she told herself. Keep a hold of yourself.
The wind outside was screaming.
She stoked up the fire with as much wood as she dared. There was driftwood at the cave entrance—she should drag more inside, but she didn’t want to go near that wind.
She couldn’t stop the tremors.
‘Rest yourself,’ he’d said, and the urge to do so was suddenly urgent.
Ben was lying on her blanket. He was covered by her friend’s gorgeous quilt. Queen-sized.
He looked deeply asleep. Exhausted.
She might just accept that she was exhausted as well.
She should stay alert and keep watch.
For what? What more could she do? If the wind swung round they were in trouble, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
If her sailor stirred she needed to know.
She was so cold.
She touched his skin under the quilt and he was cold, too. Colder than she was, despite the quilt.
What would a sensible woman do?
What a sensible woman had to do. She hauled off her outer clothes. She left her bra and knickers on—a woman had to preserve some decency.
She arranged her wet clothes and Ben’s on the trolley, using it as a clothes horse by the fire.
She hugged Heinz close and gently wriggled them both onto the blanket.
Under the quilt.
She’d hauled off Ben’s soggy clothes but she winced as she felt his skin. He was so cold. How long had he been in the water?
There should be procedures for this sort of situation. Some way she could use her body to warm him without...without what? Catching something?
Catching cold. This was crazy.
‘Men must work and women must weep...’
Not this woman. This woman put her arms around her frigid sailor, curled her body so as much skin as possible was touching, tried not to think she was taking as much comfort as she was giving...
And tried to sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
HE WOKE AND he was warm.
How cold had he been and for how long? There was a nightmare somewhere in the dark, the pain in his leg, his terror for Jake. They were waiting to enclose him again, but the nightmare was all about cold and noise and motion, and right now he was enclosed in a cloud of warmth and softness, and he was holding a woman.
Or she was holding him. He was on his back, his head on cushions. She was curved by his side, lying on her front, her head in the crook of his shoulder, her arm over his chest, as if she would cover as much of his body as she could.
Which was fine by him. The warmth and the comfort of skin against skin was unbelievable.
There was a bit of fur there as well. A dog? On the other side of him.
Well, why wouldn’t there be, for on that side was a fire.
He was enfolded by dog and woman and hearth.
Words came back to him...
‘Men must work and women must weep’?
Had she said that to him, this woman? Some time in the past?
This woman wasn’t weeping. This woman was all about giving herself to him, feeding him warmth, feeding him safety.
He didn’t move. Why move? He remembered a wall of pain and he wasn’t going there. If he shifted an inch, it might return.
Who was she, this woman? She was soundly asleep, her body folded against his. Some time during the darkness he must have moved to hold her. One of his arms held her loosely against him.
Mine.
It was a thought as primeval as time itself. Claiming a woman.
Claiming a need.
His body was responding.
Um...not. Not even in your dreams, he told himself, but the instinctive stirring brought reality back. Or as much reality as he could remember.
The yacht, the Rita Marlene.
The storm.
Jake, hanging from that rope.
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Her voice was slurred with sleep. She didn’t move. She didn’t pull away. This position, it seemed, was working for them both.
It was the deepest of intimacies and he knew nothing about her. Nothing except she’d saved his life.
She must have felt him stiffen. Something had woken her but she wasn’t pulling away. She seemed totally relaxed, part of the dark.
Outside he could still hear the screaming of the storm. Here there was only them.
‘You already told me I’m a dumb male. What else is there to tell?’
He felt her smile. How could he do that? How did he feel like he knew this woman?
Something about skin against skin?
Something about her raw courage?
‘There’s variations of dumb,’ she said. ‘So you were in the yacht race.’
‘We were.’
‘You and Jake-on-the-Rope.’
‘Yep.’ There was even reassurance there, too. She’d said Jake-on-the-Rope like it was completely normal that his brother should be swinging on a rope from a chopper somewhere out over the Southern Ocean.
‘You’re from the States.’
‘A woman of intuition.’
‘Not dumb at all. How many on the boat?’
‘Two.’
‘So you’re both rescued,’ she said with satisfaction, and he settled even further. Pain was edging back now. Actually, it was quite severe pain. His leg throbbed. His head hurt. Lots of him hurt.
It was as if once he was reassured about Jake he could feel something else.
Actually, he could feel a lot else. He could feel this woman. He could feel this woman in the most intimate way in the world.
‘So tell me about the boat?’ she asked.
