the biting cold, and a fatigue that went bone-deep, the going would have been easy, as the waves practically carried them back to shore.
Sonny lay there several minutes, red-faced, chest heaving, before the chills started. Carly quietly vomited seawater beside her, a good sign, in that the girl was both alive and purging her body of a substance it was better off without.
By the time the paramedics arrived, both of them were more in need of a hot bath and warm clothes than medical attention. This was California, not Antarctica. A five-minute dunk in 50-degree water was uncomfortable, not life-threatening.
Sonny was grateful for the rescue blanket the paramedics offered her, because she was cold and wet. Not having had the opportunity to retrieve her jeans, she was also naked but for a bra and panties. While she stood there shivering, Ben Fortune stormed the beach parking lot like a militant paratrooper, barefoot, like she was, but dressed in dry jeans and a soft-looking T-shirt that she envied.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asked of no one in particular.
Carly was in the back of the ambulance, huddled under a blanket, having her blood pressure taken. “Dad?”
Her voice sounded so raw that Sonny reevaluated the girl’s motives for a late-night romp. Perhaps this had been a suicide attempt.
Carly let the blanket slip from her shoulders and threw herself into Ben’s arms, the blood pressure gauge hanging loose, forgotten. Under the light of the street lamp, and the fluorescent glow from the back of the ambulance, his handsome face looked pale and his dark eyes hollow. He accepted the embrace woodenly, the way fathers did with daughters they no longer recognized nor understood.
Sonny’s heart broke for both of them because they made a hug look as awkward as it could be.
“What happened?” he asked, his demeanor changing from bewildered to scolding in a split second. Sonny wanted to groan aloud at the uncanny ability of the male species to ruin a tender moment. “Do you have any idea what went through my mind? When the police called I thought you were-”
It wasn’t her place to, but Sonny stepped in. “She’s fine,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. His gaze cut to hers and the corner of his lip curled up, as if he couldn’t fathom why a strange woman would not only interrupt him but deign to
Sonny removed her hand, although his shoulder was warm and masculine and felt very nice, because she was afraid of losing it.
Carly came to her defense. “She rescued me, Dad. I fell in the water.”
He looked from one wet, bedraggled female to the other. “You
Sonny had to hand it to him: even in a crisis situation he was savvy enough to question the incongruity of that statement. Windansea Beach had some jumbo rocks, but it was a flat stretch of land, not exactly the cliffs of Dover.
“Okay, so I jumped in, but there was a rip current, and it took me out…” As she trailed off, her lower lip trembled.
If it was an act, it was a damned good one. Ben seemed to forget about Sonny’s presence entirely. “Why?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know.”
He pulled her head to his chest and held her there, murmuring words of comfort and stroking her wet hair. The action was so rare to her that Sonny stared at them in wonder, awestruck by the simple gesture. She’d had a rough childhood, a worse adolescence, and in response to that, an often lonely adult life, over the course of which never had another person touched her so compassionately.
Over the top of Carly’s head, his eyes met hers. “I am indebted to you,” he said, his gaze raking down her body, making her more aware than ever she was barefoot and nearly naked underneath the blanket.
Sonny only shook her head, for her throat was closed, and she was unable to speak.
“Where are your clothes?” he asked.
She scanned the dark expanse of sea and sand. “On the beach somewhere,” she said, finding her voice. “I took them off before I went in after her.”
He nodded. A man who spent as much time as he did in the water knew how dangerous, and restrictive, wet clothing could be.
The paramedics donated the blanket and left to take another emergency call, finding nothing wrong, physically, with Carly Fortune. Sonny had refused treatment, so their asses were covered.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Around here,” she said vaguely.
“How far?” he pressed.
“A mile,” she lied, not meeting his eyes. He was very intense close-up, and although she was an expert manipulator, the situation unsettled her.
He unsettled her.
“We live right here,” he said, indicating the back door with a jerk of his head. “The least I can do is invite you in to warm up.”
She shrugged her assent, teeth chattering, and followed them up the stone steps, staring at his back as he held his daughter close. They passed through an unlocked gate, walked across a dark patio, and stepped over the threshold into the kitchen.
Just like that, Sonny was in.
Surrounded by the comforts of her own home, Carly reverted back into a normal teenaged girl-prickly, insensitive, and self-absorbed. “I’ve
“Carly,” Ben called after her, “why don’t you bring something for, uh”-he didn’t know Sonny’s name, and she didn’t offer it-“her to wear?”
At the top of the steps, Carly’s pretty face puckered. “She won’t fit into anything of mine,” she said, studying Sonny’s blanket-clad form with a critical eye. “You get her something.” With that, she tossed her wet mane over her shoulder and flounced away.
Ben wore a pained expression. “Sorry,” he said. “She’s-” He broke off, finding no words to describe his daughter’s disposition.
“It’s fine,” Sonny replied, admiring the interior of the house. The living room was spacious, inviting, and blessedly warm. A couple of overstuffed chairs and a leather couch faced a fireplace rather than a television set, and a live Christmas tree was set up in one corner, bedecked with a ragtag collection of ornaments that had obviously been made by a child.
Her heart melted at the sight.
“I like your tree,” she said. “No one puts up lights around here anymore. I’d forgotten it was Christmas.”
“We’re all environmentalists,” he explained. “Conserving energy.”
“Is that it? I was afraid that acknowledging the change of seasons, in such a warm climate, had become passe.”
He arched a brow. “Where are you from?”
“Out of town,” she said, looking away. A fire crackled in the hearth. Sonny wanted to crawl inside it and curl up there to sleep, to stare into its depths until it reached out to eat her, to open up her blanket and let the flames lick at her body.
“You’re too small to wear my clothes,” he said with a frown. “But I suppose I can find you something.”
And then he left her there, standing by the fire.
She felt a strange lassitude, a reluctance to benefit from this emotionally charged circumstance, and a disdain for the inherent ugliness of undercover work. Ben Fortune’s love for his daughter was genuine and his gratitude was sincere. Sonny Vasquez would have accepted his thanks and walked away. Summer Moore was obligated to milk it for all it was worth.
He returned with a couple of neat, folded items. “These are mine. Carly may have been right about her clothes not fitting you. I don’t understand how she fits into some of them herself.” He shrugged, smiling, immensely appealing as a clueless single dad.
Her stomach fluttered in awareness.
