AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m only halfway down the stairs leading from the resort toward the beach. I shade my eyes and squint against the midday sun’s glare. It doesn’t take me long to spot the commotion. Already there are people pointing, staring, gawking. And in the center of all those pointed fingers, a man with a child in his arms, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Someone help!” I can hear his voice from here, the deep, throaty panic of it.
My body kicks into motion in response, adrenaline flooding me. I take the stairs two at a time and come out flying onto the sand. But I’m still at least a five-minute sprint away from where the man is now kneeling on the sand, his kid sprawled on the beach in front of him. If it’s what I think it is—a drowning accident—every second is crucial now. Every moment the kid doesn’t have oxygen running to his brain, more cells will die off, and soon it could be too late.
I force my muscles to pump faster, harder.
I’m still running flat-out when I notice a woman break away from the crowd around the man. She drops to her knees beside the kid while I’m still a few hundred yards away.
By the time I reach their side, she’s bent over the little boy, lips pressed to his, a thumb pinching his nose shut as she breathes into his lungs. I watch her lean back and begin compressions, in the steady, familiar rhythm.
She’s got this, clearly. She acts like someone who’s been highly trained in CPR, who knows her way around an emergency. Her face, now that I have a clearer glimpse, is a mask of utter calm.
A beautiful one, too. She’s got perfect pink bow lips and a narrow chin, coupled with high cheekbones and blue eyes, bigger than I would have thought possible. Combine that with her bright auburn red hair, tied up in a sloppy damp bun at the moment, and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose, not to mention the long, flowing white gown she’s wearing, and a broad-brimmed sunhat that shields most of her face from the sun, and she looks like she stepped right out of some kind of fairy tale onto this beach.
She leans down to blow again, and I hold my breath, along with what feels like the entire rest of the beach within hearing distance.
For once, I forget about the risk that all these witnesses pose to me. All I can think about is the boy, his sobbing father next to him, and this woman, like a heroine.
Behind me, I hear shouts, the whistle of the lifeguard. I spot him pushing his way through the crowd. Before he reaches the trio, there’s a gasp, and a splutter of coughing.
Everyone ringed around the group begins to gasp too, applauding as the little boy rolls onto his side with loud, hacking coughs. The woman glances up at the father, only now breaking into a faint, barely-there smile. The father is babbling his thanks, still crying, and he reaches down to gather the little boy into his arms just as the lifeguard arrives to begin asking questions.
For a split second, her gaze shifts. It locks onto mine, almost as if she could sense the force of my gaze on her. Those big blue eyes of hers look deeper than the ocean behind her. She tilts her head a little, birdlike and curious, when her gaze meets mine.
That’s when the crowd really swells, more people pushing in front of me to find out what happened or, worse, to snap photos on their phones. They jostle between us and I lose sight of her among all the mass of humanity.
Vultures, I think. But the sight of all those cameras makes my heart spike in panic, reality flooding back in. I remember who I am. Where I am.
And, as much as it kills me to do it, I force myself to turn away. I stride back toward the resort across the empty beach—empty now, because just about everyone on it has joined the mob scene around that woman and the boy she rescued.
But even as I walk away from them, I can’t tear my mind from her. The way she stepped in so calmly, with such conviction, to help. The way she hadn’t looked ruffled or afraid at all, even when every other person in that crowd had looked near panicked.
She knew what she was doing. And she was impressive as hell doing it.
Who is she? I find myself wondering. A lifeguard, perhaps? But I don’t recall seeing her anywhere around here before—and I definitely would have remembered a face like hers. I only glimpsed her for a split second, but she’s already imprinted in my memory. The soft curve of her lips, the serious, steady look in her eyes.
