Down River. Karen Harper

and angry, she’d refused, accused him of being self-centered. But she saw now she had been, too. Why couldn’t he understand that no urban career woman who loved luscious, lively Fort Lauderdale needed a dropout who preferred the lonely wilds of Alaska? No, she couldn’t risk loving someone who suddenly claimed to be nearly suicidal, not after all she’d been through.

      Now, lost in her regrets, trembling again at the memory, she frowned at the raging river. Then something happened. Somehow, it was as if her rage at her past, at her mother, at Mitch, pushed her over some psychic edge. She tumbled headlong off the path, off her feet. The cooler went flying, hit her knee. She screamed, lost her balance, then rolled sideways down the ridge.

      She landed on a spruce sapling, but before she could grab it, it bent under her weight to fling her forward. In the clearing, nothing else stopped her fall. Over, over she rolled, until she slammed into the rushing river, going under. The frigid water shocked her. She gasped and sucked some in. Choked. Her sinuses burned while her skin froze.

      The PFD lifted and righted her, head up, but foam crested over her. Mother with Jani in her arms fell over the rail again. The boiling foam devoured them, devoured Lisa. Had Mommy pulled her in with them? How did this happen? She was horrified for her family, for herself. Terror screamed at her, in her, echoing the smashing water, clawing at her courage.

      She was swept around, past jutting rocks. She pulled her hands and feet in close. She had to get out but found nothing to hold as she was tossed, whirled, pulled and yanked, bumped by boulders, cold and drowning, dragged downriver.

      Though the two glasses Mitch had thrown in his backpack with the cans of ginger ale were plastic, they clanked as he walked the ridge path, their dissonant sound nearly drowned by the river’s roar. If Lisa thought he’d cart wine out here for some sort of a lovey-dovey reunion, she was wrong. This was strictly a business meeting, he told himself.

      So what if he still felt he wanted her? It was a pure physical reaction from hot memories. His body’s reaction to being near Lisa again was something he could absolutely handle—had to.

      When he moved to Alaska, he’d needed to cleanse himself of the dirty feeling of defending clients he knew damn well were guilty. He felt guilt-ridden by his own obscenely high fees and the busy schedule that left no time for pro bono work. Pressure, pressure, pressure—and for what? Prestige? Cruising Lauderdale’s canals in his boat, chasing women or raising a future family he didn’t have time for? Unlike Ellie Bonner’s brother, Merritt Carlisle, he didn’t want the power that came from a place in national or even state politics. Back home—though this was home now—he’d been fed up with convoluted power connections in the fast-fleeting fame lane. Thank God, Alaska had helped to heal him. It was said people who came to Alaska from outside were either running from something or to something. He guessed, in his case, it was both.

      He knew he had let a lot of people down when he’d come north, but helping other people’s families, friends and coworkers to connect with each other was far more fulfilling than his old life. He’d continued his uncle’s work here through his adventure-bonding program. At least Graham and Ellie bringing their three candidates here to decide who should fill Mitch’s vacant position showed they still trusted his judgment and had forgiven him for leaving.

      But golden-skinned, blonde, beach-baby Lisa Vaughn had never understood why he had to change his life, leave Florida for Alaska to keep his sanity, even if it meant changing the plans they’d made. They needed to just talk it out, this time briefly, unemotionally, objectively, then they could get back to the business at hand.

      He wished Lisa well in her quest to make senior partner, but he wasn’t playing favorites. He owed Graham that—Ellie, too, because her father had founded the firm, and the old man had eventually made his son-in-law Graham a full partner before he died. Graham had been Mitch’s mentor, just as Mitch had tried to mentor Jonas, the candidate he actually favored, although both Lisa and Vanessa were excellent lawyers. No one worked at Carlisle, Bonner & Associates of Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Palm Beach, if they weren’t. Though Mitch didn’t especially trust politicians, Merritt, who had still been a lawyer at the firm when Mitch first worked there, was someone who had managed to keep his nose clean.

      Just before he cut off the ridge path onto the downward spur toward the lake landing where he’d told Lisa he’d meet her, he spotted the small, white cooler Christine had said she’d given to Lisa. It was open, with wrapped appetizers, bright plates and napkins, strewn down the ridge toward the river like a hand pointing toward the water. Had Lisa seen a bear and run? No, the bear wouldn’t have left the food.

      He stooped and squinted down toward the river. The drop-off over the ridge was fairly open. Surely she knew to turn right toward the lake, not left. Had she fallen toward the river? Dear God, please don’t let her have fallen in the river!

      “Lisa! Lisa!” he shouted, but he knew the roar of the river would cover his voice if she wasn’t nearby. She was physically fit, an outdoors girl, but the kind who loved sunny skies and sand. Beach volleyball, at which she excelled, was her sport of choice.

      “Lisa? Liiiisaa!”

      Holding on to a couple of spruce saplings, Mitch went down the steep bank to the river. He gasped when he saw her in the foaming water, about ten yards away, clinging to a rock on the far side. He never would have spotted her, except she wore an orange PFD that showed up like a beacon in the rapids. If she let go, she’d be a goner, because not far beyond was a narrow gorge with a hairpin turn of boiling white water, and later, a series of small falls that didn’t stop the salmon coming up but could kill her going down. Worse, exposed to water this cold, she’d go numb and hypothermic in twenty minutes, then die. His uncle had told him that feeling in the limbs went after about seven minutes, consciousness in the next seven, and life itself in the following seven or so. And a South Florida girl was hardly prepared for a snowmelt swim.

      He waved his arms and shouted again but she was facing downriver and didn’t see him. She was hanging on for dear life—literally.

      He half climbed, half crawled back up the bank. A kayak! He needed the kayak that was on the other side of the ridge. There was no time to get help. No one at the lodge would hear him above the water if he shouted, nor could they see him from here. How long could she hold on?

      He’d have to get her in the kayak without tipping it, shoot the next eddies, humps and holes to get them to a landing spot before the gorge where he could tend to her. But there was no easy way to return. They’d have to either hike back on the other side of the river or portage the kayak around the falls and ride the rapids all the way out of these mountains.

      He yanked himself up from Sitka spruce sapling to sapling, digging his nails into the green moss and orange lichens. He scrabbled past where she’d dropped the cooler, over the ridge, then raced down the path to the red, two-person kayak sitting by the serene lake awaiting their easy trip across to one of his favorite picnic spots. Damn, why hadn’t she fallen down this side of the ridge?

      His heart pounded; adrenaline stoked his strength. Kayaks weren’t overly heavy, but he had to get it up the path, then over the ridge to launch it without splitting the quarter-inch plastic. Yes, two paddles in it. Two PFDs, too. He glanced once across the lake to see if his friends Ginger or Spike might be somewhere in sight, but saw no one. Ginger’s little motor boat was pulled up on the shore near the lodge, but she was nowhere around.

      “No one but me,” he grunted as he shoved the kayak before him up the path. Please Lord, he prayed, let her hang on to that rock.

      Panting, his heart pounding and muscles screaming, he got the kayak up and over the ridge, now trying to keep it from crashing down into the river and taking off without him. Sweat burned his eyes as he squinted to see if Lisa was still hanging on. Yes!

      He cursed the time it took him to get the spray skirt out of the fore dry storage well and tight around him while he hung on to a sapling so the kayak didn’t take off from under him. Otherwise, if too much water got in, he could go hypothermic himself, or capsize. He fought the violent pull of the water—nothing like surfing offshore in South Florida.

      Mitch