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“It’s not nice being blindsided, is it?”

He groaned, pocketing his phone. “Grace, let’s give this a rest. I think we said enough.”

“No,yousaid enough. I just stood there, shell-shocked, taking all the insults you were hurling at me.”

“It’s not like I didn’t give you the opportunity to speak,” Zachary said.

Goodness, why was this man so damn infuriating?

“You were the one who cut the conversation short,” he added.

I swallowed hard. What could I tell him? That insulting others didn’t come easily for me? And that I certainly couldn’t do it on the spot?

“You have no right to insult me or call me out on my work ethic.”Ugh. Why am I pursuing this?

“I didn’t insult you,” Zachary said, not even a bit placatingly. “I merely laid out the facts.”

“You’re assuming that your opinion is an actual fact. It’s infuriating. Because you’re—”

I stumbled backward. I wasn’t even sure how. One moment I was stepping back, and the next, I was simply flying backward. I moved my hands in an erratic pattern, trying to regain my balance, but the opposite happened.

Cold gripped my body as I realized I was falling into the Mississippi River.

Chapter Seven

Zachary

I heard the splash, but I didn’t put two and two together right away. But then it dawned on me: Grace had fallen into the damn river!

Holy fuck!

She dunked under the water and then resurfaced, gasping. I didn’t even think twice before jumping in. Jesus, the water wasn’t warm at all. Swimming with shoes on was insanely hard. When I came up for air, I realized the current had already carried her a bit. She was swimming against it as hard as she could, but the Mississippi was stronger.

I could swim faster than her and managed to reach her what felt like years later, grabbing one of her hands. That wasn’t helpful, though, because the current was now carrying us both.

“We need to get to the shore,” I told her. “There’s no point trying to swim against the current. Let’s just let it carry us, and we’ll find a place to get out farther down.”

“Yes, yes.” She was frantic.

“Grace, I’m here. Just breathe in deeply. We’ll get to the shore.”

I searched for a spot where we could easily grasp the edge; otherwise, we’d just hit it and then be carried on downriver. I noticed a fallen tree farther down. That would definitely stop us.

“See that tree?” I shouted over the sound of the rushing water.

“Yes,” she yelled back a few seconds later, just in time because we were approaching it at a rapid speed.

“Hold on to my left arm when we’re close, and I’ll grab it for both of us.”

I was hoping for the best: that the tree was safely secured, or at least heavy enough that we wouldn’t topple it into the water over us.

“On my count, grab my arm,” I instructed Grace.

“Okay.” She sounded panicked now. Most people probably would be. But having been an EMT, I’d seen a lot—though I’d never actually practiced for this type of emergency.

“Three, two, now.” I grabbed the trunk with my right arm. The current felt a million times stronger when we weren’t moving with it. “Can you grab it?”

“Yes,” Grace said, putting one arm on the trunk too.