“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, shaking the hair out of his eyes. “You could have drowned!” And then, as an afterthought, “Are you okay?”
Of course she was not okay. She was damned certain she would never be even remotely okay again.
“Let’s get you inside.” He was still holding on to her, and he helped her past a pair of boots thrown haphazardly on the grass, then up the overgrown sandy path toward the house.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He eyed her up and down. “Austin Dern.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “And you’re Ava Garrison? You own this place?”
“Part of it.” She tried to wring the cold salt water from her hair, but it was impossible.
“Most of it.” His eyes narrowed on her as she shivered. “And you don’t know who I am?”
“Not a clue.” Even in her state of shock, the man irritated her.
He muttered something under his breath, then said, “Well, now, isn’t that something? You hired me. Just last week.” He was pushing her toward the house.
“Me?” Oh, God, how bad was her memory? Sometimes it seemed as thin and fragile as a cheesecloth. But not about this. Shaking her head, feeling the cold water drip down her back, she said, “I don’t think so.” She would have remembered him. She was sure of it.
“Actually it was your husband.”
Oh. Wyatt. “I guess he forgot to tell me.”
“Yeah?” His gaze skated over her bedraggled, freezing form, and for a second, she wondered just how sheer her sodden nightgown was.
“By the way, you’re welcome.” He didn’t so much as crack a smile. Though darkness was settling over the island, she saw his features, set and grim. Deep-set eyes, their color undetermined in the coming night; square, beard-shadowed jaw; blade-thin lips; and a nose that wasn’t quite straight. His hair was as dark as the night, somewhere between a deep brown and black. They trudged together toward the behemoth three-storied manor.
On the back porch, the screen door flew open, then banged shut behind a woman running from the house. “Ava? Oh, God, what happened?” Khloe demanded, her face a mask of concern as it caught in the porch light. She sprinted past the garden and jumped over a small hedge of boxwoods to grab Ava as the stranger released his grip on her body. “Oh my God, you’re soaking wet!” Khloe was shaking her head, and her expression was caught somewhere between pity and fear. “What the hell were you doing ... oh, don’t even say it. I know.” She held Ava close and didn’t seem to care that her jeans and sweater were soaking up the water from her friend’s nightgown. “You have to stop this, Ava. You have to.” Glancing up at the stranger, she added to Ava, “Come on, let’s get you into the house.” Then to Dern, “You too. Dear God, you’re both soaked to the bone!”
Khloe and Dern both tried to
help her up the path, but she shook them both off, startling Virginia’s black cat, Mr. T, who had been hiding behind a withering rhododendron. With a hiss, the cat slid into a crawl space under the porch just as Ava’s cousin, Jacob, came running from his burrow of an apartment in the basement of the old house.
Some of her old pluck began returning. She was tired of playing the victim, bored with the pitying stares and the knowing glances shared between others as if to say, Poor, poor thing. So they thought she was crazy.
Big deal.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t questioned her sanity herself, just minutes ago, and yet everyone’s concern was really beginning to get under her skin.
“What happened?” Jacob demanded. His glasses were off-kilter and his reddish hair mussed, as if he’d been asleep.
Ignoring him and everyone else, Ava clambered up the stairs, dripping, her nightgown sucked tight to her body. She didn’t give a damn what they thought. She knew she’d seen Noah, and no matter what Khloe or her cowboyesque savior or even the damned shrink Ms. Evelyn McPherson thought, she wasn’t insane. Had never been. Wasn’t ready for the loony bin.
“Let me help you,” Khloe said, but Ava was having none of it.
“I’m fine.”
“You just jumped into the ocean, Ava! You are definitely not anywhere close to fine.”
“Just leave me alone, Khloe.”
Khloe glanced at Dern, then backed up, lifting her hands, palms out. “Ooookay.”
“No need to be melodramatic,” Ava muttered.
“Oh, yeah. I’m the drama queen!” Khloe sighed heavily.
“Just for the record, who was it who flung herself into the bay a few minutes ago?”