Chapter One: The Swim (Bunny)

Bunny Malone stood at the edge of the dock, hands on her hips, squinting at Ashby Lake like it had personally offended her.

“This,” she muttered, “is supposed to be relaxing.”

The lake sparkled back at her in that aggressively peaceful way lakes do when your therapist tells you to “find ease in stillness.”
Bunny had never been still in her life. Even her eyelashes twitched with ambition.

But she was committed.
She had driven here with the top down, wearing her ridiculously overpriced denim cutoffs and a bikini top that was technically “cottage chic,” according to the twenty-two-year-old at the boutique. Surely that alone should earn her some sort of relaxation credit.

“Fine,” she declared to no one. “I’ll swim.”

She peeled off the shorts, set her oversized sunglasses on the dock, and lowered herself into the water like a woman entering a contract she hadn’t read closely.

The water was warm.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “This isn’t awful. I am… thriving.”

She kicked out farther from the dock, enjoying the tiny micro-victory of not dying.

And then—
Her foot brushed something.

Slimy.

Moving.

Bunny froze mid-stroke.

Another brush.

Something long.
Something alive.
She tried to scream but instead inhaled lake water and started thrashing like someone who had googled “how to swim” and memorized exactly zero of the instructions.

“This is fine,” she sputtered, absolutely not fine.
Her thrashing grew more dramatic. Possibly interpretive.

Her foot hit a patch of long lakeweed. It curled around her ankle like nature’s version of a handcuff.

She flailed hard, kicked free, and would have kept going until she hit Quebec if not for—

“Hey! Hey! Stop—stop fighting it!”

A male voice. Deep. Calm. Too calm.

Bunny blinked through lake water and humiliation to see a man jogging down the neighbouring dock.
Shirtless.
Tan.
Built like he lifted canoes for fun.
And absolutely—absolutely—laughing at her.

“I’m not fighting anything!” she yelled, choking on water again.

He stopped at the end of the dock and crouched, forearms resting on his knees.
Those forearms should have been illegal.

“You’re in the weeds,” he said, smiling like he couldn’t help it. “You don’t want to swim there.”

“No one told me that!”

“It’s a lake,” he said gently. “They’re all weeds.”

“This is a terrible design.”

“Bit late to take it up with nature.”

Bunny sputtered. “Why would the listing say ‘swimmable’ if it’s full of tentacles?”

“It didn’t say ‘bikini-model-swimmable.’”
He nodded at her. “Kick to your left. You’ll hit a clear patch.”

She kicked—and somehow, miraculously, it worked.
Her face lit up.
He grinned wider.

“See? You’re good,” he said. “You panicked. Happens to tourists all the time.”

“I’m not a tourist,” Bunny said, gulping in indignation and lake water together.

Her breasts bobbed up. She tried not to think about it. He tried not to look. One of them failed.

“Sure you’re not,” as he stood up.

She glared. “I am a local for the summer.”

“Oh wow,” he nodded solemnly. “A whole summer? Better write your name on a canoe.”

Bunny kicked toward the dock, mortified.

He reached out a hand.

She hesitated.

“Unless you want to reenact The Creature from the Black Lagoon again,” he offered, voice warm.

She took his hand.

It was big. Hot. Strong.

He hauled her up effortlessly, lakeweed stuck to her thigh like a tragic accessory.

She peeled it off while he tried—tried—not to laugh.

“What,” she said tightly, “is so funny?”

He nodded at the weed. “That’s a northern water nymph. Rare species. Only attaches itself to very special swimmers.”

Bunny narrowed her eyes. “You’re making that up.”

He grinned. “Yup.”

She stared at him, breathless, dripping, annoyed, and wildly aware of his shoulders.

He leaned in slightly, still holding her hand.

“I’m Caleb,” he said.

She swallowed. “Bunny.”

His eyebrows lifted, delighted. “Of course you are.”

And Bunny, who had come here for peace and solitude, felt the first spark of something entirely different.