Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jannifer Chiaverini Read Free Book Online Page B

holding her breath until they were safely on the other side. The water continued to rise, and Lars struggled against the current as he made his way back, the strain visible on his face as he forged ahead. Once, he stumbled, and Lupita shrieked as he disappeared beneath the swirling, black waters, but quickly he was on his feet again, water running off the brim off his hat. Rosa could not breathe until he had reached them. He paused only a moment to catch his breath, and then lifted Lupita, who flung her arms around his neck and hid her face within his collar. “Can you leave the basket?” he asked, his eyes on Rosa’s.
    She thought of her mother’s quilts, rain-soaked but still precious. She thought of the Rodriguez and Diaz family photos, irreplaceable. She watched the waters swiftly rising, tore her gaze from Lars’s, and shook her head, feeling foolish and stupid and stubborn, but she could not leave them behind.
    Lars did not waste time in argument. “If you slip and go under,” he said, taking Miguel from her, “for God’s sake, let go of that basket and get to the surface. Nothing in it is worth your life.”
    Wordlessly she nodded, gripped the basket tightly, and followed him into the water, drawing in a sharp breath from the unexpected cold. The strength of the current caught her by surprise and she stumbled, but she quickly regained her footing and pushed on, her gaze fixed on Lupita’s dark head on Lars’s shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck. One small handclutched her wrist, the other held fast to her doll, which dangled by one foot down Lars’s back. Rosa gasped as a surge of water flowed past her waist, and a few paces ahead of her, Lars halted and shifted the children’s weight before forging on. Suddenly another surge of water tangled Rosa’s skirts, and as she instinctively lifted the basket and stumbled forward, she glimpsed Lupita grabbing hold of Lars’s coat with both hands. Her doll slipped from her grasp, struck the dark waters, and swept past Rosa too swiftly for her to seize it.
    “Linda,” cried Lupita. “Mamá, get her, get her, please!”
    Rosa hesitated only a moment before she turned and went in pursuit, but the floodwaters carried off the doll faster than she could stride through the waist-deep water. She knew she would never close the ever-widening gap, nor could she seize the doll without first letting go of the basket. Behind her, Lars shouted for her to come back, and Lupita pleaded for her to go on, and the downpour blinded her and the roaring of the falls filled her ears. Numb from the cold, her teeth chattering, Rosa turned and pushed on through the water to the trail where Ana and Marta waited, where Lars was wading out of the shallows and staggering onto the muddy shore. As soon as he had carried Miguel and Lupita out of the flooded creek, Lupita wriggled free of his grasp and dashed to the water’s edge, tears indistinguishable from rainwater on her cheeks, her sobs drowned out by the tumult of the surging water.
    Lars handed Miguel to Marta and hurried back into the creek to help Rosa to safety. “I’m sorry,
mija
,” Rosa gasped as she struggled free of the water. She set down the basket heavily beneath the rocky ledge where the lantern cast a thin circle of light around the shivering children. Ana flung her arms aroundher, but Lupita remained at the water’s edge, weeping and gazing off after her lost doll.
    “We can’t linger.” Lars squeezed Rosa’s shoulder, strode over to Lupita, and scooped her up. He set her down beside her sisters and hefted the tarpaulin sack over his shoulder. “You can stop crying, little miss,” he told her shortly. “Your mother is fine, and so are your sisters and brother, and so are you.” He took Miguel from Marta. “Can you carry the valises?”
    Marta nodded and seized their handles. Lars took the lantern from the ledge, and then they were on their way again, crossing beneath the cover of the scrub oaks to the