He’d rather she make a controlled slide toward him while she was still able, rather than land wherever gravity might take her. Petula’s trajectory could mean the difference between him catching her and…her submerging before he could get his hands on her.
“It’s time to come to me, Petula,” he urged as steadily as he could.
The blast of a horn from the shore had him turning his attention away from her for a split second.
Trucks.Lots of them.
His brothers.
And sirens. He heard them now in the distance.
“Do you hear that, Petula?” he called out, excitement clear in his voice. “That’s my brothers and EMS. Everything’s going to be okay. They’ll all be waiting for us.”
No.They actually werenotall waiting. Three of his brothers were already suited up and headed into the water.
Damn,they were the guys you needed in times like these.
“They’re coming to help us, Petula. But you have to jump. Even once they get here, it’ll be hard for any of us to climb up onto the truck to get you. You have to do it.”
He didn’t want to tell her that if they attempted to hoist themselves up, and inadvertently put their weight in the wrong place, the whole van could tip and go under.
He repeated his initial edict. “You have to let go.”
Petula was whimpering now, and shaking her head.
What could he say to change her mind? How could he reassure her that water was not her enemy?
Fishing.
That was it. Petula had told him over dinner that she and her brother loved to fish. That it had made her brave enough to be near water again.
“I bet this is a great place to go angling in the summer,” Julian began, interjecting a cheerfulness into his voice that he wasn’t feeling. “What do you think? Rainbow trout, or hornpout?”
Petula grunted, daring to look at him again. “I…don’t like cleaning hornpout,” she managed through quivering lips that were turning a dangerous shade of blue.
Shit.He needed to get her on shore as fast as possible.
“Okay,” Julian told her. “Maybe not hornpout, then. But if wedocatch those ugly bastards instead of trout, I promise I’ll do all the cleaning.”
She gave a weak laugh, then…
“Okay, Julian. I’m…I’m letting go now,” she warned him.
Whether it was by choice or because of numbness, he didn’t know. But right now, he’d take it.
He stationed himself directly below her, back a few feet so she wouldn’t send him plunging, but close enough that he’d have his arms around her almost immediately.
“I’m ready for you,” he said.
She let go with a yelp, and slid off the roof, right into his arms.
Her head didn’t even go under.
But she was shaking so badly, he needed to step things up.
“You did it,” he assured her, keeping an arm around her torso while fumbling for the end of the rope with his free hand. “I’ve got you. You did good. I just have to get this rope around you.”
Shit.He’d have to let her go in order to do it.
