I was out in the open but I wasn’t scared.
Not until Derek started taking off his boots.
“Are you…you’re going in?” I babbled.
The roar of the falls made it difficult to hear him reply, “Of course.”
I moved carefully to the edge. Reckless Creek was wide and shallow up here, unable to cut through the hard, dense rock. I vaguely remembered some lesson about local geology back in high school, about how the glaciers shaped the landscape here. They’d scraped up piles of dirt from one place and deposited it in another, willy-nilly rearranging the landscape like some sort of geological interior designer artfully scattering throw pillows across a couch.
The glacier had carved right down to the impenetrable limestone and shale, but there it had stopped. What a mighty glacier couldn’t carve up, a babbling creek didn’t have a prayer of budging.
So instead of carving deep, the creek spread out wide. Derek stood poised at the edge. “Are you coming?” he asked.
There had been a moment, back there in the forest, where he’d gotten so close I’d been sure he was about to kiss me. And now, the only thing I could think of was getting that close again.
He’d asked me to trust him. And I did. And more than that, I wanted him to erase Killian’s touch from my body with his. I wanted to tear out the part of me that quivered in fear when he got too close and toss it over the falls. I wanted to be fierce again.
The girl in the mirror.
The autumn air nipped around my ankles the second I peeled off my boots. “It’s going to be freezing,” I lamented.
Derek was already at the edge of the creek. “Water’s probably warmer than the air,” he said.
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Liar. You think I don’t remember how cold the creek is? It’s the lake that stays warm into autumn. Running water versus still water.”
“Can’t fool you.”
I lifted my chin at him. “No. You can’t.”
That first dip of my toe into the freezing water was so cold that it burned. “Jesus!” I gritted my teeth. “Did this just melt yesterday?”
“It’s not so bad once you get in.”
“Yeah. That’s because you go numb.”
“Probably. Come on, don’t be a pussy.”
“You know I’m not a pussy.”
“You’re not being very convincing right now.”
Stubbornness and nothing else was what propelled me all the way into the water. My toes sank down, trying to find traction in the slick silt that coated the creek bottom. The water moved swiftly, but was only ankle deep at the banks. I could feel it swirling angrily over my feet, tugging, like it was trying to pull me out to the center where it was deeper so it could knock me over and send me hurtling over the falls.
“Come on,” Derek urged. He was shin deep by now, standing stock still, as immovable as a boulder in the middle of the rushing water. Sunlight danced in the ripples that swirled around his legs, sending glints upward to catch the bits of honey that hid in the strands of his hair.
“I’m afraid to move,” I said, and it was true, though my fear has as much to do with getting closer to him as it did with falling over.
“Do you need a hand?”
“No!” The idea of him putting his hand on me - anywhere on me, even just taking my hand - filled my mind up to the point of distraction, and I needed all of my concentration just to keep myself upright. “It’s just slippery. Why is it so slippery?”
“Silt gets collected over there because the current’s moving slowly.”
“It’s absolutely not moving slowly.”
He grinned and ignored me. “Out here the current’s faster, but it’s washed the silt away so you can get a better grip with your toes.”
“I can’t feel my toes. I have no idea if they’re gripping or not.”
“Here, come on. Just reach for my hand. There you go. One step. Take your foot all the way out of the water so it doesn’t get swept out from under you.”
I did what he said. Water crossed over the top of my foot, and then swirled around my ankle. The ceaseless motion of the creek was strangely calming, with the far-off rush of the falls drowning out all other noise except my own breathing.
Somewhere out in the forest, birds were calling and animals were scurrying, but the only thing I could hear out here in the water was myself.
And Derek.
“That’s it,” he urged. He looked genuinely, happily proud of me.
That’s the problem with giving me praise. I start to show off.
I took the next step too quickly, not bothering to lift my foot all the way out of the water. The current was faster out here, Derek was right, but there was still silt on the creek bottom. As the current took hold of my foot, the silt slid out from my other one.
“Shit!” I hissed, windmilling my arms in a circle.
I didn’t fall. But I was moving. Hunched over and frozen with fear of falling over, I was helpless as the current started pushing me, inch by slow inch.
Then faster.
I tried to stop myself by digging in with my toes. Killian would have laughed at my futile efforts.
Derek just stepped into my path.
The current carried me to him in slow motion. My outstretched hand met his first, and his thick fingers, gripping like iron, closed around my wrist.
I slid closer so slowly, slow enough to feel the heat of his skin before I brushed against the soft cotton of his T-shirt.
I turned and the current forced me right up against his chest and he caught me in his arms.
I tilted my chin up and looked at him. His gaze seared across my skin, burning like wildfire and warming me down all the way to my toes. My frozen, numbed toes.
“Got you.”
“Thanks.”
He was holding me so gently, but I could feel the strength in his arms. The terrifying, overwhelming strength.
I froze.
His lips were only inches from mine. I only needed to crane my neck, to lift up on my tiptoes to close the distance. But I couldn’t move a muscle. He’d have to make the first move.
“Aria. Can I kiss you?” he asked me.
No one had ever asked me that. I hardly knew the answer. “Okay?”
He bent his head slightly and pressed his lips - not to my mouth as I expected, but to the soft place under my jaw where my pulse beat as rapidly as hummingbird wings. Then he pulled back and gripped my shoulders. “I’ve got you,” he promised. “Turn around.”
Below us the valley unfolded in a patchwork of late autumn golds. From here you could see over the tops of the trees and down to the town below. Above it loomed a humped mountain with a blunted slope that looked like the head of a whale. Further out, Ganagua Lake stretched out in a shimmering ribbon, a narrow strip of blue tucked in a steep valley surrounded by rolling foothills.
It was familiar and fantastic at the same time. I felt a swell of something long dormant in my chest.
This was my home.
And he’d brought me here to remind me.
"Can you make it over to the shore?" Derek asked. He let his hands fall from my shoulders.
I wanted to beg him to put them back, but I’d lost the power of speech. And over what? A chaste kiss that didn’t even land on my lips?
I swallowed back the lump of desperate wanting that lodged in my throat, then lifted my foot. It hung there like a dead white thing at the end of my leg. "I can't feel my foot," I observed.
He chuckled. "Okay. Well hold my hand then."
He said it so casually. Did he know how my heart leaped to be connected to him again?
He couldn’t have, because he just carefully led me to the other side of the creek, pointing out all the rocks to look out for so I wouldn’t stub my dead toes and regret it later. "Okay, careful now, that's it, you’re really good you know, I wouldn't be able to tell your feet don’t work at all.”
"I'm a performer through and through,” I deadpanned.
His eyes softened around the edges. Little crinkles of a smile. "Yeah, you are," he deadpanned right back. “You sure had me fooled.”
My pulse fluttered where he’d kissed it, the shape of his lips still fresh on my skin. I held his gaze for a moment, then started following closely, shuffling along like a little old lady until suddenly I slipped on the silt that gathered beside the creek bank. "Oh! " I called, teetering dangerously. Once more my weak ankles were betraying me.
"I've got you.” Without thinking or even hesitating, Derek grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to him. It was the second time in five minutes that I found myself pressed against him.
But this time I twisted my body to press harder. This time I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on because he was strong enough to carry us both onto the shore.
He set me down gently and knelt down next to me. ”Your feet okay?" he asked. There was genuine concern on his face.
“Thank you,” I breathed.
He shrugged. “For what?”