Tessa shrieked, wide-eyed, her retinas seared by the glare. Heart in her throat, she launched forward and scrabbled at the bar.

He clamped on with his left arm as his right arm flailed. Wrapping both legs tight, he hooked his feet at the ankles, dangling upside down, high above the crowd.

The visible half of his face was a gruesome circus mask, illuminated in shifting colors by maniacally blinking bulbs. Pulse thundering in her ears, she reached toward him. But she was helpless. “Richard!”

Clenching his teeth with a growl, he swung his right arm over the girder and muscled himself back on top.

Every sinew in her body spasmed. She forced enough breath into her lungs to shout. “Are you all right?”

Bracketed by flaming lights, he lay still. His back shuddered with each intake of breath. Lifting his head, he nodded.

Momentary relief unclenched her stomach, and her torso turned to jelly. She had to will herself to keep watching when all she wanted was to curl up and bury her face in her hands. Richard was feet from the boy, and she knew with absolute certainty he would keep climbing until he reached him or fell to his death. And he thought she was impossible.

Bending his knees, he anchored his feet, pressed upward, and clasped the final bar. He heaved his lower body a rung closer and lunged for the back of the car, straining to steady it. Just as he threw a leg over the seat back, two ambulances, a police car, and a fire truck screamed into the park.

“Oh, sure, now you get here!” Eyes stinging, she slumped onto the seat and swallowed gulps of air. In fuzzy fragments, she heard cheers from the crowd, voices on an intercom, and Richard calling in response.

Tears streamed over sunburned cheeks and into her mouth. Thirsty and achy, she closed her eyes, longing to feel solid earth beneath her feet. She wanted to rage at Richard for being a reckless idiot, and she wanted to kiss him senseless for being a superhero. Mostly, she wanted to hold him close and know in her bones he was safe and sound and in one piece. She cracked open an eyelid.

In the car below, Richard struggled to hold down the boy.

He needed help, and he needed it now.

The fire truck maneuvered under the Ferris wheel and extended a long arm with a basket like a cherry picker at the top.

How could Richard maneuver the convulsing child safely into the firefighter’s arms? How could the firefighter prevent him from falling? With barely enough energy to lift her head, she forced herself to sit and witness this rescue come to a close or end in tragedy. For Richard’s sake.

Richard knelt on the floor of the gondola and picked up the boy. He swiveled and called to the firefighter.