Authors: Jess Dee
“Is this what you do when you don’t get the results you’re hoping for in your research? When you don’t find an agent that will work effectively in chemotherapy? Do you just give up and stop looking?”
“Of course not. We use different methods or try other agents. We’d never stop looking.”
“Then might I suggest you try another method with Charlie?”
Sarah stilled, her senses suddenly on hyper alert. Something about the glint in Sam’s eye made her perk up and pay attention. “Just what other method would you suggest, Dr. Sherman?”
Chapter Seven
Sarah eyed the weak morning light warily, grateful Charlie was on dawn patrol. Any later in the day and the sun would scald her pale skin. Even if she were to slap SPF 30 all over her shoulders, she’d probably still break out in a whole batch of freckles.
Clutching Sam’s surfboard to her bikini-clad body, she walked towards the water’s edge and let the surf wash over her toes. A rush of uncertainty hit her. The plan had seemed so simple last night—get out on the water this morning so Charlie could see she was trying to fit in with his lifestyle. Trying to be more like him. That was all she needed to do. But now she began to doubt herself.
Sarah was under no illusion she could
ever
be like Charlie. Not when it came to surfing. She was as useless on a board as Charlie was with DNA sequencing. But if Charlie thought he needed someone more like him—just like he thought she needed someone more like herself—then God help her, she was going to be more like him.
A shudder jolted through her. The water was freezing. No wonder most everyone on the beach wore wetsuits. But then Sarah had never before considered taking a surfboard into the ocean at six a.m., so she didn’t happen to have a wetsuit hanging around, handily waiting for the opportunity.
Sam had offered her his, but he was a half a foot taller and a football field wider than her, so there wasn’t a chance it would fit. She almost wished Sam were here now, instructing her on what steps to take next. Sarah didn’t have the first clue what to do with the board. But if Sam were here, Charlie would instantly believe his matchmaking efforts had been successful, and her whole reason for this exercise would be nullified.
Sarah’s entire plan hinged on the fact that Sam was right, and Charlie did in fact love her. If he didn’t, if he truly was serious about setting her up with another man, then Sarah might find herself very rejected and very red-faced in the next few minutes.
It was a scenario she dreaded so much, a wave of nausea rolled through her, almost making her turn around and run home.
But if Charlie
was
in love with her, then the cold water and the early morning would be totally worth it. And as far as Sarah was concerned, being with Charlie was worth any amount of discomfort and difficulty.
How hard could this be anyway? All she had to do was paddle out to where the waves were rising and find Charlie. As Sam had pointed out, she didn’t actually need to surf. Didn’t have to get up on the board. She just needed to stay afloat until she located him.
Then
she could join him in his world and become more like him. Hey, maybe once she was out there, Charlie could give her a few tips. Could teach her how to stand on the board.
If Charlie wanted to see her.
She edged her way in until water swirled around her knees. Her nipples beaded into sharp points and goose bumps covered her flesh. But the cold was less intimidating than the waves forming up ahead. Cold she could deal with. Ten footers and massive breakers she couldn’t.
She laughed at her foolishness. The waves were probably no bigger today than usual. It was just peeking at them from around the surfboard she now clutched to her chest that made them appear insurmountable.
She scanned the hordes of surfers in the water, trying to pick out that one familiar, beautiful face. But with the rising sun forming a golden halo behind them, she couldn’t make out more than human shapes on boards. Hopefully the shapes would become clearer the closer she got to them.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she plopped the board on the water and waded in deeper.
Now or never.
She grabbed the front of the board with both hands and dived on top of it.
The water hit her like a deluge of melting ice, the cold so astonishing she let go of the board, lost her balance and tumbled over it sideways, landing unceremoniously in the shallow water.
The chill took her breath.
She jumped up, spluttering, just in time for a wave to knock her back, and over she went again.
Less than a minute in the water, just a couple of meters from shore, and already she was fumbling and stumbling like an idiot.
Surfing was so not her thing.
She felt like a grade-A klutz. Even though she’d swum in the ocean a million times before, she’d never done it at dawn, never when she was this cold and never with a surfboard attached to her ankle.
Then there was the whole coordination business. How the heck did Charlie go from lying to standing in one fluid movement? It seemed, in a word, impossible. Surely the fifteen years spent determining the human genome had been less complicated than mastering one wave?
She longed for the safety of her lab, for the warmth of her white coat and for the encouraging comments from her colleagues. All she got was a mouthful of salty water.
At least she could swim, she consoled herself. Which made drowning only a very small possibility—especially if she had the board to hold on to.
With renewed determination, and a cause worth fighting for, Sarah found her feet, jumping up to avoid disaster as another wave tumbled around her on its way to the beach.
Before the next breaker could knock her over, she steadied the board and slid onto it, using more finesse than she had before. This time, much to her surprise and delight, she managed to stay afloat.
Sarah sized up each wave as it approached. She cut through a couple, paddling as hard as she could, and crested others, gliding harmlessly over them.
Her heart beat like the devil, and she didn’t dare take her gaze off the approaching surf. Her only saving grace was her body’s ability to acclimatize to the cold. Now instead of frostbite setting in, she imagined there were only a few icicles hanging from her fingers, nose and toes. But at least her heart still pumped, and her arms and legs worked.
Breathing twice as hard as usual, she crested a wave, eluding its fury as it broke behind her.
A cloud must have shadowed the sun, letting Sarah make out more than sunlit silhouettes in the distance. She could now see colors and faces as well. And though she didn’t spot Charlie, she clearly saw three people wearing his Bondi Surf rash shirts over their wetsuits.
Bingo!
She steeled her shoulders and made her move, paddling towards an approaching wave. If she could reach it before it broke and float over it, she’d be fine—and almost at her target.
She couldn’t.
A shout pierced the air just as the wave broke—a good few seconds before she’d estimated it would, taking her unprepared. Billions of liters of water smashed over her head and body, tossing her clean off the board and dumping her into a raging swirl of whitewater.
The ocean threw her around like a leaf in a whirlpool, sucking her down, tumbling her about. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t determine up from down. Her world was white and black and wet and out of control. Air bubbles massed around her.
Panic hit her with more force than the water. She was going to die. Going to drown beneath the very wave she’d attempted to crest. Going to—
Sarah slammed into a brick wall.
As fast as she’d spun through the vortex of swirling water, so she came to a shocking halt.
Too stunned to move, she simply gave herself over to the forces of nature and sank.
Only she wasn’t sinking. She was moving upward, out of the water. Not moving by herself. She was being pulled, yanked by both hands, and then both arms. And then her head was out of the water, and she would have breathed, would have filled her lungs with much needed air, but her chest must have died before her brain stopped working, because no matter how damn hard she tried, she just couldn’t get a morsel of oxygen in.
She let her head drop to the side and waited for the darkness to descend. Waited for her brain to follow in the path of her lungs. How long did it take for the brain to shut down due to oxygen deprivation? Four minutes? More? How much time had already elapsed?
“Breathe, beautiful. You can do it. Just relax and stop trying so hard. It’ll come.”
Strong arms wrapped around her, lifted her, and she opened her eyes.
Okay, not dead yet, but obviously close, since she was hallucinating that the arms wrapped around her were Charlie’s, and he was carrying her out of the water, his blue eyes looking down at her, his lips moving as he spoke.
Not a bad way to go when all was said and done. She’d rather die in Charlie’s arms than anyone else’s. Even if this Charlie was a mere figment of her oxygen-deprived imagination.
“One breath in, one breath out.”
Lord, he was beautiful. Angelic-looking.
Ah, maybe he was an angel. The angel of death, come to take her away.
“Breathe, Sar. Slow and easy.”
She loved his eyes. Always had. Loved how much bluer they looked now with water beading on his long, dark eyelashes.
“Inhale. Now.”
His voice was so commanding, so authoritative, Sarah could do nothing but obey. She breathed in, and as oxygen rushed through her airways she began to cough. And cough and cough and cough, her diaphragm screaming against the air that raced through the pool of water she must have inhaled while caught in the eddy.
He held her through it. Didn’t let her go even when the savage spasms began to subside. Didn’t let her go as her breaths turned from absent to ragged. And he held her as finally that breath evened out and it no longer hurt quite so much to inhale or exhale.
He held her, as exhausted, Sarah let her head fall limply to his chest, and he first knelt and then sat on the firm sand of the beach, taking her with him. When she was safely settled on his lap, he reached over and ripped the leash from around her ankle. He ripped off his leggy too, leaving both of them free of their surfboards.
And then both arms were around her again, cradling her to his chest, warming her, and Sarah simply let him hold her.
After all, wasn’t this exactly what she’d aimed for when she’d taken the surfboard out in the first place? To ultimately be back in Charlie’s arms?
Just because the method had gotten all screwed up and she’d almost drowned herself in the process, it didn’t mean she hadn’t succeeded, did it?
“Christ, Sar. What were you doing out there? What were you thinking?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but her throat was too raw from the seawater to be of any good. Which was probably just fine by Charlie since he didn’t stop to listen to her reply anyway. He just held her and carried on talking.
“I couldn’t believe when I saw you out there. Couldn’t fathom what you were doing with a board.” He shook his head, which Sarah felt rather than saw because her own head was cupped firmly against his shoulder and he wasn’t letting it go anytime soon. “You can’t just go out and surf. Can’t just tackle a wave when you have no idea what you’re doing. Jesus, and that wave? Are you fucking kidding me? You had to choose a day when the water’s messy like this? The sea’s gnarly. No good for a kook, goddamn it.”
He lost her at
kook
, but Sarah didn’t mind. She just let him talk. Let his voice drift over her as she snuggled in closer and lost herself to the rhythm of her breathing and his. Wetsuit or not, Charlie felt like a million bucks all wrapped around her. Sure, she’d have preferred his bare skin to the neoprene, but she wasn’t too fussed now. Not when she had as much oxygen as she needed. Not when all this lovely air was swirling around her, heady in its abundance. Not when Charlie held her so tight.
Her panic abated.
“Char?” Her voice worked—even if it sounded as scratchy as her throat felt.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“I didn’t save you. You were never at any risk. You would have hit shore seconds after I got to you.”
“You saved me,” she told him. “Whether you want to acknowledge it or not. And I love you for that.”
Charlie froze.
“And…I think you saved me because you love me.”
He remained frozen.
Sarah didn’t mind. Not really. Not when he froze with her in his arms. “In fact, I think you’ve loved me all along, even while you were trying to foist me off on other men.” She turned her cheek and pressed her lips to his neck. “Dr. Sam’s nice, by the way. I really liked him. Thanks for introducing us.”
Every muscle in Charlie’s body turned rigid, and Sarah smiled against his throat.
“We hit it off immediately. Spoke for hours. I can’t wait to see him again.”
Charlie made a noise deep in his throat, something that sounded like a repressed growl.
“I told him you thought he was the perfect guy for me. The one. He smiled when I did.” Unable to resist, she let her tongue sneak out between her lips and dabbed at the spot she’d just kissed.