Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor 4)

Tossing the pants aside, Jason reached for her base-layer capris. Realizing that he intended to strip her naked, Justine began to protest.

“Quiet,” Jason said roughly, pushing her hands aside. “You can’t do this by yourself.”

Her dry-top and tee were next, joining the pants in a soggy heap on the floor. Her wet bra and panties were removed efficiently. The tremors running through her limbs were so violent that she couldn’t even cover herself. Justine blinked her burning lids against a rush of tears. She felt like a miserable half-dead sea creature, like some unwanted catch that had been dragged up in a fisherman’s net.

Standing over her, Jason grasped the hem of his damp T-shirt. Justine’s eyes widened as he stripped it off in an efficient movement. He was powerfully built, all tough, defined muscle with no hint of softness. His skin was smooth and honey colored, with a dusting of dark hair trailing down from his navel and disappearing into the top of his board shorts.

Kicking off his boat shoes, Jason lay beside Justine. He pulled her na*ed torso against his and arranged quilts around them both.

“It’s the best way to warm you,” she heard him say gruffly.

Justine nodded against his shoulder to let him know that she understood.

He tightened his arms, his shoulders hunching in the effort to surround her with himself. He was inhumanly hot, or it must have seemed that way because she was half frozen. The sensation made her frantic to have more. As another attack of bone-jarring shudders went through her, she struggled to get closer.

“I’ve got you. Try to relax.” He was still breathing fast from exertion, searing strikes of air against her neck. His hair-roughened legs tangled with hers, the solid muscles of his thighs clamping to keep her still.

She wouldn’t have survived without this, his body heat feeding into her, penetrating down to the lurking coldness. He was all around her, his breath mixing with hers, his skin salty with sweat and ocean water. She could feel his pulse points, the flex of muscles, the movement of his throat when he swallowed. At some point in the near future, she was going to be humiliated by the memory of this, but at the moment, she was too desperate to care.

She was overtaken by another paroxysm of shuddering, and another, while he murmured to her, gripping her close. Gradually her skin began to prickle with the return of sensation. Her hands hurt, palms needling until her fingers opened and closed convulsively. Wordlessly Jason reached for her hands and pressed them flat against his sides.

“Sorry,” she croaked, knowing her touch was icy.

“Everything’s fine,” he said gruffly. “Relax.”

“You’re angry.”

He didn’t bother to deny it. “When I saw your kayak floating upside down—” He paused and took a short breath. “I knew that even if I managed to find you, you were going to be in bad shape.” A savage note entered his voice. “Do you know what would have happened if I’d taken a few minutes longer, you reckless idiot?”

“I wasn’t reckless,” Justine burst out. “The weather wasn’t that bad when I—” She was forced to stop as a cough tore through her salt-scoured throat.

“You were stubborn,” he insisted. “Pigheaded.”

That’s just great, coming from you, she wanted to say, but she stayed silent, her chest heaving. Every time she tried to breathe, a sob escaped.

She felt Jason’s hand pass gently over the tangled wet mass of her hair. “Don’t cry,” he said, his tone softening. “I won’t say anything else. You’ve had enough for now, poor baby. It’s all right. You’re safe.”

She struggled to hold back the humiliating tears and pushed at him.

“Let me hold you,” he said. “I’m an as**ole, but I’m warm. And you need me.” He sat up and lifted her into his lap, and wrapped the quilt around both of them. “You scared the hell out of me,” he murmured. “When I pulled you out of the water, you were only half conscious and you were turning blue.” He used a fold of the quilt to blot her wet cheeks. “If this is an example of how you look after yourself, I swear I’m going to take on the job. Because someone has to take care of you.” He rocked her as if she were a child, murmuring roughly into her hair. “Someone has to keep you safe.”

Justine’s sobs eased into sniffles. His arms were solid around her, his heartbeat strong beneath her ear. She had never felt so dependent on someone in her adult life. The surprise was that it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. The gentle rocking motion lulled her, and she wanted to sleep, but Jason kept asking questions … whether she felt cramps in her legs, and what day of the week it was, and what she remembered from being out on the ocean.

“I’m tired,” she told him at one point, her head slumped on his chest. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I know, baby. But I can’t let you sleep yet.” His lips brushed the rim of her ear. “What was your favorite toy when you were a little girl?”

A few last shivers ran through her, and his warm hands chased them. “Stuffed animal.”

“What kind?”

“A puppy. The kind with black-and-white spots.”

“Dalmation?”

Justine nodded. “I kept trying to invent spells to make him real.”

“What was his name?”

“Didn’t have one.” She licked at the film of salt on her dry lips. “I knew I couldn’t keep him. Never kept any of my toys. We moved too often. Better not to care.” She made a protesting sound as he eased her upward to a sitting position. “No—”

“Your friend is here with some tea. Lift your head. No, I’m not giving you a choice, you’re going to drink some.”

Justine opened her mouth reluctantly as he pressed the rim of the mug to her lips. She took a tentative swallow. The liquid was warm and heavily sweetened, the honey soothing her throat. She felt its progress all the way into her chest, softening the innermost chill. “Another,” Jason prompted, and she obeyed, her hands lifting to cradle the sides of the mug.

The more she drank, the warmer she felt. With startling rapidity, the temperature under the quilt blazed into a bonfire. She felt as if she’d been sunburned from head to toe. Gasping, she tried to dislodge the quilt to let some cool air inside.

“Stay still,” Jason told her.

“I’m too hot.”

“Your temperature gauge is off. You’re not warm enough by a long shot. Drink more tea and stay under the blanket.”

“For how long?”

“Until you start sweating.”

“I am sweating.” She could feel the dampness between them.

His hand swept along her na*ed thigh, resting at her hip. “I’m the one who’s sweating,” he told her. “You’re as dry as a bone.”

As Justine tried to argue, he held the mug against her lips and forced her to drink again.

After bundling Justine more firmly in his lap, Jason turned his attention to Sage and Rosemary, who had both come to occupy the chairs near the sofa. Justine could only imagine what they were making of the situation.

Sage filled the petite upholstered Queen Anne chair like a nesting hummingbird. She was diminutive and pink-cheeked, her white hair framing her face in spun-sugar waves. She beamed at Jason with sky-blue eyes, clearly one blink away from infatuation.

Rosemary’s attitude was far more equivocal. She sat in the chair matching Sage’s and stared at Jason with a narrowed gaze. Whereas Sage was adorable and apple-cheeked, Rosemary was tall, angular, regally beautiful, a lioness in her later years.

In response to their questions, Jason explained that he had taken the boat out with the charter company captain in the morning, when the weather had been overcast but still relatively calm. After a couple of hours of assessment, they had returned to the marina to go over the paperwork. By the time the charter process was completed, the storm surge had started to move in and a weather advisory had been in effect. Priscilla had called Jason before he had left the marina, to tell him that Zoë was concerned about Justine’s safety.

Justine only half listened to the conversation, feeling as if she were on the brink of heatstroke. She was roasting beneath the blanket, held firmly against Jason’s bare chest. When she finished the tea, Jason took the empty mug and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table. The movement drew a stifled gasp from her. Now that she was thawing out, the heat and proximity of him was nearly overwhelming. The thin synthetic layer of his board shorts was all that separated them, making it impossible to ignore the hard masculine contours of his body.

She was acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the blanket, the intimacy of being pressed against him. She didn’t like feeling so vulnerable. Her tense weight settled deeper into his lap, and unnerving darts of pleasure went up her spine. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t keep from squirming. Beneath the quilt, his hand clamped on her hip, holding her immobile. Steaming, trembling, she turned her face against the hot skin of his shoulder.

“Zoë called us when she saw the storm gathering,” Rosemary was saying, “and when I told her that Justine hadn’t arrived yet, we were all very worried.”

Jason explained that he had taken the Bayliner out to look for Justine, and the storm’s escalation had made what should have been a short trip into a prolonged struggle to keep the boat on course. He had eventually seen the bright yellow flash of Justine’s kayak amid the swells, and had gone to pull her out of the water.

“We can never thank you enough,” Sage told him earnestly. “Justine is like a niece to us. We would be devastated if any harm came to her.”

“So would I,” Jason said.

Justine lifted her head to look at him in surprise.

He smiled slightly and touched her face, his thumb stroking over a film of perspiration that had gathered on her cheek. “I think she’s warm enough now,” he said to Rosemary. “I’ll carry her to the bathtub, if you’ll show me the way.”

“I can walk,” Justine said.

Jason shook his head, stroking back a lock of salt-stiffened hair from her face. “I don’t want you to move any more than necessary. There can be an afterdrop with hypothermia, when your core temperature keeps going down.”

“Really, I’m—” Justine began to argue, but he ignored her, lifting her against his chest as if she weighed nothing.

“It seems you’ll be staying with us for the night, Mr. Black,” Sage said. “According to the latest report, the storm isn’t likely to end until tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry to impose on you.”

“It’s not an imposition in the least. There’s a pot of soup on the stove, and two loaves of Dark Mother bread in the oven.”

“Dark Mother?” Jason repeated with polite interest.

“A reference to Hecate. We’re nearing the autumn equinox, or what we call Mabon, which is the modern word for the celebration of—”

“Sage,” Justine protested, her voice muffled against Jason’s shoulder. “He doesn’t want to hear about that.”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Jason said to Sage. “Maybe later this afternoon?”

Sage smiled at him. “Yes, I’ll show you our harvest altar. I think it turned out especially nice this year…” Still chattering happily, Sage headed to the kitchen.

Jason followed Rosemary through the lighthouse, into the master bedroom and connecting bathroom. The storm pummeled the stalwart limestone and wood-shingled lighthouse, rain hitting the multipaned windows like the sound of marbles being dropped onto the floor. The lighthouse, having withstood a thousand squalls and tempests, creaked as it settled in patiently for a long, wet night.

“I need to make a couple of calls,” Jason said to Rosemary.

“I’ve already phoned the inn to let them know that you brought Justine here safely. You probably won’t get a cell signal out here, but you’re welcome to use our landline in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.” Jason carried Justine into the bathroom. He lowered her feet to the floor, wrapped a towel around her, and lifted the toilet lid. “The kidneys go into overdrive when you’ve been exposed to extreme cold,” he said in a pragmatic tone.

Justine gave him an affronted glance. He was right, of course. But the way he was standing there seemed to indicate an intention to remain during the process. “I’d like some privacy, please.”

To her disgruntled surprise, Jason shook his head. “Someone should stay with you in case there’s a problem.”

“I will, of course,” Rosemary said from the doorway.

“Don’t leave her alone even for a minute.”

“I don’t intend to,” the older woman replied, her dark brows drawing together. “There’s another bathroom in the lighthouse tower bedroom—you may shower there.”

“Thank you,” Jason said, “but right now I have to go back to cover the boat and pump excess water from the bilge. It may take a while.”

“No,” Justine said in concern, not wanting Jason to go out alone in the storm. He had to be tired after all he’d done, rescuing her from the ocean, carrying her up all those stairs from the dock. “You should rest first.”

“I’ll be fine.” Jason paused at the door, keeping his gaze averted from her as he continued. “After your bath, go straight to bed.”

“You’re ordering me around again,” Justine said, although her tone was wry rather than accusatory.

Jason still didn’t look at her, but she saw the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Get used to it,” he said. “Now that I’ve saved your life, I’m responsible for you.”

He left the bathroom, and Rosemary stared after the extraordinary stranger with a stunned expression.

* * *

After Justine had settled carefully into the warm comfort of the bath, Rosemary dropped an herb-filled sachet into the water. “This will help with muscle soreness,” she said. “And the tea Sage brewed for you was a special medicinal blend. You’ll be back to your usual self soon.”

“I thought she must have put something in it,” Justine said. “I felt much warmer right after I drank it.”

The other woman’s tone was gently astringent. “I suspect sharing a quilt with Mr. Black might have helped the warming process considerably.”

“Rosemary,” Justine protested with a discomfited laugh.