Chapter Twenty-one
The footbridge arched in a shadowy span above the dark estuary, but a full moon lit their way. Claire waited while Nate paid the cabdriver. The taxi had dropped them off in Stingray Bay South, which shortened the journey from Whangarei by twenty minutes.
They walked to the bridge in silence, her stilettos resonating once they reached the wooden boards. The tide had turned toward the sea and it gurgled past the concrete piles. A fish jumped, landing with a startled splash. Moonstruck, she thought.
She stopped to lean over the railing and gazed across the black water, sparkling with the reflected gleam and glitter of the night sky.
“Amazing, isn’t it,” she said, “how much brighter the stars are out of cities.”
Nate had walked on ahead. He turned reluctantly and she thought, What am I doing? He doesn’t want this. “The height doesn’t look so daunting at night. Maybe I should get you to push me.”
He smiled at that. “Somehow I don’t think I’d get the grateful thanks Steve gave me.”
“No.” Did he know how badly she wanted to touch him? “This is something I have to do for myself.”
Returning to her side, Nate leaned his elbows against the railing and looked down. “What stops you? Do you worry you’ll hit the surface too hard? Sink too deep?”
“No, it’s the gap between bridge and water. The sensation of freefall.” Her pashmina slipped from one shoulder. Claire adjusted it. “Do you really have a job to go back to?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“You’re really keen to get away from me, aren’t you,” she joked because it hurt too much to do otherwise.
“I’m looking out for you.”
“Because I can’t do it myself?” Oh, yeah, sarcasm was a wonderful seduction tool.
Eyes wary, Nate faced her. “What do you want from me, Claire?”
Everything. The knowledge bubbled to consciousness like a spring of clear water. She swallowed, trying to find the courage to say it. Silent seconds passed. Nate gestured toward home. “We should walk.”
“I can feel you looking at me when you think I don’t notice,” she blurted. “It makes my skin tingle.”
“That’s the cold,” he said. Shrugging off his jacket, he held it out at arm’s length. “Here.”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t feel it.”
“Only because you’ve been drinking,” he said roughly. Stepping forward, he draped his jacket across her shoulders, the silk lining still warm.
“Three glasses over six hours,” she clarified. He stood close, fastening a button to keep the oversized jacket on her smaller shoulders. “Funny, isn’t it?” Claire stared at his shirt. “I drank to do something about us and you drank not to.” His hands stilled on the button. He must hear her heartbeat. “Unfortunately, like jumping off this bridge,” she managed to say, “I find when it comes to the leap I can’t quite make my move.”
Silence. Claire dared to look up.
Moonlight illuminated a clenched jaw. His expression was impassive, but the yearning deep in his eyes made her suck in a hopeful breath.
“Are you going to kiss me or not?”
He released the jacket. “Not,” he rasped.
“Then I’ll kiss you.” Cupping his nape, she drew his head down, but Nate laid his fingertips over her mouth.
“Some things you can’t take back.”
Claire lifted his hand. “Some things you don’t want to.”
Closing the gap, she pressed her mouth tentatively against his. Nate pulled away, catching her fingers in a painful grip. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. Brave, smart, strong.” He dropped her hand. “Emotions have been intense since I told you what happened. Let’s not rush into anything.”
And suddenly she understood. “You think this might be motivated by pity?”
“I think,” Nate said carefully, “that we’re both susceptible right now and I’d be taking advantage if I took this further tonight.” Really, perfectly reasonable, yet part of her raged against it.
He must have sensed her frustration. “I will come back,” he added quietly.
Claire resisted the urge to tell him she’d heard that before. From Steve. “Fine.” She shrugged. “Let’s do the sensible thing.”
“Claire…”
“You go ahead. I’ll catch you up.”
Ignoring him, she leaned over the railing and fixed a fierce gaze on the moon reflected below. It reminded her of a shivering white bather treading water. Pathetic.
“I’ll wait at the end of the bridge.”
“You do that.” She was over waiting for a man she loved. As soon as Nate began walking, she shrugged off his jacket, dropped her shawl and stepped determinedly out of her heels. By the time he’d reached the end of the bridge and turned, she was already on the other side of the railing.
“What the hell.”
“One way or another,” she called, “I’m moving on tonight.”
“Claire, no!” He ran toward her. Closing her eyes, she jumped.
Her body hit the water with a resounding splash and as it closed over her head, cold squeezed the last of the champagne bubbles out of her bloodstream and constricted her lungs. She broke the surface on a giant gasp. “It’s freeeeeezing,” she yelled, every molecule burning.
Above, Nate was hastily stripping off his clothes.
“No, I’m fine!” she hollered. “Bring my stuff.” The current drifted her shivering body downstream, her dress, lightly billowing in chiffon petals.
Expression anxious, Nate hesitated and Claire waved reassuringly and kicked into a fast crawl while she still had blood flow. The silk sheath of the underdress wrapped her body like a second skin, fortunately short enough not to impede her kicks.
And that was luck—she hadn’t given safety a second thought. Maybe she was tipsier than she realized. The icy water made its languid way into her bones and Claire kicked faster. This is insane. But she felt more alive than she’d felt for months. We did it, she told the little girl she’d once been. We climbed our Everest. We can do anything now.
She lifted her head to check distance and spotted Nate jogging alongside, her stilettos and pashmina clutched in one hand. “Swim to shore,” he bellowed.
“No,” she yelled defiantly. “I’m nearly there.” Teeth chattering, she resumed her swim, determined to go the distance, though her arms got heavier and heavier. At last the bach was alongside. She angled into the shore and stumbled through the shallows, feet numb, muscles convulsing and grinning ear to ear.
Nate was so furious he had to consciously unlock his jaw. “You didn’t even bloody jump at the right place.”
Her dress clung to her body like tattered flags. Her nylons were torn and covered to the ankles in sticky mud. “Th-that…wa-was…f-f-f-fun,” she said.
Roughly he wrapped her in the shawl, jerked his jacket across her shoulders and frogmarched her up the path. “Do you know how cold that water is right now?”
“P-p-pooh! Y-y-you d-d-did it.”
“We were in wet suits!”
Claire stumbled and impatiently he picked her up and carried her across the grass, over the deck and into the bach, where he tugged off the jacket and pashmina. He yanked the bedraggled chiffon bow loose then spun her around to undo the zip on the back of her dress, ignoring her blue-lipped protest.
“Hey, you wanted me to do this half an hour ago.”
Unceremoniously he stripped her to her underwear, then grabbed a couple of towels from the bathroom and briskly rubbed her dry.
“W-w-want sss-sssssshower.”
“Not for hypothermia.” At least she was shivering; that meant it was mild. He steered Claire into her bedroom and bundled her under the covers. “Take off your bra and pants while I find something warm for you to wear.” He rummaged through the dresser drawers and settled on a fleecy nightdress.
She was still fumbling with her bra clasp when he turned.
“Here.” Thrusting the nightdress into her arms to protect her modesty, he undid the hooks. She disappeared under the covers and two scraps of sodden underwear dropped onto the floor.
Grimly Nate picked them up and dumped them into the laundry hamper, then began another search for additional layers of warmth, finding a beanie and a woolen scarf. Claire emerged from the blankets dressed in flannelette, hair plastered to her head and looking like a half-drowned rat.
Dropping the woolens beside her, Nate sat on the bed and roughly towel-dried her hair, then pulled the beanie from the heap and covered the damp tangles.
She began to laugh. “Th-th-this is sssssillllllly.”
“Hypothermia is no joke,” he scolded. Now she was okay, he allowed his fright and frustration free rein. “You could have hit your head in the dark. You could have got cramp. As for jumping in a goddamn dress—what the fuck were you thinking?”
“Sssssorry,” she said cheerfully.
Nate narrowed his eyes. Winding the scarf around her neck, he gave the ends a light tug, warning her not to push him too far, and then tucked the blankets in until she was swaddled like a baby.
“Stay covered,” he ordered. “I’ll make a warm drink.”
“Yyyyesssss, ssssir.”
Ignoring that, Nate went to the kitchen, boiled the kettle for cocoa, adding plenty of sugar. Claire was curled up when he returned. With relief he noticed her shivering had abated.
“Sit up,” he said brusquely. When she held out a trembling hand for the cup, he stopped her. “You’ll spill it, let me hold it.”
Obediently she took a sip, her teeth knocking against the rim of the mug. Then grimaced. “Sweet.”
“Drink it.” Her icy hands covered his on the mug. She took a couple more sips. Putting the mug on the nightstand, Nate picked up her hands and rubbed them between his own chilled fingers.
For the first time he registered his own dishevelment. His shirt untucked, the buttons half undone. So was his belt buckle, because his first thought had been to follow her into the water, until she’d convinced him she was okay. Claire shivered again, a violent paroxysm.
“Hell.” Kicking off his shoes, he joined her under the covers. Body heat was the quickest way to warm her and no point pretending otherwise. “Put your arms around my waist and snuggle in.”
She did so without hesitation, one knee instinctively going between his for maximum contact. Her feet were two blocks of ice against his calves, which helped keep his focus on the task, instead of the woman in his arms.
Her woolen beanie prickled the underside of his chin and the hands splayed against his back were as icy as her toes, but gradually the shivering stopped until only Claire’s nose, burrowed into his chest, retained a vestige of cold.
Something in him began to unravel. Her breathing slowed to match his, their ribs rose and fell in instinctive synchronicity. Nate became aware of her breasts under the flannelette pressing against his chest, the warmth of her breath feathering his collarbone and—he closed his eyes—the tension in her body that told him Claire was as acutely conscious of the seductive possibilities of this moment as he was.
He wanted her so badly.
One last inhale of wool, salty skin and woman-heated flannelette, then he rolled away from the warm clasp of her arms to the edge of the bed, and to his feet. “I’ll sleep in Lewis’s room tonight in case you need anything.”
She looked up at him with those blue eyes, and touched a self-conscious hand to the beanie. “Good night, Nate.”
Resolutely he left the room, headed straight to his monastic bed and told himself he was doing the right thing, though every part of him trembled as he fought an internal battle to do nothing.
Minutes later the living room light switched on. “You need something?” he called.
“No, I’m having a shower. Is that okay, Doc?”
“Yeah.”
The water went on forty seconds later. The shower cubicle lay on the other side of the bedroom wall, which meant Claire was only a couple of feet away while she soaped the salt off and shampooed her hair. Nate groaned and turned over, putting a pillow over his head to drown out the sound of water splashing over her naked body.
Which is how he missed her return until something bumped against the foot of his bed.
Nate took the pillow off his head.
“Ouch,” said Claire. “It’s dark in here.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wait.” She bumped his mattress again, then the curtains swept back and moonlight cast pale beams into the room, enough to see she wore a white satin robe belted at her waist. And it was clear from the way it clung to every swell and indent that it was all she wore.
“There’s sand in my sheets,” she said.