Chapter 4 Jake
Jake lay back on the picnic blanket, blissful, spent.
Above him, nothing but blue, a few wisps of airplane trails and dark tips of the forest in his peripheral vision.
Liv was tracing light swirls on his sweaty chest, moving dangerously close to his genitals, which needed some downtime after their recent exertions.
Damn, she was good. Maybe they’d have a short rest and then go for round two.
Although, didn’t she say something about having to get home for a conference call?
She was always busy now, with her design consultancy doing so well.
The blazing sun caught the diamond on her finger, a prism of light, momentarily dazzling him. Closing his eyes, he smiled softly, even though a stone was digging into his back under the blanket. He could stay like this with Liv forever.
She was a little antsy, though. More than just preoccupied with the time and her work call.
She sat up and passed him a bottle of sunscreen to do her back, and he recognized it as a distraction.
He knew her well enough to know she was feeling jittery about the wedding.
Sure, she loved him, she wanted to marry him — he wasn’t worried about that.
But having only ever been with each other — which, to Jake, was the best possible scenario — Liv seemed afraid of somehow missing out.
Or maybe of him missing out on other women, and therefore being tempted by them further down the line.
Which he never would be. But she didn’t seem to believe him when he told her that.
She’d be okay, though. He just needed to give her a little space, maybe ease back on the talk about kids for a while.
Yeah, she was twenty-eight and they didn’t have forever if they wanted three, which he did, for sure.
But there were still several years before they’d be pushing it, biological clock-wise.
Maybe he’d start figuring out how to take a sabbatical so that they could travel the world together, for a year or something, and bring it up before the wedding.
That would calm her nerves. She’d love that.
Jake finished rubbing sunscreen into Liv’s shoulders.
She stood up and stretched her naked body to the sky above him, fingertips seemingly brushing the dispersing plane trails.
Her chestnut hair and smooth skin gleamed in the brightness, the moles on her arms and back adding character and warmth.
Her butt curved perfectly down to long, toned legs that would make her a natural surfer if she’d just give it a go.
God, she was gorgeous. How Jake ever got to have a kind, smart, generous woman with movie-star looks all to himself for an entire lifetime was beyond his understanding.
One thing was for sure, he wasn’t about to mess it up.
Whatever she needed, he’d give her. After all, she’d always given him everything he needed.
Liv turned, smiling down at him, although it was the smile that meant “give me a minute”.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she replied, although she didn’t meet his eyes. “Just going to stretch my legs for a minute. Along the cliff. Would you mind packing up? I have a call at three and I need my swatches.”
Too bad. Round two was definitely out.
“Sure.” Jake frowned. “Just be careful on those loose rocks. I’ll never forget saving you when you slipped over that edge. It was terrifying.”
His stomach churned just thinking about it. They’d only been twelve, and he’d nearly lost her. He’d underplayed it, but in truth it had been the scariest moment of his life by far, and he’d been in some hairy situations caught in big swells and riptides since then.
Life without Liv? Unthinkable.
He watched her walk away, then began packing up the sandwich wrappers, half-eaten box of strawberries, and empty champagne bottle and plastic cups, setting aside the bouquet of white roses.
They were her favorite flowers. So why had a shadow passed momentarily across her face when he’d produced them earlier?
She’d smiled, of course, kissed him, given effusive thanks, but he knew something was off, had missed the mark.
He didn’t want to ask, though. Not today.
Not when they were celebrating. Maybe he’d buy her different flowers next time and see if that worked better.
Maybe it was all part of the sameness she seemed to be worrying about.
Maybe he just needed to switch things up a bit.
Still, sex in the open air on a quarry clifftop was definitely exciting. He chuckled, turning to view his beautiful, naked fiancée on the high point of the cliff.
But he couldn’t see her. She’d been walking along the ridge just a second ago.
Where was she?
Jake’s stomach tightened. Where the hell was she? Had she gone off to the woods instead? No. Why would she do that?
Ignoring his own nakedness, Jake made his way across the rocky surface to where he’d last seen her, just ahead of the highest part of the cliff — the section where he’d done a running jump into the water an hour or so earlier.
“Liv? . . . LIV?”
Silence.
Jake twisted his head, scanning the outskirts of the surrounding forest. No way would Liv scramble, naked, through that undergrowth.
“LIV!!”
Nothing.
Blood pounding in his temple, Jake traversed the last section of the cliff to its highest point.
The point where a twelve-year-old Liv had once slipped.
The stones were loose and slippery here.
Even he was having trouble walking. Ignoring the rubble biting into the soles of his feet, he carried on.
Surely she couldn’t have fallen? Not when he’d just warned her, literally moments before, to be careful?
“LIV??!!” he screamed.
He leaned out a little over the cliff edge, peering onto the flat rocks below, terrified of seeing Liv’s beautiful body, broken and bloodied, twisted at improbable angles, her hazel eyes wide open and empty.
Nothing. Thank Christ. He blew out a breath.
Wait.
Narrowing his eyes, he looked again. There was something down there on the rocks, glinting impossibly brightly in the sun. What was it?
He scanned the rocks, the water. Was she in there? Drowning, right now?
Without even thinking, Jake turned, ran away from the cliff, turned again, and ran toward the edge, jumping into the void.
Time seemed to stop, Jake suspended momentarily above the turquoise lake.
Then cold water, teal with pale bubbles, engulfed him as it had done so many times before. Always in exhilaration, never panic.
Jake pushed up, up, up, through the surface, desperately hoping to see Liv clambering to the side of the pool.
But there was no one there. He sucked in a lungful of breath and kicked his way under the surface again, his eyes wide, searching for her, reaching for her soft limbs. He kicked further down into the deep.
There she was. His fingers touched her floating hair — she was near the bottom, her body limp. He grasped, but the hair became slimy and slipped through his fingers.
Not her hair. Just soft reeds, teasing him.
He panicked, losing air in a cloud of bubbles, and was forced to kick back up to the surface once more.
“LIV??!!”
Silence.
Again and again, Jake dove under, his usually strong limbs weakening from lack of oxygen. After the fifteenth time, he was forced to give up. Exhausted, he hauled his body onto the warm, flat rocks beneath the cliff.
If Liv were down there, she’d have drowned by now.
But he couldn’t think that.
He hadn’t found her, plus she was a strong swimmer, so if she wasn’t in the water and she hadn’t fallen, she was somewhere else. It would all become clear. It was a misunderstanding. They’d laugh about it.
Maybe she’d taken her clothes with her, had got dressed, and was waiting for him at the car? Maybe he’d misunderstood about her walk along the cliff and she’d been expecting him to pack up and follow her through the forest?
He sat upright with a half-laugh. That would be it. He’d panicked unnecessarily. It was some weird mistake. These things always were.
Ouch.
He’d put the heel of his hand on something sharp. It was digging into him. Small but vicious. He lifted his hand. Beneath it, a square diamond ring sat innocuously winking in the sunlight.
Liv’s engagement ring.
What the fuck?
Jake let out something between a cry and a yelp, his face breaking. Had she left him? Thrown her ring into the quarry and walked away without a single word of warning?
No.
Jake needed to get up to their picnic spot to see if she’d taken her clothes and the car key.
As he rose, the crunch of footsteps on stones came from above — along with, weirdly, a dog’s bark.
Thank Christ. He smiled with relief. Liv was still up there. She’d probably hidden when she heard someone coming and been found by some hiker’s dog, or something.
“Hello?” It was a man’s voice.
“Hey,” Jake called back. “I’m down here. Wait there, I’m coming up.” He scrambled up the quarry’s access slope to the lower cliffs, running toward the direction of the voice, where a dog was still barking.
A man with graying hair, about his dad’s age, and a large Alsatian stood by the picnic spot. Both spotted Jake at the same time.
“Oh!” The guy turned away. The dog barked again, doubling its volume.
Shit. Jake had entirely forgotten he was naked.
“Sorry, man.” Ignoring the excited dog, he rushed to dress quickly in shorts and a T-shirt. Liv’s clothes were still there, where she’d left them, her burgundy lace underpants entwined with Jake’s briefs.
“That’s okay.” The hiker was still turned respectfully away. “My dog came across this quarry and we found your stuff. I just wanted to check everybody was okay.”
“Thanks, yeah, no, I . . . I can’t find my girlfriend. My fiancée, Liv. I guess she must’ve maybe seen you coming and hid somewhere, as she wasn’t wearing any clothes either. There’s never anybody else here,” Jake added apologetically. “Have you seen her?”