"Help!"

He pivoted in the water, wet blond hair sticking to that superb forehead. "Hold on, Molly!"

"Hurry! I've got a"-hole in my head-"a cramp!" Down she went.

She cut to the right, swam the pattern, headed for the sideline-made ol' Number Eleven work for it.

Her lungs were burning again. Time to resurface near the goal line.

He'd spent two decades picking out receivers in a crowd, and he spotted her instantly. His stroke was powerful, and she got so caught up watching the way he churned through the water that she nearly forgot to go under again.

His hand brushed her thigh, then fastened around the skimpy bottom of her bathing suit.

His hand. On her butt. She should have thought further ahead.

He jerked hard on the suit to pull her to him, and the skimpy pair of ties that were holding it on snapped. He clamped his arm around her and pulled her to the surface.

The bottom part of the suit didn't come along.

As it trailed away in the water, she could only wonder how she'd gotten herself into this situation. Was this going to be her reward for doing a little good in the world?

"Are you all right?"

She glimpsed his face just before he started hauling her toward the shore. She'd really scared him. Part of her felt guilty, but she still remembered to cough and gasp for air as he dragged her through the water. At the same time she struggled with her modesty.

He wasn't even breathing heavily, and for a moment she let herself relax against him and enjoy the sensation of his body doing the work for hers. But it was hard to be both relaxed and bare-butt naked. "I-I had a cramp."

"Which leg is it?" His own leg brushed her hip, but he didn't seem to notice anything was missing.

"Stop-stop for a minute, will you?"

He slowed in the water and turned her in his arms without letting her go. She saw that anger had replaced his concern. "You shouldn't have been in the water by yourself. You could have drowned."

"It was… stupid."

"Which leg?"

"My… left. But it's better. I can move it now."

He let go of one arm to reach for her leg.

"No!" she squeaked, afraid of what he'd encounter on the way.

"Is it cramping again?"

"Not… exactly."

"Let's get to shore. I'll look at it there."

"I'm fine now. I can-"

He didn't pay any attention. Instead, he started hauling her toward the beach again.

"Uh, Kevin…" She coughed as she caught a mouthful.

"Keep still, damn it!"

Nice way for a PK to talk, especially to a drowning victim. She did her best to keep her lower half away from his lower half, but he kept sliding against her. Slip sliding… slip sliding… She groaned against a rush of sensation.

His rhythm changed, and she realized he'd touched bottom. She tried to disengage herself. "Let me go. I can walk now."

He swam farther in before he loosened his grip and stood. She dropped her feet.

The water came to her chin, but it was below his shoulders. Wet strands of hair plastered his forehead, and he looked grumpy. "You could be a tad more grateful, you know. I just saved your annoying life."

At least he didn't looked bored any longer. "Thank you."

He still had her arm, and he began moving toward the shore. "Have you ever had a cramp like this before?"

"Never. It took me completely by surprise."

"Why are you dragging your feet?"

"I'm cold. Probably a little shocky. Would you lend me your T-shirt?"

"Sure." He kept heading toward the beach.

She dragged her heels. "Could I have it now, please?"

"Now?" He stopped. The water lapped at her breasts. The red top had pushed them up quite nicely, and his gaze lingered. She noticed that his lashes had formed aggressive little spikes over those sharp green eyes, and she fought a sudden wobbliness in her knees.

"I'd like to put it on before we get out of the water," she said as pleasantly as she could.

He pulled his gaze from her breasts and started moving again. "It'll be easier to get you warm on the beach."

"Stop! Will you just stop!"

He did, but he was looking at her as if she'd sprung a fresh leak in the head.

She took a nibble out of her bottom lip. No good deed went unpunished, and she was going to have to tell him. "I have a slight problem…"

"I'll say. You don't have any sense. That Northwestern diploma you're so proud of should have read 'summa cum loony.'"

"Just give me your T-shirt. Please."

He made no move to take it off. Instead, he grew suspicious. "What kind of problem?"

"I seem to have… I'm really cold. Aren't you cold?"

He waited, that stubborn expression clearly indicating he wasn't going anywhere until she'd 'fessed up. She mustered her dignity. "I seem to have…" She cleared her throat. "Left the bottom half of my swimsuit… on the bottom."

Naturally, the first thing he did was stare straight down into the murky water.

"Stop that!"

As he gazed back up at her, his eyes looked less like jade daggers and more like happy green jelly beans. "How did you do that?"

"I didn't do it. You did. When you rescued me."

"I pulled off your suit?"

"You did."

He grinned. "I've always been damn good with women."

"Never mind. Just give me your stupid T-shirt!"

Was it accidental that his thigh brushed her hip? He gazed down into the water again, and she was possessed with a sudden crazy wish for all the murkiness to clear away. She heard something husky and seductive in his voice.

"So what you're telling me is that you're bare-ass naked under the water."

"You know exactly what I'm telling you."

"Now, this makes for an interesting dilemma."

"There's no dilemma."

He stroked the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and his smile was as soft as smoke. "We're up against the essence of true capitalism right here, right now, you and me, God bless America for the great country it is."

"What are you-"

"Pure capitalism. I have a commodity that you want-"

"My leg is starting to cramp again."

"The question is"-he lingered over his words, his eyes grazing her breasts-"what are you going to give me for that commodity?"

"I've been giving you my services as a cook," she said quickly.

"I don't know. Those sandals yesterday were pretty expensive. I think I've already paid for at least three days of cooking."

He was making her insides purr, and she didn't like it. "I won't be around for another day if you don't take that stupid shirt off your stupid overdeveloped chest right this second!"

"I never met such an ungrateful woman in my life." He started to pull it off, stalled to rub his arm, tugged on it again, inched it over his chest, flexed his gorgeous muscles…

"That's twenty yards for delay of game!"

"It's a five-yard penalty," he pointed out from under the T-shirt.

"Not today!"

He finally got it off, and she snatched it from him before he took it into his head to play keep-away, a game she was fairly certain an NFL quarterback could win against a bunny-book author.

"Bare-ass naked…" His smile grew broader.

She ignored him and struggled to put on the shirt, but handling all that wet cotton in bust-deep frigid water wasn't exactly easy. Naturally, he didn't help.

"Maybe it would work better if you climbed out of the water before you did that."

His humor was too infantile to merit a response. She finally got the T-shirt on inside out, but a huge air pocket left it billowing around her. She pushed it down and marched toward the shore, which was mercifully empty of guests.

Kevin stayed where he was and watched Molly emerge from the water. The view from behind was making it hard for him to take a good solid breath. It didn't seem to have occurred to her that white T-shirts pretty much turned to tissue paper when they got wet. First that trim little waist emerged, then curvy hips, then her legs, as sturdy and pretty as any he'd ever seen.

He swallowed hard at the sight of that sweet little bottom. The glaze of white T-shirt made it look as if it had been sponged with wet sugar.

He licked his lips. It was a good thing the water was cold enough for an iceberg, because the sight of her striding toward the beach had set him on fire. That small round bottom… the dark, seductive crevice. And he hadn't even caught the view from the front.

A circumstance he was about to change.

Molly heard Kevin splashing behind her. Then he was next to her, taking giant steps in the water. He pulled ahead, back muscles rippling as he pumped his arms. He hit the beach and turned around to face her.

Exactly what did he think was so interesting?

She began to feel nervous. One of his hands moved. He tugged absentmindedly on the front of his wet, low-riding jeans. "Maybe it's not so hard to believe your mother was a showgirl after all."

She glanced down at herself and yelped. Then she grabbed the T-shirt fabric, pulled it away from her body, and turned to rush back to the cottage.

"Uh… Molly? The view's pretty interesting from the back, too. And we've got company coming."

Sure enough, the Pearsons were approaching in the distance. They were barely visible behind beach chairs, tote bags, and a cooler.

Molly wasn't going to rely on Kevin's cooperation to get back to the cottage, so she headed toward the woods, holding the T-shirt away from her body in the front and back, while she stretched it to make it longer.

"If anybody throws you a fish," he called after her, "it's because you're waddling like a penguin."

"If anybody asks you to bray, it's because you're acting like an-"

"Save your sweet talk for later, Daphne. The garbage guys just drove up with the new Dumpster."

"Shut the lid after you climb in." She picked up her waddle and somehow managed to reach the cottage without further mishap. Once inside, she pressed her hands to her hot cheeks and laughed.

But Kevin wasn't laughing. As he stood on the Common gazing in the direction of the cottage, he knew he couldn't keep going on like this. It was ironic. He was a married man, but he wasn't taking advantage of the principal advantage marriage offered.

The question was, what did he intend to do about it?

Chapter 15

Daphne sprayed her favorite perfume, Eau de Strawberry Shortcake, in a big squirty puff around her head. Then she fluffed her ears, straightened her whiskers, and put on her brand-new tiara. Daphne Plants a Pumpkin Patch

After her dip in the lake, Molly showered and changed, then found herself walking out to the porch and gazing toward the table where she'd left the sack of art supplies she'd bought in town that morning. It was long past time to start work on the drawings.

Instead of settling at the table, however, she sat on the glider and picked up the pad she'd used yesterday to sketch Daphne diving off the cliff. She gazed off into the distance. Finally she began to write.

"Mrs. Mallard is building a summer camp on the other side of Nightingale Woods," Daphne announced one afternoon to Benny, Melissa, Celia the Hen, and Benny's pal Corky the Raccoon. "And we all get to go!"

"I don't like summer camp," Benny grumbled.

"Can I wear my movie-star sunglasses?" Melissa asked.

"What if it rains?" Celia clucked.

By the time Molly set aside the notepad, she'd written the beginning of Daphne Goes to Summer Camp. Never mind that she'd barely covered two pages, and never mind that her brain might dry up at any minute or that her publisher wouldn't buy this book until she did what they wanted to Daphne Takes a Tumble. At least she'd written, and for now she was happy.

The scent of lemon furniture polish greeted her as she walked into the B &B. The rugs had been vacuumed, the windows gleamed, and the tea table in the sitting room held a stack of Dresden rose china dessert plates with matching cups and saucers. Kevin's strategy of keeping the lovers separated until they'd finished their work seemed to be effective.

Amy emerged from the back with a pile of fresh white towels and took in the inexpensive canary-yellow sundress Molly had customized with four rows of colorful ribbon trim at the hem. "Wow! You look really cool. Nice makeup. I bet this'll get Kevin's attention."

"I'm not trying to get Kevin's attention."

Amy caressed the luscious little bruise at the base of her throat. "I've got this new perfume in my purse. It drives Troy nuts if I dab a little on my… well, you know. Do you want to borrow some?"