ago. But she had come to know him through their correspondence.
She let her head sag to his broad shoulder, clinging to him for long moments before he cleared his throat. “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” she managed as she came back to her senses. They were still in danger, and she was going all dreamy on him.
As promised, he turned away from her.
“Circle my waist,” he said gruffly.
She did as he asked, wrapping her arms around him. When she realized her grip was too low, and her hands were pressed over the fly of his slacks, she jerked, then quickly moved her grasp a couple of inches higher.
A fresh surge of water tore at her, trying to break her grip on his waist. It almost did, and she was glad that the rope bound them together.
Her teeth were gritted as they inched toward blacktop. He was using the rope, pulling them along hand over hand. And she hoped he’d tied the other end to something solid.
He didn’t spare the breath to talk now. It was all he could do to keep them moving toward shore.
Something large slammed past them, and she gasped from the impact.
“Are you all right?” he asked urgently.
“Yes.”
Redoubling his efforts, he hauled them the last few yards through the water and out of the deluge.
Breathless, they both sprawled on dry land, panting.
For long moments, all she could do was lie still with her eyes closed, grateful to be on a solid surface again.
When she realized that the solid surface was Andre Gascon’s body, she tensed, then tried to push herself away. She managed to put a few inches of space between them before the rope pulled her back, and she flopped onto his chest again.
“Go ahead, use me for a trampoline,” he said.
She was icy cold from the water, but she had to laugh.
The comment was so typical of the dry humor that she’d enjoyed in his e-mails. He’d struck her as a man who used humor to defuse a tense situation. Apparently, he was still doing it.
Large hands moved over her back and shoulders, untangling her from the rope, then lifted her up and onto her feet. She blinked into the intense green eyes she remembered from the picture.
His dark hair was plastered to his head, his tee shirt to his chest. When she wavered on her feet, he scooped her up and strode away from the water. She anchored her hands on his muscular shoulders as he carried her to an SUV parked on the shoulder, well out of the reach of the flood that surged across the road.
Even though he’d been in the water, a pungent aroma clung to him—as though he wore some kind of strong aftershave that she couldn’t identify. It was a natural fragrance that drew her as the man had drawn her.
Setting her in the passenger seat, he worked the lever to push the seat back so that she could stretch out her legs.
She threw her head back, and her eyes closed, contemplating her narrow escape.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice gritty.
“I . . . think . . . so,” she answered between panting breaths. Opening her eyes, she stared into his face, taking in the stark lines. “But I wouldn’t have been, if you hadn’t come along. Thank you,” she murmured.
“I’m glad I got here in time,” he answered, the words carrying a depth of feeling that overwhelmed her.
Perhaps she was struggling to put some distance between them when she said, “This isn’t a very auspicious way for you to meet your private detective.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he clipped out.
He looked across the water toward her rental car. “How did you end up in a ditch?”
She huffed out a breath. “My brakes failed. I couldn’t keep the car on the road. Of course, that was after two men from town started following me, and I speeded up to get away.”
He swore under his breath. “What men?”
“Two guys from the gas station where I stopped to fill my tank. When I told them I was coming here, I caused a little bit of a stir.”
“You should have kept that information to yourself,” he muttered.
“I was gauging their reaction,” she countered.
“Well you have it. They ran you off the road. They’re getting bolder,” he said, his tone turning rough with anger.
“We’ll deal with that later. How did you know . . . to come looking for me?”
“You were later than I expected,” he answered. “I thought I’d better see if you were