Page 28 of Meant for Me (Magnolia Bay #3)

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L inc leaned back in the captain’s chair of his pontoon as he killed the engine, stretched out his legs. “You know, you guys could just outright invite us somewhere sometime, quit tricking us.”

Especially on his own boat.

Not that he really minded. The evening breeze was the perfect temperature, the sky clear, the salt water warm as the wake sprayed his face. Zoey had just handed him a cold drink from the cooler, which paired perfectly with the spicy crawfish meat pies Elisa had baked.

He’d blame the endorphins from the gym for his good mood, but—his eyes darted to Zoey—he wasn’t sure science could fully back that up.

“We didn’t think you’d come properly celebrate your elopement if we didn’t make up some story to get you to the dock.” Noah sat next to Elisa, portside, his arm draped around her shoulders. She leaned against him, a contented smile on her face as she sipped from a thermos.

“Yeah, you two have been sort of MIA lately.” Cade, sitting opposite them starboard with Rosalyn, air-toasted Linc with his soda. “Not that I blame you, newlyweds.”

Yikes. Awkward territory. He forced his gaze not to drift to Zoey, though it felt a bit like fighting a magnetic pull. “Don’t forget that small, time-consuming matter of suddenly raising a teenager.”

“Speaking of, nice call, having Mama D take Amelia shopping with her new gift cards.” Zoey pointed at Elisa. “I’m guessing that was your idea.”

The blonde grinned. “Guilty as charged. Seemed like a win-win.”

“Owen, drop that anchor for me, will you?” Linc pointed to the bench seat nearest his friend. “We can hang here a bit.”

Owen stood to open the compartment, stumbling as a wave bumped the boat. He lurched forward. “Oops.”

“Not again.” Zoey shot Linc a knowing smirk as she rummaged through the cooler near Cade. “At least that one wasn’t possibly my fault.”

“Good thing. I don’t think dolphins are going to save me a second time.” Linc snorted.

“Just look at them.” Cade shook his head with a tsk . “Already obnoxious with the inside jokes.”

“Oh hush. It’s cute.” Rosalyn nudged him in the ribs.

Elisa shot Zoey a look, one Linc couldn’t quite interpret.

Owen dropped anchor, took his seat again. The wind mussed his usually kempt hair, making him look more pirate than banker. “Any apple tarts left?”

“Pass the meat pies too—unless Cade’s finished them all.” Linc held out his hand.

Cade dug in the picnic basket and passed Owen a tart, then leaned forward, swung the woven container toward Linc. “Have at it. I have no reason to stress-eat now.”

“I’ll take some credit for that.” Rosalyn tilted her head back and kissed his cheek.

The boat erupted into a mix of aww s and eww s, depending.

Zoey maneuvered her way toward Linc, sparkling water in hand. The wind blew her hair, which was loose and tucked behind her ears, causing her wide eyes to appear even bigger. “I should probably sit with you.” She lowered her voice, back to the group. “You know. Keep up appearances.”

Oh, right. They were supposed to be mushy newlyweds.

So much for his determination to keep his distance.

“Sure.” Linc set down his pie and looked around to see which seat she meant. But before he realized there wasn’t one, she plopped on his lap and cracked open her canned drink, as casually as if she were sitting on a lawn chair.

His throat ran dry, his back stiff. Her body warmed his leg, the scent of her shampoo competing with the salty air and the fried apple tarts.

Linc swallowed. Where the heck did he put his hands?

He picked up his neglected pie with one, and the other, he attempted to rest on the steering wheel.

But that just braced his arm against Zoey’s side, his forearm grazing her shoulder, bare in a thin-strapped tank.

If he moved again, it’d be obvious. He’d have to deal.

Again—not that he really minded. He should, though. He really, really should.

“So, how’s family life now that it’s been a week?” Rosalyn shifted positions near Cade, pulling her long legs up on the bench seat beside them.

“Yeah, is everyone bonding?” Elisa tucked her arm through Noah’s flannel-clad one, resting her head on his shoulder.

“It’s a work in progress. Good days and bad.” Zoey shrugged. “Today was good, I think.”

It was, wasn’t it? Getting better by the second, at this rate. And now that he’d finished his tart, Linc’s left hand had nowhere to go except to reach around and rest on Zoey’s knee.

She glanced back at him, a measure of surprise in her eyes, and then understanding dawned. She assumed he was doing that for show, because the other couples were snuggled up.

He tried to convince himself that was why too, but his erratic heart rate wasn’t buying it. Neither was the way he wanted to lean in, inhale her hair, soak in her warmth.

Oh, brother. He should throw himself into the bay, shock this out of his senses. He knew better. Zoey was obviously nothing like Kirsten, but heartbreak was heartbreak.

And he and Zoey had too much to lose.

Owen wiped his hands on a napkin. “Any updates on Amelia’s mother?”

Linc’s hand tightened on Zoey’s knee, and she reached over, covered his knuckles with her own. Supporting him. “Sort of.”

He double-tapped Zoey’s knee, which she accurately took as a cue to explain what happened last week at the apartment. “We’re still in limbo.” Zoey shrugged. “But Amelia seems to be taking it in stride. We haven’t had any issues lately, and we’re all getting along better.”

“I still feel bad about that picture frame.” Rosalyn winced, covering her face with one hand. “I had no idea it would trigger her that way.”

Zoey shook her head. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah, it was a nice gesture.” Linc cleared his throat. “We appreciate it. All of it.”

The boat grew quiet, everyone processing the shock that he’d said that out loud. Well, if anything was going to make him eat a little humble pie, it’d be his daughter.

Though he much preferred the crawfish ones.

“So here’s a question.” Cade leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. The wind tugged at his shirt collar, but his gelled hair didn’t move. “Some of us were debating this at your surprise reception last week—how did you guys meet?”

Uh-oh. Linc stiffened.

“Yeah, I asked because I had no idea.” Rosalyn raised her hand. “Everyone has a different theory.”

“And we’re all wrong.” Noah laughed.

“Yeah, I told them you two just always knew each other.” Elisa grinned. “But that’s probably not right, either.”

Zoey hesitated, twisting sideways to catch his eye. He automatically steadied her with both hands on her arms, her skin soft under his calloused hands. His palms tingled with the contact.

“You want to tell them?” she asked.

“I don’t tell stories.”

Then he quickly realized she wasn’t asking if he wanted to be the one to tell the story—she was asking if it was okay to tell the story. The one no one knew.

On second thought, yeah, he better tell this one. “I mean, yeah, why not?” He didn’t have to tell all the details—like the ones Zoey herself had only learned last week.

She twisted back around, and he took advantage of the excuse to loop his arms around her.

Her proximity somehow simultaneously grounded and unsettled him.

“So one summer, back when I was around fourteen, my fos—my, uh, aunt decided to host this cooking class for local kids.” Geez.

One sentence in and he’d almost slipped.

“I remember that.” Cade grunted. “My mom tried to get me to sign up. Thankfully, my dad didn’t make me.”

“Too bad.” Rosalyn rolled her eyes. “Maybe then you wouldn’t burn water.”

“I don’t have to know how to cook. One of our best friends is a chef.” He grinned over her head at Elisa, who shook her head back.

“Anyway.” Linc shook his head. “Zoey came to the class.”

“So that’s where it all began.” Owen nodded, eyes shining with approval. “Did you make beignets that first day?”

“We didn’t bake cookies, I can tell you that.” Zoey squeezed Linc’s hand.

The inside joke warmed his chest. He leaned around Zoey’s hair fluttering in the wind, proud of himself for not pausing to take a big whiff. “They were making gumbo. So, Zoey shows up?—”

She chuckled. “My scrawny, ten-year-old self.”

“I thought she was eight, tops.”

Zoey slapped his wrist.

“What? It’s important to the story.” He chuckled. “They were putting all the ingredients in the pot when I came through the kitchen?—”

“Too cool for school,” Zoey interjected.

“I was not .”

“You were so moody.” She turned around to look at him again, a smile playing on her lips. “Wore a leather jacket in the summer.”

Linc shrugged, unbothered. “That proves nothing.”

“Come on. You were like a cross between a teenage Mr. Darcy and Danny Zuko.”

He grimaced. “I know you’re not comparing me to a musical from the seventies.”

“But you don’t mind being compared to a brooding foot-in-his-mouth fictional hero?”

He held her gaze. “He got the girl, didn’t he?”

Linc only then realized the entire boatful of his friends were staring directly at them as if watching a movie, starry-eyed with giant grins. Except for Elisa, whose brow furrowed.

Aye . He’d gotten carried away.

Zoey’s questioning gaze held his, then once again, it seemed to register that he was flirting for pretenses. “I guess he did.”

“Technically, Danny got Sandy too,” Cade pointed out. “He just wore tighter pants.”

Linc looked away, shifted his weight under Zoey. “So anyway, they were cooking, and Zoey dropped half her ingredients and didn’t notice. I pointed out the shrimp, but she thought I was calling her a shrimp, so she came after me.”

Rosalyn nearly sprayed her water. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

“Jumped right on my back like a spider monkey.” Linc could still feel the weight of her, if he thought back hard enough. Her tiny fists pummeling his shoulders. “Started yelling for me to take it back.”

“Oh, my gosh.” Elisa’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “Zoey!”

“What? He tried to scrape me off on a door frame.” She chuckled, shoulders bobbing.

“You were choking me.”

She winced. “I finally realized what he’d meant and apologized.”

“Did your aunt kick Zoey out of the class?” Owen asked.

“Actually, no. She thought it was funny.” It was what happened next that changed things. Linc hesitated. Maybe that was enough of the story…

But Zoey wasn’t done. “A few classes later, Linc’s aunt had to take a phone call. She’d always told us not to use her professional-grade knife set without her permission, but I knew she’d be right back.”

“Uh-oh.” Elisa scrunched her face.

“I tried to hurry and chop the pecans for my brownies and just…missed.” Zoey rubbed her hand, as if remembering the cut. “Blood was everywhere . Linc came through the kitchen and didn’t even blink an eye, just grabbed the first aid kit and started fixing me up.”

“Oh, man. Did you get busted?” Noah asked.

“No. She still doesn’t know to this day.” He’d been so scared that if his foster mom knew what had happened, that there had been an accident, they’d lose their license. That he’d get sent elsewhere.

That he’d be alone again.

He shook off the memories, that gut-deep sensation of pending loss that never fully left. “Anyway, joke’s on me. Apparently whatever Band-Aid I used on Zoey’s finger stuck her to me permanently.”

She leaned into him, smirked. “Hasn’t been able to get rid of me since.”

“But you moved up north, right? After high school?” Cade frowned. “Did you two keep in touch then?”

“A little.” They didn’t know—or need to know—that Zoey was part of why he came back. “I moved with my aunt and uncle after I graduated, but got a scholarship to a different college and eventually came back to start Boiling Bayou.”

And to be near Zoey, near her light. Her warmth.

Somehow, her annoying, friendship-stalking behavior all through his high school years remained one of the only familiar things he had left, after his foster parents decided their job in raising him was done at eighteen.

After Kirsten and he had started a snowball in motion that turned into an avalanche fourteen years later.

“That’s really cute.” Elisa brushed tart crumbs off her lap. “I can’t believe I never heard that story.”

Good. The more times it got told, the more likely it’d be someone would find out his aunt and uncle weren’t related to him. That he was a foster kid.

Granted, it wasn’t as big a deal as it had been when he’d moved back to Magnolia Bay.

The description wasn’t a label he stuck on himself anymore as a grown man with a growing business.

It was part of his past—and now, a large part of his motivation in doing whatever it took to keep Amelia out of the system.

He watched the wind toss Zoey’s hair, the way she held it back with one hand while trying to catch the piece of tart Elisa aimed at her mouth. The way she laughed as it bounced off her nose, hit his shoe.

He just didn’t want to get into the why of his being a foster kid.

Not even with Zoey.