Lured In Read Free Page A

out with someone like Finn—and Liam—it’s unlikely Sam has anything else on his mind.”
    “Yeah.” Kate chuckled, low and suggestive. “I’d give up a kidney, too, to get Liam alone on a boat.”
    “Easy, now. I was talking more about the fact he’s a former major-league pitcher…and people love athletes….Any of that ringing a bell?” Smirking, Jessie waved her hand in front of Kate’s face. “Hello?
Bueller?
”
    “Whew.” Kate waggled her eyebrow and grinned. “Sorry, just having a little moment there.”
    “Yeah, I gathered that.”
    “Anyway,” Kate said, “
Hooked
is coming next month regardless, and, sure, if we can work it so they come back every year, more’s the better, but that has nothing to do with whatever is or was going on between you and Sam. I bet he won’t even care that you don’t go in the water, and if he does, then he can piss off. Or…”
    “Or what?”
    Kate hesitated, tipping her head from side to side.
    “Or maybe you should think about finally learning to swim. Don’t look at me like that—I’m not going to shove you off the end of the dock, and I’m not saying you need to take up white-water rafting, but maybe it’s time you worked through that fear so you can at least try to get in the water. For you, I mean, not for Sam or anyone else.” Her grin widened as she cocked her eyebrow. “Then again, it’s not some schmuck we’re talking about here, Jessie. It’s
Sam freaking Ross
.”
    “Right, because that makes all the difference.” Jessie tried to laugh it off, but Kate’s words just kept echoing in her ears.
    At least try to get in the water
.
    Every time the words replayed in her head, Jessie’s brain threw up the same flat-out rejection it did every time she’d even remotely considered the idea—and she’d considered it hundreds of times over the years. Hell, just this past spring she’d started to consider it again, and then—
    “Sorry to interrupt.” Olivia Shaw’s voice from the open doorway made them both jump a little, and yet Jessie had never been happier for an interruption.
    “No problem. What’s up?”
    “First off, if I heard that right, you and Sam Ross are—”
    “They’re not,” Kate interrupted. “They used to be.”
    “What happened? Did he cheat?”
    “No!”
    “Did you?”
    Irked that Olivia would even suggest a thing, Jessie clicked her tongue. “Seriously?”
    “Hey, it happens.”
    “Not with me it doesn’t.”
    “Then what’s the problem?” Olivia asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “I mean, really, how many Sam Rosses does a girl get a shot at in her lifetime? His smile alone is enough to rock a girl through a big ‘O,’ if you know what I mean.”
    “Olivia!”
    “What? I’m just sayin’.”
    “Hang on a second.” Squinting slightly, Kate held up her hand like a stop sign. “What do you know about hot guys and what their smiles can do to a girl?”
    Olivia flicked her long blond hair back over her shoulder and grinned.
    “I’m a lesbian, Kate, I’m not blind. And that boy…”
S
he whistled. “There’s a whole lot of good stuff going on there. If you ask me, Jessie, you need to do whatever you can to get yourself more of that.”
    She said it so seriously, Jessie almost laughed.
    “You’ve been up here for months without getting any from anyone,” Olivia said with a disapproving sigh. “And that’s not healthy. So if you get another chance with sweet-looking Sammy, you need to jump on it.
On him
. And if that means getting in the water and doing things that’ll scare the fish, then hells to the yeah, that’s what you should be doing.”
    It was no secret that Jessie didn’t go in the water, and while Kate and the O’Donnells all knew it was more than just not being able to swim, Jessie had never told any of them why she didn’t go in the water.
    “Never mind,” she said, dismissing it all with a wave. “There is no Sam and me anymore, so all of that is crazy talk.”
    “But if it