Chapter 7

Connor climbed out of the ATV and strode through the trees toward the entrance to Blackmouth Cave where he was supposed to meet Derek and Grace. Earlier, Derek had ordered a picnic cooler from George, the resort’s incredibly capable concierge, to be delivered to the caves at noon. Connor was still supposed to be on a hike right now, but one of his group had turned an ankle and had to be driven down to the lodge and tended to—George was also Northern Lights’ resident medical expert, which only meant he had basic first-aid training and easy access to the number for emergency helicopters. So far that had worked fine, but times like these made Connor uneasy. Eventually someone would suffer more than they should because of the delay getting professional medical help.

Since Connor had shown up at the lodge not long before noon, he’d volunteered for the picnic delivery, and to return the kayaks to Sofia at Andromeda before going back to join his group. He’d been sticking to his promise not to bother Grace, but this delivery issue was obviously beyond his control, right? Orders from the boss, after all.

Worked for him.

Over the last day and a half his brain had fixated on Grace the way a dieter fixates on all the foods he’s not supposed to eat. All those years ago she’d made a big impact on him, and apparently she still did.

He stopped outside the entrance to the cave. No sign of them here. Maybe they’d been delayed. A thousand to one odds against them arriving early and going spelunking. Derek would rather chew his own arm off than go underground. Connor would unload the picnic then go look for them down by the shore.

Back at the ATV, he unhooked the bungee cords holding the cooler in place. He had a new theory about Derek’s interest in the lovely Grace. During their most recent conversation in Derek’s office, Derek had lifted one of his eyebrows and tilted his head in the exact same way Grace did. Connor had been dumbstruck. For that one second it was as if Derek’s features had realigned to nearly match hers.

Father and daughter? Uncle and niece? Either relationship would explain a lot. Connor hadn’t had much alone time with Grace over the summer they spent farming in Colorado, but he vaguely remembered she had a very trying relationship with her nutty mom, and a stepfather she wasn’t wild about. He couldn’t remember her talking about her biological father or other male relatives.

Typical of Derek’s gruff, arrogant style to manipulate her into coming to Polaris as his best friend’s daughter, instead of just picking up the phone and talking to her directly, or showing up at her door. Gruff, arrogant style that most likely hid deep insecurity, though Connor wasn’t sure how he’d handle that situation himself. His family had been so toxic he’d been all about escaping, not trying to draw them closer. He still wasn’t talking to his father. That ship had sailed a long time ago, and he wasn’t wishing it back.

Five minutes later, with the tablecloth, utensils and plates laid out in the clearing, the cooler safely stowed in a shaded area, he headed down to the water to see if the kayaks were in sight yet. While Derek and Grace had their picnic, he’d load the boats onto the trailer behind his ATV and get them back to Sofia before returning to pick up his picnickers.

He pushed through the forest, bending a couple of longer branches out of his way, making a mental note to come back with clippers, or let the grounds crew know maintenance was necessary. Obviously the path hadn’t been used for a while.

Down at the shore, he leaped off the rock ledge, landing with a satisfying crunch on the narrow pebbly beach where Derek and Grace would land. The tide was receding. The waves in the cove were negligible, but farther out, where the water was unprotected by Polaris’s bulk, it looked as if some good whitecaps had been whipped up by a stiff wind. Derek and Grace shouldn’t get into trouble, since it was only a short paddle around the tip of the island to Blackmouth Cove, and they’d know to hug the shoreline to avoid the roughest water.

He’d settle here and wait for—

Connor’s body stiffened. He peered intently out into the sea—way out—waiting impatiently for the waves to get out of the way again. Had he seen—?

Damn it. Both of them. How long had they been in the water?

He launched himself to his feet, grabbing the radio from his belt, adrenaline racing, thoughts immediately turning to Luke, Northern Light’s boat guy, in charge of whale watches, fishing, whatever people wanted to do on the water. Luke would get to them fastest. With luck he was already out in The Guiding Star. Though it would be hell for him to be called to a rescue so soon after he lost Marianne.

“Luke. Come in.”

Three seconds went by that felt like three hours.

“I’m here.”

“Got two kayakers overturned in rough water outside Blackmouth. Derek and Grace. Don’t know how long they’ve been in.”

Luke’s anguished curse made Connor wince. Only last summer Luke’s girlfriend had died as a result of a kayaking accident. “I’m already in the boat. Be there in five.”

Thank God. He hooked the radio back on his belt and ran like hell as far as the water would let him. “Grace.”

Connor shouted her name until he realized he was being an idiot, that between the distance, wind and waves, there was no way she could hear him. But giving up felt like letting her go.

He cursed, his body shaking with the need to act now, to be the one making sure Grace, and Derek, came through this okay. Hypothermia set in fast in this water. Depending on how long ago they capsized, they could be in serious trouble.

An agony of time passed before he heard Luke’s motor, going top throttle.

All Connor could do was stand there, impotently, watching. Waiting. Praying like mad that he hadn’t alerted Luke too late, furious he’d wasted so much time setting up a freaking picnic.

Seconds later, The Guiding Star came into view, slowing as it cut toward the overturned boats. “Connor, I see them. They’re alive. Over.”

Connor’s shoulders relaxed some. Alive was good. Alive was really good. “Thanks. Let me know more as soon as you can.”

“Right.” The hoarse syllable was chilling. Marianne had been alive when Luke found her, but too far gone to save.

Seconds ticked by while Luke performed the tricky maneuver of getting the boat close to the kayaks in the surging water. Connor watched, paced to another place and watched from there, paced back, then again, back and forth, tiger in a cage.

He wanted to be the one out there rescuing her. He wanted to haul her out of that water, hold her in his arms and make the thrilling happy-ending discovery that she was going to be okay.

Connor forced the thoughts away. The situation was not about him. He didn’t need to be anyone’s hero. Who was he kidding anyway? He was hardly hero material. Most of his life he’d been barely able to manage being himself let alone assume responsibility for someone else. He was fine leaving the superman stuff to Luke, who needed this chance to succeed.

All that mattered was Grace and Derek’s rescue and recovery.

Luke expertly drew The Guiding Star to a stop in the exact place he needed to be, though agonizingly, it meant he cut off Connor’s view of the kayakers. Robby Crain, Luke’s first mate took the wheel while Luke rushed to throw a buoy to the swimmers. Several tense seconds went by before he started pulling. In another two minutes, a figure climbed slowly up and into the boat.

“Derek? He got Derek first?”

Connor told himself to calm down. Derek was older and had just been very ill. It made sense. He was probably in worse shape than Grace, and he’d made it up the ladder on his own power. That was really good news.

Luke threw the buoy again.

Connor waited, willing Grace’s head to appear as she took her turn climbing the ladder.

Come on.

Come on, Grace…

Nothing.

Luke leaned over The Guiding Star’s gunwale and put his hands to his mouth, shouting something. He shouted again, then gestured urgently and pointed. What was he pointing at? The buoy? Why couldn’t she find it?

Connor grabbed his radio frantically. He did not like this at all. “Luke. Come in. What is going on?”

Luke turned to Robby. Seconds later, The Guiding Star started swinging around.

“What is going on?”

Stupid to ask. Luke was busy. Robby was busy. The last thing they needed was his interruption. Connor knew that. He just couldn’t help himself.

Then suddenly, he could see Grace. She was swimming…away from the boat.

Connor closed his eyes and prayed harder. Swimming away from rescue probably meant she was disoriented. Disoriented meant hypothermia, not the very beginning mild stage, but a moderate case. The next stage was severe. People died from severe. Mere minutes spent in that cold water could make the difference.

The boat followed her. Luke threw the buoy again. Shouted. Shook his head. Shouted again and pointed frantically. Grace kept swimming. Away. Her strokes were shortening now, her arms flailing ineffectually at the water.

“Grace! Swim toward the boat!” Connor’s shout was utterly useless. He was utterly useless.

Luke threw on a life jacket, jumped into the water and swam, first to get the buoy, then to get Grace. In a short time he’d caught up with her, and either overpowered her or got her to cooperate, because when Robby pulled on the rope, they both moved toward the boat.

Connor blew out breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Thank God.

Luke had to help Grace up the ladder, hovering close behind her; Robby helped pull her on board. Seconds later the The Guiding Star took off at top speed back toward Aurora.

Finally, Connor could do something. During his scramble and sprint back to the ATV, he yanked up his radio once again.

“Luke, come in.”

“Here, Connor.”

“How is she—how are they?”

“Both shivering hard. He’s dazed. She’s having a tougher time.” Luke was out of breath, barely sounding like himself. “But they’re alive. They’re alive and responsive.”

Good news. But hypothermia was a tricky beast. It could progress even after rescue. They’d need to work fast.

“You did great, Luke. I’ll meet you at the dock with whatever George says we need.”

“Thanks, Connor.”

“Take care, man. George, come in.”

“I’m here, Connor.” George, the concierge, had obviously been monitoring the rescue. “Stop on your way to the dock, I’ll have blankets ready. Take off wet clothes, wrap them up and bring them back here. Don’t let them move on their own more than absolutely necessary, but don’t worry about the shivering, that’s a good sign and the best way for them to warm up. If they’re not shivering or they stop, let me know and I’ll call a helicopter.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll send golf carts down to transport them back. We’ll have rooms ready here for them to recover in. Hang in there, Luke. You did great.”

Luke cleared his throat, still breathing hard. “Thanks, man.”

“I’m on my way.” Connor jumped onto the ATV and took off for the lodge as fast as he dared, given the trailer skittering behind him. He didn’t want to waste precious time stopping to unhitch the damn thing. The Guiding Star could outpace him, but Luke had farther to travel. They should arrive at roughly the same time.

When the lodge came into view, George was outside, all six foot nine inches of him looking paler and more anxious than usual. Connor stopped just long enough for George to strap the blankets to the back of the ATV before he took off for the boat docks, briefly contacting Sofia to tell her he’d leave the trailer down on the dock for her. She thanked him, already on her way in one of the resort’s motor boats to rescue the drifting kayaks.

The Guiding Star was moored when Connor arrived, Luke’s whale-watch passengers disembarked, grouped and staring. Connor grabbed the blankets off the back of the ATV and stepped on board, heart in his throat. Derek sat with his eyes closed, mouth open, shaking as if he was in a major earthquake. Beside him, experiencing the same earthquake, eyes open and glassy, sat Grace. She was muttering to herself.

The danger signs of hypothermia. He remembered them immediately: Mumble, fumble, stumble.

“Here.” Connor shoved a blanket at Luke. “Take his clothes off, then wrap him up.”

“Oh, sure, give me the guy to strip.” Luke spoke through clenched teeth, trying to be funny, but obviously too shaken to pull it off. This had to be hell for him.

“I’ve been here longer. I’ve got seniority.” He knelt in front of Grace and tenderly touched her face, dismayed at how cold her skin was. “Hey there. We have to get you out of those wet clothes and get you dry and warm.”

She tried to focus on him. Her eyes rolled, then closed. “No. I’m warm.”

“Yeah, not really.” He unbuckled her life jacket—thank God she’d worn that. “Let’s start with this.”

“Good. I hate that.”

He threw the life jacket on the floor, relieved she wasn’t fighting him. “Now the rest.”

She mumbled something and jerked back her shaking arm.

Or maybe she was.

Connor glanced at Luke. He’d gotten Derek’s shirt off, had wrapped him and was standing him up to strip the bottom half.

“Sorry, Grace, we gotta do this.” Connor’s experience taking the clothes off women had always involved enthusiastic cooperation. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, but the job absolutely had to be done, and done as fast as possible. “Help me out, here, sweetheart.”

“Stop it.”

He tipped up her chin and met her eyes, such a beautiful blue. Then, acting from an instinct he didn’t understand, he reached up and kissed her beautiful, soft, but much too chilly lips. “Please, Grace.”

She blinked, looked at him with clear focus, just for a split second, then closed her eyes. “Yes.”

Thank God. Connor wanted to crow victory, but he had a lump of tenderness in his throat too big to allow sound. That one sweet word practically flattened him with relief.

In about a minute he had her naked and wrapped in the blanket, not wanting her damp skin exposed to the breeze for even a second.

“Better?” He hated her violent shivering, even knowing it was helping.

She grunted.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He picked her up and carried her out to one of the carts George had sent, remembering their resident medical expert’s admonition that the victims shouldn’t move. All their body’s energy needed to focus on getting warm.

Beside him, Luke and Robby had locked arms, making a seat for Derek on which they carried him to the other cart.

Connor deposited Grace gently on the seat, climbed in next to her and told the driver they were ready.

“Come here.” He pulled her legs across his lap, encircling her with his arms, hugging her to him, hoping she could pick up some of his warmth. She felt so good against him, even shivering and miserable. How did this person come to mean so much to him?

Fantasy mostly, he’d admit that. Back all those years ago she’d become his beacon of change, and he’d carried her in his heart since then as a symbol, not a real person. Now she’d been on the island for two days, during which he’d had all of one conversation with her, and look at how he’d reacted to the idea of losing her.

Crazy. And a sign that he’d better make the rest of her time here count. He wanted to get to know her now, as a real woman, strengths and weaknesses, perfections and flaws.

Back at the lodge, he reluctantly delivered Grace into George’s capable hands, every cell of his body telling him not to leave her. But he needed to check on his hikers, to make sure they were coming back down the mountain safely without him.

At the registration desk he begged another radio and hurried back to the docks to unhitch the trailer from his ATV in order to leave it for Sofia. Then he drove like a maniac back up the trail his group would be using to come home. All he wanted was to be back with Grace, reassuring himself over and over that she was recovering and going to be fine.

He found his group easily, its members cheerful and energetic, enjoying the beautiful day and the scenery. With a sigh of relief, he explained the situation and handed over a radio to the most experienced hiker in the group before turning the ATV around and heading back to the lodge.

By the time he got there and found Grace’s room, her shivering had stopped and she was halfway through her second mug of herbal tea, looking tired, but alert. George had reported that Derek was doing fine as well.

Connor sat in the chair next to her bed, unable to stop grinning. “Hey, listen, next time you want to go swimming…”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha-ha.”

“What happened?”

“I went chasing after a whale without realizing how dangerous the waves were becoming. Derek got in trouble and then I got in trouble trying to help him.” She leaned over to put her mug on the bedside table. “I think from now on I’ll stick to kayaking on lakes.”

“Sounds safer.”

“Yeah.” She lay back against the pillow and blew out a breath, closing her eyes. “What a freaking weird day this has been.”

“Not over yet.” He brushed hair from her forehead, any excuse to touch her. Her skin was substantially warmer than it had been. “There’s still time to make it better.”

“I guess.” Her eyes opened; she stared at the ceiling, looking as if she were about to cry. “It wasn’t just the accident…”

Connor’s heart ached. She’d had an emotional time. “Something else happened?”

“Yeah.” Grace turned her head toward him. How could anyone look so sad and so beautiful at the same moment? “Derek talked to me about my dad. If he was right, it looks like the stories Mom told me about him all my life were probably not true. And now Dad is gone. Before this I would have said good riddance. Now…”

“I’m sorry.” He stayed guarded, wondering how much of Derek’s talk about Grace’s father was autobiographical. If Connor’s theory was correct, she still had time to get to know him. But only if the idiot would get off his cowardly ass and tell her the truth. “I know what it feels like not to trust your parents.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Lying was what mine did. They were experts.” He’d been astonished to realize as an older child that so many other kids counted on their parents as the bedrock of their lives.

“I’m so sorry.”

He waved away her concern. “Ancient history. What else did Derek say about your dad?”

Grace sighed heavily. “Mostly that he had his problems, but that he wasn’t anywhere near the total mess my mother made him out to be.”

“People seldom are totally one thing or another.”

“True.” She ran a finger along a fold of the blue and green bedspread. “The thing is, I believed him right away. Derek, I mean. Doesn’t say much about my loyalty to my mother.”

“Maybe it means you have good instincts about people.”

“Which would mean I stayed away from my dad my whole life based on a lie. I should have known somehow, given who my mother is, and what I’ve known about her for so long.”

Her voice cracked. Connor felt like he’d been punched in the gut. What about this woman made everything she felt turn into his own pain or joy? He desperately wanted to give her hope about her father, but that was Derek’s story to tell. “You couldn’t know. You were a kid when she first told you. Kids have to trust someone. It’s how they’re built. You’re figuring it out now. That’s what’s important.”

“True.” She stared down at the bedspread for another moment, then hoisted herself so she was sitting up straighter. “Well. There’s nothing I can do about my father now. Thank you for helping rescue me today.”

“You’re welcome.” He took his cue from her, admiring how she bounced back, both from a potentially life-threatening condition, and from an emotional blow. “How are you feeling?”

“Better all the time.” She yawned—even that looked adorable on her. He wondered if she remembered that he’d kissed her, or whether she’d been too far gone. He would really like to kiss her again. “George said I should be nearly back to normal in another hour or so, and a hundred percent fine tomorrow. Which is good because I don’t want to lose any more vacation time.”

“Absolutely not.” Connor stood reluctantly, wishing he could stay and watch her sleep. “I should let you rest. You need anything?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you for checking on me, Connor.” She smiled drowsily. “And for listening.”

“I’m glad I was here when you needed to talk.” At the door he turned abruptly. After all that had happened today, the last thing he wanted to do tonight was sit in his tiny rental cottage all by himself. “Any plans for dinner?”

“Oh…” She eyed him warily. “I was just going to eat at the lodge.”

“Want some company?”

She stared down at her hands, wrinkling her forehead—apparently this was a very serious decision. “That would be nice, actually.”

He managed not to grin. “Then, actually, I will meet you there. What time?”

“Six-thirty?”

“Perfect.” He gave her a smile, which she returned shyly, left her room and strode out into the lobby in a completely different mood than when he’d come through earlier.

It wasn’t possible to fall for someone in the short amount of time he’d known Grace. Maybe the months he’d known her back in Colorado, but certainly not now. He was such a different person, it was as if that earlier time didn’t count.

But his feelings felt damn similar to those he’d had when he fell in love the first time, which also happened to be the last time. About six years ago, not long before he moved here. Kimberly Bellson. Big passion that fizzled into the cliché of “wanting different things.” Namely, she wanted a husband and permanence, while he wanted a good time in the present and not to have to worry about tomorrow or next week, and certainly not forever.

After Kimberly, he hadn’t dated any other women seriously, still clinging to his philosophy of life, living only in the here and now. With Grace, he was already anticipating every day of the next two weeks, hoping she’d come to feel the same way about him during that time.

And he was already wondering if there could be more time to steal together after that.