Page 46 of Lost With You
“Yes. They are.”
Under the Icelandic blue of his steady gaze, the swirl of emotions inside her kicked up to a cyclone. She yearned for the familiarity of her old van, that metal womb, where she didn’t have to face any decisions about expectations and commitments.
“I didn’t mean to go so deep.” He cleared his throat. “But I’m hoping you’ll come along for this ride.”
His warm, callused hand scraped against her palm. She looked down to see their fingers entwined.
She needed to talk to Jillian, but Jillian wasn’t here. Maybe it was long past time she listened to her own heart.
She squinted up at him. “Let’s give this a try.”
***
Casey knew she was in trouble at the first real drop.
Miles past the launch clearing, rapids seized the canoe and hurled it downstream. Her arms burned with the effort to control the run. Dylan barked out commands, but no matter how she strained to respond, the canoe bumped through the water like a car on a rutted road, hitting ridges broadside and threatening to spin abaft. They careened close to one bank and then slipped nose first into the center trough again. Twice she was lifted off her seat by the heave of the vessel, twice more her bottom slapped onto the splintered board. She felt the jerk of a brief impact, heard a crack, and saw a trickle of water under the strapped gear.
“Right.”
Dylan’s voice rang out. She couldn’t pause to stanch the hole or even veer toward shore. She yanked, and the canoe bucked, swerved, and another nest of debris swept by.
“Left, Casey—”
She twisted the paddle, palms stinging raw.
“Pull it, pull it.”
Dylan plunged his paddle into the river, sending up a fountain of spray to bate the speed of their hurl downstream. The canoe heeled. Her feet went cold as water covered her shoes. Dylan caught sight of it, too.
“Got to get this canoe out of the river,” he shouted. “Keep her out of the central current—less pull.”
Her shoulders ached. Dylan wielded the paddle as if he were spearing a fish, holding tight with two hands while kneeling up as high as he dared, looking forward toward safety. They rode the edge of the current, and it was like being on the lip of a water slide. The only indication of any danger below the surface was a suspicious spray or a knot in the current that wasn’t easy to see amid the mist. She couldn’t say she was terrified. She didn’t have time to feel anything other than the sense of falling down a chute fast, with no breaks and no places to seek safety. The river had sure taken her mind off the intimacy on the shore when she might have made a commitment she still wasn’t sure she was ready to make.
Easier to concentrate on the here and now.
Then Dylan said, “Uh-oh.”
She sputtered out a mouthful of spray.
“Trouble coming, Casey.”
“I’m up to my ankles in water, and you’re telling me—”
“Hard right, then sharp left.”
“Into the current?”
“Better to be dragged past. Hard right.Now!”
She twisted her paddle. The canoe bucked and slid as smooth as ice into the torrent.
“Left.Left!”
She rotated the paddle and surged the other way. The wooden keel strained under the pull of the current. The canoe veered, centered, then veered again, and she heard the scrape of rock against wood as they barreled past another obstacle.
Bark peeled away near the gunwale, separating from one of the ribs. She shouted, “We’ve got a rip.”
Dylan glanced over his shoulder. “Above the waterline. We’ll be okay for now. We’re almost done. It eases ahead.”
