“…don’t know why he doesn’t leave. Folks will never forget what he done.”
“His poor father! First his wife, then his son! It’s not fair.”
“…been better if he’d died instead…”
Sometimes Hank wanted to scream in frustration and anger, to confront the people talking about him and tell them that they were wrong, that they didn’t know what had actually happened. But instead, he held it inside where it festered, a wound slowly turning rotten. Besides, like his father had said, people believed what they wanted to believe, and no amount of telling them otherwise would ever change their minds.
Coming down a steep hill, Hank caught sight of a bridge up ahead, spanning the Sawyer River. The moon kept peeking in and out of the dispersing storm clouds; in its soft glow, the bridge’s exposed beams looked like bones bleaching in the moonlight. Hank knew this bridge well, had fished off its struts as a kid, so he didn’t fight the urge to pull his truck onto it, the tires slapping across its wooden planks, before coming to a stop halfway across.
He got out, leaving the engine on, music drifting from the open window. Facing the water, the breeze was brisk, but Hank paid the chill no mind. He was lost in thought, remembering his mother, worrying about his father’s drinking, wondering how different his life would be if Pete were still alive. The only person in the whole world who had stood by him was Skip Young, his friend since they’d been boys. But it wasn’t enough.
Hank felt caught in a trap of his own making, with no way out. He desperately wished things were different, but he’d made a fateful decision and there was no going back. This was his lot in life, to be a pariah, all alone.
But then, as Hank struggled against his mounting misery, he heard something, a noise loud enough to cut through the whistling wind and the music playing over the radio.
It sounded like someone was screaming.
I’m going to die!
Caught in the river’s grip, Gwen was pulled along by the current. With every passing second, her sense of desperation grew. Again and again swells washed over her, plunging her head beneath the water’s surface, pushing her down, and forcing her to fight her way back to air. Her eyes scanned both banks, searching for anyone who might help her, but she was quickly moving away from town and all she saw was darkness.
“Help me!” she shouted anyway.
Gwen was growing weak, too tired to struggle for much longer. Her clothes were soaked through, weighing her down, pulling her like a ship’s anchor toward the bottom of the river. She wondered if she would die not from drowning, but from the fear of it.
She clawed at the water, hoping for something to grab hold of, a fallen tree branch or some other debris, but there was nothing. Slowly but surely, it was becoming harder for her to stay afloat. How long had she been in the water? How far had she drifted? In the end, Gwen knew it didn’t matter. If she didn’t get out of the river soon, she was going to drown.
And she would never see her family again…
A vision struck her. She imagined her own funeral, her mother weeping uncontrollably, distraught over the loss of her only child, as her father struggled to remain stoic, even though he was devastated on the inside. Her aunt Samantha cried silently, her small shoulders shaking. Kent was there, of course, his eyes bloodshot, underlined by dark circles, while his hands trembled. Seeing him, Gwen realized that one of the reasons he was so overcome with grief was that he blamed himself for her death; she had drowned because he’d forced her away.
Inspired to prevent such a grim future from coming to pass, Gwen made one last attempt to save herself. Fighting hard, she made ready to shout another cry for help, but when she opened her mouth, it was flooded with water. Gagging, her chest burning, she struggled to breathe but found that she couldn’t.
Panic grabbed her tight.
But then, briefly, through the swells of water tossing her around, Gwen thought that she saw something up ahead, a building or bridge, a structure looming toward the sky, lit from behind by the moon. She raised her hands, flailing them about, but doing so used all the strength she had left. Completely spent, she closed her eyes, uttered a silent prayer, and surrendered to her fate.
This was the end.
Hank cocked his head and listened. He heard the wind whistling through the bridge’s beams, Doris Day singing on the radio, and an owl’s hoot from the east bank of the river. But then, just as he was about to chalk it up to a figment of his imagination, Hank heard it again.
It was a shout, the words indistinct.
It sounded like it had come from behind him, upstream. Hank hurried across the bridge, leaned against the railing, peered into the darkness, and searched the river. The Sawyer was running fast, close to overflowing from all the rain. Here and there he saw clumps of leaves, a chair, fallen branches, and even the carcass of a deer, the animal unfortunate to have wandered too close to the river in search of a drink.
Heaven help anyone who fell in…
“…help me!”
Hank’s heart quickened when he heard the words, this time clear enough for him to make out. Suddenly he saw a pair of flailing arms coming right at him. He couldn’t believe it. Dumbstruck, he was too stunned to do more than stare.
Caught in the powerful current, the person—Hank couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—came closer in a hurry. Then, just before they reached the bridge, drifting into the darker shadows cast by the moon’s glow, their head slipped beneath the water’s churning surface, leaving a lone hand raised toward the sky. A split second later, the person was lost from sight beneath the bridge.
Shocked out of his stupor, Hank turned and sprinted for the opposite side. Without any hesitation, he hoisted himself up and over the railing, hurtling into the air, hanging for an instant before plunging down toward the river. He plowed into the water feetfirst, sending up an enormous spray, the rainwater colder than he’d expected. Immediately, he began kicking, forcing his way back to the surface, gulping a lungful of air, his head on a swivel, looking.
Come on, come on! Where are they?
For a long, agonizing moment, Hank feared that the person had gone underwater for good, but then, between swells, he saw the hand again, bobbing in the river ahead of him. He started swimming, his hands knifing through the water, determined to reach them in time.
Hank had reacted without thinking, his instincts telling him to help another, even if it meant putting his own life in danger.
He would save them both, no matter what it took.
Beneath the water’s surface, the sounds of the raging river were dull, almost muted. Darkness pressed toward Gwen from every side. Having given up, she was limp, directionless; left was right, back was front, up was down. Somehow, through all the chaos, beauty began to emerge; she felt warm, at peace, and was strangely comforted by the memory of her mother singing her favorite lullaby.
Then someone grabbed her wrist.
The touch was so unexpected that Gwen, as bad off as she was, was frightened. Reflexively, she tried to pull away, but the grip was too strong. Slowly yet insistently, she was pulled upward. When her head broke the water’s surface, Gwen began to cough violently.
“I’ve got you! Don’t let go!”
Groggy, still hacking up water, and with all her strength spent, Gwen looked at the person who’d suddenly appeared alongside her in the river. From the voice and what little she could see, Gwen knew it was a man, but she had no idea of the identity of her would-be rescuer.
He pulled her close, wrapping one arm around her waist while the other pushed hard against the current, moving them slowly toward the shore. Exhausted, Gwen struggled to keep her head out of the water, needing to occasionally rest against the stranger’s shoulder.
“Hang on,” he told her. “This is our chance!”
Ahead of them a dark shape loomed; as they raced ever closer, Gwen realized that it was an enormous rock. The river flowed swiftly around it, the water diverted to either side. The stranger was t
rying to get them to the inside, closer to shore, but the current was moving so fast that they slammed hard into the stone, a grunt forced from his mouth. Somehow he managed to hold on, stopping their momentum. Gwen clung tight, the bank only fifteen feet away.
“You’ve got to help me!” the man shouted. “I’ll push us off the rock and then you kick with your feet! Use whatever strength you have left!”
Weakly, Gwen nodded.
“On the count of three…”
When it was time, Gwen did as he’d asked. From somewhere deep inside, she found the energy needed to scissor her legs and paddle with her free arm. At first she feared that they weren’t going to make it, that they would be carried farther downstream, but just as she was about to give up, her foot touched the river’s bottom and the man pulled her the rest of the way into the shallows.
Miraculously, the river no longer held them.
Even though Gwen had reached safety, darkness still pressed down on her. It was a fight to keep her eyes open. The stranger scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bank, laying her down in the grass. Her chest rose and fell beneath her soaked blouse, her arms limp at her sides.
High above, the clouds had broken up, leaving the moon unblemished in the sky, shining brightly over her rescuer’s shoulder. Light encircled his head like a halo, illuminating the beads of water clinging to his hair. Shadows obscured his face. She couldn’t make out many details, only that he was looking at her with concern.
“Gwen? Can you hear me?” he asked.
She smiled. He knew her name, though his voice was unfamiliar. Gwen opened her mouth to say something, but that was when exhaustion took her. She slowly tumbled down like an autumn leaf falling from its tree. She blinked once, twice…
Then everything went black.
Chapter Six
GWEN…IT’S GWEN FOSTER…
Hank stared down at her face, lit by the moonlight. He tried to wake her, shaking her arm and repeating her name, but she remained unconscious. He had immediately recognized her. Even though he was only a handful of years older than Gwen, he didn’t know her personally, not really.
Hadn’t he heard that she was living in Chicago?
What was she doing here?
Most importantly, why had she been about to drown in the Sawyer?
Now that his adrenaline was subsiding, Hank felt exhausted. He took deep gulps of air, his heartbeat slowing. Getting them both to shore had been demanding work; his shoulders and legs burned from the effort. He wanted nothing more than to collapse in the cool grass and rest, but he worried that Gwen could be badly hurt. He knew he had to get her to a doctor, fast.
So how in the heck am I going to do that?
They were on a small outcropping, clear of trees, that jutted out into the river. The woods in front of them were thick, the underbrush crowded with bushes and fallen limbs. If Hank wasn’t mistaken, they’d drifted half a mile or so downstream from the bridge. Unfortunately, no one lived around these parts. However, if he could get through the woods, there was a little-used road that would take them most of the way back to his truck.
He looked at Gwen. She appeared peaceful, as if she was merely sleeping. A few strands of her dark hair were plastered to the side of her face, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted. The sudden realization that she was prettier than he remembered filled his head. Hank pushed the thought away, chiding himself for thinking such a thing at a time like this.
Even though it would be far faster for him to go back for the truck alone, Hank knew he couldn’t leave her behind. If Gwen were to wake while he was gone, disoriented and frightened, she could wander off, and he’d have a devil of a time finding her in the dark.
He didn’t have a choice. He had to carry her.
Hank lifted Gwen, one arm hanging limply at her side, water dripping from her clothes, and started for the trees. He moved with determination but also care; if he were to turn an ankle, they’d both be in a world of trouble. Painstakingly, he worked his way through the woods. When the path he’d chosen proved too difficult to navigate, he had to back up and find another route. He turned Gwen one way and then another, weaving among the trees and bushes. Once, they startled something in the undergrowth, probably a rabbit, sending it skittering away. Eventually, and with no shortage of relief, he found the road.
As he trudged toward the bridge, Hank’s boots squished with every step, completely soaked through. His arms burned from their burden, but he didn’t even consider setting Gwen down for a rest, just gritted his teeth and kept walking. He hoped he’d see headlights coming from either direction, but they were alone, so he continued on, listening to the chirping crickets.
Hank looked at Gwen. Even now, it seemed unbelievable that he would meet her again like this. In all the years they had each lived in Buckton, Hank didn’t know if they’d shared more than a couple dozen words, most of them back when they were kids, but Gwen had always been nice, with a bright, friendly smile. Her parents were both well thought of in the community, the same sort of pleasant people as their daughter, but thinking about Warren Foster made Hank frown. In the weeks after Pete’s death, one of the most hurtful comments he’d heard had come from the baker’s mouth.
I reckon we should be grateful his mother isn’t here to see this. If Eleanor was still alive, what that boy did woulda been the death of her…
Though the words had stung deeply, Hank supposed he couldn’t blame Gwen’s father. It wasn’t as if he’d been the only person in town to voice such harsh sentiments. Besides, Warren’s opinion did nothing to dampen Hank’s desire to make sure his daughter was safe.
Eventually, after what felt like an hour and a couple of miles, the bridge came into view. Hank’s truck was just as he’d left it; the headlights were on, the driver’s-side door was ajar, and the radio was still playing. Pulling Gwen close, he managed to open the other door and place her inside as gently as he could. Making sure she was secure, Hank hurried around the pickup, slid behind the wheel, and put the truck in gear.
Then he stopped, unsure of where he should go.
Grant Held’s house was on the opposite side of Buckton from the bridge; the doctor would surely be able to treat her, but it was a bit of a drive.
The Fosters’ home was much closer.
Hank looked over at Gwen. Her head lolled on her shoulder, her hair spilling across her face, her breathing steady but shallow. Even with Hank’s recent unpleasant history with her father, the decision was an easy one to make. He would take Gwen to her family. They’d know what to do.
And maybe I’ll find out what she was doing in the river in the first place…
When Gwen’s mother opened the front door, she let out a gasp, then stepped back and placed a hand over her open mouth. Hank didn’t wait for an invitation to enter but hurriedly stepped inside carrying Gwen in his arms, still unconscious. Other than some mumbling as he had raced down the darkened streets of Buckton, she’d yet to exhibit any signs of consciousness. He laid her down, still soaking wet, on a divan in the living room. Only now, nearing the end of their ordeal, did Hank begin to feel the price he’d paid for plunging into the Sawyer, swimming against its current, and rescuing Gwen. His arms and legs burned, the muscles aching, while his ribs were sore from when he’d slammed into the rock. His whole body wanted to rest.
“Get some blankets,” he told Meredith, who still stood near the staircase, watching. “She needs to get warm as fast as she can.”
All the way to the Fosters’ house, Hank had blasted the heater in his truck, but it had done little good. From their time in the water, as well as the long walk in the cool night, his teeth had never stopped chattering. Even with his adrenaline racing, Hank felt chilled to the bone. For Gwen, it was likely worse.
But instead of doing as Hank had suggested, Meredith ran to her daughter. She fell to her knees beside the sofa, pushed away wet strands of Gwen’s hair, and slapped her cheek, insistently and with increasing force.
“Gwendolyn, wake up!” she shouted. “Open your eyes and talk to me!”
Before Hank could begin to tell Meredith what had happened, loud footsteps sounded in the hallway. He turned to see three people burst into the room: Warren, Gwen’s aunt, and a man Hank didn’t recognize. All of them reacted with astonishment at what they saw.
“Gwennie!” her father shouted. His gaze moved quickly from his daughter to Hank, his eyes narrowing when he realized just who was standing there, dripping water on his rug. “What happened?” he demanded.
Hank told him about what he’d seen on the bridge, how he had jumped in after Gwen, how he’d managed to get them out of the Sawyer, and finally how he’d brought their daughter back home. While he spoke, Samantha left the room and came back with a pile of blankets, draping them over her niece, trying to warm her. Through it all, the other man just stood there in obvious shock, his mouth hanging open.
Warren stared hard at Hank. “And you just happened to see her in the water…” he said, doubt in his voice.
“Yes, sir, I did,” he answered.
“In the middle of the night, during a thunderstorm…”
Hank’s heartbeat quickened. Struggling to hold back his irritation, he asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Warren stepped closer. Looking into the man’s eyes, Hank saw several different emotions, including fear from the realization that he had come dangerously close to losing his daughter, but also disgust at the man who’d unexpectedly kept that nightmare from coming to pass. Far too late, Hank also remembered that Pete had been working for Gwen’s father down at the bakery in the months before his death. It hadn’t been much, a few hours at a time, a delivery here and some cleaning there as Pete tried to save money for college. Sitting in his truck on the bridge, soaking wet and unsure about where to take Gwen, he’d somehow forgotten all that. But from the look on Warren’s face, the baker most definitely hadn’t.
Sunday Kind of Love Page 6