The Best Man

“Then do you want to eat with me? Now that we’re BFFs?”

“Such a jackass.”

“Is that a yes?” He lowered his chin and gave her a patient look, something that had always worked well with girls.

“Sure,” she grumbled.

Hey, idiot, his brain chided. She was dating your best friend a few days ago. What are you doing?

But the facts were blurring fast. First of all, there was the whole Jeremy-shouldn’t-be-dating-a-girl thing. Speaking of Jeremy, he wasn’t even in the Empire State at the moment. Then there was the breakup, or whatever they wanted to call it.

And let’s not forget the sight of a dewy and dirty Faith Holland in cutoff jeans and a shirt tied under her generous chest, and the fact that she was irritated with him, which Levi had learned generally meant a girl was interested.

She came over to him, taking out her braids and retying her hair in a ponytail. “There’s a nice place about five minutes from here. By the falls. Do you know it?”

He shook his head, looking at her steadily. She had blue eyes. He never really noticed before. Freckles.

She swallowed.

Oh, yeah. Faith Holland was feeling some feelings.

“Come on, then,” she said. They walked up to her father’s truck, the dog running ahead. Levi grabbed his shirt from where he’d dropped it and pulled it on.

John Holland’s truck smelled pleasantly of old coffee and oil, just as dirty inside as the outside, the dashboard and seats covered in dried mud and dust. Smiley jumped, his feathery tail hitting Levi in the face. “Sit, pooch,” he said, and the dog obeyed, his furry side pressed against Levi’s arm. Seemed like the Hollands always had a Golden retriever or two. There was always one in their brochures.

“You guys breed these monsters?” he asked Faith as she started the truck and put it in gear. The fact that she could drive a made-in-America pickup truck with a standard transmission only increased her hot factor.

“We belong to the Golden Retriever Rescue League,” she answered. Smiley licked her face as if thanking her.

“Just another act of mercy from the great Holland family,” Levi said.

“Jeesh! Stop being such a pain or I’ll push you out of the truck and eat your lunch.”

The truck jolted and rocked over the grassy, rutted paths that ran between fields, causing Levi to practically crack his head on the roof of the truck (but also treating him to a great view of Faith’s bouncing cle**age). After about five minutes, they stopped at the edge of a field that was being cleared...the Holland family owned a ton of land. Woods were thick on one side.

Faith grabbed a blanket from behind her seat and a thermal lunch box (Hello Kitty, could’ve called that one). The dog raced off into the woods, and she followed on the little path without waiting for Levi.

Birds called and fluttered in the branches. From somewhere not too far away came the rush and splash of a stream. Levi tried to imagine looking out and seeing land, acres and acres of field and forest, all the way down to the lake, and knowing it was yours, and had been in your family since America had been a baby. Levi’s mother’s family was from Manningsport, too, but there were people who’d been around, and then there were founding families.

Over to the left was the ruin of an old stone barn, the rocks covered in lichen. A sapling grew in the middle, the roof long gone.

“You coming?” Faith called from up ahead.

Thick mounds of moss blanketed the ground, and the leaves were so green the air seemed tinted with it. They passed a huge grove of birch trees, the white bark glowing, and the edges of hemlocks brushed Levi’s cheek as he walked. He slapped a mosquito, and a chipmunk peeped and ran across the narrow path.

The sound of rushing water was louder now. Faith had spread out the blanket on a rock and sat down. Juicy as a ripe peach. An image of her under him, legs around him, practically made him stagger.

He really had to stop thinking this way.

They were at the edge of a deep gorge, a waterfall cascading into a round pool about twenty feet below them. He wished he had a camera so he could look at this picture when he was deployed, baking in the sun of Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the Army would send him. He’d show it around. This is where I’m from. I had lunch with a pretty girl right on this rock.

“Nice,” he said, sitting next to Faith.

“The pool’s pretty deep,” she said, pointing as she took a sandwich out of her lunch box. “Maybe twenty, thirty feet. Jack says it’s bigger underwater. Like a bell. He used to jump off that rock there.”

“Did you?”

She glanced at him and took a bite of her sandwich. “No. Too scary for me. Honor never did, either. Said we’d already—well. No reason to risk your life just for the sake of it, you know?”

“Sure.”

They ate in silence, the dog coming up to beg for a scrap. Birds twittered, the waterfall roared. Beside him, Faith finished her sandwich and seemed content to just watch the water. The mist of the falls had coated her hair in tiny beads, making her look like a slightly  p**n ographic woodland fairy.

“Well,” Levi said, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at Faith for too long, all sorts of hot, red thoughts pulsating through him. “I’m going swimming. Which rock do I jump off?”

“Oh, Levi, don’t,” Faith said, jerking to attention. “My phone’s back in the truck. What if you hit your head or something? A tourist got a concussion a couple years ago. My brother broke his arm when he was fifteen. It’s not safe. Please don’t.”

It was kind of nice, her begging for his well-being. Then again, that pool was frickin’ gorgeous. He shrugged. “I’ll try not to break anything.” He stripped off his shirt, well aware that he was a pretty fine specimen. Pink crept into her cheeks, and she shifted her gaze straight ahead. “You coming, Holland?” It sounded like a proposition.

It was.

“Absolutely not,” she said, all prim and proper. “Don’t do it. I have to get back to work, anyway. So do you, right? And really, jumping is dangerous.”

“I’m going into the Army in two months, Faith. Jumping off that rock is probably less dangerous than an IED or suicide bomber.” He winked at her, went to the rock and looked down. The water was green and clear, churning where the falls poured in. “Geronimo,” he said, then pushed off.

He went in feet first, shooting down, the water swallowing him, cold and silky and utterly beautiful. Opening his eyes, he could see that Faith was right—the pool expanded underwater by about ten feet, the stone walls like a church. He’d always been a pretty good swimmer, was one of the first into the lake each spring. This, though...this was unbelievable, so smooth and deep and secret. He ran his hand over the stone, amazed and a little sorry that he’d never been here before.

The thought came to him that if he’d been Faith’s friend, he might’ve seen this place years ago.

Then he kicked to the surface, and looked up to see Faith’s worried face above him as she peered over the edge. “Come on in, Holland,” he called, treading water. “Live a little.”

“Live is the key word,” she said. The dog’s face appeared next to hers, looking much happier than she did.

“I’m still alive. Come on. I’ll catch you.”

“You won’t catch me. I’m not a little kid, and it’s a twenty foot drop.”

“I’ll be right here. Don’t be scared.”

Her expression changed. She wanted to, he could see that. “Rich girls,” he called up, swimming over to where a thin outcropping of rock stuck out into the pool, like a natural diving board. He grabbed onto it, aware that it would make his very healthy muscles bunch. “So boring.”

“I’m not rich,” she said.

“Well, you are boring if you just sit there and watch when you could be down here, having fun with me,” he said.

She hesitated. “I’m not wearing a bathing suit.”

“So?” Oh, yeah, he was making progress. Faith in a wet, white shirt, her red hair streaming down her back...even the cold water wasn’t keeping his body from appreciating that image. “Come on, Holland. Do it for me, a young soldier about to leave home to protect your freedom.” He grinned up at her, and after a second, her expression changed from worry to something else.

“Fine. But if I die, you have to tell my father in person, okay? And you have to take care of Smiley, because he’ll miss me. He sleeps on my bed.”

“I promise your dog can sleep with me if you die. Now get in here.”

She went to the edge of the rock, and even from his vantage point, he could see her bare toes clenching. Retied her shirt more firmly, hiked up her shorts. “Okay, Private Cooper. Here I come.”

Then she jumped, her hair sailing out behind her, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched. She cut into the water about ten feet from him, then popped up almost immediately, her hair in her face, spluttering and coughing.

Levi swam over to her, and she grabbed onto his shoulders instinctively, clutching him hard, her br**sts pushing against his bare chest. He put his arm around her waist and swam over to the outcropping, which she grabbed with one hand.

Her other arm stayed around his shoulders, and her legs kicked between his, treading water, her smooth thighs brushing his. She didn’t need to hang on to him, but she did. Her heart thudded against his, fast and hard, and he realized she was scared. From the jump, maybe. And maybe she was scared of him...maybe that, too.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

This would be it. A moment to take with him, the feeling of her sweet, wet softness, her cheek against his, treading the clear, pure water as the waterfall gushed and the leaves rustled and sighed.

Faith pulled back a little, her eyelashes starry with water. He could kiss her. He could just lean in an inch or two, and their mouths would be touching, and he’d bet she’d taste so sweet. His hand slid up her ribs, so close to her breast that she sucked in a shaky breath, and lust, hot and heavy, flowed through his blood.

He kissed her as gently as he knew how, not wanting her to push away, wanting only this, just one kiss. Her lips were soft and cool and wet from the water, and he couldn’t help himself, he licked her bottom lip, she tasted so good. When she opened her mouth, he wanted a lot more, suddenly starving for the taste of her, abruptly rock hard. He pulled her h*ps against him, letting her know, and her fingers dug into his shoulders, her tongue answering his, a soft little sound coming from her throat, and it was so, so good he couldn’t think, he could just drown here, more than happy to have this be his last day on earth.

Then she broke away, pushing away from him and scrambling up onto the rocks

“I—I—I can’t,” she said over the rush of the water.

It felt empty without her against him. Empty and cold.

“See, um, Jeremy and I, I mean, we’re... We’re not really... It’s a break. We’re not officially... So I can’t. I can’t kiss anyone else.”

“Whatever,” he said idly. Except he was furious, all of a sudden. Not just with her, either. With stupid Jeremy, who’d probably never kissed her that way before, who had no idea how. With himself, for kissing his best friend’s girl. But, yeah, mostly with her. If she didn’t want to kiss him, maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have been hanging on to him like a spider monkey. She’d wanted that kiss, and he’d given it to her, and now she was Polly Purebred again.

Ah, crap. He’d just kissed Jeremy’s girlfriend.

“We should get back,” she said, her voice tight and pinched. She turned her back to squeeze the water out of her shirt. She did the same to her hair. Her hands were shaking, he noted. She turned around, her shirt clinging to her. If she’d been braless, he might’ve had to kill himself. As it was, the cold water (and rejection) were doing wonders for his condition. “Levi, I hope you won’t be...”