Page 36 of Luck Be a Genie

His wife, I assumed, with her curly grey hair and soft, stocky frame, looked at him. “What do you mean? This is the spot the kids said they cliff-jumped from.”

Her husband gave her that same fond look that Nick had given me a little while ago. “Mae, we’re old, hon. What were we thinking?”

She put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. “Well, you may be old, but I’m not!”

“Okay, if you really want to jump, I’ll jump with you,” he said, and I thought it was rather brave of him, because the drop was not insignificant.

They both toed closer to the edge, looking down.

After a moment, his wife said, “Carl?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I think we’re too old for this.” She looked over at him. “I don’t want you to get hurt following me on some fool idea.”

Aww. My heart.

“Are you sure,” he asked. “We can try?”

She shook her head, and hugged her husband around his middle. “No, but let’s go down to the bottom of the cliff and watch the kids jump in.”

I looked around me. There wasn’t anyone else here that I could see. The four of us were alone.

Nick, having eavesdropped on their conversation as well, stepped forward. “Can I help you both down there?”

Mae lit up and threaded her arm through Nick’s. “We’d love that, wouldn’t we, Carl?”

“Thank you, young man,” Carl said, and I snorted. That young man was probably older than he was. Immortals really didn’t talk about age, because it didn’t matter all that much, but I knew for a fact that Nick was older than me.

By a lot.

Nick winked at me then started helping them down. Pretty soon, I lost sight of them, and just stood at the edge of the cliff, gazing in awe at the waterfalls. They weren’t thunderous, like some waterfalls I’d seen, but they were large.

“Well, what do we have here?” someone behind me said, making me spin in place.

Three guys stood there, but they all had a variation of yellow or golden eyes, so I knew they were supernaturals. Most likely shifters, though I had too much human blood in my veins to be able to tell what kind.

“Hello, beautiful,” the tallest one said, moving closer to me. He was large too, and I didn’t like my chances of trying to fight him off, not to mention the two guys behind him.

“We were just looking for someone to play with,” he said with a smirk, reaching for a strand of my hair.

I knocked his hand away. “Leave me alone. I’m not interested.”

His hand gripped my hair and yanked me to him, pulling me close to his snarling face. “I’m not interested in whether you’re interested,” he said with a growl.

I yanked my head back, but he wouldn’t let go of my hair. I was just about to yell for Nick when he said, “You know what? I’ve changed my mind.”

And then he pushed me off the cliff.

I shrieked as I dropped like a rock.

Right before I landed I heard Nick screaming my name.

Unprepared for the jump, I hit hard, driving the air from my lungs as my body sank to the bottom of the plunge pool. My lungs started burning immediately, but I tried to ignore the desperate urge to gasp, and instead readied myself to push off the bottom once I hit, and swim like crazy for the surface.

But somehow, once I hit the floor of the plunge pool, my shirt and one of my shoes got caught in the snarling debris and rocks at the bottom. I heard another splash, but I ignored it. Trying hard not to panic, I tried to yank my shoe off, but my foot was pinned beneath the rocks, and it wouldn’t budge. Crying, frantic now and desperate for air, I tried to yank my foot free again when a large hand moved mine out of the way and did it for me. Nick wasn’t able to budge the shoe, but he got my foot free. My shirt was a total loss. He had to rip it down the middle so it would release me.

The second I was free, Nick grabbed my arm and pushed powerfully off the floor of the plunge pool, rocketing us toward the surface. When we broke free, I gasped, choking and crying as Nick pulled me into his arms and gently held me.