by Lisa Harris
He jumped out and hurried across the rocks to where she was lying on the shoreline, half of her body still in the water.
“Gwen—Gwen, are you okay?”
He pulled her up out of the water. She sat next to him, breathing hard from the exertion.
“I just… I need to catch my breath.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so, though I scraped my leg on something.”
He checked her out quickly and found a second large scratch running up her calf, but what worried him the most was that she was shaking from the cold. He needed to get her warm.
Bruce and Levi secured the raft, then jumped onto the shoreline next to them.
“We’ve got a thermos of hot coffee,” Bruce said, “and a thermal blanket.”
Caden took the blanket, then turned to Gwen. “I want you to take off your shirt and put on my fleece. I’ll hold up the blanket while you change. You’re soaking wet and you need to get dry and warm.”
She nodded, still shivering.
“Thank you,” she said as soon as she’d changed.
He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, then poured a cup from the thermos and held it out for her. “Drink it slow, but drink as much as you can.”
She nodded, but he could see both the alarm and fatigue in her eyes. And how could he blame her? The past twenty-four hours she’d fallen off the side of the canyon, been shot at and now this. Nothing completely prepared you for something like this.
“I can’t stop shaking,” she said.
“You’re cold, but you’re okay.” He rubbed his hands against her shoulders. “Give me a second. I’ll be right back.”
Caden stepped a dozen feet away to where Bruce was standing.
“Levi headed upstream to see if it looked like we were being followed,” Bruce said. “How is she?”
“She’ll be fine, but I’d like to know what you think. You know this area as well as I do. What if we stayed here, and the two of you went ahead and called for help once you were in cell-phone range? I know she’s afraid, but I’m worried about her physically, as well.”
Bruce glanced out at the water rushing by in front of them. “If that’s what you want, we’ll do that for you, but we’re only a couple miles from phone signal. If you continue with us, you’ll get there a lot quicker than if you were to have someone come back here for you.”
“True…”
“And on top of that,” Bruce continued, “if there are men after you, and they’re armed…”
“I might be in for a different kind of battle.”
Caden let out a sharp sigh. The man was right. He knew that. Staying here would only give the men after Gwen a greater chance of catching up with them, and that was a risk he didn’t want to take. He needed to get her out of here as soon as possible.
“Give her a few more minutes to warm up, and then we’ll do everything we can to get her out of here safely.”
Caden nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Caden went back and sat down next to her, thankful she was listening to his instructions and drinking the coffee. Right now his priority was to get her somewhere safe and warm. Then they’d be able to get the help they needed to find her brother.
“The quickest way out of here is to get back into the water and continue downstream,” he said.
“I know I have to get back into that raft. I’ll be fine.”
He was surprised at her willingness to continue down the river after what had just happened, but on the other hand, he knew she wasn’t one to simply give up.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all of this, but a couple more miles downriver and we’ll be able to get a call through. It’s almost over. I promise.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and trusting. He didn’t miss the irony. He was the last person she would have trusted before the past twenty-four hours, but he’d do anything he could to ensure her safety. Gwen Ryland had somehow managed to slip back into his life and turn all of his plans completely upside down.
She handed him the cup and thermos.
“Can you drink some more?” he asked.
“I think I’m ready to go.”
Her cheeks were still pink, but at least she wasn’t shaking as much as she had been.
Levi was making his way back down the rocks to where they sat. “I walked upstream a couple hundred feet, where you can see quite a way upriver.”
“Did you see anyone?” Caden asked.
Levi shook his head. “Whoever they were, there’s no sign that they’re following you downriver. It’s still going to be rough ahead, but we’ll do everything we can to keep the raft in the river.”
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
Caden helped her to her feet, but the uneasiness wouldn’t let go. Those men were out there, and he was sure they’d show up again at some point. They’d gone to all the trouble of coming after her in the night, making their intentions clear. Escaping them wasn’t going to be that easy. But as a long as they kept moving, and could get the authorities involved, they’d make it.
Caden settled her into the back of the raft with the blanket still around her shoulders.
It was time to go.
FIVE
Gwen focused on breathing slowly through her nose, trying to calm her anxiety as they floated down a calm section of the river. They were out there. Somewhere. Waiting. Watching. She didn’t know what their plan was or when they were going to strike, or even what they were planning to do with her, but she did know that the intense panic swirling through her wouldn’t go away. Which meant she wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of at the moment—the men after them, or the water. Either, it seemed, had the ability to win today and crush her.
She glanced at the waves slamming against the sides of the raft. On top of that, she was still so cold. The coffee and the blanket they’d given her had helped warm her insides, but it wasn’t enough, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
She’d read that the water temperature was about fifty degrees—far below the perfect swimming-pool temperature. She knew that water below that temperature could lead to shock, as it zapped body heat faster than cold air. And she believed it.
They let the raft coast down the river for the next few minutes in the calmer waters, just adjusting its course with the paddles to keep them away from any rocks jetting out of the water. But she could see traces of white foam ahead, where the river dropped again and started churning. It was the calm before the storm, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for what was coming next.
For a moment, memories rushed through her again of that day at the ocean with her family. She could almost feel the icy sting of the water as she slipped in. The gasping for air, then the panic when she couldn’t fill her lungs. It had been so cold, so terrifying. The realization that those could have been her last moments as she was sucked under. The not knowing if she was going to make it back to the surface.
“Gwen? Are you all right?”
“Sorry…” At Caden’s questions, she forced her mind to come back to the present. She needed to stay focused. Needed to listen to the men, who were shouting out directions as they approached another rapid. “I’m fine.”
“These river rafts are built for this kind of abuse,” Caden said. “It’s heavy-duty commercial grade and made for class-three rivers and up. You can’t do any better out on the water.”
Gwen frowned. While she appreciated his reassurance, she wasn’t convinced that was going to be enough to keep them afloat in the next stretch of the river. Or enough to keep her nerves intact.
“You said you were afraid of the water,” Caden said.
It was a statement more than a question. She knew he was hoping for a response, but she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell him
. And, until today, she hadn’t realized how much that one incident had affected her. In the past, she’d simply avoided water. It was an easy way to not deal with memories and her fears. But today—today there was no way to escape it. She was here in the middle of everything, water churning around her like her life at the moment.
“You don’t have a phobia?” she asked, putting it back on him.
“Spiders.”
His answer surprised her. “You’re afraid of spiders?”
“I was bit by a brown recluse when I was eight. My hand swelled up, and I was convinced it was going to be amputated. I was terrified.”
“That’s horrible.”
“As you can see, I survived, but for an eight-year-old kid, it was a bit traumatic. And my teasing brothers didn’t help.”
“You know how siblings can be. Are you all close now?”
“We still have our moments, but yeah. We are.”
“My brother and I are, too. Most of the time.”
The raft rocked gently beneath them as they moved with the current. Another couple hundred yards and the calm of the river would be behind them. She tried to shake off the terror, but the water surrounding them reminded her too much of that day, too much of what she could have lost.
Even if this raft did get them out of here in one piece, she still had no idea where her brother was, or where the men that had seemed so intent on finding her were. Nor could she shake the fact that she’d involved Caden in all of this.
“We’d been at the ocean,” she said finally. “With my parents and brother.” The raft made a slight dip, spraying water across her face. She kept her focus on the tree line. “We were enjoying a few more hours of sun on our last day of vacation. The swells had been bigger than normal that day, the undercurrent stronger than I’d expected, when I walked out into the wave. It pulled me out farther instead of pushing me toward the shoreline. The more I struggled to swim toward shore, the farther away I got. I thought I was going to die that day.”
“How did you get to shore?”
“My brother managed to grab me and pull me in. I remember collapsing on the sand afterward. I was cold and exhausted, and realized how close I’d come to drowning. My mother was convinced I’d drowned when she ran up to me. I was so exhausted I couldn’t move.”
“That had to have been terrifying.”
She studied the shoreline, looking for the men who’d come after them. They could still be behind them, or, knowing how slow she’d been during the night, they could be ahead of them.
“My parents were killed a couple years after that,” Gwen said. “I can’t tell you how many times I asked God why I lived, and they didn’t. If they’d been held up in traffic that day, or driving the other car, they probably would have lived.”
“Questions like that—ones posed because of survivors’ guilt—are normal.”
She nodded. “I definitely learned that life is fragile. But this… I’m not sure how to deal with this, Caden. If I lose my brother, too… He’s the only family I have left.”
“You’re not going to lose your brother.”
She looked up and caught his gaze. “You can’t promise me that.”
She’d heard those words from well-meaning friends while her parents had been fighting for their lives in ICU. She’d learned firsthand that sometimes bad things happened no matter how hard you tried to stop them. And now, it seemed like it was happening all over again. Her brother was her one link to family, and she couldn’t lose him, too.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone,” Caden said. “And how hard it is to move forward because you couldn’t do anything to save them.”
“What happened?”
“I lost my team in a helicopter crash. I was supposed to have gone out with them that day, but at the last minute I was pulled off the assignment.”
“Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t always intervene?”
“It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. What you need to know is that this isn’t your fault.”
“It’s certainly not your fault, either,” she said, “and yet you’re involved.”
“I chose to come after you, and I’d do it all over again. Sometimes all you can do is take one thing at a time. Which means right now we only have to think about getting down this river to safety. We’ll have someone pick us up and get a BOLO out on your brother and the men who came after you.”
“And if they find us first?”
“Then we’ll deal with them again if and when we have to.”
She nodded, knowing he was right.
She let out a low laugh. “You must think I’m a drama queen.”
“Hardly. I actually think you’re incredibly brave.”
She shook her head. “It’s not as if I had a choice. Caden, I need to get out of here. I need to find my brother.”
The white water started swirling around them. She stared ahead at the churning waters. Life was fragile. All it took was one split second, one moment, and everything could change. The truth was that no matter what they did, there was a chance she’d never see her brother again. She pushed away the thought. Ahead of them, the river narrowed, as if it was shoving all the water through a funnel into the rapids below them. She just had to hang on a little bit longer.
Movement ahead to the left caught her attention. Trees lined with poison ivy ran along the banks beside them. She couldn’t make out what or who it was, but something was definitely there.
“Caden…” she said.
The men automatically pushed their oars backward, slowing down the raft, as they’d clearly seen the same thing. There was something—or someone—ahead.
Caden quickly pulled out his binoculars and zoomed in on a narrow place a few hundred yards downriver. Rocks jutted out of the water on either side, but something stood at the edges of the river.
“It could be a bear,” Gwen said.
She was right. He’d seen them roaming the riverbeds more than once. But for the most part, they didn’t bother hikers as long as they were left alone. He brought the binoculars into focus. No, it definitely wasn’t a bear. Two armed men stood on the left bank.
“Caden…what is it?” Gwen asked, panic lacing her voice.
“They’re still wearing ski masks, but I’m sure it’s them. We need to cut over to the other side of the bank and get to the shore now. If we don’t, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
Which was exactly what the men had planned.
“To the right, as hard as you can,” Levi shouted.
Caden pushed against the current while automatically making a plan. Getting to the shore before they reached the spot where the men stood wasn’t going to be easy with the strong currents pushing them forward, but it was the only way they might stand a chance to take them down. He was thankful, not for the first time, that he’d opted to bring his weapon while camping alone, but he wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.
“I don’t know if we can make it,” Bruce shouted back. “The current’s too strong along this section. It’s pulling us too hard downriver.”
Right toward the waiting ambush.
The four of them rowed harder, fighting against the current that was sweeping them into the path of the men and away from the shoreline. Caden felt the strain on his muscles. How had this happened? The men must have somehow gotten ahead of them while they’d been resting on the other side of the river during the night and planned this ambush. And they’d planned it well. Just beyond the narrow bank of the river was a drop-off, and the swirling white foam of the rapids continued on as far as he could see.
“We’ve got two choices,” Caden shouted. “We can try and make it into the inlet ahead, giving us a chance to fight them, or fly by them down the rapids.”
Both options still left them as potential sitting ducks, but if they could manage to get to shore
, they might have a fighting chance. They just needed the swift currents to cooperate.
“Let’s try to make it to the cove,” Levi said.
They pushed harder, fighting against the swelling water to get to the small inlet, but the current wouldn’t cooperate. Another seventy-five…sixty-five feet, and the men would be on top of them. Water beat against the sides of the raft, pushing them forward toward the drop-off.
There was no way they were going to make it.
One of the men fired his weapon above their heads. A second later, the other man managed to grab onto the raft’s rope, then secured it around a tree stump at the edge of the river. The water continued to hammer against the raft, but they weren’t going anywhere.
Caden reached for his weapon, which he hadn’t been able to pull out while fighting the current, but it was too late.
“Put your hands in the air. I want to see them now!” The tallest of the two yelled against the noise of the churning rapids below them. They were jammed against the rocks—the only thing that was stopping them from going down the six-foot drop and into the swirl of water below them was the rope and two armed men.
This time he pointed the gun at Levi. “She gets out now, or I’m going to shoot you one at a time until she complies.”
“Leave them out of this,” Gwen said. “What do you want?”
Caden rested his hand on her leg, signaling her to be quiet. It wasn’t going to take much for the situation to suddenly spiral out of control and for the man to follow through with his threat. There had to be a way to get the advantage and put an end to this.
“You heard what I said. I’ll start shooting them, or you can come with us. Now.”
Caden gripped her hand. Letting them take her wasn’t an option.
“She’s not going with you,” Caden said.
“I wouldn’t try calling my bluff, because I will shoot you. Toss your weapon onto the shore.”
Caden hesitated, but caught the anger in the man’s voice. There was a fierce determination in his eyes. Desperation, even. But what did he really want? That was what Caden needed to know if he was going to be able to negotiate out of this situation.