Shadow Keeper (13 page)

The challenge was on. I tossed my cap and sunglasses to Lisa before sprinting after him.

This side of the creek started shallow and, with all the rocks sticking out, we raced through the water until it lapped at our hips before breaking into a full swim.

When we got back, Carson dropped to his knees in the sand. “Who won?”

“Let’s call it a tie.” I leaned over and braced my hands on my thighs while taking deep gulps of air. “I don’t think I can do a rematch.”

“Here.” Lisa held out a bottle of water. “You look like you need this.”

I twisted off the cap and took several heavy swallows of the ice cold water. After I recovered enough to stand up straight, I glanced at Lisa. “Can you swim?”

“Of course, silly. I wouldn’t come to a creek if I didn’t know how to swim.”

“Good, because it’s your turn to race me. And after calling me silly, I’m not giving you a head start.”

“All right, but put down that bottle.” She kicked off her sandals. “I don’t want you coming up with some lame excuse about not being ready when I beat you.”

I screwed the cap back on and set the bottle on the ground, but when I bent over, Lisa shoved at my rear end with both hands. I went sprawling on my belly in the sand. “No fair,” I shouted.

“There are no rules in the arena,” she shouted over her shoulder while dashing toward the water’s edge.

I chased after her. Her toes barely broke the surface of the water when I caught her. I swept her up into my arms like a baby.

“You’re shirt’s soaking wet,” she squealed. “And you’re getting me wet.”

“That’s the idea.”

“And you’re too fast,” she said between giggles.

“I’m the wide receiver on the football team. I have to be fast. And if you wanted a head start that bad,” I teased, “then I’ll give you a good one. I’ll just toss you out in the middle of the creek and let you swim from there.”

“No,” she shouted when I made a fake attempt of throwing her in the water. Her arms latched around my neck. “Don’t you dare!”

In an effort to confuse her direction, I spun around in the sand while holding her in my arms. I lifted her away from my body and pretended to fling her through the air, but instead of tossing her in the creek, I plopped her in the center of an inner tube and dropped to my knees beside her.

She loosened her grip on my neck. “This is hot,” she managed to say despite her laughter.

Not certain of her meaning, I cocked my head to one side. “You think that me pretending to throw you in the creek is hot?”

“No. The inner tube is hot.” She squirmed around while trying to get up. “And it’s burning my legs.”

I scooped her out of the tube and back into my arms. “There’s only one way to cool you down. You have to go in the water, and this time it’s for real.”

“No,” she pleaded. “Don’t throw me in. Just let me go in by myself so I can get used to the cold.”

“All right.” I released her legs, but kept my arm around her while she got her feet planted on the ground.

“Thank you.” She glanced at my face. Her gaze brushed across my mouth and lingered there.

I flashed on her lips. The gloss she’d applied glistened in the sun. The cherry scent lured me closer. I wrapped my other arm around her waist. We stood toe–to–toe with her hands resting against my chest. I shifted my weight so our bodies touched.

Her forehead crinkled and her gazed slipped away. She pushed against my chest while taking a step back.

Carson shuffled through the sand behind me. “Bumper cars,” he shouted as he dashed past us with a tube under each arm.

“Come on.” I held out my hand to her. “This will be fun.”

****

Lisa fell to her knees on the blanket. “That was fun, but now I’m exhausted.”

“Then lay down.” I grabbed the baseball cap and stuck it on my head so she’d have plenty of room.

“First, I have to take off my wet shirt. I don’t understand why you wear yours in the creek. All that water weighs me down.” She crossed her arms in front and grabbed at the hemmed edge of her long sleeved shirt.

I sprawled out on the blanket in front of her for a better view. My mind had filled in so many blanks that I wanted to see how accurate I’d been.

My imagination was no match for the real thing. She looked perfect—soft and firm all at the same time. The modest swim top dipped in the front just enough to show some cleavage. Moisture clung to her lightly tanned skin. Tiny rivulets of water trickled down her chest and disappeared inside the top. The droplets reappeared on the bare skin of her ribs. My gaze followed the little squiggles of water rolling down her flat belly and past her navel until they vanished beneath the waistband of her loose fitting denim shorts.

“Did you hear me?”

My gaze darted back to her face. I knew she’d been talking, but the words didn’t register. Only a couple stuck in my mind. “Shirt. Yeah. I wear my shirt in the water.”

“But why,” she asked as she wrung the excess from hers.

I knew the answer, but getting it from my brain to my tongue was the hard part. “Sunburn,” I blurted out. “I wear shoulder pads under my football jersey. A sunburn would hurt.”

“You can use sun block.”

“I put it on my face and legs.” The words flowed easier now. “This is a sports shirt made for the water. It also protects my arms from scratches and abrasions when I’m tubing.”

She pulled a plastic bottle of something from her pack and sat next to me on the blanket. “Are you disappointed you couldn’t go tubing down the creek one last time?”

I shook my head while watching her rub lotion on her chest and arms. “Nope. I’m having a blast spending time with you.”

“So am I. Bumper cars was fun.” Her lips twisted together. “I’m not so sure I liked playing shark attack because you kept dumping me out of the tube.”

“That’s the only way I could gobble you up. Sharks don’t eat people while they’re still in the boat.”

“You’re funny.” She swiped a glob of lotion on my nose with her finger. “I like your sense of humor.”

“Thanks.” I pulled off my hat and spread the lotion around my face until I caught a whiff of the aroma. “What is this?”

“Mango scented sun block.”

“Oh, great.” I let out a huff. “Just what I wanted to smell like.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “Don’t you like it?”

“It’ll do if it keeps my nose from burning.” I tried to gather my nerve. I wasn’t sure I could take her honesty. “Is there anything else you like about me besides my sense of humor?”

She glanced down at her legs and smoothed the lotion over her thighs. “I like that you’re strong.”

“That’s good, because it’s your fault I’ve bulked up more. The coach increased our workout schedule so the players wouldn’t be distracted during practice thinking about girls.”

“Did he really?” She did that little giggle with the soft snorting noise. “But I don’t mean physically strong. I mean strong willed. You know what you want, and you’re determined to go after it despite any obstacles.”

She nailed that. I wondered what else she thought. “Is that all? Not cute or sexy?” I joked.

“You’re not cute.”

Her remark hurt. Even if I wasn’t handsome, to have my girlfriend confirm it hit me hard.

“Babies are cute,” she said, oblivious to my crushed ego. “You have a very masculine look.”

“Masculine?”

“You have a lot of angles.” Her finger coated in mango scented sun block touched at a spot near my earlobe and slid across the bottom of my cheek. “I like the way your jaw line drops down, then juts across to your chin. And your chin’s square, not pointed. Even your eyebrows have a nice arched angle to them.”

“So masculine is good?” When she nodded, my ego swelled. She liked my looks. I pushed further. “How about sexy?”

“I guess.” Her attention went back to rubbing lotion on her calves. “The girls in gym class think you are.”

“What?” I blurted out.

She glanced up and her eyes got big. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I’m always saying the wrong thing.”

“No, that’s fine. It’s just that girls thinking I’m sexy is news to me.”

“No one’s ever told you?” Her blonde eyebrows lifted. “All the girls think you’re hot.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, but with the expression on her face, she was serious.

She nodded. “You’d probably have half a dozen girlfriends right now if you had a nice looking car.”

“A car? Is that all it would take?” I tried to suppress my smile.

“Well, not all. They think you don’t have time for them because you’re too busy with school and extra classes, plus you work at a job. But cars are important. Girls my age want a boyfriend with a hot car.” Her head was down, but she glanced at me through dark blonde eyelashes. “Guess I’m lucky I don’t care about cars.”

“I’m the lucky one. I found a girlfriend who likes me for what I am, not for what I’ve got.” I smoothed a glob of lotion on the top of her foot down to her painted pink toenails. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“You’re brave. You jumped in the creek to rescue me.”

“When was that?”

“When that
Carson shark
tried to sink my ship.”

“Ah, you’ve got a sense of humor too.”

“Not like yours. You joke without being overblown like Carson.” She put down the lotion and glanced into my eyes. “So what do you like about me?”

I liked everything about her. Her clear blue eyes. Her cute giggle. Her firm, warm body pressed against mine when I pretended to be a shark gobbling her up, but I didn’t think she could handle the honesty, so I tried to keep the answer light. “After everything you said about me, it’s going to be a tough act to follow.” I put my hand to my mouth to hide my smile. “All I was going to say was I thought you had a cute butt.”

She sucked in a loud gasp before breaking into laughter. “Don’t make me take back my remark about having a good sense of humor.”

“Sorry.” I tried to get serious. “Well, there’s the obvious. You’re smart, pretty, and have a great personality. But what I like most is you’re a little crazy.”

“What?” Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound like a very good attribute.”

“What I mean is, you’ve never been tubing before, but you were willing to give it a shot—even though we didn’t go. And you jumped off that rocky ledge on the other side of the creek. It’s got to be ten feet above the water.”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me jump if it was too dangerous, so I’m not really crazy.” She made a little humming noise. “How about
adventurous
?”

“Yeah, better word. And you’re definitely smart. You just turned a not so desirable word into something sexy.”

“You think being adventurous is sexy?”

“Not necessarily, but you are.”

“What? Sexy?”

“Of course. Why do you think I said you had a nice butt?”

“You’d better be nice.” She smacked my arm. “Anything else about me?”

“You’re mysterious.” I gazed into her eyes. “I can tell you have a lot of dark secrets. There. That’s what I mean. As soon as I said that, you looked away from me.”

She kept her head turned. “Don’t you think people should have secrets?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “God knows my mother has enough of them about my father. But I don’t think secrets should be kept if it affects someone else.”

“Your mother probably keeps secrets to protect you.”

“I’m a big boy. I don’t need to be protected.”

“How about you?” She glanced at me. “Do you have any secrets?”

I shook my head. “Nothing important.”

“Oh, but you do have something.” Her lips curved into an impish grin. “We’ve been together only a couple of weeks and you’re already keeping secrets from me?”

“It’s not about me. It’s about a friend.”

“A friend? Let me see if I can divine your secret from you.” She put both hands on the sides of my face and twisted my head so she looked directly into my eyes. “Your secret is about Paul. He’s cheating on his girlfriend.”

I jerked my head from her grasp. “How did you—”

She moved back from me, as if my quick movement frightened her.

I softened my voice. “How’d you do that?”

She stared down at her toes. “I’m part witch.”

“I believe you.” I put my finger under her chin and forced her to look at me. “How’d you guess?”

“It’s not that big of a secret. Sherry thinks Paul cheated on her. There’s this girl named Regina who’s been bragging that she’s going to sleep with every senior on the football team.” Her gaze locked onto mine. “You’re a senior. Have you slept with her yet?”

“No.” Inwardly, I thanked whatever divine guidance prevented me from giving into the urge. It could’ve put a serious damper on my relationship with Lisa.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Don’t you think I’d remember if I did?”

“Maybe not—if it wasn’t that memorable.”

I laughed at her remark. “You’re the one with a sense of humor. Besides, even if I did, I haven’t slept with anyone since I met you, so I’m not cheating if that’s what you’re concerned about.”