Windswept Read Free Page A

shocked her, and she clung to him and stared with large, confused eyes. “What?”
    “Madam, it’s not deep. Look at me. I’m standing.”
    Logic registered somewhere in her mind and in fact even forced something like a giggle up from her throat. Her feet found the bottom of the harbor, and her grip on his tortured body lessened. “Oh. I see,” she said.
    He pointed toward the shore. “Shall I walk you to Key West, madam?”
    She tried to take a step, but was unsuccessful. “I’m afraid I’m mired in something, and my skirts are sodden.” She looked at him with eyes the color of the noon sky, and it seemed as if they might fill with tears. “I’m so sorry, but it appears I can’t move.”
    Considering the amount of clothing she was wearing, Jacob wasn’t surprised she was stuck in the squishy sand. Water must have added pounds to her natural weight. “In that case, if you’ll try to be a bit more gentle, I’ll allow you to put your arm around my shoulder a second time.”
    The eyes grew wide again, so wide a man could get lost in them and forget what he was about. “Pardon me, sir?”
    “To keep your balance.” He scooped her up in his arms, and she emitted a tiny yelp. Then he carried the entire package… trembling woman, soggy skirts, and at least five pounds of soaked raven hair to the shore.
    “My hat,” she said when they were nearly at the dock.
    He turned back and saw a little pointed green thing, tipped over like a canoe with an ostrich feather as its rudder. It was floating hopelessly north, well away from the Key West harbor. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, madam. It’s not the proper hat for our climate anyway.”
    He set her on the dock and was tempted to swim after the hat after all just to escape the crush of agitated humanity that descended upon them. The dogless woman, who just moments before had been the image of decisive leadership, half swooned in Captain Murdock’s arms while muttering a series of unrecognizable squawks about her daughter and her boys. A deckhand worked her fan like a metronome against her flushed face.
    A distinguished middle-aged man huffed about in a take-charge manner and inquired after the drenched woman’s well being. That was how Jacob learned that she was called Nora, and how he surmised he was listening to the no-nonsense baritone of Key West’s newest Federal judge.
    And a female in a striking red dress with hair to match fixed her gaze on Jacob as if he were a worm and she the bird. When he returned her glance, she winked at him, and in a French accent declared that the world could never have enough heroes.
    And Nora, still shivering with emotions he could not identify, regarded him with those fathomless blue eyes. Her curling dark hair fell around her shoulders in matted disarray. Her chest heaved against her soaked bodice. Her gown clung to her slim figure hinting at the shapes underneath. And in a modest voice, she proclaimed, “Thank you for coming to my assistance.”
    “My pleasure, miss. It’s what I do, actually, but I should add that I’ve never performed a rescue so close to shore.”
    She looked down at her dripping skirt, raised the hem slightly off the ground and shook it around her ankles. “Yes, well, I’ve never fallen off a ship before.”
    The judge accepted a blanket from the ship’s mate and wrapped it around Nora’s shoulders. “Yes, thank you, sir,” he said. “I’m Thurston Seabrook, and this is my daughter. We are all indebted to you for your quick thinking…”
    Jacob was only half listening. He was more concerned about a problem Nora seemed to be having with her dress. For several moments the hemline had mimicked a marionette, jerking awkwardly around her ankles. When he had a pretty good idea what was causing the strange occurrence, he bent down and reached under her hem.
    “I beg your pardon,” the judge blustered. “Remove your hand at once!”
    Jacob did, and produced from the folds of Nora’s