One sharp, unexpected slam against a hidden rock. The raft lurched violently sideways. And I — with the balance of a newborn deer under ideal conditions — went flying. One second, I was seated. The next I was airborne.
“Oh, sweet baby —”
Then freezing water swallowed me whole. The river punched the breath from my lungs. Everything turned cold and loud and chaotic. Water rushed over my head as panic took the wheel. My arms flailed wildly. My feet found nothing. Absolutely nothing.
This was it. I was going to drown wearing waterproof mascara and a rental helmet. My Brave Things board would outlive me — three years of careful curation, and the only item I’d ever checked off was about to double as my cause of death.
Death by killer rapids, trying to be the woman who whooped.
I burst back above water sputtering violently, the life jacket jerking me upward while the current shoved me downstream. Water splashed into my mouth. I coughed hard, blinking wildly before the current shifted again, spinning me sideways. I got a good look at the shore. I’d never be able to swim to it. The current was too fast.
Then, from behind a tree, something appeared. I thought it was a bear at first. Would I wind up his dinner? I blinked the water from my eyes, and the shape came into focus. It wasn’t a bear standing on two legs on the riverbank watching me drown.
It was… Bigfoot?
No, according to the documentaries I watched, it couldn’t be Bigfoot. Bigfoot did not dress in black t-shirts and worn jeans. No, it — he — was simply the biggest man I had ever seen in my entire life. Not big like tall. Big like if a lumberjack became a grizzly bear. Broad shoulders stretched the t-shirt to its limit. A surprisingly well-kept beard—why was I noticing that in themiddle of drowning? — covered the bottom half of his face. A scowl covered the top half.
He found me in the water. Dark eyes. Focused. Annoyingly calm while I was actively being waterboarded by nature.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Feet up!” he barked.
Excuse him? I was fighting for my life, not attending boot camp. I flailed my arms. “I’m trying not to die here!” I shouted.
That earned me one eyebrow lift. Water crashed over my face again. I sputtered, coughed, and flailed with absolutely no dignity left whatsoever. “This is not the empowering experience I paid for!”
“Feet up!” the giant shouted again. And then, as if I wasn’t obeying him fast enough, “Feet up!”
“I heard you the first time,” I muttered as I tried to do as he’d ordered. It was easy for him to shout directions. He was standing safely on land looking like the final boss in a lumberjack video game while I got spiritually mugged by nature. The current spun me sideways. A sharp rock scraped my thigh through my leggings. “Ow! Rude!”
Then I was being swept past him, over another set of jagged rocks that made me wince. I knew I’d be black and blue if I survived this. Another shout, the same order. Feet up. I decided I might as well do as he said. Thankfully more than one lesson at the YMCA had covered floating, which I attempted now. There was no sense in fighting the current. Fighting—
I shrieked as I was jerked up by the back of my life vest. A massive hand grabbed it hard. The mountain of a man had walked into the raging water and simply dragged me out of the river. Zero gentleness involved. He hauled me through the water behind him like a pool float.
The second we reached shallow water, he bent, grabbed me beneath the arms, and lifted me fully out of the river. I collapsedonto the rocky bank coughing violently. Water poured from my nose. My braid stuck to my face. One of my shoes was missing. Gone. Probably halfway to Idaho.
“You with me?” The deep voice rumbled above me.
“No. The river ate my shoe and my dignity. I’m going to need a moment.” I lay there for a moment, eyes closed. When I opened them, he was close. Very close. I blinked then blinked again. He was even bigger up close. Water dripped from the dark ends of his hair. He slicked it back with one hand. His beard was dark and thick and only slightly damp from his river rescue, and I had the deeply unhinged thought that it probably felt incredible against a person’s throat. Or the inside of a person’s thighs, which was an excellent sign that I was concussed. Everything about him screamed mountain man. Big boots. Beard. Rough hands. Permanently annoyed expression.
“You look like Bigfoot.” The words came out before my filter had a chance to recover from the river. I apparently became extremely honest when terrified. One dark eyebrow lifted. Not offended. More annoyed, if anything. “I get that a lot.”
“I mean it affectionately,” I added quickly, because my mouth was apparently committed to the disaster. “Bigfoot is impressive. Enormous. And apparently excellent at water rescue.” That did not make him smile.
He reached for my helmet. I jerked backward. “Wait. My head’s still attached.”
“I need to check your pupils.”
“Wow. Buy me dinner first.” Still no smile. The man looked like he hadn’t deployed a real smile in several years, and I had decided, lying on a riverbank with river water draining from my nose, that I was personally going to be responsible for extracting one. It felt like a challenge. I loved a challenge. Even when I was soaking wet and missing a shoe and had technically attempted to drown myself.
The mountain man unclipped my helmet and lifted it carefully from my head. Cool air hit my soaked scalp. Then he grabbed the straps of my life vest. “Arms up.”
I obeyed immediately before realizing what I was doing. Since when did I take orders from giant river cryptids? He tugged the vest off my body in one smooth motion. My wet shirt clung to everything I owned.
Oh no.
The mountain man’s eyes dropped. Briefly. But long enough that I felt it even through the cold, even through the embarrassment of being drenched and lying on a riverbank in a wet shirt that was advertising everything I had — every soft, generous, entirely unhidden curve — in high definition. I did not have the build of a woman who could afford a clinging wet shirt and maintain dignity. I knew this. And yet here I was, unable to do a single thing about it except sit still and try not to make eye contact.
“Are you hurt?”
