Savannah shook each of their hands, hoping her palms weren’t as wet as they felt.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Savannah,” his mother said with what looked like a forced smile. “I’m Tonya, and this is Jim,” she added, gesturing towards Malachi’s father. “And this is my father, Eli.”

  “It’s nice to meet you all,” Savannah answered. “Malachi’s told me so much about you. I’m glad I could make it tonight.”

  “We are also, Savannah,” Jim Loveridge answered. “Are you staying for refreshments?”

  “We’re going to grab some cookies, and then I need to walk her home before it gets dark,” Malachi answered.

  His mother smiled, her eyes already moving toward a couple who were trying to get her attention.

  For her part, Savannah just felt grateful to have introductions out of the way, and gladly followed Malachi back towards the smaller tent.

  “I don’t think your mom likes me,” she whispered.

  Malachi laughed. “Just like your dad won’t like me.”

  Savannah giggled, instantly feeling a little better about the awkward introduction. “Good point,” she acknowledged.

  Malachi grabbed several cookies, placing them on a paper plate before walking around the back of the tent. The generator humming along behind the tent was too loud for them to actually have a conversation, and he gestured past it, toward the woods beyond their campground. He kept moving into the trees until the sounds of the generators and crowd had grown into a blur—until they had a little privacy, too, Savannah thought to herself.

  “We can sit back here,” he said, settling on a fallen log.

  Savannah sat down beside him, looking around and taking in the peacefulness of the little clearing he’d brought her to. “This is nice.”

  “I like to come back here in the morning. It’s so peaceful. The generators are off then, and sometimes deer will come in really close,” he said quietly.

  “I would love that,” she said on a sigh, smiling a moment later when she heard choir music being pumped through the speakers set up around the area. From here, it didn’t matter that she didn’t know the melodies or understand religion like Malachi did—it was just a nice melody to serve as background.

  “It would be a good place for you to write the poetry you talked about the other day,” Malachi replied after a few seconds.

  She couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her face. “Maybe one day I can meet you here and see those deer for myself.”

  “I’d like that,” he whispered.

  And just like that, there was a notable change in the atmosphere. Savannah could see him looking at her, his gaze dropping to her mouth. She tried to regulate her breathing. He’s going to kiss me! Tonight would be her first kiss ever, just like she’d been hoping all evening, and lucky for her, it was going to come from a handsome boy who was kind and sweet. Who appreciated a peacefulness like this just like she did…

  She closed her eyes, waiting for the moment, holding her breath and feeling his face getting closer to hers.

  Suddenly, the air went even more still, unnaturally so.

  Everything had gone silent. The generators had stopped humming along, and there was no choir music pumping through the speakers. The immediate, abrupt silence was deafening.

  Savannah’s eyes popped open. No longer focused on her, Malachi looked around the area. Neither of them made a move as they waited for something to happen, for some sound to fill the air. The silence was eerie, after everything had been so vibrant and full of life a few seconds earlier. It was as if a switch had been flipped.

  “What happened?” Savannah asked in a whisper.

  He shook his head, looking toward the campground now as if he was torn between staying with her and returning to his family. “I have no idea.”

  And then, they heard a woman scream—“Dad!”

  Malachi jumped up. “That’s my mom!” he yelled over his shoulder to Savannah, already rushing from the little spot in the trees by the time Savannah rose to follow.

  “Jim, call nine-one-one—it’s his heart!” Savannah heard Malachi’s mother scream.

  Savannah raced around the tent’s corner to see Malachi’s grandfather lying on the ground, gasping for air and clutching at his chest. Malachi’s mother was kneeling beside him, tears streaming down her face as she continued looking back and forth between him and the small crowd around her, begging for help.

  Jim Loveridge stood nearby, repeatedly pushing buttons on his phone. “I can’t get a signal. My phone’s dead!”

  Even as Malachi knelt by his mom and grandfather, Savannah reached into her back pocket and handed his dad her phone. “Here!”

  He grabbed it and began furiously pushing at the screen, sliding his fingers back and forth. Then he looked back at her. “Turn it on!”

  She snatched it back, noticing the black screen and pushing the power button. She waited, and then pressed the button again. Nothing. “It’s dead,” she muttered, staring between it and Mr. Loveridge. “The battery was full when I left,” she told him helplessly.

  Malachi looked from them to his mom again and grabbed her shoulder for attention. “Mom, we have to do CPR,” he ordered her.

  “I don’t know how!” she wailed.

  “I do,” Savannah said, getting to her knees across from Malachi and thanking her lucky stars that her father had insisted she take that class. She could do this, and let Mr. Loveridge and the others find a working phone.

  Malachi checked his grandfather’s pulse, then looked at Savannah and shook his head. The training came rushing back to her. “ABC,” she said, swallowing down her nerves.

  Immediately, she went about lifting the old man’s chin and opening his airway before leaning her ear down to check for breathing. Nothing. She used her fingers to trace the line up his chest, between his rib cage, before clasping her hands together as taught, straightening her elbows as she leaned over him, and then beginning chest compressions.

  Between sobs, Malachi’s mother kept wailing, “Save him!” until another woman finally pulled her into an embrace and let her cry into her shoulder as Savannah and Malachi focused on the elder man lying prone before them.

  Savannah worked hard, exhausting herself until Malachi took over. Then, she leaned back on her haunches, watching people run around the area. Everyone was panicking. Jim was grabbing phones, trying to call for help. Several people offered to drive them to the hospital, only then discovering that none of the cars would start.

  When Malachi grew tired, Savannah took over again, giving compressions in a steady rhythm while silently praying the man would cough and open his eyes like she’d seen in the movies so many times. How long had they been doing this, though? Her arms ached. Finally, Malachi took over again. It had to have been at least five minutes, she guessed, maybe longer. Probably longer, considering the adrenaline and how she ached anyway.

  Her eyes drifted back to the man lying lifeless on the ground. His color was gray, and his lips were blue. He was gone. Her phone was her only way to tell time, but it felt like they had been on the ground forever; she just couldn’t know for sure.

  She could see Malachi struggling again, and put her hands over his even though she’d barely caught her breath from her last turn. “I’ll take over.”

  He nodded, leaning back, wiping the sweat from his brow as she compressed Eli Loveridge’s chest again, just like she’d done on the dummy in the CPR class. She pushed away the pain in her arms and shoulders, and focused on the rhythm. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been working over the man when another man kneeled beside her. “I’ll take over,” he said in a low voice.

  Savannah looked at the newcomer, then Eli. She knew it in her heart that there was no saving him. He’d been down too long, and the nearest hospital was at least thirty miles away.

  She didn’t want to admit it, though. Her own heart hurt, knowing what Malachi and his poor family were going through. She wouldn’t be the one to tell them that Eli was gone. She couldn’t.

  What seemed like an eternity later, the man stopped compressions and checked for a pulse. “I’m sorry, but he’s gone,” he said in a low voice.

  Malachi jarred upward and shook his head. “No! You can’t stop!”

  His long hair bounced and waved over his face as he pushed the other man out of the way and began compressions again, crying out as he did so.

  “I’m so sorry,” Savannah whispered, her own heart breaking as she heard his mother wailing behind them.

  3

  Amanda Patterson pulled the stick up on the Ag Cat crop duster she was flying low over the rows of corn she’d planted that season. It had been a long winter, setting her behind schedule by at least two weeks. She glanced down below as she made a tight circle and pushed the button to spray pesticide over her fields. She was near on being done now, and looking forward to a leisurely ride on one of her horses to end the evening.

  This Ag Cat was nothing like the fighter jet she had always dreamed of flying, but it was as close as she would ever get. Her life had not gone according to plan. Her career in the Air Force had ended abruptly, and now she was back in Kentucky, owner and operator of her own farm as a part-time farmer and part-time vet. Definitely not what she’d envisioned doing for the rest of her life.

  She made another low pass before circling back, climbing higher for the pure joy of it before lowering her altitude for precision spraying. She’d begun lining up for another spray when the engine cut out and her gauges fell flat.

  “What the hell?” she asked aloud, a feeling of pure terror shooting through her before she tamped it down and focused on the problem.

  She tried to restart the engine first, but got no response.

  “Okay, relax. I’m not too high, I can land in the field,” she told herself, clutching the stick and surveying her options.

  Unfortunately, the barn was between her and the open pasture beyond it. Her altitude was too low for her to clear the barn, too, and veering in either direction now could put her in the trees or crashing into her own house. The only way to the best landing place was directly through the roof of her ancient barn— its brand-new roof.

  “Crap,” she muttered, the nose of the plane already dropping lower as she literally began to fall out of the sky. At least her horses were out in the far pasture and wouldn’t be terrorized by whatever happened next.

  She set her jaw and stared through the tinted shield attached to the helmet she wore. She didn’t want to die and only hoped that the helmet would be enough to save her life. If she hit the gas tank against the edge of the barn’s metal roofing, a helmet wasn’t going to do her a lot of good. If only she’d waited one more season to replace the roof, or stuck with traditional shingles…

  “Come on, please, please, please,” she chanted, holding onto the stick and doing her best to will the nose of the plane over the top edge of the old building her father had built some thirty years before. If she could skate over, or only really hit the landing gear, she might be able to just glide in.

  And then the nose of the plane hit the top of the barn, the jolt causing her to bite her tongue. Metal screeched so loudly that Amanda was near deafened. She sent up a silent prayer as the plane’s force crumpled wood and metal beneath and around her. Then the roof was behind her, her sturdy plane still surrounding her as she began to fall the remaining twenty feet to the ground. With a bone-jarring thud, the plane slammed into the grassy pasture and slid across the ground for a good forty feet before coming to an abrupt stop, just missing the old oak she’d always loved.

  Amanda blinked several times before pulling the helmet over her head. The plexiglass above her head had popped open on impact, making it easy for her to escape the cockpit of her crashed plane. She cut her hand climbing out but didn’t have time to worry about it. Her old red barn was on fire. Sparks from the metal on metal contact must have ignited the old wood supporting the roof once she’d sheared off metal paneling, and it would be just a matter of time before she lost the old structure now.

  She rushed to the well pump to turn on the water. There wouldn’t be enough water or pressure to save her barn, maybe, but if she could wet the ground surrounding it, she’d at least ensure that the fire wouldn’t spread to the nearby trees or fencing, let alone her house. She pulled up the pump handle and aimed the hose toward the barn, expecting a stream of water and getting nothing. There was no power. Why, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to wonder what had killed it. She had the old pump that pulled water from the stream running alongside her land, and it would be full this time of year with mountain run-off. If she wanted to wet her land and safeguard the rest of her property, she had to hurry. Already, fire was eating up the sides of the barn.

  She raced across her driveway and towards the stream running some twenty feet beyond her property line, already mentally going over the steps needed to hook up the pump that would hopefully provide enough water to run the hose. The gas-powered pump was her back-up for when storms knocked out the power. Thankfully, the stream turned into a roaring river during the spring melt, which was always another problem in and of itself, what with the threat of its water flooding the area. Every year, her driveway became a pond, but it had yet to flood her basement this year.

  But, if there had to be a fire, this was good timing. The horses were down in the far pasture, and she’d checked the stream level early that morning—it was running high.

  The pump was stored in a small shed near the stream, at the very edge of her property. She’d already yanked open the door and started to drag it out when she heard a cry for help. Spinning around, she only had to take a few steps toward the water before she saw a man clinging to a large tree branch hung up on a boulder. He was at the center of what was normally a tranquil stream, but after the rains and warm weather, it had become a violent, raging river cutting through vegetation and swallowing up the usual banks, running even higher than it had that morning. Typically, the stream was about ten feet wide; now, it was bulging and pushing twenty feet.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled, momentarily forgetting about the fire behind her. She knew the question was ridiculous, but it was all she could think of. Who in their right mind would go in the water when it was running like this? What on earth could he have been doing?

  He said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the water. With one last glance toward the shed, she instead moved to the edge of the water. From here, she could see the man looked like he was struggling not just to hold onto the branch, but to stay above water.

  “Help, please,” he moaned, his lips bluish in the fading light. One of his legs bobbed in front of him on the water, and his arms remained wrapped around the thick tree branch that looked like it might give at any time, though it had clearly become stuck fast where it was after being pulled along by the current this far. The man had to have been crazy to venture into that water, she thought.

  “Stand up!” she ordered him.

  “I can’t. My leg,” he groaned.

  Amanda turned to look behind her. Smoke was rising in the air, tinged by orange. Her barn was going up in flames, and there was no telling whether or not the fire would spread. The ground might be wet from the rain the night before, but it might not. Yet, she didn’t have time to save the man and also safeguard her land and home. She could only do one. And the man in the river would die if she didn’t help him—that much was becoming clearer and clearer, every second she stood there.

  “Dangit!” she muttered, leaving the pump and stepping close to the bank of the fast-moving water.

  “Help,” he moaned again, his voice disappearing as his head slipped underwater for a brief second before he came back up sputtering.

  Amanda looked left and right, trying to find a way to reach him without getting pulled into the strong current herself. This water wasn’t all that deep, but the jagged rocks and the debris pulled into the water as it made its way down the mountain always made it treacherous. And that current would make it extremely difficult to remain standing even a foot from the bank.

  Plus, she was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with her old pair of Nikes—not exactly the best outfit for jumping into water that was probably around fifty degrees. She stared at the man, noting how pale he’d gone. He’d soon be suffering from hypothermia, assuming he didn’t drown first.

  “Can you try to stand?” she called out, already knowing the answer.

  “My leg. I think it’s broken,” he said, his teeth clenching as he spoke.

  Of course, it is. Damn. “Okay, hold tight,” she told him, trying to keep her own voice calm. “I’m going to have to come in to get you.” Not waiting for a response, she went back to the small shed and began digging around for anything she could use to help the rescue mission.

  She had no rope stored there, so the garden hose she used to connect to the hose near the house was her only option. She grabbed it and ran back to the bank, grateful to see he was still holding on and that the branch hadn’t yet been dislodged.

  “I’m going to throw out the hose. I need you to grab on and I’ll pull you in,” she instructed him.

  He made a grunting noise she took as a yes and she quickly threw the end of the fifty-foot hose towards him. He reached out, but the stream carried the end away from him before his hand got close. He slid under the surface of the water again.

  “Hold on!” she cried out as she reeled the hose back in, realizing he was too weak to hold on much longer. Her eyes scanned the bank again. They locked onto a sturdy tree near the stream’s edge, some ten feet upstream. Focused on getting to the drowning stranger now, she didn’t think twice about what she was about to do as she tied the hose around the large tree trunk that sat rooted half in the swollen stream, yanking on it until she was satisfied it would hold her weight. And, hopefully, the man’s, as well.

  “I’m coming,” she called out.

  “Hurry!” he yelled.

  Amanda pulled on the hose again, testing her knot before sliding down the incline to the water’s edge and taking her first steps into the stream. And then, there was nothing to do but try it. She gasped out loud when the icy water closed over her feet, splashing around her legs as she took another step in. The water was threatening to knock her off balance already, and she was less than three feet from the bank. She wrapped the end of the hose around her wrist several times and then waded farther in.

 

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