Courage Dares by Nancy Radke Page B

stopped, aghast at what lay in front of them.

12
    A few feet ahead of Mary the trail dead-ended at a river, one running wide, swift and deep. Blackberry bushes lined its steep banks. The long berry canes hung into the water, extending below the surface, ready to drown anyone foolish enough to enter.
    Hadn't Connor seen the impassable conditions when he came for water last night? Maybe not, in the hard rain and the darkness.
    To be stopped before they even got started! Mary felt sick. She swung toward Connor, and cried out against the futility.
    Ramone and Ira strolled up behind them, taking their time in the bright sunshine. They knew Connor and Mary weren't going anywhere. Ramone hadn't even bothered to draw his gun.
    “You can’t get away from me that easily, girl,” Ramone called. “Now lie down on the ground and put your hands behind the back of your necks.” He turned toward Ira as they drew closer. “Why don’t we get rid of him?”
    “No!” Mary shouted, turning back toward the river. If only she were a strong swimmer, she might chance it.
    Connor grabbed her coat by the back of the neck and her jeans by the waist and propelled her the last few feet toward the river. She realized his intentions a split second before he flung her out into the churning stream.
    She hit the surface in a shallow dive. The icy water snatched her breath away and caused her heart to skip a beat. She flailed with her hands, trying to keep her head above the surface.
    As she struggled, the current swept her toward the outermost blackberry canes.
    Then Connor grabbed her coat and yanked her away. He swam beside her, and she turned to see his broad smile. It transformed his face, making him almost handsome. They were already out of sight of their kidnappers, who hadn’t followed them into the freezing water.
    "We made it!" she shouted happily at him. The cold water slapped hungrily in her face and she had lost both shoes, but she’d take the river as an opponent any day. Nature was honest— lacking the evil intentions of men— and predictable enough that a person had a fighting chance.
    "Sure we did. Watch out!" He tugged her sideways to help her clear a gigantic boulder that loomed eight feet out of the river.
    "Right." The water pressure could pin her against it, or worse, force her under the boulder into a hole.
    She and Connor were free, but not out of danger. Plenty of people drowned in western Washington rivers. This one wasn’t at flood stage, but it still ran too deep to stand up in. And too cold to stay in very long.
    Hypothermia. The deadly danger of cold water. Their bodies would rapidly lose heat. Her coat would help her. Connor only had his heavy sweatshirt on, over a long sleeved shirt.
    She pressed her arms close to her sides to conserve what heat she could while using her hands to keep her head up and her eyes focused downstream. She knew how to float a river, keeping her feet in front of her as it swept her along. She used them to fend off boulders that dotted the surface like teeth on a shark.
    Her goose-down coat— zipped part of the way up— retained air and acted like a life preserver. She pulled the zipper up the rest of the way, hoping to trap some body heat inside.
    They missed several other boulders, but couldn’t avoid a group of five closely-spaced flat ones.
    "We're going through," Connor yelled. He gathered her closer to him, his outstretched feet fending off the boulders for them both. The current spun them sideways, sucked them swiftly down, in and through a narrow gap, and squirted them out the other side— but not before giving Connor a blow on the shoulder that Mary could feel.
    "Are you all right?" she asked as they reached open water again.
    "I think so. I'll have a good bruise." He gave her a gentle squeeze. “Your coat is keeping us both afloat. Wish I had mine.”
    “We make a good team— your legs, my coat.”
    The river carried them onward, between endless banks of blackberry bushes