Blackberry Summer

A second later, she opened her eyes and started moving frantically. “My kids?”

“Hold still while I get this. They’re okay. A little banged up, but they’re over on dry land getting warm right now. They’re going to be okay.”

Her agitation subsided and she sagged against the seat. His radio squawked static and he fumbled with fingers that felt icy and useless to turn it down so he could talk to her.

“Where do you hurt, Claire?” he asked again, more firmly this time.

“Legs. Wrist. Um, head. Everywhere.” The last word came out a whimper.

“I don’t want to move you until we can get a stretcher out here, unless I absolutely have to. The ambulance should be here soon. We just have to wait it out here a few more moments.”

“My kids. I need to take care of my kids.”

“They’re okay. Someone else is with them.”

“Promise. Promise you’ll make sure.”

“I’ll stay right here with you until you’re out of the water and then make sure all of you are okay.” He brushed a hand over her hair and saw blood oozing from a cut on her forehead. “Just hang on, sweetheart.”

“This isn’t fun.”

Her ragged words somehow managed to shock a laugh out of him in spite of everything. He had never been so frigging cold in his life and he could barely breathe around the icy guilt pressing in on his chest. “No, I can’t say that it is. I don’t think it’s supposed to be.”

“First my store, now this.”

“I know. You’ve had a pretty rough day. Got to rank right up there with the worst day ever.”

“Stupid horoscope,” she muttered, for reasons he didn’t understand. He would have asked her, but nothing else mattered except making her safe.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHERE THE HELL WERE the paramedics?

Riley glared at the shore and the noticeable absence of flashing lights besides his own. He could see the flurry of activity as those on shore helped the children, but the ambulance was nowhere in sight. If this was the way the Hope’s Crossing paramedics responded to emergencies, he was going to have to have a serious discussion with the fire chief about the response time of his crews.

“C-cold,” Claire whimpered.

“I know, sweetheart. Hang on.” He adjusted the blanket around her more snugly. Time was definitely not on his side. The longer she stayed out here in these frigid conditions, the greater the chance of hypothermia.

He’d forgotten how bitterly cold spring storms could turn in the high Rockies. It was the third week of April, for crying out loud, but the temperature had to be in the twenties, with a windchill making it feel much colder.

Claire was already shocky. She seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness and the wound just above her left temple where she must have hit the window was bleeding copious amounts. She needed to get the hell out of the water fast. All his protective instincts were urging him to pluck her out of the car and haul her to safety and it was killing him to just stand here helplessly. But given the extent of her injuries, he couldn’t take the risk of injuring her worse. The best thing, the only thing, was to offer whatever comfort he could until the ambulance crew arrived with a gurney to transport her safely.

Her eyes closed again, and he grabbed her scarf for a makeshift compress to the cut on her forehead. “Claire, honey, you’ve got to stay with me. A few more minutes, that’s all.”

She moaned a little and he brushed her hair away again. “I know, sweetheart. I’m going to get you out of here. Just hang on.”

He thought of how bright and lovely she had looked in her store earlier, even amid her distress at finding her store burglarized. Seeing her like this—scared and injured, like a frightened child—was heartrending.

She seemed to drift off again and he knew it was important that he keep her conscious and alert.

“Claire. Claire!”

Her eyes fluttered open with obvious reluctance.

“Tell me about String Fever.”

“My store.”

“I know. I saw it today, remember? I never expected you to be running a bead store. I thought you were going to be a teacher, like my mother. Isn’t that what you went to college to do?”

She nodded a little. “I taught for a few years. Third grade. When…Macy…was little.”

“So how did you go from that to running a bead store?” He didn’t really care—okay, he found everything about her unexpectedly fascinating—but he mostly just needed to keep her talking.

The tactic seemed to be working. He saw a little more clarity in her eyes and maybe even a hint of pride. “Worked for Katherine Thorne before…the divorce. Not for the money, just for fun. After…Jeff left…she asked if…wanted to buy it.”

He pictured Katherine Thorne, sixty-six years old and a five-foot, ninety-eight-pound dynamo. Although tiny in stature and deceptively fragile in appearance, she packed a powerful force of will. Had Katherine really wanted to sell the store or had she only offered it to Claire to give a newly divorced, struggling mom something solid to hang on to? Knowing Katherine’s generosity, he wouldn’t be surprised.

He also hadn’t missed Claire’s phrasing. After Jeff left, she had said. He had assumed her divorce had been a mutual decision. He didn’t know why he’d jumped to that conclusion, but Claire’s subconscious at least didn’t view the end of her marriage that way.

Although he was completely focused on Claire’s precarious situation, some tiny corner of his brain couldn’t believe any man could be such a moron that he would walk away from someone like Claire for a twentysomething bimbo.

Right now, it was a toss-up whether he was more furious with Jeff Bradford or the stupid little prick who caused the accident.

Her eyes flickered closed again and he cursed to himself. Where the hell were the paramedics?

“How do you like being a businesswoman?”

“Wh…what?”

“Your store. Do you like running it?”

“My store was robbed.”

He didn’t like how disoriented she sounded. “I know. The good news is, I think it’s safe to say we found the bad guys.”

He would have preferred a thousand unsolved crimes in his first month on the job to this outcome and he was kicking himself all over again for his handling of the pursuit when the flash of red lights finally heralded the arrival of paramedics on the scene.

Through the hazy filter of snow, Riley watched impatiently while the paramedics conferred on the bank of the reservoir before they finally returned to the ambulance for the gurney.

He spoke nonsense words to Claire while he waited for them. He couldn’t have told anyone what he said. Something about how his mom and his sister were both going to kill him for making Claire stay out here in the cold water this long and about the house he was renting down the street from hers and about the trip he wanted to take somewhere hot—maybe down to the bowels of the earth at the bottom of the Grand Canyon—when this was all over.

Finally, just when he could feel her slipping back into unconsciousness and he was pretty sure he could no longer feel his legs, a couple of paramedics in wet-suits waded through the frigid water toward them.

“It’s about damn time,” he growled. “You stopped for coffee first?”

“Sorry, Chief.” The first paramedic to reach him was some kid who looked barely old enough to drink, with blond streaked surfer hair and the raccoonlike goggle tan of a die-hard skier or snowboarder didn’t look thrilled to be reamed by the new police chief.