All the lights in the house were on—people around here had a tendency to do that; the aesthetics of a brightly-lit beach house at night were hard to top.
Carlo stopped at the tideline as Sabina turned up to climb the dunes to the house. After a few steps, she realized he wasn’t following her and turned back. She cocked her head. “Come up.”
“Are you sure?”
“You may sit on the veranda. I’ll bring you a drink, and you can call your brother. Come.” Without waiting to see if he would, she turned and continued her climb to the house. He followed.
As he climbed behind her up the steps onto her veranda, he noticed that she was leaving a dark footprint with every step of her right foot. She was bleeding. She’d been limping, but not to the extent he would have thought, seeing these prints.
“Sabina?”
In the act of opening her front door, she turned. “Yes?”
He gestured to the plank floor of the veranda. “You’re bleeding.”
“Ai. Yes. I think found a piece of shell in the sand. No matter. I have bandages.”
“May I help?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “No, I think I don’t need your help.”
She took everything he said as if it were a move of some kind. It wasn’t. She was beautiful and charming, but she was married. And he wasn’t back in the game yet after Jenny. He had no ulterior motives at all—in fact, he wanted to get back to Quiet Cove and check in on Trey. But he supposed it wasn’t paranoid of her to think that a man she barely knew might have bad intent when he was trying to get into her house.
“Okay. You’ve been walking on it for a while, haven’t you?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t move.
“Okay. It’s probably pretty deep if it’s still bleeding. You need to make sure you get all the sand out of it. Soak your foot in hot water for a while. Do you have a washtub or something? And lots of antibiotics.”
Still she didn’t move.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sliced my feet up around here. I’m happy to help. Just help.”
Expressions moved across her face with surprising speed. She was the very definition of conflicted.
“I’ll just wait out here, if you want. I have no other intent, Sabina.”
“Bina.”
“Hmm?”
“Bina. I am Bina.”
He smiled. “Bina. May I help you?”
With a single bob of her head, she conceded. Then she turned and stepped up into her house, leaving the door open behind her. He followed her in.
The house was as handsome, and predictable, on the inside as it was on the outside. It had obviously been professionally decorated in the kind of tasteful eclecticism that predominated among the affluent summer-home dwellers in the area. Lots of weathered whitewash, all the accent hues ocean blue and sage green.
Trying not to bloody the pale wood floors or the light, woven area rugs, Bina was limping now much more noticeably. She hobbled to the kitchen and began opening cabinets. And closing them. She was searching. She didn’t know where things were in her own kitchen. This was a woman used to having a staff.
Finally, she came out of the pantry with a white plastic tub and waved it at Carlo, lifting her eyebrows in a question. He nodded. “That’s perfect. Do you have first aid supplies?”
Her look had a hint of pride, and she turned back into the pantry and came quickly out with a small first aid kit. She’d known where to find that.
He took the tub from her and brought it to the sink to fill with hot water, running the stream over his wrist to check the temperature, as he did for Trey’s baths. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her watching, her expression now inscrutable. “Washcloth?”
She stared at the drawers under the counter, clearly trying to remember. When she did, she took a step forward and opened a drawer, pulling out a white tea towel. “This will do?”
“Yes.” Terry cloth would have been better, but he thought he might really put her at a loss to get that specific. “Have a seat.” He nodded toward the rustic, whitewashed table surrounded by wooden chairs painted ocean blue.
She sat, and he squatted, setting the tub on the floor between her feet. He moved to lift her right foot, but she pulled away and put her foot into the tub herself, hissing very quietly when the sole of her foot hit the hot water.
“Sorry. It’s going to sting.” Then he put the tea towel into the water and wet it thoroughly. He wrung it out, then eased his hand around her slim ankle. She went stiff at his touch, and he stopped and looked up. For a moment, she simply stared back, and he stayed quiet, waiting. Then she nodded, and he picked up her foot and, as gently as he could, cleaned her wound.