by Dale Mayer
And was that the end game? Yet what else could it be? No reason to shoot if not to kill.
Still, the bullets hadn’t caused much damage, and then he had found that damn tracker in the wound as well. That had set off all kinds of alarms. Why was it there? And who was tracking her? Until they could get her medical attention, he’d keep a close eye on the wound. It had missed anything vital but all wounds could deteriorate quickly.
But he had no way to prove his suspicions. At least not yet. Until the storms abated, communication was spotty here. He’d taken an image of the item, but it was too small to capture well. Thankfully her wounds should heal well here without lasting damage.
The dogs hovered at her side, waiting for her to wake.
Which said a lot about how they felt about her.
He had to admit to being overprotective of her himself. More than he should be. She intrigued him. Her connection to this place intrigued him. He had strong instincts himself and knew she was special. Her arrival meant something—he just didn’t know what. His heart was also unexpectedly intrigued. He’d broken off his relationship with Mara a year ago and hadn’t delved into another relationship since. Mara had hated this place, and he’d known at that point that their relationship couldn’t continue. Yet he’d let it drag on for months longer until he planned to come for the summer, and she’d been infuriated.
Now this woman was different. She looked to be at one with the island. He frowned and moved his gaze to the stormy world outside the window.
The weather forecast would be ugly for several more days. There’d been warnings for days, so why had she been out on the water in the first place? She’d been in a dry suit so had been somewhat prepared but not for ugly storms. He’d hoped Bruce would come over this week, but, with the weather like it was, that wasn’t likely. Bruce lived on another island close by. They’d first met in university and had been buddies right from the start. Bruce was also heavily involved in research of the ocean patterns. Samson enjoyed shooting the breeze with him. Usually once a week. They helped each other out when repairs or other construction was required. If Samson took the boat to the mainland, he’d call and see if Bruce needed anything and vice versa.
Samson had a surprising number of visitors here, enough that he was never lonely. From fishermen to scientists to students and even the occasional government official. Sometimes Samson wished they’d all disappear—but this woman? … Well, he suspected she was someone he’d never tire of seeing.
Chapter 4
She was back in bed, her body exhausted, everything aching just because of being up for that little bit. “What was it, maybe an hour that I was out of bed?” she whispered, her voice almost shaking with weakness. “And I’m so done.”
She let sleep pull her under again. But her dreams were crazy. She was in the water drowning, something moving underneath her, something always moving underneath her. Something dark, something wet, something big, terrifyingly big. She surfaced once, gasping, crying out for help.
And suddenly Samson was here, yet again. His hand on her right shoulder, her good shoulder, easing her panic. As soon as she understood she was awake again with him ever by her side, she smiled and drifted off to sleep. But the nightmares came again and again. Choking, panicking as she fought for air, the feeling of being tossed in the waves, the feeling of being lost, … going under. On that thought she woke up to the white room—alone. She lay still, her body covered in sweat.
Samson opened the door and stepped inside.
She peered up at him from under her lashes.
“Did you have the same nightmare again?” he asked.
She nodded, shifting restlessly and lifting the shirt she wore off her damp chest. “Over and over and over again. Always the same, and yet, always a little different.”
His gaze sharpened. He sat down beside her, reached out to hold her hand. “Did it feel the same?”
The emphasis was on feeling. She didn’t quite understand that. She stared at him. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “The nightmares are all terrifying. I was drowning each and every time.”
He patted the back of her hand. “That’s to be expected. You did drown. You had no pulse,” he said solemnly. “That’s how we found you on the beach. You’d washed up with the tide.”
She looked around the white room and whispered, “I get that. But why won’t the nightmare leave me alone?”
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “And an overwrought mind that still feels caught in the nightmare, as much as it’s difficult and painful, is not unusual.”
She rolled over ever-so-slightly, and, still gasping for air and peace, she whispered, “And I’m so damn tired. I need rest, not just sleep.”
He reached up and gently stroked her back.
She could feel the sweat from her back soaking into her shirt. She shuddered. “I’m so hot, and then I’ll be so damn cold soon.”
He pulled the covers over her shoulder, wrapping it tight against her neck. “If you can, sleep again.”
“I’m too scared to sleep,” she whispered. “I don’t want any more of those nightmares. The water fills my mouth, and I choke and gasp as my lungs fight for oxygen. My body flails, but nothing is there. And every damn time my world goes black.”
“Nothing?” he asked, his voice sharp.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, nothing is there. Just water, bubbles, darkness and the terrifying emptiness beneath me. The ocean is dark and deep. It’s so damn cold. I don’t understand the things down there, and I panic even more trying to get up and away, looking for air, feeling as if the world was bumping me, turning me, taking me away, pressing me downward, forcing me to inhale more water and choke.” She groaned. “Then the opposite, as if something pushed me upward. But it’s not enough. Never high enough. And the pain …”
He massaged her back with a soft touch. “Easy,” he said, his voice gentle, calm. “Just forget about it. Lie here and rest. I’ll rub your back until you drop off.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she whispered. But she could feel sleep tugging at her. Her body was so exhausted that it was desperate to go under. The problem was, every time it went under, it went underwater. But she was powerless to stop the compulsion.
Finally she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. As she did so, she could feel herself sinking into the water again. She popped up to the surface crying out, “It’s water. It’s water again.”
“Hush,” he said. “Just take it easy.”
She burst into tears, curled up into a ball and cried. And finally sleep pulled her back under yet again.
More water, more bubbles came, although the pain and the panic was a little less. Maybe she was too exhausted this time. Maybe she would just drown. She couldn’t figure it out. There was no rhyme or reason, and her thought processes weren’t working. She kept trying to tell herself, I’m asleep. I’m asleep. It’s okay. I’m just asleep. And finally she drifted on the surface of the water instead of far beneath it.
She took several deep breaths and just relaxed into the waves. She dreamed lightly, floating on the surface of the water, letting the current carry her along. She didn’t know when her sleep turned to awakening and back under to sleep again, but, when she woke, she found herself in water, literally floating in what appeared to be a hot tub.
She slowly sat up, her terrified mind wondering exactly what had happened. But then she saw Samson standing beside her, watching over her, making sure she didn’t sink under. She sat up ever-so-slowly, reaching for the edge, and asked, “Why did you put me in here?”
“Because you were fighting water so much in your nightmares that I figured maybe, if I could get you to float gently in the water, it would help to soothe the stresses on your nerves and your mind, and it would blend to give you a peaceful sleep.”
She took several deep breaths, moving her arms gently back and forth in the warm water. “It worked. Not to mention I’m warm in here.” She looked around in surp
rise. “This is one very large hot tub.”
He chuckled. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m not a very small guy.”
She smiled and then looked down to realize that her white T-shirt was completely see-through. Her face reddened, and she pulled her knees up to her chest and twisted sideways, only to realize how absolutely foolish it was. He’d already seen everything she had many times over. The difference was, this time she knew it, and she was conscious.
She looked at the towel he held out and snatched it from his hands. “I guess you don’t have such things as bathing suits, huh?”
He shook his head. “No, so I had to put you in my T-shirts.”
She sighed. “I used to be modest. It’s making me a little uncomfortable to know you’re changing me like a baby.”
“Hardly a baby.” His voice was calm. “But you are sick and injured. I wouldn’t be much of a human being if I took advantage of you, would I?”
She shot him a look under her half-closed lashes and nodded. “Thank you for looking after me,” she said formally. “Many men wouldn’t give a damn.”
She sat on the edge of the hot tub, feeling the cooler wind bite at her, but her lower legs were still in the water. The towel wrapped around her gave her a different sense of warmth. She raised her face to the sun and whispered, “I don’t even know what day it is.”
“June twenty-four,” he said. “You’ve been here for four days.”
Her jaw dropped. “Four days?” She stared at him.
He nodded. “Yes. Sorry to be the one to tell you that. But it’s been a long time. The good news is”—he sat sideways beside her so he was out of the water but close enough he could talk to her—“that the storm has passed.”
“Surely it didn’t last three days?”
“The first one lasted the night and a day,” he said, “and, when you woke up, the second one was about ready to completely overwhelm us. But now it looks like we’re in clear skies, as you can see.”
She looked around to see nothing but trees and rocks, water and sky. “It’s a stunning place,” she muttered. “But it would be really nice if I had a way to let people know I’m okay.”
“I’ve already told the mainland how I found you,” he said. “The troubling thing was, they didn’t know you were missing.”
Again she slowly opened her eyes and stared at him. That was a blow on so many levels. “Now, I don’t remember a hell of a lot about what went on before this, and I know you’ll tell me that’s due to my head injury, but surely I had somebody who cared enough to report me missing?”
“Your name is Whimsy Connor. Dr. Whimsy Connor. According to the university, you just received your PhD, … and you were engaged,” he said. “Both of you went out ocean kayaking at the same time.”
Whimsy Connor—no, Dr. Whimsy Connor. That felt so right. She could feel the pride rush through her. Only to stagger to a stop, … her heart wrenching at the last bit of news. Engaged? And had her fiancé been out there with her? On the sound? She gasped. “Are you saying he might have died?”
She didn’t even know how to feel. She couldn’t picture his face; she couldn’t picture who this man was, so it was hard for her to feel grief for somebody who might have been so close to her heart. Yet something tugged at the back of her mind—a face, … brown hair, … then even that faded.
“He called the Coast Guard about you, but he was still in the water at the time, although close to shore. I imagine he’s home safe,” he said. “Look at yourself. You’ve survived something so horrific that most people wouldn’t have. But you did survive. And it’s quite possible he did too.”
She nodded. “And it was just the two of us out there in the water?”
“No, two others went out with you. But both of them made it back to shore.”
“But they didn’t report us missing?”
“No, they made it back, and they saw what they thought was the two of you getting out, so thought you were fine. As it was, one of them had a family emergency, and they flew back East.”
“And they’re home now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. The police just got back to me.”
She sighed, feeling a heaviness inside. She didn’t know where it was coming from, but it was as if the outside world was on the other side of a great big bundle of insulation. “It feels so far away,” she whispered. “So distant, as if it’s not part of this reality.”
“It isn’t right now,” he said with a smile. “It’s one of the reasons I come here. This place is surreal. You’re definitely one with nature in a way you can’t be on the mainland.”
She nodded softly. She noted that the hot tub wasn’t a commercial fabrication. “Did you build this?” she asked, seeing the smooth stones set in rings with stone seats down several feet that people could sit on and enjoy. The whole top was rimmed with what appeared to be flagstones. “It’s beautiful.”
“I did build it,” he said easily. “Along with my brother’s and my father’s help.”
She shot a look in his direction. “Are they here now?”
He shook his head. “Both of them live back East. But they come out every summer.”
“When?”
“In August. It depends on how long you’re here whether you’ll meet them,” he said in a joking manner.
Her breath washed out. “I can’t stay that long. I’m sure I have a job. Or at least friends. I must have lived some kind of a life.”
“I’m sure you did,” he said. “The question you’ll go back to is, whether that’s the life you want to continue to live.”
She stared at him in surprise, as part of her understood what he was saying, but the other part couldn’t begin to.
He smiled and stood. “I don’t want you to catch a chill out here. If you don’t think you can make it back on your own, then I’ll carry you.”
She tried to scramble to her feet. The cold air and the warmth had sapped so much of her energy. She swayed in place, and he gave a strangled exclamation, reached out and snatched her up into his arms.
Quickly they strode toward what looked like a series of A-frame buildings ahead of them. “What are those?”
“One holds the generator and other utilities. One is for overflow of guests, usually the students. One is storage.”
She looked to see how far away the hot tub was from the house. “You carried me outside from the bed? And I didn’t even wake up?”
He nodded. “You didn’t wake up because you were caught in your nightmares. In your mind, you were drowning again.”
“So how the heck did you figure to take a woman caught in a drowning nightmare and put her in water?”
At that, he laughed. “Because, when you feel your body floating, you would know you were safe and you were contained. That it was okay,” he said. “I was hoping the mind would take over and calm you down and take you out of that nightmare.”
And it had worked. “It’s amazing,” she murmured. “I would never have thought to have done that to anyone.”
He walked right through the front door, and she watched with interest as the dogs she hadn’t even seen yet today were now on either side of them. “Are they always watchdogs?”
“Except when they’re not being watchdogs,” he said in a cryptic manner.
Again she almost understood, but his mannerism was abrupt, as if he was done giving explanations for stupid people.
He set her down on the side of the bed and reached for the clothing he’d placed to one side. “Back to what I have. I don’t have anything else,” he apologized. “There isn’t any chance of getting new clothing anytime soon.”
She nodded. “Do you have a second towel for my hair?”
He disappeared.
While he was gone, she eased out of the wet T-shirt, wrapping herself in the towel once again.
He came back with the second towel, handing it to her, then bent down and picked up the soaking wet T-shirt and disappeared again.
Drying hers
elf off as well as she could, all she could think of was the fire she knew was in the next room. She dressed in the oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants, wrapped her hair in the dry towel and slowly made her way to the living room. She left a trail of water from where she’d been sitting and knew she’d have to clean it up before she forgot or ran out of energy. As she turned to look back, she realized the tile itself was white.
She knew a big mystery surrounded this room, but she didn’t have a clue what and wasn’t sure it was polite to ask. He’d been very good to her so far. The last thing she wanted was to insult him or to cross a line he didn’t want her to cross. That could change their relationship forever.
*
After wringing out as much water as he could, he hung up her T-shirt. With the wind blowing outside, it wouldn’t take long to dry. When she was finished with the first towel, he added it to the line. Then he grabbed the mop and headed back to her room and cleaned up the water on the floor. Pushing the bedcovers back, he figured the bed would dry before she needed to lie back down again.
With that cleaned up, he walked into the kitchen and put on a pot of water for tea. She had sagged into the big recliner beside the fireplace. She was a conundrum. She had no recollection of her fiancé or of her life before. The police managed to fill him in on a lot of the details. That she’d just received a doctorate in marine biology made his eyebrows go up. He’d had no idea she was even out there. And that was his field, of which he kept a close eye for up-and-coming marine biologists. He even worked closely with a lot of the universities, but apparently she’d slipped under his radar. That bothered him. His radar was extremely strong. And anybody who had her affinity to the sea life was somebody he needed to have known about a long time ago. So why hadn’t he?
With the water now boiling, he made her a cup of herbal tea, taking it to her. He placed the cup on the hearth and asked, “Are you warm enough, or do you need a blanket?”
She smiled up at him, and he realized she had tucked her arms inside the main body of the sweatshirt, so the sleeves were lying uselessly on the outside.