In a few minutes, they’d reached Ward’s Island beach, which was on the north side of the island, so it faced the lake proper and not the harbor.
“It looks like the ocean,” Amy said, eyes wide.
“Yeah, it’s a big lake,” he answered, feeling himself thaw a bit as he let the boards drop to the sand.
She started rubbing sunscreen into her legs. He tried to ignore her, setting up the boards and oars at the edge of the water. By the time he finished, she was working on her arms.
“Want me to do your back?”
Where the hell had that come from? In what universe exactly was it a good idea for him to rub lotion onto her back?
She paused. Caught her lower lip with her teeth. And did she sigh a little? It was hard to tell. If she did, it had been barely audible. “Nope, I got it.” She squirted lotion on the back of her hand and contorted her arm so it slid up her back as she stuck her chest out and squirmed around in order to achieve maximum reach and coverage.
Yeah. That was so much better than putting the lotion on her himself.
When she was ready, he gave her a quick rundown of stance and technique, half expecting her to object to being lectured to, but she listened intently and mimicked his movements.
“It’s hard to paddle with your arm straight,” she said when he reached out to straighten her lower arm as she practiced a stroke.
“Yeah, the impulse is to want it to be like a canoe, but keeping the bottom arm straight and strong means you’re using your body weight and not just your arms to propel you. It will make it much easier once you’re in the water,” he said, watching her refine the movements she was making. “You’re getting it now. Ready to try the real thing?”
She grinned. “Yes!”
For some reason, he’d thought she’d be more tentative. It was hard to imagine the woman who’d had her whole life planned out by the time she was twenty-two just hopping onto a hunk of fiberglass and floating out into a lake where she was likely to fall over, get a sunburn, or run into any number of situations she couldn’t control. Hell, it was hard to imagine Miss Frostypants voluntarily getting wet.
“Hey, what’s so funny?”
He’d been grinning when his old name for her popped into his head. He hadn’t thought of her as Miss Frostypants for a while. He could see now that although she could still be prickly and irritating, “frosty” wasn’t the right word to describe her at all.
She also wasn’t wearing pants.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, walk your board out a ways and then just hop on.” He demonstrated. “It’s easier to start kneeling. We’ll paddle like that for a while, and then when you’re feeling steady, we can stand.”
She laughed as she clambered onto the board. For a few minutes, the only sounds were their oars slicing through the water, the cawing of seagulls, and the occasional “whoa!” from Amy as she got used to balancing on the board. She was a quick study, though. After only a few minutes, he talked her up onto her feet, and they began paddling in a straight line parallel to the shore—he didn’t want to get too far out on her inaugural trip.
They went for ten minutes or so, then he slowed down—he’d gotten too far ahead of her. He turned around and watched her approach. She’d piled her hair on top of her head in some kind of updo, and that, combined with her vintage swimsuit and her bright red sunglasses, made her look like an Esther Williams-style pinup girl from another era.
“Ahh!” she laughingly shrieked as she pulled up beside him and tried to slow to a stop. But she had too much momentum going.
“Fall away from the board!” he yelled, just before she hit the water. She had assured him she could swim and had eschewed the life jacket he offered.
Clearly, she should have worn one. Adrenaline spiked through him, and he hit the water, too. With Kat—the only other person he ever paddleboarded with—he knew she could swim because he’d suffered through years of lessons with her.
“Amy!” he shouted when she didn’t surface right away, panic clawing at him.
“That was awesome!”
Okay, so he’d overreacted. She’d just swum a few lengths underwater, and there she was bobbing in the lake, grinning. He assessed her stroke as she swam back to him and the boards. Yep, she was a capable swimmer. Good to know for next time.
Next time. Was he assuming they would do this again? He filed that question away and steadied her board as she threw her arms over it. He did the same with his, and they bobbed in the water for a few moments.
“That was maybe more fun than the actual paddleboarding!” She closed her eyes and tilted her head up to the sky. “I can’t believe I’ve never been in this lake before!” Before he could answer, she pressed her hand against her forehead. “Hey! I lost my sunglasses!”