The cold, the sting. Isabel was right back to that day five years ago. The river. Her son. Her husband jumping in and then her jumping in. Her head surfaced above water, and she coughed, trying to tread water and get to the edge as quickly as possible. She didn’t like pools. Or oceans. Or water in general.

Not since she’d lost them.

“Here, take my hand.” A huge, muscled man with a beard and dark hair was on the edge, leaning over reaching to her.

She was a good swimmer, an excellent swimmer. Not good enough to save them. The words were in her brain before she got to the man’s hand and took it.

The man pulled her up and out with such ease that it made her look him over.

Isabel was five eleven, and it felt like the guy towered over her. Maybe six two. Taller than her father, and he’d been six foot. She trembled and stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” the man with the beard said.

Anger, pain, and guilt surged into her all at once with such a force it felt like she would break down. Her body trembled harder.

The man looked confused and reached out to her, supporting her beneath her arm. His hand took hers. “Did I hurt you?”

She wanted to yell, scream, cry that it wasn’t her who’d been hurt, that it wasn’t her who needed anything. Because she was alive. “I’m fine.”

“That’s what you get for interfering with people,” the husband of the pregnant woman shouted at her.

The words got jumbled in Isabel’s brain as she stared at the woman, who clearly would be going into early labor. She just didn’t know it yet.

“That’s enough.” The bearded man frowned at the man and pregnant woman. He turned back to her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She sucked in a breath and tried to get back to normal. Or the new normal she’d been for the past five years.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Can I walk you back to your room?”

The normal that felt abnormal every second of her life felt even more strange with his hand on her. Isabel pulled away from him. “Please, let me go.” She tried to pull in a cleansing breath. The kind she used to tell her clients to take.

“I didn’t realize you were right there. I’m so sorry.”

All she did was put up her hand to silence him. “You can go.” She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were closed, and she was trying to find her true center. Exactly the thing she’d always tried to teach pregnant women when they were in the middle of birth—close your eyes and find your true center. The one inside of you. The one … she couldn’t find anymore. She flicked her eyes open, and the man was still there.

He had a bushy beard she immediately hated. What was the deal with beards everywhere? She liked tidy, neat, smooth skin. She would have fallen back into the pool if the man hadn’t reached out and grabbed her shoulders.

He frowned. “You’re shivering.”

She hadn’t noticed how badly her body was shaking until he said it. The water had been cold, but she knew she was reacting to the mental trauma.

“Let me just walk you back to your room.”

Not arguing, she allowed him to put a gentle hand on her forearm and start walking with her.

As they were leaving the pool area, he took a guest towel and wrapped it over her shoulders. “I really am sorry,” he offered.

She was past that. Thoughts of the rescue workers pulling her out of the river and putting a towel over her shoulders swamped her. “It’s okay. I’m just … dealing with stuff.”

Her son’s body being pulled from the water and then her husband. She’d been out of her mind. She’d thrown the blankets off of them, insisting they just needed to stand up. She’d even done CPR on her son before they pulled her away gently. One of the workers had held her tightly as the rest of them had gathered the bodies into the ambulance. She’d been hysterical, screaming, and crying. When her sister and parents had arrived, they’d gone to the hospital together, but she still couldn’t accept they wouldn’t wake up.

“Where is your room located?” the man next to her asked, jolting her from her thoughts.

“Oh.” She tugged the towel tighter around her even though it wasn’t cold. “Suite two seventeen.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Funny, I’m two eighteen.”

She nodded, still doing the pretend normal that she tried to do for people. She’d practiced it for the past five years, and it worked out most of the time.

It didn’t take long for them to walk down the stairs then down the hall. The man still touched her, like a rescue worker would. Gentle, firm. He didn’t ask questions, and she appreciated that.

When they got to her room, she pushed in a code and pushed open the door.

“I’m sorry again.”

She turned back and noticed how blue the man’s eyes were. How they were rich and deep like the ocean. She hadn’t noticed something like that in a long time. “It’s fine.” She tried to give him a bit of a smile, thinking that it wasn’t his fault he’d pushed her in.

“Wait.”

She didn’t turn back.

“What kind of stuff are you dealing with? Anything I need to get you some help for?”

As Isabel hesitated, all the overwhelming emotions rushed back.

“You all right?”

At this, she let out a sardonic laugh and turned back, shaking her head. “Only if you can bring back my dead son and husband. Can you do that?”

A shocked look washed over his face.

Letting the door fall closed in front of him, she fell back against it. “I didn’t think so.”

She knew this would be a long night.