chapter Seventeen
The Cove was beautiful in the early morning light. Ivy stood at the railing above the Pacific and watched the waves roll in, capped in frothy white, and undulating calmly. She loved the water and was good at looking for danger. There were no riptides, though. No deep depressions between waves that indicated an undertow. She listened to Jake’s voice behind her, as he helped their guides unload the kayaks. There were sixteen takers in their group, many of them couples, like she and Jake. There was also a mother and her young daughter, and two women. Some were riding tandem, others solo. She and Jake were riding together.
The wind lifted, cool and damp, with very little of the sun breaking through the cloud cover yet. She was glad she’d chosen to wear her neoprene shorts over her one-piece. They would keep her warm and protect her bottom from abrasion against the unyielding seat of the kayak.
Jake, on the other hand, looked spectacular in a pair of black board shorts and a t-shirt that defined the muscles of his shoulders and chest. She turned, leaning against the railing, and watched him. He was taller than the other men, the breadth of his chest and shoulders broader. It could be the way he held himself, confident and disciplined. Or it could be the way the rest of the male species just paled in comparison to him. Jake exuded strength. He stood head and shoulders
above the other men.
She had fallen in love with him. No doubt about it. And it made her feel like she was breathing helium. They had known each other exactly one week and it didn’t seem possible, but it had happened and she refused to worry about the future, not when the present offered the happiness she had always craved.
Jake looked after her like no one else ever had. He was protective and considerate, encouraging and generous. He laughed with her and didn’t flinch away from the hard stuff. Not even the intimacy issue. On the boat last night, his climax had been controlled, but he’d revealed more of himself. He had been vulnerable. He had been moved. He had needed her, but hadn’t been consumed with the need to find his release in her. Ivy acknowledged the lilting disappointment as it settled in her heart but felt bolstered by the thought that with time, Jake would come to trust himself. And her.
He unloaded the last kayak and turned towards her. She smiled and waggled her eyebrows at him, making no attempt to cover her perusal of his body or that she was enjoying every moment of it. There was enough distance between them that his husky laughter just barely reached her, but the joy on his face was a beautiful thing. He was relaxed, in an easy mood, as if he had put the whole issue of control—or lack of it—behind him. And maybe she should too. If they left it alone, maybe he would come to trust himself, and her, naturally. Ivy understood that Jake’s need to protect was as natural and necessary to him as breathing, and so she did her best not to push him. She decided slow was the way to go on that.
They’d left the dinner cruise the night before sated from their tryst in the restroom, but by the time they’d returned to Ivy’s apartment they were back on simmer. It was a slow-burning heat and they had spent several hours lying naked in each other’s arms, indulging in soft touches and kisses that skimmed across their skin and built into more demanding needs. When they did come together again it was a tender coupling, and more about their emotional connection than an act to relieve a physical ache.
And Jake had watched her the whole time as though he was mesmerized by her.
He hadn’t spoken about his feelings, but Ivy felt that he had made a clear statement through touch. He was emotionally invested in her, if not actually in love with her. And she hoped that would come in time.
He walked toward her now, the smile deepening on his face. “Like what you see, huh?”
“Definitely.”
He took her hand in his and dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “Back at you.”
He tugged on her hand and she fell into step beside him.
“The blue boat is ours.” He navigated among the kayaks until they arrived at theirs, and then snagged a life jacket and helped her into it. “I’ll take the back, if you don’t mind.” He picked up another life jacket and slipped into it.
She wasn’t so sure about that. The tour took three hours, which meant he’d have a front row seat watching her and she would be lucky to get a few glimpses of him when she twisted in her seat to talk. Ivy loved to watch Jake at work. There was a graceful fluidity to his muscles, a vibrant strength that took her breath away.
“Why don’t we switch half way through? I can pull my own weight.”
“But not mine. I weigh seventy, eighty pounds more than you do.” He reached toward her and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “The guy in back takes the brunt of the load.”
“Are you sure you aren’t doing it for the show?”
He smiled and it was decidedly wolfish. “That’s just an added benefit. But really, you’d have a hard time steering my weight.”
She pursed her lips, considering the situation. “You could end up having an equally hard time, Jake.” She shifted on her feet, allowing her knee to push gently against his and her thigh to slide smoothly between his. “Just saying.”
His bark of laughter was full of delight.
“That’s just about a constant state of being for me, honey.”
She loved when he used endearments. She felt herself melt a little. “Fine. Take the back. But you had that position last night, if you remember, and in all fairness, I’m going to need equal time.”
He lowered his head, and his voice, and said thickly, “Oh, I remember, sweetheart. That moment is one I’m never likely to forget.”
“Is that a favorite position, Jake?”
His eyes grew dark, mysterious. “One of them.”
“We’ll need to explore the others.”
“We have the time,” he agreed.
And she liked hearing that. He wasn’t tallying the cost of a relationship that demanded the kind of intimacy Ivy needed. He may be treading softly, but that was okay. Ivy was not the most patient of women, but Jake was worth the wait. And he was teaching her that slow was as equally pleasurable as instant gratification, maybe even more so.
“I hope one of them will put me in the driver’s seat.”
“Another favorite of mine,” he promised.
They were interrupted by one of the guides, who began to give instructions about pushing off and boarding without tipping over. Ivy paid attention with half an ear, having kayaked many times before. She turned so that she was facing the gently lapping water of the Cove, and relaxed into Jake’s arm, which was wrapped lightly around her waist. She noticed the other kayakers in various stages of readiness, listening while they shrugged into life jackets or tried the grip of their oars. One of the guides tested the fit of the life jacket on the little girl, who must have been seven or eight years old. The other guide gave a final warning about respecting the wildlife they encountered while out on the water.
The shores along San Diego were teaming with life, from the urchins and starfish in the tidal pools to the playful sea lions and dolphins further off the coast. Just last week, the guide said, they’d come upon a pod of bottle nose that had surfed the waves and put on a spectacular show. He reminded them that tiger sharks, of which they would see plenty, were not aggressive.
Jake gave a final tug to Ivy’s life jacket, making sure the fit was perfect, and then pushed their kayak to the water’s edge. He held it as it bobbed in the surf and looked up at her. “You want to hop in?”
She took the forward perch, picked up her oar and laid it across her knees. She thought about a program she’d watched on Travel TV. Kayaking was popular in Hawaii. So were paddle boarding and snorkeling. She’d like to try all of those with Jake, while basking in the sultry sun of the islands.
She felt the boat lurch as Jake pushed it into deeper water and then climbed aboard. Others were doing the same, with one guide in front to lead and the other at the rear to round up any stragglers. Jake’s powerful strokes had them easily cutting through the softly rolling waves. Ivy matched her efforts to his pacing but paused at the crest of each wave to enjoy that thrilling, teeter-tottering feel of being on the ocean in small craft. As they left the Cove behind, the strength of the water grew. The wind picked up, too, and they were quickly coated in salty spray. It was exhilarating. Ivy was definitely a water baby.
They cut diagonally through the water, heading for a cropping of rock that flowed out from the cliffs that towered overhead. The sun pressed through the clouds and Ivy glanced at the water, where it sparkled emerald and then danced with shadows.
“Hey!” she called back to Jake. “Are those the tiger sharks?”
She pointed with her oar as a dark figure passed beneath the surface close to their boat and glanced back at him.
He smiled and hummed a little of the “Jaws” soundtrack. He looked sexy as hell, with the wind pushing through his short blond hair and laughter in his vibrant blue-green eyes. His biceps were lean and cut and she remembered how it felt to be held by him, protected but also desirable.
She flicked some water at him with the paddle and turned back into the wind.
Jake didn’t hide his emotions, even when he became distant, and Ivy appreciated that. She didn’t know how a relationship lasted without that kind of openness. It helped that they were both problem-solvers, too. She had finally found her match. They complemented each other in so many ways, drew out each other’s strengths, lifted each other through their weaknesses—although Jake didn’t seem to have any, except maybe his need for control. And she was beginning to think that there was room for compromise there.
Genny had told her that the key to her twenty-one years of marital bliss was focusing on what she loved about her husband—makes even the big things less significant. . .
Well, Jake had many qualities worth dwelling on. So what if it was a rare moment when she was able to push him beyond control in bed. That was no reflection on her desirability. But she still felt a hitch in her breath at the thought. Yeah, it stung a little.
“You quitting for the day?” he prodded from behind her and Ivy realized that she was staring out to sea, her paddle resting across her knees.
“Enjoying myself,” she called back to him. The wind had lifted, though, and snatched her words and ran with them. It was strong enough that when they approached the maze of caves beneath the cliffs, the wind became a howling through the fissures and crevices. “Spooky,” she said and turned to see if he’d heard.
But Jake’s face was turned away from her. He was peering up, to where the rock formations joined the cliffs. There was someone up there. A boy, maybe. He looked small, but it could be the fifty or sixty yards between them. Ivy noticed a belt wrapped around his waist and a pulley of ropes. And a drop almost half the size of a football field.
“There’s no rock climbing here,” she said. She’d read a sign stating as much up at street level.
“This land is more clay than rock,” Jake said.
“A lot of sand in the mix, too.” The forward guide had doubled back and was staring up at the climber, too. “I’m calling this in. The kid is going to kill himself.”
Just then the kid slipped, or the ropes sawed—she wasn’t sure which—and he plummeted about twenty feet before catching himself. The wind shifted and spun him around like a toy top. He tried to gain purchase with his feet but when he made contact with the cliff, the earth crumbled and fell in a shower toward the sea.
Ivy felt her stomach lurch. “He’s going to fall.”
“Are there pools over there?” Jake asked the guide. He didn’t say it, but Ivy heard it—or just rock.
“There are pools,” the guide confirmed. “But he’d have to be awfully lucky.”
The guide called in the situation and their location, while she and Jake and several of the other kayakers watched the drama overhead. Jake borrowed the guide’s binoculars and got a close up, some of which he reported back to them.
“Kid is probably fourteen or fifteen years old. Minimal climbing equipment. Tear in the sling rope. It’s threading where it’s cinched at the clip.” He handed the binoculars back to the guide and said, “He’s coming down and there’s not enough lead for him to make a soft landing.”
Jake turned to Ivy then. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, then glanced back up at the
climber who was dangling at the mercy of the wind. The kid, realizing he was out of his element, started calling for help. “I can’t leave him there though. Not alone.”
“Go,” Ivy insisted. “I can take care of myself.”
He shrugged out of his life vest and t-shirt and slid into the water. “I know you can.”
She placed her hands over his where he gripped the fiberglass side of the boat. “Be safe yourself,” she said.
He smiled but Ivy got only a glimpse of it, because then he was cutting through the water, head up and watching the rock formations. He treaded water in a couple of places, looking up at the boy, at the craggy rock. He found a place to pull himself up and a moment later he disappeared behind the cone-shaped rocks.
“He a cop or something?” the guide asked.
“Better,” Ivy said. “He’s a Marine.”
Her boat was bumped from behind and Ivy turned to see the mom with her young daughter. “I hope he can do something,” the woman said.
“If there’s something to be done, he’ll do it,” Ivy assured her.
She returned her attention to the teen, who was looking down now—at Jake? Ivy could hear his voice, muffled by the wind and distance, but clearly Jake was giving some kind of instruction and the boy was listening. He stopped the tight spin on the rope, using his feet to bounce off the side of the cliff so that he began moving in a wide arc. But that was as far as he got.
The rope snapped and the boy fell to earth with a long bellow that was all terror. The fine hairs on Ivy’s neck shivered. She gasped and felt her eyes tear. She heard the mom speaking to her daughter, comforting words. She heard the murmuring of other kayakers. And she waited. Where was Jake? The minutes lengthened and the tension inside her threatened to choke her. The guide saw nothing with his binoculars. And then Jake appeared, first just his head and shoulders as he negotiated the rocky crags. Then it became clear that he was carrying the boy, who appeared unconscious.
“Are there any doctors with us?” Ivy asked, looking at the faces in the group. No one spoke. And then,
“I’m a nurse. ER, so I’ve seen and fixed plenty.”
Ivy picked up her paddle and scooted to the middle of the kayak where she knelt and began to pull her way toward the man.
“I’m a respiratory therapist,” she told him. “I’ll be able to help you some. Get on.”
Later, on shore and listening to Jake give his account to the police officers who’d shown up at the scene, she realized the lengths to which her man had gone to save the teen. He didn’t have much time, but had managed to cut through the boy’s fear and get him to swing on the rope and release at a point where he’d likely hit water.
“He was coming down,” Jake said. “It was when, not if. Soon, not later.”
And the boy did hit water, what Jake described as a deep but small pool no bigger than a city bus. Jake didn’t wait for the teen to surface. The fall had been from a height of forty to fifty feet. With speed and mass to consider, he’d figured the kid had hurt something breaking through the surface and Jake had gone in after him. He’d pulled him out and rolled him to clear his lungs.
Ivy had worked with the male nurse to stabilize the kid on one of the kayaks, and then she had slipped into the water, letting Jake take her place. The men rowed the boy to shore and Ivy had followed a short time later, taking the nurse’s spot on his kayak.
Jake had spotted her before she made land, and had waded into the Cove to meet her, pulling the kayak ashore. He hadn’t released her hand since.