Her heart stalled out in her chest as Cara watched Henry go down, so stunned to see him fall that her own body swayed for a fraction of a second before she caught herself. He hit the water as she lunged toward him, but she was too far away, and her hands caught on nothing but air. In the next moment, her brain kicked in, and she didn’t have to rely on useless instinct.
Her leg muscles burned, the thigh-high water turning her attempted run into a nightmarishly slow slog. To her relief, he had a grip on a larger rock protruding from the surface, and he was struggling to regain his feet.
He’ll be fine, she assured herself as she fought the current to get close enough to help him stand. Wet, but fine.
Just as she stretched out a hand, a heavy surge of water hit him, knocking him back. To Cara, it seemed as if he fell in slow motion, his head bouncing off the rock that he’d been clinging to. He went limp and dropped into the fast-running water.
Without pausing to think, she jumped after him, desperately reaching out, trying to grab an arm or a foot or even a handful of clothes—anything she could use to keep him from being carried away from her. She landed chest-first in the quickly flowing water, the icy temperature stalling her lungs and her brain. Her arms moved too slowly, and Henry’s limp form was carried out of her reach as the current sucked her down below the surface. She struggled to get her feet under her, but the raging water twisted her body until she was battered and unsure which way was up.
Stunned by the intense cold, she was helpless as the river carried her downstream. The only thought that kept her from panicking completely was that she was being swept in the same direction as Henry. There was still a chance she could save him.
Her arm brushed a hard surface, and she pushed off it. Her lungs strained with the need for oxygen, and she shoved herself toward what she hoped desperately was the surface. When her head broke through the water, the air cold on her wet cheeks, she sucked in a rasping breath that sounded like a sob. The river rocketed her downstream as she strained to keep her face out of the frothing water. Her shoulder hit a rock dividing the current, sending her spinning off to the side. She knew she had to get out of the water if she was to be of any use to Henry. Every bit of her skin was numb from just her short immersion, and she couldn’t feel her fingers.
The cold erased her ability to think, and panic threatened to take over as the river churned around her. Icy water slapped her in the face, stealing her breath. Henry. Save Henry. She clung to the thought, repeating it over and over until the panic retreated just enough for her to get her bearings. A glimpse of the far bank gave her a target, and she forced her numb arms to swim. Propelling herself toward a protruding rock, she wedged herself against it as she gasped for breath.
The current hammered against her as Cara fought to get her feet underneath her. She stood, surprised to find that the water only came to her waist. When she’d been mostly submerged, the river had felt endlessly deep. She slogged through the water to the bank, stumbling over slippery rocks and the uneven riverbed, the current maliciously trying to shove her back down, but somehow she managed to keep from falling in again.
When she finally reached the bank, her body begged her to collapse, but she knew she was Henry’s last chance at survival. She ran downstream alongside the river as she scanned the water, hunting for a glimpse of him. Why did he have to wear black? she wondered desperately, trying to see beneath the white foam churned up by the speeding water hitting rocks and other submerged obstacles. In her panic, she resolved to make him wear blaze-orange clothing from this point on…if he wasn’t already gone.
Stop! she ordered as she ran faster, the heaviness of her soaked boots feeling like an anchor. She was tempted to take them off, sure that she could get to Henry faster without them, but she didn’t want to stop even for the few seconds needed to remove them. Instead, she set her jaw and pushed her legs to go faster despite the waterlogged weights attached to her feet.
A not-quite-right flash of color caught her attention, and she realized that she’d almost run right past Henry. The water tumbled over him, the white froth and reflected sunlight disguising his submerged form. Splashing into the river, she ran toward him, her breathing rough and uneven from her frantic sprint. It was deeper here than the point where they’d tried to cross, the water reaching her waist, then higher. The current shoved at her legs, trying to make her tumble over, and she automatically braced herself as she reached into the freezing water and grabbed onto Henry.
A huge wave of relief crashed over her at the feel of him in her grip. She finally had a hold on him, and her fingers tightened. She was determined not to let the river snatch him away from her again. Her joy at reaching him was quickly flattened by the realization that she couldn’t move him, and paralyzing fear filled her again.
He wasn’t getting any oxygen, but Cara couldn’t think about him drowning or she wouldn’t be able to function. Instead, she shoved down her rising panic and forced herself to look at things in a logical, step-by-step manner.
“Okay,” she said out loud, the high pitch of her voice nearly sending her into a helpless flurry of terror again. “Okay, okay, okay. Why won’t you move?”
Feeling along the length of his body, not letting herself think about how still and cold and lifeless he seemed, she realized that his hip had gotten wedged under the protruding lip of a boulder. The current had pushed a thick waterlogged branch up against his other side, trapping the lower half of his body against the rock.
With numb, shaking hands, she shoved the branch, fighting the weight of the pressing water until the wood was caught by the current and carried past the other side of the rock. Once that was gone and Henry was no longer caught against the side of the boulder, his body began shifting away from her.
“No, you don’t.” She caught his leg, clutching too hard since she couldn’t feel her fingers, and there was no way she was letting him go again. Hand over hand, she worked her way up his body until she could grab underneath both of his arms. Water pounded against them, the force of it even stronger now that it was pulling at both her legs and Henry’s huge, inert form.
She hauled him backward, the water providing buoyancy now that he was no longer caught. Knowing he had to get oxygen, praying he wasn’t already too far gone to save, she moved so quickly that she overbalanced and fell back in the water with a splash. The water surrounded her body, the painful cold of it numbing all the skin it touched almost instantly. The current threatened to drag her farther downriver, but she fought against its strong pull.
Keeping her grip on Henry made regaining her feet awkward, but she wasn’t about to let him be carried away from her again. She finally managed to stand, her muscles aching from the effort of holding him, and she backed toward the bank. This time, she went slow enough to control her movements, even though her brain was screaming at her to run, to get him out of the water as quickly as she could.
“Slow is fast,” she muttered under her breath, hardly able to spare the oxygen needed to make words. “Fast is slow, and slow is fast.”
Step by backward step, she dragged Henry to the edge, water coursing off both of them as the river grew shallower until the pebbles covering the bank crunched and shifted under her boots. She dragged him as far out of the water as she could manage, but he became heavier and heavier with no water to help support him. His feet were just an inch from the swirling water when she conceded defeat and eased his upper body to the ground.
His stillness was terrifyingly obvious now that he was out of the river and the current wasn’t moving his limbs. Frantically searching the corners of her mind for a long-ago lesson on how to help a drowning victim, Cara tried to turn him onto his side. When he didn’t budge, she sat on the ground next to him, placed the soles of her soaking-wet boots against his side, and pushed with her legs until she was able to leverage him up and over.
Water streamed from his nose and mouth, and his skin was a bluish-pale that made even his tan skin look wrong. He looks dead. The thought was there before Cara could push it away, but she clenched her teeth and refused to believe it. It was so wrong that Henry—always so strong and protective—was lying on the bank, completely helpless. He was her wall, protecting her from all possible dangers, but now he couldn’t even breathe for himself. Her jaw set.
After all the times he’d rescued her, now it was her turn to save him.
After all they’d gone through, all the brushes with death they’d survived, she wasn’t about to let him accept defeat because of a poorly placed rock and some cold water. With a final shove, she turned him over onto his back and then scrambled to kneel next to him. She tried to check for a pulse, but her fingers were so numb that she couldn’t even feel his skin, so she rested her head on his chest to listen.
He was too still and quiet, making her heartbeat so loud that she couldn’t hear anything outside her own body. Sitting up again, she tilted his head back, pinched his nose shut, and mentally thanked Molly for making them take a first-responder course when they’d started their business.
She blew a breath into his lungs, let it escape, and then did it again, her brain throwing unwanted comparisons to how it felt when he kissed her versus the cold, unresponsive mouth under hers now. It was almost a relief to move to chest compressions, the regular rhythm of the heel of her hand against his sternum allowing her to blank her brain of anything but counting.
Shifting back to his head, she gave him two more breaths, and then moved back to chest compressions. Back and forth, mouth to chest to mouth again, her motions became both a blurred rush and an excruciatingly slow crawl. It was between the seventh and eighth chest compression when she heard a choking noise and froze, her locked hands hovering above his previously motionless chest—a chest that was now heaving with the effort to cough.
Grabbing his arm, she helped him roll to his side, amazed and tentatively ecstatic when he did most of the work himself. As he hacked and choked and expelled what looked like the whole river’s worth of water from his lungs, she couldn’t stop rubbing his arm and back and side—everywhere that muscles tensed and moved when they’d been so limp and lifeless just a few moments ago.
Best of all, he opened his eyes, and his dazed expression quickly firmed into his normal Henry-ness. That was when Cara burst into relieved tears.
“What?” The question was little more than a croak, but he was awake and alive and actually talking, and that made her cry even harder. He struggled to push himself up, and still sobbing, she helped steady him. Once he was upright, she didn’t let go, clinging to his arm with one hand and his wet shirt with the other. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her in that careful and secure way that was becoming so wonderfully familiar. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and the demanding tone was so exactly him that it was glorious.
“Nothing,” she finally managed to get out semi-coherently. “Nothing now. Everything was wrong when I thought you were dead.”
“Dead?” He coughed again, and she clung tighter, irrationally worried that this was just a breathing, talking fluke and he’d fall over at any second, actually dead this time. Despite her worries, he stayed sitting up, his gaze only getting sharper and more focused. “What happened?”
“You fell.” Her voice quavered as she mentally relived the moment when he went down. “Hit your head on a rock.” She reached toward the spot and hovered her fingers over it without touching the lump, for fear of hurting him. “I chased you until you got stuck on a rock, and then I hauled you out and did CPR.” Her gaze fell to his chest. “I didn’t break any of your ribs, did I? The instructor said that’s common.”
His mouth actually quirked, and she wanted to yell at him that this wasn’t a time for smiling or laughing or any type of amusement, because he’d come much too close to dying for anything to be funny for a very long time. “My ribs are fine,” he said. “My head, though…” He reached up and, unlike her, actually probed the spot where the rock had connected with his skull. His expression went blank in a way that she took as a wince of pain.
“Concussion?” she asked, still so off-balance by his almost dying that checking his other injuries was strange, making her feel as if they were concentrating on the wrong thing.
“Doubt it.” He went to stand, and she hurried to scramble to her feet so she could help balance him. Once upright, she reached for him and swayed, not sure if she was clinging to him to help her balance or his. Either way, it was good to feel the living tension in his muscles and the warmth of him after he’d been so cold and still.
She frowned, sliding a hand under his single wet layer to feel the skin over his abs. The physical exertion of performing CPR had warmed her, thawing her fingers and toes, but his skin felt cooler than usual, even clammy.
“Not that I’m complaining,” he said, the words sounding soft around the edges, “but is now the time to feel me up?” He wasn’t quite slurring, but she still looked at him sharply.
“You’re too cold,” she said, looking around them for the first time. “Should we start a fire?” There were plenty of downed branches and other fuel around, but they were all wet, thanks to the melting snow. Also, unless Henry knew how to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together—which wouldn’t really surprise her, knowing Henry—they didn’t have any way to start it.
“Where are our other clothes?” he asked, taking in the area as well.
“You dumped them all in the river when you went down like a felled redwood.” There was a tiny edge to her voice that she knew was because she was worried, but she still felt bad about scolding him for something that wasn’t his fault. “Sorry. You couldn’t help it. The branch hit you hard.”
“The branch. Right.” Comprehension lit his eyes, and she knew he was remembering what had happened. “C’mon. We need to walk.” As he turned, his legs wobbled and he started to go down. She tried to catch him, but his weight carried her to the ground with him. He managed to turn and take most of the impact of the fall, while she tumbled down on top of him.
The sign of weakness panicked her, and she hurried to roll off him. She knew he had to be in terrible condition to fall from just taking a step, and her stomach twisted into knots as she crouched next to his head.
“Sorry.” He grimaced, already trying to push up to a sitting position.
“Just take a minute,” she said, pressing his shoulder with her palm. She wasn’t strong enough to keep him down if he really tried to get up, but he must’ve agreed that it was a good idea for him to rest for a moment, since he stopped attempting to rise. The fact that he was willing to lie there scared Cara almost as much as when he’d fallen.
She rubbed his arm, almost recoiling when she felt how cold he was. Suddenly concerned that hypothermia was making him compliant, she stretched out over him, plastering her front to his. His mouth quirked, that wry expression so Henry-like that she almost sobbed again with relief.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his words shuddering slightly as his muscles shook, his body doing its best to warm him.
“Getting you warm.” She felt her own shivers ripple through her as her clammy clothes stuck to her chilled skin, and she made a face. “Well, warmer, at least.”
“We can’t stay.” His teeth clicked together audibly. “Abbott…”
“I know.” Tucking her face into his too-cool neck, she chafed her hands up and down his arms, trying to generate some heat. She wished she were bigger—or at least had a dry blanket for him. Even if they’d had time, there was no way she could start a fire, not without dry matches. Why hadn’t she done Girl Scouts as a kid?
Henry wrapped both his arms around her, holding her tight to his shivering body. “You’re so nice,” he said.
Her head popped up, worry stabbing at her insides. “You’re not going into shock, are you?”
“What?” His eyes looked clear, and the pupils were symmetrical, giving her hope that he was thinking clearly. “No, I’m okay—just cold.”
Despite his words, she continued studying his face closely.
His brows drew together, even as his mouth twitched with amusement. “I can’t give you a compliment without you thinking I’m delirious?”
“Well…”
His huff was shaky but clearly a laugh, and relief trickled through Cara at the sound.
“You don’t normally say things like that,” she said, attempting to rub some warmth back into his sides. The places where their bodies touched were starting to heat, with just the extremities still numb with cold. “You tend to show your love in actions, rather than with words.”
When he stilled, she realized what she’d implied. Love.
“Not that you…umm… Are you feeling warmer?”
“Yeah.” His gaze stayed locked with hers, unreadable emotion there, before dropping to her mouth. “A lot warmer.”
The flash of heat that shot through her made her forget ever being cold. She ducked her head, not even realizing that she’d moved until she felt his breath on her lips. Not the time or place, Cara! Knowing that her inner killjoy was right, she pulled back and tried to focus on practical things, but it was hard. Henry Kavenski had just professed that he didn’t not love her. “Did you want to try to stand?”
As if he could read her mind, his mouth crooked up, but the look in his eyes was filled with affection and something else that she didn’t want to think about too hard, not when she was trying to be practical. “Sure.” Instead of getting to his feet, though, he pulled her tighter against him for a long moment before finally releasing her.
Reluctantly, Cara peeled herself off him, immediately missing their full-body contact. Her skin cooled as she stood, and she hopped a little, trying to warm up again. Henry pushed himself up to a sitting position and then paused for a moment, just long enough for her to start worrying that she was going to have to haul him over her shoulder and carry him to Red Hawk.
She reached down to offer help, but he pushed himself up on his own, getting steady on his feet before taking her outstretched hand. The press of his palm against hers made her brave, and she stood on tiptoes to say quietly in his ear, “I don’t not love you, too.”
He gifted her with a full, gorgeous smile, using his grip on her hand to pull her in flush to him. “We’ll make it,” he promised, cupping her jaw so she met his resolute gaze. “You’ll be safe.”
“I know.” She didn’t even hesitate. With Henry, she always felt secure.
His eyes blazed with heat and something else, something like longing, and then his lips were on hers. She returned his kiss just as fiercely, determined to keep him safe as well. Breaking the kiss, he met her eyes for another intense moment before reluctantly releasing her and turning around. When he swayed, she reached out to steady him, but he managed to catch his balance. He started walking upriver, and she bit her lip with concern. Despite his best efforts, he was obviously not his usual steady self.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t get you warmer first?” she asked, hurrying to catch up.
“Physical activity will work,” he said. If she didn’t hear the slightest burr in his voice, she would’ve felt a lot better, but she had a feeling that Henry wouldn’t show any weakness…until he collapsed again. “Besides, the sun’s out.”
Hiding her anxious concern, Cara followed him along the bank. They were so close to safety. All she had to do was climb a cliff, possibly carrying an almost-drowned Henry. No problem. Despite the overwhelming task ahead of them, she was determined. He’d kept them safe up until this point. Now it was her turn.