The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Emma frowned with confusion. “Huh?”


“I think I was thirteen, which made Luke about sixteen. There’d been this huge storm and it dumped like six inches of rain on us. We decided that would be the best time to go rafting.”

“I am so confused. What has that got to do with Cooper? And that sounds totally dangerous, by the way.”

“It was! That’s why we wanted to go. Stay with me, here.” He drew a breath. “So, like a couple of idiots, we don’t tell anyone and we go and put our raft in the water. We start off, and we think it’s the best time we ever had, and we’re such studs, running the river on storm water. But then the water got really rough, and we lost control of the raft and slammed into an uprooted tree that had fallen over the river.”

He paused, took a couple of breaths. But his eyes were bright with the eagerness of telling his story. “Em, I thought I was going to die,” he said. “Luke kept shouting at me to move my paddle here and there, stroke it backward, and I won’t lie, I was bawling like a baby, I was so sure I was going to die. But somehow, we got off that tree before getting sucked under, and the next thing you know, we’re floating down the river again.”

“Where were your parents?” Emma demanded.

Leo grinned. “Conspicuously absent. Anyway, we’re flying down the river again, and the next thing you know, we get shoved right up against a bunch of rocks. Here we go again—I thought I was going to die.” He paused to breathe. “The raft was banging up against those rocks, and one good puncture, that would be it for us. Luke was shouting that the rocks were going to sink us, and we were pushing and trying to get away, and this rope line got caught.”

“Oh my God,” Emma said.

“Right? I thought, that’s it, we’re done. I think I even pissed myself. But somehow, by some miracle, we got out of that and went crashing down the river again.”

He paused for a moment to rest. “All we had to do was get past the worst of it, and find some calm water so we could get safely to shore. That was it. Just keep fighting and fighting downstream until we found calm water and could climb up on shore.”

He stopped there and looked at the TV.

Emma waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she touched his arm. “Hello? What happened?”

“What, you don’t get it? We found calm water and got out.”

“Okay . . .”

“Do I seriously have to spell everything out around here?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the river of life,” he said, and drew a breath.

“The river of life is where you almost died more than once?” Emma asked skeptically.

Leo drew another long breath. “Yep, now you’re getting it. You know, you’re floating along and you get hung up in these trees or on those rocks, and you think you’re going to die, and you fight and fight, and you get away, you get another chance, and you keep going downstream. And then you hit up against another snag that’s even worse, and you think you’re going to die again, but then you somehow manage to get out. And eventually, you move away from those things that seemed so life threatening and so important at the time, right? And the farther away you get from those trees and rocks, the less important they are. The only thing that’s important is what’s in front of you. That search for calm water so you can climb up to a safe shore. You have to have calm water to get out, Emma. You can’t get out when it’s churning around you. You have to forget what happened and get to safe shore to avoid more death traps downstream. Get it?”

Emma could hardly speak. Her heart was aching, her thoughts whirling. “I get it,” she said solemnly.

Leo smiled and turned his attention back to the TV.

“I love you,” she said and kissed his cheek.

“Yeah, I know,” Leo said matter-of-factly. “Look in my drawer in my nightstand, will you?”

She leaned over and pulled the drawer open.

“See a compass?”

There was a small brass compass inside, one that might have been earned as part of a Boy Scout exercise, she thought. She picked it up and held it up for Leo. “This?”

“Yep. It’s awesome. I won that at science camp in the sixth grade. I want you to have it.”

“What? You want me to have your compass?”

“Yes,” he said, and paused to catch his breath. “Take it and keep it with you at all times. You need a compass, Emma. You need a way to find your calm water and safe shore.”

“Oh Leo,” she said, and tears began to quietly slide down her face. She clutched the compass to her chest and closed her eyes.

“Stop that, stop that,” Leo chided her. “If Marisol sees you, she’ll think I asked you to marry me and kick my butt.”

But Emma couldn’t stop crying. She lay down beside him, the compass in her hand, silently crying on his shoulder while he solved the Wheel of Fortune puzzle and pronounced himself the winner of the trip to the Bahamas.