Thirty seconds.
From the backseat, a hand reached out, flailing. Blake. Joe watched coldly as Blake’s desperate face appeared, bubbles around his head. He was drowning.
Good. Joe hadn’t bought into the whole bringing-Blake-to-justice thing anyway. The fucker deserved to die.
The heavy vehicle was pushed sideways by the swirling water, crashing into his leg, dragging a shard of glass with it. His blood darkened the water. There was no pain—the water was too cold for that. But if his leg wouldn’t function, it would take longer to get Isabel to the surface. He pulled her completely out of the window just as the van settled on the bottom, hoping no remaining glass was cutting her open.
His right leg wasn’t working right. Fuck. The plan was to hold Isabel and propel them both upward with the strength of his legs. But with only one leg functional, there was only one thing he could do.
Forty seconds.
There wasn’t enough light for Isabel to follow gestures so he took her arms and placed them tightly around his neck and hoped to God she understood. She did. She held on tightly as he began to rise in the water using the full power of his arms and his one leg.
Fifty seconds.
It felt like it took forever, hauling both of them up through the dark, freezing, muddy water. Almost immediately he lost the light of the headlights of the van and could see nothing, nothing at all. Not even Isabel’s face so close to his.
Damn.
He knew she was alive because she was holding his neck but he thought he felt her grip lessen.
Please God.
Please don’t let this brave, beautiful woman die. Take me instead. But if he was too slow, he’d live because he was a navy SEAL and had trained for a year to dive and come up in dark cold water. He’d live but Isabel would die.
Fifty-five seconds.
Isabel’s grip was loose. She was dying.
Light! Faint, barely perceptible. He aimed his face up and pulled as hard as he could.
Fifty-eight seconds.
Joe broke the water on a huge gasp, just as Isabel went loose in his arms.
His head swiveled as he looked up at the bridge where the men had angled the headlights to shine over the water. Jack was shining a powerful flashlight into the water.
“Rope!” Joe screamed just as a rope hit the water five feet from him. He was bearing Isabel’s full weight now. Her eyes were closed and through chattering teeth he started praying.
Don’t die on me, honey.Don’t die.Don’t die.Please God, don’t let her die.
He wrapped the rope three times around his forearm, his other arm around Isabel. She needed to get the water out of her lungs but he couldn’t do it here. He had to get her onto that bridge where Metal could work his magic. Metal had saved men’s lives countless times. He’d saved lives other medics couldn’t save. He knew what Isabel meant to him, he’d save Isabel.
He had to.
The four men pulled them out of the water, Joe hanging from the rope, holding Isabel tightly to him.
Her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. He couldn’t do anything—one hand was holding on to the rope pulling them out of the water and the other was grasping her. All he could do was stare at her face, willing her eyes to open.
His gasps were clouding the frigid air with steam but there was no steam coming out of Isabel’s mouth.
Oh God.
And then they were pulled over the bridge onto concrete and Metal was bending over Isabel and Joe was on his knees, gasping, coughing out water. Blood pooled around his leg. Metal looked over at him, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest, but Joe waved him away.
“Take...care...of...Isabel.”
Metal was counting under his breath, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest hard. Isabel was so cold and still, beautiful face deathly white.
And then—the most glorious sound he ever heard. Isabel, coughing. Metal put her on her side as she weakly coughed out the water she’d swallowed. She looked ice white and battered. The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
Joe’s leg wouldn’t bear him so he crawled over to Isabel, putting his arms around her, holding her tightly, patting her back as she coughed. He pulled back and looked down at her face, wanting his face to be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.
Her eyelids fluttered, she coughed again, then opened her eyes.
“Is he dead?” was the first thing that came out of her mouth.
Joe laughed weakly, and it turned into a cough. “Yeah.” His voice was gravelly. “He’s dead.”
“Good.” Her eyes closed again.
Joe tapped her cheek. “Honey. Honey, don’t go off just yet. There’s someone you have to see.”
“Don’t want to see anyone,” she said, her voice drowsy. She was falling into hypothermia. They’d wrap her up in their jackets and get her to a hospital fast but first—first she had to know something. Joe lifted his hand and beckoned to Jack. Jack hunkered down on his haunches next to Isabel.
Joe turned her face toward Jack. She blinked. Blinked again.
“Jack?” she whispered, holding out a hand.
Jack grabbed it, put it against his filthy, stubbled jaw. “Sis.”
Tears welled, fell down her face. “You’re alive!” Her mouth formed the words, though there was no sound.
She gave a sob, then another, then lifted from Joe’s arms to throw herself into her brother’s arms, crying and laughing at the same time.
Metal stood. “Gotta get her warm and to a hospital,” he said, but he didn’t stir. It was an incredibly moving moment. Jack’s head was bent over Isabel’s and though he wasn’t sobbing, tears were falling down his cheeks into his beard.
Jacko and Nick held out their hands and lifted Joe. He couldn’t put weight on his right leg, but they were strong men and they were there for him. Everything in Joe’s world felt heavy with the sense of rightness.
His woman, in her brother’s arms, crying out her happiness. His buds, holding him up.
It was going to be all right.
Isabel turned her face, held out a hand. Jacko and Nick shuffled forward with Joe between then until he could reach her, take her hand.
“You—alive. My brother—alive. Blake—dead,” she whispered. “Happiest day of my life.”
Epilogue
The Grange, Mount Hood
Two weeks later
It was a great party. The place was fantastic. It was a sunny day and the place was filled with light. Built of wood and glass the reception hall was huge, airy, magnificent. A cathedral to the art of living well.
And eating well.
There were whole stretches of time when the entire ASI crew—a rowdy bunch normally—fell completely silent as a new dish appeared on the fifty-foot-long table. Isabel had designed the menu and had done some of the cooking and it was spectacular. She’d absolutely refused to rest after near drowning and had been working round the clock on the menu.
Joe glanced over at her for the billionth time. So far there’d been ten toasts to her and she was rosy and smiling and so goddamned beautiful it nearly blinded him. She’d begun her blog again—just a few posts so far but the reaction was overwhelming. Each post now clocked up a hundred thousand hits and the numbers were climbing fast. She’d dusted off the file of the book on food she’d been writing. Joe let her be, didn’t push her in one direction or another, because she was finding her own way back just fine. But he was incredibly proud of her.
Her brother Jack was sitting on her other side. He’d cleaned up for the occasion after his months of staying under the radar, pretending to be a mentally disturbed homeless person. He and Nick had been huddled together for the past two days, planning the next steps.