Chapter 1 #3
I look past him at the cliff across the cove. Another jumper goes, hitting the water cleanly. The cheers rise again. I feel that strange pull inside … the one that brought me too close to the edge in the first place.
“You want to jump?”
I should say no and laugh this whole situation off. I can go back to my cabin, make tea, and read one of my three books like a normal woman on vacation. Instead, honesty slips out.
“Yes.”
His gaze sharpens. The single word feels like its own kind of leap.
I swallow. “I don’t know why.”
“Yes, you do.”
I stare at him. The breeze moves between us. The water below laps softly against stone. Across the cove, the group starts gathering towels, their moment of bravery already done. Mine waits unfinished.
“I just wanted to do one thing that doesn’t feel like me,” I say.
His expression changes then -- not soft exactly, but less guarded.
“What’s your name?”
“Layla.”
He repeats it, and I hate how much I like the sound of it in his voice.
“Layla,” he says, “if you want to jump, you learn the water first. You learn the ledge. You learn where to put your feet and where not to. You don’t walk up to the wrong spot in pretty sandals and dare gravity to be kind.”
Pretty sandals. He didn’t say pretty feet. Obviously not. Still, my cheeks heat.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Hudson.”
Naturally, his name is Hudson. Not a safe name like Harold, all neat and tidy with a retirement account and a dentist appointment scheduled six months in advance.
Hudson sounds like river water and rough hands. Like a man who knows how to build a fire, read a storm, and kiss a woman until she forgets why she was scared.
I need to stop. Immediately.
“Well, Hudson,” I say, forcing brightness into my voice, “thank you for the rescue and the lecture.”
“You’re welcome for the rescue.”
I wait, but he doesn’t add anything.
“And the lecture?” I prompt.
“That was a bonus.”
This time I really do laugh. Hudson smiles -- big -- and I turn, tripping over the smallest stone.
I reach out, trying to find something to keep from falling.
Unfortunately, the nearest thing is him.
I take a step back instead. Wrong direction.
His hand shoots out again, catching my wrist before my heel reaches loose rocks near the edge.
His fingers are warm and firm around my skin.
“Layla.”
I freeze. He gently pulls me toward him, away from the drop. I go because every survival instinct I have apparently trusts this man more than it trusts me. When I’m safely several feet from the ledge, he releases me.
“You really do need to go back,” he says.
“I know.”
But I don’t move. Neither does he. Something passes between us that has nothing to do with cliffs or water or the fact that I nearly made the worst vacation decision of my life thirty minutes after checking in.
I should be embarrassed. I am embarrassed. I am also awake in every inch of my body.
Hudson glances toward the lowering sun, then back at me. “Tomorrow morning.”
“What?”
“If you still want to jump, meet me here tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock -- before the crowds. I’ll show you the safe ledge.”
My pulse jumps.
“You’re offering to teach me?”
“I’m offering to make sure you don’t kill yourself trying to prove something.”
“That sounds very close to teaching.”
“Call it what you want.”
“I’m a teacher,” I say. “We’re particular about terminology.”
His eyes move over my face, and he smiles once more. It is devastating.
“What do you teach?”
“Second grade.”
Something warm crosses his expression. “That explains the bossy tone.”
I gape at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I do not have a bossy tone.”
“Sure.”
I should be offended. Maybe I am. It’s hard to tell, because I’m also trying not to smile.
This is absurd. I came here to rest. To read. To prove that the end of my marriage did not mean the end of all interesting things about me.
I did not come here to meet a dark-haired, blue-eyed man at the edge of a cliff and agree to let him tell me when to jump.
But when Hudson looks at me, I feel the cliff behind me and the lake below. I feel the safe little life I already left cracking open wider than before.
“Nine?” I ask.
His gaze holds mine. “Nine.”
“And if I change my mind?”
“Then don’t come.”
“That simple?”
“Yes.”
I nod once. “Okay.”
Hudson steps aside, clearing the trail for me.
I walk past him carefully, my sandals slipping once on the uneven ground.
His hand hovers near my elbow but does not touch me this time.
I feel that almost-touch all the way down my arm.
When I reach the bend in the trail, I glance back.
He is still there, standing near the ledge with the sun behind him, tall and broad and impossible to file into any safe category.
All the way to cabin six, I tell myself I am not going tomorrow. I am a sensible woman. A teacher. A grown adult who understands risk, consequences, and the basic laws of gravity.
But when I reach my porch, I sit in one of the wooden chairs and stare through the trees toward the hidden cove. My wrist still tingles where Hudson’s hand closed around it. Tomorrow feels less like another day now and more like something waiting to happen.