Nate chuckled. “Right. You ready?”
Gracie looked down one last time. She drew in a deep breath then let it out slowly and nodded. “Ready.”
Like Scott did with him all those years ago, Nate grabbed her hand and said, “Together on three.” With their eyes locked, he counted aloud, “One. Two. Three!” Then, they jumped.
Gracie screamed as they fell. Though, he tried to keep ahold of her hand, they became separated as their bodies hit the water.
Nate torpedoed deeper and deeper, his momentum finally slowing when his toes met a much cooler area beneath the surface.
He then began to move his legs and arms as he’d been trained, and within seconds, his head was above water again.
“So.” He used one hand to rub his eyes before running it roughly across the top of his head a couple times. “What did you think?”
Blinking against the few droplets still remaining on his lashes, Nate looked to where he thought Gracie had landed. Assuming he’d gotten turned around, he spun himself in the opposite direction. He saw only rippling water.
“Gracie?”
Nate looked to the spot where they’d secured their canoe thinking maybe she’d already began swimming to the shore, but it sat empty. Bobbing up and down easily from the miniscule waves he and Gracie had caused.
Heart in his throat, Nate’s head whipped back around, but there was still no sign of her.
“Gracie!” he yelled loudly, waiting another second before diving under to search for her there.
The sound of Nate’s panicked heartbeat filled his ears as he tried to see through the cloudy, green water. His arms swiped this way and that in hopes he’d bump into her, but he felt nothing.
When he resurfaced again, she was nowhere to be seen.
“Gracelynn!”
Terrified she’d landed wrong and was under the water and unconscious, Nate prepared to go back down and continue searching. Filling his lungs with as much air as they could hold, his face had almost hit the water when he felt something touch his back.
“Yes?”
He twisted his body around. A strange, guttural sound of relief escaped his throat when he saw her.
Treading water with ease, Gracie smiled back at him as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
“What the…where the hell were you?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean? I’ve been here.” Gracie glanced around them and smiled again. “The water felt so nice and refreshing, I decided to stay under and swim around in it for a while.”
“You decided to…” Unable to believe what he was hearing, Nate clamped his teeth together and began breathing through his nose. Still attempting to slow his racing pulse, he opened his mouth then closed it. Then, he opened it again. “You’re kidding.”
“What? And you were right, by the way. That was a total rush. We should do it again.”
“You want to do it again?” He bit out. “You want to do itagain?I thought you’d fucking drowned, Gracelynn. I came up, and you were just…gone. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“You’re mad.”
“Damn right, I’m mad. I thought—” Nate cut himself off when he noticed the way she was looking at him.
Gracie was trying to hold her serious expression, but she’d rolled her lips inward and laughter lit up her mischievous eyes.
It had taken him a few minutes, but Nate finally realized what had just happened.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Now biting her lip, Gracie remained quiet. The damn fool woman was clearly struggling to keep from laughing.
