Second First Kiss

“Uh-huh.” She saw—but more, she felt. His arms clasped her tightly, keeping her firmly safe from the strength of the water’s tug. She sank into his embrace, exhaling. Jasher had her.

Rhoda squealed and raced up to them. “I got it! I think I really got it!” She bounced on her tiptoes. “I’ve never actually gotten what you’d call a shot before. But this time—oh! Thank you!” She blew them both kisses.

“Is that all you needed?” Jasher’s voice implied that it was all Rhoda needed, and all she was going to get. “Because we’ve got a sluice to ride.”

“Oh, yes. I’ll be going now.” Rhoda glistened. “I’m—thank you.” She scurried down the hill, her hair wafting from a sphere to an egg-shape in the force of the breeze of her movement.

“You were nice to help her.” Jasher pulled Sage to the side of the cement area above where the water entered the trough. “But you were always helping people.”

“Me?” Sage had to grip an overhanging weed to steady herself. “What do you mean?”

“Uh-huh. And unlike other people, you were nice to those who weren’t a stepping stone to anywhere socially loftier.”

“What are you talking about?” Sage suddenly had a million questions. She twisted around to face him, even though their proximity and his shirtless glory were a dangerous combination. “I’m lost here.” The water surged, and it caught her, tugging her into the bottleneck’s swifter flow. “Jasher! I’m literally lost!”

He lunged and caught both her hands. “I’ve got you.” With both his arms around her waist, together they whooshed into the sluice.

The water sucked them both into its flow, and she gripped his forearms as they slid down the half-pipe flume at scary speed. It spanned the ravine over a blind curve on a hill. Cars whooshed below them, a few honking their horns—another local tradition.

“Keep your feet up and let it carry you. We’ll be fine.”

Fine, indeed. Sage had only been to one of those summer water slide parks a few times as a kid, and it had been years. This was ten times more exhilarating—thanks to the strong embrace of Jasher Hotchkiss.

She settled into the moment. It turned out, Jasher had a highly satisfying embrace. Halfway down the sluice, she relaxed her back against his chest. Their feet touched now and then along the metal bottom of the trough, the water coming just to their shoulders if they crouched. Cool water, hot sun above, the hissing of grasshoppers in the tall wheat of the nearby fields. The smell of canal water and the feel of Jasher Hotchkiss’s skin.

She closed her eyes and inhaled. Was she imagining things, or had he tightened his arms around her? He had very nice arms.

“As we get to the end, I’m going to push you hard to the left. Climb up the bank, okay?”

The end was here? “Already?” Sage didn’t want to leave his arms yet. Uh, or try to get out of this water. What if the canal swept her downstream—endlessly? To the Elk River?

“I won’t let you drown. I’ll be there for you.”

The end was coming. She dug in her heels, ostensibly to slow herself, but the soles of her shoes caught on a rivet, and her upper body flung forward while her legs stayed back. Jasher, whose feet weren’t caught, rolled right over her.

Right where the flume ended and the canal resumed, she flipped under the water. She fought for air, somersaulting in the greenish brown murk where the sluice ended and the dirt-bottomed ditch resumed.

“Sage!” a voice far away shouted.

At last she righted herself, her head popping above the surface. “Jasher?” she spluttered.

“Sage!” Jasher was at her side. He hooked his arm around her waist and hoisted her up, walking against the strong current toward the east bank.

She wiped the streaming water from her eyes and coughed.

“What happened?” he asked as he powered them both up the bank onto solid earth.

She coughed again. “My shoe caught.”

“Oh, rookie mistake on my part. I should have told you to lift up your feet.”

“You did tell me. I just forgot.” She coughed again. “In a second I’ll be able to breathe right again.” More spluttering, but she was doing much better. She could breathe again—and focus on the look of concern in his dark eyes.

“I’m a trained professional, you know,” he said, “in case you need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.” A twinkle joined the concern, and it made her stomach flutter.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Point of fact, there was room for little else in her mind, what with the way the sun glistened off the drop of water glistening on that fascinating, tempting divot in Jasher’s upper lip. “At the front of my mind.” Had she said that aloud? She’d have clapped a hand over her mouth if she’d have had a free one while Jasher helped her onto the bank.

Jasher’s eyebrow rose suggestively. “Good.”