Except when I turned in a full circle, water sloshing around my shoulders, he wasn’t there.
Cass and Reid were playfully splashing each other as they swam toward the shore. Cass got the upper hand and dunked Reid, shouting, “That’s for calling me a plant princess!”
He must have grabbed her foot because she went under next, and they both came up sputtering and grinning like fools.
“Do you see Gavin?” I shouted to Bowen, who stood on a rocky outcropping.
His gaze was fixed on the chute. The world narrowed to one sharp breath as ice spread through my limbs. The seconds stretched, and my heart thumped painfully in my chest. Gavin hadn’t come through. But he’d been there… right behind me.
“We have to do something. We have to help him!” Panic rising, I swirled in the water as if the answer lay in the grotto and not above.
Cass and Reid trudged out of the pool, their laughter fading as they joined Bowen on the rock. A grim silence doused the charm of the grotto as we waited.
And waited.
One minute, into two.
Bowen dropped his head, and Cass gripped Reid’s hand asshe pressed her dripping forearm against her trembling lips.
No!
Tears pricked my eyes, and something inside my chest squeezed so hard, I thought it might crack in half.
I couldn't breathe. My thoughts whirled, chaos and denial battling it out, until the tears blurred my vision, and all I wanted to do was sink to the bottom of the pool.
My heart was so heavy, I feared I might.
We have to help. Gavin can’t be gone. I can’t—
A figure dropped into the pool, sinking like a stone, before exploding from the surface. Gavin slicked back his hair, shaking the water from his face as he let out a deep-throated laugh.
“A hot spring?” He batted away the steam, his gaze locking on me as I tread water a few feet away. “You didn’t believe me, but I told you it could happen!”
My breath trembled on an inhale, and I launched myself at him, wrapping my legs around his waist, arms tight around his neck until we nearly sank.
“Whoa, what’s this?” Gavin anchored me, treading water for both of us. “Not that I’m complaining, but—”
“I thought you were dead!” I sniffed and concealed a sob against his shoulder that threatened to burst through like a dam breaking.
“Are you crying?”
“No!” I snapped. “The steam is making my eyes water.”
He chuckled softly, brushing wet hair from my temple. “I’m not dead, just delayed.” His voice lowered as he shared his secret. “Don’t tell the others, but I got tangled in a vine and nearly blacked out. When they ask, though, I'm going to say a masked marauder broke inside, and I had to fight him off with my bare hands.”
“Wow, Gav. That’s so heroic,” I said, my sarcasm hiding the riveted way I drank in his face, the life in his eyes, and the way he felt molded against my body.
His grin made my pulse jump. “I know. Make sure to put that in your book.”
“You shouldn’t have waited for me,” I whispered.
His grip tightened, and his jaw tensed, the muscles ticking in his throat. “You shouldn’t have asked me to go.”
Steam swirled around us, thickening the air to create a shimmering curtain of heat. The rest of the grotto faded. Water lapped around our shoulders. Moonlight glinted on the rippling surface, turning Gavin’s hair silver.
He splayed his hand across my back, holding me in place as he kept us both above the surface. Our breaths mingled, and when his heavy-lidded gaze dropped to my mouth, I stopped breathing altogether.
“Are the two of you done playing in the grotto?” Bowen shouted, his voice echoing off the rocks. “Since we’re all alive, I want to stay that way. Remember the marauders? You know, the guys with machetes and a thirst for vengeance? Let’s put some distance between us and the chute before they catch up.”
