She’d saved him. And the look she gave him was so shy and proud all at once, that he felt his heart swell.
Rob was in love.
***
Oh sweet lord, this man was gorgeous. Marjorie pressed her mouth to the unconscious man’s lips and blew, trying to remember CPR steps that she hadn’t done since the fifth grade. She hoped he wouldn’t mind that a girl like her was mouthing on him, but she figured saving someone’s life took priority over petty things like attractiveness in a rescuer.
So she pumped his chest and blew into his mouth, and on her second round, salt water came rushing out of his mouth into hers, and she pulled away and spat even as she turned him on his side so he could vomit.
A moment later, he turned on his back and gave her a dazed, dopey look.
She couldn’t help smiling down at him. What a cute man. He was dark-haired, had green eyes with interesting amber flecks, and a fantastic chiseled nose. He’d also tasted like alcohol when she’d put her mouth on him—not Marj’s favorite thing—but this was a resort and most people drank.
He opened his mouth and made a garbled sort of sound. Probably a thank-you of some kind.
Marjorie patted his shoulder. “You’ll be all right now, mister. Just take a few deep breaths and maybe lay off the tequila when you go swimming.”
His brows drew together and he grabbed at her hand, which surprised Marjorie. His lips moved as he gazed up at her, but then he coughed again, still squeezing her hand as if he didn’t want to let her go. Shadows fell from overhead as onlookers rushed over to see what was going on. No surprise—they had probably stared at the sight of a stringbean like Marjorie carrying a guy out of the water.
Thanks to her height, she didn’t exactly blend into a crowd.
Still coughing, he squeezed her hand again. She squeezed it back, wondering what he was trying to say. A lock of wet black hair was plastered to his forehead and her fingers itched to push it back. There was just something about his face that she liked so, so much, and the way he looked at her with that interested surprise, not the instinctive flinch she normally got when she towered over men. Of course, he probably didn’t realize how tall she was since she was currently sitting on the sand next to him.
“You—” he began, still wheezing with a wet sound in his throat.
“Everyone get back,” a voice roared, and a man pushed forward in a red lifeguard suit, carrying a red flotation device. “Let’s give him some air.”
Reluctantly, Marjorie squeezed his hand one last time and got to her feet. “I think he’s okay—”
“I said get back,” the lifeguard said, thrusting an arm out and pushing people away as they crowded around the fallen man. “Everyone, please. Let a lifeguard do his job.”
Meekly, Marjorie brushed the sand off her knees and moved back with the crowd. She desperately wanted to look back at the handsome man in the sand again, but that would have been foolish, wouldn’t it? With a small sigh, she found her discarded wrap, tied it around her hips, and headed off to shuffleboard to meet her friend Agnes. For some reason, she felt a little down. It was selfish of her, but she’d wanted to talk to the man she’d rescued, if nothing else, to hear him speak other than coughing at her.
But she supposed that was just vanity—what did she want, a thank-you for saving a man’s life? She mulled this over as she crossed the long, winding beach, heading back toward the hotel. The weather in Seaturtle Cay was utterly gorgeous, and she couldn’t stay down for long. By the time she reached the shuffleboard area, her mood was back to its normal, even keel. Not much kept Marjorie down.
Agnes waved at her from the far end of the shuffleboard court. She was wearing a white, floppy straw hat and had an equally white smear of zinc on her hawkish nose, and she wore the loose floral layers that so many of the elderly seemed to favor. “There you are, sweetie,” Agnes said when Marjorie approached. “We were starting to wonder if you’d ditched us.”
Next to Agnes, her friend Edna had on a pair of enormous red sunglasses and a similar outfit. “Not that I’d blame you for something like that,” Edna said with a titter. “There are lots of good-looking men here.”
“Don’t be silly,” Marjorie said, grabbing a shuffleboard stick. “I wouldn’t abandon you guys. You’re my friends. And I have a great time with you.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be with people your own age?”
“Not at all,” Marjorie said, and then leaned in. “Though I was late because I was kissing a man on the beach.”
Both women gave scandalized laughs. “You what?” Agnes said.
She knew they’d get a kick out of that. With a grin, she recapped the rescue on the beach, going into great detail about how handsome—and helpless—the man she’d saved was. Her friends laughed through the entire story, though they were disappointed at the lackluster ending. “You should have given that young man your phone number and hooked up with him,” said Edna, who was probably ninety-five years old if she was a day. “Tap that ass.”
Marjorie blushed and shook her head. “Trust me when I say I’m not his type.” A guy that good-looking? He’d probably have one of the busty beach bunnies in string bikinis that she saw wandering all over the place. “Now, should we play singles or do you guys want to be a team? You know I can kick your butts at this game with one hand tied behind my back.”
“You’re on,” said Agnes, with a crafty gleam in her eye.