“If it will make you feel better,” Jill said innocently, “I’ll let your daddy row. He’s good and strong.”

“No thanks,” Faroe said. “I’ll leave Lava Falls to the experts.”

Lane grumbled. “Why him? You only let me row when the river is flat and the wind is against us.”

Jill winked at Faroe. “What I lack in strength I make up for in smarts.”

Faroe laughed and gave his son a one-armed hug. “She’s got you there. She knows more about leverage than an unarmed combat teacher. And that’s what running the river is about, leverage and smarts.”

Combat, too, of a sort. But not the sort Faroe was used to. On the river he was happy to have someone else looking out for danger. That’s what a vacation was all about-not having to figure out how to kill someone before he killed you.

“Huh,” Lane said, but smiled at Jill. “You ever dump in Lava Falls?”

“Twice,” she said, fingering the leather cord around her neck. It held a serrated folding knife with a hook on the tip. If she went over and got caught on something below the water, the blade was sharp enough to cut through the tough woven nylon flotation harness with a single stroke. She’d never had to use the knife. She hoped she never would. “You don’t fight the water, you just float with it. That’s why everyone wears the harness you’re always complaining about.”

“It’s too narrow across the shoulders.”

“Your dad’s is worse, but you don’t hear him complaining.”

Faroe smiled. The float harness was more comfortable than body armor, but he wasn’t going to point that out.

“Mom would have enjoyed this,” Lane said, watching the river with eyes that were just like his father’s.

“Not nearly nine months pregnant, she wouldn’t,” Faroe said dryly. “She was real clear on that. Wanted us to do the male bonding thing while she did the female gestating thing.”