Any Other Girl (15 page)

Aunt Carrie laughed and gave us each second helpings of rich, fattening garlic bread.

chapter 20

T
he next twenty-four hours seemed to drag on forever. Hanging out with my dads was fine, but I saw them every day, year-round. Summer was for Harper, for swimming and walking and making messes in her kitchen or mine. July and August always went by so fast; I hated to waste even one day being pissed at each other.

By Saturday afternoon, I couldn't stand it anymore. I sprinted through the woods to her cottage, all set to make amends and get on with Operation Best Summer. With a quick warning knock, I let myself in their cottage and called out a greeting.

Aunt Carrie answered me from the kitchen where she was mixing up some sort of sauce or marinade at the counter. “She's not here. The Eagles are playing a tournament in Everton today.”

I paused to take a deep breath. The entire cottage smelled like teriyaki. “Why aren't we there, cheering her on?” Everton was a mid-sized town about forty minutes away. The Eagles didn't play many away games—in fact, that was their first one—but I'd assumed we'd be in attendance for those, too. Harper hadn't told me about any tournament.

Aunt Carrie dipped a finger into the mixture and tasted it. “Mmm,” she said, then glanced over at me. “She assumed we didn't want to go, I guess. Those tournaments can last for hours. I wasn't keen on sitting in the heat all day anyway.”

I would have,
I thought. I would've done anything to show my support, even bake for hours in the sun, shaking my homemade pompoms and screaming obscenities at the ref. Obviously, Harper didn't need me for that anymore. She didn't seem to need me for anything anymore.

“Oh,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “Well, let her know I stopped by.”

“
You
can let her know.” Aunt Carrie covered the sauce with plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge. “Later, when you come over for dinner. You are coming tonight, right? With your dads?”

“I wasn't sure if Harper wanted me to.”

“Of course she does, Kat. You're her cousin.”

I thought about the giant bruise I sported on my tailbone. “Right,” I said dully.

I left Aunt Carrie to her dinner prep and headed toward home, taking the road. Just as I reached Walter, the old man face in the tree, I heard footsteps on the gravel behind me and then my name. I swiveled around to see Emmett jogging toward me, his pace steady and strong. He reached me in no time, coming to a halt a couple feet from where I stood. I couldn't help but stare as he leaned over and caught his breath, damp hair tumbling into his face. Once again he was shirtless, his skin deeply tanned after weeks in the sun, shorts hanging low on his slim hips.
Runners,
I decided,
are beautiful.

“Thanks for stopping,” he said, straightening up and tugging out his earbuds.

What did he expect me to do?
I wondered.
Take one look at him and run in the opposite direction?
Maybe that was what I
should
have done, avoided him and his distracting body for the rest of summer, but that would have been almost impossible. His cottage was just a few minutes from mine, the town was small, and our parents had become BFFs. We were bound to run into each other at some point.

“Out for a run?” I asked unnecessarily, then chastised myself for sounding so stupid. My brain was still scrambled from the last time I'd seen him, three days ago, right before I left him in the woods near Nate's cottage. His scrapes had healed nicely, I couldn't help but notice. Mine had, too. Then I remembered his fingers on my face in the dark, tracing my cheek, my lips.

Focus
, I told myself.

“Yeah,” he replied like I'd actually asked a reasonable question. “Where are you coming from?”

“Harper's. She's not home. Soccer tournament.”

He nodded and fiddled with his earbuds while I tried not to ogle his naked flesh. My own flesh felt warm and tingly and it was only partially the fault of the sun.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. “I've been meaning to show you something.”

I somehow managed to say, “What?” even though my imagination had begun whirling in all sorts of lurid directions.

He turned and started walking back where he'd come from, gesturing for me to follow.

Unable to come up with a reason why I shouldn't, I fell into step beside him. He led me all the way to his cottage, then we passed it, continuing down to the shore line. There, propped against a large rock, was the canoe we'd sanded together last weekend, the day of our “moment” in the lake. At least I
thought
it was the same canoe. It had been transformed. The outer surface was smooth and painted a shiny red. Even the inside looked clean and new.

I glanced at Emmett, who was grinning.

“Finished it Thursday,” he said.

“It looks great.” I ran my palm along the grain in the wood. “Have you tried it out yet?”

He shook his head and grabbed the canoe paddle, which looked like it had been restored as well. “I was waiting for you.”

I swallowed.
He wants me to go in this old thing? Float around in the middle of the lake with nothing between my feet and the deep water but a few planks of cedar?
I'd been on a boat before, of course, but never one I wasn't quite sure wouldn't sink like a stone and take me with it.

“I'll do all the paddling,” Emmett said, seeing the hesitation in my face. “You can just sit there, looking pretty.”

That got me. In spite of my sweet-and-dainty appearance, I wasn't a helpless weakling. I'd get in that damn death trap of a boat, and I'd help paddle it, too. “What are we waiting for?” I took the paddle from him and placed it in the canoe. Then I gripped one end of the canoe and lifted, grunting with the effort.

Emmett smiled, kicked off his running shoes, and lifted the other end. Together, we got the heavy canoe into the water and climbed in, each of us settling on the hard seats at either end, facing each other. The canoe tipped for a moment, and we both grabbed the sides, steadying ourselves.

“Think we can make it to the island?” he asked as he dipped the paddle in the water and pushed, turning us around.

I squinted across the lake, judging the distance. It seemed far. “There's nothing over there,” I said, adjusting the soaked hem of my sundress around my legs. “Harper and I went over on Nate's dad's fishing boat once. It's just trees.”

We glided along in silence for a while, Emmett doing the paddling while I unobtrusively watched his arm muscles ripple with the strain. Once again I felt like I was in a scene from
The Notebook
, floating along in a boat with a guy I tried to deny my attraction to but couldn't. Only instead of hundreds of swans, we had bugs and the occasional duck.

“Want a turn?” Emmett asked, offering me the paddle.

“Nah,” I said, stretching out my legs. “I'd rather just sit here, looking pretty.”

He gave me a sheepish look. “I was just kidding when I said that. I mean, yeah, you're pretty . . . beyond pretty . . . but there's a lot more to you than that.”

I was suddenly grateful that my big sunglasses hid most of my face. Guys complimented me sometimes, but never with such earnestness.

“You don't have to act like that with me, you know,” he went on, moving the paddle through the water again.

“Act like what?”

His gaze slid down my yellow sundress, stopping at my white, flower-patterned flip-flops. “Like a girl who's afraid to get dirty. I don't think that's the real you.”

I laughed. “You know me so well, right?”

“All I'm saying is you don't have to pretend to be some girly girl around me. Just be yourself.”

“So, what? You think I dress like this to please other people?” I asked, insulted. Maybe that had been true years ago, but like most things repeated over a long period of time, eventually it became normal. Then preferable. “It just so happens I
like
wearing dresses and makeup, Emmett. I like pink things, and fashion, and sappy movies. This
is
me being myself. I can look like this and still be okay with getting dirty.”

He stopped rowing and looked at me. “Why did you quit soccer, then? And boxing?”

“I quit boxing because I hurt my wrist. I quit soccer because—” I clamped my mouth shut, knowing how pathetic my excuse would sound. I'd quit because people assumed my lack of a mom had made me rough and aggressive. Looking back, I wondered why I'd ever let a few snide comments stop me from doing something I enjoyed.

“Because,” I tried again, “I wasn't as serious about it as I should've been.”

Emmett continued to peer at me, dubious. He didn't believe me. He thought I was a fake, manipulating people into thinking I was vulnerable and frail so they would what? Treat me that way?

I thought about last week with him in the lake, how I'd panicked in the deep water and he'd had to grab my hand to steady me. Had he really thought I'd done it on purpose? Acted the part of “damsel in distress” just so he'd have to save me?

Well. I couldn't have him thinking that, now, could I?

The canoe rocked precariously as I stood up, shed my flip-flops and sunglasses, and jumped clumsily over the edge. We were right in the middle of the lake, so the water was cold and seemingly bottomless, pulling me down for a few moments before my body's own buoyancy forced me back up.

When I surfaced, Emmett was in the water about a foot in front of me, a look of surprise mixed with panic on his face. “What the hell did you do that for?” he snarled at me. “Jesus, Kat. I thought you were going to drown.”

I laughed, plucking some hair out of my mouth. “I can swim, Emmett. And I can throw a punch and kick a soccer ball and paddle a canoe.
And
”—I treaded closer to him and batted my eyelashes—“I can even ride an ATV.”

He grabbed onto the canoe, which had started to float away, and smiled grudgingly back at me. “No, you can't.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Prove it.”

I looked to my left toward the shore. We were pretty close to my dock. Meeting Emmett's eyes again, I said “Okay” and then started swimming.

He swam beside me, maneuvering the canoe between us just in case I needed to hold on to it. I wanted to a few times, but I pushed through my uneasiness and kept going, not stopping until my feet touched bottom.

“You can't prove it,” Emmett continued to tease me as we dragged the canoe to dry land. “I bet you don't even
own
an ATV.”

“Yes, I do.” I hopped up on the dock, realizing too late that I was wearing a sopping wet, thin, light-colored sundress with a white bra and panties underneath. I crossed one arm over my chest while trying in vain with the other arm to loosen the skirt from its suction-hold on my thighs. Giving up, I turned back to Emmett and called, “Follow me.”

Laughing, I ran up the steps and across the yard, my bare feet skating across the grass. I could hear him behind me, gaining on me easily with his strong runner's legs. By the time I got to the detached garage, he was right beside me, his eyes dancing with laughter.

“Stand back,” I said, gripping the door lever and yanking it up. “And behold.”

The garage was dark, especially to eyes that had been subjected to the sun for hours, but no one could mistake the sharp outline of my Yamaha Raptor Sport Quad ATV, the very one that came within several inches of hitting him a few weeks before. There it was, the indisputable, physical proof of my claim.

I moved closer to the ATV and turned to Emmett, flinging my arms out in a big, smug
Told you so
. Only he wasn't even looking at the stupid ATV. His eyes were on me, burning through the flimsy fabric of my dress, tracing the outline of my breasts, my hips, my still-dripping legs. When his gaze landed on my face again, I couldn't look away even if I'd wanted to. The unwavering force of it pinned me where I stood.

I'm over him
, Harper had told me. At the time, it had made me feel better, but also a little envious. Because
I
wasn't over him. Not even close.

He must have seen something in my eyes, permission or acceptance or something else, because suddenly he was inches away, his breath washing over my forehead. I glanced up at him, biting my lip, and that was all it took for whatever was left of his restraint to completely evaporate. He held my face between his palms, tilted it upwards, and kissed me.

I'd been kissed by a lot of boys, in a lot of ways, but it had never once felt like this. My body was weightless, drifting toward his like it had no free will of its own. He pulled me closer, his fists closing around the fabric at the back of my dress, wringing drops of lake water down my legs and onto the cement floor beneath us. He had no shirt to grab onto so my fingers tangled in his hair, making the kiss deeper, more unrestrained, and infinitely more intense.

My hands dropped from his hair and skimmed over his shoulders, down his chest, touching the places I'd spent the last few weeks illicitly admiring. When my fingertips brushed the waistband of his shorts, he made a noise deep in his throat. The sound of it finally snapped me out of my lust-filled stupor. I drew back slightly, dropping my arms.

His hands were still twisted in my dress, and he didn't let go as he gazed down at me, questioning.

“What are we doing?” I whispered.

We were out of breath, our chests rising and falling together.

“I'm sorry,” Emmett said hoarsely. He let go of my dress to brush an errant strand of hair off my face. “Actually, no, I'm not sorry. At all. I've wanted to do that for a while now.”