Water under the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  Before she discovered she was pregnant with Sam and quit swimming for good.

  Behind her, Ella heard the pool doors open and she turned.

  ‘Hello, you,’ she greeted Jake. Gorgeous, handsome, wonderful Jake who’d helped make her life in Chalk Hill something that glowed.

  ‘Hello, you,’ he said, gifting her that sunrise smile, eyes like a pool at midnight and she was about to dive in.

  She stared at him while her stomach did a tumble turn all of its own. Lazy and languid. There was nothing tight and six-beat about that turn; it took its own sweet time.

  ‘Coming in?’ Ella said, before she turned back to the water.

  ‘I might watch you for a while.’

  She laughed. ‘Chicken.’

  ‘Go on. Get all that speed out of your system. Then I’ll race you. And I’ll catch you.’

  ‘You’re on,’ she said, and she gathered her muscles, filled her lungs with oxygen and dove.

  Water sliced around her.

  It didn’t shock like the day she dove in Jake’s dam. It was too warm for that, thanks to the bank of solar panels on the roof, but the easy streamlined slip of water was a surprise all its own, and as she stroked underwater, aiming up, and broke the surface into a way-too-fast crawl, Ella felt like every dolphin and every fish on every wildlife documentary she’d ever seen.

  So free.

  Twenty metres was the length of the town pool. Five lanes.

  Ella powered up and down until her arms ached, and no amount of Erik’s voice in her head that said, “Welcome the burn, build, build, build,” could fool her that this didn’t freaking hurt.

  She didn’t have to welcome the burn.

  This was swimming for the fun of it.

  God, how she’d missed it!

  Ella stopped when she reached the end, put her swimming goggles up on her head and shook water from her ears. Then her eyes searched for Jake.

  * * *

  Holy snapping duckshit. She was amazing.

  Ella’s stroke in the water drew Jake’s eyes like a magnet and he didn’t want to look away in case he missed anything, until she went up and down so many times she made him dizzy.

  Jake kicked off his tracksuit pants, and toed them towards his kit bag with the towel, stripping down to board shorts. He didn’t own goggles. Hadn’t ever given goggles a thought in the dam, but if he was going to start any town pool swimming, he’d better get a pair.

  Ella performed another perfect tumble at the end of the pool, and Jake noticed her shoulders turning dark pink, and he wondered if exertion might bruise her nipples a few shades darker than the pale pink he’d spent so many months imagining.

  Ella pulled up on the next lap, shook her hair out, breathing hard, put her goggles on top of her head and looked for him.

  ‘Are you all puffed out?’ he called to her, moving to the same lane as Ella but at the opposite end of the pool.

  ‘I’m shattered. That really hurt.’

  ‘Okay then. Now is when I catch you.’

  She splashed water at him. ‘Like to see you try.’

  ‘This isn’t my dam, Ella, and I’m a big lump of a guy. I’ll catch you.’

  ‘Go your hardest.’ She pulled the goggles back into place.

  Jake strode from where he’d been standing and began walking up the long length of the pool towards her.

  ‘That’s cheating,’ she said, slipping under the brightly coloured lane guide to her left, moving away.

  ‘I never said I’d catch you fair.’

  He heard her squeal a protest before he dove at her.

  Eyes open underwater, he saw her push off the wall, trying to cut above him before he could reach her, but he had the momentum, and he’d given her hardly any space to play with.

  Yeah sure, he’d cheated. He’d do it again too. He didn’t have a hope in hell of catching this little fish if he played in the water by her rules.

  Tiny bubbles streamed from beneath Ella’s body, and larger bubbles from her mouth, and there was a second where his eyes met hers just as he reached for her leg, and laughter bubbled there too.

  Even then, she kicked and he nearly missed her.

  A thousand attempts to corner sheep in a stockyard came into play as he finned himself hard to the right, anticipating her next move.

  Jake got her ankle.

  They both came up spluttering, and no way was he letting go.

  * * *

  Ella wrapped her arms around Jake’s neck and kissed him. He pulled her goggles off, threw them poolside and then picked her up in the water and wrapped her legs around his hips so there was no denying his arousal and how hot he was for her.

  Skin met skin under water. It really was a very itsy-bitsy pink and white bikini.

  ‘You are so damn beautiful, Ella Davenport,’ he said, between kisses that kept getting hotter.

  ‘Not so bad yourself, Jake.’

  He waded—Ella clinging to him like a koala bear—to the edge of the pool, then he pressed her into the wet tiles with his body and his big, capable hands went everywhere at once.

  He palmed her breast, kneaded, stroked, then he tugged the triangle of bikini fabric low and rolled her nipple with his thumb.

  His gaze feasted on her, devoured her, and then he tilted his head. ‘It’s not light enough. I can’t see.’

  ‘What? See what?’

  ‘If you knew how long I’ve wondered what colour your nipples are, Ella.’

  Oh.

  This time, the flush started from her toes. She flushed all over: legs, shoulders, tummy, face. She was pale pink and deep pink all over; puffed-out purple, aching, panting, swollen and wanting.

  Jake lowered his dark head and captured her nipple with his mouth, and Ella arched her back to push her breasts up and out because they both wanted their turn with that naughty, clever mouth.

  Then the water moved. A giant wave of water that spilled over the edge of the pool, staining the tiles, as Jake picked her up and settled her on her bottom, feet dangling in the water.

  ‘I am so not christening us on a damn pool deck,’ he said, heaving himself out of the water, standing and putting his hand out to take her with him.

  * * *

  If you could float on air and land, that’s what they did, Ella thought later when she tried to recall that drive from the pool.

  Shivering, because it was so bloody cold when the evening air hit them as Ella closed and locked the pool doors, and they ran with their kit bags banging against their legs to Jake’s car.

  Sitting on towels in the front seat, hair wet and dripping. Cold to the bone now, but hot where his hand gripped her thigh and rubbed higher.

  ‘What about Abel?’ Ella asked as Jake screamed the Landcruiser out the bowling club gates.

  ‘Don’t worry about him.’

  Tyres met bitumen.

  Jake’s fingers delved beneath the bikini. Ella already knew what he’d find. She was achingly slick and wet from way more than water.

  He swore under his breath as his fingers traced her folds, slipped and slid, and Jake kept driving, eyes always on the road.

  The vehicle shuddered to a stop. Jake was out of the driver’s door before Ella could get her eyes open. Then she realised where they were, and got the giggles.

  Jake flung the passenger door wide, then thrust his hand past her to dig in the glove box.

  ‘Still got Nanna’s old key,’ he said, finding the brass key with a flourish.

  ‘You’re kidding me?’ Ella said, giggling again, laughing so her shoulders shook. ‘What will Abe say? Isn’t this place his new flash restaurant now?’

  ‘He won’t find out. We won’t leave any wet spots. Come on.’

  If there was one thing she would never have thought she’d see herself do when she listed Jake’s nanna’s house for sale at the start of the year, it would be to make love to her grandson inside it.

  This was definitely not something Bob Begg would do.

  ‘Ella,
come on, honey. Stop laughing so much,’ Jake said.

  ‘What about Helen Nillson?’ Ella whispered. ‘She’s renting her house back till they find one for her in Perth. She’ll see us!’

  The light was on next door. So far, she hadn’t seen a curtain quiver.

  ‘Tell her to grab her binoculars. Let’s give Helen the most fun she’s had in years,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  Ella grabbed his hand, held tight and they ran together. She glanced back as Jake fumbled with the lock, and in the glow of the streetlight she could definitely see wet spots on the path. Two sets of footprints.

  That made her giggle again.

  Jake got the door open.

  ‘We kept the old bathroom intact. Hot water’s on. I’ll find you a dry towel.’

  She followed him, but he didn’t flick on lights.

  ‘I can’t taste you when all I can taste is chlorine, Ella. And I have to taste you,’ Jake said, his voice thick as home-grown honey, husky with intent.

  Ella stopped laughing.

  There wasn’t a lot of room in Jake’s nanna’s shower but the water pressure was good, and they made do. Ella knew those facts like she knew her own name. She knew every inch of this house, or at least the old parts that had always been there and still remained.

  Jake dried her so tenderly, running the towel down her legs, down her arms, buffing every last drop from her shoulders, tummy and back. Then he used the same towel on himself before he pulled her close and kissed her crazy.

  ‘Now you taste like my Ella.’

  He did all this with an erection no towel could hide and that he made no attempt to cover anyway. Why cover something that was always meant for her?

  The newer parts of the Honeychurch house—the front rooms built beneath the extended verandah, filled with overstuffed couches and a myriad of chairs—were foreign to her and she didn’t want Jake to put on any lights, but she didn’t want to bang her shins into anything either.

  ‘Abe spent a fortune getting mood lighting for this place. I can turn ’em down real low.’

  ‘No way,’ she squeaked, thinking of Helen and her curtains.

  ‘Stay there then,’ Jake said, sitting her on one of the couches as he crept away through the house.

  Ella felt the building creak and groan with Jake’s movements. Drawers opened, cupboard doors closed and there was more swearing.

  ‘Dammit, Abe, what didja do with those candles?’

  Ella wasn’t cold anymore. She felt ripe and loved, and the knowledge warmed her all the way through, even to the damp tips of her hair.

  She heard and felt Jake’s return as he moved through the house. She saw his shadow before she saw him. The bright light of a lit tea candle in a glass came into the room first, sending very interesting shadows over Jake’s body.

  ‘So resourceful, Jake Honeychurch,’ she teased.

  His midnight eyes shone with a new light. ‘I am when I want something.’

  He put the candle on the floor, then knelt by the couch, his skin golden in the candlelight.

  ‘I love you, Ella. I don’t say it as much as I should but I want you to know it. You and Sam together. You mean the world to me.’

  ‘You don’t need to say it, Jake, I feel it every day.’ She put her hand on her heart.

  ‘Then let me show you.’

  He joined her on the couch, skin and hair damp under her fingers as she ran her hands over him.

  ‘Showing me sounds mighty fine.’

  Ella let him push her back.

  The room smelled of packing materials and dry-cleaned couches, leather, candlewax, timber polish and paint, and then Ella smelled only Jake as he joined her on the couch.

  That would be her memory of the Honeychurch house from now, and for always.

  CHAPTER

  38

  The whole town came out on Saturday for the opening of the new Chalk Hill Pool.

  Irene Loveday and the planning committee had gone all out. They’d organised the town band to play music, the P&C to man a cake stall fundraising for the school, some farmer’s son had been commandeered to walk up and down the driveway road leading kids on pony rides, and the kids not lining up to ride the pony romped instead on a bouncy castle set up under the trees.

  For Sam, four weeks into the plaster cast and with the novelty of it well and truly worn off, nothing about the day was a whole lot of fun. Except when Ollie slipped as he tried to clamber up on the pony and fell on his butt; Sam enjoyed that a lot.

  Ella stood with Erik, big mountain-like Erik, greeting people inside the doors of the pool.

  They kept the doors open so the glass windows wouldn’t get steamy, but the warmth coming off the water kept the humidity high.

  Until the pool was officially open, the kids had all been told they weren’t allowed to jump in. Irene had put up ‘lane closed’ signs, and Sally Huxtable and Loraine McCormack prowled the pool deck, reminding any brazen ten-year-olds (we’re looking at you, Ollie Kinworth and Sam Brecker) they weren’t allowed to jump in till the ribbon got cut.

  Ella shook hands until her hands hurt and smiled till her mouth ached. Everyone wanted a piece of her and Erik.

  She’d seen Jake briefly, before he’d had to go sort out something to do with the sponsor signage involving a ladder and rope. Irene would have done it herself, she said, except for her dodgy knee.

  Ella waved at Helen Nillson, entering with Mick and his wife and family. The kids had towels around their necks and rash vests, all ready to leap in.

  ‘No swimming,’ Irene announced, moving surprisingly fast for a woman two weeks off a knee replacement. ‘Not until after the speeches.’

  ‘Speeches? Mhmmm,’ said Erik. He’d never liked speeches.

  ‘Is he here yet?’ Ella heard Helen ask Irene. Loraine and Sally joined the huddle, and Irene glanced nervously about, eyes darting, before whispering something to Helen that Ella didn’t catch.

  What mischief were the old biddies up to now?

  ‘We’ll start moving everyone out soon, Ella,’ Sally called to her. ‘Shire President Calder wants to do the main presentation outside, where everyone can see the sponsorship signage.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ella said, glad to get out of the too-warm air and too-big crowd in a too-small space.

  Jake found her outside soon after. He passed a takeaway coffee to Erik and pressed a freezing cold Coke can into Ella’s hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking a sip and feeling it hit. Terrible for you, this stuff, but so good as a pick-me-up after a big night. And last night had been huge. It must have been midnight before Jake dropped her at the pool to pick up her car and both of them had driven home.

  How she’d hated watching Jake’s taillights disappear without her.

  ‘It’s a good crowd,’ Jake said, looking about.

  At that moment, there was a stir through the Chalk Hill townsfolk that had Ella wondering if another kid might have fallen off the pony. Perhaps Shire President Calder had gone for a cheeky bounce on the bouncy castle or something equally death-defying. She wouldn’t put it past Irene to have organised sky-divers to land on the bowling green.

  Ella had studiously stayed right out of the event organising for today. Heaven forbid she get in the way of Irene, Loraine, Sally and Helen. Those ladies were a force.

  Instead, she and Erik had concentrated on lending their voices to the fundraising efforts, petitions, council motions and round after round of grant applications. Together, they’d devised swimming lesson plans and routines, and Ella had completed her refresher for the AustSwim course.

  Erik puffed himself to his full height, always an impressive sight, peering over and above the crowd to see what the fuss was about.

  ‘Ella, where is Sam?’ Erik said, slowly, evenly, but with an edge that made Ella’s nerves scream.

  ‘He was with Ollie. Why?’

  Jake must have felt the tension too. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘This is not good,’ Erik said.


  Ella touched Erik’s arm. ‘What, Erik? What’s going on? You’re scaring me.’

  Then Irene’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. ‘Testing, testing. Can you hear me up the back?’

  The crowd chorused, ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Who’s seen Ella and Erik? Are they here?’ Irene said.

  Erik leaned his face low to speak urgently to Ella and Jake. ‘Marshall. He is here with his cameras and vans.’

  ‘Marshall’s here?’ Ella said, stunned.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to start today’s official proceedings, if you could all gather around.’

  People shuffled forward. Ella, Erik and Jake got carried along in the crush.

  ‘Thank you. Ella Davenport and Erik Brecker? Can you please come forward?’

  Friendly voices called ‘they’re back here,’ and eager hands jostled them forward. The crowd parted, opening a clear line of sight to Irene, who stood on the stone steps leading up to the pool’s entrance.

  That’s when Ella saw Marshall Wentworth, in the flesh, for the first time in more than ten years, and her heart started bashing as fast as the pony’s trotting hooves.

  ‘Here she comes. Would you all please put your hands together for a lady who has done more to get this pool filled with water than anyone else in Chalk Hill: Ella Davenport of Begg & Robertson Real Estate; and one of the most recognised swimming coaches anywhere in Australia, Erik Brecker!’

  Applause rose, then swelled like a Mexican wave.

  Irene’s voice again, not quite so certain of itself. ‘Oh, and you’re coming too, Jake? Okay, and Jake Honeychurch, one of our many generous sponsors, looks like he’s coming too.’

  Ella’s hand fluttered behind her body, searching for Jake, and his fingers closed around hers and lent strength to her wobbly legs.

  She couldn’t blame a pair of heels today, but she could blame Marshall Wentworth.

  Jake didn’t come up to the stage, but he stood with arms crossed, just metres away, and she was so very glad to have him there.

  Woodenly, Ella turned to face the crowd.

  She’d forgotten how tall Marshall was. He was almost as tall as Erik.

  He’d be thirty now, she thought, trying to work out the maths in her head. He’d kept in shape, even if he wasn’t ripped like when he’d been one of the fastest swimmers in the world.