Freezing water enveloped her. Instinct had her thrashing about as they were swept out to deeper water. Her foot caught on the bank and her flailing arm smacked something hard. Fingers tried to grab her.
It was so dark.
Water swirled in her ears.
This was a bad idea.
The fingers pinched, grasping at the huge sweater she wore. She gasped, swallowing a mouthful of water.
Her foot hit bottom and she pushed off, scrambling for purchase. But besides the frantic intake of breath, there was nothing to hold onto.
Her head dipped back under the surface and she kicked with her legs, trying again to breach the top of the water. Her lungs burned. Head swam. Arms thrashed.
She’d lied to him.
The dream she’d had. When she’d woken to find him with her, she’d told him she didn’t remember, but that wasn’t true. Not entirely. Was it? She’d been in a boat. A girl in the water, in front of her. Maya. Come back, Maya.
She’d screamed until her throat was raw.
And now, simply because she’d believed being in another boat might jog yet more memories or tell her who that girl was, she was drowning. Not Maya this time, but her in the water. Flailing because she couldn’t swim.
Maya.
Come back.
“Stop!”
She tried to scream, but only got another mouthful of water. A heavy wall slammed into her and an arm snaked around her waist. She tried to fight the arm, until the weight dragged her under. He kicked off the bottom and sent them back to the surface.
“You’re going to drown both of us. Calm down.”
His voice was one hundred percent authority. She couldn’t do anything but obey. Never mind what kind of independent female she might be on a good day, this was a fight for her life. If she could swim, she might have objected to his stern order. But everything in her told her she had no idea what she was doing. Besides, she had a feeling that if she possessed the skill, it would’ve kicked in already.
Ice-cold air brushed her cheeks. Then the warmth of his breath. “That’s it. Calm down. You don’t know how to swim.”
She grabbed his shoulders.
“That’s good. Hold on.”
Her breaths came as gasps, each holding onto a whimper.
“Everything’s fine.”
“F-freezing.”
“I know. Work with me and let’s get out of here.”
She nodded, a jerky move that brushed her nose against his chin. It was so cold.
“Later you can tell me who Maya is.”
She flinched, a reflex she couldn’t control.
“Okay,” he crooned. “It’s okay.”
“Jeff.”
“I’m right here. Let’s go.” He started to swim using just his legs. It was slow going, but he headed in the dark toward his boat. She realized they’d drifted almost to the center of the lake on this narrow end. The boat was no longer on the bank, moored in the reeds. It had drifted about halfway to where they were. “Here we go.”
“I’m sorry.” She could do nothing except hang on for dear life.
“No, it’s me that’s sorry. I should have warned you.” He was exerting himself, doing all the work. Still, he took the time to reassure her. “I knew that a gun might go off. I was hoping that the sound of it might jog a memory loose.”
“So did I.” She whispered the words. “From my dream.”
Neither of them had planned to land in the water, though. She knew that.
Tears rolled down her face, leaving tracks on her cheek like icy fingers. They’d both tried to get her memory back, in different ways. Too bad it was at the same time; a confluence of events that drenched them both and meant she’d nearly drowned him.
“You’re going to have to grab for the boat.”
Right. His arm.
“I can’t hold you and steady it at the same time.”
“Okay.” Her voice shook. Still, she didn’t want to let go of him.
“I’ve got you. Just trust me.”
“I do.” Even though it seemed crazy. He’d told her he would kill her, as though it was a normal reaction to someone having his address on a paper in their pocket. Aside from that, he’d taken care of her. Fed her. Clothed her. Given her a place to rest and heal. And now was helping her through a panic attack. “I do trust you.”
“All you have to do is reach out and grab the boat.”
“I can’t feel the bottom.”
“It’s under us. But I’ve got you. I won’t let you go under again, okay?”
She wanted to say thank you. The words stuck in her throat.
What if she’d come here meaning him harm, the way he’d assumed? She could be a terrible person sent here to expose his quiet, noble life. There was no way to know when she had zero clue as to who she was or what she did for a living. Did she have a truth to tell, or was she a liar? She could be anyone.
All she had was one terrible memory of a little girl flailing in a great expanse of water—maybe an ocean. Drowning. Maya. Grief tore through her. She couldn’t remember who that girl had been to her, but she inherently knew the loss of life was because neither of them could swim.
A million questions were born then, but she had no answers.
“Go ahead.”
She reached for the side of the boat with one hand, then the other. The whole thing tipped toward her and water sloshed into the bottom.
She gasped.
He held her. “See that rope?”
It was tied to the side, a few inches from her hand.
“Under the water, beneath it, is a loop. Put your foot in it and use it to stand, then pull yourself over the side.”
She didn’t see how that would prevent even more water from getting into the bottom, but it was his boat so he must know what he was doing. “Under the water?”
“Just follow the rope down and pull it up to your foot so you can step in. I won’t let go.”
She wasn’t so sure.
“It’s how I get back in the boat with only one hand. Don’t worry, I do it all the time, and I’m right here to help you. Nothing’s going to happen.”
Foreboding fell over her like a mist. She wasn’t so sure he should say stuff like that. Seemed like it might invite powers she didn’t want into her life to mess with her. The place she raced to for solace, for refuge, would feel like that prayer he’d said. God, guarding her. Instinct understood it better than her mind did. She didn’t remember anything about how to get that peace she’d felt, but it rolled through her anyway. Unspoken.
As though somehow God said the words for her, speaking things she had no words for.
Jeff held her while her fingers traced the rope and she found the loop. She put her foot in it. Straightening her leg had her upper body lifting out of the water. She grabbed the side of the boat. It tipped again.
“Just fold over inside, and I’ll get the rope off your foot.”
That meant he would let go of her. She gritted her teeth, ready for the sensation of being bereft without help. His arm slid away from her waist, and he started to move, treading water so he could run his fingers from her knee down to her foot and slip off the coil of rope.
A shot rang out.
“Roll in.”
She curled her body over the side and into the boat.
“Stay down.”
Another shot. This one pinged off the side of the metal boat.
She whimpered, her soaked clothing freezing. Jeff was still in the water. “What are you going to do?”
“Just keep your head down.”
“You said it was a guy training his dog.”
“Shh. Your voice carries.” He was right. At night, when the world was quiet, voices carried. The surface of the water made things worse, and the shooter didn’t seem to feel the need to waste another bullet with a miss. Still, Jeff continued, “I thought so. But this was someone aiming for you.”
“Not the hunter?”
“He’s a local. People around here don’t do that.”
The insinuation being that this person wasn’t from town. She might not be from Last Chance, either. You don’t belong. And why did that concept strike a chord in her that rang deep inside? She felt it resonate to her core. That sense of being excluded.
He tugged on the boat, and it rocked in the water. She grasped around but found nothing. One finger jabbed into a seat, and she hissed. There wasn’t enough space to stretch out, and she couldn’t see anything in the dark.
Overhead, stars lit up the sky. It would have been beautiful to look at if she hadn’t been scared to lift her head even an inch and have it blown off.
The boat started to move.
She realized he was swimming, pulling it along with one hand. “Jeff.”
“In a minute.” The words were low and breathy, but she heard them.
There was nothing she could do except lay there, watching the stars and feeling the boat move under her. The waves hit the side of the small vessel, and the cold temperature sank into her skin.
She shivered.
Maya. The girl from her dream appeared in her mind, her face so stark with fear it made her breath catch. Maya, hang on. Don’t go. Her lips formed the words, a different language than the English in her mind.
Bits of her dream came back to her and she could see herself grasp the side of the boat and nearly fall out. Heavy hands grabbed her dress and pulled her back in before she fell overboard, just like her sister. Maya, my sister. She disappeared under the surface.
Seconds that felt like an eternity passed. A man yelled, and a woman wailed loud cries that echoed in the night. The little girl surfaced, coughing and sputtering out sea water.
“Toni, help me!”
The boat jerked to a stop. His face appeared over the side. “You can get out. But stay low. We’re going to make a run for it, just in case…hey.” He touched her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Can you sit up?”
She didn’t want to move. But he was standing in the water. Not swimming.
“We need to go.”
Why was he being so nice to her? Was it just because she’d watched her sister drown in the ocean, unable to do anything about it?
He helped her move to the side. She didn’t have much choice. His grasp of her arm was adamant. “Come on.”
She dropped into the water, but it was shallow enough it only came to her hips. He put his arm around her, and they waded up the bank to the sand on the shore. She only stumbled once, and he held on tight so that she didn’t fall.
“Are you okay?”
She hardly knew what to say. “I think my name is Toni.”
He started, turning to her like a rubber band snapping under tension. “Toni?”
She nodded. “Do you know me?”
“You remember your name?”
“I don’t know. That’s what she called me.” Her sister, Maya. When she was drowning. “I think it might be my name.”
“Does it feel familiar?”
“I think so.” Toni. She tested it in her mind and spoke it aloud.
“We have to move, but keep trying to remember,” he said. “I’ll get us out of here.”
Yet more reason to trust him. A man who would keep her safe when the priority for her was remembering who she was.
“You should also know you were speaking a different language. It sounded Arabic, but I didn’t recognize it.”
She didn’t know what to say in response to that.
“We are making some headway, but figuring out who you are might be harder than we originally thought.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Before she could say so, another gunshot sounded. The blast was like a firework—close range. Jeff’s body jerked, and he started to fall.
Toni screamed.