He chuckled. “Yeah, okay, maybe I did sometimes, too,” he admitted. “I wasn’t always the sensible older brother.”
She could hardly imagine him like that, relaxed and fooling around. All the time she had known him, he had seemed to be this solid, strong guy who took everything seriously—well, everything outside of her, of course. She always tried to bring out a lighter side of him, never wanting him to feel like he had to put up that front when he was with her. She wanted to see the man underneath, the man who had grown up from that little boy who had played in the snow with his baby brother.
“But in my defense, I…” Xavier began, but then, he sharply cut himself off, his words faltering as he looked in the rearview mirror.
Hannah craned her head around to see what he was looking at, and her stomach lurched. A big truck was racing up on them from behind.
The two-lane road was winding with a ravine on one side and a fast-flowing river on the other; the entire length of it was a no-pass zone. If another driver happened to be coming down the mountain, it would be bad for them all. As the truck sped towardthem faster than anyone needed to on an icy road, she couldn’t help but feel a familiar terror curling inside her stomach.
“Who the hell is that?” he muttered. “And why are they coming at us so fast? It’s icy as hell out there.”
“Maybe they’re just trying to pass?” she offered optimistically, but she knew that wasn’t the case. Nobody would dare speed around these mountain roads in this weather unless they were stupid. Or trying to intimidate someone.
Or drive them off the road.
“No, that’s not it,” he replied, his voice dropping to a growl. “You’re buckled in, right?”
“Yeah,” she squeaked, hoping he couldn’t hear the fear in her voice. She could hear the other vehicle’s engine on the road now, drawing ever closer, and it took everything she had not to let the panic get the better of her. Her eyes slid to the sides of the road—noting how close their SUV was to the edge. She shivered at the thought of how frigid that water must be.
“It’s okay,” Xavier murmured to her, sensing her tension.
She clasped her trembling hands in her lap. She wanted to believe him, God, she wanted to believe him, but she was struggling to contain her panic. After the fire, she hadn’t been able to assume anything was innocent. Any danger in her vicinity, she was hyperaware of it.
Then the big truck was beside them on a curve. With the vehicles almost pressed up against each other, Hannah tried to look around Xavier to see the driver of the truck, but in her panicked state, she couldn’t get a good look through the darkened windows.
Suddenly, the driver twisted the wheel and slammed their truck into Xavier’s SUV.
“Hold on!” Xavier yelled, but his voice sounded far away.
Hannah’s head spun, and everything slowed as the vehicle flipped off the road. The sickening crunch of metal and thesound of tearing filled the air, and she felt her scream stick in her throat. She wanted to yell out for help, but she knew it was no use.
But as their SUV spun through the air and down toward the water below, she finally let it out. A scream that bounced around the interior of the vehicle, her hands scrambling for purchase on something, anything.
But it wasn’t enough to brace for the final impact as the SUV landed with a crash in the cold, murky river.
Chapter Eleven
Xavier sucked in a long breath, trying to ground himself as the SUV finally came to a halt in the river several feet from shore. It was upside-down in the water, the sunroof smashed, and the freezing, dark liquid was starting to inch in through the gap between the doors and the roof.
“Xavier…” Hannah whimpered, and he reached over to squeeze her hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” he told her, as calmly as he could. “Just unbuckle your belt. We can get out of here.”
She reached down to hit the button to release her seat belt, but it didn’t budge. She stabbed at it a few more times, growing increasingly desperate, and then turned to him, eyes wide. “It’s stuck,” she told him.
Xavier grimaced and reached for the glove box where he kept a small blade. It would be enough to free her if he could get to it. But he couldn’t reach the compartment from his side, restricted by his own belt. In order to help Hannah, he had no choice but to unclip it and let himself fall into the rapidly rising water below.
“Just hold on, I’m going to get you out,” he promised her, and he unclipped his belt. Thankfully his wasn’t stuck, and he landed with a grunt on the roof of the SUV. No matter what it took, he was going to get them both out before the vehicle completely filled with water.
The ends of Hannah’s dark brown hair were already dangling into the freezing water, making them look more black than brown. In a few minutes, it would reach her face as the SUVcontinued to slide deeper into the river as more water rushed inside.
He grabbed the door handle and heaved himself up toward the dashboard, pressing the button to release the small compartment where he kept his knife. It didn’t budge. Damn. Was anything still working in this thing?
“What are you doing?” Hannah asked. He could hear the terror in her voice, and he wished he could stop to comfort her, but he knew he needed to keep focused on the task at hand before it was too late.
“I’m getting a knife to cut you free,” he told her through chattering teeth. He could feel the chill of the water starting to set into his bones, and he knew they wouldn’t last long out here without some help—but he could deal with that when the time came. What mattered now was getting that blade, cutting Hannah out of her seat belt and getting them out of this vehicle before it filled up or moved farther into the river.
He slammed his fist into the glove box a couple of times, until he felt the spring lock break, and it fell open. A bunch of stuff dumped out—maps, pens, a notepad, a granola bar—and he managed to catch the small knife before it dropped into the water below. Wrapping his hand around the handle, he turned to Hannah. “Can you pull the belt taut?”
