surely one of the fishing fleet would—
His thought was lost as Matt suddenly choked in a mouthful of briny water. Only then did his brain fully process the fact that he’d tripped and gone flying into the lukewarm ocean. Spitting the grit of sand, bits of shell and God-only-knew-what-else out of his mouth, he pushed up to his knees, feeling around in the murky water for his goggles. No luck.
“Damn,” he muttered, pushing dripping hair off his forehead.
Glancing over his shoulder, he looked for the cause of his dive into the shallow surf, expecting a discarded cooler or driftwood or, more likely, one of those federally protected, lumbering, loggerhead turtles that spent the month of April plodding up to the dunes to lay eggs.
The first sliver of hazy sunshine illuminated the beach, and he felt his throat squeeze tight.
This was no turtle. It was the body of a young woman whose long blond hair swished and swayed with the movement of the ebbing surf. She appeared to be wearing some kind of evening gown.
Scanning the surrounding area, Matt grabbed her beneath the arms, dragging her up higher on the beach.
Dropping to his knees at her side, he placed his ear near her mouth. Relieved to hear a single, faint wheeze, he then checked her pulse. Untangling the mass of long blond hair from her face, he tilted her head back and alternated between mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.
When she spat out a gurgle of water, he rolled her on her side and patted her back as she coughed and sputtered water from her lungs.
Matt reached around and felt for the cell phone he kept clipped at his waistband. Flipping it open, he found himself staring at a blank screen. Sand particles crusted the keypad. His phone was state-of-the-art, but apparently not waterproof.
The woman’s lashes fluttered, but her eyes still hadn’t opened.
“Hang on, honey,” he whispered, then again glanced in both directions. He should call fire and rescue and the police. Normally he would have, but his current status as a Special Agent in Charge, on loan to the short-staffed Charleston office made that impossible without blowing his unofficial assignment—finding Janice. The next best option was to hand the woman off to someone else. Janice’s life might very well depend on it.
There were two guys a couple of hundred yards south. Too far away to be of any immediate help. Crap. He couldn’t just leave her on the beach.
She coughed again, then drew in a deep, labored breath.
“I know it hurts, but you’re breathing.”
When she lifted her right hand, Matt noticed that blood was trickling down from her palm and also that she had a goose-egg-size lump on her forehead. Straddling her, he ran his fingers along her neck and found that aside from the fact that she wore only one gold earring, there were no bulges or obvious distensions. She didn’t have a broken neck. As far as he could tell, her bloody hand was her most serious injury. Matt reached for the hem of her gown and gave a rough tug. The fabric tore easily. Though wet and sandy, as a temporary bandage for her hand it would have to do.
Spotting movement in his peripheral vision, Matt managed to shift enough to avoid the sand she flung at his face.
Though she couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds—wet gown included—she heaved him off her and began clawing her way toward the dunes.
He probably should have let her go. She had, after all, just ungratefully tossed him on his ass. Yep, he should just let her go on her merry way. Except that she’d nearly drowned, had a lump on her head and her hand was dripping a trail of blood onto the sand.
That, and he didn’t believe in coincidences. What were the chances of Janice being missing at sea and this woman rolling in with the high tide?
Realizing she might be his only lead, Matt let out an exasperated breath and went after her. Snaking his hand around her small waist, he lifted her off the ground. She flailed against him but she didn’t scream. Odd.
“Stop kicking,” he said between gritted teeth, squeezing her more tightly against his chest.
“Let go. You’re hurting me.”
Matt loosened his grip but didn’t release her. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to help you. You’re bleeding.”
She stilled as he lifted her wrist and raised her hand toward her face. He heard a little breath catch in her throat.
Carefully, he reached down, hooking his hand behind her knees and lifted her into his arms. “We need to get you to a hospital. You prob—”
“No, no hospitals.” Her eyes were a rich, dark blue and there was more than panic there. Matt saw a deep fear. Of what? Or who?
“My cell’s useless,” he told her softly, “but there’s a pay phone in the parking lot.” He shifted her higher in his arms as he navigated the sand. “You can call a friend.”
“Pretty gallant of you given that a minute ago you were ripping off my dress,” she said as she jammed an elbow into his rib cage.
Air bellowed from his lungs. “Rip your…geez, lady! I needed something to wrap around your hand to stop the bleeding.”
Confusion knitted her brows. “You weren’t…?”
He glared down at her. “No, I wasn’t. Call me picky, but I prefer a willing, responsive partner to a bleeding, semi-conscious one. You have to get some medical attention for that hand.”
He watched as her full lips drew into a grimace as she unwound the bandage and surveyed the gash in her palm. “It doesn’t look good, does it?”
Matt reached the parking lot and carried her to his Jeep. Setting her down, he leaned her against the car while he opened the passenger’s door. “Who do you want me to call?”
“Call?”
It was a struggle to keep from rolling his eyes. “Either give me a name and a number or I’m taking you to the nearest emergency room.”
“I told you, no hospitals.”
“That wound isn’t going to heal on its own.” Irritation ratcheted up a notch or two. “No emergency contact number, fine. No hospital? Fine, too. Get in. I’ll take you to the closest urgent-care facility. We’ll make better time if I just drive you. There’s a place off Calhoun Street. We can be there in twenty minutes or less. Or, Roper Hospital isn’t that far. We can—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head so vehemently that water splattered everywhere. “I can’t—”
“—ignore that gash.”
Matt knew wounds and the long, diagonal injury to her hand was a defensive knife wound. Who had she been defending herself against and why?
“I won’t ignore it. Thank you for your help.”
The fact that she averted her eyes as she attempted to dismiss him didn’t go unnoticed. Nor did the ridiculousness of her remark. She was still bleeding profusely, so he opted for a different tack.
He knew his own motivation for not drawing the attention of the local authorities. What he couldn’t fathom was why a woman who’d obviously been in some sort of altercation, obviously jumped or been thrown into the ocean, was so resistant to going through normal channels. Seriously strange behavior.
Tugging his T-shirt over his head, he ripped off a strip of damp cotton and created a second makeshift pressure bandage.
“Thank you.” She kept her elbow bent and her hand above her heart and then took a wobbly step away from the car.
Matt grabbed her by the shoulders, steadying her and preventing her from wandering off. “You should see a doctor,” he reiterated.
“It’s not bleeding as much,” she said, lifting her hand in front of his face.
Maybe