tossed something at her. A rope, she finally realized. A spark of hope thrilled inside her as it slithered across the ice.
She tried to grab for it, but the motion almost cost her her grip on the ice. The rope fell away and disappeared into the water between two floating pieces. She did not dare let go of the ice to fish around for it.
“I can’t,” she said, breathless.
“Yes, you can,” Luca shouted, enraged. He reeled in the coil and tried again.
The rope hit the water just in front of her, splashing her face with stinging droplets. Blinking, she tried again to grab for it. This time the ice broke into several smaller pieces like a frozen jigsaw puzzle. She struggled to keep her grip on the larger of the chunks. Clinging there, breath coming in desperate pants, her body shivered violently.
Luca was furiously gathering in the rope, getting ready to toss it again. She saw him swinging the rope, strong arm tense.
“I can’t get it, Luca,” she called. “I can’t let go.”
She couldn’t tell if he heard her or not. Despair added weight to her sodden clothes and she felt herself sinking lower into the water. Luca dropped his arm and turned away.
She felt oddly relieved. She did not want him to see her desperation, the fear that made her weak. Help would come soon, she knew. The ski patrol would make it on scene quickly enough, but hypothermia would arrive before they did. It could take less than fifteen minutes in freezing water for death to come. She clung tighter to the ice, trying to calculate how long she’d been in the grip of the frozen lake. Her arms were clumsy, fingers nearly useless.
Her gaze went to the road, to the rut marks left by the snowmobile. Who would want to hurt Uncle Paul? Truthfully, many. He’d crossed a number of people, cheated them even. There were plenty of men eager to settle a score.
She heard a noise and saw Luca with a rope tied around his waist, charging out onto the ice. Blinking to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating, she looked again. What was he thinking? His six-foot muscled bulk would break through the ice in a moment and send him into the frozen water right along with her.
“No, Luca,” she called, voice weak as a kitten’s.
He did not alter course, so she tried to yell louder.
“Go back.” Her words were faint but noisy thoughts crowded her mind.
Go back, Luca. Don’t throw away your life for mine.
She felt sick at the thought, but she knew he would probably do the same for any other man, woman or child he found in the same situation, and probably an animal, too. She remembered the bird he’d told her about that he’d retrieved after it had gotten tangled in some old tree netting. People said he was crazy to climb a fifteen-foot pine to free a sparrow. People were right.
With dread, she watched him step onto the slick surface. Ice crackled around her as he planted one foot in front of the other, as if he was navigating some strange tightrope through the water. He moved closer, teetering slightly as he kept his balance. Face fixed in concentration, he moved slowly toward her until he was close enough for her to hear him.
“Hold on, Ava. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Please go back,” she whispered. Please.
She watched through blurry eyes as he stepped onto the chunk of ice near her, amazed that he had not fallen through. Her body shivered so badly she could hardly keep him in her field of vision.
Slowly, kneeling on a shelf of ice, he crouched over to grab for her sleeve. The green of his eyes was the only thing she could see clearly, just as vibrantly green as she remembered. His fingers gripped her wrist and she imagined they must be warm, warmer than hers anyway, but she could not feel anything. She was having a hard time seeing him through her growing cloud of confusion.
“Let go now, Ava.”
She could not force her fingers to relinquish their grip.
Hold on, her mind screamed and her body obeyed, clinging in manic determination to that small hunk of ice.
“Let go,” Luca demanded again.
She closed her eyes and pressed harder against the ice chunk, her limbs like the twisted branches of the trees that ringed Melody Lake.
His grip tightened around her wrist and he began to pry her fingers away from the ice. “Ava, you’re coming with me one way or another.”
She was tired, more tired than she’d ever been. Her body felt suddenly as if it was heating up, warming from the inside. If she didn’t get her jacket off, she thought she would roast.
She wiggled on the ice.
“What are you doing?” Luca said.
“Taking off my jacket. Too hot.”
He grabbed both wrists now. “That’s the hypothermia talking. You’re not hot. You’re cold and we’re getting out of here.”
He hauled her toward him, her legs sliding out of the water.
Her mind whirled from the sudden movement and she closed her eyes to steady herself. When she opened them again, she was looking into Luca’s grave face. He was pulling her up, grabbing on to the front of her jacket, until she felt herself hoisted over his shoulder. She wanted to say something, to force her body to work in some way, but she could not. She found herself slung head down, staring at the milky ice beneath Luca’s feet.
There was a sudden lurch, a cry of surprise from Luca and then the view changed as they both plunged through the ice.
* * *
Luca had the presence of mind to hold his breath when they broke through the crust and splashed into the lake. Frigid water enveloped him and he fought the urge to gasp at the pain of it. Holding as tightly to Ava as he dared, he kicked back to the surface. Shaking water from his eyes he turned her, his arms under her shoulders in the only maneuver that came back to him from his days as a high school lifeguard.
He heard her whimper softly, and the sound gave him renewed courage. There was still life in her, that tenacious spark that would be enough to help her survive this. Fighting against the shudders that shook his body, he freed one hand to find the rope he’d tied around his waist.
He tugged them along, one-handed. Their progress was a series of awkward, lurching moves that brought them incrementally toward shore. Broken ice floated around them, and he did his best to avoid the sharp edges, although he felt something cut into his arm anyway. His biggest concern was his hold on Ava which was weakening as the glacial water robbed him of feeling in his extremities.
The distance to the shore was probably only ten feet, but it may as well have been miles. At first Ava had tried to help, leaning into him and kicking feebly at the sharp bits of ice that crowded them. As time wore on, she had grown progressively more still until she was a deadweight.
“Almost there,” he said. “Stay with me.” He squeezed her as tightly as he could, his arm sinking into the pillowy layer of her jacket.
He pulled them both along, every movement an agony. Slower and
