Dylan talked her through maneuvering out of the harbor and into the Sound. There was a fresh breeze and a light chop, enough to make way at a fairly good clip. Grace didn’t realize she was smiling until Dylan smiled back.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
Her chest squeezed tight as she stared back at him—so tight that she actually couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. “It’s great.”
You’re great, was what she really wanted to tell him. I’m sorry I pushed you away, but I had to. I have to be smart this time, have to be prepared for everything, instead of just being swept away again.
But since she was here to learn to sail for her story, not to make things even worse between them, she said instead, “When you’re on land all the time, even in a city with as much water around it as Seattle, you never realize just how amazing it is to actually be out on the water.”
She loved the taste of the salt water on her lips. Loved seeing the billowing sails on the other boats around them on the Sound. There were powerboats and fishing vessels, too, but the sailboats were what caught her fancy and imagination.
As they scooted over the water and he showed her how to man the tiller, he said, “You’re a natural. Just like I knew you’d be. How about we hoist the spinnaker so that you can see what this baby can do?”
Being out on the Sound with Dylan was already a rush, but just as she always wanted more when she was in his arms, now that she was in his sailboat, she wanted more speed, more spray flying over them, more of the rush that she could so easily become addicted to.
“Tell me what to do to get it up.”
He smiled at her, a warm and appreciative smile that made her heart skip a beat or two. “We’ll do it together.”
The procedure to hoist the spinnaker didn’t seem all that easy to Grace, but with Dylan patiently talking her through each step, they soon had the brightly colored third sail up, and then they really started to fly. So fast that she couldn’t contain her laughter or the joy that bubbled up out of her regardless of all that she’d tried so hard to suppress since yesterday.
No wonder she’d read that the spinnaker was often called a kite. For a few beautiful minutes, she felt she was flying with it, billowing and unrestrained in the wind. She felt his hand on hers a beat before he spun her to face him.
“You love it,” he said over the sound of the water crashing beneath the boat. “You love the speed. You love the thrill. And you’re meant to love it, Grace. I’ve seen it in you from the start—it’s why Mason loves learning new things, loves being pushed so high on the swings and racing his toy cars so fast. It’s in your blood.” With one hand on the tiller, he put the other on her shoulder to make her stay to hear him out, even as he had to raise his voice to be heard over the rising wind. “I’m in your blood. Just like you’re in mine.”
His mouth was on hers then, hard and hot and even more exciting than their speed as they flew over the water. She didn’t know how long they kissed, but when the deck tilted beneath their feet, she thought at first that it must be from the way Dylan’s kisses made her head spin and how desperately she wanted to never have to stop kissing him back. But when he suddenly pulled away, then looked out over the water and cursed, she realized the boat was tilting because the weather had turned.
Somewhere during their passionate kiss, the light breeze had shifted around to the north and became an extremely stiff wind. “We’re starting to roll hard to leeward,” Dylan called out to her as he guided the bow directly under the center seam of the spinnaker. For a moment, they seemed to teeter back to balance, but then another blast of wind knocked them over again.
He was still busy at the tiller when the spinnaker started to dip into the ocean, tilting and dragging the boat hard. Over the crashing waves and howling wind, she could just barely hear him yell, “We need to release the sheet to dump the water out of the sail, then lower the halyard on my cue!”
Dylan had talked about a sailor’s instinct several times during their interviews, and now Grace knew exactly what it felt like to have instinct take over. She’d only read about this situation before and barely had enough experience to know how to sail on easy waters, but somehow her hands knew exactly how to release the spinnaker.
The moment the water was out and the sail had gone limp, Dylan was up gathering it and pulling the wet sail back into the boat. He called for her to release the halyard, and he pulled the spinnaker down from the mast.
For the next fifteen minutes, they sailed fast back toward the harbor, trying to outrun the dangerous storm that had come from absolutely nowhere. In just the same way, Grace thought, that Dylan had come into her and Mason’s lives from out of the blue—dangerously sexy and addictive...and exactly what they’d needed to shake them out of their safe little rut, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Jesus, Grace.” They were still some way out of the harbor when the winds died down as suddenly as they’d come up. Floating easily again now, Dylan finally moved away from the tiller and put his hands on either side of her face. “I’ve never seen the wind whip up so fast on the Sound. I never would have taken you out into this kind of swell for your first sail if I had known. I planned to woo you today on my boat, to show you that I could be everything you needed me to be—but then I couldn’t stop kissing you, couldn’t keep from getting too lost in you even to notice the weather changing.” With deep concern, his eyes moved over her face. “Are you okay?”
Maybe she should have been shaky. Maybe anyone else would have hated the ocean, and sailboats, after this. But Grace felt more alive than ever. And clearer, too, inside and out—as if the thick, hard waves of salt water crashing over the decks had washed her doubts, and her fears, away.
It was just as Dylan had said during one of their interviews: It was right when you were trying to hold everything tightly under control that the wind and waves decided it was high time to show you not only how vulnerable you really were, but also how precious every single moment was.
But it was more than just the ocean and its breathtaking power that had changed her. Grace and Dylan had been a perfect team when those winds had kicked up and tried to topple them over. And it hadn’t mattered how long they’d known each other—or how long they hadn’t—because when push came to shove, there was no one she would rather have had beside her to face the storm.