Erin McCarthy: Lady of the Lake

Which he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t a total pig, and she had a boyfriend, no matter how much of an ass he was.

“You’re welcome, Vi. But you don’t need to feel bad. It’s not your fault.” He shouldn’t say it, but he couldn’t help it. Any man who didn’t notice his girlfriend was missing was a first-class jerk-off. “It’s your boyfriend’s fault.”

She shook her head. “I’m the one who tripped. And I’m sure he noticed after a minute or two. He’s probably looking for me right now.”

Violet squeezed the water out of her long hair while Dylan groped in his pocket for his cell phone. She wasn’t exactly gorgeous, but more like pretty. Soft. With pale skin and pink cheeks, a pert nose, and a pair of rosebud lips.

Jesus, he was attracted to her. It completely amused him. Maybe he was just feeling protective of her because he’d rescued her.

She licked her lips and tossed her hair over her shoulder, causing her breasts to thrust forward before she realized it and sucked them back in.

Schwing. He could practically hear his dick popping up. Nope, it wasn’t a misplaced hero thing. He was really, really attracted to her.

“Why don’t you call him and put his mind at ease then?” He handed her the phone.

There was only a slight hesitation, then she took the phone from him, dialed a number, and turned a little away from him.

“Frank? This is Violet.”

Dylan rolled his eyes in the opposite direction and reached for his bottle of water.

“Oh, I know, I’m sorry, it was an accident. But someone found me and picked me up.” Her voice dropped lower. “No, no, you don’t have to stop fishing. I’ll just get to shore and call Kindra to pick me up.”

Asshole. Dylan sucked down half his water and fought the urge to grab the phone from Violet and tell Frank to go fuck himself.

Two bright red spots of color were in her cheeks now, and behind her glasses her eyes looked sharp and angry, despite the mild tone to her voice. “No, don’t come over tonight. I’m not in the mood. But you can stop over tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

After saying good-bye she pushed the end button and just clutched the telephone for a minute, her breathing a little quick.

It was none of his business, but he didn’t suppose that had ever stopped him before. “You’re going to ditch him, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re through with him.”

She gave a little sigh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“No guessing. You deserve better than that, Violet. He doesn’t appreciate you and you need to stand up for yourself here.”

And since when had he become an inspirational speaker?

“It’s not Frank, it’s…something else.” She pushed her glasses up. “It’s complicated. There’s something I want and I can’t have, unless I do something I really don’t want to do because it seems a little risky and unnatural to me.”

She’d lost him with that sentence. “We’ve got a bit of a boat ride ahead of us. You can tell me all about it, Violet. We’re an hour from Sandusky and an hour from Cleveland. Which way do you live?”

“ Cleveland. I live in Westlake.”

“I’m east of that.” The thought of spending another hour on the boat with her was very appealing. And they were really only forty minutes away, but if he held the sail in a little, it would slow them down. Plus, he would have to keep her with him until someone came to pick her up. Maybe his birthday would shake out better than he’d thought it would.

“I live in an apartment right by Burke Airport, with a dock for my boat.”

“Those apartments right on the water there?” Her eyes had widened.

He nodded.

“I know where I’ve heard your name before.” She put her hand on her throat and tugged at the neck of his shirt. “You play for the Indians, don’t you?”

He gave another nod. “Catcher.”

Her breath caught and she looked like she was in pain. “Oh, Lord.”

Usually this was the part where women gushed or flashed him. Instead of giggling or asking him how much money he made, Violet closed her eyes.

And kept them closed.

Damn, she was cute. Dylan reached for another bottle of water from his cooler. “Do you want some water?” He put the cold bottle against the skin of her cheek. “You look flushed.”

She jerked back and opened her eyes. “I don’t want any water.”

“What do you want?” Dylan gave her a slow, lazy smile, and let his eyes linger over her lips. They looked so kissable, so smooth and shiny.

“I want you to push me back into the water and let me drown.”

Dylan laughed. She had a quirky little sense of humor.

He liked that about her. So far, he’d have to say he liked a lot about her, and it had only been ten minutes since he’d fished her out of the water.

Just think what he could like in the next thirty.

Violet didn’t have a sense of humor. It was yet another thing that separated her from the masses and made her feel like a misfit. The first was that she didn’t really like sex, and stood around puzzled a lot of times when her friends talked about it, their eyes rolling back in their heads.

If her eyes were rolling back, chances were she was having a seizure and 911 should be called.

She felt capable of a convulsion right now, because she, Violet Caruthers, kindergarten teacher and the epitome of the social wallflower, was trapped on a sailboat with a gorgeous professional baseball player.

It would have been smarter to die wearing the bikini.

“What do you do, Vi?”

No one called her Vi. It made her sound like a fifties film star, which wasn’t a good fit. She wouldn’t know sassy and sultry if it bit her on the butt.

She chanced a look at Dylan. She wasn’t a rabid baseball fan, but she went to several games a season and caught a few on TV. She remembered seeing him at bat, noticing him precisely because he was so good-looking. It wasn’t a stretch to picture him wearing a tight uniform and dropping down into that catcher squat, his face confident and serious.

This couldn’t possibly be happening to her. “I’m a kindergarten teacher.”

He untwisted the top of the water bottle and handed it to her. “Really? Now, that’s a worthwhile profession. I bet you’re great at it.”

“I enjoy my job.” She took a sip of the water because it seemed rude not to, and she was really hot. The sun was heating her skin from the inside out. Which didn’t make sense, because five minutes ago she’d been shivering.

“I like my job, too.” He studied the horizon.

“Then I guess we’re both lucky.”

The easy grin covered his face again. “Yeah, I guess so. Though I don’t think luck has a whole lot to do with it. People make choices.”

“That’s true.” She had made a choice to have a baby, without a husband, because she wanted a child that desperately. And she was practical enough to know that when you went on a date every three years, the probability of meeting Mr. Right was very small.

The sperm bank hadn’t appealed to her because of the element of the unknown, but after this fiasco with Frank, she was starting to think that might be her only option.

She searched for something to say. “So, how long have you been with the Indians?”

“Three years. It’s a good club.” Dylan tipped his bottle back and forth, back and forth. “So how many kids are in your class? Do you have an apple with your name on it?”

Violet gave a nervous laugh. What a geek she must seem like to a pro athlete. “No apple. Lots of ‘Best Teacher’ mugs, though. And I have twenty students each year.”

“How have you been spending your summer break?”

Conceiving a baby. “Relaxing. Reading. Working in my garden.”