The Homecoming. Anne Marie Winston

he hit the hard-packed surface near the water’s edge. Then he settled into a fast but steady pace, much as he did during his daily morning runs.

      As he ran, his mind continued to work. It occurred to him that he’d been stupid to run out of the house without one of the portable intercom devices he’d bought. Only two people lived with him on the island, an older native Hawaiian couple who had worked for the previous owner and had proved highly satisfactory to Danny. They had a large family of children and grandchildren who came over in a motor launch several times a week with mail and food and other supplies. Occasionally a couple of them would stay for a few days, but for the most part, it was just Danny and Leilani and Johnny.

      Leilani cooked and kept the house clean while her husband did a fine job keeping the house and grounds in top shape. People outside the family called him Big John and the name was well deserved. He had the deceptively beefy build of the native Hawaiian people; he was actually far more muscle than fat. If the person on the rocks was badly hurt, Danny would go back and enlist Johnny to help him get the guy to the house.

      Increasing his pace, Danny pushed himself until the boulders drew near. Now the shape on the rocks definitely looked like a person. A person who wasn’t moving and didn’t appear to have changed position since Danny had first seen him. Please don’t let him be dead.

      Breathing heavily, Danny scrambled up over the rocks, dropping the blanket he’d tucked beneath his arm as he reached the top. The guy was small. God, he hoped it wasn’t a kid. He had a bad feeling that he might be looking at a drowning victim as he dropped to his knees at the side of the body.

      Close up, he was stunned to find that the guy was really a woman. She lay on her stomach with her head turned to one side, her brown hair flung out around her head. It wasn’t dripping but certainly was still wet. The hair partly covered her face and all he could see was the curve of her cheek and a small straight nose.

      Rivulets of water had run out of her shorts and shirt and down the sides of the rock. Though it appeared she’d been there long enough for the excess water to drain away, she still was soaking wet, confirming what he’d thought earlier. She must have been on a boat from one of the other islands. Kauai, almost certainly, since Ni’ihau was populated only by a small village of native people. Although why a tourist would come out on the ocean alone escaped him.

      He was sure she wasn’t local. What gave her away was the color of her skin. His unmoving guest was paler than the golden sand he’d just run across. And she didn’t look badly sunburned, so she must not have gotten onto these rocks until sometime after dark last night.

      A tourist out alone at night?

      Placing a tentative hand on one out-flung arm, he nearly sagged with relief. The arm wasn’t cold as in corpse-cold, and beneath the delicate wrist he could feel a pulse. Not strong, but far from thready and faint, either.

      He bent over until his ear was near her mouth. Thank God she was breathing as well. Slowly and steadily, with no sign that she might stop.

      Gingerly he started running his hands over her arms and legs, noting that she seemed slender and well-muscled. He wasn’t experienced with first aid and probably wouldn’t know a broken bone unless it was an obvious fracture, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.

      She had very pretty skin, he noted with absent appreciation. Smooth and silky, but a little too cool. He shook out the blanket and carefully tucked it around her. If she was in shock, he knew it was important to keep her warm.

      “Hey,” he said, reluctant to move her. He placed a hand on her upper arm, a little surprised to see how big his own hand looked in contrast. “Miss? Wake up. Talk to me, please?”

      He didn’t want to move her, knew he shouldn’t turn her over. Since she seemed all right, he should go and call for help, then come back. But he hated to leave while she was unconscious. What if she woke up and there was nobody here? She could wander off in the wrong direction.

      If she didn’t look at just the right angle she might not see the house high above the cliff. Even if she saw the house, she would have no notion how to get to it. And if she wasn’t fully cognizant of her situation, she might not even realize that the blanket meant someone had found her and would return.

      Just then she groaned, and the sound instantly solved his dilemma. He couldn’t leave her if she was about to wake up.

      She groaned again, stirring, and he placed a cautionary hand on her back when she made feeble motions as if to get up.

      “Don’t try to move yet,” he said. Beneath his hand, he felt her slender frame relax. Moving his hand soothingly over her back in little circles much as he’d done with his infant son when he’d had him, he added, “I don’t know where you swam from, but there’s no sign of your boat, and you might have injuries if you slammed against the rocks on your way in.”

      “I don’t think I do,” she said in a slow, puzzled voice that was pleasantly husky. “Nothing feels broken.” She was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I was in a boat?”

      “I was hoping you could tell me.” For the first time it occurred to him that she might not have been alone. “Can you remember if there was anyone else with you?” God, he’d better check around and make sure there wasn’t someone else lying injured and helpless down here.

      She was silent. Finally, she said in a small voice, “I don’t remember.”

      Giving the area a visual scan, Danny saw no other body on the rocks or shore. Why, then, had this tourist gone out on the ocean alone? Even a native would be unlikely to take a risk like that.

      As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “I took boats out on the r-river all my life.” Her teeth chattered despite the warmth of the dawning day. “But the ocean’s a lot different.”

      “Yeah,” he said dryly. “The ocean’s a lot different from a river.” He tried not to think of what could have happened to her had she not fetched up on his rocks. More than one person had gotten caught in the strong currents that ran from the Hawaiian Islands straight across the Pacific with not a speck of land for hundreds of miles. Others, without boats, had been discovered by the sharks that frequented the waters.

      He was about to ask her what river she’d meant when she made another bid to get up, and this time he decided he might as well let her try. He moved back, and she rolled to her side, then came up into a sitting position with her knees drawn up. “Oh,” she said. “Dizzy.”

      From this angle, he could see why. There was a large and ugly knot just above her right temple with blood still oozing from the broken skin at its center. Looking down, he saw that the rock against which her head had lain was dark with blood.

      His stomach lurched. “You’ve got a pretty hefty bump on your head,” he said, trying to stay calm, though his mind was racing, wondering how much blood she’d lost. Calm down, he told himself, everybody knows head wounds bleed like crazy and look worse than they usually are. “Looks like one of those rocks reached out and smacked you on the way in.”

      She probably would be pretty, he thought, cleaned up with a little color in her face. She had nice cheekbones to go with that cute little nose, and although her lips were nearly blue, they were nicely shaped and full. She had closed her eyes on sitting up and he hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of their color, but the lashes that shielded them lay across her cheeks like tiny fronds of a thickly feathered fern.

      One corner of her mouth had turned up at his words, but he could see that she was swallowing and breathing deeply, probably fighting nausea.

      “I’m Danny,” he said, talking just so she wouldn’t feel compelled to respond. “This island is my home. I imagine you came over from Kauai sometime late yesterday and got caught in the currents.”

      “Yes. Caught in the currents.” Her voice was faint but definite from beneath the fall of thick hair that fell forward around her bent head as she raised her arms and wrapped them around her raised knees. “Pushed me toward a reef.”

      “From