Page 94 of Big Island Summer
“I want to go home,” Cassie said again.
“We’ll get you back to shore,” Hugh promised her.
“Oops!” Daisy said. She had tried to use the paddle, which was about two feet taller than she was, and promptly dropped it into the current.
Hugh took a breath and dove under the board to rescue the paddle, which was quickly floating away. He returned a moment later, paddle in hand.
“I don’t think it will hold all four of us,” he said, speaking across the board to Nell, “but it can definitely hold you and the girls.”
Nell nodded in agreement. She handed the accursed pineapple up to Daisy.
“Hold this for me.”
With effort, she hauled herself up onto the big paddleboard. Her arms and legs were shaking from the exertion and adrenaline of dragging the girls out of the rip tide.
“What about you?” Daisy asked her dad.
“I’m right here with you,” he said. “I’ll be your motor!”
“Yeah!” she shouted when he started kicking them back to shore. “Faster!”
Nell didn’t even try to paddle. She settled her weight in the middle of the board, let Cassie crawl into her lap, and focused her attention on keeping Daisy and the long paddle from tumbling over the edge.
Eventually, they made it to the rocky peninsula by the camping area and clambered one by one over the rocks, with lots of helping hands to steady them and pull them up. Just behind the crowd of familiar faces, Dio strained at the end of his leash and whined in concern.
“Come get warm.” Emma wrapped an oversized beach towel around Nell’s shoulders and steered her towards a big campfire.
Nell felt a sudden jolt of fear and guilt. “Where’s Everett?”
“I’ve got him,” Juniper shouted. “Over here!”
Nell looked across the asphalt campground and saw Everett playing happily in a portable playpen. Fern sat off to the side with baby Theodore sound asleep in her arms.
Hugh walked over with their two girls, each wrapped in their own hooded towel and perched on his arms.
“What are you sniffling about?” Daisy sounded genuinely confused. “No one died!”
Cassie wailed and toppled into Nell’s arms.
“Come sit by the fire,” Emma urged gently.
Nell settled into a beach chair with Cassie in her lap. Dio curled up at their feet, his tail thumping with relief. The heat of the fire washed over them, as soothing as a hot bath. She closed her eyes and bathed her face in firelight.
“Do you want marshmallows, Cassie?” Kai crouched next to them, his face filled with concern. “I have a stick you can use to roast them.”
“O-o-okay,” she sniffed, reaching one hand out of her towel cocoon to accept his offering.
Nell brushed aside the red-gold hair that was plastered to her daughter’s cheeks and forehead, and then she used the edge of her towel to wipe her runny nose.
“We’ve got plenty of food when you’re ready,” Emma said.
“Are the other kids okay?” Nell asked, immediately feeling guilty that they had slipped her mind.
“All good, thanks to you,” Emma assured her. “I handed them off to their parents and talked to them about giving kids pool floaties at a beach like this one.”
Her guilt dug in deeper, and she turned to Hugh with a horrified look.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
