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 insisting she leave, she followed him up the steps and into his house. She’d just see that he was OK.
CHAPTER 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.