Dragonfly Summer (A Smith Mountain Lake Novel Book 2)

by Inglath Cooper

  I look quickly in either direction, but I don’t see it until it is nearly on top of us. The boat has no lights on. We do.

  Surely, the driver will see us. The worst kind of fear slams me hard in the chest. I hit the throttle, trying to get out of the way, yelling for Keegan to get down and hold on.

  But it’s too late because the driver doesn’t see us. And there’s no way to get out of the boat’s path.

  It sounds like a freight train is roaring down on us. And then the nose hits the back of our boat. Gravity disappears, and there is nothing to hold onto, just the night air and then cold, dark water swallowing us whole.

  No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

  – Euripides

  Keegan

  IT’S LIKE A nightmare, the kind where you’re almost awake but not quite enough to pull yourself back into the light.

  But the water around me is real. And the realization that it is filling my lungs more real still. I grapple for the surface, fighting my way up, up until I break through, coughing and gasping for air.

  I’m trying to figure out what has happened when I hear the screams. It’s a man. Sounding as if he’s in agony.

  Terror yanks my heart into my throat.

  Is it Bowie?

  I feel water splashing near me, hear a whimper that I recognize as Carson. I kick my feet, dizzy but aware enough to swim toward the sound. “Here, Carson,” I say.

  I feel him bump against me, his paws latching onto my shoulders. He clings to me.

  “It’s okay,” I say, kicking to stay afloat. “I’ve got you.”

  “Keegan!”

  Now I hear Bowie. Thank God. “Here!” I call out.

  Water splashes. The moaning sound from somewhere nearby continues, and I scream, “Bowie, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I think so. I have Carson. But someone else is hurt!”

  “Stay where you are!” Bowie yells. “I’m coming.”

  I kick as hard as I can to stay afloat. Carson is holding onto me just like a person would, shaking so hard that I try to pull him closer to comfort him.

  A full minute passes before Bowie reaches us. He immediately loops an arm around my waist to help hold me up. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” I say.

  “Come here, boy,” Bowie says, tucking his arm around Carson and saying, “Hold onto my shirt, Keegan. There’s a little jut of land a hundred yards or so away. I’m going to get us there.”

  “I can swim,” I say.

  “I’m not letting go of you,” he says, and I hear in his voice that he won’t relent. “Hold on.”

  I do and then realize I no longer hear the moans from a minute before.

  “Where are the people in the other boat, Bowie?” I scream out. “I don’t hear anyone now.”

  “Keegan, don’t let go,” he says, and I can hear that he’s out of breath.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay,” he says.

  But somehow, I know he isn’t.

  Whosoever is spared personal pain

  must feel himself called

  to help in diminishing the pain of others.

  – Albert Schweitzer

  Bowie

  WHEN I FINALLY REACH the small jut of land that is a high point in the middle of the lake, I have never been so grateful to touch ground. Rocks at the edge of the shoreline cut at my arms, but I don’t care. I collapse onto them, not letting go of Keegan or Carson.

  I struggle to sit up, still pulling in air. Carson tries to stand and staggers against me with a whimper. I hold onto his collar, running my hands across him.

  “Keegan, are you okay?”

  “I think so,” she says. “My head hurts, but I don’t think anything is broken.”

  I try to focus, but find that my thoughts don’t want to stay in line. I blink hard and try to focus on the area where the boat hit us. “I can’t see anything out there,” I say. “Do you see anyone?”

  “I heard someone,” Keegan says, her voice shaking. “But I don’t now.”

  “Is anyone out there?” I call out. “Anyone out there?” But there’s no answer, and I don’t want to think about what that might mean.

  “We need help,” Keegan says.

  “Someone will come along soon. This part of the lake gets a lot of traffic.”

  “Even this late?” she asks, tears in her voice again. “Those people out there, the ones in the other boat—”

  “Don’t,” I say, touching her arm. “It came out of nowhere, Keegan. There was nothing we could do.”

  “I never saw it,” she agrees. “Did the boat have lights on?”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I saw it right before it hit us.”

  I’m feeling dizzy again, and I wonder if I’ve missed something. I check my arms, my torso, and then my legs. That’s when I see the gash on my thigh. There’s blood oozing from the tear in my shorts. A lot of blood now that the water isn’t diluting it.

  “Oh, no, Bowie,” Keegan says, spotting the wound at the same time. “You’re hurt!”

  “It’s just a cut,” I say.

  “But there’s so much blood. And we don’t know how much you’ve already lost.”

  I start to protest, but my vision funnels, dark and then widening with a beckoning light. I try to tell her I’m okay, but I can’t make the words come out. And then I fall headfirst into the funnel, unable to stop myself.

  He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

  – Friedrich Nietzsche

  Keegan

  I START TO SCREAM his name over and over again. I shake his shoulders, but he has dropped back onto the shore as if all the life has drained from him. I’m still screaming when I check the pulse in his neck, feeling it there, faint, but there.

  “Bowie!” I keep saying his name, trying to think what to do. The bleeding. I have to stop the bleeding. I try to remember anything I’ve ever learned about first aid, ripping my blouse open, the buttons popping off. I struggle out of it, glad I’m also wearing a camisole. I frantically try to figure which way to tear it that will allow for fabric long enough to wrap around Bowie’s leg as a tourniquet.

  At first the fabric doesn’t want to give, and I scream in frustration. Carson huddles against me, shivering. I modulate my voice, telling him it’s okay. He whimpers in a way that ties a knot in my heart, and I know he must realize that Bowie is hurt.

  “We’re going to help him,” I say. The fabric finally gives, and I’m able to tear a strip long enough and wide enough to do the job. I shove Bowie’s shorts up high enough on his leg to get the tourniquet in place. The sight of the wound makes my stomach leap with fear. I know that this will only help for so long. The gash is deep, and I don’t know if it has hit a major artery.

  I tie the tourniquet as tight as I dare, staring at the wound while I pray that the bleeding will at least slow, if not stop altogether. A minute or more passes before it does slow, the gash leaking in a trickle instead of a steady flow.

  And then I start to pray that someone will come along and find us. Soon.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW long it actually is before a boat light appears against the unrelenting black of the night. I see the red and green lights before I hear the boat’s engine.

  I’m shivering as I jump to my feet, waving and screaming with everything I have inside me. Carson starts barking, as if he knows this is how he can help.

  I am sure the boat is going to fly on by without seeing us, because it passes the little island where we are without slowing down. But then, the driver pulls the throttle back completely, the boat coming to an abrupt stop, bobbing high on the waves it’s created.

  I begin screaming for help again.

  “Where are you?” a man’s voice calls out urgently.

  “On the little jut of land to your right,” I call back. “We were hit by another boat. My friend is hurt. He’s bleeding a lot. I don’t know what happened
to whomever was on the other boat.”

  I can’t go on then, because I’m crying at the thought that we have heard no other voices since right after the impact.

  “I’m calling 911!” the driver says. “I’ll be right over there. Stay put, okay?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

  THE DRIVER IS a retired police officer. He and his wife had been to dinner at Bridgewater, had in fact been eating at the pizza place when we were there.

  He made arrangements with the 911 operator to meet the rescue squad at the marina. He could get us there far more quickly than waiting for them to get to us on the lake. The woman has given me her sweater to wear, and at least I am not shivering so violently now.

  The ambulance arrives just seconds after the man pulls up to the main dock. His wife, a woman with white hair and a kind face, has been gripping my hand the entire time. “You poor thing,” she says. “You must be in shock.”

  I’m not sure if I am or not, but something that feels like a protective shield has formed around my heart and brain, and I feel numb.

  The paramedics run to the dock carrying two stretchers. When they reach the boat, I say, “I’m okay. Please help Bowie. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  They do as I’ve asked, but as soon as they have him hooked up to an IV and have replaced my tourniquet with one of their own, the female paramedic starts attending to me.

  I realize Carson won’t be able to go with us in the ambulance, so I ask the couple who found us if they could please take him to my house. I borrow one of their phones and call Evan, getting his voicemail. I leave a message, telling him what has happened and asking him to meet the people at our dock, hoping he will get it before they arrive there.

  I’m allowed to ride in the ambulance with Bowie. He is awake now, and so visibly in pain that I can hardly bear to look at him.

  “Hang on, now,” the paramedic says. “We’re going to get you to the hospital just as fast as we can.”

  I’ve assured them that I’m fine, but I’m grateful for the huge blanket they wrap me in. Its warmth stops my teeth from chattering. I want to ask them if Bowie will be all right, but I’m afraid of their answer and don’t want him to hear anything other than what’s absolutely necessary.

  The ride is winding, and even though the ambulance feels as though it is flying, siren screaming the entire way, it seems as if we will never get there. Time is lengthened by my fear for Bowie. I wonder if there is anyone I should call. But I don’t know the answer to that, and since I don’t have his cell phone, I have no way to figure that out.

  We finally arrive at the hospital’s emergency entrance. A doctor in a white coat meets us at the large glass door. The paramedics jump out of the vehicle, telling him quickly what Bowie’s condition is. He glances at the wound on Bowie’s leg and says in an urgent voice, “We need to get him to the OR, stat.”

  Three other members of the hospital staff run outside and begin following the doctor’s orders to get Bowie inside and straight to the operating room.

  I hear in his voice that this is serious. I can’t believe this has happened. It all seems suddenly surreal, as if I am in the middle of a nightmare, at the part where I’m trying to wake up but can’t quite get there.

  I feel lightheaded, as if all the oxygen has just been sucked from my lungs. I reach for something to grab onto, but there isn’t anything, and I’m falling. Back, back, down.

  Realization is a slow dawn.

  – Author Unknown

  Evan

  I’M DRIVING mom’s car as fast as I dare. I know I’m breaking the speed limit, but all I can think is that I have to get to the hospital.

  I think about the solemn-faced man and woman who had shown up at the door with Carson and explained to me what had happened. At first, I just stared at them, sure that I was being punked or the butt of some crappy joke.

  But their expressions of sympathy had not changed, and they’d asked if there was anything else they could do for me. I thanked them, realizing in a burst of panic that I had to go. I dried Carson off as much as I could, gave him a water bowl and showed him where the couch was, hoping he would make use of it.

  All I can think about now is what Analise had said this afternoon. About realizing almost too late what her dad really meant to her. I must have sounded like an arrogant jerk, questioning her, and maybe in some way implying that she shouldn’t have felt like that.

  And now I get it.

  You can in no way imagine what something will be like until it actually happens to you. The couple who brought Carson to the house told me that Mom seemed okay. But Bowie was hurt. What if they were wrong about Mom?

  Another boat ran full speed into them. It’s hard to believe they’re alive. And the people in the other boat . . . apparently no one could find them.

  I slow the Rover for a sharp turn, accelerating quickly when it straightens out.

  I need to get there. Please let her be all right. Please. Let her be all right.

  Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.

  – Marilyn Monroe

  Bowie

  MY AWARENESS comes and goes.

  I know my situation is now urgent. I can tell by the rush of the people pushing this gurney, by the low, serious intonation in their voices.

  I have the sense that we’re on an elevator. And then we’re off. A female voice is calling my name. Mr. Dare. Mr. Dare.

  I try to force my eyes open, but it’s starting to feel as if someone has wired them shut. I can’t make them open. I want to answer her. I want to know how bad this is. What they’re going to do.

  I hear a man’s voice say, “Get him to the OR. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  I focus on that last word. Try to place its meaning. Waste. To fiddle away. When something is a shame.

  Ah, I think. That’s what this would be. A waste. Finding someone like Keegan. And never getting the chance to see where it might go. A waste. That would be a . . . waste.

  Appreciation is an excellent thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us, as well.

  – Voltaire

  Keegan

  I’M SITTING UP in the ER hospital bed, sipping orange juice when Evan throws back the curtain and says, “Mom!”

  “Evan,” I say, and then seeing the distress on his face, reach out my hand. “I’m okay.”

  He takes it, sitting on the side of the bed and putting his arms around me in a tight hug. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I hope I didn’t scare you too much.”

  “Actually, you did,” he says, leaning back to look at me then.

  I see the tears in his eyes, and they surprise me. I can’t remember the last time I saw Evan cry and certainly not about anything related to me. I run my hand across his hair and say, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m just glad to see you. I imagined everything.”

  “I should have tried to call you after we got here.”

  “It’s okay. How is Bowie?”

  The question brings up a fresh wave of fear inside me. “They haven’t told me anything in a little while. They were taking him to surgery.”

  “What happened?”

  “Another boat came out of nowhere and rammed into the back of ours. We were all thrown out. To be honest, I’m not sure how we’re alive. Bowie managed to swim Carson and me to a little island not far from the wreck. When we got there, we realized he had a horrible wound on his leg.”

  Evan’s face gets pale. “He was bleeding that whole time?”

  I nod, feeling sick again at the thought. “Yes. I don’t know how he did that. I think he was just so determined to get us to safety.”

  “What about the other people?”

  A fresh wave of sadness hits me. “I heard someone screaming right after the crash. But then nothing after that.”

  Evan shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. How could that have happened?”

  “I don’t know, Ev. It wa
s horrible. Really.”

  He pulls me back to him again, hugging me hard. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk all the time, Mom.”

  “It’s your job,” I say. “You’re seventeen.”

  I feel him smile against my hair. “I’m going to do better,” he says.

  “You’re doing fine,” I say.

  “Want me to go see if I can find out anything about Bowie?”

  “Would you, please?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  I nod, watching him go, praying that he will come back with good news.

  Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

  – Helen Keller

  Bowie

  I FEEL A STAB of pain so deep, so intense that I sit straight up. It is as if it has seared every bone in my body. I want to yell, beg it to stop, but I can’t push the words out. It’s like I’m trapped inside it. Above it. Below it.

  I hear an urgent voice. “Heart rate elevating!”

  Am I awake? Am I dead?

  I feel myself falling. And as I go, the pain goes too.

  Some choices do not come with the opportunity to be undone.

  – Author Unknown

  Keegan

  WHEN EVAN COMES back fifteen minutes later, he is pale and subdued. “I couldn’t get a lot of information because I’m not family. All they would tell me is that he’s still in surgery.”

  “He’s going to be all right. I can’t let myself think anything other than that,” I say.

  “I know. He’s a tough guy.”