Toby reached the boat, raised his head, and brushed wet hair from his face. Treading water, he looked up and saw Evelyn gripping the side of the small craft and beaming delightedly.
“You came!”
“Of course I did.” Toby felt ridiculously elated.My papaand the light in her eyes were worth far more than the effort of the swim.
Beside and a little behind Evelyn, Dominica was watching him curiously.
He smiled and, gripping the edge of the boat’s side, started to pull it around. “Don’t worry,” he said, speaking more to Dominica than Evelyn. “I’m going to tow you back to shore.”
Dominica studied the people gathered on the shore, then looked at Toby. “My mama and papa are there, waiting.”
“They are. They’ll be glad to have you safely back.” Toby found the ring at the bow and got Evelyn and Dominica to throw out the attached rope, which they’d neatly looped inside the boat.
“There!” Evelyn flung out the last coil.
Toby leant back and let the rope hit the water, then grasped it, kicked, and swam backward. “Sit down. I don’t want you overbalancing and falling into the water.”
“No,” Evelyn said very seriously. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“Neither of us can swim,” Dominica told him. “So we’d sink and drown.”
Toby refrained from commenting that they seemed to have a realistic grasp of their situation. He steadily kicked and, stroking with one arm, towed the boat back to the island.
Finally, he reached the point where he could stand and, grasping the side of the boat, pulled and pushed it the last little way until it bobbed alongside the pier.
Willing hands reached down to hold the boat steady, and then Diana and the Barberos were there to lift the girls out.
Giulia and Giovanni had rushed to the villa and returned and now offered towels for Toby and blankets to wrap around the girls, who were, indeed, a trifle chilled after being out on the water.
“And from shock, no doubt.” Diana hoisted a well-wrapped Evelyn into her arms and hugged the little girl close.
Everyone was hugely relieved that the girls were safe and sound.
The searchers gathered around, congratulating Toby on his rescue and fussing over the girls and making light of their adventure. No one showed the slightest inclination to ring a peal over their heads.
Toby couldn’t stop smiling as, still dripping despite the towels wrapped around him, he watched the crowd behaving much as he’d expected, cooing and making much of the girls. For himself, he was still grappling with the intensity of the emotion that had welled inside him when Evelyn had looked on him as her savior and called him “my papa.”
He’d had no idea he could feel like this.
The satisfaction ran deep and strong; he doubted it would fade anytime soon.
Eventually, the furor subsided, and through gentle questions posed by the Barberos and Diana, the assembled company learned that the girls had set out to have an adventure of their own.
“We wanted to do somethingexciting,” Evelyn explained.
From her expression, she’d realized that their outing had caused a great many people to become concerned. For himself, Toby was indescribably relieved to have her back unharmed, and all so relatively easily; he wasn’t about to upbraid her, even with just a frown.
Diana brushed the curls off Evelyn’s face. “You and Dominica gave us all a very great fright.”
Evelyn’s eyes were huge as she blurted, “I was very frightened, too.” She glanced at her little friend, snug in her father’s arms. “And so was Domi.”
“So you went to Domi’s house?” Diana prompted.
Evelyn nodded. “I saw Domi—although I didn’t know that was her name, then—but I saw her and her mama and papa leaving the market, and I followed. Domi was in the garden, and we…” Evelyn made hand signs and pointed at the lake. “We worked out that we both wanted to see if we could go out on the lake in a boat. Domi knew where some were kept, but most were too big and heavy. But we kept looking, and we found that one.” She pointed at the small boat still bobbing by the pier. “It was sitting there, in the water with the oars inside, so we thought we could borrow it, just to see what it would be like rowing on the lake.”
Giovanni had been translating her words, and the crowd around them smiled.
“Only we couldn’t row.” Evelyn’s brow furrowed. “It was much harder than we’d thought it would be, and then the boat went out on its own, and we didn’t know what to do.”
