If he calculated just right and entered at the correct place upstream, the current would float him right to them, but he would have to aim just right so the first boulder blocked his movement and his weight didn’t dislodge the logjam, sending the children farther downstream.
He knew the swift-water safety algorithm. Talk. Reach. Wade. Throw. Helo. Go. Row. Tow. The only thing he could do here was reach them and get them the hell out.
He tied the rescue rope around the sturdy trunk of a cottonwood, then around his waist, then plunged into the water that came up to his chest. The icy water was agony and he felt his muscles cramp instantly, but he waded his way toward the deadfall, fighting the current as hard as he could. It was useless. After only a few steps, the rushing water swept his feet out from under him, as he expected.
It took every ounce of strength he could muster to keep his feet pointed downstream so they could take the brunt of any impact with any boulders or snags in the water. The last thing he needed here was a head injury.
He must have misjudged the current because he ended up slightly to the left of the boulder. He jammed his numb feet on the second boulder to stop his momentum. A branch of the dead tree gouged the skin of his forehead like a bony claw, but he ignored it, fighting his way hand over hand toward the children, praying the whole time he wouldn’t dislodge the trunk.
“Alex, Maya. It’s Chief Bowman. Come on, you guys.” He kept up a nonstop dialogue with them but was grimly aware that only Alex stirred. The boy opened one eye as Taft approached, then closed it again, looking as if he were utterly exhausted.
The boy’s arm was around his sister, but Maya was facedown in the water. He used all his strength to fight the current as he turned her and his gut clenched when he saw her eyes staring blankly and her sweet features still and lifeless.
He gave her a quick rescue breath. She didn’t respond, but he kept up the rescue breaths to her and Alex while he worked as quickly as he could, tying them both to him with hands that he could barely feel, wondering as he worked and breathed for all three of them how much time had passed and what the hell was taking his tech rescue crew so long.
This was going to be the toughest part, getting them all out of the water safely, but with sheer muscle, determination—and probably some help from those guardian angels he was quite certain had to be looking after these two kids—he fought the current and began pulling himself hand over hand along the tree trunk, wet and slippery with moss and algae, pausing every ten seconds to give them both rudimentary rescue breaths.
Just as he reached the bank, completely exhausted by the effort of fighting the current, he heard shouts and cries and felt arms lifting him out and untying the kids.
“Chief! How the hell did you find them clear over here?” Luke Orosco, his second in command, looked stunned as he took in the scene.
He had no idea how to explain the process that had led him here. Miracle or intuition, it didn’t matter, not when both children were now unresponsive, although it appeared Alex was at least breathing on his own.
Satisfied that his crew was working with Alex, he immediately turned to the boy’s sister and took command. He was the only trained paramedic in this group, though everyone else had basic EMT training. “Maya? Come on, Maya, honey. You’ve got to breathe, sweetheart.”
He bent over the girl and turned her into recovery position, on her side, nearly on her stomach, her knee up to drain as much water from her lungs as he could. He could hear Alex coughing up water, but Maya remained still.
“Come on, Maya.”
He turned her and started doing CPR, forcing himself to lock away his emotions, the knowledge that Laura would be destroyed if he couldn’t bring back her daughter. He continued, shaking off other crew members who wanted to take over.
Some part of him was afraid all this work was for nothing—she had been in the water too long—but then, when despair began to grip him colder than the water, he felt something change. A stirring, a movement, a heartbeat. And then she gave a choking cough and he turned her to her side just in time as she vomited what seemed like gallons of Cold Creek all over the place.
Pink color began to spread through her, another miracle, then she gave a hoarse, raspy cry. He turned her again to let more water drain, then wrapped her in a blanket one of his crew handed over.
“Oxygen,” he called. Maya continued to cry softly and he couldn’t bring himself to let her go.
“Good job, Chief!”
He was vaguely aware of the guys clapping him and themselves on the back and the air of exultation that always followed a successful rescue, but right now he couldn’t focus on anything but Maya.
“You ready for us to load her up?” Ron asked.
He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew she needed more than the triage treatment they could offer here. There was still a chance she had been without oxygen long enough for brain damage, but he had to hope the cold water might help ease that possibility.
“Yeah, we’d better get her into the ambulance,” he answered. When the EMTs loaded her onto the stretcher, he finally turned to find Alex being loaded onto another stretcher nearby. The boy was conscious and watching the activity around him. When Taft approached, his mouth twisted into a weary smile.
“Chief.” The kid’s voice sounded hoarse, raw. “You saved us. I knew you would.”
He gripped the boy’s hand, humbled and overwhelmed at that steady trust. “What happened, Alex? You know you’re not supposed to be near the water.”
“I know. We always stay away from it. Always. But Lucky ran that way and Maya followed him. I chased after her to take her back to Mama and she thought it was a game. She laughed and ran and then slipped and went in the creek. I didn’t know what to do. I thought…I thought I could get her. I had swimming lessons last year. But the water was so fast.”
The boy started to cry and he gathered him up there on the stretcher as he had done Maya. What a great kid he was, desperately trying to protect his little sister. Taft felt tears threaten, too, from emotion or delayed reaction, he didn’t know, but he was deeply grateful for any guardian angels who had been on his rescue squad for this one.
“You’re safe now. You’ll be okay.”
“Is Maya gonna be okay?” Alex asked.
He still wasn’t sure he knew the answer to that. “My best guys are just about to put her in the ambulance. You get to take a ride, too.”
Before Alex could respond to that, Taft saw a Pine Gulch P.D. SUV pull up to the scene. His brother’s vehicle. The thought barely registered before the passenger door was shoved open and a figure climbed out.
Laura.
She stood outside the patrol vehicle for just a moment as if not quite believing this could be real and then she rushed toward them. In a second she scooped Alex into her arms and hugged him.
“Oh, baby. Sweetheart,” she sobbed. “You’re okay. You’re really okay? And Maya?” Still carrying Alex, she rushed over to Maya and pulled her into her other arm.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we need to transport both of the children to the clinic in town.” Ron looked compassionate but determined. “They’re in shock and need to be treated for possible hypothermia.”
“Oh. Of course.” Her strained features paled a little at this further evidence that while the children were out of the water, they still required treatment.
“They’re going to be okay, Laura,” Taft said. He hoped anyway, though he knew Maya wasn’t out of the woods.
She glanced over at him and seemed to have noticed him for the first time. “You’re bleeding.”
Was he? Probably from that branch that had caught him just as he was reaching the children. He hadn’t even noticed it in the rush of adrenaline but now he could feel the sting. “Just a little cut. No big deal.”
“And you’re soaking wet.”
“Chief Bowman pulled us out of the water, Mama,” Alex announced, his voice still hoarse. “He tied a rope to a tree and jumped i
n and got us both. That’s what I should have done to get Maya.”
She gazed at her son and then at Taft, then at the roaring current and the rope still tied to the tree.
“You saved them.”
“I told you I would find them.”
“You did.”
He flushed, embarrassed by the shock and gratitude in her eyes. Did she really think he would let the kids drown? He loved them. He would have gone after them no matter what the circumstances.
“And broke about a dozen rules for safe rescue in the process,” Luke Orosco chimed in, and he wanted to pound the guy for opening his big mouth.
“I don’t care,” she said. “Oh, thank you. Taft, thank you!”
She grabbed him and hugged him, Alex still in her arms, and his arms came around her with a deep shudder. He couldn’t bear thinking about what might have happened. If he had overshot the river and missed them. If he hadn’t been so close, just at The Gulch, when the call came in. A hundred small tender mercies had combined to make this moment possible.
Finally Luke cleared his throat. “Uh, Doc Dalton is waiting for us at the clinic.”
She stepped away from him and he saw her eyes were bright with tears, her cheeks flushed. “Yes, we should go.”
“We should be able to take you and both kids all in one ambulance,” Luke offered.
“Perfect. Thank you so much.”
She didn’t look at him again as the crews loaded the two kids into their biggest ambulance. There wasn’t room for him in there, although he supposed as battalion chief he could have pulled rank and insisted he wanted to be one of the EMTs assisting them on the way to the hospital.
But Laura and her children were a family unit that didn’t have room for him. She had made that plain enough. He would have to remain forever on the outside of their lives. That was the way Laura wanted things and he didn’t know how to change her mind.
He watched the doors close on the ambulance with finality, then Cody Shepherd climb behind the wheel and pull away from the scene. As he watched them drive away, he was vaguely aware of Trace moving to stand beside him. His brother placed a hand on his shoulder, offering understanding without words.
Another one of those twin things, he supposed. Trace must have picked up on his yearning as he watched the family he wanted drive away from him.
“Good save,” Trace said quietly. “But it’s a damn miracle all three of you didn’t go under.”
“I know.” The adrenaline rush of the rescue was fading fast, leaving him battered and embarrassingly weak-kneed.
“For the record, you ever pull a stunt like that again, trying a single-man water rescue, Ridge and I will drag what’s left of you behind one of the River Bow horses.”
“What choice did I have? I knew the deadfall wasn’t going to hold them for long, the way the current was pushing at them. Any minute, they were going to break free and float downstream and I wouldn’t have had a second chance. Think if it was Destry or Gabi out there. You would have done the same thing.”
Taft was silent for a moment. “Yeah, probably. That still doesn’t make it right.”
Terry McNeil, one of his more seasoned EMTs, approached the two of them with his emergency kit. “Chief, your turn.”
He probably needed a stitch or two, judging by the amount of blood, but he wasn’t in the mood to go to the clinic and face Laura again, to be reminded once more of everything he couldn’t have. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
“You sure? That cut looks deep.”
He gave Terry a long look, not saying anything, and the guy finally shrugged. “Your call. You’ll need to clean it well. Who knows what kind of bacteria is floating in that water.”
“I’m heading home to change anyway. I’ll clean it up there.”
He knew he should be jubilant after a successful rescue. Some part of him was, of course. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about, but he was also crashing now after an all-nighter at the fire station combined with exhaustion from the rescue. Right now, all he wanted to do was go home and sleep.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Terry advised him, an echo of what his brother had said earlier.
He wanted to tell both of them it was too late for that. He had been nothing short of an idiot ten years ago when he let Laura walk away from him. Once, he had held happiness in his hands and had blown it away just like those cottonwood puffs floating on the breeze.
She might be back but she wouldn’t ever be his, and the pain of that hurt far worse than being battered by the boulders and snags and raging current of Cold Creek.
Chapter Eleven
So close. She had been a heartbeat away from losing everything.
Hours after the miracle of her children’s rescue, Laura still felt jittery, her insides achy and tight with reaction. She couldn’t bear to contemplate what might have been.
If not for Taft and his insane heroics, she might have been preparing for two funerals right now instead of sitting at the side of her bed, watching her children sleep. Maya was sucking her thumb, something she hadn’t done in a long time, while Alex slept with his arm around his beloved dog, who slept on his side with his short little legs sticking straight out.
So much for her one hard-and-fast rule when she had given in to Alex’s determined campaign and allowed the adoption of Lucky Lou.
No dogs on the bed, she had told her son firmly, again and again, but she decided this was a night that warranted exceptions.
She hadn’t wanted to let either of them out of her sight, even at bedtime. Because she couldn’t watch them both in their separate beds, she had decided to lump everyone together in here, just this once. She wasn’t sure where she would sleep, perhaps stretched across the foot of the bed, but she knew sleep would be a long time coming anyway.
She should be exhausted. The day had been draining. Even after the rescue, they had spent several hours at the clinic, until Dr. Dalton and his wife, Maggie, had been confident the children appeared healthy enough to return home.
Dr. Dalton had actually wanted to send them to the hospital in Idaho Falls for overnight observation, but after a few hours, Maya was bouncing around the bed in her room like a wild monkey and Alex had been jabbering a mile a minute with his still-raspy voice.
“You can take them home,” Dr. Dalton had reluctantly agreed, his handsome features concerned but kind, “as long as they remain under strict observation. Call me at once if you notice any change in breathing pattern or behavior.”
She was so grateful to have her children with her safe and sound that she would have agreed to anything by that point. Every time she thought about what might have happened if Taft hadn’t been able to find the children, her stomach rolled with remembered fear and she had to fold her arms around it and huddle for a few moments until she regained control.
She would never forget that moment she climbed out of his brother’s patrol vehicle and had seen Taft there, bloodied and soaking wet, holding her son close. Something significant had shifted inside her in that moment, something so profound and vital that she shied away from examining it yet.
She was almost relieved when a crack of light through the doorway heralded her mother’s approach. Jan pushed the door open and joined her beside the bed. Her mother looked older than she had that morning, Laura reflected. The lines fanning out from her eyes and bracketing her mouth seemed to have been etched a little deeper by the events of the day.
“They look so peaceful when they’re sleeping, don’t they?” Jan murmured, gazing down at her only grandchildren.
Laura was suddenly awash with love for her mother, as well. Jan had been a source of steady support during her marriage. Even though Laura hadn’t revealed any of the tumult of living with Javier—she still couldn’t—she had always known she could call or email her mother and her spirits would lift.
Her mother hadn’t had an easy life. She had suffered three miscarriages before Laura was born and two after. When Laura was a teenager, sh
e had often felt the pressure of that keenly, knowing she was the only one of six potential siblings who had survived. She could only hope she was the kind of daughter her mother wanted.
“They do look peaceful,” she finally answered, pitching her voice low so she didn’t wake the children, although she had a feeling even the high-school marching band would have a tough time rousing them after their exhausting day. “Hard to believe, looking at them now, what kind of trouble they can get into during daylight hours, isn’t it?”
“I should have fenced off the river a long time ago.” Weary guilt dragged down the edges of her mother’s mouth.
Laura shook her head. “Mom, none of this was your fault. I should have remembered not to take my eyes off them for a second. They’re just too good at finding their way to trouble.”
“If Taft hadn’t been there…”
She reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand, still strong and capable at seventy. “I know. But he was there.” And showed incredible bravery to climb into the water by himself instead of waiting for a support team. The EMTs couldn’t seem to stop talking about the rescue during the ambulance ride to the clinic.
“Everyone is okay,” she went on. “No lasting effects, Dr. Dalton said, except possibly intestinal bugs from swallowing all that creek water. We’ll have to keep an eye out for stomachaches, that sort of thing.”
“That’s a small thing. They’re here. That’s all that matters.” Her mother gazed at the children for a long moment, then back at Laura, her eyes troubled. “You’re probably wondering why you ever came home. With all the trouble we’ve had since you arrived—fires and near-drownings and everything—I bet you’re thinking you would have been better off to have stayed in Madrid.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now, Mom. I still think coming home was the right thing for us.”
“Even though it’s meant you’ve had to deal with Taft again?”
A Cold Creek Reunion Page 15