The dog let out a series of long bays. To Olivia’s horror, she realized the water was close to tipping the doghouse over right underneath him. It was knocking back and forth against the metal fence of the pen from the pressure of the water. Dogs can swim, Olivia told herself over and over. They’re great swimmers. Even if it tips, he’ll be fine till Gabe reaches him.

Olivia tugged on the several-sizes-too-big gloves as Gabe threaded one end of the long rope through the belt loops of his jeans. His cotton shirt was lifted in the process, exposing an inch or two of remarkably defined obliques and a pronounced vee disappearing into his jeans and sending a wash of saliva over the back of Olivia’s mouth.

When finished, he hooked the backpack-looking strap over his shoulders. Just before he tugged a red-handled pull poking out from its left tip, Olivia realized it was a self-inflating life jacket, just a much slimmer one than the bulky Styrofoam-filled floaty she’d worn strapped around her on float trips as a kid.

He checked his pockets, and his eyebrows furrowed together. “Guess my phone’s in the truck. Keys too.”

“For sure your keys are. I saw them.” Before she realized she was doing it, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “Be safe.” Certain her face betrayed the easygoing demeanor she hoped to portray, she flushed tomato-red. She could feel the heat of it lighting her skin. She hadn’t realized till now how good he smelled—subtle but enticing, the scent warring with the earthy smell of the floodwater.

His hazel-green eyes locked on hers for a single second, then he turned and took off down the yard, leaving Olivia to unwind the rope and pivot it around a relatively young but sturdy-looking tree not far out of the water.

“Water’s damn cold for late March,” Gabe said when he was a few feet in. The brown water parted around his legs, rippling in a heart-shaped wave and forming soft bubbles against his jeans.

A large, floating branch struck the shed with a solid whack, bounced against it for a few seconds, then was swept away by the water. Olivia hoped the metal fence of the pen was concreted into the ground. Maybe it was because it was an open mesh fence rather than a solid wood surface, but at the moment, it seemed to be more stable than the shed it was attached to.

She wanted to keep watching, but Gabe was pushing through the water fast enough that she needed to focus on unwinding the rope and providing him with the right amount of slack. Just over her shoulder, the girl was mumbling “Oh God, what if the water sweeps him away?” more to herself than to her boyfriend or to Olivia.