Small-Town Girl. Jessica Keller
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hey. It’s Brice, right?”
“Yes.” A quick wince crossed his face before he masked it. Brice looked tired, or like he had something on his mind.
“Are you okay?”
“Just wondering why you’re so determined to cross this beach with those shoes on when the sand’s cooled down some by now.” He smiled, but the look didn’t reach those piercing, pale green eyes of his.
“But the sun’s only just setting.” She turned toward the lake, pointing at the sun, but then stopped and grabbed Brice’s solid arm. There was no adequate way to describe the beauty of the sun going down over the lake, so instead Kendall gasped. “Sit and watch this with me.” She tugged on his sleeve.
Brice didn’t argue. He dropped onto the sand and looped his arms over his knees. “It never gets old, does it?”
Kendall sat right beside him and watched the orange and magenta light dance with the coming night across the lake’s surface. “I’ve never seen a sunset quite like this. It’s...it’s...too much for words.”
“You should see it out on the lake.”
“I can.” She thrust her hand out to indicate the water.
“From a boat.”
“When I find someone with a boat, I will.”
“I own a whole fleet of them.”
Shifting her gaze from the sunset to Brice, she caught him staring at her. “Would you take me sometime?”
“Sure.” He shrugged.
“Soon.”
“Okay.”
“Tomorrow?”
Brice chuckled. “All right.”
Wait. Had she just forced him to take her on a date? Wow. Her forward personality always seemed to get her into trouble. But she hoped it didn’t come across that way. No. She hadn’t...right? She couldn’t, because Kendall was not dating anymore. Goose Harbor was going to be a boyfriend-free zone.
Kendall trailed her fingers through the sand. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I kind of forced that on you.”
He looked over at her and they made eye contact. “I want to.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Brice’s pale green eyes were so intense her breath caught for a heartbeat. He kept speaking. “I have some smaller boats that I need to test out. I’m trying to decide what to do with them. One is nicer, and I’ve only taken it out once since I bought it. She could use a spin out on the lake.”
“She?”
“All boats are women. I thought that was common knowledge.”
“I guess I don’t spend time with enough pirates to know these things about boats.”
“You slay me.” He laid his hand on his heart. “Do you see an eye patch or a peg leg here?”
“You’re right. Pirates certainly don’t use words like slay.”
“Blame the books for how I talk.”
“You’re a reader?” She wondered what types of books he read. Nonfiction books about fixing cars? Autobiographies about people who definitely weren’t pirates? Or did strong Brice Daniels curl up with a fictional mystery during his downtime? Her interest piqued, suddenly she wanted to know all about him.
“Of course.” Brice’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What else is there to do when you’re out on the lake?”
“Um, watch these amazing sunsets!” She slapped his arm but then left her hand there. “Brice, I was just hit with the most amazing idea. Care to hear me out?”
“Sure.” Another one-word answer.
“You don’t speak a ton, do you?”
“That’s what you wanted to talk about?”
“No, but I just thought that.”
“Do you say everything you think right when you think it?”
Kendall pursed her lips and rubbed her chin, pretending to think really hard for effect. It worked. Brice shook his head, a half grin on his face and his eyes twinkling with a shared joke.
“Okay.” Kendall rolled her eyes. “Most of the time I say exactly what I’m thinking. Right when I think it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Even with his boots on, he moved his feet back and forth in the sand as if he was digging in his toes. “I believe in thinking about things and not always saying them out loud. Words don’t always solve problems.”
“But sometimes they do.”
“Sometimes silence is better.”
“I feel sorry for your girlfriend.” Kendall slapped her hand over her mouth. “Wow. Sorry. That didn’t come out like it sounded in my head.”
Brice raised his eyebrows, but the lift at the edge of his lips told her he wasn’t mad.
Kendall pinched the bridge of her nose. “All right, you win. Sometimes silence is better, like it would have been four seconds ago. Let’s silently sit here and watch the sunset. Then we can silently walk across the beach. Afterward, we can silently say goodbye to each other. Won’t that be fun?”
“Why don’t you tell me your idea first? The one you had before getting off track.”
“I will. But sorry about the girlfriend thing. I’m sure she’s happy and—”
“I don’t have one, so no worries. No wives in the attic either.”
“Jane Eyre reference. Nicely done.” She sent him a wink.
Brice inched toward her. “Your idea?”
Kendall scooted so she was facing him. “Sunset cruises.”
“Yes...we’re doing one tomorrow.”
“Not just tomorrow. What if we had a planned sunset cruise every single week?”
His eyes grew wide. “You and me?”
“Well, yes, we’d both be there, but I’m talking about hosting it as a tourist activity. Every Friday night— Scratch that.” Kendall gathered up her hair and bunched it at the nape of her neck to keep the wind from whipping it around. “I’m sure there are better things you want to do on your Friday nights than spend them with me. Any night of the week would work really, as long as it was the same night each week so people could count on it. We’d charge a set fee and host a sunset cruise out onto the lake.”
Brice rocked a bit and leaned onto his elbows. He worked his jaw back and forth for a minute.
She’d gone too far, hadn’t she? Presumed upon this poor man who was now trying to find the kindest words he could to let her down. She always did this, didn’t she? Plowing ahead before thinking things through had only ever gotten her in trouble. And it made her a risk that most men didn’t want to be around. Like dynamite. They never knew when the risk would be too great or her ideas lead to failures.
This trait was probably what had driven her father to walk out on her and her mother when she was only six. Too much energy. Too many ideas. Too many failures.
Brice still hadn’t spoken up. She needed to take him out of his misery. “I shouldn’t have spouted that out like that. You don’t know me, and I know nothing of your boating company. And the cruises probably wouldn’t work, so—”
He finally sat up. “I think they will.”
“You... Really?”
“There are some smaller, fancier boats