He was in deep enough that the water was starting to swirl around his hips when he caught a glimpse of a hollow, plastic doll head bobbing up and down a body length ahead of him. The once-golden hair was knotted with debris, and the lifeless eyes sent a deep chill up his spine. Then the head was swallowed by the water so fast that Gabe had to wonder if he’d seen it at all.

“Come on, man, get it together.”

It was the dog that kept him moving forward. The terrified thing had stopped baying and was watching from the far corner of the pen where he was still teetering on top of the doghouse. Gabe was willing to bet it was only a matter of seconds before the unstable house toppled over. The water surrounding it was high enough that the only thing keeping the doghouse upright was being held in place by the fence it was pressing against.

A glance behind him showed Gabe he’d progressed farther than he would have thought. Olivia was feeding the rope one wrap at a time, her wavy red hair, long, lean body, and bright-blue jacket reminding him of a brilliantly colored bird in a field of dull brown and faded green. She and the two kids were fifty or sixty feet away now, but with the rush of the water filling his ears, they could’ve been a quarter mile away instead. Soaked as he was from the river and the soft, incessant rain, the small circle of skin where she’d pressed those remarkable lips of hers against his cheek still tingled.

He should’ve said something, a thanks at the very least, but he hadn’t. He’d clammed up and headed into the water like the crotchety old man Yun threatened he was on the path to becoming.

It had been a good-luck kiss, that was all. There was something in her eyes though. Something more than just wishing a near-stranger to be safe. A connection—a knowing—he’d not felt since Claire. “This is right, pursue this,” his body seemed to be saying, something it hadn’t communicated in years.

Considering the way things had ended with Claire, he’d been pretty determined not to listen the next time his body attempted to do the talking for him. It had taken long enough to get over her when she’d walked away. They’d met at a gala fund-raiser for his firehouse that he’d been talked into attending at the last minute by his captain. She’d looked like Cinderella on the night of her ball, and she’d wanted him. Unequivocally.