PERMIT ME by Riley Murphy

Author:Riley Murphy [Murphy, Riley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Caleb listened to what Genevieve was telling him, but it made no sense. They’d been a good five miles off shore when everything went down that night. How had she managed to reach the coast on her own?

“I see that look.” She wagged her finger at him. “Don’t get distracted by the improbable. When miraculous things happen, you need only thank God, not question Him about how he pulled it off.”

Caleb raised a brow at her. “If God had a hand in any of the events that night, I would have thought his intervention would have arrived much sooner…for you, at least.”

She nodded. “Usually, I’m sure that is true.” Then she frowned. “At least I hope it is, but this is the very reason you must listen to the less than probable part of what I’m saying.”

“I’m all ears, French-fry, let ‘er rip.”

A minute into her account of that night he lost some of the cavalier attitude he’d been maintaining, and intensely paid attention to what she was saying. Soon he was putting himself in her place and experiencing all that she’d suffered through that night. The watery cold, the darkness, the fear, and the unknown. That last one was a kicker. Why? Because the worry she was speaking of had been for him.

He swallowed even as a heavy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

She was an honest to God angel. She had to be, and here he was a guy who didn’t believe in religious shit like that.

Yet, with each additional word she uttered she was making him a believer.

“When the last rescue boat gave up, I think I may have given up as well. I don’t remember much. Only a sense of peace that was deeper than skin and bone. If that makes sense?”

He wasn’t going to discuss his thoughts of the afterlife or dying. She was here, managing to live through the trauma, so he was going to focus on that. “How did you get to the shore? Swimming there on your own would have been impossible.”

“I don’t know.” She searched his face and he tried to remain calm and nonjudgmental while she did. “I honestly don’t know. All I remember is seeing my mother.”

Hallucinating was not unusual in times of great stress, and he was pretty sure a near death experience counted up in the top two on the list for stress makers.

“She kept pointing to my dad’s favorite bowl.”

Caleb wasn’t going to mention how bizarre that was, given that Genevieve’s subconscious mind had conjured the illusion. “Was this bowl something your dad wouldn’t let you touch as a child or something?”

He was thinking about the dangling carrot and the horse trick. Whether by divine intervention, or her own subconscious, in self-protect mode, it had conjured the scenario in order to save her.

She blinked and then frowned. “No. Nothing like that. It was his candy dish.” She grinned as though she recalled something that pleased her, but then that smile quickly vanished. “I didn’t know why my mom was pointing to it.

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