She went outside and listened to the birds and looked down through the trees to the river. The Jane Austen tea party was that afternoon, but she didn’t have to rush around now. She took the stairs to the grass and made her way to the path that led to the swimming hole. She could see herself at seventeen, taking this same route. She’d ridden her bike to the campsite and left it by the fireplace before she set off down to the river.
Gabe had found her sitting on a boulder with her feet in the water as she read a book. It’d been mid-June, just a few days left in the school year. He’d finished the bulk of his homework, but she had one more paper to write.
She could see him now, jumping down from the path. “What’re you reading?” he’d asked her.
She’d held up her book. “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”
“James Joyce. Irish author. I think I faked reading that one.”
“And here I was hoping you could help me with my paper.”
She hadn’t been hoping anything of the sort. Gabe had kept his nose above water in his classes, doing the minimal amount of work to pass. She didn’t try to guess what he’d absorbed despite his middling grades. She, on the other hand, had been conscientious with her studies.
He’d stepped onto her boulder. “Did you know I’d be coming out here this afternoon?”
“No idea.”
“Not sitting on a rock pretending to read while you wait for me?”
“No, Gabe, I’m actually reading. It’s a beautiful day. I wanted to sit by the river in the shade. Somehow it makes James Joyce easier to understand.” She’d shut the book and set it on her lap. “You’re going for a swim?”
“Yep. Want to join me?”
“I’m not wearing a swimsuit under my clothes.”
“Skinny-dipping could get you in trouble out here if someone drives by.”
“I didn’t mean I plan to skinny-dip, Gabe. I’d have to swim in my clothes. Then I’d have to bike home in wet clothes. I’ll just watch you swim.”
He’d shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“I will,” she’d said. “I promise I’ll dive in clothes and all to save you if you start to drown or hit your head on a rock.”
“Now there’s a temptation,” he’d said with a grin. “It’s hot out, Felicity. Your clothes will dry in no time.”
“If I go swimming, then how would I finish my book?”
“It’s called a break.”
“Hmm.” She’d glanced at her book and then back at him, and smiled. “Maybe a break is a good idea.”
Before she could change her mind, she’d handed him the book, and he set it on the boulder. In a flash, he’d scooped her up and tossed her into the river. She’d tucked her legs into a cannonball and landed, squealing, in the water.
She’d always told herself she was like a sister to him. That was the first time she’d felt it might be otherwise. Popping up, laughing, yelling at him for not giving her any warning, she’d noticed the way he’d looked at her.
Not so brotherly, that look, she thought now, years later, on another warm, sunny day. She knew she needed to put Gabe out of her mind and let him get back to his life without any further complications from her. She had her own life here in Knights Bridge. That was why they hadn’t let things get too far between them last night. Sleeping with each other might be a natural temptation, but it was one they needed to resist.
She didn’t think it was that big a leap to assume he’d been tempted. Being out here with her was a throwback to their past, if not to a simpler time, at least to one that had led to one wild night together.
Best to leave that thought there, she told herself as she reached the swimming hole. She didn’t see Gabe. Just as that day back in high school, she didn’t have a swimsuit under her shorts and T-shirt, but this time she didn’t care or hesitate. She got a running start, grabbed the rope and flung herself as far out into the river as she could. She let go and went into the water feetfirst.
When she surfaced, Gabe had materialized, treading water next to her. “I eased in from the bank,” he said. “I didn’t use the rope. I was thinking I’d catch you skinny-dipping.”
“Ha. Don’t you wish.”
“I remember when I found you out here reading a book. James Joyce, right? Did you ever finish it or did you skim it and wing the paper?”
“I read the whole thing and wrote the paper.”
“And got an A.”
“Of course.”
She swam past him toward the middle of the river. He joined her, and they found a cluster of underwater boulders and stood on them, waist deep in the water instead of over their heads. She saw now he had on shorts, not a swimsuit. No one else was out on the river—no canoes, kayaks, fishermen. Just her and Gabe.
He was already going for the rope, and she followed him.
She could have spent the entire day out there, jumping into the river from the rope and rocks, diving, swimming, just floating on her back next to Gabe, looking up at the summer sky. But after thirty minutes, they climbed onto the boulder where she’d read James Joyce and sat in the sun. She noticed rivulets of water in the bumps and crevices in the granite from her dripping T-shirt and shorts.
“You have a good life here, Felicity,” Gabe said.
She smiled. “I do.”
As the river water dried on his bare skin, she noticed the well-formed muscles in his chest and legs. She also noticed her T-shirt wasn’t as modest as she’d thought.
“You’ll stay in touch after I leave Knights Bridge?” he asked her.
“Do you want me to?”
“Sure. Let me know how things go with the badger
