Lieutenant Stevenson was younger than his partner and clearly unimpressed. “Can you tell us what happened here this morning?”
Alec ran through the story, as the medics loaded the still figure onto the gurney with the help of two firefighters who’d also joined the scene. The group carried the man’s body up to the waiting ambulance, no easy feat in the shifting, slippery sand. Kate made her way to their group, hunched over, arms wrapped around her wet, shivering body.
Alec listened to the officers interview Paul, but his gaze remained on Kate.
“Officers,” Alec said. “Do you have a blanket? This poor woman is freezing.” She gave him a grateful look. The winds were picking up and despite the protection of his wetsuit, he was chilled. He could only imagine how cold she was in wet running clothes and bare feet.
“Maybe you should get checked out.” He eyed her as one of the officers came back from his car with a blue wool blanket.
“No, I’m fine, just c-c-cold.”
Sergeant Hatch gave his card to Alec, Kate, and the jogger, asking them to contact him if they remembered anything else that might be relevant. The two officers headed to their patrol car. Kate wrapped the blanket around her, then knelt to give Zack a quick pat.
After a brief farewell, the jogger took off down the beach.
“Kate?” She nodded and he introduced himself, “Alec Sawyer.” They shook hands.
She pushed her sopping hair out of her face. He looked down, meeting her eyes and really noticed her for the first time. Her oddly intense, almond-shaped green eyes were luminous and framed by thick black lashes. They were enormous in her pale face. His gaze lingered on her wide mouth, with its perfectly bowed lips. Lips that could give a man seriously inappropriate fantasies, if they weren’t blue from the cold. He took in her thick dripping mass of dark red hair, and did a double take when he realized how short she was.
How on earth had she managed to drag that unconscious man to the surface? A hard body she was not. His practiced eye swept over her, the thin damp blanket revealing more than it concealed. Her body was lush. All curves. She was fit, but the overall impression was shapely, not strong. Sexy, but young. He felt of twinge of discomfort. What was he doing checking her out when she was clearly both freezing cold and much too young — besides, she was not his type at all. His type — and he definitely had one — was tall, buxom, and blonde.
“My place is right up the beach. Come with me and dry off, then I’ll run you home.” He gestured toward the point.
“That’s not necessary.” She glanced down the beach making it clear to Alec she wasn’t comfortable.
“Yeah, it is. You’re freezing. Come on.” His tone brooked no argument. “Let me grab my board.”
There was no sign of the other surfboard, nor of Kate’s shoes, on the long cold walk down the beach. Kate threw the ball halfheartedly for Zack a few times, apparently lost in thought.
“So, do you think he’ll make it?” Alec finally asked, glancing at her. She looked miserable.
“He has a chance, I guess. His heart was still beating but I have no idea how long he was underwater. I didn’t see him go under. It’s not good that he didn’t regain consciousness or start breathing on his own.”
“Right.”
She looked over at him.
“I don’t even know how long it took me to get to him or how long to get back to the beach, or maybe most importantly, why he went under in the first place … ” Her shoulders slumped.
“Do you get used to that, as a nurse? Being in that kind of situation?”
“No way. It’s nothing like my job in the hospital. There’s death, of course, and in some situations, a lot of stress, so I’ve been exposed to that. I guess you get a little used to it, but I’ve never experienced anything like what we just went through.” She pulled the blanket tightly around herself. “You’re a good man to have in a crisis.”
“I was thinking the same of you. I don’t know how you dragged him up. He must outweigh you by a hundred pounds.” He still couldn’t believe it.
She shrugged. “Adrenaline. I was lucky he wore a leash and I’m so glad you were there. There’s no way I could have gotten him to shore.”
He nodded.
Concern written clearly on her face, she asked, “How do
you
feel?”
“Tired.”
She gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Me too. I worked last night.”
“You work the night shift?” he asked. “Over at Cielito Community Hospital?”
“Yep. Three times a week.”
He made a sympathetic noise. “So why are you out running instead of home sleeping?”
“It’s hard to sleep when I first get home. I think I’m still ‘up’ from my shift, you know?”
“Yeah, I’ve worked nights before. You need time to chill before you crash. Never thought about going for a run, though.”
They trailed the dog as he led them up the sandy, winding, narrow path, flanked by purple flowering ice plants until they reached the house. Alec led the way up to the flagstone patio past the hot tub, fire pit, and outdoor furniture. He propped his surfboard against the stucco house, then gestured for her to follow him. Normally he would’ve rinsed and peeled off his wetsuit in the outdoor shower, but he couldn’t do that with her there. He hosed off their feet and bent to rub the sticky sand first off his toes, then hers. She gasped and pulled her foot away.
“No?” He looked up from his crouch, eyebrows raised.
“I can get it.” He sprayed her feet while she rubbed, then he hosed off the dog. Zack shook droplets of water from his thick coat onto both of them. She laughed as the spray showered her. He left Zack to dry off on the patio and ushered her in through the glass door. She followed him through the living room into the kitchen.
“I’ll put some coffee on while you hop in the shower.” Maybe it would warm her faster. He reached and reflexively touched a rough fingertip to her bloodless cheek. She froze, green eyes widening as she met his gaze. The touch startled him and he withdrew his hand as if burned.
“I’m sorry.” What made him do that? “I was thinking you seem awfully pale and wondered if it was the cold or your coloring.” He watched, entranced as a flush crept up her neck, into her cheeks.
She ducked her head. “Probably a bit of both. Coffee sounds great.”
He led her down the hall to his guest bathroom. Handing her a bath sheet from the linen closet, he backed away.
“I can throw your stuff in the dryer if you toss it out, meantime you can wear the robe hanging on the door.”
She thanked him and he padded down the hallway to the kitchen. God. How old was she anyway? Nursing school is two years, maybe four. He rapidly calculated. Even if she’d just gotten out of school she had to be at least twenty. He groaned. Twenty. Even for him that was young.
Moments later footsteps came from the hall. He turned to find a half-naked model standing in his kitchen.
He scowled. “Trinity.” This was all he needed this morning. What was she still doing here?
“What the hell Alec? Who is she?” Trinity put her hands on her hips and glared.
He recoiled at her tone. “What?”
“The girl, Alec?” She motioned in the direction of the hall.
“Why are you still here?”
He had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she should head back to LA first thing this morning. His teeth ground together.
Their relationship, if that was even the term, had taken an unforeseen turn last night when she arrived, unexpected, uninvited, and definitely unwelcome. Theirs was a no-strings-attached affair of more than a year that had run its course. Sure, it had been mutually satisfying. He took her to parties and introduced her to people who could help her budding acting career, they had a good time in bed — and she had little to no expectations of him. Apparently something had changed on her end. He didn’t flatter himself that it was newfound emotional attachment. There was no intimacy in it for either of them.
He sighed. Despite the length of their relationship he hadn’t seen this coming. Evidently she had decided to double down on him. The fact that she made the two-hour drive from Los Angeles last night should have clued him in. He never invited girlfriends up here. Never. And today of all days. He was exhausted and had Kate in his guest bathroom.
“I’m not interested in continuing,” he gestured between them with his hand, “this.”
“That’s obvious
now
.”
He didn’t correct her mistaken impression about the woman showering in the other room. Instead, he waited silent and expressionless as she gathered her things and got dressed.
She stalked out the front door and out of his life. He rubbed a hand across his eyes.
Alec finally had everything: a good career, excellent health, and affluence, a wholly enviable life. His past was an excess of everything: drugs, parties, rock, sex, and money. At the bitter end of his music career, the drugs and alcohol had erased everything good and very nearly erased him. His downfall had been long, spectacular, and public. Sober now for nearly a decade, he was irrevocably changed and mostly for the better.
Why, then, was there this disturbing similarity in the nature of his relationships? He was thirty-eight and sex was still recreation; usually with a succession of much younger model/actresses, and one reality TV starlet. The latter a mistake of nearly catastrophic proportions — thoughts of her brought the term ‘stalker’ to mind, in a very unfunny way.
Most of the reality stars had their personal dramas exaggerated with careful editing. He suspected hers had been carefully edited to preserve the illusion of sanity. The woman was downright unbalanced. He suppressed a shudder at the memory. It hadn’t helped that her show had been wildly popular at the time and her facade of emotional stability rapidly unraveling. When he ended it, she had threatened him and his dog. Zack had to be kenneled for two weeks and the law firm added extra security.
As Alec showered, he struggled to remember the last healthy, intimate relationship he’d had with a woman. He had changed and made coffee by the time Kate met him in the kitchen, swallowed up in one of his white robes.
“I, uh … ” She was clearly uncomfortable as she glanced around.
He raised his brows, and then it dawned on him. She was looking for Trinity. She must have heard them.
“Sorry about that. She’s gone. I didn’t realize she would still be here,” he said smoothly, handing her the mug.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” She accepted the cup and blew on it.
He stared at those lips again, then gave himself a mental shake.
She glanced up. “My clothes shouldn’t take too long to dry.”
“I’ll run you home when they are.”
“So, what do you do?” she asked idly, scanning his kitchen.
“I’m in entertainment law, musicians mostly.” He studied her reaction. She seemed mildly curious. “I was a musician.”
“Here in Cielito?”
“No, the firm I work for is in Los Angeles. I do some work remotely up here and I try to get here several times a week.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you surfing.” She sat on the stool at the kitchen island and hooked an ankle over the bottom rung.
He nodded.
“Why law?”
“I’ve been asking myself that same question lately.”
She watched him with those intense eyes. “Why did you go into it in the first place?”
He thought about his motivations for a moment. It was a fair question. Perhaps he was trying to prevent people from making the same mistakes he had. Maybe it was the search for respectability after the excesses of his past. Most likely, it was because college, then law school had required so much time and energy he didn’t have much left over for anything else. Initially, that had been a key to his sobriety.
“I wanted to protect musicians from unscrupulous people. Most of the men and women who have success with their music are young and naive. They get these huge sums of money when they’ve never had money before, and you wouldn’t believe the way they mismanage it. Then there are the parasites who latch on. It’s a very ugly business.”
She nodded. “I can imagine.”
“The problem is, it’s tough to convince them to manage their earnings appropriately early on and later, when they get caught up in the dark side of the fame, it’s virtually impossible. It’s hard to watch.” He splayed out his hands and shrugged.
“It’s hard to watch people make the same mistakes you made?” she asked, softly.
“So you do recognize my name?” That surprised him. She was a little young to be a fan of Reeking Bliss.
“No. I recognize your intensity. Saving people from themselves is a tough business, isn’t it?”
He stared at her, taken aback. This was no twenty-year-old. “Where were you when I needed a career counselor?”
She grinned at him and it stopped the breath in his throat. Her smile was incandescent.
“In high school, probably.” She laughed at the expression on his face.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m guilty of the same. Nurses have a lot of experience trying to save people from their excesses.”
“How old are you?” Rudeness be damned.
She grinned. “Twenty-five.”
The dryer buzzer sounded and she retreated to put on her running gear. When she returned, he handed her a hooded sweatshirt from the hall closet and insisted she put it on, overriding her protests.
He helped her into his low-slung convertible and she directed him to her residence, a tiny guest house on a large estate. He pulled into her driveway and parked. She turned and thanked him, and was out the door and into her house in a flash. As he sat in the car, he got a whiff of whatever herbal body wash he’d left in the guest shower and something else, something he hadn’t smelled in a long time. Innocence.
“Good God.” Ava Bennett’s hand froze, a drink midway to her mouth. “Tell me everything.” She put the cup down and leaned forward.
Kate watched her friend with a smile.
“Not much to tell.” Kate repeated what had happened that morning. They were sitting on Surf Coffee’s patio, sipping Chai tea and coffee. Sunlight dappled the patio, filtering through fragrant eucalyptus leaves.
“Was he hot?” Of course that was Ava’s next question. Typical Ava.