He smiled. They’d actually done it.
“Nothing’s happening.” Waverly’s voice was nervous through the window.
“That’s good,” he answered. “Try the handles now.”
He heard shuffling, then metal on metal as one of the girls turned on the faucet. Then there was a satisfying splash as the shower started.
“Oh, my God! It worked!” Eve shouted.
Madison and Waverly squealed, but then Luke heard Sam’s voice. “Um, problem.”
“What?” the other girls said in unison.
“It’s cold.”
Luke smiled as the girls realized that they had indeed plumbed a shower, but not one with actual hot water.
“Luke?” Madison emerged from the building, hands on her hips. “Did you just design us a cold shower?”
“Nope.” He smiled, and he knew they were going to want to kill him. “Today was shower-building 101. Tomorrow, we add heat.”
“Are. You. Kidding?” Sam’s eyes looked like they were about to spin out of her head. “There’s no heat?”
“Well, let me ask you this—did it occur to any of you that you had no heat source?”
Waverly scrunched her eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“Water doesn’t heat itself, girls. Look.” He waved at the faucets. “You want hot water, you need to have a way to make it hot. Tomorrow, we install a water heater.”
Sam flopped on the grass, her arm slung over her eyes. “I don’t care. I hate plumbing. I hate this place. I hate water. And I definitely hate—you.”
Luke laughed. “Good. We’re right on schedule.”
* * *
A little while later, Gabi looked out the huge windows of the dining hall to see the girls trooping down to the water, Luke in tow. All except Sam were in their bathing suits. Apparently the heat had gotten to them enough that they finally didn’t care just how frigid the lake water was.
She wiped her hands on a dish towel, dinner prep finally finished. Two hours ago, Luke had pointed to the menu on the huge fridge, then pointed to the ingredients. “Let me know if you need help,” he’d said.
Not a chance, she’d thought. No way am I going to admit that I don’t have a clue what to do with six chicken breasts, six potatoes, and a bunch of salad ingredients sitting in the fridge.
But she’d figured it out. The chicken was in the oven, a green salad was in the refrigerator, and she’d even made brownies. From a boxed mix, but still. Who said she had no domestic skills?
She headed out the screen door and down to the shore, smiling as she saw Madison, Waverly, and Eve dare each other to jump off the dock. Sam watched from the sand as they held hands and counted to three five times before one of them—Gabi couldn’t tell who—finally dragged the other two into the water. When they bobbed to the surface, letting out the requisite squeals, Sam shook her head.
“Idiots,” Sam muttered as Gabi sat down beside her in the sand.
“You don’t want to join them?”
“Do I ever want to join them?”
Gabi sighed. “Not by choice, no. But it’s really hot. You don’t want to cool off?”
“Ha.” Sam sent a glare at Luke, who was fiddling with something over by the equipment shed. “If I want to cool off, I’ll just go use our brand-new shower. It’s very—refreshing.”
He smiled tolerantly. “Cold shower’s better than no shower, right?”
“Cold shower?” Gabi was confused. “Why do we have a cold shower?”
“Girls forgot a heat source.”
“Girls didn’t know about heat sources,” Sam shot back.
He shrugged. “They do now.”
Sam growled, which made Gabi laugh.
“It’s not funny, Gabi.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not laughing about the situation. Laughing about you growling at Luke.”
“Well, then you would have been in hysterics if you’d heard me earlier. I might have taught him some new curse words.”
Gabi felt her mouth go tight. “I don’t think that’s exactly the goal here, Sam.”
“Yeah, well, a hot shower was the goal here, and we didn’t get that, either.” Sam tossed a pebble toward the end of her toe, missing widely.
“Hey, Sam! You coming in this time?” Madison beckoned from the water.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Oh, come on, Sam.” Waverly popped up beside Madison. “You never swim.”
“You’re not afraid of the water, are you?” Madison tipped her head, and Gabi was struck by how clearly she resembled the meanest of the mean girls in the movie they’d watched in the dorm last month.
Sam drew her knees up to her chest. “Not afraid. Just don’t feel like swimming.”
“But you never feel like swimming.” Waverly smiled like a Cheshire cat, and an alarm pinged in Gabi’s gut. “Come on, Sam. Just come in with us.”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “Go find a turtle to torment or something. Leave me be.”
Madison took three steps toward shore, like a piranha going in for the kill. “Oh, Sam. I really think you need to come swim with us.”
One second later, Gabi jumped in surprise as she saw Eve streak around behind Sam. Then, in an obviously rehearsed motion, Madison and Waverly sprinted out of the water, grabbing Sam’s legs just as Eve slid her hands under Sam’s armpits and lifted her out of the sand.
Sam screeched like Gabi’d never heard before, and her arms and legs flailed in the air as the girls carried her down the dock.
“Going swimming with the fishes, Sammy!” Madison sang. “You’ve avoided it long enough.”
“Stop. It. Right. Now!” Sam squawked, and the sound got Gabi’s alarms clanging at full volume. “Put me down!”
“Girls!” Gabi yelled. Sam didn’t look pissed. She looked terrified. “Girls! Put her down!”
But either they didn’t hear her, or they ignored her, because five seconds later, with a mighty heave, they tossed her off the end of the dock. There was an enormous splash, and the girls ran back up the dock toward shore, laughing wildly.
Gabi jumped up, scanning the water. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Luke moving quickly down the lawn toward her. Time seemed to freeze as she watched the spot where Sam had landed, and she silently willed her to stop joking around and come back up.
But ten seconds later, her annoyance turned to terror as the surface of the water stayed unbroken.
Sam was down there … and she wasn’t coming back up.
Chapter 16
Gabi sprinted to the water’s edge, flinging herself in a shallow dive just as Luke ran for the dock. She covered the distance to where the girls had tossed Sam in a matter of seconds, but it felt like minutes as she cut through the frigid water.
When she got to the end of the dock, she paused to tread water and get her bearings, then dove under. The water was as clear as glass, but hellishly deep, and her hand went to her throat when she saw Sam’s blond hair ten feet down, farther away than she thought the girls had flung her. The girl’s arms were flailing, and as Gabi headed toward her, she could see Luke circling around to come up behind her.
As soon as she got close enough to touch Sam, she reached out to pull on her arm, lungs burning. But with surprising strength, Sam streaked both arms toward Gabi and grabbed her neck, holding on so tightly that Gabi panicked. Oh, holy hell! Sam was pulling her downward, and Gabi didn’t have the strength to kick them both to the surface.
She tried to lift Sam’s arms from around her neck, but couldn’t get them loose, and Gabi felt chills rush to her head as her own arms seemed to lose power. Oh, God. Where was Luke? Sam was going to drown them both!
An eternity later, she felt his body close around hers from behind, then felt a painful tug on her hair as he pried Sam’s hands loose. He gave Sam a push backward, then sent Gabi toward the surface with a mighty heave. As she floated upward, she watched as if behind a kaleidoscope lens as Luke circled around behind Sam, clampe
d his arm around her middle, and shot toward the surface with the girl, who’d gone suddenly, frighteningly limp.
Gabi broke through the surface of the water and gulped air, flailing as she tried to convince strength to return to her limbs. One second later, Luke’s head broke through, then Sam’s.
“You okay?” he huffed. She nodded, not trusting her voice. “Can you make it up onto the dock?”
“Yes.” She had no idea where the strength came from, but she grabbed hold of the dock pilings and hauled herself up to the planks, then reached down to help Luke lift Sam up. Madison, Waverly, and Eve stood on the dock, stock-still, their eyes wide with fear.
“Go call nine-one-one! Now!” Gabi yelled, and after a momentary freeze, the three of them sprinted back up the dock toward the admin cottage.
As soon as they had Sam on the dock, Luke pulled himself out of the water and kneeled next to her, tipping her on her side and clapping her back as Oliver jumped onto the dock from shore.
“C’mon, Sam. Spit it out. The fish need the water, not you.”
No response.
“Sam, honey.” Gabi leaned close to her ear. “Come on. You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s okay now. Come on. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She heard the babble-panic in her own voice, and she knew Oliver and Luke heard it, too. Dammit. How had she never known Sam couldn’t swim?
Luke continued to thump Sam’s back while Oliver held the phone to his ear, but she still wasn’t responding.
“She wasn’t down for that long.” Gabi looked at Luke. “How could she—”
“Probably panicked and inhaled when she hit the water. Got a lungful of lake.” His voice was calm, but he looked at his watch, then at the parking lot, then back at Sam’s face. The alarms went to full-on panic in her stomach as she realized he might be timing Sam’s chances here.
She leaned closer to her ear. “Listen, Alexandra Marie. If you don’t spit out that water—”
Just then Sam’s entire body heaved, and she spit out an absolute gush of water. Then she coughed and gagged and emptied the rest of her stomach over the side of the dock.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Gabi pulled Sam’s head onto her lap. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” She stroked the girl’s hair as Sam took some sobbing, hitched breaths. “You’re all right now. It’s okay, Sam.”
“Ambulance is coming.” Oliver nodded toward the woods, and Gabi could hear a siren, but it sounded a long way off still.
Luke took Sam’s feet and rubbed them hard, probably doing some sort of emergency treatment Gabi had no knowledge of.
“You still have all your toes. Phew.” He leaned over so he could see her face. “Camp legend has it that if you go below the ten-foot mark, the lake monster eats your toes.”
No response from Sam as she lay there, which was far more worrisome to Gabi than if she’d hauled off and sworn at Luke for treating her like a five-year-old. Even more worrisome than that was the fact that she was lying still, allowing herself to be comforted. The Sam she knew never let anybody touch her.
Gabi looked at Luke, who took Sam’s wrist and checked her pulse as his eyes traded silent messages with Oliver’s. “Let’s get a heat blanket on her, just in case.”
Oliver turned and quick-stepped toward the office while Luke wrapped his hands around Sam’s feet. Gabi swallowed hard as she watched him.
“Is she hypothermic?”
He shook his head. “Shouldn’t be. She wasn’t in there long enough. But she’s shivering like crazy. Probably a combination of cold and adrenaline dump, but better to be safe than sorry.”
Gabi stroked Sam’s spiky blond hair back from her forehead, trying to corral her own adrenaline. What would she have done if Luke hadn’t been there? Would she have had the strength to pull Sam out of the water? Would she have even gotten to her in time? Would she have even known the signs of early hypothermia so she could have helped treat it before the ambulance arrived?
She hated that the answer might have been no—to all of those questions.
And as she watched Luke calmly take over, tucking the blanket around Sam, then gently wiping her face with the towel Oliver brought, Gabi was struck by an overwhelming urge to—to what? Hug him in abject relief? She didn’t even know. What she did know was that the irritated, standoffish man she’d met when she’d gotten out of the van a week ago didn’t seem to be anything like the one she was looking at right now.
Luke leaned over Sam again. “Hey, Snarkasaurus—is it true your real name’s Alexandra?”
Sam shook her head, then coughed out more water before she buried herself in the blanket. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
* * *
Luke stood in the darkened dining hall just after midnight, looking out the windows at the moonlit lake. He was still too amped up to sleep, and he imagined he wasn’t the only one, so he’d wandered down the pathway to see if maybe Gabi was in her favorite beach chair. She and Sam had returned from the hospital hours ago, but besides a quick stop in the admin cottage to say they were back and Sam was okay, she hadn’t emerged from the tent yet. The girls had gone to bed at nine, and since then, he’d been pacing and cursing and dying to talk to her.
He’d sat down to wait, hoping against hope that she’d come out. At eleven o’clock, he’d told himself he’d only wait until eleven-thirty. At eleven-thirty, he’d decided he could wait till midnight. At midnight, he’d decided … ah, hell. He had no idea what he’d decided.
A movement on the pathway caught his eye, and as he watched, Gabi emerged from the woods and headed for the beach. A strange feeling gripped his gut as he saw her wrap her arms around her midsection like she was trying to hold herself together.
The sudden realization that he had a strong urge to be the one holding her like that made him pause a minute longer before heading down to join her. Finally, he closed the screen door quietly behind him and walked down the pathway, stopping when he was twenty feet shy of where she stood in the sand. For a week now, he’d watched her go toe to toe with this little crew, and he’d been impressed with the inner strength that kept her sane. But right now, it looked like the steel had left her spine. She looked sad and defeated … and like she could really, really use a—what? Friend? Ally? Long, hot kiss to make it all fade away?
He shook his head. She needed A and B. He was the one who’d started thinking too much about C.
“You okay?” he finally asked, trying to keep his voice quiet so he didn’t scare her.
She paused before she turned, and he tried not to notice she was swiping her sleeve across her eyes. Shit. He did not do tears.
“I’m okay.” She turned, and the tears were gone, but they’d left her eyes red, and left tracks down her exhausted cheeks. It was all he could do not to cover the ground between them in two steps and take her in his arms.
“How’s Sam?”
“Doctors said she’s physically fine.” She tipped her head. “Might be a long trip back for the nonphysical end of things.”
He took a step toward her. “I can’t believe she doesn’t know how to swim.”
“Yeah, well, surprise surprise.” Gabi sniffed, then blinked hard as she tightened her arms around herself. He wasn’t sure whether it was the tears pooling in her eyes, or the way she looked like she was afraid she’d snap apart in the middle that did him in, but before he could think better of it, he closed the distance between them and pulled her close.
“Hey. It was a tough scene, Gabi. You did great.”
She took a shuddering breath against his chest, and he realized she might be about to lose it completely. She might dissolve right here in his arms—tears and sobbing and fear and hysteria—and he was going to be stuck, because what kind of asshole opened the door and then slammed it shut?
But for the first time in his life, it didn’t actually scare him. For whatever crazy reason, he just wanted to stand right here and hold her in his arms until she didn’t need him to.
/> “I’m sorry,” she mumbled against his chest. “I’m not—I don’t usually do … this.”
“It’s okay. Losing it’s a pretty standard reaction when somebody almost drowns on your watch.” Her shoulders shook as she took another breath, and he pulled her tighter. “Hey. It’s okay. She’s okay now.”
“She could have died, Luke.”
“She didn’t.”
“By the grace of God … and you. I can’t stop thinking what might have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
“You’d have figured it out, Gabi. You’d have saved her.” He said the words he thought she needed to hear, but knew she would see through them. Neither of them knew what might have happened. Gabi couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, and Sam wasn’t a tiny twig. It would have taken all Gabi had—and more—to get that girl off her neck and out of the water.
“I’m not so sure, Luke. I’m really not, and that scares me.”
“I know.” He reached up to stroke her hair, finding it even smoother and softer than he’d realized when he’d plucked out the stupid spider. “And I know you’ll see through whatever platitudes I can come up with right now, so I’ll stop.”
“Okay.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “I just keep seeing her in the water, below me, out of reach. I don’t dare close my eyes, because that vision’s going to haunt me forever. I don’t think there’s any way I’m going to sleep tonight.”
Her voice was shaky and raw with fear, and in another life, Luke might have offered himself—his body, his bed—as a comfort. He’d have done that, if he didn’t care so much about what the next morning would look like.
But this was Gabi. Granted, he’d had precious little time to get to know her, but he was one hundred percent sure she wasn’t the kind of girl who did the casual, trauma-induced hookup thing. And he wasn’t anymore, either. Someday maybe he’d be ready to go all in with somebody. But until then, he wasn’t going anywhere.
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