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  She turned it over. The lamp shade was gone and bulb fixture mangled, but the twin dolphins still arced gracefully out of a beautifully carved wave, the smiles on their faces a silent mocking to Ivan and the havoc he’d wrought.

  The world slowly rocked back to center. Jillian carefully filtered out all the myriad things beckoning her attention. There would be time later to sort out the long-term effects of the devastation the storm had left behind.

  She set the lamp carefully on the kitchen table, which had been left untouched by the storm. And, without wanting to, she tightened her hold on Reese’s hand. Right that minute it felt like a lifeline, and she wasn’t too proud to admit that she could use one.

  “Help me get the bars off the door, okay?”

  Jillian was grateful for the task, to do even the smallest chore meant she was moving forward, that the worst was over and every step, no matter how tiny, was a step away from this … this …

  She shuddered lightly, but dropped Reese’s hand. “Okay. Do you want to get the mop handle from the storage room for a crutch?”

  “Nah. Not that bad, really. I guess the enforced rest of last night was good for something.”

  She didn’t even want to think about last night. Couldn’t, if she wanted to retain what small part of her control she’d won back.

  But she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he stepped to his side of the door. He limped, favoring his wounded thigh more than a little, but he could walk. She turned her attention back to the door, and what lay beyond it. Or rather who. Cleo.

  “Let me push, then you pull,” he directed. “The door seems to have warped a bit.”

  Five minutes and a few swear words later the door swung open.

  “The porch is gone,” she said, stating the obvious. Her mind registered the incredible amount of garbage, both natural and man-made, strewn about the grounds of the compound. But most of her attention was focused on one small part. The pond.

  She looked down for a safe place to jump, as without the benefit of the porch, she’d also lost the stairs. Reese levered himself down first and motioned her to follow him.

  Once on the ground, she passed Reese on her way toward the pond. “At least there’s no flooding,” she called over her shoulder, realizing it felt strange not to have to yell to be heard. She scanned the grounds. Downed trees and limbs and what was probably chunks of her roof blocked her line of vision. She headed in what appeared to be the most direct route around it.

  A small crash and a string of colorful cursing made her slow down enough to look over her shoulder.

  Reese was bent over holding his shin, but he motioned her on. “Go on, I’ll catch up.”

  Jillian nodded, using all of her concentration not to look past Reese at her house—or what was left of it—and turned her attention back on picking out her path. Not now, she said silently. Cleo first, then the house. The house wasn’t going anywhere. At least not what was left of it.

  Her thoughts flipped to the egg mound as she wondered about the nestlings’ fate. A waterlogged egg mound would be fatal for the soon-to-be hatchlings. A quick glance skyward showed it was still overcast, but the rain and wind had stopped. “Please,” she prayed softly, “don’t bring more rain.” She knew the fact that it hadn’t flooded yet didn’t mean the threat was past. Caracoles Key was small, and a storm of Ivan’s magnitude had likely wreaked its havoc on the tides as well as the island. Her compound was on the eastern side closest to Sanibel, but that didn’t insure it against the threat of flooding.

  She rounded the last twisted piece of siding and caught her first good look at the pond … and the mound. The pond had swollen past its banks, but it had stopped several feet shy of infiltrating the mound. Cleo, she didn’t see Cleo.

  Without realizing it, she broke into a run, not stopping until she was halfway around the pond. There she was! Jillian raised her finger, pointing out to no one in particular the dark shadow lying in the shallows at the edge of the pond.

  Jillian stopped near the edge of the pond, positioning herself to get the best glance without risking antagonizing Cleo. She had no idea what state Cleo would be in after suffering through such an ordeal, but she had immense respect for the huge reptile and wasn’t about to jeopardize herself or the alligator.

  But she’d give her soul for a pair of her best binoculars right now. Those particular binoculars had been stored in her office. The reality of the devastation blindsided her, literally taking her breath away for a long, painful moment.

  Again, she felt large, warm hands cover her shoulders. “Breathe slowly.”

  She did, and a moment later he dropped his hands. Jillian wished he hadn’t, but didn’t say anything. Some protective part of her brain still functioned and knew she could easily begin to rely too heavily on the reassurance Reese had so readily supplied for the last twelve hours.

  “Is she all right?”

  “I haven’t seen her move yet, but she’s still near the mound, and it doesn’t look damaged. At least it’s not flooded from what I can tell.”

  “How will you know for sure?”

  She tore her gaze away from Cleo and turned to face Reese. Her heart skipped erratically again, as she was also taken off guard by how much she’d come to enjoy looking at him, looking to him. “With Cleo, mostly observation. I’ll have to get closer if she seems to be suffering. As for the nestlings, we’ll know in a couple of days when they’re due to hatch. They all hatch at the same time, so it will be easy enough to tell.”

  “Why did you name her Cleo?”

  A wistful smile curved her lips. “It’s Cleopatra actually. The Egyptians revered the crocodile family. And she was so … I don’t know. She deserved a royal name. I thought it suited her.”

  He didn’t respond, instead he simply looked at her, into her.

  “What?” she asked finally, unable to handle his scrutiny with her control so thinly stretched.

  “You.” At her lifted eyebrows, he took a step closer and brought his hand to her face. She let him push errant strands of hair off her forehead and run a rough-tipped finger down her cheek.

  “What about me?” His touch was far more soothing than it had a right to be. Her heart warred with her brain over the inherent stupidity of asking him such a loaded question at a time like this.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re strong, you’re tough, you’re courageous.”

  “Don’t you mean foolish, stupid, and reckless?”

  “That too. Except for the stupid part.” His mouth tipped up at the corners in a rusty smile. “But that’s not bad, for a sheila.”

  Lord, the man could smile. And what a smile it was. What it did for his eyes … what it did for the darkness behind those eyes … She found herself doing the most ridiculous thing, considering the circumstances. She smiled back.

  “And you’re not too bad, either. For an Aussie.”

  His smile broadened.

  And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her relentlessly. There was no time to breathe, even less time to think.

  His kisses were pushing her, driving her, testing her. And still she couldn’t think, couldn’t determine what else he wanted from her.

  Jillian stood in his arms and absorbed the brunt of his passion. His kisses buffeted her mind, body, and soul just as the raging winds had buffeted her house and home. And she was as helpless against the forces of nature driving Reese as she’d been against those driving Ivan. As helpless as she’d been against her mother’s determination and scheming, as helpless as she’d been to prevent Thomas from walking away from her and the life she’d expected to share with him, as helpless as she’d been to prevent Richard from taking her private pain and making it so humiliatingly public.

  Helpless. As she’d been made to feel all her life.

  Something deep inside her clicked. Or maybe it snapped.

  And the whirling maelstrom of emotions that she’d learned long ago to keep forcibly locked in a far corner of he
r mind sprang forth past the old, protective barrier.

  Violent, powerful, enervating, the force of it flowed through her, energizing her. Revitalizing her.

  And then she was moving in his arms, a compliant receiver no more. She pulled at him, kissed him back, moved her body against his as he had against hers. She didn’t think, she didn’t wonder, she just acted.

  And he liked it.

  Jillian knew from his response, from the groans she felt erupting inside his chest, from the hot words of encouragement he broke off to whisper roughly in her ear.

  But he wasn’t compliant, as she’d been. He continued to take even while he gave, each of them fighting for what they wanted, reveling as much in each other’s victories as they did their own.

  And suddenly she didn’t feel so weak, she didn’t feel so victimized. She didn’t feel so damn helpless.

  No. She felt like the woman he thought her to be. Strong. Tough. Courageous.

  And as swiftly as it had swept over her, over them, the storm receded. In unison, their kisses gentled, slowed, until they simply stood in each other’s arms, Reese looking down at her, Jillian’s gaze fixed on him.

  “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, when she finally could.

  His brow lifted, as if to say he didn’t understand her meaning. But his eyes betrayed him. Now, in the light of day, Jillian could see what she’d only suspected was there during the long dark night she’d spent in his arms.

  Gone were his walls, his defenses, defenses she suspected were as old and as painfully erected as hers had been. Now she could see behind them, into him. And there was pain, and sadness, and wariness.

  She felt strangely as if she was looking into a mirror.

  But there was also strength, honor, and faith. And a fierceness, a banked sort of heat that had nothing to do with protecting himself. She felt her knees begin to buckle.

  Reese’s arms tightened around her as if to hold her up. But his expression darkened, and the flickering heat danced in his eyes, threatening to erupt into flames, his steely control the only thing keeping them both from being scorched by what lay behind it. And as her own arms tightened around him in automatic response, she wondered who was supporting whom.

  But Jillian knew what she was looking at, even if she’d never seen it before, she knew she was seeing it now. And she suspected he’d seen it too. In her own eyes.

  Intimacy. They’d become intimate. Not just physically, barely physically really. They hadn’t entered each other’s bodies. No, they’d become intimate in a far more dangerous way. They had entered each other’s minds.

  Each other’s souls.

  And once breached, that barrier was just as irreversible as any physical one. Possibly more so.

  Jillian knew in that moment she couldn’t have felt any more open and vulnerable to another man than if he stripped her naked, pulled her down, and drove himself into her right here on the hard, wet ground.

  Reese’s hands lifted to her face, he cupped her cheeks and bent his head down. “Don’t thank me,” he whispered, when he was just a breath away. “It’s not me, Jillian. It’s you. It’s always been you.”

  Jillian knew what he meant. She also knew he was wrong. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t him, either. It was them.

  She held his quiet gaze. Did he understand that?

  As if by spoken agreement, when his lips touched hers, they let their eyes drift shut. And Jillian knew that, for her, it was a last-ditch effort to retain a secret, private place inside herself.

  Just as she knew that there was no such place left.

  The kiss was short, but no less intimate or powerful than the ones they’d shared just before it.

  Reese broke away first and stepped back, his weight shifting unevenly on his wounded leg. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” She cast a swift glance at Cleo. Then took a double take. “Reese! She moved.” She pointed to where Cleo was now hovering. “She was in the water, near the edge, before … before …” She faltered, but when she looked back at Reese, she found herself smiling instead of blushing. “A few minutes ago.” A lifetime ago. “And now she’s moved several feet. I wish I’d seen it.”

  A knowing look crossed Reese’s face, and she silently admitted she wouldn’t have traded what had transpired between them over the last several minutes for anything, not even for Cleo.

  “If you think she’ll be okay, why don’t we go check out your clinic. It seems okay from here, but we should take a look.”

  “You’re right. I’m going to need to get a handle on what my resources are. But this back area around the pond doesn’t look so bad. Maybe I’ll finally have some luck and Cleo won’t need my help.” She didn’t let herself think about the nestlings. There was nothing she could do for them at this point except wait.

  She turned and took a step back toward the renovated outbuilding that now served as her treatment center located at the other side of the rear area of the compound. Reese took her hand and fell into step beside her.

  She liked the feel of his fingers twined with hers. And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to shorten her stride to accommodate his limp.

  NINE

  Several hours had passed by the time she and Reese had finished a rough categorization of the damage. It hadn’t been easy for her. Several times, usually when she thought she was handling it pretty well, she’d find something, a broken chunk of equipment or a twisted piece of furniture, and the overwhelming realization of the depth of her predicament would threaten to consume her. And every time Reese was there. Sometimes with just a steady look, sometimes with a touch, and more than once with a quick, tight hug.

  She might have been able to handle all of this without him, but she didn’t want to contemplate how much worse it would have been. And she didn’t beat herself up over taking what solace he offered her. He would be gone soon enough, and she would have plenty of time to shoulder the burden alone.

  In the meantime, she’d absorb as much of his strength as he was willing to give, store it up for later. For all of the times he wouldn’t be there, for all the times when she just wished he was.

  “I think this is the last of it,” Reese said as he entered the main treatment room they’d turned into a sort of inventory center. He had a small box under one arm and a large green trash bag in the other hand.

  Her clinic had been relatively untouched, only a few shingles gone from the roof and the antenna for her two-way radio had been swept away. The chain-link pens and a good portion of the fence surrounding the property had been twisted or destroyed, but replacing them was the least of her concerns.

  They’d spent the last thirty minutes transporting everything they’d stashed in the converted closet in the house to the clinic.

  “We should probably try and move the mattress out here.”

  Jillian hadn’t missed the strain on his face, nor had she missed how much more pronounced his limp had become. He’d taken something for the pain and even let her check the stitches. There was some redness, but it actually looked okay. His endurance and healing capabilities should have amazed her, but somehow, with Reese, only the opposite would have been a surprise.

  But there was a limit, even for Reese Braedon.

  “I think we’ve done enough. There is a cot in the back room,” she added casually.

  “You stay out here some nights?”

  She nodded. “There are times I need to attend to some animals so regularly, it just makes sense to stay close by.”

  He hefted the bag onto the long counter and folded his arms on top of it. “You give so much of yourself to your work. Do you leave any for yourself? For your family?”

  “My work is for myself,” was all she would say, could say. “I can catalog the rest of this stuff. Why don’t you go in the back and take some weight off of that leg for a while?”

  Reese turned and grabbed a stool. He pulled it over, hoisted himself up, and propped his leg on the counter next to the bag. “Satisfied,
Doc?”

  More than she wanted to admit. She wanted his company, wanted him nearby, where she could look up and see him whenever she wanted to.

  “You know, I never asked, but it must be tough financing an operation like this,” Reese said. “How do you do it?”

  What she didn’t want to do was discuss her family. And he’d unknowingly asked her to do just that.

  “I manage,” she said, hoping he’d let her evade the issue.

  “Grants? Private funding?”

  She released a small sigh. She should have known there’d be a price to pay for getting to keep him near. There was always a price when she got something she wanted.

  “My partner, Cole Sinclair,” he went on, “got married a while back. His wife runs a school for disabled kids down in the Keys.”

  “That sounds wonderful. She must be a special person.”

  Reese’s rusty smile surfaced again, making Jillian wonder just how special this woman was to him. It was disconcerting to realize how badly she wanted to know the answer to that.

  “The night I met her I didn’t think so. I thought she was using Cole, putting him in a situation he shouldn’t have been put in, just to get her dolphin back.”

  “Whoa, I thought you said she ran a school for kids.”

  “She does. She uses dolphins to help reach kids who haven’t responded to other forms of conventional treatment.”

  “I think I’ve read about that. About them helping autistic kids or something.”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself, except I’ve seen it. It’s amazing.”

  “I take it your opinion of her has changed?”

  He glanced away for a moment. He actually looked a bit … abashed. As if he’d only just now realized it had.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Kira has turned Cole’s whole life around. Before he met her … well, he was pretty messed up.”

  “And now?” she prodded gently, liking this uncertain side of Reese more than she dared to. There was a wistful quality to his voice she’d never thought to hear.

  His smile surfaced again. “And now they make me sick. I think they only argue so they can … you know.”