Jecca drew in her breath. It was Reede Aldredge up there. An extremely depressed young man was about to dive off a cliff into a pool of water of dubious depth.
Jecca dropped her painting and tripped over her box of watercolors as she ran to the open area. “No!” she yelled upward. “Reede, no!”
But he didn’t hear her. In horror, she watched him do a perfect swan dive off the high rock and head toward the pool. He cut down into the water gracefully—and didn’t come up.
Jecca seemed to wait for minutes, but there was no sign of Reede. She didn’t think about what she did, just jumped into the cold water, clothes, shoes, and all. She wasn’t a good swimmer but she could move well enough to look for him underwater.
She went down, eyes open, but saw nothing. She went up, grabbed a lungful of air, then went down again, holding her breath as long as she could. No Reede. The third time she went down she thought she saw a foot ahead of her. She swam underwater as fast as she could and grabbed the foot.
Reede jerked around so fast that he made Jecca’s head hit the rock side of the pool. The next thing Jecca knew, she was going down, down, down.
But Reede grabbed her under her arms and swam with her to the top. She was only vaguely conscious as he carried her to the rocks, and put her down. He bent, as though to start mouth-to-mouth, but Jecca began to cough up water.
Reede sat back on his heels. “What the hell were you trying to do?” he half yelled at her. “You could have died in there if I hadn’t been here to save you.”
“I wouldn’t have been in there”—she paused to cough—“if I hadn’t gone in to save you.”
“Me? I didn’t need rescuing, you did.”
“I didn’t know that, did I?” Jecca said as she sat up—and saw that Reede was naked. She was determined to be sophisticated, a woman of the world, and not mention his nudity. She kept her eyes on his. “I thought you were attempting to . . . to . . . end your problems.” She was having trouble keeping her mind on words.
Reede seemed unaware of his lack of clothing. “You thought I was trying to commit suicide?” He looked astonished as he stood up and walked a few feet away.
Jecca knew she should turn her head, but she couldn’t help peeking. The backside of him was truly beautiful: a back sculpted down to a small waist, beautiful buttocks, and strong legs. He didn’t get a body like that by spending all his time studying.
She hadn’t noticed but there was a pile of clothes stacked on a rock. “Maybe I have been a little down lately,” he said as he stuck a leg in his pants.
A littleoulittle down? Jecca thought. He could have walked under the belly of a cockroach. She said nothing because she saw that he wore no underwear. But then he shouldn’t cover all that beauty up.
“Actually, I think I’ve handled it all rather well,” Reede said. “A truly horrible thing was done to me.”
“Treacherous,” Jecca said.
“Yeah,” Reede agreed.
“Diabolical.”
“True.” He put his other leg in the jeans but didn’t zip them, just left them hanging open.
I guess it would be too much to run and get my camera, Jecca thought. “Dastardly.”
“All of it,” he said as he slipped on old, beat-up sneakers, then pulled a T-shirt over his head and covered up those pecs and those abs.
“A real travesty,” Jecca said, but she didn’t mean him and his ex-girlfriend. She leaned back on her arms and watched him fasten his jeans. The show was better than any movie she’d ever seen.
He returned to hand her a towel and squat down in front of her. “Are you okay? Physically, I mean.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Mind if I look at you?”
Jecca leaned back against the rock. “I’m all yours,” she said, then added, “Doc.”
He ran his hands over her head, feeling for bumps. “Laura has a right to do whatever she wants. Follow my finger.”
She looked from side to side.
“If she wants someone else, she has free will. Any pain anywhere?”