Dear John Read Online Free PDF

hand must have hit the bag, because it slid, then tumbled over the edge. The splash sounded like a fish jumping.
    “What was that?” he asked, turning around.
    “My bag!” the brunette gasped. “You knocked it off.”
    “Sorry about that,” he said, not sounding particularly sorry.
    “My purse was in there!”
    He frowned. “I said I’m sorry.”
    “You’ve got to get it before it sinks!”
    The frat brothers seemed frozen, and I knew neither of them had any intention of jumping in to get it. For one thing, they’d probably never find it, and then they’d have to swim all the way back to shore, something that wasn’t recommended when one had been drinking, as they obviously had been. I think the brunette read pink shirt’s expression as well, because I saw her put both hands on the upper rail and one foot on the bottom.
    “Don’t be dumb. It’s gone,” pink shirt declared, putting his hand on hers to stop her. “It’s too dangerous to jump. There might be sharks down there. It’s just a purse. I’ll buy you a new one.”
    “I need that purse! It’s got all my money in there!”
    It wasn’t any of my business, I knew. But all I could think as I leapt to my feet and rushed toward the edge of the pier was, Oh, what the hell. . . .

Two
    I suppose I should explain why I jumped into the waves to retrieve her bag. It wasn’t that I thought she would view me as some sort of hero, or because I wanted to impress her, or even because I cared in the slightest how much money she’d lost. It had to do with the genuineness of her smile and the warmth of her laugh. Even as I was plunging into the water, I knew how ridiculous my reaction was, but by then it was too late. I hit the water, went under, and popped to the surface. Four faces stared down at me from the railing. Pink shirt was definitely annoyed.
    “Where is it?” I shouted up at them.
    “Right over there!” the brunette shouted. “I think I can still see it. It’s going down. . . .”
    It took a minute to locate it in the deepening twilight, and the surge of the ocean was doing its best to drive me into the pier. I swam to the side, then held the bag above the water as best I could, despite the fact that it was already soaking. The waves made the swim back to shore less difficult than I’d feared, and every now and then I’d look up and see the four people following along with me.
    I finally felt bottom and trudged out of the surf. I shook the water from my hair, started up the sand, and met them halfway up the beach. I held out the bag.
    “Here you go.”
    “Thank you,” the brunette said, and when her eyes met mine, I felt something click, like a key turning in a lock. Believe me, I’m no romantic, and while I’ve heard all about love at first sight, I’ve never believed in it, and I still don’t. But even so, there was something there, something recognizably real, and I couldn’t look away.
    Up close, she was more beautiful than I’d first realized, but it had less to do with the way she looked than the way she
was
. It wasn’t just her slightly gap-toothed smile, it was the casual way she swiped at a loose strand of hair, the easy way she held herself.
    “You didn’t have to do that,” she said with something like wonder in her voice. “I would have gotten it.”
    “I know.” I nodded. “I saw you getting ready to jump.”
    She tilted her head to the side. “But you felt an uncontrollable need to help a lady in distress?”
    “Something like that.”
    She evaluated my answer for a moment, then turned her attention to the bag. She began removing items—her wallet, sunglasses, visor, a tube of sunscreen—and handed them all to the blonde before wringing out the bag.
    “Your pictures got wet,” said the blonde, flicking through the wallet.
    The brunette ignored her, continuing to wring one way and then the next. When she was finally satisfied, she took back the items and reloaded her bag.
    “Thank you again,” she said.