CHAPTER ONE
‘WHEREAMI?’
Cordelia swung around and stared at the man lying on the bed. He hadn’t spoken for three days. He’d drifted in and out of sleep, as Dr Greenway had predicted he would. He’d opened his eyes and stared around him but in the unfocused way of someone not really taking anything in.
‘Keep him on liquids,’ the doctor had advised, ‘but there’s nothing a hospital can do for him that you can’t. Less, probably. You know how overworked and understaffed they are there, especially with half of it closed for renovations. The man wouldn’t get much of a look-in. As it stands, he must be as strong as an ox to have endured what he has without being the worse for wear.’
So she’d settled him in one of the spare bedrooms in the rambling house she shared with her father, and together they had taken turns keeping their eye on him, relying on the doctor’s twice-daily visits for reassurance that a sudden spiral downwards wasn’t on the cards. He was roused for his liquid intake and, in the past twenty-four hours, had managed to eat two light meals. Her father had shown him the bathroom and changed him into some of his own clothes.
He had been making progress but, really, he’d still been out of it. Until now.
She stared at him and her heart sped up.
Luca. That was the man’s name. Luca Baresi. She knew that because she’d found his wallet in his trousers and had searched for a name and any sort of contact number she could possibly find so that she could notify a member of his family about the accident.
His identity was all she could come up with. God knew, he’d been blown about on the waves long enough for the water to claim his mobile phone, had he been carrying one. The contents of the wallet, which had been wedged in his trouser pocket, had largely been too sodden and waterlogged to prove helpful.
‘Well?’
Cordelia blinked and walked towards him. He was propping himself up against the pillow, staring at her, eyes narrowed, head tilted questioningly to one side.
It had been one thing absently admiring the man’s striking good looks when he’d been more or less out of it. It felt quite different now, with his green eyes arrowing onto her with laser-like intensity.
‘You’re in my father’s house.’ She hovered next to the bed and then gingerly sat on the side.
Eyes as green as the ocean when the sun blazed down on it, she thought distractedly, and the sort of bronzed complexion of someone who definitely didn’t hark from Cornish shores. Even the guys she knew, fishermen like her dad, were pale in comparison.
‘What am I doing in your father’s house and why am I wearing these clothes?’
‘Don’t you remember anything?’
‘I recall being in my boat.’ He frowned. ‘One minute the sun was shining and the next minute, the sky had turned black.’
Cordelia was nodding sympathetically while thinking how fantastic his voice was, as deep and as rich as the darkest of chocolate. Very distracting.
‘That’s the weather for you here,’ she murmured. ‘Especially at this time of year. You’d think summer might be predictable but a storm can erupt out of nowhere.’ She gazed at his hand. He was massaging his collarbone, still frowning, trying to get his thoughts together. Understandable, given what he’d been through. He really was, she thought, stupidly good-looking with that dark, dark hair and olive skin and features chiselled with breathtaking perfection.
Or maybe, at the ripe old age of twenty-four and stuck out here, living a life as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun, she was just easily impressed by someone halfway decent.
She stared at him from under lowered lashes and thought that this guy was far from halfway decent. Halfway decent had been Barry, the guy she had dated for eight months before finally admitting to herself that they were never going to get anywhere and certainly not between the sheets, which, as he had implied with ever increasing clarity, was the destination he had had his eyes on and never mind the business of romance and a courtship to get there. Some straggly flowers and the occasional movie or night out at the local pub, had been top of his game when it had come to wooing her.
‘That’s obviously what happened to you.’ She cleared her throat and fidgeted because he was staring at her with such intensity. ‘Three days ago. You should have checked the weather report before you decided to go sailing. Most people around here do. They know how unpredictable the weather can be but you’re not from around here, are you?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Are you a nurse?’
‘No. I...no, I’m not. I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here and not in a hospital, but the local hospital is tiny and Dr Greenway didn’t think it necessary to have you taken by ambulance over to the next biggest hospital, which is quite some distance away. He said you would recover just fine here when I called him over. After I found you.’
‘You found me?’
‘I happened to be looking out of my bedroom window at the time.’
Staring off into the distance and thinking about what it must be like to live out there...in the big, bad world...where adventures happened and the people you met weren’t the same people you went to school with when you were five...where excitement lay behind half-opened doors and sadness and loss were no longer her faithful companions...
She blushed because, although he didn’t say anything, she got the weird feeling that he knew just what was going through her head, which, of course, was impossible.
