don’t know what your problem is, miss, but the public are not allowed here. There’s a sign. It’s health and safety.’ He pointed to a no-entry sign on the wall of the booth.
Give me strength! ‘I’ve been trying to tell you what the problem is. I’m looking for two children, a boy and girl. So high…’ She held her palm at the appropriate height. ‘They wanted to go out…’ She closed her eyes, seeing Georgie’s expression when she had refused their request. God, but she really should have seen this coming. ‘I think they might be out there.’ She swallowed as her eyes moved to the horizon where the grey water of the river met the darker grey sky. ‘In one of your canoes.’
‘No children allowed in the kayaks without a responsible adult. Besides, we’re closing early—there’s a storm coming.’ His phone rang and he wandered away with it pressed to his ear.
When Zoe took the situation into her own hands the youth was close enough for her to hear him say, ‘No way…outside the pub at five.’ But not close enough, thanks to a tree, for him to see her wade into the shallow water and push out a stray canoe that had not yet been dragged onto the artificial beach.
She’d been kayaking before, she reminded herself as she managed on the third try to clamber into the swaying boat. Of course on that occasion Laura had been paddling, and she’d been only five years old, but this was a detail. How hard could it be?
Five minutes later Zoe had gone several hundred yards. But she had no idea whether she was heading in the right direction. She didn’t have the faintest idea where they were! She was acting on intuition, but wasn’t that another name for blind panic?
She squared her shoulders and dipped her oar into the water. She had to stay positive.
The obvious sensible thing to do would have been to go to the police…so why was she just realising that now when she was literally up the creek? Then the rain started.
The downpour was of biblical flood proportions. Within two minutes she was drenched. Her hair plastered against her skull; the water streamed down her face, making it hard to see. More worrying than her wet clothes was the water sloshing around in the bottom of the canoe.
Trying to see past the rain that was now being driven horizontally by a gale-force wind into her face, she recalled the weather man’s prediction of light showers and laughed.
The hysterical sound was whipped away by the wind, which was again blowing her in the wrong direction. Head bent, she paddled hard but, despite the fact her arms felt as though they were falling off, she made no headway. She put oar down for a moment to ease the burning pain in the muscles of her upper arms and shoulders, flexing her stiff fingers as she balanced it across the canoe.
She saw it happening as if in slow motion. She lunged forward, one arm outstretched and the other holding onto the edge of the wildly rocking kayak. Just as her fingers touched the oar a current carried it away out of reach. Her centre of gravity lost, Zoe struggled to pull back, but just when it seemed inevitable she would be pitched into the grey swirling water she managed to recover, collapsing back with a sob of laughing relief into the canoe.
It hardly seemed possible that a couple of weeks ago she had decided that this stretch of the river, with its series of shallow waterfalls and half-submerged stone slabs where people sunbathed and children paddled in shallow pools, made for a really lovely afternoon stroll. Pretty, but not dramatic.
Today it did not lack drama. The river was wild white water, full of dark swirls and hidden obstacles. The boulders she strove to avoid were only just visible above the foaming white water. Zoe paddled with her hands but soon recognised it was hopeless. The kayak would never survive.
Feeling surprisingly calm in the face of impending disaster, Zoe was in the middle of telling herself she was overreacting when the kayak hit a submerged rock. The jarring motion as it glanced off sent the flimsy craft rocking sideways. Thrown off balance, Zoe lurched sideways, throwing her body weight sharply to one side to right the canoe. For a moment it seemed to work, but it was hit by an extra-strong squall of wind and simply carried on going.
This time there was no reprieve and the immersion in the shockingly cold grey water took her breath. For a moment she panicked, flailing around blindly as she tried to free herself from the upturned canoe, hampered by clothes that dragged her downwards. When she did she surfaced almost immediately, choking as she gasped for air. Behind her the canoe was making its way upside down through the churning white water, before it vanished over the top of a weir.
That could have been me.
But it won’t be. The twins would be all alone, they need me. Focusing on that one thought and not the cold seeping into her bones, she struck out strongly, aiming for the opposite bank, where she would be likely to see someone who could raise the emergency services. Zoe was a strong swimmer with no fear of the water, but even so the going was tough and her progress, hampered by her clothes, was torturously slow.
As she swam she was distantly aware of a sound above the echoing roar of the water and her own heartbeat but she didn’t allow it to distract her. She couldn’t stop. She had to keep going. Every second she wasted the twins could be…No, she wouldn’t think like that. She needed to focus.
‘Focus, Zoe,’ she said to herself—but the water filled her open mouth and, choking, her head went under.
As she was lifted unceremoniously out of the water she continued to kick feebly, right up to the moment she was hauled over and left utterly disorientated in an inelegant heap in the bottom of what seemed to be a small motorboat.
She grunted as the boat swerved, sharply throwing her against a wooden seat. The locker underneath was open and a child’s inflatable vest spilled out. Oh, God, the children were out there somewhere!
She began to cry great silent, gulping sobs that racked her entire body.
Once the boat was away from the immediate danger of hitting the rocks and in the relative safety of open water, Isandro cut back on the throttle and turned his attention to the sodden bundle of misery sitting in the bottom of the boat.
He experienced a gripping sensation in his chest almost as strong as the one he had felt when he had seen her head vanish under the grey water—though without the soul-destroying terror.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ he blasted.
She recognised the voice but was convinced she was dreaming. Except in her dreams he hadn’t sounded angry…Zoe dragged her hair back from her face. My God, it was him!
It was Isandro! Looking furious, very wet and not dressed for sailing!
‘Isandro…how…?’ She stopped. It didn’t matter how he came to be here. ‘No,’ she croaked, grabbing at his leg and tugging. ‘I’ve got to go back.’
‘You want me to throw you back in the water? Do not tempt me,’ he growled, seeing her vanish beneath the grey water again and feeling the visceral kick of fear in his gut again. He never wanted to relive the moment when he saw her go under.
‘No, Isandro, you don’t understand! I think the twins…’
Some of the anger died from his face as he placed his hands on her shoulders and dragged her up onto the wooden bench seat beside him. Shaking so hard that her teeth chattered, she transferred her desperate grip to his jacket. Frantic to communicate the urgency of the situation, she grabbed his lapels and pulled.
‘The twins—’
‘No, Zoe—’
‘Listen, will you?’
He caught hold of her hands. ‘The twins are with Alex, who is not, I admit, the most likely child-minder. In fact it is highly likely that he is even now teaching them to play poker. But they are safe.’
Zoe blinked as she shook her head, trying to clear the fog in her brain. Why couldn’t she think straight?
‘The twins are all right?’ Without waiting for a reply, she pushed her head into his chest and began