The last of her strength oozed out of Dani, and she sagged. A large, tanned hand stuck in front of her. She grasped it and allowed Zach to tug her to her feet. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. He was wet. His clothes clinging to his body. So was she.
"Hey," he murmured. "You did good."
She smiled and burrowed her face against his chest, content to be close.
"Thank you." The woman's voice spoke from behind them, breaking the moment. Dani peered around to see the woman still clutching the girl to her side as though she couldn't bear to let her go. "I thought it would be safe, but then the sea got rough and the dingy capsized, and I thought Thank you."
"She should be all right, but I'd take her into the local emergency room and get her checked out."
"Someone's already called an ambulance."
"Good. And learn to swim. Make sure she does as well."
"Here." Gary came up to them. "Compliments of the local café owner." He tossed them both a towel. "For the heroes of the day."
"Heroine," Zach said. "You were amazing."
She rubbed her hair with the towel and then wrapped it around her shoulders. "I've been trained." Glancing around, she found they were the center of attention, the crowd keeping their distance but watching them. She was guessing Gary wouldn't be happy with all the interest. "Let's get out of here."
"We'll go sit in the sun," Zach said. "Dry off, then we'll head home. I think I'm ready to take you up on that offer."
"Which offer is that?"
"The one where you take me to bed and screw my brains out until I forget how scared I was when you dived into that water."
"You dived in as well."
"So I did."
She bit her lip. "I couldn't have faced it if she'd drowned."
"It wouldn't have been your fault. It was that stupid imbecile of a mother. You can only do your best."
She shivered in the hot air and wrapped the towel around her. "Yes. But sometimes your best isn't enough."
For a second, she'd looked so tragic.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me about the one you didn't save."
They were leaning against the seawall, the afternoon sun beating down on them, drying their damp clothes. Dani stared out to sea and he held his breath, waiting to see if she would open up to him at last, or whether her inbuilt defense mechanism would snap closed and shut him out yet again.
Her hair was drying in riotous curls, framing her small face, and she pushed them off her forehead impatiently.
"My brother, Sam. He was about the same age as that little girl. So small."
"How old were you?"
"Twelve. I was looking after him."
"What happened?"
"He wanted to feed the ducks at the canal. We weren't supposed to go near the water alone, but no one could ever say no to Sam. It was a beautiful day, the sort of day where you can't imagine anything bad happening. He leaned in too far to see if he could touch the ducklings and fell in. He could swim and at first I thought he'd come up and get out, but I waited too long." She was talking faster now, as though to get the words out before she changed her mind. "I jumped in, but I must have knocked myself out against something in the water. Someone saw me jump, and they pulled me out. They didn't know about Sam. They didn't find the body until later that night."
He took her hand, squeezing her fingers. "I'm sorry."
"So you see, sometimes whatever you do isn't enough."
"Is that why you joined the army? So you could learn to save people?"
She shook her head. "I told you. I was given a choice-young offenders prison or the army. I nearly chose prison." She gave a quick grin and then the sadness returned.
"Was there just the two of you? You and Sam?"
"Yes." She bit her lip. "I was adopted when I was five." She only had a hazy memory of her real mother. And had no clue of her father's identity; there was a big glaring blank on her birth certificate. She'd been taken into care when she was three and spent the next two years in the foster system, handed around like a package while her birth mother decided whether she wanted to get her back. Obviously not. Then she'd been adopted and she'd had six happy years. "Mom got pregnant with Sam the year after they adopted me. Apparently, it's quite common. People stop trying for a baby and it happens. Mom and dad probably tried not to differentiate between us but it must have been hard-Sam was perfect. And even before the accident, I was far from perfect. I was slow in school-"
"You were fucking dyslexic-of course you were slow. Why the hell did no one notice?"
"You sound so fierce. But really, I didn't mind. I loved Sam. We all did."
He tried to rein in his anger. Anger for a little girl a long time ago who'd gotten a raw deal out of life and by the sound of it, a pair of crappy parents. He thought back to his own childhood, how he'd felt smothered. But he had never doubted that he was loved. For the first time, he felt a pang of guilt for the way he had run away, for the way he now lived his life. He was going to make a point to go see his mother, tell her he loved her even if he didn't always show it.
"What happened after the accident?"
She gave a helpless shrug. "Everything fell apart. They wouldn't talk about Sam, but I knew they blamed me. Why wouldn't they-I blamed myself."
"It wasn't your fault."
"Of course it was. I was always misbehaving. If I hadn't taken him where I shouldn't, it would never have happened. Oh, I know it was an accident, but accidents usually have a reason. Look at that stupid woman-taking her daughter out on a boat when neither of them could swim."
"You were a kid."
"I know. Don't worry, I've come to terms with it. But back then, it was like the end of the world. Mom was the worst. I'd see her staring at me and know she wished it were me who was dead. In the end, she couldn't stand the memories, and she left us."
"Bitch."
"And my dad withdrew inside himself. Most of the time, I think he forgot I even existed. I went off the rails a little. He'd sort of look right through me, and I just wanted him to see me." She shrugged. "So I misbehaved."
"And ended up in the army."
"Yeah, and right from the start I loved it. I loved the order and the discipline." She grinned. "And the three meals a day."
She was breaking his heart, and he hadn't even known he had one or that it was so fragile.
"The army's my home," she said. "Where I belong. The first place I felt like I belonged since Sam died."
He wanted to argue with her, tell her it might be the first but it didn't have to be the last, but he knew right now wasn't the time. He needed to get his head sorted, come to terms with the thoughts and feelings coursing through him. He was scared. And it wasn't something he was used to.
What if he let her down?
One more person who claimed to care for her and then never came through. He was hardly a good bet.
"Do you keep in touch?"
"With my parents? No, not really. I send Dad a card at Christmas, but I've never gotten one from him. Once or twice, I've thought about going to see him, but something always holds me back. One day, maybe. Perhaps it will be good for both of us."
"I don't give a fuck if it's good for him. He let you down. They both did." He got to his feet and held out a hand to her. He wanted to take her home, where he could hold her, kiss away the pain, tell her he would be there for her whatever happened between them. He could do that much.
She put her hand in his, and he drew her to her feet, and then nodded to Gary, who was sitting a few feet away.
"I just need to use the bathroom," Dani said and disappeared into the café.
Gary wandered over. "She okay? You looked sort of serious over here."
"I don't know."
"You like her, don't you?"
Zach nodded absently, his gaze straying to the restaurant where Dani would appear.
"I mean more than all those other women you've had?"
Gary clearly had something he wanted to say and Zach turned to face him. "Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah. Look, maybe I was wrong. I wasn't happy about you and her. I thought she'd get hurt."
"You care about her, that's all."
"We all do. There's something " Gary rubbed the back of his neck and gazed after where she had disappeared. "Anyway, I wanted to say that maybe you're good for her after all."
"Thanks. I think."
Gary's phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and listened for a moment. He glanced across at Zach, then held out the phone. "It's Simon. Apparently you have guests at the gate waiting to get in."
He didn't want guests. "Who is it?"
"He says he's your agent and a few friends by the look of it."
"Shit."
"Should I tell them to go away?"
He wished he could. But Julian was a friend as well as his agent, and he'd come a long way. Maybe he'd come to cheer Zach up. They hadn't been in contact for a couple of weeks-since before Jake's wedding in fact, but he'd probably sounded pissed off the last time they'd talked.
He sighed. "Let them in."
Suddenly, he wasn't too eager to get back to the villa. Dani appeared at that moment and glanced at the phone still in his hand. "Problems?"