The Wonder of You by Susan May Warren Read Free Book Online

slick.
    Maybe whoever was with the little girl had slipped and fallen. Amelia cast a look at the water and saw one of the men surface, this time with a body.
    A woman.
    Oh no. She glanced at the girl, who watched without a flicker of emotion as the rescuers pulled the woman from the creek.
    Amelia crouched next to her. “Honey, where’s your mommy?”
    The child had blue eyes, which suddenly shook free from her trance and focused on Amelia. But when she spoke, the words were foreign and soft, a lilt to her voice that suggested a question.
    Except something made sense   —a niggle of familiarity, buried under layers of memory.
    Prague. One of her flatmates spoke Russian. Or Ukrainian.Or maybe Polish   —she couldn’t remember, but it seemed that the words might be of the same Slavic origin.
    Of which she’d learned three phrases.
    I’m hungry.
    I need the bathroom.
    And conveniently, Are you okay?
    The smallest redemption for her broken heart. She tried it out on the little girl, probably mangling the words.
    A flicker of understanding. Or maybe just the recognition of an attempt, but it ignited a barrage of words. Unintelligible, but the little girl stood. Pointed at the group of rescuers.
    Maybe her father was among them. Amelia shielded her eyes as she scanned the group. She could get their attention, if one of them looked   —
    The woman lay prone, two Good Samaritans giving her CPR   —one administering compressions, the other breaths.
    The man at the head   —she recognized him as one who’d pulled the woman out of the current   —offered a breath, then leaned back while the other pressed her chest.
    Now she saw his face.
    Oh. No. It couldn’t be.
    She hadn’t a hope of forgetting those high cheekbones. That curly black hair, wet and falling over his blue eyes   —so blue they could lift her out of herself, make her believe   —
    No.
    Even the outline of his sopping wet shirt betrayed the truth. Chiseled, Ree had said. Yes, Roark had the frame of a man who could dive into a raging river and rescue a lost soul. Delicious biceps, wide shoulders, lean hips, and he leaned down to breathe life into the dying.
    Except it was Amelia who needed resuscitating. Hadn’t he left? Freed her from the grip of his memory on her heart?
    A cold hand touched her cheek and jolted her out of herself.
    “Mamichka?”
    Even Amelia could translate that. “No, honey. I’m not your   —”
    And then she got it.
    Roark St. John was trying   —vainly, it seemed   —to revive the little girl’s mother.
    Regardless of what he might be doing back in Deep Haven . . . regardless of the lies and the way he’d humiliated her . . . in that moment, yes, she could forgive him.
    She might even love him. Just for right now.
    She pulled the little girl close and held her, running a hand over her back. “Shh,” she said. “It’s going to be okay.”
    Her hands trembled. Roark couldn’t be here. She held the little girl, but her brain tracked to the last time she’d seen him. Leaving the resort, with Darek, Casper, Jace, and Max watching from the driveway.
    It’s going to be okay.
    Behind her, the fire trucks arrived, and she turned to watch as the EMTs climbed out   —as Seth climbed out   —donning life jackets and heading to the river.
    Seth hadn’t actually met Roark, just heard the story. Over and over.
    Oh no. Amelia turned back, but a crowd had gathered around the woman, obscuring the men who’d been working on her. She’d lost sight of the rescuer who might be Roark.
    “Amelia? Are you okay?”
    She spotted her sister Grace, in a white sundress, her blonde hair loose, running across the rocky shoreline.
    “Max and I were coming home to surprise everyone, and I saw your car. What are you doing here?”
    “There’s a drowning. And I found this little girl. I think . . .” She looked again at the river, where a firefighter had gone in, roped to the shore, and was dragging out another body, male,