Page 6 of If the Boot Fits

“I’ve got you.” Asher struggled to keep himself, and the boy, above water. “Stop fighting, or we’ll both go under.”

Clint tried to turn his head, but water lapped into his face, setting off another bout of coughing. Thankfully, he had enough presence of mind to stop his thrashing.

“Just stare at the sky, kid. I’ll get you to shore.”

And hopefully still have time to get himself off Three Cedars property before Dearing’s men chased him down. Now that he knew the kid would survive, his own troubles resurfaced, urging his fatigued muscles to swim faster.

Testing the pond’s depth, Asher stretched a leg downward and knocked into something relatively solid. It took a moment to steady his feet in the mud, but once he was stable, he shoved upward. Dragging the boy from a standing position proved much easier than swimming. Night air chilled his face and chest, while the muted sounds of faraway shouts urged him to hurry.

Once they reached the shallows, Clint batted Asher’s arm away and crawled out under his own power. The kid hunkered on the shore on all fours, his head hanging low as he coughed and wheezed.

Asher gave him a couple of firm whacks on the back to help dislodge some of the water he’d taken in, then spared a quick glance toward the house.

The woman in the soggy blue dress was nearly upon them. Skirt hiked to her knees, she scurried around the west end of the pond as fast as her ruined dance slippers would allow. She didn’t worry him as much as the three men running from the house with rifles in hand.

He needed to get out of here.

He thumped Clint’s back a final time. “You good, kid?”

Still on all fours, the boy looked like a drowned rat and sounded like a creaky door hinge with all that wheezing, but his head bobbed up and down, giving Asher the permission he needed to beat a hasty departure.

“All right. Take care.”

He ran over to where he’d left his boots and snatched them up.

“Clint?”

The woman. She was close. No time. Asher tucked the boots under his arm and sped away in his stockings. He bent sideways to grab his coat from the ground as he sprinted past, but a swath of blue flashed in his peripheral vision. He stumbled. His armful shifted. Something fell, but he didn’t have time to go back. If Miss Dearing saw his face, his escape wouldn’t matter. She’d just identify him later.

Turning his back to her, he tightened his grip on what remained in his arms and raced for Bruno. Thanking God for hard-packed dirt with few rocks and sticks to jab his feet, he fled down the game trail, not slowing his pace until he was in the saddle, bent over Bruno’s neck, galloping for home.

****

Samantha barely spared the thief-turned-hero a glance as he bounded away from the pond. Her brother, sputtering and coughing at the water’s edge, demanded her full attention.

Her heart ached at the sight of him on his hands and knees, hair plastered to his head, chest heaving for breath, limbs shivering as the night air chilled his drenched form.

But he was alive.

“I’m here, Clint.” Finally. Never had a distance seemed so long.

She threw herself onto her knees in the mud beside him, her own chest heaving from fear and exertion. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she helped him straighten.

“Are you all right?”

He managed a nod as another cough wracked his body.

“Thank God.” She folded him into her arms and rocked slightly, unsure if she was trying to soothe him with the motion or herself. Then, as if they weren’t soaked enough already, a torrent of gratitude and relief poured from her eyes.

She could have lost him. God have mercy. She could have lost her brother. The very idea seared her soul like a branding iron.

Yet now was not the time to fall apart. Clint needed dry clothes and a warming brick. She’d send for Dr. Abbott. Have him listen to Clint’s lungs. Prescribe treatment. Her work in Boston had shown her the destructive power of pneumonia and consumption. Lung fever could take a healthy person and turn him into a withered, empty husk. That would not happen to Clint.

“Come on,” she said after giving him one more squeeze and brushing his dripping hair out of his face. “Let’s get you back to the house, shall we?”

His eyes looked past her. She turned to see what had captured his attention and found a boot lying discarded on the ground a few feet away. A rather distinctive boot. Usually a man’s boot was either brown or black. This one was both. Brown lower, black upper with some kind of fancy stitching along the top.

“He saved me.” Clint’s voice emerged raspy and rough, but it was the awe beneath the sound that drew Samantha’s attention back to her brother. “Why did he do that?” His brow creased. “I thought robbers were bad. That they stole and cheated and only cared about themselves. But this one saved me.”