Page 15 of High Side
“One more hard pull both sides and we float to lunch!” She pushed them to hit the end of the rapids, because they were the first boat, and the most experienced, so she was there if anyone else had trouble.
Which, speaking of, she could hear shouting coming from the next raft up the river, and not the good, I’m giving instructions kind.
“Look out!” Kylie stroked hard, pushing them the last few feet as a raft came flying through at double speed, catching way too much air and tilting toward the right.
“Shit! They’re going over.” Evie, who had worked for M&M a couple of summers before Kylie’s time, bailed out and swam for the bank, and she knew she was getting ready to go in after anyone who went flying.
Sure enough, the raft flipped, the three fake tourist locals going in all directions, the guide not on the big oars in the back doing a somersault into the river.
Well, fuck. That was not what she wanted to see at this part of the training.
Everyone popped up, their vests keeping them afloat, and they all pointed their feet downstream until the rapids ended.
“No standing, folks! Swim to Evie.” Kylie directed traffic, because more rafts were coming. “Come on, folks. Evie’s got your backs. Move it.”
They all swam except for… Kylie squinted. Shit. Brittany. She’d pushed the raft the other direction, which was a shorter swim, in order to wade into the shallows and flip the raft. Which was smart. They needed to see if it would hold water. They still had a quarter mile to the bus.
Who the hell had she been in the boat with?
Brit had seemed solid as a rock—hell, she’d been paddling like a mofo. But her team member hadn’t been with her.
And whoever that was, well, they were supposed to be at the oars in the back. Steering.
“Okay, everyone is accounted for. Come on and give me three strokes toward Evie over there. We’ll get who we can in our raft and head down to the bus.” The questions had to wait. The locals might not sue or anything, but they needed to be checked out, just to make sure no one was injured.
Brittany gave her the thumbs up from across the river and climbed into the raft, which didn’t immediately sink, so Kylie moved on. The shouting and or questions could wait.
Thank God everyone was whole and hale, barring a single scratch on Evie’s arm—which might have come from any number of things. That cowgirl was a little nuts.
Brittany took two people in her raft, following them as the rest of the boats came through without incident. They were short a guide, but she didn’t dare worry about that. The pick-up crew would have been alerted to look for…him? Had she put Brittany with Joshua again?
If she had, where the hell was he? She usually remembered who she assigned to what, but she’d had a moment of sheer panic seeing Brittany go flying out of the raft and land almost headfirst in the river.
She liked that girl too damn much for her own good.
They all made it to the concrete boat pull off a quarter mile down, and everyone pitched in to pull the boat out of the water and up the bank.
“Go ahead and check in, folks. And grab lunch and your dry clothes.”
She would wait for Brittany.
Kylie helped Brit get the boat emptied before she asked. “What the hell happened up there?”
Brittany had a bruise coming up on her chin, dark and lurid. “I don’t know, Ky. I was up front with a single oar, playing cocky tourist dude. Josh had the back oars, and he didn’t want me back there helping steer in one of the heavy hitter positions.”
“And then he was just, what? Gone?”
“Yep. We hit that eddy right before the last rapid, and I felt it when we were out of control. I was shouting instructions, but I didn’t dare unbalance the raft anymore by trying to change positions.” Brittany’s eyes flashed fire. “And when I see him again, I will kick his ass.”
“Fair enough.” It wasn’t like he’d be a fucking guide for M&M, not after Liz got onto him.
Which would all be kinda moot if he’d drowned or something.
They hauled the raft up to the bus, and she nudged Brittany toward their medic, Paul. “Go get checked out, then come have some lunch.”
“Thanks. I feel like I need to apologize to my crew. They were stellar during the whole thing.”
“Sure. Sounds like you handled it as best you could. I have to go find Josh.” Just because she thought Brit was hot as hell didn’t give her the right to be all Mama Bear and shit.
