Page 28 of Solstice

“What feelings? What are you talking about?”

She shrugged, averting her eyes, scanning the pitch-dark waters again. Then her eyes went stone-cold serious. “This way,” she said. She lifted a hand and pointed.

He steered the boat where she instructed. “Well?” he prompted. “Dori, don’t tell me you suspect I have a problem with your witchiness?”

“Are you saying you don’t?”

“I don’t. Tell me where you got the idea that I did.”

She bit her lips, then shrugged and blurted it. “You haven’t asked me out again since you found out.”

“Ah, hell, Dori.” He faced her, gripped her shoulder with one hand to keep her attention. “I haven’t asked you out again because you told me you were as determined as ever to leave Crescent Cove. And because I couldn’t take you walking out on me again.”

She stared at him. “Really? That’s why?”

“It almost killed me last time. You’ve got no idea how hard it hit me. No idea.”

She blinked and he thought there might have been tears pooling in her eyes. But all of a sudden, they widened, and she swung her head around. “They’re close!” she shouted. “This way!” She grabbed up the spotlight and turned it slowly over the water, shouting the boys’ names over and over again. He wondered who’d told her their names? Had he? Had she heard them at the rec center?

The wind came harder, snow blasting them with such force it stung his face. He got caught up in her certainty, though the logical part of his brain told him this wasn’t possible. There was no way she could just know. No way.

And then her light fell on something, and she said, “There they are!”

A little boat was bouncing on the rough waters. And it was capsized.

* * *

The boys were in the water, clinging to the boat, cold and exhausted and weak. “Over here, help us,” was all Dori heard. There were three of them. Dori clutched Jason’s arm as he steered the boat closer. “How many were missing?”

“Three. They’re all there.”

She felt the tension rush out of her, and would have sagged in her seat, except that he needed her. Those boys needed her. Jason eased the boat alongside the capsized, smaller craft, and before he even came to a stop, Dori was leaning over the side, reaching for them.

“Take Kev first,” said the boy nearest her outstretched arms. He pulled his limp, soaking wet friend nearer, struggling to keep a grip on him at the same time. “He can’t hold on anymore. I’ve b-been keeping his head above water for the p-past half hour.”

Kev. She pulled the boy’s soaking wet, icy cold upper body into the boat. Jason was beside her then, helping her. They got the boy into the boat, but he didn’t open his eyes.

Dori dragged him to the port side, to provide a counterbalance to Jason as he hauled the other two boys aboard. Kevin was freezing cold and drenched, but he was breathing and had a pulse. Poor thing must be damn near frozen.

“We have to get him warm, Jason.”

“We have to get back to shore first.” He helped the other two boys onto the bench-type seat. Kevin was on the floor in front of them.

Dori leaned over the boy, tucking an emergency blanket around him.

“I can’t believe you managed that, Dori. I can’t...you’re something else.”

“Yeah. The question is, what?” She’d done all she could. She was shivering, her fingers numb with cold as she got back into her seat. Jason had put the boat back into motion now, was speeding along, into horizontal snow and a wind that blew the small boat sideways with at least as much velocity as its small engine drove it forward. They continued that way for more than thirty minutes, plenty of time for them to have gotten back to where they’d started. But there was no shoreline in sight. Then again, it could have been twenty yards away and they wouldn’t have seen it in this blizzard.

“Jason?”

“Yes?”

“Where are we?”

He looked at her, licked his lips. “I don’t know. I do know we’re headed east, and I believe that wind is blowing us toward shore. We’ll find it.”

She leaned closer to him. “Will we find it before that boy goes into shock?”

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