Rogue's Revenge - By Gail MacMillan Page 0,51
the camp stove. After that, you and the cooler are on your own.”
He removed the small stove from the canoe, carried it a short distance from the shore, and knelt beside it.
“Well?” He looked back at her. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”
“Fine.” She pulled herself up proudly and marched to join him. “Show me.”
Ten minutes later she had water boiling on one burner, soup heating on the second.
Not bad for a city girl. She stood up to survey her handiwork, then gasped as her gaze fell on a promontory farther upriver. A doe and her white spotted baby stood at the water’s edge. The youngster was cavorting along the precipice.
“Heath,” she called. “Look. The fawn is too near the cliff. Oh, Lord!”
The baby’s hooves slipped, the little animal scrambled to regain its footing, then plunged, crying and pawing desperately, down into the roiling water. The doe leaped and screamed.
Images of Pride and her foal slashed across Allison’s mind.
“Heath!” she screamed, running to look down at the thrashing fawn, its head bobbing up, then under the water.
She was pulling off her boots when Heath joined her.
“Don’t be crazy!” he yelled above the roar of the rapids. “You can’t save it!” He grabbed her hands on her boot laces.
“I have to try! It’s only a baby!” She struggled to free herself, but he dragged her back from the precipice. “The baby’s going to drown!” she screamed up at him. “Don’t you realize? The baby is going to drown!”
He looked down at her, gaze scanning her face.
“Ah, damn!” He ran back to the lip of the cliff, sucked in his breath, and leaped, feet first, into the wild, ice-cold river.
The fawn’s head bobbed in and out of sight in the angry water. It was losing its fight for life as Heath struggled toward it, water to his armpits.
Her heart hammering, Allison scrambled down stream looking for a place where the shore was accessible. Horrified, she could only watch as the pair, caught in the river’s powerful flow, were swept along beside her. Oh, God, let me get to a shoreline where I can help them…soon. Her mind swirled like those crazy eddies that were threatening to consume man and fawn.
“Yes!” she yelled when she reached a low embankment and saw Heath grab the fawn and clamp it under his arm. In a split second her delight turned to horror when Heath, caught in the force of the whirling water, stumbled and fell.
“Heath!” she screamed. “Oh, God, Heath!”
She plunged into the icy water, reaching out for him, until, knee deep, she managed to clutch his shirt front. With her pulling, he stumbled to his feet, the little animal clutched under his arm. He staggered against her as she struggled to get them both to shore.
Once on dry land, he released the fawn and collapsed onto the shore, his chest heaving. The little deer shook itself, dog-like, then stood panting and trembling beside the couple. The doe trotted out of the bush and stopped, rigidly alert, one hoof raised as she stared at the trio.
“Here’s your baby,” Heath rasped. “Come and get him.”
The doe snorted. The fawn shook itself again, then gamboled on wobbly legs to her side. She paused a few seconds to examine her baby before she turned and bounded into the forest, the fawn close behind her.
“Strip.” Allison turned her attention back to Heath. He was quaking. Hypothermia leaped into her mind.
“Now? I haven’t had any oysters recently.” He slanted her an exhausted grin.
“You’ve got to get out of those wet clothes,” she yelled back over her shoulder as she ran toward the canoe. “I’ll get our sleeping bags and make a fire.”
Fifteen minutes later, Heath was huddled in both sleeping bags as she threw dry sticks onto a crackling fire near the river. She’d gotten it started while he divested himself of wet clothing. Once she felt assured he was comfortable, she’d pulled off her wet boots and socks. Now two pairs of boots huddled near the flames.
“Here.” She handed him a steaming mug of soup from the pot she’d been heating when she noticed the deer.
“What made you want to jump into the river after that fawn?” He cradled the mug in hands bleached with cold and looked up at her.
“I love animals,” she replied. “I’ve always had horses and ponies… My dad was a cowboy when he was young. It’s in my blood, I guess.”
“Cowboy to big-city surgeon. Big leap. I remember. Jack told me about it