What the Waves Bring by Barbara Delinsky Page B

and behind his ears. “God help me.” Her eyes widened with her soulful whisper. “I can’t stop wanting you …” Slowly, the tears escaped their bounds, trickling, one by one, over the now-pale sheen of her cheeks.
    â€œDamn it, April,” he swore, grabbing her arms and hauling her against his chest, easily overpowering her resistance with arms like long steel bands that formed a temporary prison about her quaking body. “Listen to me! Whatever was done in this bed, was done by both of us. We’re in this together. I won’t have you blaming yourself for something that was genuine and lovely … and undertaken in the spirit of innocence—”
    â€œThere was nothing innocent about it!” She interrupted him sharply. “It was lust. Physical need—”
    â€œWhich,” he continued for her, “was satisfied by two people who had no other knowledge but that they were free to do so. Don’t you understand, April? I have no idea when—or whether—my memory will return. Can I isolate myself from life, from pleasure, indefinitely? Perhaps it is a purely selfish approach—but it’s the only one I see that will help me over the next weeks, months, maybe years.”
    His words had a self-calming effect, his tone gradually growing softer, less gruff. April felt his sense of conviction, conveyed through every fiber of his body as it held hers, and she derived momentary solace from it.

    â€œHow strange,” she hiccoughed, at last, closing her eyes against the warmth of his chest, gaining strength from his manly scent, “that we should wait and wait for the lights to come on, and then find them to be so cruel. I wonder”—a sniffle interrupted her musing—“what would have happened … had the electricity gone on an hour ago.”
    She opened her eyes to see the first light of dawn break beyond the windowpane. It held no miracle answers.
    Heath snickered. “You would have been just as horrified to find yourself in bed with a half-dressed stranger … who would have wanted you regardless.”
    â€œYou, ” she announced without a trace of humor, “are probably a notorious playboy.” At her frown, he released her, and she bounded from the bed, throwing her robe across her shoulders as she fled the room to do battle with her conscience.
    By the time she emerged from the bathroom, she was alone in the house. Aimless steps took her from room to room, mug of steaming black coffee in hand, to the front door to examine the world in the aftermath of Ivan the Terrible. How differently things looked to her now, even though they were quite unchanged! Saturated with rain and glittering with brightly mirrored puddles, the moorland started just beyond her yard and undulated its way toward the horizon. The misted morning’s sun wore a thinly clouded veil, lending even greater stillness to the pale yellow and gray tapestry, a miracle in elemental recovery.
    Nothing had changed, yet everything had. She closed the door softly and turned from it. The hurricane had been compassionate toward the landscape; it had wreaked havoc with her peace of mind. Where was Heath now? Driven by intuition, she mounted the steps to her rooftop cupola, scanning the beach until the dark figure came into view. Head down, he walked slowly, deep in thought similar to that which monopolized her own being. Who was
he? What was he to her? She felt herself at the starting line of an unfathomable race, its ultimate course a deep, dark mystery. What was she to do?
    With the electrical power restored, the phone service would surely soon follow. Then the search might begin for Heath’s true identity. A shaft of fear coursed through her at the thought of the possibilities. She had imagined him so many different things in the past two days; which would it turn out to be?
    When Heath returned, his hair in casual disarray, his face a healthy brown