Page 15 of Off-Limits Love
Mak stared up at him with her luminescent blue eyes, squinting a bit due to the bright sun overhead.
He’d never known anyone with eyes the color of hers, like light, bright laser beams that sucked him in every time he locked gazes with her.
“Mommy, you ready?”
Drawn out of the trance he’d found himself in, Finn turned and nodded toward the attendant and Mak’s bouncy daughter.
“You’re not wearing yours?” Emi asked.
Finn started to shake his head since he was a good swimmer and they’d never be too far from the edge of the lake but hesitated due to setting an example for Emi. He shrugged on the jacket and buckled the middle buckle, and then caught Mak’s slight sigh of relief.
Given the number of questions the child had asked so far, he figured the next on her list would’ve been why she had to wear a life jacket when he wasn’t.
“Thank you,” Mak said softly. “I’m sure you’re a good swimmer if you grew up around here, but Emi…”
Finn nodded, and seeing those gorgeous eyes of hers soften left him feeling protective as he wondered how many battles she’d had to face with her ex over something as simple as setting a good example for their kid.
The thought made him think of Alec and how much his eldest brother had to grow up after the accident. Instead of being eighteen with the world at his feet, he’d taken on fatherhood to all crying, mourning, messed-up eight of them. The thought nearly brought him to his knees due to the sheer weight of the pain and responsibility Alec must have felt.
An image came to mind, that of Alec holding Isla and bouncing her in his arms while ripping into them for joyriding in a golf cart that didn’t belong to them.
They hadn’t been caught, but that wasn’t the point. Had they been, it would’ve put the entire family in danger of being split up and taken by CPS. Why had they been so stupid? Risked so much for a stupid ride after everything they’d been through?
The thought left Finn reeling mentally there on the floating dock until the attendant shuffled by him on the narrow area to hold the paddleboat steady for Mak to climb aboard.
Finn moved closer and gently grabbed Emi’s hands while her mama got settled. The girl squealed with delight as he lifted her off the floating dock and carefully placed her directly onto the boat seat.
He looked at Mak and could’ve sworn he caught her staring at his arms before she averted her gaze. Her face changed color, though, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the sun.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one who liked what he saw? But he reminded himself this was a one-off. A forced event due to Sam and Hudson’s meddling and Emi’s request for him to come along.
He’d had no choice but to say yes. Especially when Emi had her mama’s eyes, and her girlish giggles and grins had wrapped him around her tiny fingers.
Once Emi finally settled on the seat after her mama said they wouldn’t move until she did, Finn climbed aboard. The boat tipped quite a bit toward the left with his much-heavier weight, earning more squeals from Emi.
And the soft, husky chuckle that emerged from Mak? He wanted to hear that again, but for a whole other reason.
“Shift the handle in the direction you want to go with that lever, and use the knob to go forward or reverse,” the attendant said as if by rote. “You’re good for an hour’s rental.”
An hour?
He’d been in such a hurry to pay for the ride before Mak could argue about it that he hadn’t realized the kid had booked them for an hour.
How would they pass an entire hour without being able to carry on a conversation?
The attendant unhooked the paddleboat and used his foot to push them back from the platform. Finn started paddling and then chuckled when he noticed Mak was shoving down on the pedals with every turn but that she couldn’t reach them until they swung back up to meet her feet after a rotation.
Sam had been right to wonder how well they’d do on the water. Finn also figured it was old Sam’s way of saving face by not being the main person responsible for keeping the boat moving.
“Mommy, turtles!”
He glanced to where Emi pointed and saw the line of turtles sunning themselves atop a small log near a bank. Finn used the rudder to guide them closer so Emi could get a better look and listened while she carefully counted them and took pictures with the camera hanging from a lanyard around her neck.
Once Emi knew how many were there and realized they did nothing but sit there, he sensed the girl getting bored so they moved on, with Emi chattering to herself or the dragonflies or the fish they saw along the way.
“Finn, do you have a dog?” Emi asked suddenly.
Finn nodded with a glance at Emi. “M-m-max.”
