She nodded and tossed the whole stick aside. “I see your point. I acknowledge your point. I even agree with your point.” She turned to him. “But the answer is still no.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” he said, crossing his arms and glowering, his blue eyes boring into her.
He couldn’t ask her to trust him with her kid. Not Travis, of all people.
“You have no idea how unreasonable I can be,” she said. “I think I have a fair idea.” He let enough southern into his accent to piss her off further and make her heart beat faster.
Trust was earned and he, he absolutely hadn’t earned it.
As a matter of fact?—
“Then I guess I’ll ask Gavin,” he said.
“Seriously?” She shoved her hands onto her waist. “Play the go-to-dad game?”
He stared at the water, seeming to track one of the boats in the distance. “I don’t play games. But this is important. That kid had stars in his eyes when he started talking about planes. It’s in his blood.”
She’d seen the stars, too. They made her throat clog with motherhood-induced panic.
“That doesn’t happen for everybody.” Travis stood closer to her. A little too close. She could smell his brand of achingly woodsy cologne. It mixed with the low oxygen content of the mountain air, and the combination made her not want to argue anymore. Her traitorous body wanted to do other things with him. Inappropriate Molly-type things.
She moved a couple of inches away.
He seemed to get the point and moved a few inches in the other direction.
“Brady’s safety is important to me,” she said through gritted teeth.
He turned on her, hands on his hips. “You don’t think his safety is important to me, too?”
Not the same way it was for her. He didn’t have the same investment.
“Right. Uncle Travis. Understands the significance of safety.” She let out a laugh.
“You know, Rach—” Travis took the stairs up to the dock and walked to the edge. “You put too much weight on the wrong shit. You worry about the wrong stuff.”
He had no idea what she put weight on or why. Why the safety of her kids mattered more than any other thing on the planet.
“And you don’t know anything about it.” She crossed her arms under her breasts.
He held her glare with his own. “I know that I’d never let anything happen to my nephews.”
Except he wanted to take her son up in the sky. A sky with gravity. Gravity that would pull him back to earth—fast. “And I know I’d never let you have the chance to hurt them.”
The harsh tone of her words seemed to leave a bruise, given his pained expression.
“You think I’d hurt them?” he asked.
“I think you’re too invested in nothing not to.” Rachel stared at her image reflecting back on the water’s surface.
God, she missed the water. Missed who she’d been in the water.
Free.
She’d been free.
Travis started back toward the beach, clearly expecting her to follow.
She didn’t follow. Just stared at the ripples of the water, counting them.
