![]() He had entirely lost sight of the fact that she was the woman who'd rescued him that is, a strong sense of her character had obliterated that vague impersonal excitement he'd felt on first meeting her, and now he was making mad fantasies about her in his head. ![]() It was like what was supposed to happen with sex, but seldom if ever did. He realized that he had never had his knowledge of a human being commence at such a pitch, and plunge so deep so fast. He didn't tell her about the weeds in the gutters, the men sitting on the steps with their cans of beer, the smell of boiled cabbage that never went away, the riverfront trains rattling the windows. He liked the look in her gray eyes he liked the simplicity of her easy, languid gestures. He didn't like it, but he liked to hear her tell about it. He had liked what she said about going out to sea about being alone on the bridge with the coffee in her hand, the wind howling past the wheelhouse. It was an easy exchange, deepening their knowledge of each other, and amplifying the intimacy they'd already felt. All alone out there in that big awful cruiser right at the moment when darkness fell.Who the hell else would have been there? Who the hell else could have gotten him out of the water? Why, he could easily believe what she said about determination, about her powers. But she was part and parcel of what had happened, her strangeness and her strength were part of it. If only that awful accident hadn't happened, and he had found her in some simple ordinary place, and they had begun to talk. And it made him sad suddenly, sad and almost desperate, as if they were somehow doomed, he and she.Īll these weeks, if only he could have seen her, been with her. She had never once tuned out on him.īut the point was, he had to leave, and he didn't want to. But the point was, he hadn't lost her with his crazy rambling. He had started kissing her, and that was how that particular segment of the conversation had come to an end. She had smiled so beautifully at him then. 'Do you think it was that power?' he asked. She had said only, 'I don't know how I reached the ladder, I honestly don't.' Yet she had been pitched right into it, and she hadn't lost consciousness. She had said that a person loses consciousness almost immediately in very cold water. When she'd been describing the rescue to him in more detail, she had said a strange thing. Why did this other thing have to be happening? Why did this feel like stolen time? Why do you think they come after us doctors with their lawyers?' But he'd put back on the gloves, because he was getting all those random stupid images off everything - Graham, Ellie, and men, lots of different men, handsome men, and all Rowan's men, that was abundantly clear. She had just refilled the coffee for him, and it tasted good. And he rather liked the feeling of thinking clearly. He had not been this long without a drink all summer. 'Well, it was luck for me, all right,' he'd responded, and he had felt an extraordinary sense of well-being when he said it, and he wasn't so sure why. In fact, when he considered it with this new clarity, he realized he'd been able to concentrate well since he'd been here, concentrate on their conversation and their lovemaking and their knowing of each other and that was something altogether new, because in all these weeks, his lack of concentration - his inability to read more than a page of a book, or follow more than a few moments of a film - had left him continuously agitated. And it was such a relief to be thinking of someone other than himself. He was thinking that she was the first thing in all these weeks that really mattered to him, that took his mind off the accident and off himself. He still had to go home and he had to determine the purpose. How could he continue to know her and maybe even get to love her, and have her, and do this other thing he had to do? And he still had to do this other thing.
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