dragging her down. The soaking jeans were heavy and clinging, the T-shirt drenched. Her hair was in her eyes and the sting of salt water made her blink hard, vision blurring, tears forming.
‘Help!’
A real panic was setting in now. She scrabbled at the sand, felt it slip and slide away from her as she tried to push upwards to her feet. But just as she thought she was going to manage it, another bigger, fiercer wave thundered towards her, rearing up, the curves at the top frothing white and angry-looking, blotting out the sky. And at the same time the ebb of the tide beneath her tugged away the faint hope of a grip she was getting, knocking her back down again in a rush.
‘No!’
It was a wail of despair, one that was silenced shockingly, blotted out under the heavy fall of water that tumbled over her head, into her eyes, flooding her open mouth. Gasping and choking, she could only give in for the moment, letting herself be carried down, down, deep under the waves, tugged by the undertow, thrown up again to the top…
‘Help!’
She was going to drown…going down again. What was it they said about the third time? Oh, dear heaven—please…
She tried to snatch in a deep breath, hoping to hold it under the water, but only succeeded in inhaling more stinging, burning water, choking on it. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t…
‘I’ve got you…’
The words came to her through the roaring in her head. She could only hear them as another, different sound, one she didn’t really believe in because there couldn’t be anyone else here, couldn’t be someone who had come to her rescue, couldn’t—
But then suddenly, just as she feared she was going to black out, something—everything—changed.
Impossibly—unbelievably—Emily felt strong hands grab hold of her, fixing tightly around her arms. She was caught, held, then hauled up, up, out of the water, her mouth opening wide on a gasp of shock and wonderful, pure, breathable air. The rush of it into her beleaguered lungs after the pressure of the water she had tried so hard not to inhale made her chest heave, cough, her thoughts spin. She was aware of the blue of the sky, clear and spotted with white clouds after the darkness of the water, but her eyes stung and her legs would not support her. Caught once again in the pull of the tide, she swayed weakly, almost fell.
The strong arms around her tightened even more. Changing position slightly so that they clamped about her waist and her chest, they pulled her up against something hard and warm and muscular.
Something—or rather, someone, hard and warm and powerfully male. The heat of him reached through her sodden clothes to warm her shivering body. The power of him surrounded her, supported her. She wasn’t sure if the pounding in her ears was that of her own heart or his, only that it was hard and fierce, and, wonderfully, when she had come close to fearing the exact opposite, marvellously potent and alive.
‘Madre de Dio!’ The voice in her ear was rough and raw, the accented words almost incomprehensible through her whirling thoughts. ‘I feared I would not reach you in time. Are you all right?’
Was she?
Still unable to open her streaming eyes, or form coherent words, Emily could only nod silently, her thoughts further scrambled by the way that the movement brought her face close against the hard bones of a powerful shoulder, her senses tantalised by the ozone-tinged scent of his skin.
‘OK…’ she managed but knew that she was not yet ready to have him let go. Her feet barely touched the ocean bed, her toes simply drifting in the swirling sand, and she prayed that her rescuer wouldn’t let her go, fearing she would be dragged away again with the ebb and flow of the white-capped waves.
But he showed no sign of even thinking about releasing her. Instead he pulled her up closer, moved his hands again. Before she could quite register what he had in mind, he had swung her up off her uncertain feet, his arms coming under her legs as he lifted her high out of the water.
‘Ohhh…!’
Instinctively her own hands flew up, her arms fastening around his neck, holding on tight. She felt the muscles bunch in his shoulders as he took her weight, adjusted his stance, bracing strong legs against the powerful tug of the tide. Then, turning, he began the slow, difficult journey back to the shore, ploughing through the waves that still broke against them, spattering them both with cold spray.
‘Almost there…’
Emily didn’t know if he expected a reply. She couldn’t give him one if he did; couldn’t find the words. Her head was against his chest, the heavy, regular beat of his heart under her cheek.
If she opened her salt-crusted lids she could see the smooth line of his throat, the olive skin tanned gold even this late in the year. A slight movement of her head made it possible to see the point where his hair, jet black even without the soaking that the sea had given it, covered the bronzed skin at the nape of his neck. He wore his hair longer than most men she knew, the dark strands brushed against the neckline of his navy T-shirt, slightly unkempt, so very, very different from the tightly controlled, cropped way that Mark had always worn his.
But that was Mark. Everything about him had always had to be controlled. Except his drinking. When he drank all sense of control went out the window, and a very different man took over.
‘No!’
The word escaped her as she shook her head, trying to drive away the thoughts she didn’t want. She had come here today to get away from all that and she was not going to spoil her hard-won freedom by letting unwanted memories intrude and upset her.
‘No?’
The man who held her had heard her and his determined stride slowed, halted, his dark head turning, looking down at her. She saw the sudden flash of deep dark eyes, stunningly beautiful eyes fringed with impossibly long, luxuriant lashes, watched his black brows draw together in a frown.
‘What…?’
‘I’m fine…’
She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t want him to stop; wanted to stay in his hold, in his arms like this forever. Or at least in the space that seemed to have reached out to enclose her like a bubble, suspended in time.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure—don’t let me go.’
Had she really said that?
The water must have battered her brain more than she’d realised. She felt as if she’d completely lost touch with reality. Had she really just asked this man—her unexpected rescuer, the man who had scooped her up from the waves when she had felt that she was going to drown, not to let her go? To keep her in his arms?
But the truth was that in those arms she felt wonderfully safe, protected as never before. It was as if the broad shoulders that supported her, the chest against which her head rested, had come between her and the world, acting as a defence against the trials and disasters that had darkened her life over the past months. With those arms around her she could, if not forget about the disasters that she had run away from and the problems and situation that awaited her when, inevitably, she had to go back, then at least put them out of her mind.
‘Oh,
