Here he stood, poised to lay bare his soul to a woman he had no future with, and yet, if he didn’t, he knew he would live with the regret for the rest of his life. And he had lived with such regret for far too long already.
“What is it, Merrick?”
Her soft voice intruded on his tumultuous thoughts, and he refocused his attention on her beautiful face.
“We may not survive this jump—” He broke off, unable to yet voice what was uppermost on his mind.
She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, determination burned brightly in their depths.
“We’ll survive,” she said firmly. “You wouldn’t allow me to come to harm.”
His chest expanded, swelling with all the things he wanted to say to this woman who had has such unshakable faith in him.
She looked away, her gaze lowering to the water below.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “There is something I must tell you.”
She glanced back at him, and he lowered his head to catch her lips in a lingering kiss. Her mouth parted beneath his, and he tasted her sweetness, sure that he would never forget it so ingrained it was in his soul.
“I love you,” he murmured, his words nearly lost in her mouth.
She froze. Taking advantage of her evident shock, he took her hand and leaped off the edge, spiraling them downward into the raging water.
Cold water exploded around Isabella, sucking her under. As she struggled to make sense of her surroundings and get her head above water, his words echoed in her head.I love you.
Had he really said it, or had she imagined it? And did he really mean it, or were they words uttered by a man who thought they might be his last? Perhaps an effort to say something, anything, to alleviate the awful truth of the situation.
The current tossed her body around like a rag doll, and in her mind, her worst fears were realized. She was going to die.
Almost as soon as the realization hit her, anger surged over her body. She would not die. As her foot dragged the bottom of the river, she pushed herself upwards, shooting rapidly up.
She broke the surface of the water, gasping and sputtering, fighting desperately to stay afloat. Ahead of her she saw Merrick bobbing down the rapids and nearly melted with relief that he was alive. For the time being at least.
Positioning her body so she wasn’t resisting the current, she sped down the river after him. She had nearly caught up to him when the current slowed, and the relentless beating she endured let up.
Merrick swam against the current to meet her and wrapped his arms tightly around her. “We made it,” he said triumphantly.
She threw her arms around him and captured his mouth in a long, heated kiss that outlined every ounce of her relief. “Careful,” he murmured. “You’ll drown us.”
She laughed a deliriously happy, thankful laugh.
They swam to the bank of the river and pulled themselves tiredly from the water and onto the ground. She collapsed on her stomach and laid her cheek against the soft soil, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, a pair of boots filled her vision. Boots she knew didn’t belong to Merrick.
A sick feeling of doom curled over Isabella’s cold, wet body. Her eyes traveled over the boots and up the legs until finally she looked into the eyes of the man standing over her.
She squinted against the setting sun to better see the potential adversary.
“Would you like a hand up, Your Highness?”
She melted in relief. Kirk.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kirk? What the devil was going on? Simon scrambled up as Isabella extended her hand and allowed Kirk to pull her to stand beside him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she wrung the water from her hair.
“Yes, what are you doing here?” Simon prompted.
