“Is that the rapid?” Kev asked. “Holy shit. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
Paige stacked her shoulders and stood on her toes, peering over the heads. “Yep. That’d be Entrance Exam.” She plopped back down. “Relax, Kevin. You’ll do great. It’ll be fine because we’re all gonna work together.” Her eyes narrowed at Ben in a silent, right?
Right. Yeah. Work together. He’d do his best. He checked on Julia. Handed her the strap she was supposed to be holding on to. “Stop letting go of this,” he said. It came out rougher than he intended.
“Ben’s right, Julia,” Paige agreed. “You need to hold on. The bumps can be pretty jarring.”
Their eyes met. Hers were bright, intense. Like she’d come alive again.
J made a big show of rolling her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll hold on.” With a crusty look at him, she wrapped the strap around her wrist.
“Get ready.” Paige shoved her feet under the rim of the boat like she wanted traction. “Paddle hard.”
Ben faced forward, tightened his grip on his paddle.
“Don’t forget to wait for my commands,” she said over the thrashing water.
He waited. And waited. She said nothing. What the hell was she doing? They were about to drop into the rapid and she wasn’t calling any commands. He looked over his shoulder.
Her eyes were trained on the water in front of them. She had her guide stick in the river, but she was barely pushing or pulling or anything.
“Shouldn’t we paddle?” he yelled.
“Wait,” she replied.
He turned back around. They were about to hit a damn wall of water and they had no momentum. This was crazy. She was crazy.
The wall got closer, closer. Damn it! “Paddle! Forward!” he yelled at Kev. “Come on!”
Kev obeyed, paddling in a frenzied synchronization. Ben reached forward, pulled, leaned back. Adrenaline singed his arms. “Forward!”
“Stop!” Paige yelled. “Both of you, stop!”
But he couldn’t stop. They’d never make it through without the momentum. He ignored her, kept paddling. Breaths shot out of his mouth. His muscles strained.
The boat rocked with the momentum, but they plowed through the first cresting wave with no problem.
“Woo hoo!” Julia yelled.
“Hold on, Julia!” Paige yelled. “Right turn!” She screamed. This time, he listened. The bow tracked to the right and the current caught them.
A sharp drop lurched him forward. He braced himself against the rim.
“Now forward! Hard! Hard!” Paige’s yell scraped.
He paddled until his arms ached. The boat jolted and bounced, pinballing off rocks.
Julia laughed and squealed.
“Forward! Keep going!” Paige called behind him. They bounced through the series of waves at the end, then the water calmed.
“Woo hoo!” Ben raised his hand to Kev for a high five, but the man only stared at him, wide-eyed and pale.
Fine, then. He moved to slap a high five to Paige, but she set her jaw and looked at him like he’d called her fat.
“Everything okay?” he asked, already having a pretty good feel for the answer.
She reached over the side of the boat and stabbed her paddle into the water. The bow of the boat turned to the shoreline. “Start paddling to the beach,” she said. “We’re gonna take a quick break.”
“But our schedule…” Kev started.
Paige’s heated glare shut him up. Shut all of them up, actually. Even though Ben was dying to ask…
What the hell had he done now?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Once they reached the shallows, Paige jumped out of the raft. “Ben, I need a word.” She steadied the boat and pulled it up on the beach. “The rest of you can stay put. We’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for him, she trucked up a small embankment and out of earshot from the rest of the group. They didn’t need to hear this.
Ben bounded up behind her. “That was amaz—”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He gaped at her. “What?”
“You screwed up the whole run!” He’d put them all in danger. “You muscled right through and we totally missed the smooth run on the right.”
“I don’t understand…” he spat, his jaw flexed and hard. “We made it through fine.”
“We hit every rock in the whole damn rapid. I practically broke my arm trying to steer us against the current. You’re lucky your sister didn’t fly out of the boat!”
He got in her face. “You weren’t paddling. Excuse me if I got worried.”
“Damn it, Ben.” She swiped the perspiration from her forehead. “I need you to trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“I do trust you.” He took a step closer, looking down at her like he wanted take her in his arms and make love to her right there.
“Like hell you do.” She kept her distance because one touch and it would be all over, judging from the way her body ached to be with him again. “It’s time to give up this little savior quest and stop trying so hard to protect Julia. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s an adult. A very competent adult, from what I’ve seen. She doesn’t need you controlling every aspect of her life.”
“Me?” He laughed. “I’m the one with a control problem?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back, chest bursting at the seams with angry breaths.
“You find every excuse you can to push people away. You can’t control them so you write ’em off.” He smiled. He actually smiled like he thought he had her all figured out.
“You don’t even know me,” she seethed.
“Pretty sure I got to know you last night.” He looked her body over in a blatant insinuation. “You act so damn tough but you’re scared.”
“I am not scared.” But her shoulders exposed her lie, trembling in the charge of electricity that hemmed them in.
“Prove it. Give me a chance. We’ll both be brave. I’ll lighten up with Julia. You stop analyzing the future and go with your gut.” He captured her in his arms, skin so warm against hers. “What does your gut tell you, Paige?”
To run. Her whole body wanted to run as far away from him as she could get so she didn’t have to want him this bad.
“Uh, Ben!” Kev called from somewhere down below. “We really should push off. Can’t be late to the party.”
The distraction gave her enough space to squeak out of his hold.
She jogged down the slope but he caught her, pushed his lips close to her ear. “This isn’t over.”
And she knew he was right.
* * *
Paige approached the raft and ignored Julia’s obvious smirk. Hopefully they blamed her red face on the sun. Ben sauntered behind her, much closer than an acquaintance would.
“You two done?” Shooter, asked obviously annoyed.
“We needed to get some things straight.” At least that’s what she’d intended to do, but as usual, Ben derailed her.
She waited for him to climb into the boat, then she pushed them off and claimed her seat, unable to look at him, at any of them, especially Shooter, who seemed to be taking notes on how this trip was going. Probably to report back to Bryce.
As they floated on the flat water before the next rapid, everyone chatted. Well, everyone except her. Ben glanced back in her direction periodically, but she managed to avoid eye contact.
She was actually thankful when they coasted into rougher water again. It gave her something to focus on besides him. “Next rapid is coming,” she told them as she jabbed her paddle into the water to make a slight right turn and keep them in the current. “It’s called Double-O-Seven. Another class four.”
Ben swiped his palms down his shorts and picked up his paddle. He smiled at her, seemed to silently promise that he’d listen this time.
That smile. Sigh. It made her shiver even though she was boiling up in the sunlight. “Okay.” She co
uldn’t look at him. Had to focus. “This is a pretty straightforward route. Nothing fancy.” As long as they all paddled together, she could even use the current to make the turns.
The boat moved faster. White water sloshed over the sides. “Let’s paddle forward,” she said, raising her voice above the water.
While Ben, Kevin, and Shooter dug in, she used the blade of her guide paddle to turn the bow whichever way the current pulled.
Slight right around the boulder at the top. Quick left to snake through the two boulders in the center. The boat dipped down a small drop. “Keep going! That’s it! Forward!”
Water splashed in and sprayed her face, but the boat steadily moved with the current, smooth instead of jarring.
Then the whitecaps evened out, the water calmed, and they were once again on a Sunday stroll.
“I love this!” Julia laughed as she wrung out her shirt. “I’m freezing my ass off but I love this!”
Shooter dug in his dry sack and handed her a fleece. “Here, put this on over your jacket. It’ll give you extra insulation.”
“Thanks.” She smiled at Shooter and he grinned back.
Ben moved between them to help his sister slip it over her head, but then saw Paige watching and jolted back to his seat. “Yeah. You can probably handle that yourself, huh, J?”
Her eyes widened with a surprise, but she shot him a sassy smirk. “Yep. Pretty sure I got it.”
Paige couldn’t fight a smile. Well, look at that. A grown man really can change. His eyes caught hers and held them. It felt like the water was filling up her chest, scary and dangerous, but she forced her eyes to stay there. Brave. Maybe Ben was right. Maybe she needed to be brave.
“You two really need to get a room,” Julia mumbled, but her eyes glimmered.
Ben seemed to ignore his sister. At least he wasn’t blushing the way she was.
“Well done, back there, boss.” He raised his hand to high-five her.
Ah, what the hell. She slapped his hand. His fingers clasped around hers and made her heart pump harder. With a small smile, like he knew exactly how that affected her, he let go.
“So what’s next?” Kev’s face drifted into view.
She tore her eyes off Ben. “Uh…” Where were they again? She glanced around, got her bearings. Right. Okay. “We’ve got Slaughterhouse coming up. Class four. This is one of the biggest we’ll see.” Not to mention, the most tricky. Hit the hole at the top wrong and you’d be up shit creek.
“Sweet,” Ben said, and for some reason it made her tingle.
“This is a loud one, too,” she said over the water’s rising drone. “So make sure you’re listening. Sometimes things in Slaughterhouse change fast. I might call a forward then a back then a turn.” It all depended on how the river felt today.
They approached the bend, the current tugging on the raft faster, harder…
Here we go. Adrenaline leaked through her in that slow fervor the way it always did at the top of Slaughterhouse…
She jammed her feet between the outer tube and the floor to get some traction, but something was wrong. The floor was too soft. She stomped on it again. Shit. Oh, shit. This was not good. It had deflated. Instead of the water flowing out through the holes in the sides like it was supposed to, it pooled in the bottom of the boat.
Her hands shook. They had too much drag. The boat was too heavy. “Shooter,” she hissed. “Get the bucket. Get this water out of here.”
He scrambled to reach the bucket in the middle of the boat. “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “The floor wasn’t pumped?”
“Of course I pumped the floor.” She had, hadn’t she? Yes. Yes. She always remembered…and it was fine when she’d gotten back in the boat after they’d stopped…
The boat stuttered and stalled, stuttered and stalled, like a car with a bad transmission.
“Damn it!” She stabbed her paddle into the water but couldn’t even turn.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked.
“We’re taking on water.” The words burned her throat. God, this could not be happening. Not with Julia in the boat. She peered ahead. There was no time to get to the shore. They were about to drop into the rapid…
Shooter hit his knees and bailed water over the side of the boat. “It’s coming in too fast,” he yelled. “There’s no way we’ll get through this!”
“What? What the hell does that mean?” Ben growled.
“Get ready to paddle.” She cranked her guide paddle against the current. “We have to get through the upper falls, then we can pull over and bail.” Her voice croaked. She shot Ben a stern look. “Don’t stop paddling. No matter what happens.”
“Got it.” He turned and crouched, ready.
“You, too, Kevin. You’ve gotta paddle hard.”
His head bobbed in a silent nod, but he got that deer-in-the-headlights look.
“Julia,” Paige wheezed. “Don’t let go. You hold on to that strap.”
“I’ve got it.” She wrapped it around her wrist a few more times.
“Forward paddle!” Paige yelled.
They dropped. “Right turn! Right turn!” But instead of straightening them out, the current tossed them sideways. No! Not sideways. She fought to see through the water splashing her face.
They were headed right for the rock, the hole…
“Right turn! Right turn!” Her throat went hoarse.
Ben and Kevin fought to paddle, to pull, but the boat dragged. The floor. The damn floor!
The boat careened into the rock with a heavy thud. The left rim rose.
“High side! High side!” Paige screamed. She threw her upper body over the rim, but it was too late. They were going over.
“Come on!” Ben yelled as he climbed his way up the high side of the boat.
Kevin huddled on the floor.
“High side!” she yelled at him. Everyone. They needed everyone’s weight.
Shooter pushed past her and got his hands on the rim, but then the boat spun.
Another jerk. Her body stretched and snapped like a rubber band. She went sprawling. Her kneecaps thudded into the rim in front of her. Freezing water oozed over her, splashing her cheeks, scraping her legs.
“High side!” She screamed again as she clawed the rim, but her icy hand slipped.
Powerless. She was powerless.
High-pitched screams rose over the thundering water.
Julia…
She looked up in time to see Ben’s sister tumble over the side.
No! Flailing, she fought the momentum and tried to follow her.
Another tidal wave surged over the boat. She opened her mouth, closed her eyes. Water slammed into her face, knocked her head back.
Falling…
She was falling.
Bam!
The back of her head collided with a rock. Everything blurred into a surreal silence.
Julia…
Her eyes got heavy.
Light drained away.
A cold darkness swallowed her whole.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. The current somersaulted Ben underneath the boat’s hard neoprene.
Julia. He had to get to Julia.
He thrust his palms up, tried to push the boat off. It wouldn’t budge. Damn it!
Air burned for release in his lungs. He dove down, swam hard, kicked. God, it was cold. So cold his bones ached. Light glowed above him. Light meant air. He needed air…
Harder. He had to swim harder. With long strokes, he pulled against the current, up, up…
Finally his head broke the surface. He gasped and coughed, gagging on the water he’d inhaled.
Thrashing water sputtered all around him. The current dragged him hard, but he fought it, fought to keep his head up, to see above it all. He scanned the river, the shoreline…
There!
Julia sat on a rock, thank god. Thank. God. Shooter was with her. He must’ve pulled her out. Kev was there, too, drenched t
o the gills, hunched over, but fine.
He pulled his arms in a freestyle stroke. Breathe, breathe. Sweet air. The hard drag of the current tapped out his strength, but finally he pulled himself up on the sandy shoreline.
His legs felt like tree trunks as he stumbled out of the water. His eardrums still roared, but Julia screamed something at him…
“Paige! Where’s Paige?”
He stilled. Swept a gaze down the shoreline and back up. But it was only the four of them.
“She’s not here! I can’t see her anywhere!” Julia sobbed. “Ben, where is she?”
He whirled back to the river, but the blood pounding in his head made it hard to see straight.
Damn it! He should’ve made sure everyone was accounted for before he’d gotten himself out.
Wading back in, his eyes scoured the water. White. Chaotic. A glimpse of red pulled his focus, but then it was gone. Behind a boulder.
Red. Paige’s life vest was red.
He tore back into the water and threw himself into the current. The cold shock of the river sucked out all his air. Chugging out shallow breaths, he kicked and stroked. Forget the whitewater position. He had to get to Paige.
But the current. The damn current. It locked him in a vice grip and held him in its power, shooting him through the center, down the falls.
“Paige?” he yelled, but it ended in a gagging choke. Wave after wave smacked his face, blurred his eyes.
His frantic arms kept pulling. With a fierce kick of his legs, he rose above the surface.
Red. Just in front of him. The current had her, too. It started to drag him down again, but he kicked and struggled. Strained to see through the waves.
Paige’s head flopped forward and submerged her face. In the water. She couldn’t breathe…
“Paige!” he yelled as loud as he could. She wasn’t fighting. Why wasn’t she fighting?
His legs ached with fatigue, but he battled back. The water was slowing…if he could swim hard for another two minutes, he’d be able to grab her, get her out.
Something Like Love Page 25
