He stepped away from her, then turned back. “Thanks for this.” He motioned to the deep pool. “It wasn’t very wise of you to jump into unknown water like that when you’re not good at swimming, but I appreciate it. I really do.”
He hesitated for a moment, then took her chin in his hand and kissed her on the mouth. He meant it as a sweet kiss, one of gratitude, but it made Jecca’s knees weak. She’d had a crush on him for a year, and that combined with seeing him so
gloriously naked and watching him dress, sem">im dresnt vibrations through every nerve in her body.
She put her hands up, meaning to pull him to her, but he ended the kiss and stepped back to look at her.
“Wow! You are grown up. I better get out of here before I take advantage of my little sister’s friend. Thanks, Jecca, for listening. For everything.”
In the next minute, he was running down some path she’d not seen. She heard a car start then drive away.
She sat down on the rock where her watercolors were spread and heaved a great sigh. “Damn, damn,” she said aloud, then a breeze came by and she shivered. When Reede was there she’d been so warm she hadn’t even noticed her wet clothes, but now she was freezing.
She gathered up her paintings, her supplies, and Reede’s towel, and got to Kim’s car just as it began to rain. By the time she got back to the Aldredge house, Reede had already packed a few belongings and left home.
His parents were smiling at her.
“Reede said you saved his life,” Mrs. Aldredge said.
“I tried to,” Jecca answered, “but he wasn’t drowning. I just thought he was.” After she changed clothes, she told them a cleaned-up version of the story, and they said that her actions may have jolted Reede out of his depression.
“I don’t think so,” she said, but it was nice that his parents thought they had.
As for Kim, the minute they were alone, she asked Jecca if she’d slept with Reede.
“I wanted to,” Jecca said, “but he wasn’t interested.”
Since Jecca was a very pretty woman and men usually went for her, Kim wanted to know every detail. “Even if he is my brother.”
Jecca told Kim a more complete story than she’d told his parents. This one included the naked parts. But Jecca didn’t reveal what Reede had told her about Laura being the only woman he’d ever slept with. To do so would have been a betrayal of his trust.
“He thinks you’re a kid like me,” Kim said.
“I think you’re right,” Jecca said. “But maybe it’s better that he left. I probably would have embarrassed myself with him.”
“You met some of my other relatives,” Kim said. “I could fix you up with a date. You seemed to like Tristan.”
Jecca looked blank.
“The doctor? The guy you were outside on the patio with?”
“Oh, yeah. He was nice, but no thanks,” Jecca said. “One rejection per summer is my limit.”
At the end of the two weeks she flew home to her father and brother and her new sister-in-law. Jecca had done nearly fifty watercolors. Most of them were just okay, but four of them were the best work she’d ever done.
Her father hugged her and said she’d done just what she wanted to. “So why so glum?”
“I’m not,” Jecca said.
“You can’t lie to me.”
“That’s right. I’m not Joey.”
Joe kept looking at his daughter.
“Okay, so I wanted some boy to like me but he wasn’t interested.”
“He’s a very stupid kid,” Joe said and meant it.