“It’s nice,” she said just as I stopped next to the boat. “Although, with all those windows lining the back, I bet it gets really—” Her sentence ended abruptly when she ran right into me, her fingers gripping my T-shirt to steady herself. And even though she wore dark shades, I knew she had her eyes on mine as her breath wafted across my chin. “Hot,” she finished on a whisper.
I didn’t move, just remained slightly bent over with our faces closer than usual, frozen with my hands on her hips. It took a moment to remember what she had said as she bumped into me. Thinking was a tedious task when her mouth was so close I could smell the strawberry lip balm, which tinted her tempting lips the lightest shade of pink.
If I could, I would’ve stayed like this all day, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a sensible voice reminded me of our tightening time restraints. So, in order to rein in my desires, I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath. It was enough to free myself—even if only for a moment—from the invisible binds that connected us whenever we were near. “It does get hot, but the views at night make it worth it.”
Thankfully, Kenny appeared to snap out of it as well. She shook her head and took a step back. It added distance between us, as well as broke my hold on her hips, which proved to be both disappointing and necessary.
Now that I could think again, I crouched down and reached for the boat. I grabbed the rope tied to the cleat and pulled it closer to the dock. It was nothing more than a fifteen-foot flats boat with room for four people—at the most—to stand. There weren’t even seats behind the center steering console, only a cushioned “bench” to rest our backs against. It was a fishing boat, plain and simple, but since it was the only way to take her out on the lake, it would suffice.
“Here, hop on, and then we can get going.” I held it steady as she stepped off the wooden planks and onto the bow. Once she was situated behind the steering column, I released the rope, jumped on, and gave the post a gentle shove to push us away from the dock.
I moved in next to her and turned the key. Just as it sputtered to life, Kenny gently grabbed my arm as though I were escorting her and said something. I watched her lips move, and I heard her melodic voice, yet neither formed coherent words to my ears.
“Say that again,” I begged in a pleading whisper, hoping she could hear me over the motor.
It seemed my request stalled her. She licked her lips and swallowed deeply before slowly repeating herself. “You’ve checked your watch no less than five times since you picked me up.” Her observation was news to me, but I didn’t doubt it. Like most people, I tended to check the time without consciously acknowledging it. “If there’s somewhere else you need be—or even want to be—I’ll totally understand.”
Her voice might’ve been soft, but it packed a hefty punch. Her words slammed into me like a torpedo, and it knocked nearly every thought from my mind. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I just did. As if on autopilot, I reached up and pulled her sunglasses down her nose to read her eyes, needing to see them to steady myself.
Those aquamarine pools sucked me in, and I found myself wanting to be baptized in them. “There’s nowhere else I want or need to be.”
“Oh, okay…” She dropped her attention to my chest, contemplation lining her brow.
Realizing that I hadn’t explained repeatedly looking at my watch, I added, “The water level fluctuates during the day; therefore, I need to keep an eye on the time so I can make sure we don’t miss it.”
Her eyes quickly widened as she lifted her gaze from my chest to my face. Excited curiosity colored her cheeks, her smile deepening the small dimple in her chin. Not even her thick, dark, fluttering lashes could hide the exhilaration playing out in her expression. “Miss what?”
“You’ll see,” I said with a wink before focusing on steering the boat.
This seemed to pacify her, at least for the time being. She slid her sunglasses back onto her face and settled in next to me against the cushioned bench. Just because she refrained from pestering me about my surprise didn’t mean she wasn’t obsessing over what it could be. That was obvious in the way she carefully observed everything around us as we moved through the lake.
“Does everything around here refer to birds?” she asked over the low roar of the idling motor once we made our way into the low-speed zone. “I noticed the front desk is called Crow’s Nest. Then you have The Birdfeeder for the restaurant. What do you call everything else?”
“The lagoon—where the falls are—is called The Birdbath.” I pointed in the direction of the lagoon, even though it couldn’t be seen from where we were. “And then there’s the main house, or the museum as it’s turned into over the years; we call that The Birdhouse.”
“Did you guys do that because the resort is called Black Bird? Or was it all planned from the start?”
“I guess it’s a bit of both, really. My grandma named this place after Chogan, which is an Indian word for black bird. At the time, there was only the one house—Black Bird Bed and Breakfast. The rest of the names came after the resort's expansion, and I’m pretty sure my dad came up with them. He’s a lot of things, but creative is not one of them.”
Laughter floated past her lips, only to be lost in the wind. “Well, I think it’s clever.”
Wisps of hair blew across her face, but she did nothing about them. Rather than tuck them behind her ears, she just let them fly around while she smiled to herself, silently taking in the scenery before her.
Once we made it through the low-speed zone, I gunned it, practically gliding across the water in the hopes of getting there faster. The entire time we sped toward the center of the lake, she held onto the console with one hand and my T-shirt with the other. I couldn’t help but think that if she held onto me like that all the time, I’d never slow down. Unfortunately, though, I had to. As we neared the shining steeple standing tall out of the water, I let off the throttle until we came to an idling speed.
“What is that?” Kenny asked in awe, with her mouth just as wide as her eyes.
I pointed ahead of us, directly at the steeple, and began to explain as if I were leading a tour. “That’s the church. Well, technically, what’s left of it. Initially, it was this tiny stone building that stood in the very center of the town. It was maybe thirty feet by thirty feet, but it rose high into the sky like a watchtower. The brass steeple that you can see from here used to have a massive bell that hung beneath it, and the entire dome was open.
“As the town got bigger, the church had to be expanded to hold more people. Instead of knocking it down and rebuilding, they simply added onto the original tower, making it into the shape of a cross. And what used to be the original church, the center of the new one, became the pulpit. But because of the steeple and giant bell that hung above it, the entire church was dark inside, regardless of how bright it was outside.”
“They didn’t expect that when they decided to make it bigger?”
Noticing how much closer we were, and knowing how much more of the story I had to tell, I pulled back on the throttle, practically cutting the engine altogether. “I guess not. They probably assumed that opening the ceiling that led to the steeple would fix the problem. Except it didn’t.”