there to be on the alert.
A muted roar lifted his head. Relief surged through him as the posse from the station came down the hill on one of the farm trucks, almost immediately followed by two fire engines and a trail of other vehicles.
‘Oh, thank God,’ his companion croaked, a statement he silently echoed.
Taryn had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. Smoothly, efficiently the firemen raced from their vehicles, the chief shouting, ‘Get out of the way—down onto the beach, both of you.’
She grabbed a bottle of water from her car and headed across the sand. Without taking off her shoes, she waded out until the water came up to her knees, and only then began to drink, letting the water trickle down a painfully dry throat.
Heat beat against her, so fierce she pulled off her T-shirt, dropped it into the sea and used it to wipe herself down. The temporary coolness was blissful. She sighed, then gulped a little more water.
The stranger who’d helped her strode out to where she stood. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.
He was so tall she had to lift her face to meet his eyes. Swallowing, she said hoarsely, ‘Yes. Thank you very much for your help.’
‘Go easy on that water. If you drink it too fast it could make you sick.’
Taryn knew the accent. English, clipped and authoritative, delivered in a deep, cool voice with more than a hint of censure, it reminded her so much of Peter she had to blink back tears.
Not that Peter had ever used that tone with her.
The stranger was watching her as though expecting her to faint, or do something equally stupid. Narrowed against the glare of the sun on the sea, his disconcerting eyes were a cold steel-blue and, although Taryn knew she’d never seen him before, he looked disturbingly familiar.
An actor, perhaps?
She lowered the bottle. ‘I’m taking it slowly.’ Stifling a cough, she kept her eyes fixed on the helmeted men as they efficiently set about containing the flames. ‘Talk about arriving in the nick of time!’
‘I wouldn’t have thought the village was big enough to warrant a fire station.’
A note in his voice lifted tiny invisible hairs on the back of her neck. He was very good-looking, all angles and strong bones and lean distinction. Not exactly handsome; that was too neutral a description for a man whose arrogantly chiselled features were stamped with formidable self-assurance. His aura of cool containment was based on something much more intimidating than good bones. An odd sensation warmed the pit of Taryn’s stomach when she met his gaze.
Unnerved by that flinty survey, she looked away, taunted by a wisp of memory that faded even as she tried to grasp it.
‘They’re a volunteer group.’ She took refuge in the mundane and held out her bottle of water. ‘Would you like some?’ Adding with a wry smile, ‘I’ve wiped the top and as far as I know I have no diseases you need worry about.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ he drawled, not taking the bottle. ‘Thanks, but I’ve already had a drink—I brought my own.’
Stick to social pleasantries, she told herself, rattled by a note in his voice that came very close to mockery. ‘Thank you so much for helping—I didn’t have a hope of stopping it on my own.’
‘Didn’t it occur to you that lighting a fire in the middle of a drought could be dangerous?’
No, not mockery—condemnation.
Controlling an intemperate urge to defend herself, Taryn responded evenly, ‘I didn’t light it. I came down for a swim but before I got that far I noticed someone had had a fire on the beach above high tide mark to cook tuatua—shellfish. They didn’t bother to put it out properly with sea water so I hosed it down, but a spark must have lodged somewhere up in the grass.’
‘I see.’
Nothing could be gained from his tone or his expression. Stiffening, she said coldly, ‘As soon as I saw smoke I rang the emergency number.’
‘Ah, so that’s why they arrived so quickly.’
Screwing up her eyes in an effort to pierce the pall of smoke, she said, ‘It looks as though they’re winning, thank heavens.’
Heat curled in the pit of her stomach when her gaze met his, aloof and speculative. Something in his expression reminded her she’d been clad only in her bikini when he’d arrived. And that the shorts he’d ordered her to get into revealed altogether too much of her legs.
Shocked by the odd, primitive little shiver that tightened her skin and set her nerves humming, she looked away.
He asked, ‘Are you a local?’
‘Not really.’ She’d lived in the small village a mile away during her adolescence.
‘So you’re on holiday?’
Casual talk between two strangers abruptly hurled together …
Taking too deep a breath of the smoky air, she coughed again. ‘No.’
‘What do you do?’ He spoke idly, still watching the activity on the grass behind the beach.
‘I’m a librarian,’ she responded, her tone even.
The brows that lifted in faint surprise were as black as his strictly controlled hair. In an abrupt change of subject, he said, ‘Should you be swimming on your own?’
Taryn parried that steel-blue survey. ‘This is a very safe bay. I don’t take stupid risks.’
How did this man—this judgmental man, Taryn decided—manage to look sceptical without moving a muscle?
In a bland voice, he said, ‘Fighting the fire looked risky enough to me. All it needed was a slight change of wind and you’d have had to run like hell to get to the beach safely. And you probably wouldn’t have saved your car.’
That possibility had occurred to Taryn, but she’d been more afraid the fire would set the coastline alight. ‘I can run,’ she said coolly.
His gaze drifted down the length of her legs. ‘Yes, I imagine you can. But how fast?’
His tone invested the words with a subliminal implication that summoned a swift, embarrassing heat to her skin.
That nagging sense of familiarity tugged at her again. Who was he?
Well, there was one way to find out. Without allowing herself second thoughts, she said coolly, ‘When it’s necessary, quite fast,’ and held out her hand. ‘It’s time I introduced myself—I’m Taryn Angove.’
CHAPTER TWO
CADE’S heart pounded a sudden tattoo, every nerve in his body springing into instant taut alertness. This young Amazon was Taryn Angove?
OK, so courage didn’t necessarily go with attributes
