Page 13 of Ties of Legacy

The man laid the girl down on the ground and bent over her, his back to Avery. She hurried forward, but the boy grabbed at her legs, halting her progress.

She nearly shook him off, but one look at his terrified face made her stop. She forced herself to take a breath and respond calmly. The girl looked only about five, but her brother wasn’t much older.

“I know it was an accident,” she said calmly. “But you must let me check her. She might still be all right.” Avery desperately hoped it was true.

“We swim in the stream all the time,” the boy sobbed. “Why didn’t she come back up?”

Avery finally untangled herself from him and made it the rest of the way to the girl. The man was kneeling beside her, pumping on her chest, and just as Avery arrived, the girl spasmed, coughing as she expelled a rush of water from her mouth. The man slumped back.

“Oh, thank goodness,” the man breathed, and Avery froze. She recognized that voice.

He glanced over his shoulder, blue eyes meeting hers and confirming his identity.

“It’s you!” she cried, at the same time as he said, “She’s breathing again.”

Avery immediately flushed. She should have been focused on the injured girl, not the identity of the girl’s rescuer.

Hurrying forward, she knelt beside him, confirming the girl’s breathing for herself. A gash near the girl’s hairline was sluggishly bleeding, so she must have hit her head on a rock going into the water. It explained why she had remained so limp when her brother claimed she could swim.

“I think she was briefly stunned,” Elliot said, “but it doesn’t look like the wound is too severe. Now that she’s coughed out the water, she should recover. But it would be best to get her to a healer as quickly as possible in case there are further injuries we can’t see.”

Avery nodded silent agreement, and he rose onto one knee, scooping the girl up before rising fully to his feet. Avery slowly stood beside him, still in shock herself. Both of them were sopping wet, but he wasn’t paying it any mind, so she was determined not to either.

He strode over to her cart, stepping up onto the seat without hesitation despite the girl still cradled in both his arms. When she didn’t immediately follow, he cocked a raised eyebrow at her. She closed her gaping mouth and hurried after him. Of course they needed to use her cart to get the girl to her parents as quickly as possible. And since Avery would need her hands for driving, it made sense Elliot needed to come along as well.

She jumped up beside him, shaking her head. Of all the scenarios she had pictured for the day, none of them had included her driving her cart into the hamlet with Elliot seated beside her.

“Here!” one of the older children said before Avery could signal to Nutmeg to start moving. The girl shoved Elliot’s boots and pack underneath the cart’s seat.

“My thanks,” he told her with a charming smile that made the girl blush.

“We’ll bring him,” the girl said, indicating the brother, who was still crying.

Avery nodded and flicked the reins, signaling to Nutmeg to start walking. The mare responded immediately, clearly aware something unusual was going on.

Elliot leaned over the girl, murmuring reassuringly to her. She seemed dazed and confused, but at least she was conscious and hadn’t dropped into sleep. Avery cast a sideways glance at Elliot.

“You were still following me,” she stated. There was no other explanation for his sudden appearance.

He grinned at her, the expression half-repentant, half-mischievous. “Sorry about that.”

Avery closed her mouth and looked forward again. She could hardly threaten him while he was cradling an injured child he had just rescued.

Saving a small child from drowning was admirable—but most people would do as much, surely. Avery stole another sideways look at him. It was true Elliot had saved the girl, but he hadn’t known about her existence when he first dived into the stream. It was Avery who he had seen flailing and coughing, and yet he hadn’t hesitated to rush to her rescue. Had it even occurred to him that if she drowned, he could take anything he wanted from her cart?

From the first moment she’d seen him, she’d thought there was more to him than a petty thief. Apparently she’d been right.

Chapter 6

Elliot

Elliot’s arms held the girl as steadily as possible given the bumps of the road. He kept up a steady stream of reassuring murmurs, knowing he needed to keep her awake. But he hardly knew what he was saying.

He kept shooting sideways glances at Avery. She was drenched from head to toe, but was she injured? Nothing in her manner suggested injury or pain, but he’d been trailing her for days, and she was tough. From her reaction in the water, he suspected she would hide any injury of her own while there was a child in more immediate danger.

They had almost reached the hamlet, children trailing behind them, before it occurred to him that he could have abandoned her and left her to rescue herself from the stream. If he’d done so, it would have given him several clear minutes to access her cart. It probably would have been the smarter move.

But she had looked as if she was in trouble, and he wasn’t willing to leave someone to drown just so he could reclaim his candelabra. He didn’t want to exchange his life and future for someone else’s. And it was a good thing he had acted so promptly since he hadn’t seen the girl. Avery would probablyhave rescued herself eventually, but would she have done so in time to save the girl? Quite probably not.

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