Chapter 35
Skinny Dipping
SADIE
It's Jonah's last week before school starts, and camp is done, and summer’s end is at hand.
Daryl offered to take Jonah fishing in the morning, ostensibly to get in some extra time before school starts up again, but I have a feeling he wants to give me and Walker our last few moments to ourselves.
Daryl doesn't miss much.
It's my last week as part of the Rhodes household.
I don't sleep well. I blame it on the heat wave, but the house is air-conditioned and the truth is my sleeplessness has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with time.
Seven days.
I lie in Walker's bed at night listening to him breathe. In the darkness I scroll through photos of the apartment in New York I’ll be calling home in a few days. Read and re-read the welcome packet from the director of the school I’ll be working at.
Good health insurance plan. Employer-matched 401k contributions. Grown woman shit.
Fragments of the future I built for myself for fifteen years that is now so close I could reach out and touch it.
I should be running towards it.
My feet feel like concrete.
By seven in the morning it's already eighty-three degrees and climbing. Dry heat that feels different from humidity but isn't any kinder, the sun coming down flat and relentless on the ranch with nowhere to hide. Oven-baked kind of heat.
Daryl shows up as planned anyway, fishing rod in each hand, undeterred.
“Jonah,” he calls, as Walker welcomes him through the front door. “You and me. Creek. Let’s go, my man.”
Jonah materializes from the hallway at a dead sprint, already asking about worms.
Walker intercepts him before he reaches his grandfather.
“Hat,” he says, steering Jonah back toward the hook by the door.
“I’ve got your sunscreen and water here, sweetie,” I tell him. “Let me make sure I get your cheeks. They always burn first.”
Daryl grins at the two of us from the doorway, me with the sunscreen, Walker with the hat, both of us moving around each other in the small hallway to tend to Jonah.
“Look at the pair of you,” he says. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
Walker’s jaw tightens at the observation. I’m looking at him but he won’t meet my eyes.
He looks at his dad over Jonah's head instead. “It's supposed to hit ninety by afternoon.”
“I know what a hot day is, son. I've lived here longer than you’ve been alive. Sunscreen, hat, water bottle, I know.” Daryl puts his hand on Walker's shoulder. “We'll stay in the shade of the creek bank. I'll have him back before the hottest part of the day.”
Jonah is vibrating with impatience, fishing rod already in hand. “Sadie, can we make lemonade when I get back?”
One week from now he'll be asking someone else that question. Or no one.
I wonder at what point he’ll start forgetting about me. Kids are like that, which is good. Which is healthy.
But I know I’ll never forget him.
Or the gorgeous, grumpy cowboy that made him.
“Only if you promise to share with your grandpa,” I say.
He looks affronted. “Of course.”
“Don't let him get overheated,” Walker tells his dad. “And make sure he actually drinks the water. Put on that sunscreen every two hours. You stay in the shade too, old man. Heatstroke gets the children and the elderly.”
Daryl raises an eyebrow. “Who’re you calling elderly, son? Go enjoy your day, you two.”
A few minutes later Jonah is in Daryl's truck with his tackle box and a paper bag of snacks, sunscreened within an inch of his life, water bottle full, hat firmly on. Walker stands in the drive watching them go with his arms crossed until the truck disappears around the bend.
Then he turns and finds me leaning in the doorway watching him.
“They’ll be fine,” I say.
“I know.”
I press my lips together, trying not to smile at the way he worries, the way he cares so deeply.
He narrows his eyes at me.
“You’re very bossy,” I tease. “And calling your dad ‘elderly’ at fifty six? He lets you get away with way too much.”
He comes closer to me. Takes me in his arms. “At least someone lets me get away with things. Because you sure as hell don’t.” A kiss below my ear.
“Someone has to keep that ego manageable.” I arch my neck to let him kiss me more. “I shudder to think what you'd be like without me,” I joke. “Total diva.”
“Out of control,” he agrees, completely straight-faced. “Good thing I've got you.”
For a little while longer.
“Good thing,” I say softly.
He kisses me in the doorway with one hand around the back of my neck and the other braced on the frame above my head, and he takes his time about it, his mouth warm and soft.
How many more of these kisses do we have?
Too few.
If we had the rest of our lives it still wouldn’t be enough.
There are tears pressing at the back of my eyes. I blink them away.
“It’s hotter than hell.” I sigh. “How do you feel about a dip in a certain alpine lake?”
Hopefully he won’t notice my voice is a little scratchy.
“No complaints about water safety,” I add. “You’ll be there with me. Keeping me safe.”
The look in his eyes softens even more. “That’s my job.”
I wish I could say that would be true always.
Walker drives with one hand on the wheel and one hand on my knee. Thumb moving in that slow absent stroke that means he's thinking.
I'm thinking too.
Since Sutton's we've been… careful. Careful with each other in a way we weren't before, dancing around the big and painful goodbye that’s coming, trying to have as many good days as possible before it arrives.
He doesn't bring up Nashville. I don't bring up New York.
We write songs in the morning and I make dinner and we put Jonah to bed and we don't talk about the fact that next week I won't be here to do any of it.
The lake appears through the trees, glittering deep blue beneath the sun.
Walker pulls off the dirt road and cuts the engine.
He gets out of the truck and goes around to pull the cooler from the bed, and I grab the blanket and towels and follow him down to the bank.
The lake is the same impossible color it was in June, cold and clear all the way to the bottom. We spread the blanket on the flat rock shelf at the water's edge and Walker hands me a beer from the cooler without being asked.
It’s not even ten o’clock in the morning and I don’t think I’ve ever had a drink this early in my life, but hey. Last few days of summer kind of vibes.
“Did you bring a swimsuit for once?” Walker asks, looking me up and down like he’s undressing me with his eyes.
So I do it for him.
Strip off my tank and shorts. Unhook my bra and pull down my underwear, and stand before him totally nude.
He stares, unabashed appreciation in his eyes.
“Of course not,” I say innocently.
Then I dive in.
The cold hits me like a wall. True mountain lake cold, all-the-way-through cold, nothing gentle about it. I surface gasping and laughing, the shock of it electric from my scalp to my feet.
I push the hair out of my eyes and tread water and look back at Walker on the bank.
“Well?” I call. “You going to fuss at me for swimming alone again? Or are you getting in?”
He looks at me treading water in his lake with nothing on, the same lake where he found me three months ago and dressed me down for endangering myself.
He sets the beer down. Reaches for the hem of his shirt and shucks it off. The swim trunks are next.
He dives in after me.
He's a strong swimmer. I shouldn't be surprised.
After all, the man swims laps in his pool regularly.
But there's something different about watching him in the lake, in the open water, cutting through the cold blue-green with the mountains reflected around him.
He looks like he belongs in the wild like this, not pent-up doing laps in a sleek swimming pool.
He surfaces right beside me and I splash him square in the face before he sees it coming.
He wipes his face slowly. Looks at me.
“Do it again,” he says. “I dare you.”
I do it again.
He disappears under the water.
I spin around, looking for him, and then two hands close around my waist from behind and I shriek as he lifts me clean out of the water and tosses me.
I crash through the water laughing and breathless and already spinning to face him.
“I can’t believe you threw me around like that!” I exclaim. “You really are a scoundrel.”
He catches my wrist, and uses it to pull me in, and suddenly I'm against his chest in the cold water with his arms around me and his chin dropping to the top of my wet head.
“And you really are a brat,” he murmurs.
I press my face into his neck and feel his heartbeat against my cheek.
I think about the day he found me here. The black stallion. The hat casting shadows over that stubbled jaw. The way he looked at me like I was the most irritating thing he'd ever laid eyes on.
Underneath all that scowl and thunder, a man who tucks his son into bed every night. Who woke up every morning this summer and made enough coffee for two. Who wrote love songs on my skin and slept with me beneath the stars.
How am I going to survive leaving him?
“You were so mad at me the first time you saw me here,” I say.
“I was terrified. You were swimming alone. It was freezing. You could have…” He stops. “Yeah. I was furious. And I stand by what I said. But my delivery could have been better.”
“And I could have calmly considered the advice beneath the lecturing, instead of matching your crazy.”
He twines his hand in mine. “I love the way you match my crazy.”
I'm still pressed against his chest, treading water, his arms tight around me.
“I get it now, you know,” I say. “It's in your nature. You're protective. You worry. You care deeply about…” About the people you love. “About the things that matter to you.”
His hand moves slow up my back, tracing the line of my spine under the water.
“You know what I remember most about that day?” he says finally.
“How fucking fearless you were. I came down here on a giant black stallion, gun at my side, raking you over the coals, and you just…” A low sound that's almost a laugh. “You challenged me. Didn’t back down a single inch. I think that was it for me. Right then.”
“That was it for you?” I tease, because if I don't tease him I'm going to cry, and that is not happening. “A little back-talk and you were done for?”
“Right then and there. Didn’t stand a chance.”
Reaching up to touch his jaw, I nuzzle against him again.
“You just like the brat thing,” I mumble into his chest.
“I fucking love the brat thing.”
He kisses me, leisurely and slow, the cold water all around us and his body warm against mine.
When he breaks the kiss, he doesn't go far. Just shifts back enough to gaze at me, close enough that I can see the water on his lashes, the deep green of his eyes in the morning light, the set of his jaw.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out before you turn blue.”
We climb out onto the flat rock, the sun hitting immediately, the contrast of cold water and hot stone almost violent. I wring my hair out and spread my towel and lie down on my back with my face tipped up to the sky, letting the heat wave do its work.
Walker stands dripping at the water’s edge, looking out at the lake. He’s got that distant, melancholy look in his eyes, the one I’ve come to know well.
I dig in the cooler and produce two cherry popsicles.
After handing his to him, I unwrap mine and put it in my mouth. Closing my eyes, I relish the moment. Won’t be doing much naked lakeside sunbathing in the city.
I can feel Walker’s eyes on me from behind my closed lids. I take my time sucking the popsicle, savoring the cold sweet cherry ice, the sun on my face. When I open my eyes, he's watching me with avid, heated interest, his own popsicle dripping and forgotten in his hand.
I release mine with a deliberate wet pop.
“See something you like?” I ask innocently.
“Just thinking,” he says, “about all the other hidden talents of yours we’ve discovered together.”
I pretend ignorance, acting like he hasn’t already taught me exactly how to give him a blowjob. “Besides songwriting, you mean?”
He’s hard already, and now his hand goes to his cock. Gives it a rough stroke. “Come here, baby.”
Heat pools in my belly almost instantly. I know what he wants. And I love to give it to him. I start to rise to my feet, and he shakes his head.
“No, darlin.’” His dark green eyes roam my naked body. “Crawl.”
My pussy clenches in response.
Popsicle still in my mouth, I crawl to him on my hands and knees.
The rock is hot under my palms, hard against my knees. The sun bakes my bare skin. The cherry ice is cold where my lips are sealed around it, but the sugar is melting, dripping down my throat.
His eyes are on me the entire time I cross the distance between us, and the way he's looking at me, jaw clenched, chest rising and falling faster than usual, sends arousal pulsing through my whole body.
His hand is wrapped around his cock, stroking as he watches me crawl to him.
So I give him the show. A slow crawl, greedily watching him pump his dick as his eyes stay glued to me.
When I reach him, I sit back on my heels and lick the popsicle slowly, holding his gaze, and watch his throat move as he swallows.
“Thank you for everything you’ve taught me this summer,” I say, giving him a coy look. “Especially for teaching me how to please a man.”
His eyes darken. “The only man you need to worry about pleasing is me.”
I bat my eyelashes. “Of course. But my future husband will be so thankful to you.”
That deeply possessive, territorial flash in his eyes is a look I’ve come to positively live for, and seeing it now sends the same thrill through me as always.
His hand comes to my hair, tugging so I’m forced to look up at him.
“Eyes on me, baby,” he says. “See just how thankful your future husband is.”