Summer Breeze by Nancy Thayer Page B

blissful air. After a moment, the man said, “Okay. I’m going to pull you up.”
    Her senses focused. It was a rowboat. Her cheek scraped along the wood. She was steadily pulled upward until she could grasp the side of the boat with her hands, but she had no power in her arms to get herself over into the boat. The man moved his own hands to her waist, clutched tight, and hauled her up, her butt and legs unceremoniously plunking down into the bottom of the boat.
    She lay there for a moment, breathing hard. She was lying on a couple of fishing rods and a coil of rope, curled in fetal position around a pair of large feet in old deck shoes. The sun beat down on her, but she shivered.
    “Can you sit up if I help you?” the man asked.
    “I think so.” She grabbed the plank of wood serving as a seat and dragged herself up. That took every ounce of energy she had left. She just sat there, head falling forward, chest heaving.
    “Take off your top,” the man said.
    She lifted her head. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    Then she recognized the man. It was Bella’s brother Ben, wearing a swimming suit and a cotton polo shirt.
    “Your teeth are chattering,” Ben told her quietly. “You’re covered in gooseflesh. You’re probably in shock.” In one smooth movement, he peeled off his shirt and handed it to her. “Put this on. It will warm you up.” When she just gawked at him, he said, “It’s clean. Out of the drawer this morning.”
    She was encouraged to believe that she was going to live because of the completely frivolous but urgent question that blinked in her mind: What bra had she put on this morning? She had several comfortable and rather saggy old white or nude bras she wore to paint in, and it would be a shame if she were wearing one of those, because she had so many pretty bras, with lace and silk.…
    “I’ll close my eyes,” Ben told her, and did as he said.
    She wrestled off her sodden tank top, which water had glued to her body. It made sucking noises as she pulled it away, and it felt creepy and suffocating as she pulled it over her head. She dropped it into the bottom of the boat and quickly yanked on his shirt. The dry cotton against her cold skin was like a soft robe after a freezing rain.
    “Oh, that feels better. Thank you.” Still, she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.
    Ben began to row with quick, rhythmical strokes. “We’ll get you in the house. Get some hot tea inside you.”
    Perhaps it was the rocking of the boat or the thought of tea—Natalie flung herself to the side of the boat in time to vomit into the lake. Most of what came up was water. Afterward, she was so weak that for a moment she just lay against the boat, resting. She became aware of sunlight beating down on her body, drying her legs, her arms, her hair, yet beneath the surface of her skin, she still felt intensely cold. Deep down in her soggy tiny reptilian brain where shewas beginning to return to self-consciousness, she also felt humiliated, half drowning like that and then having to be heaved up, helpless, to safety.
    She dragged herself back up to a sitting position. Well, a slouching position. With effort, she stared at Ben. “What are you doing here? It’s a weekday.”
    “I don’t teach this afternoon. I went in to the lab, checked a few things, decided I wanted to be out here. I like it on the lake when it’s quiet like this. People are mostly at work and school. I can hear the birds.”
    “Well, I’m glad you were here. Thank you, Ben. You saved my life.”
    “Glad to do it.” As he spoke, he looked over his shoulder, steering the rowboat neatly up to the Barnabys’ dock. In one graceful leap, he jumped up on the dock and tied the rope around a stanchion. “Think you can make it?” he asked.
    Natalie summoned her energy, pushed herself to a standing position, and reached for his hand. He held her steady while she stepped up onto the seat, then onto the edge of the boat, then onto the dock