"Can you walk?"
He tried to stand. Wobbled.
"I'll take that as a no." Clara ducked under his arm, bracing him against her shoulder. "I'm stronger than I look."
"Are you the only one here?"
"No, my strapping six-foot-four boyfriend is upstairs being manly, leaving me on rescue duty." She shot him a look. "Yes, I'm alone. Now move. You're not exactly light."
They made it up the stairs through sheer stubbornness—hers, mostly. Inside, everything was exactly as she liked it. Main room serving as kitchen, living area, workspace. Her drafting table positioned for afternoon light. Sketches covering every surface.
She felt him notice. Felt his gaze sweep across her privateworld.
Ew. Hate that. There's a reason she lived alone.
"Bathroom." She pointed, fighting against the urge to toss him back in the ocean. "Sit before you fall into the tub."
"Usually I like dinner first before clothes start coming off."
"Hilarious. You're hypothermic. Wet clothes make it worse." She pulled out her father's old clothes from the closet. Sweatpants, flannel, wool socks. Tossed them to him. "Change."
"Has anyone ever called you bossy?"
"More times than I can count. Which I consider a compliment." She gestured. "Now change before you die and I end up having to answer awkward questions about the corpse in my lighthouse."
She closed the door, busied herself with coffee. The sound of wet fabric hitting the floor. She focused on measuring grounds, pressing buttons. Normal tasks. Not thinking about the half-naked stranger in her bathroom.
It'd been a while since she'd had a man in her lighthouse. Was that a metaphor for the last time she'd had sex? Possibly. But let's just say, it'd been al-l-lon-n-n-gwhile and leave it at that.
"Done."
Clara turned. The clothes hung loose on him—sweatpants low on his hips, flannel unbuttoned over his bare chest. He'd toweled his hair, leaving it sticking up in dark spikes. He looked like a ridiculously handsome shipwreck survivor, which, to be fair, was exactly what he was.
Her hormones were staging a quiet revolt if she thought a half-drowned stranger looked a fair bit delicious. He could be a serial killer. Ted Bundy was considered a catch before all that murdering caught up to him.
"Better?"
"Yeah." He lowered himself onto her couch carefully. "Thank you. So who do I owe my life to?"
"Clara." She handed him coffee. "Clara Hawkins."
"Jack Callahan."
"Well, Jack." She sat across from him. "I'll get straight to the bad news—the nearest town is eight miles by road, and I don't have a car."
He wrapped both hands around the mug. "How do you get supplies?"
"Delivery every two weeks. If I need something from town before that, I take my boat to Beacon's End—twenty minutes oncalm waters."
Right on cue, the light patter of rain danced on the windowpane. Jack's expression fell with the realization that the storm had arrived. "Which isn't today."
"Definitely not. And after what you just went through, I doubt jumping back into a boat is high on your list."
"Hard pass." He looked a little green. "That was scary as hell."
"No judgment. The sea's moody at best. Point is—if we can't go by boat and you don't feel like an eight-mile hike, you're stuck here with me."
His expression shifted. "Let me get this straight. You live in a lighthouse, alone, no car, minimal contact with people because the nearest town is a twenty-minute boat ride away?"
