SECOND BREATH

She doesn't remember the night she died.

Alyssa Ward drove drunk into a frozen lake and should have drowned. Someone pulled her from the black water, broke through the ice, and breathed life back into her lungs. S

Now, two months sober and barely holding herself together, she's trying to rebuild what grief and alcohol destroyed. Her seven-year-old daughter. Her restaurant. Her life.

Then Indy walks onto her property with a toolbelt and a quiet smile, hired to fix her dock. He's kind. He's careful. He listens like her words actually matter. And when he looks at her, something inside her chest remembers how to feel again.

Some rescues happen in the water. Others happen after.