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

older. “I think her mother is one of the victims.”
    As if to confirm, the girl lifted her head. Watched, bearing that same strange, enigmatic expression. “Papichka.”
    Amelia picked up the girl, turned her away, scanned the shore. The rescuers had fanned out as the firefighters and EMTs took over. She saw Seth attach a safety rope to his harness, wade into the water.
    Her throat tightened as the current took him, pulling on his rope. Please don’t die.
    But even as he swam down into one of the deadly pools, her gaze went back to the shore.
    She studied each of the soggy civilians who had risked their lives. A burly blond college student. A man   —dark hair, stocky, probably belonging to the woman in khakis. The young husband who’d finally wrestled out of his wife’s grip.
    But no Roark.
    She searched the embankment, spied the elderly couple, the young family, others from town she recognized. Pastor Dan, the fire chief, and Joe Michaels, hauling the woman onto a stretcher. Mayor Seb Brewster and another volunteer firefighter at the water’s edge, belaying Seth, and Deputy Kyle Hueston, taking statements.
    But no Roark.
    “Let’s get off this rock, see if we can track down some relatives,” Grace said. She grabbed Amelia’s elbow to steady her as they trekked back to safety.
    Amelia searched for Roark one final time as she made her way up to the fire trucks. But he seemed to have vanished.
    Or maybe he was never there at all. Maybe her stupid, belligerent heart simply refused to surrender him to the past.

    Life, on this blue-skied spring day, had never seemed quite so fragile.
    The birds chirruped, calling from the trees over the rush of water cascading in a raucous froth down to the great lake. Mist hung in the air, and just an hour ago, Roark had watched a teenager   —no more than fourteen   —jump from boulder to boulder across the foamy river.
    He could be that boy, had played that game in rivers tucked away in far east Russia. Could nearly taste the carefree danger pooling in the back of his throat.
    The parents stood closer to shore, yet still at the edge of a boulder, the father holding the hand of a little girl in braids, her red bows twisting in the wind.
    Roark had leaned against the rail of the bridge, working up a strategy   —or perhaps just the courage   —to talk to Amelia. His conversation with Claire had caused him to rise early, to take a run up the highway until he had to double over and haul in deep, cleansing breaths.
    If Amelia, bearing all the facts of my case, still chooses to reject me, I will walk away and be content to leave her in peace, despite my broken heart.
    He hated his words then, the very real prophecy in them.
    So he’d walked back to his meager flat, showered, tracked down a pastry at the local donut shop, then made his way to Jensen’s suggestion   —Cutaway Creek.
    He parked with the other vehicles, hiked up to the high falls, then back, sorting through ways to find Amelia alone, to plead his case. At the bridge, he sat on a bench and watched families hike the shoreline. Parents holding the hands of their children, couples taking selfies. The joy of family hung in the air like the cool mist off the river.
    “Isn’t it breathtaking?” He heard the words from an elderly woman standing nearby, and right then, he was back on the Charles Bridge, admiring the artwork of a local who’d set up an easel, drawing a fresh view of the Judith Tower on the far end of the bridge.
    The sun hung low, lighting the red-tiled roofs and turning black the haunting gothic spires of the castle on the hill. The Vltava River was a rich mulberry, the bright lights of riverboats pinpricks against the deepening shadows.
    Roark had framed it in his viewfinder, waiting.
    And into this magnificent skyline walked Amelia. She wore high boots, jeans, and a black trench coat, an emerald-green scarf twined around her neck, her auburn hair long.
    When she pulled a camera from her rucksack,