by Sarah Title
“But, look, who cares? We came here to swim. C’mon. Take off this burka and let’s go.”
First Missy introduced Grace around, amending her nickname to “Professor Grace.” Katie, MB’s cousin from Hollow Bend, already knew about her from Keith the vet, which reminded Grace that small town news traveled fast. Billie, Katie’s best friend, offered Grace a beer, which she declined.
“The Professor doesn’t drink beer!” Kyle shouted. Did that guy have superhuman hearing? Grace wondered.
“I thought there was no drinking here,” Grace said. “Because of the Baptist bikers.”
“Eh, as long as we clean up, they’ll never know,” Billie said with a shrug.
“Besides, I can take a few bikers,” said Katie.
Chase, a tall, cowboy-looking friend of Katie, took the beer out of her hand.
“Hey!” Katie yelled, and grabbed for her drink. But Chase was fast, and set the beer down on the ground, leaned into Katie, and threw her over his shoulder. He carried her, fireman-style, down to the water.
“Don’t you d—” she started, but didn’t finish, because Chase threw her in.
“Oh, Chase! With her clothes on!” Billie shouted. “He’s gonna pay for that later,” she told Grace.
Grace just nodded. Although if she were Katie, she wouldn’t wait too long to make him pay.
“Does that make you want to go swimming, or what?” Missy asked her.
“Well, it certainly reassures me that the water is deep.” Katie was standing a few feet from the shore, and the water came up to her waist.
“It’s deeper than it looks. And there’s quite a steep drop-off. The best thing to do is just jump right in,” Missy reassured her. “Ready?” she asked. Before Grace could respond, Missy was ripped away and thrown into the water. She and Kyle both came up screaming, Missy from anger, Kyle from cold.
“Come on in, Professor!” Kyle shouted at her. “The water’s fine!”
“Then why are your teeth chattering?” she asked him.
“Because he’s a wimp!” Katie shouted, and dunked Kyle’s head under the water.
“Don’t you dare,” Grace heard MB say to Todd as she pulled her shirt off to reveal a bright blue two-piece.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling,” Todd said, taking her hand. “You coming, Grace?”
She nodded, then turned from the group to pull off her cover-up. Her retro-style navy blue halter top felt too fussy for this environment, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Before she could properly steel herself for whatever reaction her swimsuit might cause, her feet were in the air and she was over Kyle’s shoulder, which was wet and cold and bony and just slightly less pleasant than the freezing cold water of the swimming hole.
“Kyle! What the hell?” Missy splashed his face as soon as he came up for air. “You okay, Grace?”
Grace coughed and pushed her hair out of her face. Freezing was maybe too strong a word for the water. It was cold, but it felt nice compared to the humidity of the air. She leaned her head back and took off floating away.
“Kyle!” she heard Missy whisper urgently. Then she heard someone swimming up next to her.
“Hey, I’m sorry, Professor. It was a joke.”
Grace just waved her arms lightly, letting the water decide which direction she would head in.
“Come on, Professor. I really didn’t mean to hurt you. Did I hurt you?”
Grace’s feet made their way around to Kyle’s face. She felt the top of her shoe bump his nose.
“Professor, if you don’t speak to me, Missy is going to kill me. Do you want my death on your conscience?”
Grace floated.
“Grace, please.”
She tucked in and straightened out upright in the water, and beamed a beatific smile at Kyle. He looked confused, and Grace swam a little closer. Then she bobbed up and pushed his head under.
He came up sputtering and she swam as far away as she could. “I forgive you!” she shouted, and it echoed off the rocks, along with Missy’s laughter.
Somehow that led to Kyle daring her to jump off the rock. First he climbed up and demonstrated how easy it was. He just stood at the edge and then he was a tangle of flailing limbs that worked itself into a ball and a tremendous splash. He came up shaking the water out of his hair. “I knew Jake was wrong about you!” he shouted after her as she found footing on the rocks.
Jake. What did Jake have to do with it? If she could get rid of Jake, her life would be great. She could teach, and research, and spend time with these people who she thought would become good friends. But she kept needing Jake, to fix this, to lift that, to pull her down off a roof.
By the time she got to the top of the rock, she had convinced herself that if she could conquer her fear of heights, she wouldn’t need Jake anymore. She stood, knees shaking, and tried not to look over the edge.
“Let’s go, Professor!” shouted Katie. Grace couldn’t help it—she looked. Damn, it was high. But not any higher than her porch roof, she reasoned, and she hadn’t died on the roof, so she wouldn’t die jumping off this rock. She gave a thumbs-up, took a deep breath, and prepared to launch herself into her new, independent, Jake-free life.
But just as she launched, she saw a disturbance in the woods, and there, coming down the trail from the church, was Jake.
Jake.
She lost her footing, but it was too late. There was gravity, and then there was the water.
As soon as Jake pulled up to the house, he knew it was no good. There was a huge crack in the cement foundation and the only way to fix that was to re-lay the foundation or tear the house down and start over. He went in anyway, saw the water damage on the walls of the basement and smelled the mold in the kitchen. That, coupled with the complete unwillingness of the realtor to budge on the way-too-high price, convinced Jake that he’d be better off with an afternoon of swimming. So he went home, changed into his board shorts, and hit the road. Mary Beth was right—he loved the swimming hole, and he wasn’t going to let some imaginary beef with the Professor get in the way of enjoying the last warm days before fall set in.
Besides, he wasn’t really mad at her. He just . . . didn’t like her.
That wasn’t true. And that was the problem. He was attracted to her; no seeing man wouldn’t be. And as long as she kept acting like she was better than everyone else, he had no problem staying away. But then she had to go and laugh. And she laughed at herself. He had never known a professor to laugh at herself.
Of course, he didn’t know many professors that well.
So, okay, as a person, she was fine. She was great. She had a good sense of humor and was smart and liked to laugh. And she was gorgeous.
But she was still a professor. His father always told him that those Pembroke people thought they were too good for the people of Willow Springs. Don Burdette wasn’t right about a lot of things, but in Jake’s experience, he was right about Pembroke.
When Jake finally got to the swimming hole, he could hear the party was in full swing. Kyle must have had his high school boom box set up, blaring country music. As he started to climb down the hill, he counted at least a dozen people, eating and drinking and lounging in inner tubes.
He didn’t spot Grace until he heard his cousin, Katie, shout out. Jake looked in the direction she was pointing, and there Grace was, like a Venus on top of the rocks. Her dark blue bathing suit looked like one of those old-fashioned pin-up styles, one that didn’t show a lot, but hugged her everywhere. His mind immediately went back to the other day when he’d helped her climb off the roof. His body went back to holding her trembling body, feeling those curves cuddle into him for comfort. His hands clenched reflexively as he watched her give Kyle the least convincing thumbs-up he’d ever seen. He could swear he saw her knees knocking from where he stood.
What the hell was she thinking, jumping off that rock? She was clearly terrified.
But then he saw her take a determined breath and he stopped wa
lking. She was going to do it. He couldn’t believe it, but she bent her knees and prepared to jump. He must have moved, must have made some sound, because just as she sprang out, her eyes locked with his and whatever momentum she had built up got all messed up and she lost control. Down she went.
Hard.
Jake heard her whole body hit the water with more of a splat than a splash. He vaguely registered a couple of sympathetic groans from his friends, but just barely as his stride ate the rest of the distance down the hill. He took a running dive into the water, thinking only that she was hurt, that he had to get to her.
He reached her just as she came up with a huge gasp. Then she opened her mouth and let out one of the foulest curses he’d ever heard. She turned to raise a triumphant fist at Kyle, her eyes still closed and covered with her hair. Finally, she ducked back under the water and came up with her head tilted back and wiped the water out of her eyes.
When she opened them, she saw him.
“Jake!” she shouted and sent a huge splash of water into his face.
“Hey!” he sputtered, but she closed the distance between them and smacked him on the shoulder.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to save you,” he said, snaking his arms around her waist. She could be in shock, after all. She could drown at any minute.
She gripped his shirt as their legs tangled under the water. “Why are you wearing a shirt?”
He let go of her long enough to push his hair out of his face. She didn’t let go, so he took that as a sign that she was still unsteady and she needed him to hold on to her a little longer.
“I thought you were drowning.” He shrugged.
“I don’t suppose you missed that?” Her eyes flicked back to the rock.
“It’s kind of why I’m in the water with my shirt still on.”
“Well, it’s your fault. You distracted me.”
“Are you okay? Really? That looked like it hurt.”
She snorted. “I’m fine. I mean, my skin burns and I think I broke my ego, but I’ll live.”
Jake clucked in sympathy when he saw that the skin on her chest had turned a very patriotic shade of red. He ran his hand gently between the straps of her bathing suit, and she shivered and pressed in closer to him.
“You sure you’re okay?” Her mouth was a breath away from his, and he was so close he could see her cheeks flush and her eyes darken. She nodded and bit her lip and Jake urged her even closer.
“Just kiss her already!” Katie and Billie called from the shore, accompanied by a few catcalls from his friends.
Grace snapped her head to the shore and just like that, the moment was gone.
“Come on,” he said, gently swimming her toward the party. “Let’s get you to dry land.”
If Grace had known that all it would take to make friends in this town was to make a complete fool of herself, well, she wouldn’t have hidden all the ways she’d made a complete fool of herself already. Like wearing pajamas to the Fourth of July barbecue, for example. That, at least, had been a much less painful way to make a good impression.
Her body was fine. It wasn’t like she’d never belly-flopped before. Never quite so spectacularly, but physically she could handle it.
Her ego might never be the same.
It didn’t help that every time she looked at Kyle, he turned his hands sideways and clapped them together while making a sploosh sound with his big, dumb mouth. That made everyone laugh, which didn’t exactly make Grace feel good.
Well, Jake didn’t laugh. Apparently all she had to do to get him to be civil was appear to fall to her death.
But then Chase patted her on the back in sympathy and Katie reminded Kyle that if he had belly-flopped off The Rock, he would’ve packed up his high school boom box and gone home. So, really, they were all laughing with her. Well, they were laughing with her as soon as she started laughing. They weren’t making fun of her—they were teasing her. God, had she been away from normal people so long that she forgot the difference?
Jake was right. Most of the time she did associate with other professors. That had certainly been her life in California, especially after she’d started seeing Lou. She had always bonded easily with her classmates, then her fellow post-docs—well, the ones who weren’t insanely competitive alien people. And Lou seemed to only know other professors, so when they went out, it was always something academic.
And she didn’t mind. Sometimes she’d idly wonder what it was like to sell insurance or work at a bank or fix cars. Lou said it involved a lot of fast food and reality television. Which was interesting because she frequently saw McDonald’s wrappers tucked under the back seat of his car. And she would never tell him, but she liked having reality television on in the background while she graded papers. She could tune it out while she graded, then get distracted by it for a few minutes until she had to grade the next one.
Sometimes she wondered what Jane Austen would make of reality TV. She tried to imagine her as The Bachelorette, having to pick from a roomful of Darcys and Knightleys and Wentworths, maybe with a few Wickhams and Willoughbys thrown in. Surely, she would pick Darcy. If she didn’t pass out from all of her dreams coming true.
“What are you thinking about?” Jake nudged her shoulder and she hunkered down further into the blanket wrapped around her.
“Reality television.” The Jane Austen idea would never work. Time-space continuum aside, that would just reinforce the notion that her books were just love stories, that there was no art and genius involved.
“Ugh, you watch that crap?”
She laughed at the look of shock on his face.
“Don’t be a snob, Jake,” she chided, and held her hands up to the fire.
“Are you cold?” he asked, grabbing her hands and holding them between his. “Jesus, Grace, you’re freezing!” He pulled the blanket tighter around her until it was practically smothering her, then he pulled her closer to him so that she was practically sitting on his lap.
She looked across the fire at Mary Beth, who gave her a bemused smirk. Grace just shrugged. Hey, he’s warm.
“So, Professor,” asked Billie, “if you had to go out with one Jane Austen hero, who would it be?”
Kyle snorted, and Missy shoved him playfully in the leg. “You’re just mad because I like Mr. Darcy better than I like you.”
“Yeah, but he’s not real, I am. Besides, would Mr. Darcy do this?”
The dance Kyle did for Missy was not exactly vulgar, but Grace wished she hadn’t seen it all the same.
“I don’t really think of them like that,” said Grace.
“Because they’re fictional?” Todd asked from next to Mary Beth.
“No. I mean, yes, of course. I would never romantically identify with a fictional character.”
Missy snorted. Grace smiled.
“I just mean that when you reduce Jane Austen’s book to the love story, you diminish the value of her work,” she said.
“Like a well-told love story isn’t worth it?” asked Billie.
“No, of course it is. It’s just . . . that tends to call into question her relevance. It invites dismissal.”
“From other snobs,” Missy said, her eyebrow firmly raised. “Male snobs.”
Grace smiled. “Mostly.”
“Listen,” said Missy, pulling Kyle down to sit with her. He immediately wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t have to justify your life’s work to us. But if you think those love stories aren’t important, you’ve been doing it wrong.”
Grace laughed. “Fine, I surrender.”
“Hey, how come you’re allowed to say that stuff to her and I’m not?” Kyle asked Missy petulantly.
“Because you’re an idiot,” Missy said, and pulled his chin down for a kiss.
Soon they were making out full-throttle. Grace glanced at Jake, who was studiously watching the fire. Then Kyle abruptly stood, Missy still wrapped around him, and they stalked off into the woods.
“You want to get out of here?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” said Grace, because she was cold, and people were making out, and because she wanted to get out of there with Jake.
Chapter 13
Jake didn’t say much on the way home, and Grace was too tired to prod him into conversation. It felt nice, somehow, riding with the windows down, quiet radio noise in the background. She occasionally snuck a glance over at Jake, who kept his eyes studiously on the road. She braved a longer look, admired his strong jaw and the way the ridge in his nose stood out more in profile.
“What?”
She jumped in her seat, startled and embarrassed to have been caught ogling.
“Nothing!” she insisted.
“Why do you keep looking at me?” Even with his head still facing forward, she could see that crooked smile stretch across his mouth.
She shrugged. “What happened to your nose?”
He ran a finger gingerly along the ridge and said, “Broke it.”
“What’s the story?”
He just shook his head.
“Come on, there’s always a good story behind a broken nose. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“You broke your nose?” He turned his head to face her, squinted in the faint light.
“I fell off a horse. Jane was one of those horse-crazy kids, so my parents took us for riding lessons. And I fell off.”
“Geez. You really should keep your feet on the ground, you know that?”
“It actually wasn’t that bad a fall, but I got tangled in the stirrup and I hit my face against the horse’s neck.”
“So you broke your nose on a horse.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Your nose looks fine. I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s been broken.”
“Well, it healed. And . . . you know, plastic surgery.”
“So you’ve had a nose job?”
“Yes, it’s true,” she admitted. “I’ve had some work done. Your turn. How’d you break yours?”
Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not as whimsical as your story.”