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onto the paddle in a desperate lunge. With his dead weight suddenly attached to one end, it was all she could do to retain her grip on the other. She thanked God for the nonslip material of her waterproof gloves, and for the doughnutlike design of the end of the paddle, which created a hole into which she managed to hook her fingers. Icy spray broke over them both as the waves hit, and the boat was caught up again and hurled skyward.
    “Hang on,” she yelled as a haze of blowing seawater obscured everything except the wave that rose like a mountain beneath them. It was the biggest one yet, a roaring monster, and with the motor in neutral they were no more than a scrap of debris caught up by it. Gina’s face was so wet and cold by this time that she could feel it freezing in the wind, and her fingers started to cramp from the force of her grip on the paddle. She felt as if her arms and shoulders were being wrenched apart as she held grimly on to both the paddle and the seat. Her mouth went dry with fear for him, but he managed to hang on while the boat climbed and plunged with the wave.
    “Now,” she screamed when the boat leveled out.
    They had only a moment or two of relative calm before another series of waves hit. Letting go of the seat, she braced her feet against the side nearest him, and held on to the paddle with both hands and every bit of strength she possessed as he put what felt like a thousand pounds of force on the other end.
    His head shot into view as he levered himself partway out of the water. Then the pressure lessened suddenly, and Gina exhaled with relief as he hooked a hand over the side of the boat.

    “CAN YOU climb in?” she shouted. Suddenly the top half of his drenched, haggard face came into view. He was maybe midthirties, she saw. His brows were thick, straight black slashes above dark eyes that were narrowed to slits. Their eyes met for an instant through the flying droplets of water that warned of yet another approaching wave, and she saw grim determination in his.
    “Get out of the way,” he growled. The words were uttered in a thick, hoarse voice that she could barely hear over the roar of their surroundings. They were accompanied by a flexing of the muscles of his shoulders and arms that was a warning in and of itself. She got out of the way, scooting backward while still retaining her precautionary hold on the seat. He seemed to explode out of the water, landing across the fat sausage rolls in a mighty dive that sent the opposite side of the boat flying upward.
    Squeaking with alarm, Gina threw herself back toward the rising edge. Hooking both arms outward over the rolls, she flattened her back against the inflated tubes, hoping to counteract his weight with her own. With a groan he heaved himself inside the boat. The impact of his body hitting the deck was enough to make the precariously tilting side drop back down toward the water.
    Heart thudding, Gina unhooked her arms from the sides and let her head slump forward in relief.
    He shifted onto his back beside her, stabilizing the boat still more, and started coughing and wheezing like he’d swallowed half the ocean. His eyes were squeezed shut, his hands rested palms down on his chest, and his legs were bent at the knee. He’d lost his shoes. His feet, in drenched black socks, were long and wide. Water poured off him in streams, adding to the puddle in the bottom of the boat. His skin was leached of all normal color. Even half-drowned and frozen as he was, though, Gina couldn’t help but notice that he was way handsome in a rough-hewn, ex–prize fighter kind of way: broad cheekbones, square jaw, with a meaty, slightly crooked nose and a well-shaped mouth turned blue with cold. A shadow of stubble darkened his cheeks and chin: from the looks of it he’d shaved sometime within the last twenty-four hours. He was big enough that he took up almost the entire deck, and obviously fit, with broad shoulders and a wide chest above a flat