On the other side, I found myself standing near the edge of a cliff with a small waterfall that led down into a body of water at least twenty feet below us. It was beautiful, with the sun overhead glinting off the surface of the water and green trees all around.
I glanced back at the way we came, and the bushes were so tall and thick that I couldn’t even see the path. We would have walked right by this spot and never even known. When I turned to look at Briggs, I found that he was sitting on the grass, pulling off his shoes. He emptied his pockets too, placing his cell phone and wallet on the grass.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m gonna go for a swim. The man that told me about this place said that it’s a favorite spot for the local teenagers. They jump off the cliff and into the water.”
“Jump off the cliff?” I repeated, my voice faint. I took a step closer to the edge and looked down. My heart nearly plummeted. “You’re crazy.”
Briggs laughed, the sound deep and low. “And what’s so bad about that? We could all use a little crazy in our lives sometimes.”
“I don’t know about that…”
Standing up, Briggs pulled his shirt off. I openly stared, my mouth going dry. This was the second time I’d seen him shirtless, and it was a hell of a view. Sinewy muscle under golden skin with a tattoo of a tiger on his shoulder and a fine dusting of dark hair on his chest that trailed from his belly button down until it disappeared beneath the waistband of his shorts.
My core clenched, but that desire wasn’t enough to distract me from my fear of him jumping off the cliff. Was the water even deep enough for this? What if he got hurt at the bottom?
“Come on, we’re on a tropical island.” He spread his arms out wide to indicate our surroundings, even as he stepped closer to the edge of the cliff. “Be adventurous. Do it with me.”
I shook my head wildly. “No way.”
“You’re missing out,” he said with a wink.
Without another word, Briggs turned away and leapt off the cliff edge. My breath caught in my throat as I watched him falling through the air, his arm still held out and his legs straight. He seemed to go in slow motion as he let out an excited whoop of laughter while heading straight for water.
Then, he broke the surface of the pond, plunging into its depths so fast that I couldn’t see him for a long moment. He didn’t come back up right away, and I felt a moment of panic. But then he popped up and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. He looked up at me with a huge, happy smile.
“That was amazing!” he called up to me while treading water. “Come on down, you’ve got to try it!”
“You’re out of your mind!”
He just laughed and swam to the perimeter of the pond. Peering over the edge of the cliff, I saw that there was a steep hill alongside the waterfall that he was using to climb right back up to where I was waiting. It only took him a couple of minutes, and his hair was still dripping water when he reached me.
“Miss me?” he asked as he came to stand beside me.
I just smiled and shook my head. “Are you planning to do that again?
“Sure. It was a blast. Come with me this time.”
I looked down again, considering it. Briggs had made the jump, and he was fine. Still, the distance was daunting.
“It’s not that scary, I promise,” he said, coaxing me. “Don’t you want to have some fun?”
Ididwant to do something adventurous and fun. I just had to learn to let go of my fear. Looking into Briggs’s eyes, I realized that I trusted him. We hadn’t known each other long, but that didn’t change the way I felt. He’d taken the leap himself once, so why couldn’t I do it? There wasn’t really anything to fear. We were just going for a swim.
Swallowing hard, I steeled my nerves. Pulling off my shoes, I put them on the ground beside his, tucking my socks inside and leaving my cell phone with his. I returned to Briggs’s side, reaching out and boldly taking his hand.
“Is the water cold?” I asked, giving him a small smile.
“Not at all. You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned to face forward. The two of us held each other’s hands as we took two big steps and leapt from the cliff. As we flew through the air and plummeted to the water below, I couldn’t help thinking that this could be the beginning of many adventures with this man.
I just had to find out if he was interested in taking the “fake” out of our arrangement first.
CHAPTER10