And that's when she realized Connor was still out there.
In the kind of storm that could destroy a small sailboat.
She ran out of the cabin, down the beach to the dock. The cover was still on the power boat and she ripped at it, tearing a couple of fingernails in her panic. The storm had sent a thick fog in addition to the rain and wind.
With the boat uncovered just enough for her to be able to sit behind the wheel and steer, she quickly untied the ropes holding it to the dock and turned the key in the ignition. She wanted to go fast, shoot out onto the lake to find Connor, but she could barely see five feet in front of her and had to creep along.
Where was he?
She prayed then, harder than she ever had before, and then she saw it — a quick flash of something that looked like the white of the upside-down hull — and drove toward it.
She had to get within twenty feet before she could clearly see the boat. She didn't see Connor at first. She lost her grip on the steering wheel as the shock of losing him almost took her down, but then, a second later she saw his head, his shoulders, bobbing up and down in the water as he tried to climb onto the upside-down hull.
Connor was trained for saving people. Not Ginger. But now that their positions were reversed, she knew she needed to not only draw from her own strength, but his too.
Steadily, she drew the boat up alongside him, needing to get as close as she could without hitting him. With the wind and huge swells knocking them both around in the lake, it was difficult, but she refused to back down, to give in to the fear trying to break her.
He saw her then, coming for him. She cut the engine and leaned as far as she could out of the boat without falling into the water. He was just out of reach, just beyond her fingers, but she knew she couldn't jump into the water, couldn't let the power boat get away from them. She reached again for him and this time, her fingers were able to catch his.
Pulling from a strength she hadn't known was in her, she wrapped her cold hands around his near-frozen flesh and pulled him away from the sailboat. He could barely close his fingers, and she knew that the combination of the cold and wet with his nerve damage must be making even the slightest movements nearly impossible.
But then, he was the one pulling her toward him and as the two boats slammed together, he leaped into the power boat.
She should have known better than to doubt his strength, even in conditions like this. She forced herself to hold focus until she had the boat safely tied up to the dock. They'd worry about recovering the sailboat later.
Only then did she let herself look at him, put her arms around him. Oh God, his skin had lost its color. He was so cold, he was shaking. Somehow she needed to get him inside, get him warm, make sure he was okay.
But he had more strength than anyone else would have; when she got out of the boat and reached in to help him out, he was quickly on the dock, moving with her through the hail into the cabin.
The minute they were inside she stripped him down, then pulled a thick blanket off a nearby chair and wrapped it around him. Somehow, she got all caught up in the blanket, her body pressed hard against his, but when she tried to pull away to go make some tea to warm him, she realized his arms were holding her fast.
“You scared me,” she whispered into his chest. She was trembling, more from the fear of almost having lost him than from the cold.
“You saved me.”
His skin was still so cold, his hard muscles like blocks of ice against her, his hands and arms stiff as she tried to massage life into them with her fingers.
“You need to get warm.”
Fortunately, the mud room in the back of the house had a shower, so they didn't need to go all the way upstairs.
Seconds later, they were standing together under the spray, holding each other, Connor naked, Ginger fully clothed.
Quickly warming, she'd never been more glad to feel his lips on her than she did as he bent his head down to kiss her.
Her ni**les beaded against his chest and when he started pulling off her clothes, the only thing she could think was that it must mean he had feeling in his hands.
And then she was naked too and he was sinking down onto the tiled shower floor and she was going with him.
One last time, was all she could think as she felt the thick head of his c**k press into her, as he slowly filled her with his heat. She worked to memorize every last thing about him, the passion in his blue eyes, the emotion etched into his face.
One day she'd find another man to marry. She'd have children. And she'd work like hell to be happy.
But there would never be anyone like Connor.
After what had just happened, she deserved these last few final stolen moments in his arms.
And then she'd be strong.
She gasped with pleasure as he wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her down hard, all the way onto him.
She never wanted to let go, never wanted to give him up as he told her how much he wanted her, needed her, had to have her. Her muscles started to contract around him and his roar of pleasure vibrated all the way through to the center of her.
One last time.
Thank God she was back in his arms. It was right where she belonged, the only way he could feel any peace at all.
Connor couldn't believe how stupid he'd been to go out in the sailboat in the middle of a storm like that, without a life vest.
The worst part of it was that he hadn't just put his own life at risk, he'd risked Ginger's too. She shouldn't have come out in that storm to save him, but she had.
He felt her shift in his arms and, selfishly, he almost didn't let her move. But her arms were strong as she pushed away from him and stood up.
He watched her step out of the shower and wrap a towel around herself, then he turned off the water and did the same, his heart thumping hard.
“Connor. We need to talk.”
Oh f**k. He could feel what was coming — what had to come after the way he'd behaved last night and this morning.
Wanting desperately to stop her from leaving him, he said, “You were right. When you said I've been lying to everyone. Knowing I can't go back to my job, to my crew-” He stopped, tried to put the loss into words. “It's worse than the way I felt when I woke up in the hospital. I knew my skin would grow back. But I'll never get to be out on the mountain again, never get to feel that rush of facing down the flames.”
He ran a hand through his wet hair, forced himself to say, “I was embarrassed by how much it hurt. That's why I didn't want to talk about it.”