“I’m already giving you a head start!” Gemma called after him, laughing. “You don’t need to cheat!”

Alex swam as furiously as he could, but it wasn’t long before Gemma was flying past him. She was unstoppable in the water, and he’d honestly never seen anything faster than her. In the past, he’d gone with Harper to swim meets at the school, and there had rarely been one where Gemma didn’t win.

“I won!” Gemma declared when she reached the rock.

“As if there was ever any doubt.” Alex swam up next to her and hung on to the rock to support himself. His breath was still short, and he wiped the salty water from his eyes. “That was hardly a fair fight.”

“Sorry.” She smiled. Gemma wasn’t anywhere near as winded as Alex was, but she leaned onto the rock next to him.

“For some reason, I don’t think you really mean that,” Alex said in mock offense.

His hand slipped off the rock, and when he reached out to steady himself again, he accidentally put his hand over Gemma’s. His first instinct was to pull it back in some kind of hasty embarrassment, but the second before he did, he changed his mind.

Alex let his hand linger over hers, both of them cool and wet. Her smile had changed, turning into something fonder, and for a moment neither of them said anything. They hung on to the rock like that for a moment longer, the only sound the water lapping around them.

Gemma would’ve been content to sit with Alex like that, but light exploded in the cove behind him, distracting her. The small cove was at the mouth of the bay, just before it met the ocean, about a quarter mile from where Gemma and Alex floated.

Alex followed her gaze. A moment later, laughter sounded over the water and he pulled his hand away from hers.

A fire flared inside the cove, the light flickering across the three dancing figures that fanned it. From this far away, it was difficult to get a clear view of what they were doing, but it was obvious who they were by the way they moved. Everyone in town knew of them, even if nobody really seemed to know them personally.

“It’s those girls,” Alex said—softly, as if the girls would overhear him from the cove.

The three girls were dancing with elegance and grace. Even their shadows, looming on the rock walls around them, seemed sensual in their movements.

“What are they doing out here?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know.” Gemma shrugged, continuing to stare at them, unabashed. “They’ve been coming out here more and more. They seem to like hanging out in that cove.”

“Huh,” Alex said. She looked back at him and saw his brow furrowed in thought.

“I don’t even know what they’re doing in town.”

“Me neither.” He looked over his shoulder to watch them again. “Somebody told me they were Canadian movie stars.”