James Patterson: Lifeguard

“DON’T MOVE,” I said to Tess, sweaty and out of breath. “Don’t even blink. If you so much as breathe, I know I’m gonna wake up, and I’ll be back lugging chaise longues at poolside, staring at this gorgeous girl that I know something incredible could happen with. This will all have been a dream.”

Tess McAuliffe smiled, and in those deep blue eyes I saw what I found so irresistible about her. It wasn’t just that she was the proverbial ten and a half. She was more than beautiful. She was lean and athletic with thick auburn hair plaited into a long French braid, and a laugh that made you want to laugh, too. We liked the same movies, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Casablanca . We pretty much laughed at the same jokes. Since I’d met her I’d been unable to think about anything else.

Sympathy appeared in Tess’s eyes. “Sorry about the fantasy, Ned, but we’ll have to take that chance. You’re crushing my arm.”

She pushed me, and I rolled onto my back. The sleek cotton sheets in her fancy hotel suite were tousled and wet. My jeans, her leopard-print sarong, and a black bikini bottom were somewhere on the floor. Only half an hour earlier, we had been sitting across from each other at Palm Beach ’s tony Café Boulud, picking at DB burgers – $30 apiece – ground sirloin stuffed with foie gras and truffles.

At some point her leg brushed against mine. We just made it to the bed.

“Aahhh,” Tess sighed, rolling up onto her elbow, “that feels better.” Three gold Cartier bracelets jangled loosely on her wrist. “And look who’s still here.”

I took a breath. I patted the sheets around me. I slapped at my chest and legs, as if to make sure. “Yeah,” I said, grinning.

The afternoon sun slanted across the Bogart Suite at the Brazilian Court hotel, a place I could barely have afforded a drink at, forget about the two lavishly appointed rooms overlooking the courtyard that Tess had rented for the past two months.

“I hope you know, Ned, this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often,” Tess said, a little embarrassed, her chin resting on my chest.

“What sort of thing is that?” I stared into those blue eyes of hers.

“Oh, whatever could I mean? Agreeing to meet someone I’d seen just twice on the beach, for lunch. Coming here with him in the middle of the day.”

“Oh, that…” I shrugged. “Seems to happen to me at least once a week.”

“It does, huh? ” ” She dug her chin sharply into my ribs.

We kissed, and I felt something between us begin to rise again. The sweat was warm on Tess’s breasts, and delicious, and my palm traveled up her long, smooth legs and over her bottom. Something magical was happening here. I couldn’t stop touching Tess. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel this way.

Split aces , they call it, back where I’m from. South of Boston, Brockton actually. Taking a doubleheader from the Yankees. Finding a forgotten hundred-dollar bill in an old pair of jeans. Hitting the lottery.

The perfect score.

“You’re smiling.” Tess looked at me, propped up on an elbow. “Want to let me in on it?”

“It’s nothing. Just being here with you. You know what they say: for a while now, the only luck I’ve had has been bad luck.”

Tess rocked her hips ever so slightly, and as if we had done this countless times, I found myself smoothly inside her again. I just stared into those baby blues for a second, in this posh suite, in the middle of the day, with this incredible woman who only a few days before hadn’t been conceivable in my life.

“Well, congratulations, Ned Kelly.” Tess put a finger to my lips. “I think your luck’s beginning to change.”

I HAD MET TESS four days before, on a beautiful white sand beach along Palm Beach ’s North Ocean Boulevard.

“Ned Kelly” is how I always introduced myself. Like the outlaw . Sounds good at a bar, with a rowdy bunch crowded around. Except no one but a couple of beer-drinking Aussies and a few Brits really knew whom I was talking about.

That Tuesday I was sitting on the beach wall after cleaning up the cabana and pool at the estate house where I worked. I was the part-time pool guy, part-time errand runner for Mr. Sol Roth – Sollie, to his friends. He had one of those sprawling, Florida-style homes you can see from the beach north of the Breakers and maybe wonder, Whoa, who owns that ?

I cleaned the pool, polished up his collection of vintage cars from Ragtops, picked up mysteries specially selected for him by his buddies Cheryl and Julie at the Classic Bookshop, even sometimes played a few games of gin with him around the pool at the end of the day. He rented me a room in the carriage house above the garage. Sollie and I met at Ta-boó, where I waited tables on weekend nights. At the time I was also a part-time lifeguard at Midtown Beach. Sollie, as he joked, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Once upon a time, I went to college. Tried “real life.” Even taught school for a while back up North, until that fell apart. It would probably shock my pals here that I was once halfway to a master’s. In social education at BU. “A master’s in what ?” they’d probably go. “Beach management?”

So I was sitting on the beach wall that beautiful day. I shot a wave to Miriam, who lived in the large Mediterranean next door, who was walking her Yorkies, Nicholas and Alexandra, on the beach. A couple of kids were surfing about a hundred yards offshore. I was thinking I’d do a run-swim-run. Jog about a mile up the beach, swim back, then run hard up and back. All the while watching the ocean.

Then like some dream – there she was.

In a great blue bikini, ankle-deep in surf. Her long reddish brown hair knotted up in a twist with a flutter of tendrils.

Right away, it was as if there was something sad about her, though. She was staring vacantly at the horizon. I thought she was dabbing her eyes.

I had this flash: the beach, the waves, the pretty, lovelorn girl – like she was going to do something crazy!

On my beach.

So I jogged down to her in the surf. “Hey…”

I shielded my eyes and squinted into that gorgeous face. “If you’re thinking what I think you are, I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Thinking what?” She looked up at me, surprised.

“I don’t know. I see a beautiful girl on a beach, dabbing her eyes, staring forlornly out to sea. Wasn’t there some kind of movie like that?”

She smiled. That’s when I could see for sure she’d been crying. “You mean, where the girl on a hot afternoon goes in for an afternoon swim?”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug, suddenly a little embarrassed, “that’s the one.”

She had a thin gold chain around her neck, and a perfect tan. An accent, maybe English. God, she was a knockout.

“Guess I was just being cautious. Didn’t want any accidents on my beach.”

“ Your beach?” she said, glancing up at Sollie’s. “Your house, too, I guess?” She smiled, clearly toying with me.

“Sure. You see the window above the garage? Here, you can see it.” I shifted her. “Through the palms. If you lean this way…”

Like an answer to my prayers, I got her to laugh.

“Ned Kelly.” I stuck out my hand.

“Ned Kelly? Like the outlaw?”