The Wonder of You

by Susan May Warren

  And Amelia caught it all—or most of it—for posterity.

  She supposed it could be worse—her tryout for the editor might have been during a council meeting or the annual garden club show. Although extreme close-ups of prizewinning roses did pose a unique challenge. Too bad journalistic photos and macro photography didn’t exactly overlap.

  Amelia climbed down from the truck and scanned through her pictures. A few of the girls spraying water on each other, a few more with them crowded together, sponges raised. Football coach Caleb Knight and his wife, Issy, eating donuts with the pastor’s wife, Ellie—her daughter was one of the older scouts. A couple bubbles drifting into the sky, the sheen of the sun glinting off the surface; she probably wouldn’t show those to Lou at the Herald.

  But nothing epic. Breathtaking. Magazine worthy.

  “Amelia, look out!”

  She looked up, searching for the voice just as water showered her, cold, sharp, dousing her T-shirt, her jeans. “Hey!” She tucked her camera away, turning fast.

  “Sorry!”

  This from one of the girls, her blonde hair plastered to her head from the hose war she’d just waged with her cohort.

  Amelia forced a smile instead of stringing the girl up by her multi-badged sash. “That’s okay.”

  “Babe, you look good soggy,” Seth called from where he was selling raffle tickets for the fire department in the open bay area. Wearing his turnout pants, red suspenders dangling, and a tight white T-shirt, his blond hair tucked under a patriotic bandanna, he probably sold double the usual raffle take. Especially when he grinned, his teeth white against his tanned face.

  He should be on a poster somewhere, for pete’s sake.

  Now he sauntered over, picking up a dry towel on his way. Her rescuer.

  One of the girls giggled and pointed as Seth wiped her drenched arm.

  “They got my camera wet,” Amelia said and took the towel, wiping it down.

  “Calm down, Red. It’s just a little water.” He stepped between her and the giggling girls. Lowered his voice. “Hey, I get off shift at six—maybe I can scoot up to the lodge. We’ll take a canoe out. Or take a drive. Or something.”

  She knew exactly what his or something meant. And for a moment, the idea of curling up in his embrace in the back of a canoe, staring at the stars . . . it didn’t lack in appeal.

  But . . . “I told Lou I’d get some pictures to him. Maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll give me another assignment.”

  Seth’s smile dimmed. “Okay. I get it. You want this photo gig. But it’s not like anything earth-shattering happens here on a Saturday night. There might be a speeder through town. Or a runaway moose.” He leaned against the fire truck, one leg on the running board, reaching out to pull her close. His lips touched her ear. “I miss you. I haven’t seen you all week.”

  That’s because she’d spent the week changing sheets, cleaning toilets, and painting flower boxes in anticipation of the resort’s Mother’s Day kickoff to the summer season. If she never saw another paintbrush again, it would be too soon. She couldn’t spend her summer doing laundry and checking in guests.

  She untangled herself. “Seth, I’m here to work. I need this job. Please.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” His chocolaty eyes trailed down her, back up. He made a face, glanced away.

  She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  He cleared his throat. Had the manners to look sheepish. “Your shirt’s . . . um, white.”

  The meaning dawned on her slowly. She looked down, and sure enough, her Evergreen Resort Welcomes You T-shirt might be a tad too welcoming.

  “Great.”

  “I got an extra shirt in my locker. C’mon.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and eased her away from the crowd. Next to him, Amelia felt even smaller, but he tucked her close, then took her hand as he led her into the building, back to the locker room.

  A few of the other volunteer firefighters lifted their hands in welcome, and she held her camera to her chest for protection.

  Especially when Dan Matthews came out of the kitchen, carrying a plate of cookies. “Hello, Amelia.”

  “Pastor.”

  She heard Seth chuckle and swatted him. “Not funny.”

  “Nope. Not at all.” But she heard the smile in his voice.

  She followed him into the locker room and gladly accepted his navy-blue Huskies football shirt, ducking into the bathroom to change. It smelled like him—wood chips, the faintest scent of pine, and his musky cologne. Familiar and sweet. She sank, just for a moment, into the memory of donning his football jersey.

  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to paddle the trail of moonlight with him later tonight.

  He seemed to read her mind as he sat down on the bench, pulled her onto his lap. She hooked an arm around his broad shoulders.

  “Listen, Red, I know I sort of jumped in fast when you got home. It’s just that I’ve figured out that I don’t want to leave here. I like Deep Haven. I like the mill, and my dad’s going to sell me half of his stake in it. Someday I’ll own the entire thing. I want to build a life here—and I want to do it with you.”

  Oh. She swallowed.

  “I know that you’re probably not ready, and that’s okay. I’ll wait. But I need to know that you’ll give us a chance.”

  When he looked at her with so much emotion in his eyes, what could she say? Besides, what if she wanted this too? What if she’d left Prague because she didn’t want the fear, the danger, the bigness of life outside Deep Haven?

  Seth certainly had the power to make her forget, help her heal.

  She pressed her hand against his cheek. He hadn’t shaved today, and his whiskers grew out deliciously red and gold. “Okay.”

  He rested his hand over hers. “Okay? Yeah?”

  “For now—”

  But he’d caught her mouth in a kiss, his hand behind her neck. And he tasted . . . like Seth. Diet Coke and the sweetness of a glazed donut and the sureness of knowing who he was and what he wanted.

  Familiar. Safe. Amelia let herself relish it, needing him, perhaps.

  The alarm broke her free. It blared through the building, followed by the 911 operator. A drowning out on Cutaway Creek.

  Seth was up and steadying her even as he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders. She preceded him out the door.

  “Where are you going?” he said as he grabbed his jacket, his helmet.

  Amelia turned. “Are you kidding me?” She jogged away from him, out to her Kia. Forget the Girl Scouts.

  She pulled out as the scouts hurried to clear the lot, catching a glimpse of Seth’s frustration as he kicked buckets out of the way.

  On the southwest edge of town, just above the bridge, a waterfall dumped spring runoff into a cascading, frothy river that ran through a gorge right into the mouth of Lake Superior, twisting the current into tiny cauldrons. Boulders the size of Smart cars jutted out into the water, tempting tourists to play Frogger, skipping from one bank to the other.

  This time of year, with the spring thaw, the creek-turned-river was hungry.

  Worse, higher up, where the hiking trail followed the river, pools of cool water tempted hikers to wade in, unaware of the snaking currents.

  And when one person went in, rescuers soon followed—too many to their deaths.

  Amelia shot up a prayer for the victims as she took the back streets, dodged traffic, and came out southwest of town, with a straight shot to the river. She had outrun the fire trucks, no whine of a siren in her wake.

  She’d get there and catch the entire event for the Herald. Lou would have no choice but to be impressed.

  Good-bye, housekeeping.

  She picked up her cell phone just before she hit the highway and left a message on the Herald answering machine. No need to send reinforcements—she had this.

  A committee of cars jammed the Cutaway Creek lot, tourists now caught in the tragedy. She parked on the side of the highway, scooped up her camera, and ran to the north side of the
creek, where onlookers stood back from the rocky edge. She snapped a quick shot of a mother, dressed in khakis and hiking boots, her grade school–age children pressed against her, sobbing. Another of an elderly couple watching from the bridge, hands gripped white on the rails. A third of a young woman, vise-gripping the hand of her husband to keep him from going beyond knee-deep in the water.

  On the other side, at least two men were in the water, surfacing, fighting the current to grab at something wedged in the rocks below the surface.

  Now, behind Amelia, the sirens wailed.

  Her viewfinder scanned the onlookers, took in another family standing on the shore, a woman and her dog, pulling at the leash, and not far upriver, where the rocks jutted out farthest, a little girl standing just outside the spray of water from the nearby falls.

  She wore a pink dress—that seemed the oddest—and her fawn-brown hair was in long braids with big red bows at the ends. Rail-thin, she appeared no older than six.

  As Amelia watched, the girl crouched on the rock, balancing on her feet, pulling her dress over her knees as if cold. Her expression seemed almost calm, as if she was oblivious to the chaos around her.

  Amelia glanced at the mother in khakis, but she hadn’t moved, her gaze on the river. Maybe . . .

  She walked over to the woman. “Is that your daughter?”

  The woman glanced at the girl. Frowned. “No.”

  Right. Amelia swung the camera over her shoulder, then headed to the river’s edge. “Little girl?”

  The girl didn’t move, just stared out at the chaos, the men still fighting the current, yelling. The scream of the sirens undulated louder.

  Amelia edged toward her, aware of the current eddying up onto the rock, turning it slick.

  Maybe whoever was with the little girl had slipped and fallen. Amelia cast a look at the water and saw one of the men surface, this time with a body.

  A woman.

  Oh no. She glanced at the girl, who watched without a flicker of emotion as the rescuers pulled the woman from the creek.

  Amelia crouched next to her. “Honey, where’s your mommy?”

  The child had blue eyes, which suddenly shook free from her trance and focused on Amelia. But when she spoke, the words were foreign and soft, a lilt to her voice that suggested a question.

  Except something made sense—a niggle of familiarity, buried under layers of memory.

  Prague. One of her flatmates spoke Russian. Or Ukrainian. Or maybe Polish—she couldn’t remember, but it seemed that the words might be of the same Slavic origin.

  Of which she’d learned three phrases.

  I’m hungry.

  I need the bathroom.

  And conveniently, Are you okay?

  The smallest redemption for her broken heart. She tried it out on the little girl, probably mangling the words.

  A flicker of understanding. Or maybe just the recognition of an attempt, but it ignited a barrage of words. Unintelligible, but the little girl stood. Pointed at the group of rescuers.

  Maybe her father was among them. Amelia shielded her eyes as she scanned the group. She could get their attention, if one of them looked—

  The woman lay prone, two Good Samaritans giving her CPR—one administering compressions, the other breaths.

  The man at the head—she recognized him as one who’d pulled the woman out of the current—offered a breath, then leaned back while the other pressed her chest.

  Now she saw his face.

  Oh. No. It couldn’t be.

  She hadn’t a hope of forgetting those high cheekbones. That curly black hair, wet and falling over his blue eyes—so blue they could lift her out of herself, make her believe—

  No.

  Even the outline of his sopping wet shirt betrayed the truth. Chiseled, Ree had said. Yes, Roark had the frame of a man who could dive into a raging river and rescue a lost soul. Delicious biceps, wide shoulders, lean hips, and he leaned down to breathe life into the dying.

  Except it was Amelia who needed resuscitating. Hadn’t he left? Freed her from the grip of his memory on her heart?

  A cold hand touched her cheek and jolted her out of herself.

  “Mamichka?”

  Even Amelia could translate that. “No, honey. I’m not your—”

  And then she got it.

  Roark St. John was trying—vainly, it seemed—to revive the little girl’s mother.

  Regardless of what he might be doing back in Deep Haven . . . regardless of the lies and the way he’d humiliated her . . . in that moment, yes, she could forgive him.

  She might even love him. Just for right now.

  She pulled the little girl close and held her, running a hand over her back. “Shh,” she said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Her hands trembled. Roark couldn’t be here. She held the little girl, but her brain tracked to the last time she’d seen him. Leaving the resort, with Darek, Casper, Jace, and Max watching from the driveway.

  It’s going to be okay.

  Behind her, the fire trucks arrived, and she turned to watch as the EMTs climbed out—as Seth climbed out—donning life jackets and heading to the river.

  Seth hadn’t actually met Roark, just heard the story. Over and over.

  Oh no. Amelia turned back, but a crowd had gathered around the woman, obscuring the men who’d been working on her. She’d lost sight of the rescuer who might be Roark.

  “Amelia? Are you okay?”

  She spotted her sister Grace, in a white sundress, her blonde hair loose, running across the rocky shoreline.

  “Max and I were coming home to surprise everyone, and I saw your car. What are you doing here?”

  “There’s a drowning. And I found this little girl. I think . . .” She looked again at the river, where a firefighter had gone in, roped to the shore, and was dragging out another body, male, older. “I think her mother is one of the victims.”

  As if to confirm, the girl lifted her head. Watched, bearing that same strange, enigmatic expression. “Papichka.”

  Amelia picked up the girl, turned her away, scanned the shore. The rescuers had fanned out as the firefighters and EMTs took over. She saw Seth attach a safety rope to his harness, wade into the water.

  Her throat tightened as the current took him, pulling on his rope. Please don’t die.

  But even as he swam down into one of the deadly pools, her gaze went back to the shore.

  She studied each of the soggy civilians who had risked their lives. A burly blond college student. A man—dark hair, stocky, probably belonging to the woman in khakis. The young husband who’d finally wrestled out of his wife’s grip.

  But no Roark.

  She searched the embankment, spied the elderly couple, the young family, others from town she recognized. Pastor Dan, the fire chief, and Joe Michaels, hauling the woman onto a stretcher. Mayor Seb Brewster and another volunteer firefighter at the water’s edge, belaying Seth, and Deputy Kyle Hueston, taking statements.

  But no Roark.

  “Let’s get off this rock, see if we can track down some relatives,” Grace said. She grabbed Amelia’s elbow to steady her as they trekked back to safety.

  Amelia searched for Roark one final time as she made her way up to the fire trucks. But he seemed to have vanished.

  Or maybe he was never there at all. Maybe her stupid, belligerent heart simply refused to surrender him to the past.

  Life, on this blue-skied spring day, had never seemed quite so fragile.

  The birds chirruped, calling from the trees over the rush of water cascading in a raucous froth down to the great lake. Mist hung in the air, and just an hour ago, Roark had watched a teenager—no more than fourteen—jump from boulder to boulder across the foamy river.

  He could be that boy, had played that game in rivers tucked away in far east Russia. Could nearly taste the carefree danger pooling in the back of his throat.

  The parents stood closer to shore, yet still at the edge of a boulder, the f
ather holding the hand of a little girl in braids, her red bows twisting in the wind.

  Roark had leaned against the rail of the bridge, working up a strategy—or perhaps just the courage—to talk to Amelia. His conversation with Claire had caused him to rise early, to take a run up the highway until he had to double over and haul in deep, cleansing breaths.

  If Amelia, bearing all the facts of my case, still chooses to reject me, I will walk away and be content to leave her in peace, despite my broken heart.

  He hated his words then, the very real prophecy in them.

  So he’d walked back to his meager flat, showered, tracked down a pastry at the local donut shop, then made his way to Jensen’s suggestion—Cutaway Creek.

  He parked with the other vehicles, hiked up to the high falls, then back, sorting through ways to find Amelia alone, to plead his case. At the bridge, he sat on a bench and watched families hike the shoreline. Parents holding the hands of their children, couples taking selfies. The joy of family hung in the air like the cool mist off the river.

  “Isn’t it breathtaking?” He heard the words from an elderly woman standing nearby, and right then, he was back on the Charles Bridge, admiring the artwork of a local who’d set up an easel, drawing a fresh view of the Judith Tower on the far end of the bridge.

  The sun hung low, lighting the red-tiled roofs and turning black the haunting gothic spires of the castle on the hill. The Vltava River was a rich mulberry, the bright lights of riverboats pinpricks against the deepening shadows.

  Roark had framed it in his viewfinder, waiting.

  And into this magnificent skyline walked Amelia. She wore high boots, jeans, and a black trench coat, an emerald-green scarf twined around her neck, her auburn hair long.

  When she pulled a camera from her rucksack, something latent and sweet stirred inside him. Like he’d seen her before, perhaps, and tucked the memory deep inside only to be stirred like a remembered song.