need to get you to a hospital for observation. Salt water can cause delayed pulmonary oedema in your lungs.’
He’d have to move or she’d think he couldn’t and he didn’t want her having to spend more energy than she already had on him. He eased himself into a sitting position but even that hurt.
Ben rocked his head gently and couldn’t help the tiny groan that escaped at the pain from his skull. It hurt like hell but he didn’t need a hospital. He needed his bed.
‘Thank you.’ He paused for breath. ‘Just my shack.’ He paused again. ‘I’ll be fine.’
He watched her roll her eyes and it amused him in a ridiculous, semi-hysterical way. No doubt it was the euphoria of having been snatched from the jaws of death.
‘You need a good check-up,’ she said. ‘Does your head swim?’
He put his hand up for her to grasp so he could stand. ‘Better than my body does when I’m knocked out, apparently.’
‘A joker,’ she muttered. ‘Just what I need.’ Misty took his hand and shared his weight as he rose, but still he swayed against her before he could steady himself, and she knew he was hanging on to his balance by sheer willpower.
The feel of his strong hand left hers bizarrely energised and she looked down at his fingers curled around her own. She frowned at the strangeness of a connection that shouldn’t even have registered then shrugged the thought away. At this moment she needed to help him stagger to her vehicle and that was enough to contend with.
When at last she had him there she didn’t like the way his head lolled against the seat as if he could barely support its weight.
‘You OK?’ she asked as she reached across and buckled his seat belt.
He mumbled something she didn’t catch and Misty stared anxiously into his shadowed face as she leaned back into her own seat. The strong line of his jaw and angled cheeks were softened by the fact he hadn’t shaved that day. Funny how that darkened stubble in no way detracted from his rugged good looks. He’d become even more attractive with the passing of time. Even more attractive? Ouch! Mind on job, she admonished herself silently.
That was if he survived. ‘Hello? Wake up.’ She rested her hand on his damp shoulder. ‘I need directions if you want me to take you home.’
She was definitely having second thoughts about leaving him alone in a beach house to die. If he started to look worse than he did now she’d ring her brother at Lyrebird Lake and ask what to do, even thoughAndy’s hospital was hours away, his advice would help.
‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t open his eyes but his apology emerged clearly this time and she felt the building tension ease from the tautness in her neck.
He paused as if it hurt to talk, and she realised it probably did.
‘Name’s Ben Moore. My beach house.’ He paused again. ‘There’s a side road past the camping ground on the left.’ Without opening his eyes, he said, ‘You can drive around the gate instead of opening it.’ He coughed again. ‘The shack’s about two kilometres along.’
Benmore. ‘Like the beautiful gardens in Scotland?’ She asked absently as she steered the vehicle across the sand. He didn’t answer.
Misty concentrated on navigating the thick sand of the track onto the road and even then her four-wheel-drive slewed sideways over the mounds made by other off-road vehicles.
Once she hit the hard dirt the noise from the tyres reverberated through the cab. She’d have to remember to fill them with air when she passed the next gas station but the deflation had made a huge difference in the soft sand.
She turned her Jeep left at the campsite, spotted the entrance he’d mentioned, and drove around the locked gate onto another dirt road. She’d had no idea the track was there and it wound through the seaside scrub parallel to the beach until they climbed a grass-covered knoll.
On top and surrounded by smaller sand dunes stood a solid beach house made of sand-coloured wood. Because of the height of the knoll it overlooked the beach in both directions and tufts of coarse beach grass and wind-bent coastal shrubs ringed it.
The house was sturdily built on stilts and a lot larger than Misty’s idea of a shack. A wide, shaded veranda looked out over the vista below and she parked the car in the shade beside a late model Range Rover and some steep steps.
Ben’s eyes were still shut and she touched his arm. ‘Will you be able to get inside, Ben?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, and his eyes opened slowly to reveal the aqua irises she’d only glimpsed at the beach. His next words made her smile.
‘You OK?’ His concern was sweet but unfortunately the brightness of his eyes made his pale cheeks even more concerning.
‘I’ll be better when you have a bit of colour in your face.’ She shivered and the memory of him floating face down in the water hit her. How she’d almost been unable to hold him before the wave dragged them back made her shake her head.
She recalled those vital few seconds when he’d not been breathing and she’d urged him to wake up, and then he’d moved and coughed as he returned to life.
She still couldn’t believe she’d managed it. This flesh-and-blood, breathing human being would be dead if she hadn’t been there. That thought left her with a deep nausea that rose out of nowhere and couldn’t be denied.
‘Excuse me,’ she gulped, and wrenched open her door to throw herself on the ground where at least she was out of sight to be ingloriously sick.
‘I’m sorry.’ Soft words full of self-reproach floated around her as Ben appeared beside her, He scooped her ponytail from her face and held it behind her head while she completed the job. For the moment she was too unwell to care.
‘Poor brave mermaid,’ he said soothingly, and his warm hand cupped her forehead in comfort. She could feel the prick of tears in her eyes as the nausea passed. She wasn’t brave. She’d been terrified.
‘I’m sorry.’ She allowed him to help her to her feet and then she backed away from him as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and schooled any expression from her face. Weakness in front of this man made her feel like a self-conscious teenager and she was supposed to be in charge.
She banished any thought of what had just happened and changed the subject. ‘I’m supposed to be nursing you.’
‘I’m fine.’ When she didn’t look convinced he shrugged and gestured wearily to the stairs. ‘You can check me out now you’re feeling better.’
She could see he’d shifted his concern from himself to her and she felt the undeniable pull that shimmered around Ben as if her heart was telling her something her head had to disbelieve.
‘Come with me,’ he said, and the cadence, those simple words, caught her heart as his long fingers caught her other hand.
There it was. That recognition she’d noticed before. It was as if his whole arm pulled her along not so much by his strength but by magnetic attraction between them that shouldn’t be there.
Weakly, with her inner voice quietly
