Waveborn

26

"It's okay," Jason said quickly. He reached toward her again, hesitantly, as if she were a stray puppy. "I understand. It was probably that girl, or the woman you met yesterday. They can make you lose track of yourself and forget everything. But you've got to get dried off, do you understand?"

Cass took all this in with relief. Right. It was Selena's fault, in a way. She could let him think she'd been mind-controlled into the water.

"You're shivering. You should get below."

"You're kind of in the way."

"Oh. Right. Let me get you a towel."

He emerged a moment later with a bath towel, which she accepted carefully and wrapped around her sodden underthings while Jason held the hatch cover in front of her. "I'm not really indecent," she told him.

"Stop talking and go change," he ordered her. "You need to get warmed up or you'll get sick."

She gave a half-laugh. "You sound like Jen."

She retreated to her cabin and dug out dry clothes while Jason clanked around in the kitchen. By the time she emerged, he'd dug out the battered percolator and set coffee to brewing.

He hovered over her immediately, placing both hands on her shoulders to look her up and down, his expression worried. "Are you sure you're all right? You weren't at rehearsal last night. What happened?"

Cass grimaced. "I was so exhausted after the afternoon, I crashed as soon as we got back to the boat and didn't wake up until late this morning. I thought it was still yesterday afternoon."

"Good," he said, searching her face. "I thought maybe you were angry at me."

"Angry at you? Why?"

"The whole no-clothes thing," he said sheepishly. He dropped his hands and stooped to grab a fleece blanket and swirl it around her shoulders, a smile hovering on his lips. "Although now I realize it was just that you can't keep your clothes on around me—"

"Hey!" she protested. "If you didn't come barging into people's homes unannounced, it wouldn't have been a problem."

He raised one eyebrow. "We would have had the same problem on deck...unless you undressed because you saw me?"

Cass disentangled her arm enough to swing a punch at his shoulder. He caught her hand, laughing at her.

"Stop that. I come bearing gifts!" He pointed past her to a stack of hardbacks on the table. "Gramps said you were looking for books on island history. He has a whole library filled with everything about the islands, history and legends, but also information about plants, wildlife, geology, you name it. He called and asked me to bring them to the shop."

He poured coffee as she slid onto the bench to read the titles: Days of Rodger's Harbor, History of the San Juan Islands, Northwest Coastal Native Americans, Shipwrecks of the Pacific, Indian Legends of the West. "These are great!"

"I was planning to give them to you when you stopped by the store, but when you didn't show I thought I'd deliver." Coffee in hand, Jason slid in beside her. He put one arm around her shoulders, warm and protective, and pulled her close. "Drink this. It will help you warm up. Are you feeling any better?"

"Yes, thanks." She settled against his arm feeling oddly shy. His attention felt deliciously wonderful, but she couldn't quite relax into it. She couldn't stop thinking that didn't deserve his kindness. No one had forced her into the ocean, the way Selena forced Jason; he was only paying her so much attention because she'd let him think she'd been mind-controlled.