Love by a Landslide (Stranded in Leavenworth #1)

Prologue

Then

T he steps were easy, performed so many times that they’d become automatic: (1) flip the raft, (2) get everyone back on board, (3) assess possible damage, then (4) high-five because they’d survived the unbridled power of Mother Nature.

They shouldn’t have gotten stuck on number two.

When he finally saw her, the absence of her helmet struck him first. It must have come loose when they capsized and everyone flew into the drink.

“There!”

The team paddled furiously, digging in with the well-trained synchronicity only years of experience could afford. Adrenaline and sweeping panic hummed collectively between them. Voices quiet, heaving breaths deafening. The urethane bottom of the boat scraped up on shore, and he leaped from the side back into the churning drift.

She was face down. Caught in a strainer of fallen trees and branches. Unmoving except for a crown of muted gold. The river’s greedy fingers combed through her hair, swirling and snarling the strands into a mat of dirty tangles.

His heart thundered in his head, a frenzied tempo by which he followed as he scrambled to her side. He grabbed her vest. Waterlogged clothes and the pull of surrounding rapids made her weight unreal, and he struggled with his remaining strength to free her from the petulant river. Her body broke loose from the current, and he managed to drag her to the bank with the help of two others.

How had it all gone so wrong?

But there was no place for delusion there on the sandy edge. The hard, wet rocks dug into his knees as he gave her his breath. He knew who was to blame.

It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.