Moonlight in the Morning Read Free Page B

and swam with her to the top. She was only vaguely conscious as he carried her to the rocks, and put her down. He bent, as though to start mouth-to-mouth, but Jecca began to cough up water.
    Reede sat back on his heels. “What the hell were you trying to do?” he half yelled at her. “You could have died in there if I hadn’t been here to save you.”
    “I wouldn’t have been in there”—she paused to cough—“if I hadn’t gone in to save you .”
    “Me? I didn’t need rescuing, you did.”
    “I didn’t know that, did I?” Jecca said as she sat up—and saw that Reede was naked. She was determined to be sophisticated, a woman of the world, and not mention his nudity. She kept her eyes on his. “I thought you were attempting to . . . to . . . end your problems.” She was having trouble keeping her mind on words.
    Reede seemed unaware of his lack of clothing. “You thought I was trying to commit suicide?” He looked astonished as he stood up and walked a few feet away.
    Jecca knew she should turn her head, but she couldn’t help peeking. The backside of him was truly beautiful: a back sculpted down to a small waist, beautiful buttocks, and strong legs. He didn’t get a body like that by spending all his time studying.
    She hadn’t noticed but there was a pile of clothes stacked on a rock. “Maybe I have been a little down lately,” he said as he stuck a leg in his pants.
    A little oulittle down? Jecca thought. He could have walked under the belly of a cockroach. She said nothing because she saw that he wore no underwear. But then he shouldn’t cover all that beauty up.
    “Actually, I think I’ve handled it all rather well,” Reede said. “A truly horrible thing was done to me.”
    “Treacherous,” Jecca said.
    “Yeah,” Reede agreed.
    “Diabolical.”
    “True.” He put his other leg in the jeans but didn’t zip them, just left them hanging open.
    I guess it would be too much to run and get my camera, Jecca thought. “Dastardly.”
    “All of it,” he said as he slipped on old, beat-up sneakers, then pulled a T-shirt over his head and covered up those pecs and those abs.
    “A real travesty,” Jecca said, but she didn’t mean him and his ex-girlfriend. She leaned back on her arms and watched him fasten his jeans. The show was better than any movie she’d ever seen.
    He returned to hand her a towel and squat down in front of her. “Are you okay? Physically, I mean.”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “Mind if I look at you?”
    Jecca leaned back against the rock. “I’m all yours,” she said, then added, “Doc.”
    He ran his hands over her head, feeling for bumps. “Laura has a right to do whatever she wants. Follow my finger.”
    She looked from side to side.
    “If she wants someone else, she has free will. Any pain anywhere?”
    She started to ask if a body that was tingling all over with desire counted, but didn’t. “Nothing I haven’t felt before.”
    “Good,” he said. “You look okay to me.”
    “Thanks,” she said without enthusiasm. “So you didn’t try to kill yourself?”
    “Hell no! I’ve been jumping off that cliff since I was a kid—but don’t tell Mom that or she’ll start a petition to get the place closed down, or dynamited.” He paused. “So what are you doing up here?”
    “Painting,” she said.
    He looked around, but saw nothing. Jecca got up, went into the bushes, returned with her watercolors, and spread them out on a rock.
    “These are good,” he said. “I’m no art critic, but . . .” He shrugged.
    “You know what you like?”
    “Yeah.” He gave a little grin at the cliché, then sat down and leaned back against the rock.
    Jecca left her paintings in the sun to dry and sat beside him, but with three feet between them. “Are you better now?”
    “Yev> m">Rs,” he said. “The whole thing with Laura was a shock as much as anything. Maybe you’re too young to say this to, but—”
    “I’m nineteen.”
    “Old enough to hear, I guess.