He stares, unabashed appreciation in his eyes.
“Of course not,” I say innocently.
Then I dive in.
The cold hits me like a wall. True mountain lake cold, all-the-way-through cold, nothing gentle about it. I surface gasping and laughing, the shock of it electric from my scalp to my feet.
I push the hair out of my eyes and tread water and look back at Walker on the bank.
“Well?” I call. “You going to fuss at me for swimming alone again? Or are you getting in?”
He looks at me treading water in his lake with nothing on, the same lake where he found me three months ago and dressed me down for endangering myself.
He sets the beer down. Reaches for the hem of his shirt and shucks it off. The swim trunks are next.
He dives in after me.
He's a strong swimmer. I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the man swims laps in his pool regularly. But there's something different about watching him in the lake, in the open water, cutting through the cold blue-green with the mountains reflected around him. He looks like he belongs in the wild like this, not pent-up doing laps in a sleek swimming pool.
He surfaces right beside me and I splash him square in the face before he sees it coming.
He wipes his face slowly. Looks at me.
“Do it again,” he says. “I dare you.”
I do it again.
He disappears under the water.
I spin around, looking for him, and then two hands close around my waist from behind and I shriek as he lifts me clean out of the water and tosses me.
I crash through the water laughing and breathless and already spinning to face him.
“I can’t believe youthrewme around like that!” I exclaim. “You really are a scoundrel.”
He catches my wrist, and uses it to pull me in, and suddenly I'm against his chest in the cold water with his arms around me and his chin dropping to the top of my wet head.
“And you really are a brat,” he murmurs.
I press my face into his neck and feel his heartbeat against my cheek.
I think about the day he found me here. The black stallion. The hat casting shadows over that stubbled jaw. The way he looked at me like I was the most irritating thing he'd ever laid eyes on.
Underneath all that scowl and thunder, a man who tucks his son into bed every night. Who woke up every morning this summer and made enough coffee for two. Who wrote love songs on my skin and slept with me beneath the stars.
How am I going to survive leaving him?
“You were so mad at me the first time you saw me here,” I say.
“I was terrified. You were swimming alone. It was freezing. You could have…” He stops. “Yeah. I was furious. And I stand by what I said. But my delivery could have been better.”
“And I could have calmly considered the advice beneath the lecturing, instead of matching your crazy.”
He twines his hand in mine. “I love the way you match my crazy.”
I'm still pressed against his chest, treading water, his arms tight around me.
“I get it now, you know,” I say. “It's in your nature. You're protective. You worry. You care deeply about…” About the people you love. “About the things that matter to you.”
