TWO
INSIDE the house dark lacquered wood floors showcased several glowing rugs that screamed of ancient Persia and threw glorious splashes of colour against the darkness. Bizarrely, she felt strangely at home.
Odd-shaped chairs constructed from driftwood stood around the walls and a huge, ancient seaman’s chest used as a table was covered with books.
The glassed circular centre of the house had three other rooms leading off it. Ben drew her into a sunlit bathroom furnished like a shiny capsule from a luxury motor yacht complete with a huge round tub on one side that looked over the beach, then he finally let her go.
She looked down at her hand, and incredibly her fingers looked normal. So why did they pulse with the sensation of being held by this man? She’d expected her skin where he’d touched to at least glow.
No such fanciful complaint seemed to bother him as he passed her a fresh facecloth and towel. ‘There’s a new toothbrush in the drawer. I’ll leave you to it.’ Then he closed the door behind him as he left.
She stared into the oval mirror that someone had surrounded incongruously with a circle of inexpertly glued shells. Were these the shells from the vision? Her pale and strained face stared back at her. So she was meant to be here?
OK. So she’d made a fool out of herself by throwing up. But it wasn’t every day you came across a man face down in the water.
She tried not to think of what would have happened if she hadn’t had the premonition, but she would never again even hint that she regretted the oddness of her occasional second sight.
That gift had saved this man’s life, and she would be forever grateful.
The cold water helped restore normality as it splashed against her heated cheeks, and as she brushed her teeth Misty glanced once more at her reflection.
A little colour had crept back into her face and she couldn’t subdue the tiny flutter of ridiculous satisfaction that all the years of her nurse’s training had stood by her on the beach.
She’d saved a life.
Here she stood, alone with a handsome stranger in his beach house, and she couldn’t deny there was a delectable magnetism about the man that had her intrigued.
As long as she remembered this was a moment out of time and not the real world.
When she opened the bathroom door the central room proved empty, and as she glanced around the worry returned that maybe Ben wasn’t as well as he’d seemed a few minutes ago.
‘In here.’ His voice sounded infinitely fatigued and her step quickened.
Ben sat on the edge of a wide white bed with a towel around his waist. She pulled her eyes and thoughts back from considering what lay underneath that towel—what on earth was she thinking?—and looked at his face.
The profile she recognised from the vision now seemed indelible in her mind. His chest showed lines of angry abrasions and her sensible side returned as she crossed the room quickly.
She sank to her knees beside the bed in front of him and looked up into his face. She examined his eyes as well as she could in the dim room. Both pupils seemed equal and reactive when she shaded the light.
‘How is your head?’ She ran her fingers lightly over the spongy swelling under his hairline and he winced.
‘Ouch,’ she said in sympathy, but didn’t pause as she continued her check. He’d have to put up with the discomfort because she needed to know if there was something worse to find.
‘I can tell you’re in the medical profession,’ he murmured.
She grinned and palpated his scalp to ensure the bone didn’t feel displaced underneath. The bump seemed slightly smaller already than when she’d first checked it.
Her hand slid around the base of his skull to check for further injury and his ink-black hair felt soft and springy, and curled around her fingers as if welcoming her touch. It seemed so long since she’d done that, she’d forgotten the sensation of running her fingers through a man’s hair.
‘It seems OK,’ she said as she forced her fingers to untangle themselves from a warm and welcoming place they didn’t want to leave.
‘My head is improving all the time, especially when you stroke it.’ His voice held a whisper of weary teasing and her hand bounced away as if scalded.
When she met his eyes he smiled wryly at her reaction. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m cold and headachy. But I am curious to know your name.’
‘Misty.’ She nodded at his chest and looked at him for tacit permission before she touched it. The jagged scratches were red and welted but she couldn’t see any pieces of shell in the wound. She rested her hand over the wounds and felt the heat of inflammation.
‘Look at your poor chest.’ A sudden mad impulse to kiss her fingertips and pat his wounds better made her straighten away from him. What on earth was the matter with her? This man was an unknown entity and after today she’d never meet him again. She glanced at the blood on her fingers and admonished herself.
She stood and nodded towards the en suite she could see across the room. ‘May I use that?’
‘Of course. And there’s antibiotic powder on the shelf we could use.’
After washing her hands, she used a small clean towel to blot the blood from his chest and then puffed the powder onto his wounds. She stood back and tried to think what else she could do for him, but her mind was suddenly blank so she returned the towel and the powder to the tiny bathroom. When she returned at least she’d thought of something. ‘Is your tetanus booster up to date?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘and scratches are a small price to pay.’ He patted the bed next to him.
Seconds later Misty found herself sitting hip to hip with him and she had no idea how she’d got there as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer in mutual comfort. They sat there side by side, contemplating his lucky escape.
It did seemed weirdly appropriate to hold each other at the memory of the event and surprisingly she drew the comfort he had intended from the gesture.
Suddenly she felt at ease with this man whose life had hung so precariously in the balance that very afternoon, and with the heat of his skin against hers came the reinforcement of the knowledge of his survival. The satisfaction grew that this man was here safe and solidly warm against her, and the other world outside the house seemed a million miles away.
He turned and dropped a gentle kiss, warm and fleeting, on her lips, and it was over before she could begin to avoid it, unlike the impact. Her lips seemed to vibrate with the memory and she mashed them together as if to blot the imprint out because the thrumming continued in decreasing waves.
She felt suspended in time and his voice floated over her. ‘Thank you for saving my life, Misty.’ She could do nothing but stare back at him. His eyes were as blue as the ocean he’d come from and his gaze roamed her face. She could feel heat beneath her skin under his scrutiny and suddenly there was a clawing tumble of unbidden sensations in her belly.
She
