Raging Waters (Elements of Danger #2)

Chapter 1

One

As he dodged a skull-splitting kick to his temple, Gideon Landry wondered again if this side hustle was going to pan out. His legs ached from fighting the current, and the cold water sapped his strength like a leech on an open wound.

Isn’t being an Air Force SERE instructor enough for you, Gid? No, he had to go and set himself up to teach civilian classes during his precious leave time.

In a backwater nowhere of northern Washington.

During torrential rains. With most of his class bailing out at the last minute.

Why hadn’t he just canceled the whole thing like a sane person?

Because his service days were numbered, and that was the exit strategy he’d come up with for a variety of reasons.

Why should he let a weather calamity put the kibosh on his early preparations?

Man against nature. He always thought he’d win.

Probably why his brothers never wanted to go camping with him.

Another splash of bone-chilling river water renewed his resolve.

Suck it up, buttercup.

Gideon continued to tread water, ignoring the pain pulsing in his shoulder as he tried to formulate a rescue plan for the drowning young doe. The animal had flipped from stomach to back, its frantic hooves batting the spray, eyes rolling in terror.

On the muddy bank, the only student who’d actually followed through and shown up for his survival skills class looked, in a word, terrified. Rain coursed from Roger’s yellow hat as he watched Gideon struggling with the deer, who’d been trapped in a tangle of branches in the bloated river.

The water on the rugged eastern flank of the Cascades was freezing at the end of February.

Of course. Puffs of snow stacked the peaks ringing the town.

He and his brothers had camped beside this very river when they were kids, and he’d relished these acres in all their summer glory. This was definitely not summer.

But leave was leave, and even a handful of students would be enough to provide glowing testimonials for the website he was planning.

The torrent beat against Gideon as he circled and splashed his way to a better angle to free the drowning deer, whose panicked bleating was growing fainter as it succumbed. Behind Roger, the bushes parted and Gideon’s heart sank as a full-grown male deer stepped out.

He yelled to Roger over the roar as he pulled out his knife and sawed through the intertwined branches.

“Huh?” Roger yelled back from his place atop the bank, his cell phone capturing the action.

Unbelievable.

“The buck, behind you!” Gideon shouted at a volume he rarely attained. Yelling generally indicated a complete inability to deal with a situation, which was exactly where things were headed. He stifled the litany of bad words scrolling through his mind and continued to hack away.

The buck, agitated about his mate’s situation, was about to mow down the clueless Roger.

Gideon’s one and only client was close to having his clock cleaned by a two-hundred-pound deer.

That’d look swell on the Yelp reviews. A testimonial would definitely be out of the question. He should give up on the doe.

Go save your client.

But the doe’s terrified eyes locked on his, the water millimeters from inundating her quivering nostrils. She had no hope except for him. Her death was certain.

He shouted again to Roger without taking his attention off the knife. He continued to work the blade across the entangling branches, focused so he didn’t cut off his fingers with the weapon he kept sharp enough to split atoms.

He didn’t think Roger had heeded his command, but he couldn’t spare a look.

Since the class had only just begun when he spotted the entangled animal, they hadn’t yet covered the “be mindful of your surroundings” topic, and clearly Roger had zero prior knowledge on the subject.

The man was probably still trying to video the moment for his social media instead of looking for a way to help.

This is real life, he wanted to shout. Fix it, don’t film it.

With a snap, the last branch finally gave way. He sheathed the knife, grabbed the deer around the neck, ignoring the hooves that battered his stomach, and hauled her to the shore against the pummeling current.

In the shallows, braced in the mud, he shoved at her flanks until she got her wobbly legs situated.

It took one last heave from Gideon to propel the exhausted creature far enough onto terra firma for her to find traction.

The buck was there immediately, nosing the female away from the water and Gideon before they disappeared into the woods. Mission accomplished. Doe saved.

With all his remaining energy, he hauled himself through the mud and up the bank. His weak shoulder complained every inch of the way. As usual, he ignored it. He expected to see Roger in a crumpled heap when he finally pulled his way clear. No Roger.

He shook the water out of his eyes.

Still no Roger, but someone else was there.

Gideon stood upright, water running down his freezing limbs as he tried to shake away the hallucination.

He must be hypothermic, seeing things. But even that made no sense, none at all.

Why would he hallucinate the woman he had no desire ever to clap eyes on again?

He swiped the moisture from his face, but she was still there.

And Roger wasn’t.

Mackenzie Bardine arched a delicate brow at him. “Where’s the rest of your class?”

That soft, feathery tone concealed the talons underneath. His stomach knotted into a fist as he barely caught the towel she tossed him.

His mouth finally started to pitch in and help out his brain. “What are you doing here, Zee?” The nickname bestowed on her by her brother, Aaron. His best friend.

Her lips firmed into a line. “You can call me Mackenzie. I’m not a teen anymore.”

No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t even the same woman he’d last seen two years before at the funeral, or the one who’d tried to strong-arm him into her cause.

She was tall and more slender than he recalled, her wet rain gear plastered around her athletic physique.

Drops beaded on her chestnut ponytail, much longer than the previous short bob, as she regarded him with those gray eyes from under the brim of a boonie cap.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated through chattering teeth because he couldn’t think of anything different to ask. He looked for her car and saw only his own rain-slicked Jeep Wrangler.

“I was in the area. Thought I’d join your class. You take walk-ins, right?”

He didn’t get out a response before she rushed on.

“By the way, I suggested your guy, Roger, move to a safer position to save him from being flattened by the buck. Oh, and I told him there’s concern about the Cotton Flower Dam.

Some signs of pending failure. Whole town’s talking about it.

He decided to get on the road home. Said to tell you adios and he’d had a wonderful time. I assured him I’d pass on the message.”

Anger ballooned in his belly. “You did what?”

She smiled. “He paid up front, I’m sure, right? So no biggie?”

Roger had prepaid, in fact, but that wasn’t the point.

“Wrong time of year for a wilderness survival class, isn’t it?” she said. “Wouldn’t August be better for the city folk?”

“Turns out people need to survive, no matter what the season,” he managed between clenched teeth. “What do you want?”

“Just what I said. I saw online that you were teaching your class again. Thought I’d take a refresher course, but . . .” She shrugged. “No fun with only one student and a storm, and what with the risk of the dam failure and all . . .”

He finally broke through the stupor and stalked to his vehicle, turning his back on her and stripping off his shirt as he went. He felt her watching him as he yanked on a dry one from the back seat and added a jacket before he spun to face her again. “You’re lying, obviously.”

She stared at him, unperturbed. No explanation. No apology. Typical.

“Why are you really here?” The rain increased to a relentless sheet of misery. She pursed her lips, as if she were considering a reply. He realized he was teetering on a dangerous precipice. Do not get involved with her. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

And he didn’t want anything to do with Mackenzie Bardine or her plans. Not after he’d declined her request for help with her vigilante social media campaign and received a dose of her wrath to add to his own measure of guilt. Whatever her newest crusade was, it was no concern of his.

“Can I have a ride back to town?” Her casual tone annoyed him further.

“How did you get out here without a vehicle?”

“Staying at the hotel in Oakleaf. I ran here.”

“It’s five miles.”

She shrugged.

Of course. Five miles would be easy for Mackenzie, who’d been a marathon nut in her college days.

He wanted to leave her there and drive away from the feelings she awakened in him.

The pain. But the pewter eyes cooly observing him were the exact shade of her older brother’s.

Aaron could run five miles too, joking the whole way, and handle every problem with a wink and a shrug .

. . until the last one that took his life.

And nestled deep, way down in Gideon’s soul, was the knowledge that he might have saved his friend. Might have, but didn’t. Mackenzie thought so too.

He heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

He’d use the drive to ferret out her real purpose, buried under the lies. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Stony silence was an acceptable option too, and whatever she was up to didn’t concern him, after all. Not anymore.

Get her to town and out of your life.

They got in. He cranked the ignition and jerked them onto the road, windshield wipers working double time.