Page 59 of One Last Promise

“Current got me.”

“You okay?”

A beat.

“Moose?”

“I will be. I need to figure out how to get up there.”

“You still have your pack?”

“I do.”

“What about that space blanket? I’ll find something to secure it to. You could pull yourself up.”

“It’ll rip. It’s not strong enough. But the pack is.” He swam over. “If I throw it up, can you secure one of the arms to something? I’ll use the other arm strap for leverage.”

See, this was why he was the rescuer. “Yeah. There’s a lip here—I think that could work.”

He swam over, then shucked off the pack. “Please catch this.”

She stood on the edge.

“Without going back in.”

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure.”

A chuckle deep inside the cavern, and it found her bones, heated them.

Wow, he had a way of making her feel less afraid, less alone. Probably why she’d longed for his late-night visits at the diner. Such a quiet, lonely place late at night, and then he’d come in, and suddenly her entire world would feel easier.

They just might survive this.

He threw the pack, and she grabbed it out of the air. Then she hooked one side on the edge of the lip, held it there, and dangled the other side down. It covered three feet, but if he jumped . . .

He found a ledge under the water and leaped for it.

Missed, and splashed back into the water. She refused to panic, but it took a chunk out of her, waitingfor him to surface.

“The current is getting stronger,” he said, swimming to the edge.

“Try to grab on this time.”

“Thanks for that.” But he smiled, and she smiled back. And that smile rooted inside her. Gave her exactly what she needed when he grabbed the pack on the second lunge and struggled up the edge. She hunkered down on her end, then grabbed his hand and helped haul him over.

He scrambled onto the ledge on his hands and knees, breathing hard. “Thanks.”

She nodded, also scrambling back.

And that’s when her foot slipped out. It kicked the pack.

Which splashed down into the cauldron, sinking.

Silence.

Moose sat down. Rubbed his hand over his mouth. “That adds an element of difficulty to this season of Iron Maiden, Alaska Edition.”

She just stared at him. Then he smiled, andoh, he was handsome. Waterlogged, bleeding, mud in his whiskers, and soggy, but those gray-green eyes latched onto hers, and she simply couldn’t think.

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