CHAPTER NINE
The force of the blow was stunning. One minute Gen was pushing against the wind, the next she was reeling backward, her feet slipping in the crumbling streambed. She saw the water surging beneath her, knew that once she was in it she’d never make it out before she was sucked into the surf. Before she drowned, because Gen, who lived on an island, couldn’t swim a stroke.
“Rafe!” she screamed without thinking.
And he was there. Bare-chested and barefoot, his hair plastered to his skin, the bandages soaked away. A terrifying vision of fury, charging through the storm.
A savior with strong hands and perfect balance.
Gen was fighting for her life, her arms pin wheeling and her feet scrabbling for solid ground, her mouth open in terror. She thought she heard a terrible roar. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She felt her hand being caught in a vise, and suddenly she was completely airborne.
He literally yanked her away from the edge of the bank just before it crumbled completely away and washed down toward the seething ocean. Gen landed on her bottom in an ignominious heap, stunned and shaking. She tried to wipe her hair out of her eyes to get a look at her magic savior, only to have him do it for her.
He sat right down next to her on the ground, the rain soaking them both and the wind tearing at their hair.
“How did you do that?” she demanded with a breathless smile. “I thought I was going to die.”
He simply shook his head. “Not this time, my love. Not this time.”
“But how did you know to come find me?”
His answer was simple, his smile quiet. “I remembered.”
Gen opened her mouth to say something. She couldn’t. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. There were so many secrets behind those crystal blue eyes, so many memories she wasn’t sure she shared. So many answers she wasn’t sure she should want.
“Remembered what?” she demanded, her voice just as oddly quiet as his. She didn’t wonder how it was that they could hear each other so well in the open like this. The storm still tortured the trees not a hundred feet away, and in the other direction the surf pounded the beach with unabated fury. But here, in this little shallow, the wind seemed to miss them.
Rafe motioned toward the raging river beyond them. “What kind of danger you were in.”
Gen took a look over at the seething water she’d considered from much closer just moments before, and then returned her consideration to the man seated alongside her. “But I thought...”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t here to save you from Michael. Evidently you did that all by yourself, even without my help. I was here to save you from you.”
“You were— But how did you know?”
She saw the smile then, that dimple that bespoke such impish delight, and was so distracted by it that she didn’t anticipate his answer.
“Because I’m not from your past. I’m from your future.”
“My future,” Gen said yet again as she sat in the bentwood rocker in her living room.
Warm and dry in one of the old dressing gowns and bent over the phone in his lap, Rafe simply nodded. “It’s kind of a long story.”
Gen scowled. “It’s going to be a long storm. Humor me.”
That smile again, a bit sheepish now, as if he’d been caught at a prank. He looked up at her. “Don’t you want me to fix the phone so you can call Annie?”
Gen caught her breath. “How did you know the line was cut?”
He shrugged a little. “It’s part of what I remembered. It was the one thing nobody could explain when they found you. The phone lines in the house had been cut. I imagine Michael did it to keep you from getting help. You’re just lucky I enjoy playing with antique gadgets.”
She made a vague motion. “You don’t have—”
Rafe shook his head. “Fiber optics and satellites. I think I can have it working again in about fifteen minutes.”
“I think I need to know what to tell Annie before I talk to her.”
Rafe put the phone back down on the table. Then he stood and invited Gen from the rocker to the couch, where he could hold her hand as he talked.
