Chapter 3
Layla
My first thought is that the safe ledge does not look safe.
My second is that Hudson’s definition of safe and mine were clearly raised in different households -- possibly on different planets.
I stand on a flat shelf of sun-warmed rock above a deep blue-green cove, staring down at water that looks entirely too far away, while Hudson crouches near the edge like gravity signed a personal agreement not to inconvenience him.
“This is the safe one?” I ask.
He glances back at me over one broad shoulder. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
His mouth twitches. “Wouldn’t have brought you here if I wasn’t.”
Hudson stands, and my attention does exactly what it has been doing all morning. It goes where it absolutely should not. To his shoulders. His chest. His dark hair, slightly damp at the ends like some kind of wilderness calendar model.
The worst part is his eyes. Blue should not be allowed to look that direct. Blue should be gentle, like a soft spring sky. Hudson’s blue is not gentle. It is mountain water over stone -- clear, deep, and cold enough to wake every nerve in my body.
He steps closer, and I remember I am supposed to be afraid of the cliff, not him. Although honestly, the cliff might be the safer option.
“Come here,” he says.
I look at him, then at the ledge.
“That phrase has gotten a lot of women into trouble, hasn’t it?”
His eyebrow lifts. Heat crawls up my neck. I did not mean to say that out loud. Well… maybe a small, reckless part of me did. The part that agreed to meet a shirtless mountain man so he could teach me how to jump off a rock.
Hudson’s gaze settles on me, and I brace for a smile, a tease, a flirtation -- something that lets me laugh off the sharp edge of what just slipped out. He gives me none of that.
He only says, “Not the kind I won’t get them out of.”
Good grief. I just forgot how to breathe. There should be a warning system for men like him. A siren. A flashing sign. A pamphlet at check-in.
Welcome to Eight Pines. Please enjoy your stay. Kayak rentals open at eight. Beware of younger mountain men with dangerous hands and inconvenient emotional clarity.
Younger. That word has been tapping at the back of my mind all morning.
Hudson isn’t boyish. Not even close. There is nothing soft or unfinished about him.
He moves with the certainty of someone who has carried heavy things, fixed broken things, slept under storms, and pulled people back from bad decisions more than once.
But he is younger than I am. I knew it the second I saw him in full daylight. Not much younger, maybe. But enough. Enough that my common sense has been standing in the corner of my brain with its arms folded, glaring.
I’m thirty-seven years old. Divorced. A second-grade teacher who owns sensible cardigans and knows how to organize emergency sub plans in under fifteen minutes.
Hudson looks like he knows how to build a shelter from fallen branches and make a woman forget she was ever married to a man named Harold. Which is exactly the sort of thought I should not be having.
“Layla.”
My gaze snaps back to his face.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“Of course.”
“What did I say?”
I open my mouth and nothing useful slips out. He folds his arms over his chest. This is unfair because his chest is bare, his arms are ridiculous, and I am a woman trying to perform basic listening under unreasonable working conditions.
“You said…” I point vaguely at the water. “Important safety things.”
“Specific.”
“I’m more of a big-picture thinker.”
“You’re a second-grade teacher.”
“Yes, and sometimes the big picture is that everyone survived recess.”
That earns me the actual smile, though it’s brief. It is also devastating. It should be regulated. Hudson shakes his head once and steps beside me, close but not touching.
“This ledge drops clean into the deep pocket of the cove. No shelf underneath. No rocks. No debris as of this morning.”
“As of this morning?”
“I checked.”
I turn my head. “You checked?”
“Yes.”
“Before I got here?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know why that touches me. It should only be practical.
Hudson seems built out of practical. He checks ropes, boards, trails, weather, lake depth, shoe soles, loose rocks, and probably the moral character of clouds before noon.
But the idea of him checking the water before I arrived makes something inside me feel soft.
I’m not sure I ever felt that in my marriage.
Hudson came early to make sure I would be safe.
Harold used to promise summer trips by saying, “We’ll see how this quarter looks.”
Hudson promised me nothing except the chance to jump, then got up early and checked the water. I do not know what to do with the difference.
Hudson points to a darker patch below. “You jump straight out. Not down the rock face. Not at an angle. Out. Knees soft. Arms in close before you hit. Don’t lock up.”
“Don’t lock up,” I repeat.
His eyes move over my face. “You’re locking up right now.”
“I’m processing.”
“You’re overthinking.”
“That’s processing with a college degree.”
He looks down. I follow his gaze and immediately regret it. My toes have curled inside my water shoes like they are trying to dig a trench through rubber.
“Shoes off,” he says.
I stare at him. “Excuse me?”
“For the jump. You wore them for the trail. Good. Now you need your feet.”
“My feet are not emotionally prepared for public service.”
His gaze drops. “They got you here.”
“Barely.”
“Then they’ll get you over.”
“You’ve got narrow heels,” he says.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation.”
“I miss compliments.”
The words slip out too softly.
Hudson’s hand stills. I stare down at the top of his dark head and wish I could pull the sentence back, crush it into dust, toss it into the lake, and pretend I am not the kind of woman who says vulnerable things to near-strangers on cliffs.
He looks up. His eyes hold mine.
“Then you’ve been around the wrong men.”
The sentence lands with a strange, painful sweetness. He said men. Plural.
There has only really been Harold for a long time.
Harold, who was not cruel. Harold, who remembered to put gas in my car when the tank was low.
Harold, who sent flowers on our anniversary because his calendar reminded him.
Harold, who once told me, in what I truly believe he thought was kindness, that I had “settled nicely into my life.”
Settled. Like dust.
Hudson’s gaze drops to my feet again. Not my face.
“What?” I ask, already defensive.
“You’re not jumping in those.”
I look down at the water shoes strapped around my feet. “You told me to wear shoes that grip.”
“For the trail.”
I blink at him. “That distinction feels important enough to have mentioned earlier.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m mentioning it now.”
I stare at him and he stares back. The man is immovable. A dark-haired, blue-eyed wall of calm mountain certainty, standing there as if he has not just asked me to remove the one thin layer of protection between my ugly toes and public humiliation.
“My shoes are fine,” I say.
“They’re fine for walking over roots and loose gravel. Not for jumping.”
“Why?”
“They’ll drag when you hit. Might shift. Might come loose. Might make you think about your feet instead of your body.”
“I’m already thinking about my feet.”
“I noticed.”
Heat floods my face.
I fold my arms over my chest. “You notice too much.”
“Only what matters.”
“My toes do not matter.”
“They do if they’re about to push you off a cliff.”
I open my mouth. Again, nothing comes out. That is horribly inconvenient because I had several arguments prepared, all of them excellent. Now every single one has been ruined by the image of my toes being responsible for bravery.
Hudson steps toward a flat stretch of rock several feet back from the ledge. “Sit.”
I give him a look. “Do you always issue commands like you’re training rescue dogs?”
“No. Dogs usually listen faster.”
“I am not laughing at that.”
“You almost did.”
“I did not.”
He waits. I last three seconds before a reluctant laugh escapes me.
His eyes warm, and that is almost worse than the smile.
With as much dignity as a woman can manage before being told to expose her troll feet to a man who looks like a wilderness calendar model, I sit on the rock and unfasten one water shoe. The air touches my foot.
Ridiculous. That’s what this is. Completely ridiculous.
I am thirty-seven years old. I have survived infertility appointments, divorce paperwork, indoor recess during a thunderstorm, and one memorable winter concert where a first grader vomited into a basket of jingle bells.
Bare toes should not undo me. But when I slip off the second shoe, I still tuck one foot beneath the other. Hudson notices.
“Layla.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was.”
“At least you’re honest.”
He crouches in front of me, and my pulse trips over itself.
This close, he looks even younger and older at the same time.
Younger in the smooth confidence and sun-browned strength of his body.
Older in his eyes. In the way he watches the world like it has tried to hurt people before and he has made it his private business to stop it when he can. He holds out his hand.
I stare at it. “What now?”
“Foot.”
“No.”
“Layla.”
“My feet are not emotionally prepared for your inspection.”
“I’m checking for cuts. Not judging a beauty pageant.”
“That is exactly what someone would say before judging a beauty pageant.”
His mouth twitches, but his hand stays open.
With a sigh dramatic enough for a stage production, I place my right foot in his hand. His fingers close around my heel. The contact is practical. My body does not receive it that way.
My skin goes hot. My breath gets shallow. His thumb slides gently along the arch of my foot, checking for grit or tiny stones, and I have to look over his shoulder at the trees because looking at his hand wrapped around my foot feels wildly intimate.
“There,” he says. “Looks good.”
“Fantastic. My foot has passed inspection.”
“Other one.”