He held out his hand. “Step where I step.”
She stared at his hand. Looked at the river. Back at him.
Then she took his hand and stepped into the water.
15
The cold struckHarper’s shins, and the world contracted into a single, screaming point of sensation. The water was so cold it didn’t feel like water at all—it felt like pressure, like the river crushing her bones through her skin.
Her doctor brain fired automatically.
Near-freezing water. Cold shock in under a minute. Motor control failing soon after. Hypothermia not far behind. The knowledge made it worse.
She placed her feet where Pav’s had been, the rocks treacherous beneath her boots. His hand was steady around hers, grip firm, an anchor while the current shoved at her calves. Water battered over rocks with a hollow, relentless crash, loud enough to swallow the forest. It climbed past her knees, numbness spreading upward through her thighs.
The water hit her waist, and her body betrayed her. The gasp was involuntary—a violent inhale that ripped through her chest before she could stop it. Every muscle from the waist down seized as the current surged against her hips, dragging her sideways.
She couldn’t breathe or think. The cold pulverized everything until nothing existed but panic.
“Breathe.” His mouth close to her ear. His breath the only warm thing in the world.
She gasped again.
One word. Low and steady. His hand tight around hers. The same word he’d said when he buckled her seatbelt in the helicopter. Her body took comfort from his voice before her pride could object.
She sucked in a ragged breath as air finally broke loose in her chest. The pain ebbed as her body surrendered to the numbness, the cold sinking into her bones instead of attacking them.
She tightened her grip on his hand. They were past the middle now. The current eased slightly, the rocks larger beneath her feet. But her legs had stopped communicating properly—signals from her brain arriving late, her feet clumsy and imprecise.
Her boot slipped. One second she was upright. The next the river had her. Filthy water surged up to her chest in a freezing wall that emptied her lungs in a wrenching wheeze.
Pav’s arm clamped around her ribs before the water could keep her. He hauled her upright, braced against the current, his body a wall between her and the rushing water. “Harper?”
“I’m—” Her teeth clacked violently. “M’okay.”
“Almost there.” His arm stayed locked around her.
Tears burned her eyes. One foot, then the other. Each step was an act of will, because the alternative was to surrender and the river would kill her.
The bank materialized through a cold blur closing in at the edges of her vision. Frozen mud. Dead grass. Her hands clawed into the earth, fingers hooking into the frozen clods.
Behind her, the river clamored as if nothing had happened. As if it hadn’t nearly taken her.
Pav hauled her up from behind—hands around her waist, lifting, dragging—until the river released its grip and she collapsed on her hands and knees in the mud.
The air hit her soaked clothes, and the freezing chill doubled, the breeze turning the wet fabric into ice against her skin. Violent tremors overtook her body. She tried to stand, but her legs buckled and she dropped to one knee with a sound that was half gasp, half sob.
Strong arms closed around her shoulders and under her legs. Then she was lifted. Her body sank into the solidity of his chest as he carried her up the bank into the shelter of the trees.
She should have protested. Would have, if her mouth had remembered how to form words. Instead, she let the world narrow to his heartbeat, his wet jacket, the iron grip of his arms holding her.
For a moment, they were simply there. Soaked, shaking, and breathing the same freezing air. His chest rose against her cheek. The arm around her tightened as another shiver coursed through her.
“I’m going to put you down now.”
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, the movement stiff.
He set her carefully back on her feet and stepped away.
