Beth Cornelison – Cowboy Christmas Rescue: Rescuing the Witness / Rescuing the Bride (страница 9)
“All right. I’m going to retie the rope into a sling around you.” He stepped back and started unwinding the rope from around his leg and looping it around her. “Then I’ll tie on behind you, and we’ll—”
It happened so fast, Kara had no time to react. Brady was there one minute and gone the next. And so was the front half of the ledge they’d been perched on. The loose shale under the outcropping had washed away, taking the red clay stone—and Brady—with it.
“Brady!” she screamed in terror. She searched the turbulent water, her heart in her throat. The seconds stretched out, miserable eons, before she spied the white of his tuxedo shirt where he was tossed in the powerful current. He bobbed up and swam as best he could in the fast water, but even the strongest swimmer had little chance against the power of swift water. A sob choked her.
“Brady!”
* * *
Hitting the frigid water shocked his system, and Brady involuntarily gasped. A mouthful of muddy water rushed into his throat, choking him. He coughed and gagged, even as the turbulent water sucked him under. Adrenaline spiking, he fought to surface, but the pounding current rolled him and grabbed at him. He lost his orientation. Couldn’t breathe. The icy cold stung him. His soaked clothes dragged at him. As his boots filled with water, he toed off the Tony Lamas, freeing his legs of their weighty encumbrance.
When he broke the surface, he sputtered out water and quickly gulped in air. But not enough. His lungs ached. His head throbbed. He moved his arms and legs, trying to paddle, to stay afloat. Something large and heavy crashed into his back. Debris, most likely.
Down he went. Beneath the water, all he saw was a blur of reddish brown. A flash of light. Shadows. Then suddenly he broke the surface, and he caught a snapshot of the terrain. Gray clouds. Rocky towers. A wind-whipped tree...
His pulse jumped, and instinctively he slapped at the water, flailing, grabbing for a branch. His fingers snagged leaves. His drifting slowed, but the foliage ripped free from his grasp.
Again he grabbed before the tree was gone. And found a small limb. The thin branch bowed and cracked.
Pinned against the branch by the current, he blinked hard, fighting to stay conscious. The cold water sapped his strength, and his body ached from the battering of the debris and tree limbs. The struggle to draw air in his lungs left him dizzy. But losing his grip on the tree, giving in to the gray fuzziness at the edges of his vision, was not an option. Failure now meant both his death and Kara’s.
* * *
A bone-deep tremor rocked Kara. She watched helplessly as the muddy water tossed Brady and slammed him against a cottonwood tree growing at a low angle from the arroyo wall. Her breath caught and held as she waited for some movement, some sound that told her he was alive.
Through her tears, past and present blurred and tangled.
“You should be proud of your father. He died a hero. He gave himself in the line of duty,” well-meaning people had told her.
But for Kara, her father’s death was pointless. He’d cared more about a misplaced sense of duty than he had cared about her. She blamed his job, the inherent danger of law enforcement for stealing the man who’d been her lifeline when she was thirteen.
And now...would she lose Brady because he’d been trying to rescue her?
“Brady!” she shouted, her voice breaking.
She squeezed the rope in her hand, the rope Brady had been tying to her when the overhang gave way. The rope that—
Her pulse slowed...
Giving the rope a hard tug, she reassured herself it was securely anchored at the top of the cliff.
“Brady, hold on!” she yelled as she knotted the rope around her waist. “I’m coming!”
To be sure she was tied fast, she threaded the rope between her legs to make a diaper sling, then back up under her dress. She prayed the rope was long enough to reach Brady. He’d washed a good way downstream. Once she felt she was lashed in, she faced the thundering water below her, and her stomach swooped.
She did, if she was going to help Brady. She turned her gaze to the spot where Brady clung to the cottonwood, and her mind’s eye saw her father’s head sinking below the swirling water.
The runoff rushing through the arroyo taunted her, and she sucked in a tremulous breath.
Was she destined to die the same way her father had? Adrenaline kicked her heart rate to a gallop.
Even if she died trying, she had to attempt to save Brady. Her life would be agony if she lost him on top of losing her father. Gathering her courage, she ran through logistics in her head. Not only did she have to swim to the cottonwood on the other side of the ravine, she had to account for the current washing her downstream. Timing was everything. She’d have to leap as far out across the water as she could. And upstream, buying herself a few more precious seconds to paddle to Brady.
As much as she hated losing the tuxedo jacket, she knew it would encumber her when she tried to swim. She shucked off the garment Brady had draped around her and groaned at the cold blast of wind on her arms. Glancing down at the soggy maxi dress stuck to her legs, she knew the yards of material had to go, as well. Its waterlogged weight and the impediment of a long skirt tangling around her legs would prove a liability she couldn’t afford. Grimacing when she remembered how much she’d paid for the dress last week in Amarillo, she pulled at the seam and ripped off the bottom half of the skirt. Goose bumps rose on her bare legs, and her toes were already growing numb from the cold. Haste was of the essence. The temperature would only continue to drop, endangering her and Brady more with each passing minute.
Then steeling her nerves, she faced the rushing water.
“Daddy, help me!” she whispered to the heavens...and jumped.
“Brady!” The sound of Kara’s voice cut through the whoosh of water and the thudding in his head. His chest wrenched, knowing he’d failed her.
“Brady!” The branches of the tree shook, and a hand grasped at his belt.
Fear for her life jolted him out of his reverie, and he cut a side glance to the woman battling the current and grasping for a hold on the cottonwood branch. Shifting his own grip to free a hand, he groped for her arm and hauled her closer to him.
Sputtering and shivering, she draped herself over the trunk of the tree and gasped for breath.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, his tone sharpened by shock and concern for her.
Still panting for air, she angled an angry look at him. “Shopping...for prom!” she grated. “What...does it l-look...like?”
“It looks like you’re trying to get yourself killed!”
She frowned and coughed. “Well...there’s that, too.”
Her sarcasm chafed his raw nerves. This was no time for jokes, no matter how snarky.
“Of all the—” He cut himself off, gritting his teeth as he tugged her onto the tree more securely. He didn’t know whether to rant at her or kiss her. But when she raised her chin, facing him with muddy water streaming down her gorgeous face, her lush lips scowling at him and her golden-brown eyes flashing with fury, he chose the latter. He splayed a hand at the nape of her neck and captured her mouth with a kiss meant to claim her and calm his frustration with her recklessness.
She mewled a weak protest, then leaned into the kiss, her lips as eager and desperate as his. When he raised his mouth from hers, she met his gaze with haunted eyes. The emotion in them said what she refused to admit. She still wanted him, still needed him, still loved him.
But she quickly pulled her head away from his grip, and the tenderness in her expression was replaced with hard determination and pragmatism.
“Enough of that,” she chastened. “Grab the rope. We g-gotta get out of this water before this branch g-gives way.”