Chapter Twenty-Five
Rain continued to pelt down on Lynette. The moon had deserted her, snuffed out by the clouds. The occasional gust of wind rocked the little boat. She huddled on the floor of the canoe in a growing puddle of water. What she wouldn’t give for a jacket or a tarp so she’d have at least a little protection from the elements. Or a bucket to bail water out of the canoe if this rain kept up.
As she lay curled up in a fetal position, one thing became crystal clear: This was the Universe’s way of reminding her it was never safe for her to drink alcohol. She’d done stupid things while drunk before, but nothing as foolish and dangerous as this.
She jolted upright when a scraping sound reverberated through the bottom of the canoe. The rain had stopped, too. Had she dozed off and drifted onto the shoreline? There was just enough moonlight for her to make out the black silhouette of a naked tree branch to her right.
She grabbed for a section of the horizontal tree. Thin, bone-dry sticks broke off in her hand and scraped against the canoe as she fumbled for a thicker branch. Now she regretted leaving her phone behind. Even if there was no signal out here, making it impossible to call for help, the built-in flashlight would have been useful.
Her mind scrambled to pick the best course of action. Could she hold on to the branch of this dead tree until morning, when her friends might notice she was missing and send help? It was unlikely that anyone would miss her tonight. She had no idea if it was still the middle of the night or edging closer toward morning. All she knew for sure was the bone-deep exhaustion that was settling over her, and she didn’t trust her grip.
The bottom of the canoe was still bumping against something, and since the part of the tree she held was dry, she knew she’d reached shore, even though she could see very little. Did she dare put her foot down, over the side of the little boat, to test how shallow the water was here?
The branch she held cracked, and a wave bounced the canoe against the branches. The screech of wood against metal sent a shiver down Lynette’s spine, reminding her that she needed to save herself. No one else was coming for her.
Her best bet would be to get out of the boat and onto solid ground. Keeping her tenuous grip on the tree, she got to her feet, fighting for balance with the wobble of the boat. She gripped the opposite side of the canoe with her free hand and took two tentative steps toward the narrower front. She didn’t want to let go of the tree, since it was probably still attached to the shoreline, but getting her body wedged between the boat and the tree would be undoubtedly painful, and probably dangerous.
The opposite side would be her safer option.
Without giving herself a chance to chicken out, she released her death grip on the prickly branch, stood up straight to catch her breath, then sat on the bench seat closest to the front of the canoe and swung her left leg over the side.
At first, her foot dangled in the air, telling her nothing, so she shifted her weight to the left, stretching her toes toward the water. She reached her foot down until waves lapped at her calf, but if the murky bottom was close, she still couldn’t feel it. She pulled her leg back in, sat back up on the bench again, and leaned over the side with her left arm this time, testing to see if she could feel the bottom that way.
This would all be so much easier if the moon would show itself again!
She reached farther, sure the bottom had to be close. But her movement coincided with a gust of wind, and as water blew off the dead tree behind her onto her back, a wave hit the canoe, and Lynette heard a screech as the whole world tipped to the left. It wasn’t until the water fully enveloped her that she realized it was her screeching.
Her body took over when her mind faltered, and her sandaled feet found enough traction to allow her to stand. She’d poked her head and shoulders above the waterline when something smacked her hard on her right shoulder, knocking her under the water again.
Pain shot through her body like fireworks, but self-preservation can be a funny thing, and the next thing she knew she was sitting on solid ground with only her lower legs still floating in the water. Her fingers clasped what felt like long, wet grass, and she paused there long enough to catch her breath.
A break in the clouds allowed enough moonlight to stream down for her to see the canoe, now at least ten feet from shore, floating away.
“No!” she yelled. Dismay flooded through her already overwhelmed senses as the red canoe bobbed away atop the choppy water, its size diminishing.
Moooo . . .
Lynette spun away from the water toward the completely unexpected yet undeniable cry of an animal. But all she could make out behind her was a gentle, grassy slope. The combination of the angle of the earth and the low light didn’t allow her to see far.
Another animal cry reached her ears.
“Cows?!” she said, scrambling to get to her feet on the slick bank.
As she stood, she could again make out the hulking shape of the fallen tree the canoe had snagged against to her right. Moonlight glittered atop angry waves on the lake, and she had to push her snarled, dripping curls away from her face to better see what lay to her left: an undulating mass of dark shapes, tucked against what appeared to be a grove of trees. Then she caught the unmistakable odor of manure. Not even the fresh rain was enough to mask it.
She’d reached land, but her luck hadn’t deposited her onto shore near her intended destination or even a nearby resort.
At least she hadn’t washed up in the middle of the cattle herd, she reasoned. Though given their increasing level of bawling and movement, some in the crowd of massive animals sensed her as potential danger.
She was no longer at risk of drowning, but if she didn’t find shelter, she might get trampled to death by a stampede of livestock. Could the fallen tree offer her enough protection? It was the most obvious choice, so she hurried up the shore toward the exposed roots of the tree, but she didn’t get far. Three or four steps in, she slipped in the mud and went down hard. An all-too-familiar pain shot up her leg, and she knew instantly that she’d rolled her weak ankle again. Straight on the heels of that realization came the stench.
That wasn’t mud that she’d slipped on.
Giving herself a second to catch her breath, she listened for the cows. They continued to bellow, but it didn’t sound like any of them were moving in her direction. Clouds continued to drift high above, and the moonlight flickered, but it didn’t completely desert her.
She stood again and, keeping as much of her weight as possible on her good ankle, hobbled around the tree. At least here pesky branches didn’t obscure the thick trunk, and it provided her enough support to advance up and around it to the far side. Water lapped higher here, and she had to move farther up the grass toward a trio of other trees. At least these still stood tall, and once she reached them, the ground below felt more stable and relatively dry. The noise from the cows wasn’t as loud here. This area might provide enough protection until dawn, when she’d be able to see more of her surroundings.
Her injured ankle wasn’t going to allow her to go any farther.
She sank down on a small outcropping of rocks at the base of the largest of the three trees. Her imagination threatened with images of spiders, snakes, and other terrifying inhabitants, so she closed her eyes and willed her mind to a different place.
She imagined herself back in the long-ago days of summer camp, where she’d wiled away the days with her best friends, before the demands of everyday life descended with adulthood. The memory involved a day trip their camp counselors had taken them on to a local dairy farm. Perhaps it was the smear of manure that undoubtedly covered the right side of her jeans that pulled that memory to mind. She remembered how laughter filled the air as Jackie and Kit sat side by side on milk stools, trying but failing to follow the farmer’s directions on how to milk the patient dairy cow that stood above them.
The sound of male voices pulled her from her stupor, and a brilliant flash of light practically blinded her. She threw a protective arm over her eyes and struggled to understand what was happening. Once her eyes had again adjusted to the darkness, she used the sturdy trunk of the tree to stand. Her one ankle throbbed, and she bent her leg to keep all the weight off it while she scanned the area.
At first nothing seemed to have changed, but then she saw something out on the water. A light, almost like that of a lighthouse, skimmed in an arc across the water in her direction. A voice yelled her name.
“Here!” she screamed. “I’m up here!”
She tried to step toward the water, forgetting about her worthless ankle, and she went down again. Stars danced before her eyes as she rolled onto her back and tried to breathe through the pain.
“Lynette?!”
“Yes! I’m up here, by the trees!” she yelled, praying whoever was out on the water could hear her. She thought it might be Matt. But how was that even possible?
This time, she couldn’t get up any farther than her knees, but it was enough for her to make out what looked like two small boats on the water. One floated behind the other, connected by some kind of rope. When the light again flashed in her direction, this time it stayed on her.
“We see you, Lynette! Are you hurt?! Just stay there! We’ll come to you.”
She collapsed back onto her bottom, overwhelmed with relief. Now she was sure it was Matt’s voice. Hadn’t Renee said he and her son were out fishing with Annie’s Henry? She must have roped them into searching for Lynette. As she waited for them to reach her, she remembered how everyone had teased Henry and Annie for needing to be rescued from a ditch in a snowstorm the winter before their trip to Arizona.
Now it was her turn to be rescued by her friends.
She was going to have to figure out a way to make it up to them all. Exhaustion overwhelmed her. Her rescue was imminent, and she wasn’t about to die beneath the hooves of an angry mob of cows. She lay on her back as she waited, already trying to form the apologies she’d need to make to everyone involved.
The sound of a boat hull scraping against a shale-covered shore reached her, along with urgent yet hushed voices. She’d officially survived her own stupidity, and she knew she would be forever grateful to her rescuers. With one last, steadying breath, she sat up to greet them.
But only one head popped up in the moonlight as someone approached from down below, and she felt another rush of disorientation.
How?!
“Damn, Lynette, looks like you haven’t outgrown your tendency to attract trouble,” a still-familiar voice said, confirming what she thought she was seeing. “At least this time I’m around to save you from yourself.”
Matt stayed behind to hold the canoes as Storm rushed forward to collect Lynette.
Storm ignored her when she insisted she could walk. They both knew she couldn’t. As he struggled to deadlift her off the ground, grunting and slipping, her cheeks burned. She hoped he didn’t notice in the moonlight.
Matt had set his searchlight on the front of the canoe to make it easier for Storm to see his way back. She caught the speculative look Renee’s husband gave them both when Storm dumped her on the front seat of the rescue canoe, but then he took over. He did his best to make sure her injuries didn’t extend beyond a rolled ankle. Once he was satisfied, he tossed a blanket over Lynette’s shoulders and motioned for Storm to climb in before grabbing the light and taking up the position at the rear of the canoe.
Lynette knew she should be grateful, but it was hard to think straight. She held the blanket tightly around her, doing her best to ignore the man sitting directly behind her.
“I need you to brace yourself, Lynette,” Matt said. His voice was firm yet reassuring. “We’re going to row hard to get you back to the resort as quickly as possible. I know you’re freezing, and your friends are a wreck. Are you ready?”
She nodded, unable to form words. She no longer feared for her safety—unless her friends were mad enough to hurt her—but her teeth were chattering too hard to talk.
The canoe lurched backward from shore, then swung around, cutting through the dark water. It wasn’t long before the glow of lights from Whispering Pines appeared. As they grew closer, she scanned the shoreline for Renee and the others. She spied a small group of people jumping and waving in their direction at the same time their whoops reached her ears.
“Looks like your fan club is waiting for you,” the man directly behind her said.
The blanket fell from her shoulders when she waved back at the four figures on the shore. Then she noticed a few more people streaming across the shadowed beach.
“I called Robbie and told them they could call off their search of the woods. That we’d found you,” Matt said, as if in explanation.
A search of the woods?She was going to have even more apologizing to do than she’d initially thought.
The telltale scrape of sand against the canoe bottom reached her ears just as the rain started up again. Low rumbles of thunder had followed them across the water, so more rain wasn’t a complete surprise. Hopefully this meant the welcoming committee wouldn’t stay long, once they were sure both her and her rescuers were safe. That might give her until morning to form the proper apologies she knew she owed to everyone.
One of the men behind her flipped on a flashlight. Lynette could see Renee wade into the water and grab hold of the canoe to stabilize it.
Kit rushed forward and pulled Lynette into an awkward hug. “You are such an idiot,” she whispered, for Lynette’s ears only. “But I’ve never been so glad to see you.”
Lynette knew that Kit was the least prone of all the Kaleidoscope Girls to displays of emotion, so she put her arms around her dear friend and squeezed tight. She felt terrible for scaring everyone so badly.
The boat tipped back and forth below her as Matt and Storm both got out.
“We’ve got it from here, Renee,” Matt said.
Lynette saw him drop a quick kiss on Renee’s forehead. She looked pale, as if Lynette had practically scared her to death.
Kit scurried out of the way, and Lynette grabbed both sides of the canoe for balance. Her blanket fell away. “I’m really sorry for scaring everyone,” she said through clenched teeth, knowing her apology was only the first step in making it right with everyone after her foolishness. The shivering seemed to be getting worse, so she tried to wrap herself in the blanket again.
“She could be going into shock,” Matt said as he tossed the rope that was tied to the front of their canoe to Robbie. “We need to get her somewhere warm.”
Lynette nodded and stood, remembering this time not to put any weight on her bad ankle. Before she could figure out how to get out of the canoe, powerful arms picked her up. Her face smashed against a wall of flesh, and she knew it was Storm that held her again.
At least he didn’t grunt this time.
She pushed against him, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Knock it off, Lynette. You can’t walk on that ankle of yours. Renee, where should I take her?”
Mortified, Lynette recognized the truth in his words. She could hear a brief discussion going on around her, but the blanket had fallen over her face and, grateful for the glimpse of privacy, she left it there. Or was it her hair? Maybe if she pretended she wasn’t actually in Storm’s arms, that she was really asleep in the bed in her little cabin and this was nothing more than a nightmare, she’d wake up to bright sunshine and nothing worse than a nasty hangover, with no apologies needed.
Suddenly, there was nothing supporting her, and she was falling. She screeched in alarm, but just as quickly, she found herself atop that very bed.
“We can take it from here,” Renee said. “The rest of you, get out. Matt, it’s too late for you guys to drive back to your camp, so can you find a place for everyone to sleep tonight? I’m sorry we pulled you away from your fishing trip.”
Someone might have suggested a different course of action, but Lynette only heard parts of the conversation.
“I’ll sleep in here with her. If she seems to have trouble warming up and settling down, I’ll call you, Matt, and we can take her in to get checked. Her ankle is probably just sprained. It always gives her trouble.”
Is that Renee talking?
The voices faded, and the next thing Lynette knew, someone was tugging at her sandals.
“Come on, girl. You smell like the butt of a cow, and you are not crawling under my sheets until after we get you out of these clothes and into the shower.”
Yep. Renee.
Lynette’s eyes snapped open, and she could see both Renee and Jackie at her feet. Kit stood over her with arms crossed, shaking her head in disapproval.
Annie walked in with a stack of clean towels. “They’re all gone,” she said. She set the stack down on the dresser and snapped a towel open. “Now, get up, Lynette. We’ve got you.”