“Hate to tell you this, Lilypad, but Thing One is out of commission. Can you and Sawyer double up on Thing Two?”

“Not a problem,” Lily responded.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “That’s my girl.”

He didn’t seem like the type to sleep with his wife’s little sister. The type to sleep with someone our age when he was twenty-three. The type to call me Niece when he knew quite well that I was his daughter.

Don’t think about it. Think about the White Gloves. Don’t look at him.

“Earth to Sawyer.” Lily was suddenly standing beside me. I hadn’t even notice her approach. She held out a purple life vest.

I took it and slipped it on.

“Are you okay?” Lily asked.

I could feel Uncle J.D. looking at the two of us. Watching us.

“Right as rain,” I said, turning back to the duo of Jet Skis. “Which one is Thing Two?”

CHAPTER 5

I’d known for a while that Lily had a deep-seated need for perfection. I hadn’t realized that she also had a need for speed.

“Boat incoming!” I yelled in her ear, my voice nearly lost to the wind and the sound of the engine revving as Lily angled the Jet Ski into a major wave at forty-five degrees.

“I see it,” she yelled back, her blond ponytail whipping in the wind—and at my face. “Hold on!”

My arms were wound around her waist, my fingers clutching the straps on her life vest. She cut across the main channel going full throttle, then hung a left past three massive coves. A small island, boasting a scattering of trees and the remains of a house, came into view. We barreled past it and into a long and narrow cove on the far side. Lily eased off the gas, letting her hands fall from the handlebars as we cruised slowly to a stop near the back of the cove. Compared to the main channel, the water here was like glass. The world was quiet—remarkably so, given how loudly I’d had to yell to be heard a minute earlier.

“Nice place,” I told Lily, letting loose of her life jacket and shaking out my hands. “I especially like the way I can no longer see my life flashing before my eyes.”

As was her style, Lily remained utterly unruffled. “I have no idea what you could possibly be implying.”

For pretty much the first time since I’d met her, her hair looked unkempt—windblown and free.

Lily must have noticed the way I was looking at her, because she seemed compelled to offer an explanation. “The lake is my happy place. It always has been. Mama isn’t a fan of the heat. Or the water. Or the bugs. But Daddy and John David and I have always loved it up here.”