He handed her a set of keys. His hands were like blocks of ice. Hers were, too. She hadn’t felt cold before, probably because her fear had been distracting her. Now that she was on her way to a warm, dry house, violent shivering kicked in. But Sawyer’s hands were so cold. She grabbed one of them between hers and rubbed, but it was no use.

“When you get to my place, get in the shower and warm up. You’re at risk of hypothermia.”

And you’re not? she wanted to shout. He’d actually been in the lake.

He looked back at the lake. “I gotta go.”

“You’re not going back in?” The paramedic had said the group coming in—she could see people wading in from the police boat and Jake’s boat—was the last.

“There are still a couple more people out there.”

“You can’t go in the water! What if lightning strikes the lake?”

“There are people stuck out there, Evie.”

He pulled away. She wanted to leap onto his back, to physically prevent him from going in the water, but she knew he would only shake her off. He was right: somebody had to go back in, and he would consider it his job. His town; his responsibility.

He was walking away from her, but backward, so he was still looking at her. “Clara’s not home. Let yourself in. Get warmed up. Borrow some clothes.”

She was so scared. So stupidly scared, it was making her feel unhinged. “Sawyer!” she shouted just as he was about to turn away. He paused, giving her his attention.

She’d intended to say something like, “Be careful,” but what came out was, “Come back!”

He pressed a hand over his heart, nodded, turned, and sloshed back into the lake.

Sawyer had never seen anything like that. An emergency that just kept going. On and on, it felt like. In reality he’d only made half a dozen trips out, wading to meet the boats and shuttling people to the paramedics, but he was exhausted.

It was the aftereffects of adrenaline, he knew. The crash.

He’d been fine, mostly, or at least capable of mechanically plodding along, until he’d spotted Evie. The fear in her face had ignited panic in his chest. He’d had to get her out of there.

After seeing the last ambulance off and arranging with the marine unit to do some joint reporting tomorrow, he trudged up the beach toward Main Street. He’d lost his phone somewhere in all the chaos, and he needed to find one to call Evie and let her know everything was okay. He could still see that terrified look on her face.

He was about to peek into the hardware store—in addition to a phone, Karl would probably have a good overview of what the needs were in town—when he ran into Olivia coming out.