I can’t hold on.
Claire’s arms were trembling and useless. She couldn’t pull them to the next branch. She couldn’t rouse Beth or make herself care that the water was lapping at her chin, wetting her lips. Claire had stopped calling for help. Her cries were nothing but rasps in her parched throat, swallowed by the darkness. She couldn’t even pray, with prayers she’d known since childhood just jumbled and meaningless words.
Beth sputtered and struggled.
Claire closed her eyes, tipped her head back, the hot tears escaping from the corners of her eyes and burning down her cold face.
She had to give up. She had to let go.
As despair swamped her, she opened her eyes one last time. And saw the stars.
Claire had seen the Montana sky at night a hundred times. The milky array of stars, the flood of brilliant points of light. But tonight, she saw them anew.
The beauty of them. The brilliance. So clear they seemed to pierce her heart.
For a moment, the cold and fear burned away, replaced with wonder.It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?Claire’s memory was as lucid as a film as she blinked into the night sky.
Red standing on the viewing platform of the Lower Falls, his russethair glowing in the late afternoon sun. His calloused hand holding hers, his blue eyes taking her in like she was the marvel.What do you believe, Claire?
She could see the rainbows on the canyon walls, feel the sun on her shoulders. She believed that beauty spoke of God.God is here, and he loves us. He loves Claire Reilly. And he loves Red Wilder.She saw Red’s Montana-sky eyes. The light of hope in them that he always carried for her. For them both.
Red. He loved her.
Red loved her, and he loved Jenny.
She hadn’t made a mistake—far from it. The day her father refused to walk her down the aisle she’d made the best decision of her life. Whatever had happened with Dell—whatever had driven Red to go to Libby, it had been because he loved them, she knew that now. And he would come back.
The cold crept back through her heavy limbs. The gritty water swirled around her neck. Her arms trembled with the strain of holding Beth, and the tree swayed. A veil of clouds moved over the sky like smoke, obscuring the moon.
The stars vanished, but the light of hope remained, as if one of the crystal stars had fallen from the sky and now burned brilliant and hot in her heart.What do you believe, Claire?Did she only believe that God was to be found in a beautiful waterfall or a sunset or the love in Red’s eyes? Or was he there even in the dark and devastation of the night? He was with her now. In the water, in her fear and weakness. He was still with her, like the stars behind the veil of clouds.
He never left her. And he had given her hope of her own.
“Beth,” Claire said, as that hope gave her strength to do the impossible. “We have to climb.” Claire pulled Beth upwards, out of the cold water. The tree swayed as they reached the uppermost branches.
Claire called out, over the water, pushing the air past her aching throat. Calling for help.
I won’t give up hope, Lord. I’ll keep holding on.
chapter 54:FRANNIE
The cry for help carried across the canyon.
Frannie stood at the edge of the water. It was definitely a woman. It could be Claire. If it was—or even if it wasn’t—she had to do something.
“I’m going out there,” Frannie told Paul.
“How?” Paul stood beside her, looking out into the dark. She’d wrapped Paul’s ankle in a torn-up bedsheet and he was able to hobble around, but he wouldn’t be running any races. The moon shed a thin light on the remains of the campground. The river—or lake or whatever it was now—had crept farther up the bank, almost covering the ridge and creeping close to the road where they had set up camp. “You don’t even know where they are and that water has all kinds of stuff in it.”
Frannie didn’t want to hear his reasoning. “I’m a good swimmer.”
“That’s not it, Frannie,” Paul explained patiently. “Listen.” He turned to her and met her eyes. “You have to assume that whoever is out there, if they could swim to shore, they would have. Maybe they can’t swim, or are hurt, or whatever. But you gotta have some way to get them back. Like a boat.”
They didn’t have a boat, and Frannie was starting to find Paul’s logic annoying.
Mel came back with an armful of wood. “And the clouds are moving in. You won’t be able to see a thing.”
“I’m going to find a way,” Frannie grumbled.
