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Sand filled her mouth. Blackness alternated with bouts of dizzying misery. Someone was touching her, issuing commands that she could barely hear. Fingers tore into her hair. The rain washed around her face like a bucket of cold water, taking with it the salt and sand. Then it was suddenly gone, and something was above her face, shielding her from the onslaught. Her throat was forced back. She opened her eyes, and for a moment she thought that either she had died or the rain had ceased, for all she saw was a glittering crystal blue.
    Then there was warmth and force against her mouth. Air shot into her lungs, and she was fighting the thing above her because she was going to choke again with the goodness of it. She was breathing again and she hadn’t been!
    Her eyes opened, and a semblance of reason returned to her. Through the pelting rain she saw a face. A handsome face, dripping with rain, dominated by shocking blue eyes. David Lane. The man who had sent her to the shore; whose image had made her so bleak that she had noted neither the encroaching sea nor the storm. She was crushed against his chest, and he was hunched low around her to fight the wind. She couldn’t move; not against the strength of his arms and not against the chattering numbness that enveloped her.
    But she did see something in his face. Irritation, anger. That ever-present scorn. He was annoyed that he’d felt obliged to save her! she thought with amazement.
    She would have never needed saving if it hadn’t been for him, she thought in a moment of near hysteria.
    His eyes fell on her open ones as the rain stopped beating against them when they reached the porch to the beach house.
    “I hate you!” she whispered.
    She saw his face tighten furiously, and that was all. A lid seemed to close over her with the slamming of the door. She pitched into a dreamless void where pain and cold were gone, as was all else.
    David frowned, worried. He’d taken lifesaving along with sailing classes, and he knew CPR. Things had gone pretty smoothly. He’d managed to get the water out of her and air back into her.
    But what the hell did he do now? She had opened her eyes, she was breathing, and her pulse was steady. But her body felt as cold as ice.
    He muttered a soft oath and carried her with him into his father’s study, certain that the best thing to do would be to get some professional help on the phone. Cradling her against him, he dialed the emergency number and was glad to get Jerry Tyler, an old friend from way back, on the phone. Even as Jerry efficiently asked for a description of the situation, David marveled that the village was so small that everyone in the whole town really did know one another.
    “Jerry, this is David Lane. I’m at the beach house. I just dragged Susan Anderson out of the water—”
    “Is she alive?” Jerry asked anxiously, then remembered that he was supposed to be the calm expert. “Is she breathing on her own—?”
    “She’s breathing fine and her pulse is steady, but she’s passed out on me and she’s as cold as ice. Shouldn’t I get her to a hospital or something?”
    “You can’t get her to a hospital; Bay Road washed out about fifteen minutes ago. Thank God she’s breathing! I couldn’t even get a helicopter to you right now—the wind is too fierce.”
    “Well, what the hell do I do?”
    “Get her warm. Keep her from going into shock. Try to get some brandy into her. What was she doing out in this weather, anyway?”
    “I don’t know—”
    “She swims like a fish,” Jerry muttered. “And she’s no fool about the water.”
    “I imagine that her mind was occupied and the storm took her by surprise,” David said ruefully. “Oh, hell! Are you sure that road’s out?”
    “Positive. Get her warmed up, then call me back.”
    David carefully extracted the receiver from the crook between his shoulder and ear and hung it up. Get her warm, Jerry had said. That made sense; her lips were turning blue.
    He