Page 61 of Take My Kiss
I quickly give him a recap of what happened, and he calls another deputy and a medic, in case they’re needed. Huntley’s been swimming for nearly ten minutes by the time he gets to it.
“Well, is he in there?” Dad asks as I keep the binoculars glued to my face.
Huntley pushes himself onto it and shakes his head.Empty.
My heart plummets. “Fuck, he’s not in there.”
Sheriff Brown makes another call, and I try to breathe through the anxiety ripping through me.
“We’re gonna find him, Colt,” Dad says reassuringly. “We’ll search the woods in case he swam to shore and walked through ’em.”
“Amelia’s a mess. This is gonna wreck her,” I tell him. “I need to call her.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Take thirty seconds to get yourself together first. She doesn’t need to hear the panic in your voice.”
I nod, inhaling a slow, deep breath before clicking on her name.
“Did you find him?” she blurts after one ring.
The fear in her tone sends a chill down my spine. “We found the canoe floatin’ in the river, but he’s not inside. The sheriff is callin’ in back up.”
“Oh my God…do you think, could he have, did he fall in the water?”
That’s exactly where my thoughts went, but I want to give her as much hope as possible.
“If he did, he probably swam to the nearest shoreline, so we’re gonna search the area.”
“I can’t stay in the house and wait, Colt. Bellamy’s here, so I’m gonna take her truck and drive down.”
“Just be careful. Don’t rush.”
Although the river isn’t that far, there’s a steep incline down the driveway, and it gets foggy in the mornings with the cool water and heat in the air.
“I called Wilder already. Raven too. She’s on her way up here.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”
By the time she arrives, Huntley’s back on land, soaking wet. But he looks like he barely broke a sweat. I’d be panting and throwing up by now.
“Amelia, this is Huntley. Bellamy’s friend.”
“Yeah, she told me.”
“Nice to meet you.” He attempts to shake the water off his hand to shake hers. “Sorry ’bout the circumstances.”
“Thank you for swimmin’ out there. What did you find?” she asks, bouncing between her feet. Her hair’s tied up, and she’s in leggings and running shoes, prepared to do whatever it takes.
I want to wrap my arms around her and relieve some of the tension in her shoulders, but I don’t want to alarm her even more.
“Doesn’t look like he was inside of it or fell out. There wasn’t any water inside.” He shrugs. “Is it possible he walked to another part of the river to fish instead?”
“That’s my hope. Perhaps he couldn’t figure out how to get in and push it out onto the water at the same time, so it floated out without him. It took two of us the last time we went, and even then, it was rocky.”
“What if he went out into the water to try and bring it back, but then it got too deep for him, and he went under?” Amelia asks frantically, her eyes glossed over. “He could’ve drowned!”
This time, I do pull her into me and smooth my palm down her back. “We can’t think like that, darlin’.”
I want to assume he wouldn’t have gone in knowing he couldn’t pull it back and swim at the same time, but he’s eight, so there’s no telling what he did.
