Karen Harper - Down River

At least he had four ginger ales. Otherwise he’d be pouring boiled river water into Lisa. He could carry the tiny tent and stove with them if they could get off this ledge to hike out. But first things first.

Huddled over her to make a windbreak against the breeze, Mitch removed her PFD and stripped her down to her black bra and panties—stunningly sexy even out here where they seemed so fragile and fancy. Despite her tan lines, she looked fish-belly white. Her beautiful body now seemed a cold, marble statue. He moved fast to cover her with the neoprene suit, not putting it on her yet because it felt cold. Rafters and kayakers often wore a layer of fleece under it to maintain body warmth, but she had been depleted of that.

He unzipped the tent from its pack and formed it into a windbreak, making sure it didn’t shade her from the sun on the wall and floor of the small ledge that made—he hoped—a lifesaving pocket of warmth. He needed her conscious to be sure she didn’t drift away, so he kept talking to her as he moved her arms and legs to check for broken bones. She looked battered and bruised, but he was amazed she seemed to have escaped without any serious injuries, not even signs of frostbite.

He tossed her clothes farther down the ledge to dry, then rubbed her all over with the neoprene wet suit, the only dry garment he had, since he was thoroughly soaked, too. He chaffed her fingers and toes in his hands, then wrapped her in the small canvas tent. She’d need his body heat—what there was of it—to come back, to survive, but he could put the wet suit on her later. He had to get hot liquids into her first. It was just as important to be warmed from the inside as out.

With its burner protected by its little windscreen, the butane-fed, self-igniting cooker heated rapidly. He had a small pan, but, shivering, he ignored that for now. Somehow his stiff fingers got two of the cans of ginger ale open. He put them directly on the burner. When he realized the bag that had held the tent was still dry, he put it over Lisa’s head like a too-big bonnet. So much body heat was lost through the head. He’d kidded Jonas about that, but the big guy never seemed to get too hot or too cold. Damn, what he wouldn’t give for a hairdryer out here, and the lodge’s hot tub.

While the cans of ginger ale heated, he huddled close to the stove’s burner to get feeling back in his fingers. Shaking in his haste, he stripped off his PFD and his own wet clothes. With one can of ginger ale in his hand, he managed to wrap himself and Lisa in the small tent as if it were a double sleeping bag. He pressed his hip to hers and threw one leg over her to warm her thighs. The sudden, sweeping impact of mingled protectiveness and possessiveness astounded him.

A memory leaped at him of the day he’d really looked at her for the first time as a beautiful woman and not just as an associate at the firm. She had not been wearing much that day, either. In a way he’d wanted Lisa the moment he’d seen her on the beach, when he was coming in from windsurfing. What a shock to see Ms. Wet Behind The Ears Lawyer out of a business suit and wet all over.

At work and especially in court, as if she’d wanted to hide from something, she’d often worn dark-rimmed glasses and her hair pulled back. Yet that day on the beach he saw classic features with a naughty tilt to her green eyes even sunglasses couldn’t conceal. Her lithe body in that black bikini was so graceful, even when she spiked a volleyball with her long blond hair flying. Yet there was always something vulnerable about her.

“ That’s Lisa Vaughn?” he’d said to himself that day. He’d decided right there he’d do what he shouldn’t—date a colleague and hope she wouldn’t only agree to see him socially because he was Graham Bonner’s heir apparent at the firm. There was nothing on the books about not dating coworkers, though he knew it was a bad idea, and one Graham would frown upon.

He soon learned Lisa was so much more than a beach babe or an ambitious attorney. She was bright and funny, though she had a problematic past she hadn’t mentioned for the first few months they dated. She’d finally shared that she’d seen a shrink for years when she was a child and in her teens. The doctor had told her that her history, what she called her Darth Vader secret—her dark side—was a combination of shock fatigue and survivor’s guilt from witnessing the drowning of her mother and little sister.

Now, come hell or high water, he was not going to let her be a victim either of the Wild River or the wilds of Alaska. He had to get some of this warm liquid into her, so he lifted her head into the crook of his arm and pressed the heated can to her lips.

“Lisa, drink this. It will warm you.”

He got some in her mouth. It dribbled back out, so he tried again. His chest pressed to her breasts and his cheek to hers, he spoke close to her ear. “Lisa, it’s Mitch. You’re going to be all right. You have to drink this to get warm.”

“M-M-itch.”

Thank God! He was so thrilled she was still in that stone-cold body he could have flown.

“Drink this. You have to drink this.”

Her teeth began to chatter, and she quivered all over, actually a better sign than nothing moving. She was hopefully coming out of hypothermia, and he was shaking as if he was plunging into it.

“Mitch.” It was a mere whisper. She still didn’t open her eyes and had barely moved her swollen, bluish lips.

“Yes, it’s Mitch,” he repeated. “I’m here and I’ll take care of you. Drink this.”

She sipped some. Praying he had enough warmth to give, he held her closer. The slant of sun helped so much. If you could find the right spot in July or August, get out of the wind, the sun could get the temperature up to the high eighties.

She drank. He positioned himself ever closer, trying to get in contact with every inch of her. Hating that he had to let cold air into their cocoon, he reached for the second can of soda, then thought to shove the first warm, empty can down at her feet like a heated brick.

He took a quick swig from the second can, then poured more into her. When that was gone, she broke his heart by cuddling close, though she still seemed limp and cold. With her upturned face tucked under his chin, he held her tight again. He knew she wanted to sleep, but he had to keep her awake and talking. Hypothermic people often felt warmer, even stripped off their clothes before they went comatose and fell asleep forever.

“Lisa, talk to me. Keep talking. How did you fall in the river?”

Her eyes still closed, she frowned. “Dunno.”

“Did you stumble or trip?” he asked.

A tiny shake of her head, but no answer. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for someone in trauma to lose their memory of the horror of it. But since her memories of the ultimate horror of her life—the shock of witnessing the terrible loss of her mother and sister—were so vivid and, he knew, sometimes haunted her yet, surely she’d be able to recall how she’d fallen in.

Suddenly, strangely, she went stiff in his arms. “I’m here,” he said. “It’s all right.”

Her eyes opened wide for one moment as if she was seeing something again. She shook her shoulders slightly. At least she was moving, but was she trying to shake off his arms from holding her?

Then she frowned, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. “Pushed,” she whispered. “Pushed in.”

“Someone pushed you in the river?” he demanded, much too loudly, because she flinched as if she’d been struck.

“Yes. Pushed.”

“Pushed by whom?”

“Didn’t see.”

“Did you hear anyone?”

“Heard the river—rush of river.”

She was talking, but she must also be hallucinating, he thought. The shock of it had made her—hopefully temporarily—delusional. He knew his staff and his guests. No way had someone pushed her in the river.