He was prone when she reached him. She dropped to her knees and turned him slightly. His shirt was half-untucked, the collar pulled open as though someone had gripped it.
For a moment, she simply kneeled there, the sound of the surf suddenly louder in her ears.
He might be dead.
The thought came calmly, almost absurdly so.
Without thinking, she pressed two fingers to the side of his throat—found a pulse, strong and steady—and released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
“Hello,” she said, feeling slightly foolish. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
She tried again, louder. “Sir, can you hear me?”
A sound. Not words. Something between a groan and an objection.
“I need you to wake up,” she said firmly. “You’re on the beach. You’re—you’ve been in the water, I think, and you need to–”
He moved slowly, effortfully, with the particular determination of someone whose body was arguing against the wholeenterprise. He rolled onto his back and then immediately pressed one hand to the back of his head with a sharp, quiet sound that was not quite a word.
Cecily sat back on her boot heels and looked at him. He was—she registered this with the detached clarity of shock—extraordinarily handsome.
Even wet, even with sand across his jaw and his shirt open at the collar and his expression currently arranged in the specific lines of a man in considerable pain, he was the sort of face that would have stopped conversation in any room he entered.
Dark hair. A jaw that looked like it had been designed with some architectural intention. He opened his eyes; they were green, vivid, and slightly unfocused.
For a moment, he simply looked at the sky. Then he looked at her.
“Where–” His voice faltered. He tried again. “What happened?”
It wasn’t quite a question, more like a man taking inventory.
“I found you,” Cecily said. “You were unconscious. Here, on the shore.” She kept her voice steady, practical, the voice of someone who was not in the least affected by the green eyes or the open collar or the proximity. “Do you know your name?”
He frowned faintly, as though the question required more effort than it should. “Yes.”
A pause. He touched the back of his head again, more carefully this time, and something moved across his face—not just pain, but something sharper. Recognition, or the edge of it.
“You’re… real,” he said slowly. “That’s fortunate.”
Her breath caught. “Sir–”
“I was afraid,” he cut her off, squinting at her face, “that you might be an invention. Which would be a terrible waste.”
Her cheeks warmed at once. She could not tell whether he meant to be charming or simply had not yet learned caution.
“You have had too much to drink,” she said firmly.
“That, too, is possible.”
“Do you remember how you came to be here?”
“There was–” He stopped. Seemed to decide against finishing. His gaze returned to her face and stayed there, with more focus now, the confusion beginning to clear at the edges. “You found me.”
“Yes.”
“You were just… walking.”
