the little boy reaching for her hand from beneath the boat;
the woman’s face as the water threatened to pull her under.
“I’m glad you went with me tonight,” she said.
“That mother and son wouldn’t have survived without your help. I think, somehow, we were meant not to evacuate. If we had, they would be dead.”
“Whew,” Rory said with a shudder.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” His fingers touched her shoulder again, lingering there a moment, and she wanted to move closer to him to receive more.
“I thought you were incredible,” he said.
“I know you must have been afraid, since you haven’t worked as an EMT for a while, but you sure didn’t let it show. I couldn’t believe the way you just dived under that boat to get the little boy. You weren’t even thinking about yourself.
“I thought it was going to drag all of us out into the sound.”
Daria smoothed a tear away from her cheek with her fingertips, and Rory must have known she was crying, because he moved closer, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Did it remind you of… Grace’s daughter?” he asked.
“Seeing the woman go underwater like that, when she was trapped by the boat?”
It touched her deeply that he was thinking of that, that he understood so well. Lowering her face to her hands, she let the tears come.
Rory stroked her hair, letting her cry for a minute, then pulled her into his arms. She felt his warmth and strength, the seductive comfort of his embrace. They were quiet for a moment and, as her tears abated, she became aware of the pressure of his arm against the side of her breast, bare beneath the sweatshirt. The sensation was delicious and provocative, and before she had time to think, she lifted her head from his shoulder and found his mouth with her lips. She felt his surprise; for a second, his body stiffened. Then he reached between their faces with his fingers, drawing back from her to look into her eyes, to touch her lips. In a moment, he was kissing her again, this time with a fever she had not expected. Impulsively, she straddled him, catching her breath when she felt his erection, already hard, already teasing her, from beneath the layers of soft fabric that separated them. His hands stroked her back through the sweatshirt, and she was the one to pull the shirt over her head and drop it to the floor. But he needed no more invitation than that to take over—to lay her down on the sofa, finish undressing her, cover her body with heated kisses. He slipped inside her and rocked with her in the lantern-lit darkness, until her body burned and the howling of the wind was forgotten.
She lay next to him, naked, afterward, and he reached over her to lift pieces of their clothing from the floor and lay them across their bodies, rubbing her arms and back through the fabric to warm her.
Brimming with love for him, she turned her head to press her lips against the warm, quick pulse in his neck.
“Do you realize how long we’ve known each other?” Rory asked.
“I think I’ve known you longer than anyone else, outside my family.”
Daria smiled. “Who would have guessed back when we were kids, pulling crabs out of the bay, that we’d be lying here like this right now?” she said.
“I admired you back then, just like I admire you now. You were so strong and self-confident. I always felt as though I was in competition with you, even though you were younger than me. You were the best at everything. You caught more crabs, you could cast your fishing line the farthest, you could wallop anybody at volleyball and build the highest sand castle on the beach. You were something else.”
He gave her a squeeze.
“You still are.”
She felt his lips press against her temple.
“I had an agonizing crush on you back then,” she said.
Rory laughed. “You did?” he asked. “I had no idea. 7 had a crush on Chloe.”
“Chloe?” Daria repeated in astonishment.
“She was so much older than you.”
“Yeah, well, I had big dreams,” Rory said.
“And now she’s a nun.”
Daria laughed.
“I have to admit, she was never really my type,” he said.
“She was just such a… knockout. It was the yearning of an adolescent male for the best-looking girl on the beach.”
Daria was quiet, thinking that some things never changed. Rory was still attracted to the best-looking girl on the beach: Grace. But she didn’t want to think about Grace just then. Surely what Rory now knew about Grace, not to mention what had just passed between him and Daria, had changed his feelings.
Rory suddenly squeezed her tight, letting out a long sigh.
“I hope what we just did wasn’t a mistake,” he said.
The comfortable warmth she’d been feeling turned suddenly to ice. What did he mean? It was anything but a mistake to her.
