Saratoga Falls: The Complete Love Story Series

by Pogue, Lindsey

  Mac and Savannah cheer and chant.

  “You can do it, Sam!”

  “Come on, Sam.”

  “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

  But I’m still staring at Reilly, at the unfamiliar look in his gaze and the way his mouth purses before his eyes widen and his grins. “After you . . .” He gestures for me to walk out in front of him, to go first.

  I flash him a nervous smile. The nerves I’d hoped would remain dormant while I tested my limits are screaming at me to climb back down and stay safe in the warm sand, away from scary things like heights and the luring warmth of Reilly’s body behind me.

  A paralyzing numbness trickles over me as I peer down at the water that seems much, much farther down than it did from the bank. “The river is so shallow,” I say, giving myself a reason not to jump. I take a step backward. “We’re so high up.”

  “It’s one of the deepest points in the river.” Reilly’s breath caresses my ear, making the hairs on my arms and neck rise. “You won’t even touch the bottom, I promise.” He’s calm and reassuring, his voice level with a timbre of truth.

  Knowing I shouldn’t, I can’t resist and peer down into the water again. It’s dark green and deep enough, but the sudden rush to plummet to the bottom is no longer exciting. It seems absolutely insane.

  “Stop thinking about it,” Reilly says. “You’ll psych yourself out and back down. Just jump. You won’t regret it.”

  Looking back, I gaze into his eyes, feeling grounded in their steadiness.

  I flex my hands at my sides, wanting nothing more than to give up and run away from the cliff . . . from the draw I have to him. “You promise?”

  Reilly nods. “Jump to the right of where Nick is, that’s the deepest part. He’ll be down there waiting for you. Nothing will happen.”

  Feeling as much comfort as I imagine is possible, I squeeze my eyes shut, exhale a long, deep breath, and clench my fists. “Okay,” I breathe, “I’m doing it.” Telling myself there is absolutely no going back if I’m going to take control of my life—if I’m going to live—I force myself to step forward, and on the count of three, I jump.

  I’m freefalling, screaming the entire way down. The rush is exactly what I’d expected it to be, the sense of nothing but air around me and the sounds of hooting and hollering only amplifying my adrenaline. When my feet finally hit the water, it stings a little, then the river consumes me, swallowing me up and threatening to pull my bathing suit off. As soon as my legs start kicking me back up, a giddy sense of euphoria overcomes me. Soon, I’m breaking through the surface and want to cry out with pride.

  Nick and the others are clapping as I catch my breath.

  Reilly jumps next, the splash of his cannonball tossing me around like I weigh nothing more than a down feather. When I finally get to shallow water, I’m still laughing at what I’ve just done, my body still trembling with excitement, and I climb to my feet, feeling more sober and alive.

  Nick comes up behind me and throws his arms around my shoulders. “I knew you had it in ya,” he says, lifting me off my feet, causing me to laugh. I try to wriggle free, peeling his arms away.

  When Reilly rises up out of the water, my arms are wrapped around his shoulders before I can care. “Thank you,” I breathe. “That was exhilarating! I want to do it again.”

  Then his palm rests on the middle of my back, and something about its familiarity—a surfacing memory—makes me flinch away. My confidence and smile wanes.

  “Sorry,” I say, taking a step back, but Reilly reaches for my upper arm.

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” He moves a strand of hair I hadn’t even realized was hanging in my face. “Adrenaline looks good on you.” He smiles another one of his heart-stopping smiles and my insides warm. I hold my breath, unable to look away from him, his furrowed brow and parted lips . . .

  “Sam!” Mac screeches as she comes over with my towel. “I can’t believe you freaking did it!” She throws her arms around me. “You’re officially my hero.”

  “Ha. I wouldn’t go that far,” I say, and my eyes lock with Reilly’s again as he scrubs his towel over his head.

  “That deserves a celebration shot,” Nick declares and plods through the sand over to his makeshift lounging area.

  Mac follows after him, leaving Reilly and me standing there to dry off. I smile up at him, deciding to jump off the rock again, when he stills.

  “What happened?” he asks, staring at the red, puffy cut and scar tissue below my right hip.

  I can feel the blood draining from my face. “Oh, I . . . I got caught up on the camping stove last night. It’s nothing, I’m fine.” I worry my hesitation gives me away, and with the thrill of my jump quickly wearing off, I frantically search for my shorts, which I’d discarded somewhere in my abrupt decision to jump off a fucking cliff.

  Reilly reaches for my arm. “Sam, are you sure—”

  I tear it away from him. “It’s nothing. Honestly.” I don’t want this attention or anyone else’s.

  His gaze searches mine, and I can’t stand there under his scrutiny a moment longer. He makes me feel uneasy in my own skin.

  I rejoin the group and take another shot of Jack Daniels.

  I refuse to let anything ruin my exhilarating high.

  Twenty-Two

  Reilly

  The inside of my tent is washed in an orange haze that reminds me of long treks in the desert, endless rock formations glowing like fire, and scrub brush bathed in the nearly unbearable heat. I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying here, sun-beat and waterlogged, thinking. Long enough to hear Sam and Mac’s giggling and whispering in the next tent over and Nick’s incessant whistling and Savannah’s shushing turn to slow, throaty snores as they pass out for a late-afternoon nap.

  Sleeping seems futile. My mind is cluttered from all that happened on the water. I’m not sure how much of what I remember is skewed by the beer, and some of it maybe by hope. My argument with Sam replays over and over, and I can’t stop thinking about how twisted everything’s become—everything that happened between Sam and me is a mess of wrongs I wish I could right, of misguided turns that sent us in circles only to both end up here, confused and, if I’m honest with myself, alone. The more I sober, the more I wonder what—if anything—might be left between us.

  The fresh, pink two-inch cut—the mauled skin by her hip—is permanently branded to memory. It didn’t look like an accident, it looked like a strategically placed cut. I scour memories of Sam since I returned, trying to find nuances of how broken she might really be. It takes a few moments before I can remind myself it might simply be a scrape, that Sam really did get caught up on the stove, like she claimed.

  . . . But what if she didn’t? Sam’s changed and there’s so much I don’t know about her anymore. My conversation with Mac this morning hangs ominous and unfinished in my mind. I know I need to talk to Mac again or I won’t be able to move past this.

  With a groan, I sit up. I came here to finally close this chapter of my life, but now there’s this new, gaping hole. “You’re the one who left.” She’s right, and what if I hadn’t?

  Unable to keep my mind still or stay in the confines of my tent any longer, I grab a fresh shirt from my bag, unzip my tent, and step outside. The evening air is cooler outside than in my tent, but the breeze is regenerating.

  The tent beside me sways, and wrestling and whispered curses emanate from inside. Mac steps out, trying to be quiet as she closes the tent up again. She straightens, then yawns and waves over at me as she massages her head awake. She’s in sweatpants already.

  Tugging the clean shirt over my head, I nod when she asks if I want a bottle of water from the ice chest.

  “You getting hungry?” I ask and catch the bottle she tosses to me.

  “Starved,” she groans. “Ravenous.” She gulps down half the water in her bottle then gasps for air. “I think I got too much sun today.” She walks over to me, studying her bronze arms. “I’m always up for a go
od tan,” she says quietly so as not to wake those still sleeping, “but I’m feeling a little tender.” She presses a fingertip on her shoulder, and when she removes it, the skin is left white for a few seconds. “Yep, stick a fork in me,” she mutters.

  I smile and open the grill. “Pull the tri-tip out for me, would you?”

  Mac chugs down the last of her water and uses the back of her hand to wipe her mouth dry. “God, I needed that.”

  Sifting through a camping bin for barbecue tongs, I ask, “How was your nap?” Although my arms are slightly fatigued from so much rowing, my mind is too scattered and I’m a little too wound up to let exhaustion settle in.

  “Wonderful, but interrupted. I’m sure you heard my stomach rumbling from inside your tent.” Mac brings the meat over and places it on a platter I set out for her. “Where’d you learn how to grill? I can’t imagine Mr. Reilly teaching you that, no offense.”

  I smile and turn on the grill. “You can’t be deployed somewhere and not know how to grill. There are too many macho guys looking for a reason or opportunity to get together and barbecue—anything to get everyone’s mind off of home.”

  Mac smiles. “Great, maybe you can teach Bobby. He thinks he’s a grilling god, but everyone knows even I can grill better than he can.” She winks at me. “I’ll pull out the rest of the goodies for dinner.” She walks back over to one of two large ice chests.

  Mac points to a softball-sized container. “This is Sam’s homemade spinach dip, and that,” she says, pointing to a large orange bowl with plastic wrap on it, “is Sam’s homemade potato salad. I guarantee none of your macho friends can cook like she can. You’re going to eat like a king tonight.”

  “So Nick tells me,” I say, unwrapping the meat.

  On cue, Sam climbs out of the tent, wobbly on her feet and her hair mussed from deep sleep. Steadying herself, she looks up at me. She squints, and a small smile forms on her lips, a genuine-truce sort of smile that makes all the uncertainty and concern humming through me steady.

  I smile back at her.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Mac chirps.

  Sam waves her away, shoves her hands in her pockets, and slips on her flip-flops, covered in dust and haphazardly left outside their tent. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she mumbles in a half sleep and plods away.

  “Hair of the dog,” Mac calls to her. “That’s all you need . . .”

  Sam shakes her head, but obviously regrets it. Her hand flies up to her temple and she groans.

  “How long for the meat?” Mac asks, setting a bowl of fruit on the table.

  “Forty-five or so,” I say.

  She shrugs and puts the fruit back into the ice chest beside me. Mac moves to the picnic table. “I’ll get the table cleared off—”

  I nudge her. “Hey, Mac?” I say, glancing quickly in the direction Sam disappeared.

  Mac stops, blinking up at me.

  I’m too concerned Sam will come back before I can ask the questions burning a hole on my tongue to choose my words as carefully as I probably should. “Earlier . . . you were worried about Sam. Does she cut herself?”

  Mac pales. “What?” She blinks again. “Um, why?”

  I don’t answer, but simply wait for her to respond. When she realizes I’m not going to let it go, she swallows thickly and her surprise turns resigned. She sits down on the end of the picnic bench, facing me. “I don’t know for sure,” she says quietly, glancing from Nick’s tent to the bathrooms. She stares at me a moment, maybe trying to decide how much to tell me. “I saw a mark on her upper thigh once.”

  My heartbeat thumps to a stop, and it feels like seconds pass before it starts back up again.

  “We were trying on dresses for a friend’s wedding, like a year ago.”

  “What makes you think she didn’t just hurt herself?”

  Mac scowls. “Because when she knew I’d spotted it, she looked guilty and ashamed as shit.”

  I put down the tongs I’m holding and cross my arms over my chest, trying to steady the raw nerves and energy coming alive inside me. “Did you ask her about it?”

  She shakes her head. “No, she obviously didn’t want me to see it, which meant she’d probably have lied to me anyway. And—”

  “And?”

  “And to be honest, I think I was a little scared what she might say.” Mac stares at me, almost through me, like she’s lost in thought. “So, let’s just say that when I see Sam bleeding like she was this morning, I jump to conclusions.”

  I reach for the tongs, squeezing the handle, and I stare through the trees in Sam’s direction.

  “I haven’t told anyone, Reilly, so don’t say anything. Please.” Her voice is suddenly deep and threatening. “I don’t know anything for sure, it’s just a sickening feeling I get. And if it’s true and you say something, Sam will think I told you. She’ll be pissed and she might do something even more stupid.”

  I step over to the grill, running one hand over the back of my neck. “What the hell is she thinking?”

  “She doesn’t need more demons, Reilly.” Mac is suddenly beside me, her hand clutching my arm. “That’s why I wanted you to canoe together today. I figured some alone time might help remedy whatever’s going on between the two of you. I was a little worried when I heard you guys fighting. I just hope it didn’t make everything worse.”

  Suddenly, I’m a little worried, too. A fleeting concern about what she’s doing in the bathroom comes and goes. All I can do is wonder how many of my decisions have contributed to this.

  I let out a deep breath. “Yeah, me too.”

  Twenty-Three

  Sam

  I lose myself to the sound of zipping harmonicas and anthems about bayous, outlaws, and rambling men. The wistful sound reminds me of happier times, despite the pang of sadness it elicits from nudging, less-welcome memories, too. There’s something about classic rock ’n’ roll that makes me feel at home. Maybe it’s that Nick listens to it—that Papa used to. Then I remember that Reilly used to, too. Maybe it’s a guy thing . . .

  I let the music and the amber liquid that once again flows through me dull the pain. It makes me feel lighter as I dance and sing around the fire with Mac and Savannah. And it just so happens that Mac had been right, hair of the dog—a lot of it—was just what I’d needed to perk my wilting mood right back up again.

  “So is this like a Native American beer dance or something?” Nick asks, and Reilly barks a laugh, clearly amused.

  “You’re just jealous you’re not having as much fun,” Savannah drawls.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.” Nick smirks and pulls away from her as she tries pulling him up from his camping chair.

  “Come dance with us.” Her voice sounds more like a whine, and I can’t help but laugh at how drunk she is.

  “No, no, no,” he says. “I don’t dance, especially not like that.”

  After another song, the three of us girls decide a drink refill and greasy, fatty snacks are in order. I can hear Bethany and Claire snickering as they walk through our site, toward the bathrooms, both of them simpering at Reilly, though I can barely hear it over the crinkling of the potato chip bag I open. I focus on the salty, crunchy, earth-shatteringly delicious chip in my mouth, savoring every crunch. However, the fact that Reilly gives them no notice, other than a returned wave, makes each chip all the more enjoyable.

  Mac tops off my screwdriver and we plop down in our seats, mine to Reilly’s right, and I kick my feet up on a small ice chest, which is no doubt filled with Reilly’s cold beers. I lean over and check. “I’d expect nothing less,” I say and smile over at the boys.

  “So, you’re a dancer now,” Reilly says.

  I stick another potato chip in my mouth and look over at him. He and Nick are both holding beers in their laps, their eyes twinkling in the firelight.

  “If you can call it dancing,” Nick scoffs, then leans his head back against the headrest of his chair. Savannah playfully smacks his shoulder. />
  “Oh, it’s dancing,” Mac says as she brings her cup to her lips as carefully as possible so as not to spill her nearly overflowing drink. “Mmmm.” She licks her lips. “Perfect.”

  Smiling, I plunk another chip in my mouth, then offer her the bag. Mac takes a few more sips and places her cup in her arm holder, accepting the bag of cholesterol happily. I tell myself it’s the fire that’s warm and soothing on my skin, instead of Reilly’s gaze, as I nestle deeper into my chair beside him. He smells like campfire smoke and s’mores, and I want to devour him.

  We all sit in a comfortable silence, the sound of roaring flames and acoustic bluegrass the perfect lullaby. I want to crawl into the fire and fall asleep.

  “Oh, Niiiick . . .” Mac sings. I smile, knowing whatever she’s thinking can’t be good.

  “Dear God, she wants something,” Nicks says, pausing as he lights a cigarette. “What is it, devil-woman?”

  “Can I bum a smoke?”

  “What?” I screech. “You said you quit.”

  Mac flicks my shoulder and screeches back at me, “I did, but I’m drunk and it’s our last night here. Give me a break.”

  Nick chuckles as he gets out of his chair. “Follow me, my lady. I need to open another pack.”

  Mac jumps to her feet and winks at me before she skips after Nick and Savannah to their tent.

  I’m smiling like an idiot, but I can’t help that I’m having such a good time. When my gaze lands on Reilly, expecting to find a smile curving his lips as well, I’m startled to find that he’s not smiling at all. He’s watching the fire. I can almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. I hadn’t realized how much I’d miss his smile until it’s gone, replaced with deep contemplation.

  “Are you okay?” I ask hesitantly. I stare into the fire pit, trying to see what it is he sees. When I glance back at him, his focus drifts to me, fire shadows making his eyes glow with blue flames. I’m restless under their intensity, under their focus, and I moisten my lips.