"Emily!"
"EMILY!"
Then Blake heard it. Faint, almost lost in the roar.
"Daddy!"
He swung his flashlight toward the sound.
Fifty yards downstream, Emily was clinging to the trunk of a fallen tree that had collapsed across the creek. She was halfway out over the water, holding a soaked, shivering beagle against her chest with one arm. The water was rushing just inches below her boots, and the tree was groaning, shifting with every surge.
"DANIEL!" Blake screamed. "Over here!"
Daniel was there in seconds. He saw his daughter and every muscle in his body tensed to leap.
But the tree was only a narrow trunk, slick with rain. Daniel was bigger, heavier. If he climbed out, his weight might snap it or roll it.
Blake saw it too.
"I'm lighter," Blake said. "Let me go."
Daniel looked at him. For a fraction of a second, a lifetime of instinct screamed at him to go himself. To trust no one else with the only thing in the world that mattered.
Then he made a choice.
"Go slow," Daniel said. "Low to the trunk. Three points of contact at all times. I've got your back."
He wrapped one end of the nylon tow strap from his truck around his own waist and tied the other around Blake's. Then he braced his boots against a tree root and nodded.
Blake crawled out onto the fallen trunk.
But he didn't hurry. He breathed. He moved one hand. Then one knee. Then the other hand.
"Emily," he called, as calmly as he could. "Hey, kiddo. It's Blake. You're doing amazing. I'm coming to get you."
"I'm scared," she sobbed.