“See. You are practically family. Except…what’s with you and Tag?”
Kyla blinked. “Me and Tag? Nothing.”
“Uh-huh. He wasn’t looking at you like a sister last night. There were a few times I felt like the rest of us weren’t even there, the way you two were looking at each other and talking to each other.”
“Oh. Oh god.” Kyla bent her head and studied the fine grains of sand.
“You two aren’t…haven’t…”
“No!” Her stomach tightened. “But…” She glanced at Remi. She wasn’t used to talking about stuff like this with other women. “Oh wow. Um.” She didn’t even know how to say it.
“You like him?”
“Well, of course I do.”
Remi laughed. “Okay…do you want to do him?”
“Yeah.” Kyla breathed out a long sigh. “I always have. From the time I was about fifteen years old.”
Remi’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Don’t say anything. Please. Don’t tell anyone. I tried so hard not to let on. One summer, when I was about eighteen, Tag figured it out. But nothing ever happened because he basically turned me down.” She made a face.
Remi gave Kyla a slow, pretty smile. She was really sweet, Kyla had to admit. And smart. “I won’t say anything. But I think he’s figured it out again.”
Kyla blew out a soft breath, remembering the near-sex-on-the-beach they’d had earlier. “Yeah.”
Chapter Seven
That night the Heller boys and the MacIntosh siblings all went to The Pelican, the bar on the beach. They sat on the big wooden deck, listening to the live band that played every weekend, drinking beer and coolers and talking. Matt met up with a group of girls he knew from high school who were dressed in short shorts and skimpy tank tops and who were flirting outrageously with him. And he was flirting back.
Tag smiled and shook his head, lifting his beer bottle to his lips.
“This is so gorgeous,” Remi said, gazing out at the lake being tinted pink and peach and gold by the setting sun. “It’s like Lake Michigan.”
“Not nearly as big,” Tag said. “Lake Michigan is the third largest lake in North America. Lake Winnipeg is the seventh.”
“Did you read that on a Trivial Pursuit card last night?” Kyla asked with a smirk. He grinned.
“No. I happened to know that. That’s why I’m so good at Trivial Pursuit.”
“We tied at one game each,” she reminded him, leaning back in the white plastic chair she sat in.
“They’re both huge lakes,” Remi said. “You can’t see the other side, so it’s big. And the sand is much nicer here. It’s incredible, so soft and white.”
“Yeah.”
Tag watched Kyla lift one knee to prop her bare foot on the edge of the chair. She was wearing shorts almost as short as those puck bunnies hitting on Matt and a little T-shirt that hugged her breasts, the words “I’m a lawyer, not a magician” printed on the front. Cute.
A hand landed on his shoulder and he turned to see Matt standing behind him. “Hey, dude,” Matt said in a low voice, crouching beside Tag’s chair. “Can I use that tent tonight?”
Tag frowned. “No.”
“Why not? You’re not seriously going to sleep out there, are you?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Look.” Matt glanced at the girls. “All three of those girls want to…you know.”
Whoa. “Not in my tent.”
“But if I’m in the tent, my snoring won’t bug you. You can have the bedroom all to yourself.”
That wasn’t going to work for what Tag had planned for the tent. “No way. The tent is mine.” He already had his things out there, everything he was going to need later…
“Oh man! Come on! Three girls! At the same time!”
Tag caught Kyla’s eye and knew she’d overheard when her lips twitched. She leaned over, her breasts brushing his arm. “Come on, Tag, think of your little brother.”
He scowled at her, then looked back at Matt. “No. That’s final. Find somewhere else for your…your…”
“Ménage à quatre?” Kyla suggested.
“Er…yeah.”
“Shit.” Matt stomped away.
Kyla laughed softly, still leaning near enough to him that he could smell her hair, a spicy floral scent mingled with a faint hint of coconut that remained from her sunscreen. Remembering applying that sunscreen to her sweet little body had him instantly hard as a hockey stick. He shifted in his chair. They had to get out of there and back to the cottage. Er, tent.
“I should get back and feed Caleb before we put him down for the night,” Jessica said. She looked at Scott.
“I guess that means I’m leaving too.” But he grinned good-naturedly as he rose from his chair. “Mom texted me a few minutes ago to say Emily was down.”
“Your cell phone is working?” Jase asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes. The service is kind of spotty up here.”
Tag sneaked a glance at Kyla. Did she know what he was thinking?
A few minutes later, he yawned. “Well, I think I’ll call it a night. Keep an eye on Matt.”
“He’s gone,” Logan said. “He left with those girls.”
Tag frowned. He’d better not find them in his tent when he got there. “Well, I guess he knows what he’s doing.”
Logan laughed. “Um, yeah. Pretty sure he does.”
Tag glanced at Kyla, lifting one eyebrow, tossing some bills on the table to cover the tab. “G’night.”
He strolled back toward the cottage down Main Street, then Bluebell Lane, through the growing darkness. The trees formed a lacy black canopy against the cobalt blue sky above him, where clouds were beginning to gather. The still-warm air brushed over his skin as he walked, a breeze springing up off the lake, and he breathed in deeply the fresh air scented with pine and grass and lake water. Would Kyla know to give it a few minutes and then follow him? Would she come?
Was he crazy to be doing this?
He wanted her with a deep visceral need that was almost shocking. It had started the moment he’d watched her keel over onto the grass on Friday night.
Well, no. It had started years ago. He’d just never really admitted it, to himself, to anyone. She’d somehow wriggled her way into his heart as a girl when she’d been so determined to keep up with them, despite her complete lack of athletic ability and coordination. She’d been so stubborn, so determined, so willing to do things that were clearly outside her comfort zone to fit in with them. Something had opened in his heart and let her in way back then.
It had turned sexual after that, when she’d grown up a little and he’d noticed that damn, she was hot. The one time they’d come so close to kissing, and he’d so wanted to, but he’d made himself back off. She was like a sister. Except not really. And her big brother was his best friend. Then Tag had left Winnipeg, had had lots of other girls, had focused on his career and had never looked back. Until she’d showed up here.
He crawled into the tent and turned on the battery-powered lamp he’d set on the small table. The tent was a decent size, and, unlike when he’d used it as a kid, his mom had recently purchased an inflatable bed, a double bed that, with the help of an extension cord plugged in at the cottage, had quickly filled with air and was pretty damn comfortable. A couple of sleeping bags zipped together―one was never big enough for him―and there was easily room for Kyla.
He stretched out on the bed, hands stacked behind his head, and stared up at the fabric of the tent. And waited.
Crickets chirped outside in the quiet night. The trees rustled in the breeze that had come up and cast shifting shadows on the tent. Somewhere an owl gave a low hoot.
Tag hadn’t thought much about work since he’d been at the lake, but that was the whole purpose of coming there―to get a break. It was the off season, and while he usually kept busy in the off season working out and training, doing some hockey camps for kids and organizing their golf tournament, this year had been a little different and was likely going to be different right up until training camp started in September. Maybe he should feel guilty about taking a break in the middle of the craziness, but hell, they’d survive without him for a week, and more importantly…Kyla.