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When she looked up again Ross had stopped rowing and was leaning back in the dinghy, letting it drift. He was several hundred metres off the beach now, slowly moving towards the point. The sun, which had promised another jewel-like day, had reneged and slid behind a flowering cloud which was turning the sea grey-green.
Ross began to row again but this time, instead of moving smoothly, the dinghy began to spin in circles. Fran frowned. What was he doing now? He was acting like a complete amateur. The drift seawards continued and her scathing thoughts disappeared in a puff of smoke as she suddenly realised that he wasn't kidding around. Something was wrong.
If he drifted out past the point into the channel, the current would take him God knew where...and he hadn't a hope of making it to the rocks unless he got control of the dinghy. His arm! Of course... typical Ross, so convinced of his physical prowess that it never occurred to him that his arm might not be up to rowing a heavy dinghy.
Fran tried to shout out, but the breeze which had sprung up took away her breath, the same breeze that was creating tiny white-caps on the choppy water. She felt an instant's panic as she wondered what to do. Should she run in and telephone for help? What if the weather suddenly changed for the worse in the meantime and Ross got swamped? What if he wasn't in trouble at all? He would be furious if she humiliated him by calling out the coastguard for nothing.
Her eyes measured the distance. Three hundred metres? Easily within reach. Without a second thought she stripped off her slacks and jumper, carefully placed her watch on top, and ran down into the water, not even flinching as the frigid waters closed around her, her eyes fixed on Ross, still going around in circles, still drifting. The fool! The blind idiot! She would tear him into strips!
It wasn't until she was half-way out that she began to feel the cold. She stopped, treading water for a moment, noticing with a leap of fear that the distance between them seemed to have widened rather than narrowed. What if she got cramp? Ross wouldn't be able to help her. What if he kept drifting, just out of reach?
She refused to go back. She gritted her teeth and put her head down and swam. She alternated strokes as she felt herself tire, trying not to think about cramps or sharks... it was too cold for sharks, wasn't it? So intent was she on not dwelling on the awful possibilities that she almost swam into the side of the dinghy, banging her hand painfully on the hull, only to have it grabbed even more painfully.
'What the hell do you think you were doing?' Ross yelled at her as he hauled her roughly into the bottom of the boat. Gasping for breath Fran stared up at the pale, thunderous face. 'What a bloody stupid thing to do! That water is like ice. Are you trying to extend your sick leave by getting another bout of pneumonia?'
Fran was shaking, but it was with combined shock and rage rather than cold. 'You were floating out to sea!' she yelled back at him as she sat up. 'Talk about being bloody stupid! What did you take the boat out for in the first place? You know your arm isn't up to sustained activity like rowing. I thought you never tackled impossible odds.' She snatched the oars and began to row furiously.
'I could have managed,' he said tightly, trying to take
one oar. 'You didn't have to risk your fool neck—'
'Shut up, Ross Tarrant. Just sit there and shut up!' She spurned his effort to help furiously. She didn't feel the wind chilling her skin, she didn't feel the rivulets from her hair streaming down her shoulders, she wasn't aware of the wet transparency of her bra and panties. She was sustained by sheer temper.
The silence was a solid wall until they reached the beach and hauled the dinghy up on the sand above the high-water line. Ross's face was stiff and pale, his eyes shuttered as he watched her bundle up her clothes and start jerkily towards the cabin. Then she stopped and turned on him, unable to help herself.
'What is it with you, Ross? Was this another test to
put yourself through? Do you have a death-wish or
something? You weren't even wearing a life-
jacket—'
'Why don't we continue this discussion after we've dried off?' Ross interrupted her tersely, plucking at his spray-damp shirt as he took in her huge eyes in a frozen face, the thick lashes meshed with salt. 'You need a shower, and a session in the spa to warm up.'
Suddenly feeling too exhausted to argue, Fran stumbled away. The shower felt like hot needles piercing her skin and yet not warming her. It was with a shudder of gratitude that she sank into the spa and felt its comforting heat seep into her aching bones.
Ross appeared on the deck wearing a towelling robe that skimmed the tops of his thighs. He was carrying a tray which he set down on the tiled edge of the pool.
'What's that?' She looked suspiciously at the bottle and two glasses.
'Brandy. For shock.'
'I'm not in shock.' A moment later she was, as he shrugged off his robe and stepped down into the water. Confronted with a naked Ross Tarrant, sculptured muscle from head to foot and supremely unself-con-scious of his undeniable maleness, Fran's brain went into overdrive. She gaped, blushed, paled and closed her eyes. When a glass was thrust into her trembling hands she gulped it indiscriminately. It was like swallowing molten metal. Her eyes flew open and stung with tears, blurring the image of him sitting calmly across from her, waves lapping at the solid slope of his shoulders as he sipped his own brandy.
'You're suppose to sip it,' he told her gravely.
'Don't you tell me what to do! Don't you ever tell me what to do, not after—' She clenched her teeth and stared at him with fierce eyes. Defiantly she tossed back the rest of the brandy, trying to ignore the way it peeled the lining from her throat, and held up her glass. He poured and she drank that too, to make her point. Ross was no longer pale, but there was still tension around his mouth and a kind of quiet resignation in his eyes that made her feel very odd. Or was it the brandy?
'Why?' She whispered suddenly and he sighed as if he had been braced for the question and actually welcomed it.
'I'm sorry, Princess. I was in a temper and out to kick the world in the teeth. It was a very dumb thing to do and it put you in danger. Forgive me?' He was very, very quiet and Fran gulped, taking a grip on her anger. It was the only thing holding back the tears.
'Even a child would have had more sense.'
'I agree.'
'You could have floated out to sea and drowned.'
