She zipped them into her jacket pocket. Shee-it, this could well be love. As they pushed off, stretching their spraydecks on, he ran through instructions for clearing the waterfall. “Only thing you gotta remember—youhaveto hit it from the left. You go down in the middle, you’ll get caught in the suckback. Too far right, you’ll hit a nasty undercut ledge.”
“The left. Okay.”
“Coming up to it, the current will push you right, so be ready. You gotta shoot out of that left-hand corner with nose straight and as much momentum as you got.”
She nodded, her face locked in calm focus.Show me some respect.Man, that’d stung. He had total respect, total faith in her, like he had in his commando team, like he’d had in Zack. Like Zack once had in him...
Cody rounded the bend in the river, his hull scraping a submerged rock. The current was already forcing him right. A stream of sunshine lit a rainbow in the curling mist. Fifty feet ahead, an old rope-and-wood bridge swooped low from bank to bank. Beyond it the water vanished over a crisp, smooth line, like his folks’ infinity pool, and reappeared much smaller far down the valley.Merde.Was this a waterfall or the fucking Hoover Dam? He pushed away from the rock and corrected to avoid the wake of a fallen tree splitting the current. One hell of a sieve trap. He glanced back to warn Tia—and caught movement on the stony beach they’d just left. The beach drifted out of sight but he knew what he’d seen. Camo gear.
A gunshot. Tia cried out, her boat rocking.Crack.Her paddle splintered, leaving a stump in her hand. Her gaze met his, eyes wild. A bullet had ripped the side of her kayak open. The current pulled her into a spin, going downstream fast. Another gunshot. The bullet smacked into the water behind her. She was using her half paddle as an oar, desperately pulling herself right—to the sieve. He veered violently and caught a branch of the fallen tree with one hand, his biceps straining to steady the kayak against the charge of water.
She was out of the hunter’s sights, but her nose was dipping, threatening to flip the kayak end over end and send her down the falls belly-up. Not a fucking thing he could do but watch her fight. And man, was she fighting, her cheeks blown up with the effort of feeding oxygen to her overworking muscles. She leaned hard to the right and the kayak swung—and wedged neatly between the tree’s upended roots. Good plan but it wouldn’t hold her long. His kayak lurched. The branch slipped from his grip. She thrust out her paddle, and he caught it with one hand while backpaddling with his other hand and wrangling the current with his hips and abs. Not sustainable.
“Go!” she shouted. “Get help.” He could hardly hear her over the thunder of two hundred smashing cumecs.
“Not leaving you.”
She glanced at the bank, her eyes huge. “He won’t kill me straightaway. He’s doing this for sport. He’ll draw it out, hunt me.”
Cody’s boat shot forward, his glove slipping down the paddle. “Tia, pull me in!”
“You’re good at running and I’m good at hiding, remember? We play to our strengths. I’m letting this go. You’d better be ready because I sure as hell don’t want to search for your body.”
“No!”
“If something happens to me, don’t blame yourself or I swear I’m coming back to haunt you.”
“Tia...”
“Three. Two.”
“Tia!”
“One.” She let go and the current took its chance, sweeping him downriver. “Don’t come back without the army, Cowboy.”
Fuck. He swiveled, tossing her broken paddle and gripping his. He was too far right. He paddled hard. The current swung him sideways, accelerating on approach of the drop, shooting him under the bridge. His abs burned. The watery horizon was coming up fast. He was going down sideways, smack in the middle.
Not a great time to find out he was scared of death, after all. No way was this gonna beat him. No way was that freak gonna win. No way would he abandon Tia like he had Zack.
His kayak fell away under him, yanking him down. Weightless. White water, rocks coming up fast. Screw the death wish. Turned out he did have something to live for.
Someone to live for.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TIAWAITEDTOhear something—the crack of Cody’s kayak hitting a rock, a shout. The roaring falls smothered everything. The current shunted her kayak, lurching the stern up. Water gushed into the nose, submerging her feet.
Cody was a pro. He was wearing a helmet, a life jacket. He’d gone down on the current’s terms but he’d recover it. That wasnothow they’d say goodbye.
She yanked the spraydeck off the cockpit and clambered onto the tree. It rolled a little, sending her heart into palpitations. Time to swim. She’d be safer on the far bank, away from Shane, but that meant crossing the main mass of water—and the current was charging like a burst dam. But maybe she could lay a false trail. She unclipped her helmet and, with a grunt, hurled it across the river. It bounced onto a stony shoal. She shimmied out of the spraydeck, tightened her life jacket and leaped.
The current slammed her like a train. She stroked and kicked hard, icy spray pelting her eyes. Her arm hit a rock, spinning her. Something scratched her leg. A branch? She grasped for it, got a hold, stopped dead, the water tugging her. A tree root. She clamped her other hand around it. She was just short of the swing bridge. The root led to a gnarled tree clinging to the bank.Keep clinging, tree.She pulled hand over hand over hand, her belly clenching so hard she fought the urge to vomit. Her feet hit stones and she pulled into the rocky shallows, shaking all over.
Her instinct pricked. Goddamn, she was sick of that feeling. Shane? The dogs? She looked around. There, under the bridge, caught in debris corralled behind a pile of rocks—a square of yellow fabric, billowing and sucking like a jellyfish. A jacket? Clamping her jaw to kill the shivering, she waded up and grabbed it. It was heavy. Not just a jacket. Oh God. Something brushed her knee and bobbed to the surface. She stumbled back. A pair of legs, swollen, pasty, skin peeling off the feet, ankles tied with an orange strap—a dog lead.
She smacked a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, riding out the hit of shock. That fucking monster.
A squeak. Her eyes flicked open.Squeak.Above her the bridge lurched and started jumping around.Squeak. Squeak.The sole of a boot appeared between the planks. Paws scrabbled. She held her breath, heart pummeling her ribs. The boots passed and a dog followed, nose down. The greyhound. It clawed the wood and whined. Tia slunk down, her skin stinging as the water reclaimed her. The whine rose to a bark, and another.
