anyone else.”
“Right. Brogan said your mom died when you were in high school. I’m sorry about that.” She turns her head and watches as it goes by, but soon I pull onto a gravel road at the back of the property and it’s out of sight.
When I reach the lake, I bring the car to a stop near the bank, and she gasps. The lake is irregularly shaped and has fingers that stretch along a lot of the property, but this alcove surrounded by trees is by far my favorite. Water cascades from the creek down the stone-lined wall on the far side, making a little waterfall.
Clouds dim the moon and stars tonight, and my headlights offer the only illumination of the waterfall and alcove.
“I know this place,” she whispers. “Bailey and I came here when we were kids.” She throws her hand over her mouth and grimaces. “We . . . snuck in. This is yours?”
“My dad’s, I guess. It’s quiet back here. I like to come here to think.”
“And swim, right?” She grins. “Bail and I swam here. God, what I’d give to go back to those days. Life was so much simpler.”
“You have no idea how hard I’m kicking myself for not spending more time down here when I was in high school.”
She bites her bottom lip and, ice cream forgotten, opens her door and climbs out of the car, rendering me temporarily helpless.
I’m frozen in place. Because Mia is walking toward the lake in the path of my headlights and pulling her shirt off over her head. Her bra is dark. Lace. Fuck. She tosses the shirt onto the ground then toes out of her shoes and drops her shorts before running to the end of the dock.
When she stretches her arms over her head and dives into the dark lake in nothing but her bra and panties, I snap out of my stupor and jump out of the car. “Mia!”
She bobs to the surface and shivers. “It’s cold.”
“No shit? It’s October. Get out here before you get hypothermia or worse.”
She laughs. “It’s been an Indian summer. It’s not that cold.”
“Come on, Mia.”
She answers by diving down again, and the light from my headlights isn’t strong enough to allow me to see under the surface of the water. I wouldn’t be comfortable with her swimming alone in the best of conditions, but in the dark, buzzed and maybe drunk, it worries the shit out of me.
“Fuck,” I mutter. I pull off my shirt and shoes, drop my jeans, and dive in behind her, and fuck is it cold. My nuts immediately retreat, trying to draw up into my stomach, I swear.
Mia laughs. “You’re so tough on the field, plowing through all those big guys, but put you in a little cold water and you look like you’re being tortured.”
“You’re crazy. The tequila you chugged in my room is the only explanation for why swimming in this could seem even remotely like a good idea.”
“You didn’t have to get in,” she says through her laughter.
Her swimming in the dark makes me nervous as hell and the water is cold enough it makes my teeth chatter, but it’s worth it. She’s laughing. Smiling. Her dark hair is wet and slicked back, and the smooth skin of her arms peeks in and out of the water as she wades. God, she’s tempting, and tonight is threatening to use up the last of my restraint.
She needs a friend. Yep, I anticipate reminding myself of that ninety times in the next five minutes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like . . .” The smile falls from her face and she swallows hard.
Like I want to kiss you? Like I’m in love with you? “Like I want you to get your ass out of this lake before you make yourself sick?”
“No,” she says. “That’s not how you were looking at me.”
I hold my breath, waiting for her to say more, but she spins in the water and starts swimming toward the waterfall and out of the beam of my headlights.
“You’re fucking kidding me!”
“Loosen up, Arrow. It’s not that bad.”
I follow her through the water, and once I let myself relax a little, I realize she’s right. The water still holds on to the late summer heat, and now that my body’s adjusted, it feels good to swim with the cool night air above us.
I can’t see as well over here, but I can make out