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My hand shakes as I start to dial 911.
I can’t explain this. I’m good in an emergency—always have been. You need to be, in a job like mine. But something about this girl has rattled me completely, and the sight of her curled up and vulnerable sends a stabbing pain through my chest. I’m so off-center, I’m seasick.
When the operator answers in a brisk voice, I clear my throat to speak. My fingers are still pressed against the girl’s throat, and her skin warms beneath my touch.
“Yes,” I say, “I’m at the marina in Sweet—”
The girl lunges upright, gasping for breath, eyes wide. I curse and fumble back, my phone startled right out of my hand. It hits the water with asploosh, going the way of that orange buoy.
There goes my hope of back-up.
“S-sorry,” the girl says, her chest heaving, color flooding back into her cheeks. Hazel eyes stare at me, roving over my features. “I—I’m sorry. Was that your phone?”
She doesn’tseembadly hurt. Suddenly she seems fine. More than fine, like she really was napping. Only her ruined dress says otherwise.
How old is she? Early twenties?
“Miss,” I say again, palms up to show I won’t hurt her. It’s crowded in this little boat, especially now she’s upright. “Do you know where you are? Are you hurt?”
The girl blinks and peers around herself, taking in the boats bobbing against the jetty; the sand-caked fishing nets; her torn dress. When she looks back up at me, her chin wobbles.
“No,” she whispers.
“You’re not hurt?” I push, needing to hear it again.
She shakes her head slowly.
“But you don’t know where you are?”
Another no.
I gust out a long breath. Jesus Christ, what a mess.
“There’s a phone in my office.” She follows the jab of my thumb, eyebrows pinching together when she sees the small stone building by the cliffs. “We’ll call the police, okay? Get you sorted out. Are you alright to move? Did you…” I wince and gesture above her shoulders. “Did you hit your head? Can you feel any bumps or cuts?”
She blinks at me, not moving, and her fingers twist in her dress. Like she’s waiting for something. Does she want me to check?
Well, here goes nothing. “Can I…?”
A shaky nod.
And here’s something I didn’t expect when I set out from home this morning: that I’d find myself hunched in a rowboat, boots snagging in old nets, my fingers sliding gently through dark, tangled hair. The girl’s lips part as I probe her skull, touching as softly as I can manage, and she’s so delicate. When I speak again, my voice is rough.
“How’d you get here?”
A wobbly shrug. My chest aches worse than after a hard ten-mile run.
“What’s your name?”
There’s a long pause, then another shrug. The movement is jerky this time, and I watch as panic rises, her pupils turning to pinpricks. She doesn’t know her own name?
No: her breaths come fast and shallow, and her cheeks flush. Christ, she doesn’t rememberanything.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say quickly, my fingers still in her hair, and for a moment, I let myself cradle her head. I stroke her scalp, doing my best to be soothing—and sure enough, she settles back down, breathing slower again. Who knew I could be a comforting man? “Doesn’t matter, okay? We’ll figure it out. We’ll make that call.”
Her throat shifts as she swallows. “N-no police.”
Uh. What? I glance around, realizing for the first time how this must look to any passers-by. Here she is, washed up and vulnerable; so much smaller than me, bundled in nothing but a torn dress. And hereIam, looming over her, so much older and bigger, and now she doesn’t want me to make that call?
