Page 37 of Child of Mine

Tara and I position ourselves on the outside. Bella shoots me a conspiratorial grin, and I’m hit with a wave of desire. She’s muddy, sweaty, and her hair’s a mess, but the gleam in her eye is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. The shout of “On your marks!” startles me back to the present, and I pack the feeling away for later.

When I whisper, “Let’s do this,” to Tara, I’m rewarded with a dazzling smile that I’d love to capture on camera. When the shot goes off, she and I take off like bats out of hell.

Squeals, laughter, and yells of protest echo behind us, but all my focus is on the wall we have to scale. Nobody said we couldn’t help each other, so I practically throw Tara over the thing before I haul myself up. Tara’s size works for her as we scramble under low-hanging ropes, and then she’s ahead of me, nimbly skipping from one rock to another. When I do finally look back, it’s clear that our strategy has worked. We’re so far ahead of the pack that our scores will give us a good chance of winning this thing.

But just as I’m about to cross the finish line, a cry of pain grabs me by the collar and stops me in my tracks.

Tara, already over it, yells, “Henry, come on!”

Jogging in place, I scan the crowd until I find Bella. She’s on the ground, holding on to her ankle. Jared is helping her to her feet, but he won’t be able to get her through. Without thinking, I’m off, dodging the other players, until I get back to my teammates. Tagging Jared, I yell, “You go ahead; I’ve got her.”

Nodding, his face serious, he takes off. Without even asking permission, I sweep Bella off her feet and onto my back as I shout, “Hang on!”

* * *

BELLA

We don’t come anywhere near winning, but we do get everyone cheering and laughing. A heady mix of hormones, the result of being pressed against Henry’s strong back, blunts the pain in my ankle at first, but when Henry sets me down and Carol catches my wince, she sends me back to my cabin and orders a couple of kids to fetch a bag of ice.

Twenty minutes later, my ankle is elevated and numbed, but I’m worried. I doubt it’s broken, but I need to be at one hundred percent to get through not only the rest of this week, but tech and opening forComedy of Errorsnext week. I’d thought I was doing the ultimate balancing act when theBoomretreat lined up perfectly with my week off from rehearsal, while the rest of the company opensThe Tempest. But if I’ve messed up my ankle, my takeaway might have to be “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

Definitely something I need to keep in mind. Not only am I keeping many plates in the air with my tight schedule, but the stress of working with Henry, hanging out with Henry, competing alongside Henry… Every moment I’m with him makes me like him more. Problem is, every moment is also another moment that I’m lying to him.

Only by omission,Quinn scoffs.He said himself that he doesn’t like kids. You’re saving him a load of grief.

We don’t know that for sure. Look how great he was with Tara and Jared just now,Izzy points out.Maybe it’s just younger kids.

The ones about Lilah’s age?Quinn asks.Just because he contributed a few chromosomes to her existence doesn’t necessarily make him dad material. If our dad is any example, that is definitely the case.

Lying is still bad,Izzy sputters.It really should be his call—

A knock on the cabin door interrupts the argument between the girls on my shoulders. “Uh, come on in,” I call from the bed. “Sorry, I can’t get up.”

When the door cracks open, I’m temporarily blinded by a ray of the setting sun.

“Hey, you doing okay?”

At the sound of Henry’s voice, I sit up and readjust the plastic bag on my ankle, hoping to camouflage a sudden need to squirm. “Yeah. I’m just icing it to make sure.”

When he closes the door behind him, the room shrinks exponentially.

“I, uh, brought you a few things.” He sets a crutch against the wall. “I could only find one of these, but I figure it’s better than nothing. And I brought you some pain relief.”

When he pulls Tylenol and Advil from a grocery bag and sets them on the nightstand next to me, his scent wafts under my nose. Clean, crisp, and oh so male.

Searching for a safe place for my eyeballs to land, I attempt to focus on the hands balling up a plastic grocery bag.

Those palms can squeeze me wherever they like,Quinn sighs.Remember how strong they are?

Uhhh…is all Izzy can come up with.

He opens a plastic bottle of water and hands it to me. “You might be dehydrated. Come on, drink some of this.”

“Thanks.” My hand shakes as I take the bottle, spilling water on my lap. Henry grabs a towel from the end of my bed and dabs at my shorts.

When I scoot away from him, he steps back and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Sorry.”

I sop up the rest of the water. “It’s okay.” When I try to reach the end of the bed to hang it up again, he takes it from me. “Thanks.”

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