Chapter One

      As soon as Allie Carter felt the powerful undertow start to drag her out to deep water she knew she was in trouble. The current flowed as fast as a river, much too powerful for her to swim against. It was all she could do to keep her head above water.

      Every instinct urged her to fight her way back to the fast-receding beach, but she resisted the temptation, knowing it was the way to certain death. Instead she made herself swim parallel with the shore. She knew that sooner or later the current would dissipate in calm water, then she could turn toward land, although judging by the ferocity of the current, it was likely to be a long way from Saphir Beach where she’d entered the water.

      “Let it take you, don’t fight it,” she told herself to curb her rising panic. She couldn’t help thinking about the sharks that frequented the deeper waters. Maybe they only ate women from Carramer and not visiting Australians, she thought. Talk about wishful thinking. The thought distracted her briefly from the growing ache in her shoulders and arms, although it did nothing for the rawness of her throat from swallowing salt water.

      Just when she was afraid she wouldn’t have the strength to make it back to shore, she felt the current’s grip slacken, and she began angling her strokes to carry her to a cove visible in the distance. Exhaustion and salt water blurred her vision but she thought she saw someone moving about on the sand, unless it was more wishful thinking.

      By the time she reached shallower water she couldn’t summon the energy to stand up, and she flopped in the breakers, chest heaving with the struggle to breathe, barely able to see out of stinging eyes. Waves washed over her head and threatened to carry her out to sea again but she had no strength left to fight them.

      Suddenly she felt herself being lifted into strong arms and carried the last few feet up the beach. “It’s all right, you’re safe.” The French-accented voice sounded powerfully male, although the man himself was an infuriating blur. With an odd sense of detachment she felt herself being placed on her stomach on an unyielding surface. A heavy pressure made itself felt on her back and she tried to protest but couldn’t force the sound out. The pressure returned several times at steady intervals until she coughed, bringing up copious amounts of seawater.

      “Much better,” the vibrant male voice commented as if to himself, adding to her, “lie still while I get a doctor.”

      Groggily she rolled over onto one elbow and struggled to focus on her rescuer. Looming seemed like a good word to describe the tall, broad man bending over her. But his voice sounded concerned, and the hands that placed a folded towel under her head and offered her another to clean her face were gentle. When he leaned over her, she was enveloped in a tantalizingly elusive scent, something expensive and French and very, very masculine.

      “I don’t need a doctor. I’ll be fine if I can rest for a few minutes,” she croaked, hoping she sounded more convincing to him than she did to herself.

      “You are far from fine. You almost drowned in the grip of the serpent.” This time he sounded definitely disapproving.

      She felt spent but knew she wasn’t delirious. “The serpent?”

      “Local folklore. You Australians would call it a rip. An undertow. You obviously haven’t been in Carramer very long or you would know that Saphir Beach is dangerous unless you know these waters well.”

      Her temper wasn’t helped by her exhaustion and the awareness of how close she’d come to drowning. She didn’t need this stranger to point out that it was due to her own stupidity and lack of local knowledge. “I wasn’t to know, was I?” she snapped. “The only warning signs were in Carramer language.”

      “How surprising.”

      The sarcasm in the man’s voice wasn’t lost on her. She struggled to sit up and found herself lying on thick woven matting under a white canopy that reminded her of a sheik’s tent. She blinked hard, realizing uncomfortably that she must have washed up on one of the many private beaches around the island kingdom. Its owner, as his behavior suggested he was, sounded annoyed by the intrusion.

      Her vision had nearly cleared, and almost against her will she was intrigued by the man meeting her curious gaze. In spite of his disapproving expression he had the most arresting features she had ever seen, strongly carved as if from stone. Only the working of a muscle at his jawline belied this impression.

      His obsidian eyes glared at her from under hair of almost the same color. Gold flecks glittered in the dark pools of his gaze. Something familiar about him tugged at her, although she was so tired she could barely think straight. Another question occurred to her. “How did you know I’m Australian?”

      He frowned, censure in every line of his face. “If your accent hadn’t betrayed you, your beauty and your boldness would have done so.”

      She seized on his last points. “Are you telling me that Australian women have a look you can recognize?”

      He nodded. “Your particular robustness is quite different from the delicacy of Carramer women, even when you’re as slender and shapely as you are, Miss…”

      He tailed off, clearly expecting her to supply a name. “Alison Carter,” she said, pleased to hear her voice sounding less husky already. “Allie to my friends.”

      “Alison.” The curt way he said her name immediately removed him from the friend category. “I am Lorne de Marigny.”

      “Pleased to meet you, Monsieur de Marigny.” She matched his formal tone and granted him the locally preferred French appellation almost unconsciously. In Australia she would have called him Lorne without a second thought, but his upright bearing and stern manner suggested that it wouldn’t be wise, for some reason. Oh well, when in Rome or Carramer, she thought. Summoning her limited reserve of strength, she struggled to her feet. “Thank you for your help, but I’d better go.”

      A wave of dizziness caught her and she swayed. Instantly his arm came around her shoulder, supporting her. “You are in no condition to go anywhere until you have been cleared by a doctor.”

      His supportive arm felt so good that she was tempted to lean into his embrace and let him continue making decisions for her. He sounded accustomed to it, and she was very, very tired, but she couldn’t impose on him any longer when he clearly resented her presence. “No, thanks. You’ve done more than enough. I’m sorry I intruded on your privacy, but I’ll leave now.”

      The black gaze bored into her, his closeness emphasizing the intensity in his expression. “Precisely how do you plan on leaving?”

      She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I guess I’ll walk back to Allora. I’m staying at a hostel there.”

      He dismissed the notion with a curt gesture. “In the first place, you’re in no condition to walk anywhere, far less a couple of miles back to the town.”

      She started in surprise. “The current took me that far?”

      “It has been known to.” He sounded dryly amused.

      She could hardly wait for the second place. “And?”

      “You’re seeing a doctor before you go anywhere. Come, my villa is over the rise.”

      He clearly took her compliance for granted, and she lifted her head in automatic defiance. “Next thing you’ll tell me you keep a doctor on call.”

      Lorne merely looked at her. “As it happens I do.”

      “And a chauffeur and a helicopter complete with pilot, too, I suppose?”

      He inclined his head slightly. “Among other staff, yes.”

      She couldn’t restrain her outrush of breath, feeling more like a fish out of water than ever. A nearly drowned fish at that. Either this prepossessing stranger had delusions of grandeur or he was a man of some importance. She squared her shoulders.