CPR would be.
Still, I felt an odd pang of disappointment when he shook his head and said, “This won’t be necessary, this time. We won’t go under.”
He stepped into the river, holding me in his arms but without putting his mouth on me. The water swelled around us once again, reaching higher than my waist.
“Holy cow, it’s cold!” I gasped loudly, pressing as much of my body to his as possible.
As he had promised, our heads and shoulders remained above the surface while the swell rolled from one side of the river to the other, at ninety degrees to the natural direction of the current. The freezing water soaked my clothes, once again numbing my body.
“Just a few moments.” Zeph held me close enough for a faint hint of his scent I’d thought long forgotten to reach me.
Awareness rushed through me in a sudden wave of shivers that had nothing to do with the cold.
“We’re here,” Zeph said softly. “No more freezing water.”
The wave rolled over the bank on the Canadian side of the river, setting us down on the ground before retreating back into the current. Without releasing me from his arms, Zeph stepped behind a tree quickly, hiding us from the headlights of a car passing along the two-lane road.
“Here, let me dry you off.” Zeph placed his palms on my shoulders, then slid them down my arms. Water followed his hands, draining from the top of my hoodie and dripping down from the hem of it to the ground.
“It’s... dry.” I touched the material over my chest. “Like completely dry.”
“How about your clothes underneath?” Before I could protest, he slid his hands under my hoodie, hugging my waist. The water rushed out from the t-shirt I wore. “And the shorts,” he muttered as if to himself, sliding his hands down my hips and to the back.
Water trickled down my legs, following his silent command. In this pose, my chest came flush with his. My nose pressed to his bare shoulder, I caught another tendril of his warm, fresh scent. The memories of our night together made me sway on my feet. Zeph, however, didn’t seem to be affected by our closeness at all, his hands moving along my body quickly and efficiently.
“Better?” he asked, raking his fingers through my hair and sending the water from it out in a spray behind me.
“Yes.” I still shook in the wind, but the dry clothes now offered some actual protection from it. “Thank you.”
Zeph stared across the road, surveying the area, and I tried to focus with him. One and two story houses stood on the other side. Several of them had Bed and Breakfast signs lit up in the front.
“We may get help there if we ask,” I suggested, hesitantly.
“It’s too close to them...” He glanced in the direction of the Falls.
“Well, we’re nearly out of town here,” I said. What was better? Staying in the open, talking to people in the hopes of getting a ride with someone and drive away from here? Or hide for a while, spending the night in relatively close proximity to Madame and her army of bracks?
To me, there was no easy answer here.
“I don’t know how far Ghata’s reach is, but I prefer not to risk it by talking to anyone tonight,” Zeph sounded more confident than me.
“Who is Ghata?”
“The one who owns the bracks.”
“Madame Tan?”
He gave me a confused look. “I don’t know that name.”
“That’s what she goes by during the show. The bracks just call her Madame.”
Another car passed by, and Zeph quickly hid behind the tree again, taking me with him.
I held my arms tight around me, but it did little to protect me from the cold wind sneaking under my clothes and stealing my body heat. Even with my clothes now dry, I was still shivering violently in the cold November weather.
I snuck a glimpse at Zeph’s half-naked body. Unlike me, he wasn’t shivering. His skin looked pale, almost luminous in the golden glow of the streetlights. Water dripped from his long hair, but he obviously wasn’t bothered by it since he hadn’t dried himself.
“You’re not cold?” I wondered.
“No,” he replied distractedly. A frown of concern settled over his handsome features as he gave me an equally assessing stare. “But I need to get you someplace warmer.”
At this point, I couldn’t even pretend to be okay. My feet felt frozen solid, I no longer felt the straps of my sandals. The wind blew any remaining vestiges of warmth