When She Falls

by Jessie Clever

  “Oh, Rebecca,” Lydia said, casting her voice in an innocent tone. “Are you going to join us?”

  Rebecca’s eyes drifted lazily away from the group, resting briefly on Lydia’s face before widening alarmingly as she took in Lydia’s arm wrapped through Eric’s.

  “Joining you?” Her back straightened like a threatened cat.

  Lydia smiled, knowing the most basic lesson of being a woman had worked even on this seemingly disinterested creature. Lydia tightened her grip on Eric’s arm.

  “Croquet,” Lydia said, keeping her tone innocent with just a hint of flirty. “Eric and I are going up against my husband. Isn’t that right, Eric?”

  Lydia shifted to look at the young man on her arm, who raised his arms in an absent gesture, his eyebrows popping behind his glasses, his eyes dark pools of confusion. Lydia smiled brightly enough to overcome his less than positive response and turned back to Rebecca.

  Rebecca had stepped towards them, her shoulders thrown back, her neck elongated.

  “I will join you,” she said, and Lydia knew Cam was right.

  She did always get what she wanted.

  “The ball should go through the metal arch,” Lydia said for what must have been the hundredth time as Cam leaned on his mallet, crossing one foot over the opposite ankle, pouring his amusement over the situation into his smirk.

  Rebecca Hatfield stood a few feet from him, her fisted hand on one hip, mallet flinging wildly behind her while she stomped a foot at the close proximity of Lydia and her fiancé. Cam had to give it to her. Lydia had struck the one nerve no woman ever outgrew: jealousy. Rebecca Hatfield was suddenly paying attention to her fiancé. She suddenly appeared to notice his very existence. It was a step, and for that, Cam beamed at his wife. The smirk was because, although her ploy had worked, Lydia also managed to get herself strapped with the biggest buffoon Cam had ever had the displeasure of encountering.

  The spectacle the pair put on was better than the game.

  “I think there should be a limit on how much a fellow player can help another,” Stacy said from across the field. “Otherwise, we’ll be here all afternoon and miss the cook out tonight.”

  Cam looked over at the young woman. “Cookout?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Tabitha lit up at the mention of the night’s festivities.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Big one down by the bonfire pit. Slabs of meat, my friend,” she said, rubbing her stomach and maniacally licking her lips. “You’d better get to the luau first, or it’ll be all gone.”

  Cam laughed, but he didn’t miss the scoffing noise that came from his left, a sure sound of disdain from the frustrated Rebecca.

  “I’ll take that as a warning then,” Cam returned to Tabitha, ignoring Rebecca. “Now, let’s keep playing, shall we?” he asked in the general direction of Lydia and Eric.

  Eric looked up, his face a mask of confusion, and pushed up his thick glasses. “Yeah, right, let’s keep going.”

  Lydia stepped back, way back, as Eric wound up for his swing. They’d been playing for little more than twenty minutes, and in that time, Eric had managed to launch both his ball and Lydia’s ball clean off the course. He neither understood that the ball was to go through the metal hoops in a certain direction nor that his was the black ball and Lydia’s was the blue. Cam cast a weary glance at Stacy and Tabitha who were still waiting for their turn on the course, Cam and Rebecca against Lydia and Eric having been the first couples selected to square off. Cam feared Stacy’s pronouncement of tardiness to the luau had a great probability of happening.

  Lydia took a healthy step back from her partner, coming so close to the perimeter of the water feature, but Cam knew the danger from the water feature was far less than that of Eric swinging a mallet about. Eric released the mallet, connecting cleanly with Lydia’s blue ball. Cam turned his head so Lydia wouldn’t see his smile.

  “Oh, come on,” Tabitha shouted from the side of the field as Stacy caught his clandestine smirk, returning it with one of her own.

  Eric pushed up his glasses, looking between Tabitha and the blue ball that had landed well outside the field of play.

  “That was a great swing, eh?” Eric said.

  “That’s not the point, bozo,” Tabitha said. “Maybe you need to sit this one out, dude.”

  Eric squinted behind his glasses. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Look how far I shot it.”

  He swung his mallet into the air to indicate the flight path of the blue ball.

  Lydia approached, a smile plastered on her face, and Cam waited to hear what she’d say.

  “Eric, dear,” she started. “Remember what we said about the metal hoops.”

  Eric leaned back, his hands going up in the air in frustration so quickly, Lydia ducked to avoid getting hit with his wayward mallet.

  “Ugh, I forgot again,” Eric said. “I keep thinking this is like golf, and you need to really whack the balls out there.”

  Rebecca’s foot continued to tap at the ground, her impatience traveling through her like a current to be expelled into the sod. But Lydia smiled on.

  “I know, it’s so terribly similar, isn’t it?” she said brightly, keeping her eyes as wide as her smile, no hint of her true emotions slipping through.

  Cam could only imagine what her true emotions were in that moment, and he took great pleasure in magnifying them with each ill-aimed swing of Eric’s mallet.

  “Now as soon as we get that misconception squared away, we’ll work on whose ball is whom’s,” Lydia continued sweetly, and Cam shook his head.

  “I think he should watch the first game,” Rebecca said, and everyone turned to look at her.

  It was the first thing she had said for the entirety of the game, and more, it was the first time she had validated Eric’s existence. She hadn’t said his name, but Cam was fairly impressed she had directed speech at him at all.

  “He could learn by watching us play,” she finished.

  Perhaps it was not so good that she referred to him in the third person as he was standing right there. She needn’t talk about him as if he weren’t. But then again, she was talking about him.

  “No, I’ve got this now.” Eric’s boxy smile pushed the sides of his face into lumpy wrinkles.

  “Really, Eric,” Rebecca said. “I think you should watch some of us do it first.”

  Cam raised his eyebrows at this now. An entire sentence directed at the man she was supposed to marry. There was even color in the girl’s face. What would her eyes reveal about her current heightened state? If only he could see them behind the large lenses of her sunglasses.

  Eric waved off the statement with a casual flick of his hand.

  “Nah, I’ve got this, Rebecca,” he said. “It’s not golf. I got it.” He paused. “Now I hit the black ball, right?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned back to the ball sitting in the grass before him. Rebecca shook her head in a swirl of her long, straight brown hair, tossing it back in rippling agitation.

  That was when Cam watched it all unfold, standing just too far away to be of any help before catastrophe struck.

  Eric wound up for another legendary swing just as Rebecca stepped forward, presumably to stop him from proceeding. But by stepping forward, she put herself directly in the path of Eric’s back swing and the lurching arch of the wooden mallet. Cam thought he might have yelled for her to watch out but then Lydia moved, launching herself between the swinging mallet and Rebecca, and Cam felt something entirely different surge through him.

  Fear.

  Anxiety.

  Disappointment in himself for not having the ability to fly through the air and stop the inevitable as the swinging mallet connected with Lydia’s shoulder, sending her into Rebecca, the momentum so great that the pair of them fell backwards, landing with a terrific splash in the water feature.

  Cam didn’t wait to see if Lydia was all right or if she’d stand up in the little pond where the waterfall ended in a pool o
f koi. He had seen how hard the mallet had hit her, heard the thwack of it as it connected with her shoulder.

  He dove in, sending fish scattering in all directions, the cries from the other guests of the party ricocheting in his ears as he trudged through the nearly hip deep water, his khakis and shirt pulling him back as his legs pumped to move him forward, his shoed feet slipping on the algae covered rocks at the bottom of the pond.

  He had nearly reached the place where she disappeared beneath the surface when her head popped up, water cascading as she shook her long, brown ponytail, water spraying him in the face. He didn’t pause at the assault. If anything it fueled the fire within him, pushing him forward until his hand grasped her arm, pulling her out of the water and to him.

  Her hair hung in a damp curtain across her face, most of it loosened from the ponytail. He shoved it roughly away, needing to see her face.

  “I’ve got you, lass,” he said, the cries of the other guests dimming suddenly as if someone had turned down the volume with a remote control when his eyes met hers, and he knew, he knew she was all right.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ that hurt,” Lydia muttered between clenched teeth, and that was when Cam knew she was going to be all right still.

  She gazed up at him, shivering in the cold water, her brown eyes so warm despite the coolness that dripped down her face, and then the barest of smiles tugged at her lips, and he wanted nothing more than to crush her to him, but he feared hurting her.

  “This isn’t going well, is it?” she whispered, keeping her gaze on him.

  He smiled then, too, leaning his head forward down to hers, the sweep of relief leaving him weak.

  “I’m afraid it’s not,” he said.

  “At least I have you,” she whispered, as if it were only an imagining, something his brain conjured between the sounds of the water still cascading down the rocks, the shouts of the onlookers giving aid from the banks of the pond.

  “Hold on to me.” He slipped one arm around her waist. “I want to see if your shoulder is broken or maybe dislocated.”

  He didn’t want to lose that moment, standing there in the water, his body pressed to hers, her faith resting in his hands, but he needed to make sure she was really all right.

  “I think it’s just going to be bruised.” Lydia leaned back so he could get a look at her shoulder.

  But then she screamed, a great big bloody wallop of scream. Then to make it worse, she jumped. She jumped directly into his arms.

  “Fish!” she yelled. “Fucking fish are swimming up my dress!”

  Luckily he had his wits about him to catch her, but the sudden weight against his chest had him slipping backwards. He struggled to gain purchase on the slippery rocks, but it was not enough. They fell, plunging back into the pool, going under long enough to sputter water as they emerged.

  As soon as he could pull air into his lungs, he laughed, the sound so full he couldn’t have stopped it from emerging. Lydia leaned against him, shoving her dripping hair from her face, one hand pressed against the front of her dress as if to hold back a string of curses. He saw the look of fury on her face, waited for the string of curses she would likely lay on him.

  But the most incredible thing happened.

  She laughed, too.

  A huge, wonderful sound that wiped out the sound of the waterfall, the sound of the party goers chattering behind them, the sound of Rebecca yelling at Eric for being a clumsy idiot, the sound of everything. It was just them, standing in a koi pond, laughing.

  Soon even the laughter faded, and they stood there, his hands on her upper arms holding her up, her hand against his chest. He looked at her, his wife, and never had she looked more beautiful.

  “If only we all could have a marriage like that.”

  The sound of Evelyn Hatfield’s voice broke the quiet moment, and Cam looked up, noticing the crowd that had gathered about them. Then he noticed Rebecca, watching them, a look of uncertainty on her face. Uncertainty and something else.

  Perhaps it was longing.

  “I could always be a kept woman, I suppose,” Lydia said from her perch on the balcony of their room, a pack of ice wedged carefully between her shoulder and the metal of the patio chair.

  Cam handed her a glass of wine, the fading light of the setting sun sparking off the glass. “Aye, but who would keep you?”

  She had to agree with him on that. Taking a long sip of the crisp wine, she surveyed the scene below them, grimacing only a little now as she recalled the impact of Eric’s mallet against her shoulder.

  “I suppose it could have been worse,” she finally said.

  “How’s that?” Cam asked, taking the chair beside her.

  “Eric could have hit Rebecca with the mallet.”

  Cam laughed, the sound soft in the stillness of falling dusk. The courtyard below them was quiet now. The guests having packed it in after the croquet mallet incident, likely now getting ready for the evening bonfire and luau. Lydia could only imagine what the other guests were dreaming up as an encore to Lydia’s performance in the water feature. She honestly didn’t think she could do better than that.

  “I think it may have gone better than you think.” Cam took a sip from his own drink.

  Lydia looked over at him. “What do you mean?”

  He gestured toward the water feature with his glass. “I have a feeling Rebecca felt a little differently after my daring water rescue of my damsel in distress.”

  “I am not a damsel nor was I in distress,” Lydia said, although the words came too quickly to carry any grit.

  Cam wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Of course, not,” he said. “But I still think Rebecca may have enjoyed the spectacle more than you would think seeing as how she ended up in the water.”

  Lydia looked at him, her interest prickling. “Why’s that?”

  Cam leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “She gave me the oddest look when we were standing there in the water, laughing.”

  His words were soft, and Lydia yearned to know how he felt about their afternoon debacle. As the ice penetrated her sore muscles, she realized she hadn’t even asked him if he was all right. The koi pond was not exactly an ideal location to be falling into nor saving anyone from, and Lydia suddenly worried if Cam was physically hurt in anyway. By the sound of his voice, she thought not, but then, she couldn’t identify what it was that tinged his tone.

  “What kind of look?” Lydia asked, deciding it was the safest of the many questions spilling through her mind.

  “It was almost as if Rebecca wished someone would save her, too,” Cam said.

  Lydia frowned. “I don’t think Eric would be the type to save her.”

  Cam looked at her quickly. “You’d be surprised what the quiet ones are capable of.”

  Lydia couldn’t help but let her gaze drift over her husband. His hair still damp from his plunge into the koi pond, a worn T-shirt straining across his broad shoulders, the muscles of his thighs delineated against the soft, faded jeans he wore. Even his bare feet looked tempting as he sat there, all mussed and unforgiving for it.

  “Yeah,” Lydia said, but she didn’t know what she was agreeing to or with. “But how does that get her down the aisle?”

  Cam smiled, slowly and invitingly. “It makes her want it more,” he said, and Lydia gave him a quizzical look. “It makes her want someone who will jump into a koi pond for her.”

  Lydia shook her head and set her glass of wine on the small table between them. “That guy isn’t Eric Flickinger,” she said and started when Cam’s hand wrapped around her wrist.

  She looked up, her skin flaming under his touch, her heart racing as memories from the night they had made love cascaded through her with the suddenness of a summer storm.

  “Never assume what kind of person someone is until they’ve shown you the truth of it,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

  They sat there, his hand on her wrist, frozen as time passed all a
round them. Distantly, Lydia heard the rush of the water in the koi pond below them, the intermittent sound of footsteps and murmuring voices as guests strolled along the courtyard veranda. It didn’t matter though, any of it, as Lydia stared into Cam’s warm, brown eyes, the rapid pace of her heart fluttering in her chest, her skin prickling where he touched her.

  None of it mattered because there was nothing she wanted right then than to be in Cam’s arms again. To feel his body pressed against hers, to have his hands explore her body, rouse in her a sense of urgency that had long lain dormant. She wanted it all. Right then.

  “Killer moves in the koi pond, Mr. McCray.”

  The voice shattered the moment, and Lydia snatched her hand away as if she had been caught with it in the cookie jar. She looked at Cam once more, knowing full well she intended to steal Cam’s cookies later, but her attention swung to the right where the voice had originated.

  Tabitha stood on the balcony next to their room, leaning around a lattice of traveling vines that had likely been built to give the semblance of privacy on the balconies of this floor. Her spiked blonde hair glinted in the fading light, her eyebrows wiggling her appreciation of Cam’s killer moves, apparently.

  Lydia forced a smile but noticed how it didn’t require much work when it came to Tabitha Hatfield. At least one of the Hatfields didn’t drive her nuts.

  “I learned all my moves on the rugby field.” Cam added a perfectly timed masculine grunt to his statement.

  Tabitha laughed, the sound so full of life, Lydia, not for the first, or hundredth time wondered how this young woman was Rebecca’s sister.

  “Maybe I’ll challenge you to a round of rugby next time,” Tabitha said.

  Cam laughed now. “As long as it’s not near any koi ponds,” he returned, and Tabitha laughed again.

  “Hey, you guys going down to the pub before the cookout?” Tabitha asked. “Stacy and I are gonna grab some mojitos or whatever other froufrou drink the Moms has on tap for this weekend shindig. Will we catch ya there?”

  Lydia smiled, not feeling the need to fake it all this time. “Of course,” she said. “Sounds great.”