Nina, taking her bags out of the back of the Toyota so she could get away from him and go to a backpackers’. So she could find a job.

  Nina, who wasn’t, who couldn’t be a liar.

  Oh, shit. He’d been wrong. And he’d showed her that article, hadn’t given a thought to how it might affect her. Had left it with her, and left her thinking he hated her.

  Still thirty kilometers to go by the time he’d thought it through, and he summoned up the strength and desire and drove his legs, drove his body, flew around the curves like a man possessed.

  Because he was.

  * * *

  He didn’t bother putting the bicycle back in the garage. He just leaned it against the building and went for the cottage.

  He caught himself barely in time to keep from barging in. He knocked instead, and realized for the first time that he had absolutely no clue what to say.

  Never mind. He’d think of something. He could start with listening to her, maybe. That might be an idea. Couldn’t work any worse.

  It wasn’t Nina who answered. It was his granddad. Who was frowning mightily, but no surprise. He loved Nina; that much was obvious. Probably thought Iain had been too hard on her, which was no more than the truth.

  The old man cast a look at Iain’s cycling shorts and jersey, but didn’t stand back to let him in. “She’s not with you, then?”

  “No. Course not. Wait, what?”

  Arthur was stumping into the kitchen, though, instead of answering, so Iain followed, for once not bothering with his shoes, the sprigs clanking on the linoleum floor. His granddad grabbed a piece of paper from the kitchen bench and thrust it at him. “Only saw this a few minutes ago, when I was wondering why she hadn’t come back. Thought she might’ve run again, as upset as she was.”

  Iain barely heard him. He was reading the note written on a torn-out sheet from Nina’s little notebook.

  Arthur,

  I’ve gone kayaking. I’ll be back by 5.

  Nina

  He looked up at his grandfather. “When did she leave?”

  “Dunno. I was out, wasn’t I. Didn’t know that was where she’d gone, either, but she hasn’t come back and left again. The orange kayak’s gone, right enough.”

  Iain looked at the clock on the wall. After six.

  She’s probably fine, part of his mind was trying to say. Just stayed out longer, like you did, working it off. Working it out. Misjudged how long it’d take to come back.

  “Well?” Arthur demanded. “You just going to stand there? Do I have to go myself?”

  “No,” Iain said. “I’m going. I’m going now.” She wouldn’t have been this late to start fixing his granddad’s tea. Not Nina. If she’d said she’d do something, she’d do it.

  I don’t take anything on unless I’m prepared to do my best.

  But she wasn’t a good enough kayaker. She didn’t know the winds, or the tides, or the boat. She didn’t know enough at all.

  He changed his shoes and grabbed a jacket, and then he was running the couple blocks to the village, to the office.

  When he came through the door, the fella behind the counter looked up in surprise.

  Iain didn’t know him. New this year, he guessed.

  “Gidday,” the fella said. “We’ve closed up shop, I’m afraid.”

  Iain ignored him. He was behind the counter, grabbing the keys to the water taxi.

  “Oi!” the man said sharply, putting a hand out. “You can’t take those.”

  His mum came out of the back at the commotion. “Iain? What in the world . . .” But he didn’t answer. He was already gone.

  When he was in the boat, steering a fast course away from shore, he told himself that of course she was all right. Once he rounded the point, he’d spot her. His anxiety was all out of proportion.

  But he didn’t see her. He was up the coast, passing Marahau, then Split Apple Rock, cruising slowly, keeping near the shore to make sure he didn’t miss her behind the rock or in a cave. On the beach, even, though she wouldn’t be on the beach, not when she was already this late.

  Every time he spotted an orange kayak, his heart leaped. But none of them was Nina, and his pulse was racing even as he told himself that she was fine, that nothing too bad could have happened to her in this most traveled of parks. Not with walkers crowding the track, swimmers and kayakers on every beach, and so many boats in the water. Even if she’d capsized, somebody would have seen her and helped put her right. Or she’d just have swum to a beach. She’d have stayed near shore, surely. She’d been upset, but she was timid.

  She wasn’t timid when she ran into a rough sea to get away from you. To get away from a man chasing her.

  Nina, on a beach by herself, in her red bikini, asking for help. All it needed was one wrong person. All it would take was one.

  Desperate

  The tide crept in—ten more minutes, fifteen—while Nina shook, and shivered, and waited. The cold water covered her calves, then was over her knees. She didn’t get any warmer, and nobody came.

  If nobody was going to come, she had to do something else.

  She had a paddle. She had a boat. She could at least try. She was facing the nose of the kayak, looking into the oval hole that was the cockpit. What if she straddled the boat, slid facedown toward the end, then shoved her legs into the cockpit? Then all she’d have to do was turn over. She’d do it lying down, so she didn’t tip over again.

  She looked at the boat and planned it out. Hold the sides. Slide. Feet in. Turn over. And then she did it. She couldn’t stand to lie here anymore and give up.

  It felt like it took about two seconds, though it must have been more. The second she leaned forward and grabbed the sides, the boat started sliding backward. She flung herself over it and scrabbled with her feet for the opening.

  Whump. The boat hit the water, and she was sliding into the cockpit, clinging to the raised opening along its back, lying face-down and staring down at the boat. And then she held her breath, shifted her weight, and turned herself over.

  She was in.

  “Right,” she said aloud, hearing her voice crack. “Right.” The waves were still high, the wind was still carrying her out, but at least she was inside the boat.

  Maybe she should have waited. She could have let go of the boat, climbed to the top of the island, and signaled from the top. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was late, and there wouldn’t be many people out, but there’d be somebody.

  Too late now. She was here. She’d done it. Time to get around the island into calmer waters. She couldn’t worry about fastening her spray skirt back on. The boat was still half-full of water, making it sluggish and unsteady. If she didn’t paddle, she’d go right over again. And she couldn’t afford to get any colder.

  Time to move. So she reached for the paddle with shaking hands, pulled it out from under the bungy, and dug in.

  She got around the island, but the going was slow. The wind had strengthened, was trying to push her offshore, and she was so exhausted, it was all she could do to keep the kayak upright. She couldn’t see how she was going to get to the beach.

  When she saw the small white boat speeding straight toward her, though, she didn’t raise her paddle overhead and signal it. It was those guys coming back. She had to get to shore, where there would be people. Go. Paddle.

  When the boat cut its motor, her dread turned to panic. No. Go. Get out. She was turning, paddling desperately, sitting in cold water all the way over her legs, searching for another boat. Any boat.

  A shout rang out from behind her, the sound cutting across the water, and she stopped paddling and turned to look back.

  Too far. The kayak was rolling again, and she was swallowing a huge mouthful of seawater along the way, going down into the cold and dark.

  There was nothing holding her in the boat, though, not this time. She was kicking out, rising to the surface, coughing and choking.

  He was leaning over the side, reaching out. “Over here!” he called. “Give me the paddle.”

  Iain. It was Iain. She was trying to tread water with legs that felt like concrete, only the paddle she still clutched and her PFD keeping her afloat. She shoved the plastic paddle toward him with what felt like the last of her strength, and he was pulling her to the side of the boat by it, then reaching down and grabbing hold of her T-shirt. He got his hand right through it, around the back strap of her bikini top, and hauled her up by it with one arm until she tumbled into the boat, fell against him, and then was falling into a bench seat, banging her shin, her forearm, and not feeling it.

  “Bloody hell,” he said explosively, hauling her up and inspecting her. “What were you thinking?”

  She laughed. It was hysterical, she could tell, but she was laughing anyway. He’d come for her, and now he was swearing at her.

  “You could . . .” she said through chattering teeth. “Be nicer.”

  He was rummaging in a locker, tossing her a bag of clothes. “Get your clothes off,” he ordered. “Fast.”

  She fumbled at her shirt, but she couldn’t do it, and Iain was swearing again, yanking her shirt over her head, unhooking her bikini top, grabbing a navy-blue sweatshirt out of the bag, and pulling it onto her.

  “Give me your hand,” he said. “Come on, Nina. Help me.”

  She tried, but she missed, and in the end, he was the one who pulled her hands through the sleeves. Then he was wrestling off her shorts and tossing them to the floor of the boat, taking off her bikini bottoms, and pulling sweats up her legs.

  She should care that he was stripping her, but she couldn’t. She was too cold.

  Finally, he reached for a big towel in the same locker and put it around her shoulders. “Stay there,” he told her, and she didn’t bother to nod. It wasn’t like she could go anywhere.

  He was back in the driver’s seat, maneuvering the boat over to the kayak, then pulling it close with a grappling hook and hauling it out of the water, making nothing of the weight and bulk of it. He had it out, onto a rack behind the seats in the rear of the boat, was fastening it down with bungees, shoving the paddle up beside it. And then he was back with her.

  “We’re going home,” he said, coming forward again, past where she was still huddled in the bench seat. “Fifteen minutes.”

  She gave a jerk of her head, pulled her knees up in both arms, and didn’t speak, because she couldn’t.

  Iain was back in the driver’s seat, spinning the boat, heading south.

  He’d come. Somehow, he’d come.

  * * *

  Bloody hell. Bloody hell.

  Iain wasn’t doing any more thinking than that. He was just driving the boat. It seemed like an hour before he was jumping out into water that reached above his knees and tying the boat to the post, then going back for Nina.

  “Come on,” he told her, reaching his arms out. “Get over here.”

  She stood, staggered, and knelt on the seat. He got her under the arms, then slid his other hand under her thighs and was lifting her, carrying her out of the sea.

  The thick tracksuit flapped around her, and he tried not to think about how ice-cold her body was. He’d thought it looked sculpted from ivory when he’d first seen it. Today, that was exactly how it had felt. Like bone. Like stone.

  She was shaking hard, the shudders jolting straight through him, so he didn’t put her down. Instead, he took her up the beach, onto the footpath, up and over the hill, and down the track to the house.

  “I can . . . walk,” she told him once.

  “No,” he said, suddenly so furious he could barely speak. “You can’t. Be quiet.”

  At the cottage, he kicked the door with one bare foot, and when his granddad opened it, carried Nina straight through into the bathroom. He set her down on the lid of the toilet, then put the plug into the bath and turned on the tap.

  “D-d-door,” she was saying, and he looked up. His granddad was there, looking grim.

  “Sorry,” Iain told his granddad, closing the door in his face. “Privacy.”

  He was back with Nina, then, pulling the jumper over her head, yanking it over her hands, and she said, “N-n-no. Get out.”

  “Oh. Right.” She was better, then. Good. “Get in that bath.”

  She sat hunched over, her slim forearms crossed over her breasts as if he hadn’t already seen them, and said, “No. I’m . . . naked.”

  A single tear made its way down her cheek, and it ripped something loose inside him.

  “Nina,” he said helplessly. What was he meant to do? Hold her? Wouldn’t that make it worse, if she wanted him to leave? “Get in the bath. I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

  She nodded again, one more jerk of her elegant head, the yellow hair dark and matted with seawater. And he went out into the kitchen to do it, closing the door behind him.

  His granddad was standing there, of course. Looking at him with a face like iron.

  “Cup of tea,” Iain said, and his granddad nodded and switched the jug on.

  “Where was she?” the old man asked as he pulled down a mug and dropped a teabag into it.

  “South end of Fisherman’s Island. Being carried out to sea. And she’d been out of the boat some time, I reckon. She was wet and cold when I found her, and then she went over again.” He fought back the remembered terror. When he’d been hauling her out, seeing how hypothermic she already was, and thinking about what could have happened if he hadn’t come, if she’d gone in that final time and stayed in.

  “You got her,” Arthur said, reading his mind. “That’s all. That’s enough.”

  “Yeh.” Iain waited until the tea was ready, then carried it back to the bathroom, knocked once, and went inside.

  Nina was in the bath, her legs pulled up, her slim arms wrapped around her calves, and she wasn’t looking at him. She’d managed to turn the tap off, and even though she was still shivering, she looked more alive.

  “Here,” he said, setting the mug down carefully on the edge of the tub. “Drink this. And lie down in that water, give it a chance to do the job.”

  “I . . . will,” she said, her teeth still chattering, “if you’ll leave. Don’t . . . look at me.”

  He exhaled in frustration. “I’m not looking at you. I’m trying to help you. What were you thinking, going out on your own? And that far from shore, too? Why? How the hell did you capsize the boat?”

  She shook her head, still clutching her knees, still not looking at him. “A boat . . . came. It went around me. In a circle. I got . . . I tipped over.”

  What? It made no sense. “Well, lie down. Drink your tea. And don’t come out until you’re warm. Put in more hot water. It’ll take a while, so stay there until you’re good. All the way good.”

  She looked at him at last. No flecks of gold in her eyes now. They were dark, weary pools. “I know I . . . owe you. Thank you for . . . coming. But I can’t hear any more about it now. Please go away.”

  And he’d stuffed up again.

  * * *

  Nina lay in the tub, surrounded by warmth, cradled the mug of tea in both hands, and shook hard enough that the hot liquid splashed into the bath water, a milky swirl of brown. And she wanted to cry, because she was spilling her tea.

  She knew that wasn’t really why. And she couldn’t help it.

  She set the tea down, lay back in the hot water, and gradually, the shaking eased and the chill began to leave her bones. She fought the tears as long as she could, but they rose anyway, as insistent as rain, until they broke through. Finally, she gave in, put her hands over her face, and cried.

  Once she began, she couldn’t stop. She was sobbing aloud, feeling her eyes puffing shut, knowing her face was turning blotchy and disgusting, and completely unable to care. Letting it all go into the shelter of her hands.

  That she’d been so afraid. That she’d been so pitifully, excruciatingly glad to see Iain. And that even so, when he’d hauled her into the boat, when he’d pulled her wet clothes off her and dressed her again, she’d wanted so much more from him. That she’d wanted him to keep holding her, to murmur to her that it was all right, that she was safe, that she hadn’t been as stupid as she knew she had been.

  She hadn’t told him whose carelessness and malice had tipped her over, and she wouldn’t. She knew that if she did, he’d go after those guys, and he’d find them, and that that wouldn’t do him any good.

  She couldn’t help it. She cared. And she wanted so badly for him to have cared, too. She knew it was weak to wish for it, to need it, but knowing that didn’t make her feel it any less. She’d longed to be able to believe that he’d come for her, not because she was under his grandfather’s roof and somehow his responsibility, but because he’d been as desperate as she had. Desperate to find her. Desperate to keep her safe.

  Back to Church

  Iain went out into the kitchen, and his granddad said, “Make yourself useful, then. Lay the table for dinner.”

  Iain noticed the savory smell wafting from the oven for the first time. “You cooked, eh. You have enough to share?”

  “Do me a favor,” his granddad said in disgust. “And rattle your dags. When Nina comes out of the bath, she’s going to need to eat.”

  “I should get her kayak out of the water taxi.”

  “Leave it. Get it in the morning. What’s more important right now?”

  He was right, so Iain got out plates and cutlery for four as his granddad pulled a pan from the oven. He spared a thought for his dad, but not much more than a thought. The stubborn old bugger wanted to stay over there, proud and silent? He could do it, then.

  His mum came through the door, still in her workout gear from her exercise class, and said, “Iain, love. You over here? I’ll give you a hand with dinner. Just let me get a shower.” She still looked tired, and sad, too. Not defeated, but not far off.

  “No need,” Arthur said. “I keep telling you that I’m not helpless. I’ve done it. But you’ll have to wait for your shower. Nina’s in the bath warming up. She’s had a bit of an accident. Turned her kayak over a few times, it seems, out by herself.”