nod, not wanting to talk, and then I let him help me sit up. When he puts a bottle of water to my lips, I take a sip and swish it around before leaning over to spit it out, trying to do it as inconspicuously as possible.
“You fell face-first into the sand.” I look to the woman at my side as she pushes my hair out of my face. “I didn’t have time to catch you.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, then start to cough when my throat itches from the sand I’ve apparently ingested.
“Drink and spit again,” Calvin orders, holding the bottle closer to me once more, and my cheeks warm as I do as he commands. “How are you feeling?”
I focus on his handsome face and don’t even lie when I answer. “Like I swallowed sand and ran a marathon.”
“I bet.” He touches my temple, then slides his finger down the side of my face to behind my ear.
“You didn’t answer. Is Amy okay?”
“She was breathing when they put her in the ambulance. They think she’ll be okay,” he says, but I still see a glimmer of worry in his eyes, and that makes my chest ache.
“You saved her,” the woman says, taking my hand and attention. “If it wasn’t for you following her in, no one would have known what’d happened to her.”
My eyes burn and I swallow over the lump in my throat, not sure how to respond.
“Let’s get you home,” Calvin murmurs, and then, before I have a chance to prepare myself for what’s about to happen, he places one arm behind my back and one under my legs and lifts me up off the ground. I instinctively wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze. “I won’t let you fall, babe, but you need to let me breathe.” He sounds like he’s laughing.
“I can walk.”
“I’m not taking any chances. Plus, I need to talk to you about what went down today.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, squirming to look at him.
“From what I understand, after you got the girl out of the water, you had a confrontation with her parents.”
Damn, I forgot about that, with everything else that happened and the whole passing-out thing. “It wasn’t really a confrontation.”
“Then you can explain exactly what it was after I get you home.”
“Great,” I mumble.
“Wait, her stuff! You’re forgetting her stuff!” the woman yells, rushing toward us while holding on to her hat, with my bag over her shoulder and my towel floating behind her like a flag. Calvin stops for her to catch up, and once she’s standing before us, she hands me my things. “I’m Maxine. Everyone calls me Max. I come here all the time, so I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Fuck me,” Calvin grumbles, and I wonder what that’s about but don’t have a chance to ask him before he snaps at her, “This story is not going in the paper, Max.”
Wait . . . what? “Of course it’s going in the paper.” She waves him off. “People like a feel-good story.”
A feel-good story? What does that mean?
“I would love to chat with you, but I gotta go check on my husband,” she says before spinning on her heel and quickly walking away.
“Maxine!” Calvin bellows, but she acts like she doesn’t hear him, and I know it’s an act, because everyone within a mile radius probably heard him shout her name. “Fucking shit.”
“Umm, what just happened?” I ask as he starts to storm toward my place.
“She’s going to write about what took place today,” he tells me on a low growl while tightening his hold.
“Is she an author?”
“No, she’s a reporter for the local paper, the Seaside Post.”
“Oh.” I turn to look behind us and spot Max walking toward the man who took Amy from me to give her CPR, and I wonder if he’s her husband.
“This is a tourist town, babe, but the people here are all locals, which means everyone and their mother is going to know what went down. And all those people are going to want to thank you in person.”
My nose scrunches up, partly because I don’t believe him, but really because I don’t relish the idea of having to deal with that kind of thing. “She doesn’t know my name.”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t know your name yet, but she will know it by the end of the day.”
“How?” I lean back to frown at him.
“First, there aren’t many women in town with your hair. Second, there aren’t any women