felt like something important was riding on this conversation, and she didn’t know what it was. “Don’t get me started on sleep. It’s a waste of time. And the ratio is totally off. I feel like evolution has slowed down a little and is being lazy, don’t you think? Who decided that you should sleep one hour for every two you want to be awake and living life? Who wants to spend a third of their life asleep?”
When they got to the counter, Taryn looked at Cassie. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrow arched high.
“So it’s something that you’re quite apathetic about?” She laughed and shook her head. “Wow, that was some rant.” She engaged the woman on the other side of the counter. “To sleep or not to sleep, Fern?” she asked after reading the name tag on her chest. “What’s your take?”
Fern wrapped her arms around herself. “Sleep is amazing, and Ilovemy bed so hard. It’s like being wrapped up in a cloud and floating above the earth for eight hours.”
Cassie nodded. “The opposite end of the scale, okay.” She chuckled. “Let’s talk more about this out on the water. It might keep my mind off drowning.”
“You don’t like the water?” Fern asked.
“I like water,” Cassie said. “To drink and to shower or bathe in. Anything where I can’t put my feet flat on the floor is terrifying.”
Fern placed her hand on Cassie’s forearm. “Oh, you’ll be fine. You can wear a life preserver.” She glanced at Taryn and grinned widely. “And I’m sure that if you were to fall in, your handsome wife would jump in and save you in a jiffy.”
The fact that neither of them corrected Fern amused Taryn, and she shot a small smile toward Cassie. Having a wife would be the equivalent of a mortgage and owning a patch of dirt. One love, one location. She shook her head. A wife was the furthest thing from Taryn’s mind.
“I’ve got a booking under the name of Taryn Taylor.” Fern looked up for confirmation, and Taryn nodded. “But I have a feeling you might want to change your vessel considering your wife’s aversion to the possibility of going overboard. Perhaps something a little more sedate?”
She slid across a laminated sheet of paper with photos of their boats, along with their engine size, speed, and the number of people they held.
“Unless you’re trying some sort of exposure therapy type thing, where you try to overcome the fear by immersing yourself in the thing you fear?” Fern asked.
Taryn smiled. “No, we’re definitely not doing that. It was a mistake, that’s all.” She pointed at the picture of a pontoon. “We’ll take that, please. But we’ll need it all day. Is that possible?” With the slower vehicle, there was no way they’d make it to the cove she’d found on Google in the time they had booked with the other boat. She looked at Cassie. “You do have all day, don’t you, wife?”
“I’m not on call, if that’s what you’re asking, so yes, you can have me all day.”
Cassie quirked her eyebrow so quickly that Taryn barely saw it, but her body registered its response happily, and so quickly that she felt like Pavlov’s dog. Taryn let out a long breath. It was going to be torture waiting to have Cassie until they were at the cove in the tugboat they’d ended up with. Having Cassie all day was definitely something to look forward to though.
“That is no problem at all.” Fern began tapping the booking out on her computer. “We don’t get too many tourists wanting the slow boats.”
Taryn and Cassie shared another amused look that they’d been taken for tourists. But while Cassie was a local, Taryn was a tourist wherever she went. Cassie had mentioned that she was born and raised in Henderson so she wasn’t a tourist at all, but she didn’t seem to mind that any more than she had being mistaken for Taryn’s wife.
Taryn handed over her credit card and driver’s license and asked where they could change. Cassie went in the small cubicle first while Taryn and Fern completed the booking.
“Go through that door when you’re ready, and I’ll radio Jen to meet you and take you to your boat.” Fern winked and handed over a map of the lake.
Taryn smirked when she saw that Fern had circled the cove they were headed for.
“It’ll be nice and quiet today. Hardly anyone out there.” She tugged a giant Yeti on wheels from around the corner and left it at Taryn’s feet. “And here’s the picnic you ordered. Have a wonderful time.”
