“Joe!” Hailey splashed and waved. “Joe!”
I blinked water from my eyes, squinting toward shore. My heart sank. We’d attracted a crowd. One of the island’s two emergency vehicles idled on the pavement, its lights blinking. A family on bicycles clustered by the rocks. And there, standing on a boulder next to Liv, was Joe.
Relief washed over me.
“Dude. You want to help?” I called.
“Stand up.”
“What?”
“Stand.”
I let my tired legs drift down. My feet touched bottom. Thank God. Another yard, two yards, and Hailey could stand, too. Together, we staggered through the shallows, pulling the (now much lighter) kayak toward shore.
Joe waded in and grabbed the bow handle, hauling it out of the water.
“Wow. You got your feet wet,” I said.
His eyes crinkled. “You seemed to be managing all right.”
“Ha.” I squelched onto the beach.
His slow smile warmed me to my toes. “Thanks for rescuing my sister.”
“What are you doing here?” Hailey asked.
He extended his hand to help her up the slope. “Liv called me.”
“I recorded the whole thing!” Liv said, bouncing over.
Hailey reached for her phone. “Let me see!”
Joe pressed a kiss to his sister’s hair, steering her toward the ambulance. “Later.”
Bruno Petrovksi, the deputy fire chief, was leaning against the hood. “Annie Gallagher. Should’ve known I’d find you here.”
Which was really unfair. It had been years since I snuck into the paddock and broke my arm trying to ride standing up like Pippi Longstocking. And, yes, I’d started a tiny fire at Rachel’s sleepover when we were playing fortune tellers and I’d draped a pink scarf over a lamp to create the right mood. But Rachel’s mother had put it out before the fire truck got there.
“Hi, Chief. Hey, Mercy,” I said to the EMT as she came around the ambulance.
“If Anne wasn’t here, you’d be calling marine rescue,” Joe said.
Was he…defending me? Not that I needed him to, but it was kind of nice.
“Almost called them anyway,” Bruno said. “They like a little excitement.”
“I was fine,” Hailey said. Joe gave her a look. “Well, Iwouldhave been fine. I lost my paddle.”
“And where was your life jacket?” Bruno asked.
Hailey flushed.
“It was my fault,” I blurted. Sort of my fault.
Joe frowned. “You knew about this?”
“Not about the kayak,” Hailey said.
