Bad Timing And Worse Ideas (Off The Grid #2)

Chapter 1

one

Helllllpppppp!

"What the hell was that?" Clara peered over the railing. The tide was coming in, waves crashing against the rocks. Nothing but foam and stone and—

There. A flash of red bobbing between the waves.

"Oh, hell."

She grabbed the binoculars. A man clung to what looked like the remains of a very optimistic pool float, being dragged toward the rocks. His head kept dipping below the surface.

Options: Call the coast guard—fifteen minutes minimum.

Emergency rope—sixty feet, might reach. Stand here and watch him drown—not ideal, likely to create nightmares and punch a ticket straight to the fabled Hell her Catholic grandmother liked to threaten whenever someone did something that went against her teachings.

She chose the rope.

Scrambling down the stairway, Clara yanked open the emergency kit, tied one end to the railing with a bowline knot, fashioned a loop in the other. The man had drifted closer—close enough to see his shoulders shaking with effort.

"Hey! Drowning guy!"

His head turned.

"Catch!" She swung the rope and released.

It landed three feet to his left.

He stared at it.

"You have to actually grab it," Clara called down. "That's how rope works."

He said something she couldn't hear over the waves—probably profanity. He released the raft and lunged. His fingers closed around the rope on the second try.

Clara braced her feet and pulled. Good gravy, waterlogged men were heavy. Her shoulders screamed as she hauled him through the water, inch by stubborn inch.

When he reached the rocks, he climbed the last few yards on his own. Clara met him at the base of the lighthouse stairs, where he collapsed like a drowned cat.

Water streamed from his clothes. His jeans were torn, his t-shirt—once white—clung to his chest. He was breathing hard.

"Lucky day for you," Clara said.

He lifted his head. Objectively good-looking, stubble, a jaw that probably photographed well and a nose that had been broken at least once. When his gaze met hers—warm hazel eyes, the kind that made women do stupid things—she felt a flicker of something she immediately suppressed.

Nope. Absolutely not. There will be none of that.

"Thought I was a goner." His voice was rough.

"Day's young." Clara planted her hands on her hips. "What were you doing out there?"

"Trying not to drown."

"Before that."

He rolled to his back with a groan. "My boat capsized. Storm last night. Didn't realize it'd get so choppy."

"Anyone with a lick of sense would've checked the weather forecast."

"Yeah, well. I was hoodwinked by the assumption that summertime was a safe time to test the waters." He pushed himself upright, wincing. "But my ego wrote a check my skills couldn't cash. Lost my boat, too. Seems like a fair penance."

Six hours in the Atlantic, even in summer. The blue tinge to his lips, the trembling hands. Hypothermia. Exhaustion.

"Can you walk?"

He tried to stand. Wobbled.

"I'll take that as a no." Clara ducked under his arm, bracing him against her shoulder. "I'm stronger than I look."

"Are you the only one here?"

"No, my strapping six-foot-four boyfriend is upstairs being manly, leaving me on rescue duty." She shot him a look. "Yes, I'm alone. Now move. You're not exactly light."

They made it up the stairs through sheer stubbornness—hers, mostly. Inside, everything was exactly as she liked it. Main room serving as kitchen, living area, workspace. Her drafting table positioned for afternoon light. Sketches covering every surface.

She felt him notice. Felt his gaze sweep across her private world.

Ew. Hate that. There's a reason she lived alone.

"Bathroom." She pointed, fighting against the urge to toss him back in the ocean. "Sit before you fall into the tub."

"Usually I like dinner first before clothes start coming off."

"Hilarious. You're hypothermic. Wet clothes make it worse." She pulled out her father's old clothes from the closet. Sweatpants, flannel, wool socks. Tossed them to him. "Change."

"Has anyone ever called you bossy?"

"More times than I can count. Which I consider a compliment." She gestured. "Now change before you die and I end up having to answer awkward questions about the corpse in my lighthouse."

She closed the door, busied herself with coffee. The sound of wet fabric hitting the floor. She focused on measuring grounds, pressing buttons. Normal tasks. Not thinking about the half-naked stranger in her bathroom.

It'd been a while since she'd had a man in her lighthouse. Was that a metaphor for the last time she'd had sex? Possibly. But let's just say, it'd been a l-l-lon-n-n-g while and leave it at that.

"Done."

Clara turned. The clothes hung loose on him—sweatpants low on his hips, flannel unbuttoned over his bare chest. He'd toweled his hair, leaving it sticking up in dark spikes. He looked like a ridiculously handsome shipwreck survivor, which, to be fair, was exactly what he was.

Her hormones were staging a quiet revolt if she thought a half-drowned stranger looked a fair bit delicious. He could be a serial killer. Ted Bundy was considered a catch before all that murdering caught up to him.

"Better?"

"Yeah." He lowered himself onto her couch carefully. "Thank you. So who do I owe my life to?"

"Clara." She handed him coffee. "Clara Hawkins."

"Jack Callahan."

"Well, Jack." She sat across from him. "I'll get straight to the bad news—the nearest town is eight miles by road, and I don't have a car."

He wrapped both hands around the mug. "How do you get supplies?"

"Delivery every two weeks. If I need something from town before that, I take my boat to Beacon's End—twenty minutes on calm waters."

Right on cue, the light patter of rain danced on the windowpane. Jack's expression fell with the realization that the storm had arrived. "Which isn't today."

"Definitely not. And after what you just went through, I doubt jumping back into a boat is high on your list."

"Hard pass." He looked a little green. "That was scary as hell."

"No judgment. The sea's moody at best. Point is—if we can't go by boat and you don't feel like an eight-mile hike, you're stuck here with me."

His expression shifted. "Let me get this straight. You live in a lighthouse, alone, no car, minimal contact with people because the nearest town is a twenty-minute boat ride away?"

"I know, right? Practically perfect." She snorted at his alarm. "I have a radio. And a cell phone. I'm isolated, not insane."

"Doesn't sound very safe."

"It's perfectly safe. As long as you know the back door opens straight to the ocean because the stairs washed away decades ago."

"You're right, that sounds like the epitome of safe." He cupped his hot coffee, absorbing the warmth with relief. "So, Beacon's End…what's the town like?"

"Tiny blip on the map. Blink and you'll miss it. One of its better qualities."

"Not a people person?"

"What makes you say that?" She studied him over her mug rim. "What were you doing out there besides nearly dying?"

"Trying out my new boat. The ink wasn't even dry on the transfer papers when that storm hit."

"What kind of boat was it?"

"I don't know. It was small, cute, and old. Smelled like old wood and diesel fuel."

"And you paid money for it?"

"Not exactly. I traded for work. I thought it would be cool to spend the summer on the sea. As it turns out, not as cool as I'd hoped."

She chuckled, sipping her coffee and shaking her head. "Nope."

"So, just so I'm getting my facts straight, you're a woman, living alone, in a lighthouse without electricity, cut off from the only town for miles…and you don't feel that's unsafe? If I were a bad guy... just saying, true-crime enthusiasts would call this a tragic story waiting to happen."

Clara barked a laugh. "Calm down, Dateline, I grew up a fisherman's daughter.

I can gut you twelve different ways without breaking a sweat.

If anyone should be worried, it's you. How do you know I don't rescue half-drowned men so I can tie them to the bed Misery-style and take my sweet time breaking them in creative and monstrous ways? "

"When you put it that way, I guess I don't."

"No, you don't. Lucky for you, I'm not the torture-and-murder-for-fun type."

"But would you tell me if you were?"

She grinned. "You need food and sleep. You look terrible."

"And here I thought I was making a solid first impression."

"I'm trying to keep you alive so I don't have to deal with the paperwork." She moved to the kitchen. "I had a sandwich, but a seagull stole it. You get soup."

"A seagull stole your sandwich?"

"Thieving bastards, every last one."

He laughed—low and rough—and she ignored what it did to her pulse. She opened a can, dumped it in a pot. Nothing fancy but it would help replace lost electrolytes and heat up his insides.

"So, Jack Callahan. What's your story? Wife at home? Kids waiting for daddy?"

"No wife, no kids. Not even a dog."

"Ahhh, lone wolf syndrome."

"Something like that."

Don't get intrigued by a mysterious backstory, Clara.

The soup heated. When she turned with two bowls, he was looking at her drafting table. At the sketches. She didn't like that but she hadn't exactly planned for a midday rescue.

"You draw."

She shifted with discomfort. "Um, yeah."

"These are really good." He gestured at a character study—a woman with wild hair and a sword. "What are they for?"

She set the bowls down, gritting her teeth against his natural curiosity. "Comics. I write and illustrate a webcomic. I doubt you've heard of it. It's sort of, niche."

"Try me. I might surprise you."

"Okay, it's called Tidal Lock."

His face lit up. "Hold up, I know that comic." His gaze suddenly narrowed. "You're C.H. Winters?"

The shock rippled through her. She wasn't exactly a household name. "You've read it?"

"Yeah, actually. Me and my sister. She's obsessed and then got me hooked, too. It's really good. Funny as hell."

Despite herself, pride tickled her spine. "Thanks."

"Yeah, I mean, it's kinda kooky but that's part of its charm.

Marina and the sea witch…the dialogue is sharp and funny, but then, every now and again, there's some really deep snippet that comes out of nowhere but really hits home.

" He shook his head. "I can't believe I'm sitting in C.H. Winters' lighthouse."

"Yeah, the coincidence is wild for me, too. I'm not used to my work being known."

"My sister is going to flip when she finds out. She's truly a fan. Not like in a weird way but she did briefly consider a tattoo of the sea witch on her bicep."

"Seriously?" Clara grinned, ridiculously tickled by the idea that someone out there in the wild loved her work so much they wanted to permanently mark their body with her IP.

"Yeah, but I talked her out of it," Jack admitted. "I reminded her of the time I got a tattoo of a gecko on my ankle when I turned eighteen because I thought the insurance commercials were funny."

"You have a tattoo of the GEICO insurance gecko?"

"Used to. I had it removed. That process hurt more than the actual tattoo but I learned a valuable lesson."

"Which was?"

"Put more thought into what you put onto your body."

"To be fair, the sea witch is infinitely cooler than the insurance mascot but to each their own," she said.

Clara watched him from beneath her lashes, noting the color slowly returning to his face, which only made him more attractive. But good-looking men were an immediate red flag in her book. They got away with more than they should, which created an entitlement that made them act like baboons.

She eyed the dark clouds outside. Summer storms usually blew through quickly. But not today. Argh. Her plans for the day had not included entertaining a half-drowned unscheduled guest but learning to pivot was a skillset she'd learned back in her advertising days.

"Here's the deal. The storm isn't going anywhere fast, and you need to rest. Almost drowning takes a lot out of a body."

"I'm fine—"

"You're shaking." She nodded toward his hands, still trembling around the mug.

"Hopefully you didn't swallow too much seawater, otherwise pneumonia is going to come knocking.

" She paused, assessing his frame against her furniture.

"My spare bedroom is storage and the couch is too short for you, so you can take my bed. "

"No, I don't feel right about putting you out like that. I can make do with the couch."

"It won't be the first time I've fallen asleep on the couch. I'll be fine. Besides, you look like hell. Once the adrenaline fades, you'll be thankful for a soft bed."

He opened his mouth, then closed it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She rose and took their bowls to the sink to wash later. "A few ground rules though…please don't touch anything. Everything is where I like it and I don't like having to search for things that have been moved."

He lifted his hands in compliance, promising, "I won't mess with your system."

"Good. Follow me. You look about ready to collapse and I've reached my quota of dragging heavy men from one place to another."

Clara gestured for Jack to follow, and as she led him upstairs to her bedroom, a weird feeling shivered across her nerve endings, as if a goose had just danced over her grave as Granny would've said.

Ohh, settle down. This means nothing.

This is a temporary distraction. Soon enough, everything would go back to the way it was.

And it couldn't happen a moment sooner.

She didn't trust adorably good-looking men with crooked smiles and warm hazel eyes any more than she trusted a hungry seagull because she had bad experiences with both.