Rocky Road (Rocky Start #4)

Chapter 1

It’s hard to leave a place you have poured sweat and blood and passion into.

Which explained why girlfriend Rose and I had waited too long to evacuate the cottage.

Okay, actually, we’d been caught up arguing about hanging sheetrock (there is a right way and a wrong way and then my way, which according to Rose is the same as the wrong way) and not paying close attention to our environment.

I know in those Hallmark movies there is the Happily Ever After but how many show the months later when that couple is trying to put up sheetrock in an old cottage that was cute when you first saw it, but then you had to try to actually live in it and you realize it’s not a weekend fixer-upper and the toilet only works part time?

It had turned out to not even be a month or two fixer-upper. Tends to make people grouchy at times.

Almost too late, we’d finally come to our senses, focused on the world outside the cottage in the form of the rain pounding on the roof—as it had been for days—checked the Little Melvin River outside and realized it was well past time to get the hell out and across the river to civilization while we still could.

We grabbed what we could, then jumped into the old Pathfinder.

As we tried to drive across the forest road bridge over the Little Melvin River one of the bridge’s supports, weakened by debris being washed downriver smashing against it, gave way under the weight of the SUV.

I had not expected the flood to get this bad, this quickly, and been too late suggesting an ultimatum that we evacuate Rose.

I’d been too busy defending my wrong way.

So that was on me.

You see, I can admit I’m wrong. Really.

“Hold on,” I yelled to Rose, who was in the passenger seat. Unnecessary advice as she had a death grip on the bar over the glove box in front of her. My dog Maggs was in the back seat, paws up on the center console, claws digging in. I don’t think she was happy with me either.

The truck tilted and I hit the gas, hoping to make it across the single lane forest road bridge before it gave way completely.

We almost made it, the front tires on the far bank.

But I felt the rear end drop and then heard a solid thud as the undercarriage bottomed out on what remained of the bridge.

It was pouring outside, rain pelting on the roof and windows.

The Little Melvin River beneath us was beyond flood stage, currently in angry river mode, like that scene in The Lord of The Rings where the Elven queen sweeps the Nazgul away for crossing the wrong river, which wasn’t a good analogy I thought with one part of my brain while the other tried to analyze my next move.

I was in four-wheel drive and gave the engine a burst, the rear wheels spinning in air, the front tires screaming futilely and tossing mud and gravel, but not close to getting enough traction to pull us up and out.

“Max?” Rose said, her voice tight.

“Don’t worry,” I said, which was pretty stupid, because I was worried. It was a worrisome situation.

Maggs barked, at what or why, I have no idea. Probably at me. She was also worried.

I looked to my left and saw a large tree tumbling in the river. It had been ripped from the shoreline somewhere upstream and was now heading at the remains of the bridge, and us, like a battering ram.

I hit the gas again, knowing it was futile, but I had to try.

There was another lurch, the rear of the truck dropped another several inches and there was the sound of metal grinding, and I knew the bridge and the truck were done for, so I shifted into making sure Rose and Maggs and I weren’t done for.

The truck was angled down on Rose’s side about thirty degrees and going out her door was into the river.

No go. My door would be going up and out and against gravity and these old steel doors were heavy. Nope.

“Cover your face!” I yelled at her and drew my pistol.

Maggie knew what was what when she saw the pistol and disappeared into the back seat.

Numbers from some training I’d received years ago rattled around my brain: There would be a one to five degree downward deflection firing through a windshield at a target outside, but I wasn’t aiming at a target.

I just wanted to destroy the integrity of the glass; breaking windshields is a lot harder than most people realize since they’re designed not to break.

I fired several rounds. Bullet holes punctured it and the glass cracked but didn’t shatter.

I unbuckled and swung my feet up and kicked.

The glass gave way a little bit, but not completely.

As I pulled my feet back to try again, the bridge finally collapsed and we were in the water.

The Pathfinder completed the roll onto the passenger side with a horrible sound of metal against rock.

For a moment we were stable. Unfortunately, we were also mostly submerged.

“Max!” Rose yelled as I tumbled on top of her since she was still seat-belted in.

I lost my gun in the process, but that was the least of our problems. Water was now pouring in the windshield I’d just broken, which I’m sure the entity which controlled the simulation that had been my life before meeting Rose enjoyed very much.

That Greater Power was back with a vengeance.

As if I hadn’t thought of it enough recently so it was punishing me.

The Gods require worship, perhaps more accurately worry, or else they vent their anger on us mere mortals.

At least we weren’t moving, jammed against the remains of the bridge support.

I reached down, around Rose’s body, trying to unbuckle her.

She was doing the same and both our hands were fumbling for the same button.

The water was coming in more quickly. It was halfway up the passenger seat from the side.

I looked Rose in the eyes as I drew my knife and cut the shoulder part of her seatbelt.

“Hold still,” I told her, and she nodded.

I didn’t want to stab her as I felt with one hand for the lap seatbelt. I cut it and she was free.

“Wait,” I said and she nodded again, surprisingly calm.

Her dark curly hair was wet and tumbled about her face and despite the circumstances, for the umpteenth time I realized how beautiful she was and how lucky I was to be with her; and even more, how fortunate I was that she let me be by her side.

Being right about sheetrock didn’t seem as important anymore.

I turned and jammed my back partly against her and partly against the passenger door. I kicked once more and the windshield gave way. That was the good news; the bad was a deluge of freezing water subsequently surged in.

I wrapped her in my arms and rolled below her against her seat, going underwater as I pushed her upward and out. She must have grabbed hold of something, because she was gone.

Or she’d been swept away.

There was movement brushing against me and Maggs was out, through the windshield.

She’d always been smarter than me. As I moved to follow her out, the Pathfinder shifted again and then rolled top down.

I was disoriented, getting tossed about, completely submerged.

I wasn’t sure which way was up. The truck was moving, being swept downriver.

It was banging against rocks, tilting one side to the other.

I hadn’t held my breath, so I was already lacking oxygen.

I had to get out of this. I couldn’t see; the water was dark and turbulent.

Working by feel, I got one hand on the headrest which oriented me to the truck but not the surface of the water.

First things, first: Get out of the truck.

I pulled my legs up against the passenger seat and launched myself forward.

I felt a jagged sear of pain, something cutting into my right side as I went through where the windshield had been, and then I was out. Into the Little Melvin River.

Again.

I pointed my feet downstream, hoping Rose had made it ashore. I took a quick look, then angled, splashing hard, for the town shoreline.

“Max!” I heard Rose call out and from the direction and tone of her voice I knew she was safe, on the riverbank. Maggs was barking, so she was also on relatively dry ground.

I spotted Rose, running along the bank, yelling for help.

I hit a rock, lost my breath, went under, came back up.

Then I remembered. I looked downstream and spotted the rope bridge Reggie and Marley had built and, just in time reached up.

I snared the rope with a death grip. I hung on, getting my breath.

I knew the clock was ticking because the river was full of branches and uprooted trees, any of which could strike and wipe me out.

I swung my legs up onto the rope, hooking my boots over the rope.

Then I pulled hand over hand toward shore where Rose waited for me.

She helped me get off the rope and wrapped her arms around me and I did the same to her.

“Well, that was fun,” I said. Maggs was running in circles around us.

“Shut up,” she said, “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Ditto,” I replied. We’d done this once before, where she’d saved me from the river. It was getting old.