Page 5 of Silent Heart

The girls were stuck out there.

Laughing inwardly at Kayla’s attempt to turn the pontoon out in open water to angle it back this way, I moved to the big block, every nerve keenly aware of the stony mass looming by the panel they’d removed. With a flick of my hand, I gestured for Lucas to move into the speedboat.

“Crank the engine,” I commanded.

The quiet one stayed on the dock radiating an almost otherworldly intensity. From the corner of my eye, I studied the scrawling lines of art that shifted with the muscles underneath, tendons and veins straining under the surface. The skin that was visible wasn’t very tan. For a moment, I couldn’t decide if this man was a vampire or a gargoyle.

Maybe a mixture of both.

“Did you put gas in it?” I arched a brow at Lucas, ignoring the rush of heat in my body when the monstrous beast behind me made a sound that could have been laughter.

Lucas stammered a protest, saying he filled it up early this morning. I was already moving to the next panel. I popped the plastic piece off, instantly confirming my suspicion.

“The battery was left plugged in. It’s drained.”

“Idiot,” Kole muttered.

I smirked hard.

“But the engine whined and the dash lit,” Lucas protested.

“That’s the smaller, secondary battery.” Popping the battery out, I braced it on the side of the boat. “Do you have a charger up at the house?”

The men looked at one another.

“Probably?” Lucas offered with a shrug. “They left a lot of things in the garage.”

As I was about to offer to go back to the farm for ours, my cousin finally attempted to dock the pontoon—poorly. The big rig knocked into the dock and shook the structure. I shot Kayla a glare, but she shrugged. There was no respect for other people’s property—for lake people’s property. I wasn’t about to get into it with her in front of our neighbors.

“Hariet, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Grace’s smile was part sneer, part diversion.

I should’ve pushed her into the water for using my birth name. But then I would have to rescue her because she was the worst swimmer of all the girls.

“I’m Lucas, and this is my brother Kole,” the smiling one quipped, sitting backward and leaning against the captain’s chair.

Grace listed the five cousins in the pontoon, making sure to point out the two who were married into the family—Susanna and Laney—as opposed to the four of us connected by blood.

Lucas listened with polite attention, and I blessed him for tolerating the squawking hens.

“How do you know so much about engines?” A gravelly voice broke my concentration.

I wet my suddenly dry lips.

Turning to Kole, I lifted a shoulder. “Farm kid.”

He tipped his chin in a silent assessment.

Warmth bloomed over my skin. I was pretty sure my nipples were visible through the bikini padding and tank top. It was time to get out of here.

“Yeah, so just, um, charge the battery and the boat should work good as new. If not, don’t go to Marvin’s for repairs. Go to Bruce Larkin, he’s in town, but he will give you a fair deal,” I rattled off, moving lithely from their boat across the dock and onto the pontoon via the gate that Laney couldn’t seem to unstick from its frame.

I’m going to need to straighten those hinges again.Someone likely bent them the last time they took out the pontoon. Anger sparked through my veins. The other grandkids couldn’t respect our grandparents’ pride and joy, taking care of the nice pontoon they’d saved for years to purchase. It made me irrationally mad every time yet another part of the pontoon broke.

“Hariet, you didn’t have to swim,” Kayla chided, making her voice unnaturally high and playful. “I would have dropped you off. You’ll be all wet for your…job.”

“But you’re a really good swimmer,” Lucas said, coming to brace the pontoon as it kept shifting off the dock because the idiot girls couldn’t throw a rope over one of the hooks. “Don’t you think so, Kole?”

Kole nodded once.

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