Chapter 5
Chapter Five
GRIFFIN
The Narrows were crowded, but neither Juliette nor I cared. We were too busy taking in the views, gazing up at the afternoon sunlight filtering between the sandstone walls. Water lapped around our thighs, cool and soothing against our sore muscles.
I kept looking at her when I should’ve been watching my footing.
Her mouth was slightly open, eyes moving slowly up the canyon walls. “I can’t believe this has been here my whole life and I’ve never seen it.”
I couldn’t believe it either. If I’d lived less than three hours away, I would’ve begged my parents to bring me at least once a year.
“Is it as awesome as you thought it would be?” I asked.
She drew in a deep breath like she wanted the southern Utah air to reach every atom of her body. “Even better.”
“Me too.”
I’d set my expectations high. I’d seen the pictures. But the two-thousand-foot-tall walls—the way the water had carved the red rock into curves and hollows—no photograph did it justice.
Picking our way up the riverbed, Juliette couldn’t stop looking up. Which meant she kept stumbling into me. Her Chacos splashed my left thigh. “Sorry!” A moment later, she tripped again, falling sideways.
I caught her by the hips and steadied her. She felt warm beneath my fingertips, and I didn’t rush to let go. “I gotchu.” Her eyes were the same soft blue as the sky above.
Her fingers curled over my shoulders as she stared right back. She seemed perfectly happy to stop right here with parents and kids romping by.
“This is harder than I thought it would be,” she admitted. “My feet keep rolling off the rocks.”
“Right? My ankles might swell if this keeps up. Then I’ll have cankles.”
Her laugh mixed with the heat and the chatter around us, and it felt like déjà vu. I took a mental snapshot and stored it away.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked in a hush, the smile slipping from her face.
I straightened. “Of course.”
She ran a hand over her forehead, as if to shield herself from my view. “I don’t usually do that.” She chewed the corner of her lip, her eyes drifting to my Adam’s apple. “What I did last night…offer to sleep with someone I just met. Have one-night stands.”
I gave her hips a squeeze. “That wasn’t what I was thinking, but thank you for clarifying.”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong.” She smiled, cheeks going pink.
“I was willing to take one for the team if it saved you from Nessa.” Her laugh faded, and her expression turned somber.
“But I’m glad we didn’t go through with it.
” Her fingers gripped the sides of my T-shirt.
She looked up into my eyes. “I’m glad that didn’t become part of our story. ”
Our story? That sounded… like this might last longer than the weekend.
My hopes tried to punch their way out of my chest with a whoop. But I knew better than to get ahead of myself.
So I simply grinned and said, “Yeah.”
Just then, a stiff gust of wind blew in. It was so forceful, in fact, that it knocked us sideways. We stumbled together, feet sliding off the rocks, as the current took us down. I hit the water first, going under. Juliette landed against me, and I caught her, my arms wrapping around her back.
In three seconds, we were on our feet, completely soaked, clothes glued to our skin. Juliette gasped when the next gust hit. I pushed her hair out of her eyes.
She blinked hard. “Crap, that was cold. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.” Goosebumps prickled her arms, and I rubbed them. Her black tank top clung to her skin, showing off every curve. The girl had serious abs, probably because she had almost no body fat.
But she didn’t even notice me checking her out because she was too busy checking me out. “S-so Hollister d-didn’t Photoshop that, huh?” Her teeth chattered, but she managed to say, “Dang. Y-you’re not p-playing fair.”
“Same.” I skimmed a hand across her stomach.
Before we could flirt any harder, a shadow fell over us. We looked up. In the past thirty seconds, the sky had gone from clear to the color of a bruise. A crack of thunder ripped through the canyon, and every hair on my arms stood up.
Her nose scrunched. “I checked the weather. There was no precipitation in sight. And coming into the park, the probability sign said there was a low chance of rain today.”
“Looks like the weatherman was wrong. And the park service.”
“We’ll be okay, right?”
No one else seemed worried, but we were in a slot canyon with cliffs on either side. We were sitting ducks if a storm broke loose.
Mother Nature must’ve seen my if and raised me a gully washer. We hadn’t completed a full exhale before the sky cracked open and the rain came sideways. The joy from moments earlier shattered as women and children shrieked and splashed for shore.
“We need to go!” I yelled over the noise. “Now.”
Juliette’s hand found mine, and we hurried for dry land. The other families seemed to think having their feet out of the water was good enough. But I knew better.
A teenage couple standing under a rock overhang had their phones out, filming the chaos.
As we jogged past, the girl stared with full googly eyes and said, “You’re Juliette Serrant.”
Juliette didn’t slow down. “No videos of us together. You got me?” The girl had some fire. I liked it.
They nodded, lowering their phones.
“You need to get out of here, fast,” I said. “It’s going to flood, and you’re not high enough. Move.”
The girl’s eyes widened as small waterfalls poured over the tops of the cliff walls and into the Virgin River.
The crowd took off up the trail. Juliette and I hung back, her hand slipping into mine as we jogged after them, water dripping down our legs. Fifty yards in, the sky cracked again—and just like that, the rain turned to hail, pelting our backs.
I hooked an arm around Juliette’s shoulders, trying to shield her. “Are you good at distance?”
“I’m not a runner.” But she could’ve fooled me.
Her long legs matched mine, stride for stride.
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll keep up.
I’m not dying today.” She squeezed my fingers, and there was a protective heat in her eyes.
“And you’re not dying today. Your wife is waiting out there for you somewhere.
” If there hadn’t been a want in her eyes when she said it, it might’ve gutted me.
I held her gaze. “And so is your husband.”
She looked away, and something in her expression made me wish I hadn’t said it.
As we reached the top of the hill, we looked down at the river, swelling higher every second.
The waterfalls were bigger now, and there were twice as many as a moment ago.
There was only one way out, so we headed down the other side—back toward the river.
When we reached the next stretch of low ground, people were lingering along the banks.
Were they crazy?
I almost yelled for them to go, but then Juliette gasped.
The river had risen at least three feet, and a girl, maybe seven or eight, bobbed helplessly in the water, being swept further downstream.
She could swim, at least—but she wasn’t strong enough to get to the side. “Help!” she screamed. “Mom, help!”
Her mom was trying to get to her, but a little boy had locked himself around her legs, refusing to be left behind.
If Mom was going in the water, the little boy was determined to go too.
This poor mother was being forced to choose between her children in real time, and her panic was unbearable to witness.
“Stay, Mason!” she shouted, voice authoritative and shattering all at once.
The little boy only sobbed harder and tightened his grip.
“Moooom!” The river swallowed the word—just before swallowing the girl.
Juliette tore her hand from mine and bolted for the water, every inch of her screaming that this was happening.
I sprinted after her.
When the girl popped back up, the crowd exhaled as one.
“See, this is why children shouldn’t be allowed to hike the Narrows,” a middle-aged man observed to his teenage son, calm as a nature documentary narrator—as though an actual child wasn’t currently drowning right in front of him.
“Yes, let’s judge a single mother in her time of crisis!” Juliette shouted as she blew past him. “Super helpful!”
He looked at me with an expression that said, you might want to get control of your woman.
“You heard her!” I yelled, flying after my spitfire.
“No—you stay!” Juliette shouted at the mom. “I’ve got her.”
“No, Jules!” I yelled. “I’ll get her!”
But she raced farther up the bank as if she couldn’t hear me. When she’d gained twenty feet on the girl, she cut hard right and flung herself off the edge of the cliff.
In that suspended second, as her arms locked around her knees, cannonballing straight into a flood, two truths hit me hard and fast: First, I wanted to marry this woman someday. And second, if that water was even half as violent as it looked, I might never get the chance.
No way was I going to let her do this alone.
I launched myself off the embankment. A curse tore free just before the river closed over my head. The water was muddy, blinding, and ten times stronger than it had been earlier. As soon as I broke the surface, I swam hard, cutting through the torrent.
Juliette grabbed the girl by the back of her shirt, but the current ripped her away. Just downstream from them, I caught the girl as she floated by. The crowd cheered.
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, sobbing.
“You’re doing great,” I said. “So brave. Can you help me kick?” She whimpered, but her legs started kicking.
I turned us back to Juliette, just in time to see the undertow steal her. As the last of her hair disappeared, my stomach dropped out entirely. I’d been in plenty of sketchy situations. I’d nearly lost Boone once in a fire. But not knowing where Juliette was—that was a panic I’d never known.
“Jules!” I screamed. “Jules!”
“I’ve got her,” a man said, suddenly dog-paddling next to me. He was massive—with biceps and shoulders that belonged on a different species. He pried the girl from my arms.
I plunged beneath the surface, arms sweeping through a storm of sticks and debris. But I didn’t see a sign of her—not a strand of her hair or the toe of her shoe. Nothing.
Thirty seconds must’ve passed. It felt like I was drowning from fear. I surfaced, took a breath, and dove again, praying harder than I’d ever prayed before. Please help me find her. Please. I’d almost given up hope when something that felt like fingertips grazed my knee.
My hand shot out, locking around her wrist. I yanked her against me, hugging her tight and kicked up, up, up. Once we erupted through the surface, she gasped like someone who’d been waiting to die.
Her face twisted, lips curled. “G-Griff,” she sobbed.
“It’s okay. Don’t talk.” I crushed her to me.
She gasped again, her body shuddering as she cried.
“Try to swim with the current, sideways to shore,” I said.
We pumped our legs as hard as we could. No way was I letting her go, but swimming with only one arm was slow, grinding work.
Ten feet from the bank, the giant and two more guys just as big had made a chain toward us.
I didn’t know if they were part of a Descendants of the Neanderthals convention, but I was grateful they were there.
When the closest guy was almost within reach, I pulled Juliette in front of me and shoved her toward them.
He passed her to his friend. But as he reached for me, the current tore me away.
“Griff!” Juliette screamed from atop a rock.
Completely spent, lungs burning, I almost let myself sink—just for a second—to steal one breath before fighting again. But another man—an angel, really—muscled me to solid ground.
I fell onto the rocky bank. My lungs burned as I tried to take a deep breath. With all the strength I had left, I reached down, took his hand, and tugged him up. We backed away from the water, staring at it like it were the mouth of an abyss.
I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. You had to be to run into fires. But that? Had been just as terrifying as any fire I’d ever fought.
I managed one more breath before someone knocked it out of me with a full-body tackle. I fell backward, landing hard on the rocks. Then Juliette was in my lap, clutching me to her, pressing kisses over my cheeks.
My arms wound around her back, and I closed my eyes, heart still pounding, so grateful.
Thank you, God. Thank you.