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  As the giant creature came lower, a recalcitrant wind caught it, whipped it, pulled it. The woman fought to keep the kite under control, fought to keep the beautiful masterpiece from diving into the ocean.

  Sonny didn’t consciously think about helping, but suddenly his boots were pounding across the wooden wharf. As the distance between them closed, the kite dipped once more, then plunged below his line of vision, into the choppy, icy waters.

  The woman herself lunged, grabbed at air, then toppled forward to disappear over the side of the dock.

  Sonny heard a scream, then nothing but the roar of the ocean.

  He shed his coat as he raced toward the end of the wharf. As he moved, his mind sped faster.

  Could she swim? Her clothes were heavy, would hold water, pull her down. The water was cold, frigid. Fifty degrees, tops.

  He reached the end of the wharf and jerked off his boots, taking in everything at once.

  The woman was fighting, struggling to keep her head above water, but the weight of her saturated clothes was too much for her. Her long hair had also turned into an enemy, ensnaring her arms.

  Sonny dove. The shock of the icy water stole the breath from his lungs. He surfaced, gasping, his fingers groping. He managed to latch onto a handful of wet clothing. He dragged her through the water toward him, trying to turn her face up as he pulled.

  Sonny felt her convulse. She wheezed. Choked. Then in a floundering panic, she wrapped her arms around him, shoving his head under water.

  The attempted rescue turned into a battle for both their lives. He fought her, finally tearing her clamped hands from his arms. He surfaced, filling his lungs with air. Treading water, he managed to force her around so she was unable to cling to him.

  He cast a quick glance toward the pier. It was a good six feet from the surface of the water to the wooden walkway above them. About twenty feet away was a perpendicular ladder attached to the side of the dock. Keeping one hand under the struggling woman’s chin, Sonny side kicked toward the dock.

  What seemed like hours later, but in reality had probably only been a minute or two, he reached the ladder and shoved the woman toward it. “Grab on!” She apparently understood because her hand flew out, clawing the air in front of her, missing the side rail by several inches, her movements stiff and clumsy with cold.

  Sonny’s arms ached; his lungs felt like they might burst. “Grab the ladder!”

  She tried again. This time her hand made contact with a rung, and her blue-knuckled fingers wrapped around it. Her other hand grabbed hold and she tried to pull herself up while water gushed from her clothes. Her movements were slow and lethargic. She finally quit trying and simply clung to the ladder. Hypothermia?

  Sonny pulled himself up behind her, his legs on either side of hers, his chest pressed against her back. He grasped the ladder with his left hand. With his right, he pried her hand free of the rung and placed it up to the next one. He did the same with her left hand so that both her arms were above her.

  “Come on,” he gasped against her icy cheek. “Pull.”

  She pulled.

  “Good girl,” he praised, his right hand on her waist, urging her higher. “Now your foot. There you go.”

  Below the sound of the crashing water, he could hear her shallow, labored breathing, close to his ear. He could feel the frailness of her body beneath the layers of heavy, sodden clothes.

  They finally gained the last rung and heaved themselves over the top to collapse on the walkway. Wind cut like tiny razors across Sonny’s wet skin. His chest burned as he sucked air into his warm lungs, exhaling in a blast of vapor. Salt water stung his eyes. Cold steam, created by the frigid water reacting with the warmer air, rose from both their clothes.

  The woman curled to a sitting position, wet hair tangled around her, head bent, coughing, a lake of icy water forming around her. She finally stopped coughing, but her teeth were chattering. From where he sat, he could see the tremors running through her.

  With one shaking hand she pushed the strands of hair back from a semi-transparent cheek, with the other she clutched her heavy sweater to her chest, as if it could give her warmth. Slowly, she turned, her face in his direction.

  Sonny found himself staring into the bluest, clearest, most unearthly pair of eyes he’d ever seen. Water clung from thick-lash tips. Then, one by one, a few shimmering crystal droplets chose to let go and run down her pale cheeks.

  He was used to being stared at, but she was looking at him so strangely, her beautiful eyes wide, her lips parted. He felt that she was not only memorizing his face, but also looking deep into his very soul.

  The person before him seemed ethereal. She was a fog over the lochs, a dew-laden meadow kissed by moonlight. He had the strangest fear that if he touched her again she might turn to mist.

  Another half-formed idea joined the bombardment of his already stunned senses. “Are you a mermaid?” he asked.

  Amusement lit her wonderful eyes. She shook her head—an almost imperceptible movement. She let go of the sweater and extended a delicate, blue-veined hand toward him. “Tha-a-nk y-you.” The acknowledgment was forced through frozen lips.

  In the back of his mind, he knew he had to get her to shelter. But he couldn’t seem to move. Beguiled, he could only grasp her icy hand and pray she wouldn’t vanish.

  Chapter 2

  So cold…

  Freezing!

  Emily’s teeth chattered as shudder after violent shudder wracked her body.

  But then, as she stared spellbound at the man beside her, she began to feel mentally removed from the agony of her physical self.

  Sonny Maxwell.

  The Sonny Maxwell.

  It didn’t seem possible, but he was even more beautiful in person. His complexion was lighter than the ruddy fishermen she was used to. His lips were a little full—most women would probably call them sexy, their perfect shape accentuated by a golden brown dusting of a two or three-day beard. She remembered feeling it rub her cheek when he’d helped her up the ladder.

  Even with the water droplets clinging to eyelashes and chin, dripping down the wet strands of hair falling over his collar, he was handsome.

  His eyes. She’d never seen eyes that color. They seemed to reflect the clouds, the stormy gray sea.

  But it wasn’t just his looks that so mesmerized her: it was the soft glow of light she could sense shimmering around him like a force field.

  White, with a hint of gray… The color confused her. A person like Sonny Maxwell couldn’t have such an aura.

  His hand was still grasping hers. She looked down. Beneath his fingertips, where their skin touched, was a warm lavender glow.

  How odd. Lavender. The color of humanity…

  Dazed, confused, she looked up from their joined hands, back to his eyes. “Y-you… you’re white,” she said, forcing the words through frozen lips. A gust of wind cut through her, and she shivered even more violently.

  His eyes, eyes that had been looking at her as if he were a little stunned himself, narrowed with concern. “You’re blue. And getting bluer.”

  Words were forced out through tremors. “You c-can s-see auras t-too?” Greta had told her that not many men could see auras. They didn’t have the sensitivity.

  “Auras?” A shiver shook his shoulders. He muttered something about hypothermia and signs of delirium, then shoved himself to his feet, once again extending a hand toward her. “Come on. We’ve got to get moving.”

  Would she be able to stand? Her muscles were cramping. She raised her hand and he pulled her up beside him. As soon as he released her, she wrapped her arms around herself in a futile effort to conduct some heat.

  He walked to the other side of the wharf and picked up his leather jacket. When he returned, he tried to put it around her.

  “Th-the water—” she protested, barely able to form the words through her numb lips, “—w-will ruin it.”

  He draped it around her shoulders anyway, then held it
in place with his arm, her body pressed to his.

  The pier stretched out before them, a planked walkway that suddenly looked much longer than it had before.

  They began walking.

  Emily’s feet felt like lead, her joints and muscles pulling tighter and tighter.

  They walked.

  Shaking, teeth chattering… Pain. Her skin hurt, her body hurt, her hands, her feet—

  Wind cut through her like a knife.

  They walked.

  She kept her chin down and her eyes half-closed to protect them from the slicing wind. Her breath rasped in her chest. Beside her, she could hear his labored breathing; see it making a steam cloud before him.

  But it didn’t seem like they were moving at all. Like a bad dream, she was placing one foot in front of the other, but was getting nowhere. She lifted her head to check on their progress, the wind stinging her eyes. The end of the wharf seemed no closer.

  Had to get warm, had to get inside… In her mind, she pictured a roaring fire. She tried to feel its warmth, but failed. Another series of tremors hit her, coming right on top of the other. Beside her, Sonny Maxwell was shaking almost as badly.

  “Come on, Emily. You can’t stop now.”

  She managed some more steps, vaguely wondering how he knew her name. Of course everybody knew his name.

  Sonny Maxwell.

  Sonny Maxwell to the rescue… to the rescue… to the rescue.

  From a distance came a voice, raised in alarm, penetrating her fog-enshrouded brain. She heard footsteps hammering over wooden planks.

  “Emily!”

  It was Annie McIntyre, the postmistress. Her voice cut through the pain-induced haze. “Emily! You poor, poor dear! We have to get you home immediately!”

  Emily sensed rather than felt Annie pat her hand. She experienced a moment of panic when she was pulled from Sonny’s grasp, his arm replaced by Annie’s.

  “Come on, honey,” Annie coaxed.

  Emily lifted her face, searching behind her, wind burning her cheeks. Sonny Maxwell was gone. And she hadn’t even thanked him.

  Annie took charge. Emily wasn’t aware of walking up the hill to her house, but suddenly they were inside the door, being bombarded by a stream of questions from her three younger sisters.

  “Emily will tell you later,” Annie said, shooing the girls away.

  She helped Emily out of her clothes and into a tepid bath, increasing the water temperature as Emily’s body thawed.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” she said, clucking her tongue. “And imagine—to be pulled out of the water by Sonny Maxwell, of all people.” Her voice was a combination of awe and disgust.

  The whole island had been humming about Sonny Maxwell for weeks, ever since he’d made reservations at the St. Genevieve Inn. And even though there was no theater on the island, they had magazines, radio, television and VCRs. Sonny Maxwell’s face was as well-known as the President’s. More so, maybe.

  “Paid to look pretty,” Annie said. “Imagine that. What kind of world are we living in where a person can make a living by looking pretty? It’s sinful.”

  A week ago, Emily’s father had said much the same thing, and Emily had agreed. But that was before she’d come face-to-face with Sonny Maxwell.

  There weren’t many people Emily disliked—no one, when she really thought about it. But, upon the occasion they should ever have met, she’d been prepared to dislike Sonny Maxwell. If it was true what the tabloids said, there was hardly a woman in the world who hadn’t spent a night in his bed. And anyone who treated women as sex objects, anyone whose life revolved around materialistic pleasure seeking and self-gratification couldn’t be anyone she would like.

  But that had been before.

  He’d been a surprise. Nothing like she’d expected. There had been something about him that had called to her… a sadness, maybe. Or possibly a loneliness. But how could someone like Sonny Maxwell be lonely?

  “And with your father out to sea,” Annie said, chattering away, “it would be the end of the poor man if he lost you, too. I’ve never seen a man take a death any harder than he took your mother’s. I told him he shouldn’t have planted that weeping willow tree. Somebody always dies after a person plants a weeping willow tree.”

  By the time Emily was dry and tucked in bed with a hot water bottle and a bowl of soup, she was feeling almost herself. But what about Sonny Maxwell? He’d been just as wet, just as cold. Had someone fixed hot soup for him? Or tucked a hot water bottle at his feet? And she hadn’t even thanked him, hadn’t even offered her home and fire.

  “Now you just rest,” Annie said. “I’ll get the girls’ supper.”

  “You’ve done enough, Annie. Claire is twelve. She can get supper on the table.”

  “I won’t hear of it. I won’t go home until I know everything here is in order.”

  In another hour and a half Annie was gone, leaving Emily feeling guilty for the relief she felt at the peace that had descended.

  She let out a sigh and stared down at the quilt that covered her. The swatches of fabric represented different family members: a piece of her mother’s apron, a blouse that had belonged to Claire, a dress of Tilly’s, a jumper of little Babbie’s, denim from Papa’s jeans.

  She touched a finger to a patch of light-blue calico. It was from the dress she’d worn the first day of school. Emily remembered her mother holding the bolt of cloth to her small chin, declaring that the cornflower blue perfectly matched her eyes.

  But their family was shattered when Sara Christian died of a misdiagnosed ruptured appendix. The doctor had said it was just a bad case of the flu. Now Emily’s mother lay in a grave on the hillside overlooking the harbor.

  She’d been gone four years. It didn’t hurt as much to think of her now. The pain was tempered with bittersweet memories. But Christmas and birthdays— special times were still hard to get through.

  A small sound from the vicinity of the bedroom door, like that of a tiny mouse, drew Emily from her reflections. The door creaked and swung open, inch by slow inch. Five-year-old Babbie stuck her head inside. “Emily…?”

  “Come on in, sweetheart.”

  “Annie said to leave you alone.”

  Emily patted the bed. “I could really use some company.”

  Babbie came in, followed by twelve-year-old Claire and ten-year-old Tilly. Unlike Emily, who was a throwback of her grandmother’s Swedish ancestry, all three girls reflected their father’s strong Irish heritage. Their eyes were green, their hair dark brown.

  Babbie scrambled up on the bed and cuddled next to Emily. Her little sister smelled like soap and bleach and clothes that had been dried outside.

  “Tell us about the prince who rescued you,” she begged.

  Tilly let out a loud snort. “He wasn’t a prince. His name is Sonny Maxwell. He’s an actor and a model, not a prince.”

  “I can call him a prince, can’t I, Emily?”

  “How about calling him the make-out king,” Tilly mumbled under her breath.

  “Tilly—” Emily frowned. Tilly spent far too much time in front of the television. Even though she wasn’t supposed to watch soap operas and tabloid TV, Emily had caught her at it more than once.

  Emily patted Babbie’s leg. “You can call him a prince if you want.”

  “I can’t believe you met Sonny Maxwell,” Claire said. She came around the side of the bed, picked up a comb and began running it through Emily’s damp blond tresses. “What was he like? What did he say?” “What color were his eyes?” Babbie wanted to know.

  “Gray,” Claire said.

  “How do you know?” Babbie asked.

  “I saw it in a magazine.”

  “Did he ride a noble steed?” Babbie’s words came out in a breathless rush.

  Tilly rolled her eyes.

  Emily pulled Babbie close and ruffled her tumbling dark curls. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry. There was not a noble steed in sight.”

  Babbie’s face fell, th
en brightened. “Maybe it was waiting behind a building.”

  Tilly leaned close to Claire and whispered, “More like a big black Harley with a babe on back.”

  “Tilly!”

  Middle child syndrome, Emily had to remind herself. She’d read all about it. Claire was so polite and poised that it seemed Tilly went out of her way to be the very opposite. Claire was a model student, while Tilly always had to stay after school. She constantly tried to be the center of attention by doing and saying outrageous things.

  “Come on, Tilly. Sit down and listen to the story.”

  “Okay.” Trying to act as if she wasn’t really interested, Tilly shuffled across the room, crossed her arms at her waist and plopped down on the bed, her legs dangling over the rail.

  “The story, Emily,” Claire begged.

  Emily laughed. “Okay, okay. Now stop shaking the bed!”

  They settled down, their faces expectant, even Tilly’s. Never had Emily had such a rapt audience.

  “As you know, I was bringing in the kite, just like I always do—”

  “The dragon kite?” Babbie interrupted.

  For over a year Emily had been trying to perfect the dragon design. Now, reminded of the loss of her gangling, ungraceful creation, she smiled a little wistfully and said, “Yes, the dragon kite.”

  “I knew it. It had to be the dragon,” Babbie said. “The prince rescues her from the dragon.”

  “Let Emily tell it,” Claire said.

  Emily told them of how the kite had been wrenched by the wind, how she had grabbed for it and had fallen into the frigid waters. How she’d been pulled beneath the surface and darkness had filled her. How she’d felt as if death might be very close—

  But then Sonny Maxwell had come.

  And she’d felt his white-and-gray light stronger than she’d ever felt anyone’s light before.

  As a small child, Emily had discovered that in times of high emotion or stress, certain people put off a light she could sense.

  The islanders said it was because she was a December’s child, born between the hours of midnight and dawn of Christmas Day. Emily wasn’t sure what she believed, she only knew she could sometimes sense colors.