The Homecoming

Gingerly he started running his hands over her arms and legs, noting that she seemed slender and well-muscled. He wasn’t experienced with first aid and probably wouldn’t know a broken bone unless it was an obvious fracture, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.

She had very pretty skin, he noted with absent appreciation. Smooth and silky, but a little too cool. He shook out the blanket and carefully tucked it around her. If she was in shock, he knew it was important to keep her warm.

“Hey,” he said, reluctant to move her. He placed a hand on her upper arm, a little surprised to see how big his own hand looked in contrast. “Miss? Wake up. Talk to me, please?”

He didn’t want to move her, knew he shouldn’t turn her over. Since she seemed all right, he should go and call for help, then come back. But he hated to leave while she was unconscious. What if she woke up and there was nobody here? She could wander off in the wrong direction.

If she didn’t look at just the right angle she might not see the house high above the cliff. Even if she saw the house, she would have no notion how to get to it. And if she wasn’t fully cognizant of her situation, she might not even realize that the blanket meant someone had found her and would return.

Just then she groaned, and the sound instantly solved his dilemma. He couldn’t leave her if she was about to wake up.

She groaned again, stirring, and he placed a cautionary hand on her back when she made feeble motions as if to get up.

“Don’t try to move yet,” he said. Beneath his hand, he felt her slender frame relax. Moving his hand soothingly over her back in little circles much as he’d done with his infant son when he’d had him, he added, “I don’t know where you swam from, but there’s no sign of your boat, and you might have injuries if you slammed against the rocks on your way in.”

“I don’t think I do,” she said in a slow, puzzled voice that was pleasantly husky. “Nothing feels broken.” She was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I was in a boat?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” For the first time it occurred to him that she might not have been alone. “Can you remember if there was anyone else with you?” God, he’d better check around and make sure there wasn’t someone else lying injured and helpless down here.

She was silent. Finally, she said in a small voice, “I don’t remember.”

Giving the area a visual scan, Danny saw no other body on the rocks or shore. Why, then, had this tourist gone out on the ocean alone? Even a native would be unlikely to take a risk like that.

As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “I took boats out on the r-river all my life.” Her teeth chattered despite the warmth of the dawning day. “But the ocean’s a lot different.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “The ocean’s a lot different from a river.” He tried not to think of what could have happened to her had she not fetched up on his rocks. More than one person had gotten caught in the strong currents that ran from the Hawaiian Islands straight across the Pacific with not a speck of land for hundreds of miles. Others, without boats, had been discovered by the sharks that frequented the waters.

He was about to ask her what river she’d meant when she made another bid to get up, and this time he decided he might as well let her try. He moved back, and she rolled to her side, then came up into a sitting position with her knees drawn up. “Oh,” she said. “Dizzy.”

From this angle, he could see why. There was a large and ugly knot just above her right temple with blood still oozing from the broken skin at its center. Looking down, he saw that the rock against which her head had lain was dark with blood.

His stomach lurched. “You’ve got a pretty hefty bump on your head,” he said, trying to stay calm, though his mind was racing, wondering how much blood she’d lost. Calm down, he told himself, everybody knows head wounds bleed like crazy and look worse than they usually are. “Looks like one of those rocks reached out and smacked you on the way in.”

She probably would be pretty, he thought, cleaned up with a little color in her face. She had nice cheekbones to go with that cute little nose, and although her lips were nearly blue, they were nicely shaped and full. She had closed her eyes on sitting up and he hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of their color, but the lashes that shielded them lay across her cheeks like tiny fronds of a thickly feathered fern.

One corner of her mouth had turned up at his words, but he could see that she was swallowing and breathing deeply, probably fighting nausea.

“I’m Danny,” he said, talking just so she wouldn’t feel compelled to respond. “This island is my home. I imagine you came over from Kauai sometime late yesterday and got caught in the currents.”

“Yes. Caught in the currents.” Her voice was faint but definite from beneath the fall of thick hair that fell forward around her bent head as she raised her arms and wrapped them around her raised knees. “Pushed me toward a reef.”

“From Kauai?”

She hesitated. Her shoulders rose and fell. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.

He blinked. It was common, he’d heard, for people with head injuries to forget things temporarily. Especially things that happened right before their accidents.

“What’s your name?” he asked her, still kneeling beside her.

She raised her head cautiously, clearly testing her stomach as she opened her mouth to reply, but then an odd expression crossed her face. She automatically whipped her head around to face him, but immediately winced and dropped it back to her knees. “I— My name is— I don’t know!” She sounded both astonished and bewildered. “Just give me a minute. I’m just a little…a little…I don’t know who I am!”

Her eyes were blue. Very blue at the moment, the irises encircled by dark rings that only made them more compelling. “Okay. Relax. I’m sure it’ll come to you in a moment,” he said soothingly. “We’ll just stay here for a little while and when you feel better I’ll take you to my house.” He hoped Johnny would show up long before that since Danny was pretty sure his nameless guest wasn’t up to taking a stroll along the beach. “Can you look straight at me?” he asked as he moved around in front of her.

“Why?” But she did as he asked.

“I want to check your pupils.”

“Oh.”

They looked fine to him, and he thanked God for that. If they’d been unequal in size, he’d have known something serious was wrong.

He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. Twenty minutes to wait. Leilani would be expecting him for breakfast around seven. When he didn’t show up and wasn’t in the house by then, she would send Johnny to look for him. And since he always ran along the beach before breakfast, the first thing Johnny would do would be to come down the cliff, and Danny would be able to send him back up the hill for something resembling a stretcher. Even though he was in the best shape of his life and the woman beside him looked slender and small-boned, he knew he couldn’t carry her along the beach and up the cliff path alone.

His thoughts were distracted as she put her palms on the ground and prepared to shift her weight onto her feet.

“You probably shouldn’t move,” he said. “I have someone who can help me carry you up to the house in a few minutes.”

“I’m too big to carry,” she said, her lips curving up as if that was extraordinarily funny. “I can walk.” She pushed herself up farther and before he could prevent it, she’d stood up.

Danny stood up, too, fast. He grabbed for her when she started to slide sideways. She was oddly boneless and for a moment he thought she’d passed out as she flopped against him, her head falling into the curve of his shoulder. “Whoa,” he said.

“Sorry.” She sounded as if she’d clenched her teeth together.

“Why don’t you sit back down?” he suggested. “It’s a long walk down the beach to the stairs, and a long, steep climb up to the house. My groundskeeper will be coming this way in a little while and he’ll be able to help.”

She was taller than he’d expected, fitting neatly against his own six-foot frame. Felicia had been short. When they’d danced together, not that they’d ever danced much, he’d got a crick in his neck from looking down at her.

Pain lanced through him. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever hold a woman in his arms again. He hadn’t wanted to. All he wanted was to be left alone.

“…probably should sit down again. Everything’s sort of whirling around me as if I were on a merry-go-round. Sorry. I have this habit of thinking I have to do everything myself.”

“It’s all right.” He struggled to keep his tone level. This poor woman couldn’t even remember her own name. She didn’t need to be saddled with his problems. He lowered her to the boulder, alarmed again at the way her arms flopped down when he pulled them from around his neck.

She sat very still for a moment. “Wow,” she said. “My head is killing me. I must have met a rock headfirst.”

“As soon as we get up to the house,” he said, “I’ll call a doctor.”

“You could just drop me at the nearest hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to be a burden, and I think I probably should get my head looked at.”

He cleared his throat. “This is a private island,” he said. “There is no hospital.”

“No…? You’re kidding.” She knew better than to move her head this time. “Then how are you going to call a doctor?”

His lips quirked but she had her eyes closed again so she didn’t see his amusement. “I’ll manage.”

She couldn’t know that he was so filthy rich he could probably call an entire medical staff over if he wanted. But then the amusement fled. If he had to choose between the Crosby fortune that his father had amassed and having his wife and son back again, he’d give away every dime. He shot to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go and hurry my friend along and we’ll be back to take you up to the house.”

She was in pain, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seriously disoriented. She’d sounded pretty rational and he thought she understood.