He let out a whoop, the sound high-pitched and startling. It was followed by a heavy thud.
She looked back and got sandblasted in the face by snow mixed with sleet for her trouble. Swiping a hand across her face to get rid of the snow and then shielding her eyes as she tried to make out what had happened, she saw that he was sprawled flat on his face in the wet, grainy sand. Clearly he’d tried to get out of the boat and fallen.
Grimacing, she looked beyond him. Black and ominous, already halfway across the bay, the bulk of the storm hurtled toward them. The wind was now strong enough to pick up small rocks and send them flying across the beach. The waves crashing against the shore and sending spray flying skyward were huge. Even as she watched, the boat was caught up by the rising tide and pulled into the surf. A receding wave whirled it away.
He lay unmoving, inches from the surging foam.
Indecision rooted her to the spot.
If she left him where he was, he would die. If he didn’t get pulled into the surf like the boat and drown, the storm surge would get him. If nothing else, he’d certainly die of exposure.
Damn it to hell.
Muttering every curse word she knew, Gina ran back toward the stranger’s prone form.
Chapter Seven
Somewhere he’d read that freezing to death didn’t hurt, Cal reflected groggily. Whoever had written that was wrong. He was freezing to death as he lay facedown in the grit on that bitterly cold, storm-swept beach, and the process hurt like a mother. His skin burned as the icy blast of the wind froze his sea-soaked clothes to his body. His bones and muscles ached as if a dozen thugs armed with baseball bats had just worked him over. His head pounded unmercifully. His throat was parched and dry.
He didn’t think he could get up. No, he was pretty sure he couldn’t get up. It didn’t help that he didn’t see much point in it. He’d gotten a good look at the desolate terrain before the boat had pitched up on it and there was no shelter from the elements in sight.
If he did manage to get to his feet, he could stagger a few yards, even a few hundred yards, and then collapse and die.
Seemed like a lot of effort for the same result.
Upon discovering that his purported savior in the boat was a young woman, his first reaction had been a feeling of immense relief. He’d let go of the suspicion that she was a cog in the plan to murder Rudy and everybody who might be party to the information he had possessed, and accepted at face value his good luck at having an innocent civilian in a boat available exactly when and where he’d needed one.
Lying there in the bottom of her boat, he’d been so exhausted, so wet and cold and nearly drowned, in so much pain and, he saw now, so close to going into shock, that it had taken him a little while to remember that his luck had never been that good.
To remember that the world was a violent and unpredictable place where trusting anybody was a good way to wind up dead.