Page 963 of One More Kiss

Jennifer got to the top of the board and then used her shammy to dry herself off. She stepped to the end and took a deep breath.

“What’s she doing?” Kiley frowned as she squinted up at the other woman. “Larry, what’s she doing?”

Jennifer turned around so her back faced the pool. Only the balls of her feet kept her from falling in.

“She’s not even… for real? A reverse gainer takeoff? That pushes her dive difficulty score right to the top. Doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but she won’t have the momentum to do more than one or two somersaults.” Larry patted Kiley’s shoulder. “Relax.”

Jennifer leaped off the diving board, her body twisting about like poetry in motion. She did several twists and a somersault before cutting into the water with nary a splash.

“No fucking way.”

Her score wasn’t a perfect ten, but it was high nines.

“I’m doing it my way,” Kiley muttered.

“What? No, Kiley, don’t. Just play it safe. You’ve been diving all day and you’re exhausted. Now is not the time to pull out a Hail Mary.”

She turned on him and growled. “I can do this, Larry.”

“No, you can’t. Just play it safe.” He took her by the arms. “Promise me you’re going to play it safe this time, Kiley. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“You’ve always got a bad feeling.”

“That is not true and you know it”

Kiley heaved a long sigh. “Oh, all right. I’ll play it safe.”

“Scout’s honor?”

“Scout’s honor.” She kept one hand behind her back, so she could cross her fingers.

Kiley entered the warmup pool and then ascended the ladder for her final dive of the competition. This was it, her last chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Diving came naturally to her, being a swan shifter.

She reached the top of the diving platform and a scent hit her nostrils, carrying above the chlorine and sweat. She only caught the barest whiff of it but enough to distract her to near madness.

“What in the hell is that?” she murmured. She stared down at the crowd below and then at the water. Finally, she sniffed her shammy. Nothing seemed to give her a repeat performance of that delectable smell.

“Fuck it.” She dropped the shammy and stepped to the end of the board for her boring, basic, dive… then she grinned down at Larry and backed up.

Larry shook his head, mouthing the word, “No.”

She ignored him and set herself up. Kiley took a deep breath and then ran for the end of the board. When she hit the end, she twisted into a reverse gainer, spending most of her momentum on upward motion.

She had to get high enough to pull off the extra somersault before hitting the water if she wanted a hope of defeating Jennifer. Only she realized something was wrong. The spinning whirl of blue water and white walls had another component—a green diving board.

Shit. I didn’t clear the boar—

A sharp, stunning crack, and her vision dimmed at the edges. It seemed to her that she held still, and the diving board retreated away from her into the distance. She barely felt anything as she hit the water, and didn’t muster any worry for sinking toward the bottom.

The thing that clung to her mind right as the darkness claimed her was the origin of that mysterious, captivating scent.

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