Page 32 of Unmoored: How to Fail at Hating the Boss

Quincy looks up and meets my eyes. “Best summer job ever,” she says.

I give her a kiss. “Best summer ever. Period.”

Epilogue

Five SummersLater

Reef

The early morning sun spills over Merlin Lake, rippling gold across the calm water.

Fishermen launch their boats, and kayakers and paddlers clamber onto their vessels, getting an early start before the speedboats and jet skiers show up.

I follow the aroma of fresh coffee wafting through the Minnow Bucket’s screened door.

Quincy Travers-Haven stands barefoot on the weathered dock, her white sundress fluttering in the breeze. She holds a clipboard in one hand and a thermos in the other, watching the new dockhands untangle a pile of ropes with varying degrees of success.

A black dog named Skipper lies at her feet, wagging his tail lazily whenever someone passes by.

“Skipper, you’re supposed to be supervising,” Quincy teases, crouching for a quick scratch behind his ears.

Her hair has been lightened by the sun, and her shoulders look pinkish from our dip at the sandbar yesterday.

She was determined to go, after having avoided that area of the lake for the past several years.

“I need to overcome my fears,” she’d said.

I can’t argue with that, especially when we’d found the sandbar abandoned in the middle of the day, and decided to take a skinny dip together, followed by a frantic, horny moment in the captain’s chair of the boat.

It’s been five years together, and that ass is never not making me ready to rut into her like a dog in heat.

“Morning, Ms. Travers,” I say, slipping the thermos from her hand for a sip. “Who’s winning the war with the dock lines?”

“Not the teenagers,” she says, laughing. “But they’re trying. I remember my first day.”

I press a kiss to her shoulder and then another, tracing a line along the tempting freckles there.

“Damn, thank you for wearing a sundress today.”

She laughs and swats me away. “Not in front of everyone.”

I run my finger over the spaghetti strap. “Then let’s go home.”

“It’s 7 a.m.!”

“And I don’t see the problem.”

She finally gives in to my embrace and lets me give her a proper good morning kiss. “Remember when you used to yell at everybody else for slacking off at work? How the tables have turned!”

I slip my arms around her and taste her coffee-scented mouth. “But you left early, and I didn’t get a chance to make you breakfast.”

“Speaking of which,” she says. “It’s time to replace that old oven.”

“Take that back,” I say of her grandmother’s 1970s setup, which is still in use.

Quincy tries to give me a hard look. “And the range, too.”

“You’re killing me, Quincy.”