It pulled him to her side of the bridge as she took a few shots, adjusted her aperture exposure. And still he watched.
Until her gaze turned to him, and he’d blurted out the crazy line about wishes and hopes and . . . felt like a fool.
But she smiled and healed the urge to run. He gathered his wits, and his next words came out saner. “Did you know that after the sunset, in about twenty minutes, the sky will light up again? It’s even more brilliant the second time around.”
She had green eyes. Eyes that could stop his heart, hold it, make him see himself and cringe.
“Really?”
“Indeed. Turn off your auto white balance and switch it to shade. You’ll draw all the gold tones into the picture.”
He didn’t know when he’d become a professor of photography—his own Nikon barely had a scuff on it. But that seemed to impress her, and she tried it.
He wanted to train his camera on her, capture that smile.
“I’ll bite—who are you? The local photography bum?”
He liked that. Because yes, it fit. Still, it came with too many explanations, so . . . “I just like the view. You?”
“I’m enrolled in a photography program at Charles University. We’re also touring through Germany, Austria, and then over to Switzerland. I think we’re even spending the New Year in Paris.”
She turned around, framed the setting sun, the trail of gold along the river southwest of the bridge.
His brain, meanwhile, did the math. “Do you mean the course taught by Claude Dupré?”
She lowered her camera. Nodded. “Do you know him?”
Roark was sleeping on his sofa. Which meant, yes, he could probably talk his former schoolmate into letting him tag along.
“Indeed. It seems we are taking the same class.”
The first of too many white lies, the trailhead of secrets.
The scream had shaken him out of his memory as he stood on the bridge above Cutaway Creek. He’d watched as the teenager grasped at rocks, tumbling into the current. Then, in horror, as his mother reached out to grab him and fell in too.
Roark wanted to shout, already on his way down the embankment as the father released the hand of his daughter and headed into the froth.
Roark reacted more out of instinct than training, but he had learned to swim in the choppy waters of the Sea of Japan and rowed for two years at Eton.
Point of fact, he didn’t exactly remember hitting the water, just that he’d shucked off his jumper, down to his vest, torn off his trainers, and waded in, his eyes on the teenager, now frantic in the water.
“Lie on your back! Put your legs out in front of you!” he yelled. “Ride the current until you can find a rock and brace yourself!” But the river gobbled his words. The icy water stole his breath as he worked his way to the teenager, grabbing at him, missing.
The swell took the boy under the bridge. Roark did get a hand on the mother, however, his grip on a boulder scraping at his other hand.
As his legs went numb in the frigid water, the woman clawed at him, fighting him. “My son!”
Her husband half paddled, half twisted in the rapids, also disappearing under the bridge. Tempests of water would suck them under, relentless in their hunger.
“Ma’am!”
But she shook free of Roark’s grasp, kicking him in the gut as she fought. His breath heaved out.
Before he could lunge again, she went under.
The current took her body, sucked her down. Roark clung to the rock, waiting for her to surface.
Waiting.
He finally saw a hand—just a glimmer—peek from the surface in the middle of a cauldron on the far side of the river.
Another man, older, had plunged into the water beside him.
“She’s over there!” Roark pointed to the hole, then launched himself through the rapids toward her.
His feet barely found purchase, pushing at rocks for leverage as he floundered against the current, swimming hard above her.
He landed just below the hole, grabbed the edge of a boulder, and pulled himself to the churning pool.
She had to be down there. Caught. He gripped the rock, tried to reach for her.
A hand closed around his wrist. A younger man perched on the rock. “I got you,” he said and lay prone, another buddy holding his legs.
In the distance, sirens whined.
Roark ventured farther, one-handed, letting his rescuer belay him, and ducked under the water. Felt something—a hand, perhaps. Grabbed for it and missed.
He surfaced, pulling against the grip, and sucked in a breath. “She’s down there.”
He’d stopped shivering long ago, his body heavy in the water. Gulping another breath, he went back in.
He didn’t know how many tries it took to finally grab her arm, but he clutched it and pulled her up. Gray and limp, she hung from his grip. He pushed her toward the crowd of men now attending the rescue and let someone pull him from the water.
The group dragged the woman onshore. Stood over her as Roark crawled forward. Someone turned her onto her back and landed a fist on her chest as if shocking her heart.
Didn’t any of these blokes know CPR?
Roark crawled to her, turned her on her side, and swept her mouth. He moved to her chest for compressions, but a soggy compatriot knelt beside him and began to pump. When he’d finished, Roark tilted back the woman’s head and breathed for her. Water sputtered out of her, and her body shook.
Leaning over her, Roark waited, and the two men fell into a rhythm of breaths and compressions as the circle closed around them.
Time fell away as he begged God—oddly, because he thought he’d run out of chances with God—to deliver her.
Despite the woman’s improving color, the EMTs arrived without the woman having gasped a breath on her own. Roark tried not to blame himself as they added oxygen. He scrambled back, climbed to his feet, shivering as water ran off his trousers, his stocking feet dirty, his muscles cramping.
And it was then, breathing hard, feeling life in its fragile shreds, that he looked up and saw her.
Just like before, standing on a bridge, her hair flame red in the sun, her camera strung over her shoulder.
Amelia.
His heart stuttered.
She held a little girl in her arms and was talking to a local bobby.
The moment crystallized. If pulling a drowned woman out of the unforgiving waters of the north woods could teach him anything, it was not to waste time.
Every breath was sacred, and he knew he’d done exactly the right thing in moving to Deep Haven to repair the hurts he’d caused.
And despite the chaos, the tragedy hanging in the air, the brutal reality of two—possibly three—victims to the torrent of Cutaway Creek, he planned on grabbing ahold of life before it slipped out of his grip.
So he didn’t care that he reeked of river water, his body now racked with tremors, his mouth bruised from the resuscitations. He edged away from the trauma, keeping his eye on Amelia as she held the little girl, her head resting on Amelia’s shoulder, arms encircling her neck.
Amelia wore an oversize blue T-shirt, dragging low over her jeans, her auburn hair lifted by the breeze. It looked like one of her sisters stood beside her.
Which meant that one of the hockey brutes might not be far behind.
They’d all closed ranks—the brutes, along with Amelia’s brothers Darek and Casper—to not-so-politely ask Roark to leave. However, despite Claire and Jensen’s warnings, and the brutish circle the clan had drawn around Amelia, Roark didn’t much care what they did to him.
Roark’s teeth had started to chatter, his vest soaked through, his trousers chafing, his feet cramping against the rocks as he worked his way to the bridge.
“Hey! You need a blanket!” This from a member of the fire brigade, who jogged to the open ambulance bay and retrieved a blanket. He shook it out and returned as Roark glanced again toward Amelia.
She
was still talking with the officer, her hand running in circles against the little girl’s back.
The fireman settled the blanket over Roark, and recognition dawned. A tall man, black hair, big shoulders. “Seb Brewster, medium white chocolate mocha.”
Seb frowned. “You’re that Brit who’s working at the Cup. You were one of the rescuers? I saw you doing CPR.”
“Trying,” Roark said. “Not that it did much good.” He glanced at the woman, now on oxygen, her chest rising and falling. The EMTs loaded her onto a flat board for transport.
Onshore, another group worked on the man they’d pulled out of the water.
A crowd had formed around them—onlookers, an elderly couple, a family. Roark glanced toward Amelia, walking toward the parking lot, her sister beside her.
“You’re a hero,” Seb said. “But you look a little shaky. Maybe you should sit down—”
“Seb! We need a hand!”
Roark glanced at the man behind the voice, down on the river’s edge. Tall, brawny, blond—a lumberjack, no doubt. As Seb left to help, Roark made his escape, weaving through the crowd.
“Roark, what are you doing here?”
At the sound of his name, he stopped and found Jensen on his tail, wearing a pair of EMT blues.
Jensen grabbed him by the arm. “You’re wet and freezing. You could get hypothermia.” He dragged Roark toward the second waiting ambulance. Forced him to sit on the end of the bay.
“I’m fine—”
“You’re not fine. Your lips are purple; your skin is clammy.” Jensen reached for his pulse. “Are you dizzy? Or numb?”
“I’m all right.”
“Yeah, well, your pulse is thready. Listen, I have to get back—they’ve just found the third body.”
Oh no. The kid. Roark clenched his jaw against a rush of cold, blunt emotion.
“I’m going to crack a heat pack. I want you to put it next to your skin.”
Jensen climbed into the bay and returned with a pack, which he ripped open and cracked. “This will start to warm your core.” He lifted Roark’s shirt and pressed it to his skin. “Keep it on your chest.”
The heat burned against him, a pocket of resolve.
“Don’t go to sleep,” Jensen said. “I’ll be right back.” He pulled out a backboard and returned to the trauma site.
Roark found Amelia in the parking lot, talking to her sister and . . . yes, Max, one of the hockey players. So the sister must be Grace.
Amelia set the little girl down, crouched before her. Grace, too, hunkered down. Max shoved his hands into his pockets, wearing a grim look.
Maybe this wasn’t the time . . . but when, exactly, did he plan on executing his brilliant plan to win her back?
Apparently his cowardice had followed him across the pond. And glued him to the pavement as the reality of his actions sank in.
He’d really done it. Ignored her father, her brothers—and frankly, even Amelia herself—because . . . because why?
Suddenly his actions seemed belligerent. Bullying. Even . . . selfish.
His words to Claire rang in his head. He did have honorable intent. He did want to make amends. But what if his appearance in town added to Amelia’s wounds?
He watched as she drew the little girl into her arms. The gesture reached deep, thickening his throat.
If he truly cared for her, perhaps he’d leave before she caught wind of his reappearance in her life.
He heard voices and looked up to see the lumberjack fireman and the bobby headed toward the fire engine nearby.
The firefighter pulled off his wet shirt and reached for his jacket hanging on the end of the engine. “What’s with Amelia and the kid?”
The officer shook his head. Dishwater blond, lean, no-nonsense, this one. “I think she found their kid, although the girl doesn’t speak any English. I called Diane Wolfe with social services. She’s in Duluth for the night, so Ivy Christiansen is handling a temporary placement. I told Amelia she could take her to the lodge if Ivy approved it—the benefit of having a county attorney in the family.”
“Shoot. There goes our plans for tonight.”
Roark’s head popped up, his eyes on the lumberjack.
“You two are back together?” This from the officer.
“Absolutely. And this time it’s for good. No more traipsing off overseas. She’ll have a rock on her finger by the end of the summer.”
The officer laughed. “Seth, no one would accuse you of pansying around.”
“She’s my girl. Always has been, always will be.” He winked. “I guess I’ll have to figure out another time to remind her of that.”
Roark wanted to shuck off the blanket, level himself at the bloke, but not only was the man as big as a tree, Roark might have been more affected by the frigid water than he’d supposed. The sky had started to turn fuzzy.
Still, he watched as Seth moseyed over to Amelia, slung an arm around her. Saw his expression as she shook her head. Roark didn’t like the way the look settled in his gut, low and tight.
The lumberjack moved away just as Jensen returned, this time helping to carry a body draped in a blanket.
Roark got up and made room for the solemn crew as they loaded the victim into the ambulance. He stood there, stared at the body. Shivered. Listened to the argument in his head.
Yes, he’d hurt her. But what if he went all in, right now, and told her everything? Told her the real reason why she’d found him at the bridge with Cicely and why he’d had to leave Prague so quickly afterward. That would mean, of course, scrolling back further, through the last two years, the fire, and even before that, to Spain. And Russia.
But maybe he could put it all on the table, every last quid, and then let her decide?
Because life was fragile.
Roark threw off the blanket. Fresh air rushed in around the heat pack, raised gooseflesh on his arms. He headed toward Amelia.
He heard the yip of a siren, saw an ambulance inching forward down the highway, and heard someone call, “Make a hole!” He scampered to the side of the road, the sky taking a sudden dip to the right.
And then he was down. A full-on collapse, his hand reaching for the guardrail as his knees buckled.
“Just how long were you in that water?” Jensen came from behind him, caught him under the armpits.
“Twenty minutes?” He blinked back shadows, his eyes on Amelia, but she had loaded the little girl into her orange Kia. “I have to talk to Amelia.”
“Not today. Not right now, buddy.” Jensen hauled him up, flinging Roark’s arm over his shoulder.
“But I have to tell her something.”
Except he felt pretty sure his words slurred.
“Declare your undying love later, when you know you’ll live.”
“No—I mean, yes . . . but . . .” The words seemed to fray around the edges. What was it? “I shouldn’t have lied.”
“We know that—”
“No, see, I’m not just a bum who broke her heart. I’m . . . the heir to the Constantine fortune . . .”
Suddenly it seemed so ridiculous, the declaration more like babbling than a revelation.
Jensen seemed not to hear him. Until, that is, he got to the ambulance. “Climb in and lie down. There’s room for two in here, and I can’t let Your Majesty perish on my watch.”
Oh, his eyes wanted to close, his body sinking into the gurney. He could feel Jensen covering him up.
“Not . . . royal. I’m rich. Very, very . . . very . . .”
Then the darkness won.
“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. Wake up already and tell me. Are you rich or not?”
The voice slithered into the darkness, parting it and tugging at Roark. Everything hurt as he shuffled through the cottony shadows toward consciousness. Toward—
Where was he? He’d woken in the cabins of sailboats in the Caribbean, in European hotels, in Russian train compartments and tents perched on the northeast face of Kilimanjaro. On at least two o
ccasions he’d found himself in a local detention center and, once, in a rank French prison. And yes, he’d experienced the surreal moments of waking in a Scottish hospital ward, his head having taken a good knocking on the rugby field.
He blinked, found himself in a cubicle of a room, the window small, framed by pink curtains, a midafternoon sun casting shadows. A cotton blanket was pulled to his chest, an IV pinching his arm, and in the chair beside him . . . Oh, he knew this woman. “Claire?”
“I know you were probably hoping for Amelia, but sorry, bub; you’ve got me.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Five years.”
His eyes widened. “Uh—”
“Gotcha.” She winked. “A couple hours. Your body temp was dangerously low. But they fixed you up, and you’re cooking right along. Out of the woods. Just in time, because I think Amelia’s about ready to leave.”
He blinked again at her words, trying to push himself off the pillow. “She’s here?”
“Oh no, you don’t.” Claire caught his shoulders. “There you go, Mr. Freeze. Back in the bed until you get the all clear from the doc.”
He winced. “You didn’t say anything to Amelia about—”
“Your being . . . How did Jensen put it? Rich? Very, very . . . I think there were three verys.” She shook her head, smiled. “Nope. In fact, let your broken heart rest at ease; she doesn’t even know you’re here. I saw her come in with the little girl she found at the falls. She and Grace are having her checked out.”
He let out a sigh.
“I can run and get her for—”
“No.”
That came out sharper than he’d intended. “I think I’d prefer to be standing when we talk.” So she could, what? Have less guilt when she walloped him? Because that’s suddenly how their conversation ended in his now-aching head. The warmth probably rushing back to fuel his brain with common sense.
He’d come to Deep Haven to win her back. Which meant, sadly, keeping secrets.
And Claire only confirmed it when she folded her arms and nodded. “Probably wise, given the weighty news of your impending inheritance. Because I’m guessing you didn’t mean very, very, very rich in friends, right?”
The Wonder of You Page 5
