in the fuck is she doing out here?
In a whirlwind of long blond waves, jean shorts, and knee-high furry fucking boots, she has her back facing me and she’s tossing shit out of Earl’s kayak—the one I went back out to collect last night after she was all settled in—and onto my dock.
She huffs and puffs with each toss over her shoulder, and Bailey’s footsteps down the deck speed up like he finally found a reason to be prompt today. Quick as a whip, his promptness turns to excitement, and the damn dog nearly knocks me over as he runs past me and proceeds to hit the bottom of the steps at a damn near sprint.
Oh no…
Impending disaster flashing before my eyes, I jog after him, shouting, “Bailey! No!”
Billie stops unloading Mary Poppins’ kayak of fun and looks over her shoulder in confusion. Instantly, her eyes go wide when she spots the sprinting, tail-wagging, happy-as-fuck canine barreling toward her.
But there’s no time for me to stop him.
Or for her to react.
Boom. Human and dog collide in a hurricane of bouncing excitement.
Bailey jumps up, his paws hit her chest, and the two of them fall off the dock and back into the kayak.
Billie yells, then grunts. And Bailey, the bastard, proceeds to lick her face like he didn’t just nearly knock them both into a fucking coma.
“Bailey! Off!” I shout as I run toward the two of them and shrug off my backpack onto the ground between one long stride and the next. “Bailey!” I boom again. “Off! Now!”
He groans in annoyance, but thankfully, does as he’s told for once in his stubborn fucking life, and jumps from the kayak back onto the dock. His momentum jolts the kayak, and with Billie still flat on her back, the small boat starts to make its way back into the water.
Goddamn, not again.
In a rush, I hop down, my boots crunching into wet gravel, and snag the rope of the kayak, pulling Billie back.
She looks out toward the water, then at me, then at Bailey, then at me again, before her pretty little mouth morphs from shocked to hysterical. Her melodic laughs echo off the water, and Bailey just stands there, staring down at her with his tail wagging.
Of course, he likes her laugh. I pay no mind to the fact that something about me likes it too, and I discreetly adjust my tightening pants.
I shake off that ridiculous thought and quirk a questioning brow toward her.
“Mind telling me what you’re doing out here?” I ask, and it’s then my brain begins to comprehend what exactly she was tossing out of her kayak.
Sleeping bag. Flashlight. A hiking backpack. All the shit she had stocked inside that damn thing for reasons I still don’t understand.
“You planning on camping instead of staying in the cabin while I’m gone?”
“No,” she retorts and pushes herself to standing. “I’m going on the hiking trip with you.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask. Surely, I’m hearing her wrong.
“I’m going with you,” she repeats. “On your trip. I noticed you got the kayak with all of my stuff back for me—thanks, by the way. I’m sure Earl would have screwed me on the price to replace it, and having more than one outfit is nice since my boots are gone.” She runs a hand over her body as though I wouldn’t have noticed her ridiculous getup all on my own. “So, now, I’m all set. Ready for the big adventure!”
“Yeah.” A barking laugh escapes my lungs. “No. You’re not coming. I told you that you can stay here to rest up. Not join me on my trip.”
“Well, good news, I woke up this morning feeling like a million bucks. So, no more rest needed. I shall join you on your trip.” Her voice is confident to the point of confrontational. There’s a small part of me, just like before, that can’t help but admire her persistence. But the larger part of me, the mostly annoyed part, isn’t having any of it.
“Princess, there is no fucking way you’re coming on this trip,” I retort and look pointedly at the small patches of scratches and bruises on her arms and face. I can’t deny that they look world’s better than they did last night, but fuck if that matters to me. She’s not coming. “You’re going to stay here and rest.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” she snaps back, grabbing all of her shit off the ground in a flurry of motion. “I’m not