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Men were the worst.

Well, maybe not all men. But the varsity oarsmen, with the way they strutted around the University of Washington boathouse, flaunting their mint-condition eight-oared shell while the women’s crew got stuck with their hand-me-downs?

Most certainly. And their captain, the staggeringly handsome, infinitely charming, maddeningly flirtatious Jim Harper?

The. Worst.

It would really help Astrid Anderson’s sanity if he sank to the bottom of Union Bay and lived with the crabs. Maybe then she could stop obsessing over him. Stop wanting him. Stop caring when he flirted with every co-ed on campus except her .

She could bear it if she were confronted by his endless presence only on campus–the way he peered over her shoulder in the geology laboratory, locked horns with her during debate club, offered unsolicited advice in the boathouse–but no. He’d infiltrated her very family.

All right, it wasn’t actually his fault his mother was best friends with hers.

Or that the Harpers and Andersons had shared Sunday coffee and pastries for years.

But it was his fault he’d apprenticed with her eldest brother.

He had to have known tinkering with the latest shell design in the workshop behind the house in Ballard would lead to late evenings.

Invitations to dinner. Opportunities to grate on her very last nerve.

As if summoned, the object of her ire broke from the flock of vainglorious oarsmen and sauntered to the edge of the float.

The sight of a varsity crew member in form-fitting shorts, knee-high socks, and a sleeveless shirt emblazoned with a W was not uncommon.

But the jig her stomach performed upon seeing Jim in said uniform?

It was new and confusing and wholly uncomfortable. She hated it.

He spotted her bobbing in her single scull an instant later.

She knew because he placed a hand over his heart before extending it outward toward her in a slow, dramatic motion.

Her groan skipped across the water like a hurled stone.

Not the Goddess Salute. The confounded gesture had haunted her since its loathsome spawning at her eighteenth birthday party two years ago.

The party Jim had attended uninvited and her mother had insisted he stay.

He’d claimed his birthday gift was in deference to her name’s lauded origins, but she knew the real reason—torture, plain and simple.

She was still glowering when he raised his hand again.

“No need to repeat it,” she grumbled. “Everyone can see you.” But this time, the movement was distinct.

Both hands raised in the air, one jabbing toward her and the other making circular motions.

What new hell had he concocted? She sent a dismissive wave in his direction.

“Go back to your lackeys. I’m working . ”

Assistant coach to the freshman girls was no slouch job.

She was the first upperclassman granted the honor by Coach Conibear, and she was damned if she was going to muck it up.

Determined to ignore the wildly gesticulating booby, she set the megaphone she used to call instructions in her lap and reached for her oars.

The girls who’d traded a sunny Friday afternoon for a grueling practice on the water deserved her undivided attention.

“Astrid, look out!”

She jerked her head around—and shrieked.

In her woolgathering, she’d drifted directly into the freshmen’s path.

It would be difficult for a well-trained crew to maneuver the training barge around her in the best of times.

Powered by exuberant but inexperienced girls with less than a month on the water?

The very definition of the worst of times .

Damn that Jim Harper for distracting her!

She plunged the oars into the calm lake, shooting forward just in time to avoid being swamped. Twisting around, she stared as the young women barreled toward the float with no sign of slowing. Dorothy, the coxswain-in-training, was red-faced and bug-eyed.

“Port. No, no—starboard. Oh no, Astrid, help!”

“Hold water port,” Astrid bellowed at once, maneuvering the scull to follow the barge. “Back starboard. Back her down starboard!”

The freshmen scrambled to obey. Astrid held her breath as the barge slowed, inch by inch, until it bumped crookedly into the float with a hollow clunk. A collective sigh of relief rose from the barge, and the oarsmen sunbathing by the boathouse entrance let out a whoop and whistle.

“Good save, ladies,” she called, rowing alongside. “We can still end on a good—Dorothy, no, wait for Mabel to get out. Unload one at a time, or you’ll?—”

Dorothy immediately lost her balance and collapsed into Mabel, who yelped and dropped her oar overboard.

Kit leaned over to grab it, and the barge tilted ominously.

Dorothy’s shriek set the others off, and Astrid’s commands were lost in the chaos of clattering oars and flailing limbs.

Just when she thought the barge would roll, Jim sprang forward.

Dropping to his stomach on the float, he leaned out over the water and grasped the bow with both hands. The barge pitched and rocked, but Jim rode it like a bronc—arms locked, back muscles taut beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, forearms corded and rigid with effort.

Astrid’s mouth went dry.

Her stomach cartwheeled.

Her perfidious core let out a howl of desire.

She barely noticed when the other oarsmen streamed down from the boathouse with outstretched hands. Didn’t so much as flinch when she was hit with sprays of cold water in the clumsy unloading. She could only watch, spellbound, as Jim released the bow and rose with one fluid, powerful motion.

Never had a feat of masculinity aroused her so thoroughly.

And then he glanced up, caught her staring, and smirked.

Oh no, no, no. He knew she wanted him. Knew his power over her.

Knew she’d fall at his feet if he so much as crooked a finger at her.

She wanted to kill him. But that would take planning, and she was too busy dying of embarrassment.

She tore her gaze away and scanned the float.

Her team was in shambles. Half the girls were sprawled on the float, Dorothy appeared on the verge of tears, and Mabel…

well, Mabel’s attention was already lost to the blonde senior stroke.

Astrid released a long, slow breath. Seemed she wasn’t the only one ready to leave this session behind.

She reached for her megaphone, only to realize it wasn’t there.

Drat. It must have fallen into the lake.

“That’s all for today, ladies,” she called loudly.

“Thank goodness,” Kit moaned from her prostate position.

“I know, I know,” Astrid replied over the swell of cheers. “Today was a hard one. Next week, we’ll work specifically on unloading. Otherwise, we’ll lose points to the sophomores in this year’s form contest.”

“And how many points do they earn for nearly drowning their coach?” Jim called, provoking a smattering of laughter.

Astrid white-knuckled her oar and pretended it was his neck. “Just one,” she said, her tone overly sweet. “But it quadruples if they can take you down with me.”

“Deal,” Mabel shouted, and there was more laughter.

Jim only grinned—his stupid, toothy grin that beamed as bright as the damn sun. “I live in fear.”

“You can live in service,” she replied. “How about you fellas help get the barge back in the boathouse? I have to hunt down Conny’s megaphone.”

“Sure thing,” the stroke called out. “And once we’re all changed, we can head to the Pay Streak. There will be fireworks tonight.”

“Oh, that sounds marvelous,” Mabel enthused, and Astrid didn’t blame her. The world’s fair had come to Seattle in June, and the amusement zone packed with attractions, carnival rides, and exhibits was good fun.

“I’ll go,” the men’s coxswain said. “I’m keen to visit the Theatre of Sensations again.”

“Who else is in? Dorothy?” Mabel nudged her friend in the side.

“Only if we see the baby incubators first,” Dorothy said morosely. “There’s a new little boy.”

“Fine, fine, they’re close to the Theatre,” Mabel said. “Astrid, will you join us?”

“Thank you, but not tonight.” In her current state, she would only drag the others down. She pushed off the float, but before she started to row into the lake, she glanced back at Jim. “Make sure they don’t scratch the hull on the riggers, Harper.”

He saluted her. “As you command, my goddess.”

Ugh. He really was the worst.

Astrid was soon forced to admit she owed Coach Conibear a new megaphone. She’d hoped the brass instrument had washed up on shore, but it seemed the bay had claimed it for its own. Leaning back in her seat, she wiggled her feet back and forth. Now what?

She was in no mood to return to the boathouse and be subjected to tittering freshmen as they traded their knee-length bloomers and neckerchiefs for tailored suits and wide-brimmed hats.

Witnessing the older oarsmen’s posturing would be equally dreadful.

Especially if Jim were the ringleader. She simply couldn’t take seeing him flirt with anyone else.

Not today, not directly after his forearms had flung her into a dither.

A calming snooze in the shallows beckoned.

With steady strokes, she guided her scull to one of her favorite coves on Foster Island.

The sun, hung low in the afternoon sky, cast long shadows along her route and softened her nerves.

She drifted through fluttering cattails and congested waterlilies, leaning over to pluck a late-bloom bud and tuck it behind her ear.

A dark-plumed cormorant eyed her as she passed its driftwood perch; she blew it a kiss, and it gave a slow blink in return.