Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish by Cara Colter

to a wharf post like the one that had broken at Mama’s.
    Lucy’s Lakeside Rentals.It outlined the rates and rules for renting canoes.
    Lucy was renting canoes? He really didn’t know her anymore. In fact, it almost seemed as if their roles were reversed. He had arrived, he knew every success he had ever hoped for, and she was mowing lawns and scraping together pennies by renting canoes.
    He thought he should feel at least a moment’s satisfaction over that. A little gloating from the kind of guy Lucy could never fall for might be in order. But instead, Mac felt oddly troubled. And hated it that he felt that way.
    He looked at the house. He could still hear water running. He eased a canoe up with his toe. The paddles were stored underneath it.
    Then Mac maneuvered the canoe off the dock and into the water, got into it and began to paddle toward the other side of the lake.
    Even more than Mama’s embrace, the silent canoe skimming across the water filled him with what he dreaded most of all—a sense of having missed this place, a sense that even as he had tried to leave it all behind him, this was home.
    An hour later, eyeing Lucy’s house for signs of life and relieved to find none, Mac put the canoe back on the dock. He felt like a thief as he crept up to her back door. The elixir was gone. He could report to Mama with a clear conscience. Still, the feeling of being a thief was not relieved by sticking twenty bucks under a rock to cover the rental of the canoe.
    “Hey,” Lucy cried, “Wait!”
    He turned and looked at her, put his hands into his pockets. He looked annoyed and impatient.
    “What are you doing?” Lucy called.
    “I took one of your canoes out. There’s rental money under the rock.” This was said sharply, as if it was obvious, and she was keeping him from something important.
    “I never said you could rent my canoe.”
    “I have to pass a character test?”
    Below the sarcasm, incredibly, Lucy thought she detected the faintest thread of hurt. After all these years, could it still be between them?
    I could never fall for a boy like you.
    No, he was successful and worldly, and it was written in every line of his stance that he didn’t give a hoot what she thought of him.
    “I didn’t say that. You can’t just take a canoe.”
    “I didn’t just take it. I paid you for it.”
    “You need to tell me where you’re going. What if you didn’t come back?”
    “I’ve been paddling these waters since I was fourteen. I’ve kayaked some of the most dangerous waters in the world. I think I can be trusted with your canoe.”
    Trust. There it was again. The missing ingredient between them.
    “It’s not the canoe I’m worried about. I need to give you a life jacket.”
    “You’re worried about me, Lucy Lin?” Now, aggravatingly, he was pulling out the charm to try to disarm her.
    “No!”
    “So what’s the problem?”
    “You should have asked.”
    “Maybe I should have. But we both know I’m not the kind of guy who does things by the book.”
    Again she thought she heard faint challenge, a hurt behind the mocking tone.
    She sighed. “I don’t want your money, Mac. If you want to take a canoe, take one. But let someone know where you’re going. At least Mama, if you don’t want to talk to me.”
    She was unsettled to realize now she was the one who felt hurt. Not that she had a right to be. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk to her. She’d pushed him into the lake. Though she had a feeling his aversion to her went deeper than that recent incident.
    “I don’t need your charity,” he said, “I’d rather pay you.”
    “Well, I don’t need your charity, either.”
    “You know what? I’ll just have my own equipment sent up.”
    “You do that.”
    She watched him walk away, his head high, and felt regret. They needed to talk about Mama, if nothing else. But he hadn’t returned her calls, and he didn’t want to talk to her now, either.
    Lucy picked up his twenty-dollar bill,