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Chapter Three

EDEN

Oh, shit. He’s almost here.

Murph’s boat dipped out of sight a minute ago amongst the crowd of moored boats, so I’ve been listening to the engine noise to figure out how close he is.

The louder it is, the more on-edge I feel. And right now, I’m so giddily nervous that I might just faint. But the afternoon is sunny and clear and perfect… and a guy is picking me up for our first date.

How good is my life?

I don’t even remember the last time I had that thought. I’m smiling even bigger now, so much that my cheeks hurt.

Murph’s not far away now. Twenty feet away? Maybe fifty? Distance isn’t my strong suit. It’s close enough that I can see he’s all dressed up.

He’s wearing a navy button-up shirt with a cream print on it, and even his jeans look like they’ve been ironed. It suits him just as well as the warm, practical workwear I saw him in before.

It’s sweet that he wants to impress me, but I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to try that hard. He’d look good in anything—or nothing at all.

Murph raises his hand, waving hello, and my heart leaps.

“Hi!” I call out, waving back as he slows the engine. “Are you gonna show me how to park—excuse me, moor —a boat?”

His reaction is a mix of an irritated frown and an exasperated smile. The frown ends up winning as he rolls his eyes up at me. “If you like.”

Then he pulls back the throttle until the engine almost cuts out completely. It looks like he’s lost control… but in the smoothest possible manner. Somehow, the tide is just sweeping him right toward the side of my boat.

How the fuck did he do that? And why do I find it so sexy?

“Ready to go?” Murph asks.

“You bet.” I step up into the gap between the stern railings, watching the distance shrink as I brace myself to make the jump.

I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of him any further. This should be easy, right? As easy as hopping over a crack on the sidewalk?—

The waves lift the speedboat up and drop it a few inches. My stomach rolls and I clutch the railings with both hands.

Nope. Fuck that.

Murph’s boat has those buoy-like balloon things hanging off the side. It means our boats don’t actually collide when he gently bumps into me—but it also means he can’t get right up to the side of the boat.

“I’ll get a little closer,” Murph says, correctly guessing at the look on my face. “Don’t worry. We’re not in a rush.”

Ugh. I’m still going to have to jump, though. And if I think about it, I’ll chicken out. So before I can think about it… I push myself off.

I leap straight into Murph’s boat, landing with a surprisingly loud thud on the flat deck.

“Whoa there!” Murph exclaims.

And at this moment, my adrenaline arrives. It floods me, making my head spin and my heart race much too fast. “I made it!” I burst out, equally surprised and proud of myself.

Murph nods and jabs his thumb toward the faded orange thing sitting on the boat seat. “Before I could even tell you to put on a lifejacket,” he says in a tone that’s probably supposed to be gently scolding.

But I’m still grinning up at him. “See? I can do this boat stuff?—”

A little wave lifts the boat no more than a few inches, and I’m stumbling toward Murph.

I slam into him, which is a lot like hitting a brick wall, except I can’t help but notice the warmth of his breath on my cheek, the feeling of my knee pressed into his leg…

Murph’s hand closes around my shoulder automatically, steadying me. “You all right?”

Is it this well-earned confidence that makes me melt into a horny puddle? Probably.

Do I hope it continues, even at my own expense? Absolutely, a thousand times yes.

I giggle too loudly. “Gool.” Then there’s a beat of silence as I try to figure out the syllable that came out of my mouth.

Way to be cool, Eden. Or… gool.

Murph opens his mouth to make a comment, his eyebrows creeping up with amusement. But I lift my chin to cut him off. “Good and cool. It’s internet slang,” I bluff. But my cheeks are burning like fire as I push myself upright again. “Lifejacket now, right?”

Murph gives me an amused glance like he suspects better. “Uh huh,” he grunts over the sound of the engine.

I hastily stumble toward the seat and grab hold of it, trying to shove my arms and head through it at the same time.

After a couple of attempts, I glance back at Murph. He looks both horrified and fascinated, like he’s watching a slow-motion train wreck.

I don’t want to swallow my pride enough to ask for help, but… we’re not going anywhere fast, if he leaves me to my own devices. I huff and glare at him.

Murph coughs into his hand. “It unbuckles.”

“Oh.” I squirm my way out and spot the buckles, tightly fastened. I quickly pop them open like I know what I’m doing. “Right. Yeah.”

But my second attempt at shoving my way into the foam cage isn’t going any better… and I think I just jammed myself too far in to get out on my own.

I can’t see Murph, but I can hear the laughter in his voice. “Different buckles. Here, let me.” The boat tilts ever so slightly as he steps closer to me, and I drop my hands to let him unfasten everything.

It’s kind of hot, being helpless in his hands.

He clicks something, and suddenly the whole thing gets much looser.

“Ohhh.” I pop my head out to the sight of Murph watching me like he’s trying to figure out my odds of premature death by drowning. “Got it.”

“Mmm.” Murph grunts and turns away as I click the last few buckles shut.

“This is why I don’t do harnesses,” I grumble. “Well, that, and I go too bed too early for those parties.”

“…Right. Sit down for the ride.”

“All hands and feet inside the vehicle,” I promise him, plopping my ass into the worn leather seat. “I can’t get into that much trouble from here.”

“Mmm,” he grunts like he doesn’t believe me, and I laugh. Still, he pushes away from Dawn’s Embrace, and then we’re off across the harbour.

The nervous tension is building up again. It’s easy when we’re talking to each other—even when we’re laughing over me making an ass of myself.

But over the sound of the engine, we can’t really talk. And that’s when my brain takes over and makes me start wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

Do I tell him about George? What do I tell him? Would it be weird? What if he finds out one day and he feels like it was wrong not to tell him?

Then my heart leaps into my throat as the boat almost jumps forward underneath me. The engine roars to life as Murph opens up the throttle, drowning out my little cry of surprise.

But I’m grinning, too. For so long now, I haven’t felt like this—that rush of being alive, of daring to take a risk, to do something faster and harder just because I can.

I’m facing backward, so all I can see is Murph. He’s looking over my head… but he spares a second to catch my eye. Then he winks and jerks his chin up.

I can’t even hear my own laugh over the sound of the engine as I twist around for a look. I can’t even see the water over the nose of the boat, it’s so high in the air as we skip from wave to wave, turning in what feels like an endless circle.

All I can see is the clear blue horizon ahead. Any moment now, it feels like we might just take off into those open skies and ride the currents to god knows where.

The nose slowly dips back down to touch the water, and the engine grows quieter. “Can’t race very much around here,” Murph explains. “Especially at low tide. But we’re almost there.”

“Uh huh.” I grin breathlessly, settling back into the seat for our approach to the island.

I’m pretty sure we took the long way around. But that just means I get a little longer to really study Murph as he stands at the outboard engine. It’s nice to learn the curve of his lip and the line of his jaw, watch the sunlight streaming through his hair...

He looks completely at home on the water. It’s like seeing a creature in its natural habitat. Even if I barely know him yet, he somehow just makes sense here.

“Here’s the public wharf,” Murph tells me, pointing ahead.

This time when I turn around, I can see everything ahead of us—including the wharf laid out on bare, glistening wet sand. Dozens of boats are just stranded there, too.

“Whoa,” I breathe out. “That is a low tide.”

Down at the end, where the wharf is still floating… I’ve never seen so many boats crammed into one little area. It’s like the parking lot at the PNE fairgrounds on the hottest day of the summer. Some of these boats are even double- and triple-parked.

Not the best place for a learner.

Murph picks his way carefully around a tangle of boats toward an open section of dock. The engine is churning up the sand into mud, clouding up the water behind the boat.

I hold my breath as the seconds tick by and the engine spits up sand, fully expecting to hear the hull scrape the bottom… but it doesn’t.

“Here we are. Safe and sound,” Murph says.

Despite the odds , I can’t help thinking. The engine cuts out to the sound of my stifled laughter, and he casts me a quizzical glance as he loops the rope around the dock cleat.

I gesture around us. “I see why you didn’t want me trying this.”

He snorts. “Apart from the fact you don’t have a boating license?”

“Shh,” I wink conspiratorially at him. “That’s between you and me. I meant how crowded it is. If I tried to get in here, I’d take out every boat from here to kingdom come.”

Murph huffs softly and shakes his head, but I can see the smile he’s trying to fight back. He hops up onto the dock with one of the ropes, walking to a cleat at the front.

I don’t wait for him to help me up this time, either. While the boat is still next to the dock, I scramble up onto it, on hands and knees. But thanks to my stupid lifejacket, I can barely even see the boards below me.

Murph pauses what he’s doing and stares at me again, watching me get upright with more willpower than grace.

“I’d offer you a hand, but I’m starting to get the feeling you’re stubborn.”

I grin breathlessly at him as I make it to my feet, then pop one foot behind me. “Ta da!” I announce. “Like a ballerina. A star athlete. A mountain goat?—”

Murph grunts, making the final knot like he could do it in his sleep, and then springs to his feet much more nimbly. “Here. Let me just do it this time.”

He’s already crowding right up to me, reaching out for me—and my brain is short-circuiting.

“Uh huh. Please.”

He’s looking at what he’s doing, but I can’t tear my gaze from that look of quiet, focused calm on his face. It’s like he has a plan, and all I have to do is go along for the ride.

And I trust him already. I don’t know why, but I do. With a man like Murph around… I could stand to be a little less stubborn now and then.

When the buckles are undone, Murph pulls the foam lifejacket over my head and off in one swift motion.

Holy shit.

I’m standing frozen on the spot, lost for words, my lips parted for breath as I try to think any other thought besides the one echoing around my brain.

He can undress me like this… anytime, anywhere, any place he likes.

Murph turns to toss the lifejacket into the boat. He nods to himself and glances at the cleats on the dock. Now he’s looking back at me… and the only situation that’s changed is the downstairs situation.

That one’s growing urgent—and real fast. Thank god I wore my looser-fitting, black linen shorts and not the teeny-tiny ones. But they can still only hide so much, and I can’t think of anything else while I’m standing so close to Murph that I can smell his shampoo and cologne.

He looks calm… but there’s something different about him right now. I can feel that he’s just as nervous and excited as me.

And thank god for that.

Because if I’ve ever felt this unstoppably, magnetically, overwhelmingly drawn to someone… I can’t remember it right now.

Murph slowly licks his lips, and I can’t help but follow suit. I see his gaze flicking down to my lips, and then how hard it is for him to look back into my eyes again.

He smiles—rich and warm and secretive, just for me. “So. Welcome to Sunrise.” Then takes a step back, and suddenly I can breathe a little.

I can see something beyond the intensity of the bubble of just me and him , and the thing we’ve just discovered about us.

“Th-Thanks,” I manage. “I think I like it.”

And we both know I don’t mean the island at all. He chuckles silently, his nostrils flaring as his lips curve up. My voice creaks as I giggle, too. We share a smile—bashful, excited, nervous—and then Murph nods up toward the dock, and I nod, too.

Our footfalls echoing on the planks, we walk up from the floating part of the wharf to the stranded sections, section tilted to one side or the other like an obstacle course.

I’d run it ten times over, just to get another smile like that. I forgot I could feel like this, which means today is already going better than I could have even dreamed of.

And something tells me we’re only just getting started.