Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

building barriers that helped him cope ...
    He bent his head to hers once more. He was so connected to her that he was in her brain, feeling her sensations as if they were his own. He took his time, ravaging her mouth, trying to convey without words what was in his heart. She’d turned his world upside down. She’d given him a safe place to hide until he was fully healed or a place to live. He chose life—with her.
    “I like calling you Lev,” she whispered, a small frown drawing her brows together. “I like the way the name sounds—very much like the real you, like my Lev.”
    His world righted as he inhaled sharply. She would always be his miracle, and no more so than right at that moment with her little confession.
    He wanted to give her that much of his past, maybe keep the memories of his family, so long ago lost, with that name, but it was a danger. Had he not 230

    had a concussion he would never have identified himself with his true given name.
    Her little frown disappeared and she smiled at him. “I’ll call you that when we make love. A much more intimate name between the two of us.
    Something sacred.”
    His heart twisted. She could bring a man to his knees. “I like that idea.”
    “We’d better get moving or we won’t make it back into the harbor.”
    She turned away from him, all business, dealing with the hoses and equipment. When he bent to help, she sent him one fierce scowl and he backed off, both hands up in the air in surrender. He couldn’t help smiling as he watched her work, noting the way she wrapped hoses in patterns and fussed meticulously over her equipment and wet suit. They made their way back through the thickening fog to the harbor.
    He had to admit his heart accelerated a bit as they neared the harbor itself. The swells were beginning to pick up, dashing against the rocks jutting up out of the water. White spray burst into the air and the fog seemed alive, moving now, which meant wind.
    “You scared?” She sent him a cheeky grin over her shoulder.
    Her cheeks were red, her hair wild, her dark eyes bright. He could see she loved this. Loved the hint of danger, loved the sea rolling beneath her feet.
    “You’d like me to admit that to you, wouldn’t you?”
    Her laughter was music to him. She sounded care-free. Happy. So alive. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me, Levi.”
    He knew he was safe with her. She’d accepted him into her life and she was intensely loyal. He watched her as she maneuvered the entrance to the six hundred feet of river. The swells were increasing and she had to bring the boat in just perfectly to keep from being swamped. Concentration was on her face, complete focus. She had fought her own battles—and won. She’d found her own strength and knew exactly who she was. She might have wished she’d been born someone else at some time in her life, but she’d accepted what life had given her and she’d made the most of it.
    Happiness settled over him. Peace. He was finished living in the shadows as an insubstantial ghost. He’d found home and astonishingly, home was a woman. He folded his arms across his chest and kept his gaze on her as they rode out the increasing swells, shot beneath the bridge and into calmer water. She laughed and turned her head again to look at him, to share the experience with him.
    Rikki took the boat straight to the dock. She’d called in the morning and knew the processing plant would have the truck waiting when she came 231

    in. It looked as if she was the first boat to come back in. The others wouldn’t be far behind her, not with the wind picking up so suddenly. They’d never get back into the harbor if the swells increased in strength.
    “We just got here,” Ralph called to her. “Mike’s the only other boat out from Albion today. Danny went with him. The weather’s closing in on us again.” His speculative gaze wasn’t on her but on Lev.
    She nodded. “Supposed to be a good day.”
    Lev looked at her face. She’d retreated, become closed off. She was all business, hooking the nets to the pulley so Ralph could weigh and tag them before dumping them into the totes. He watched carefully until he knew exactly what to do, and casually took over, one hand moving Rikki gently but firmly out of the way.
    “Levi Hammond,” he said as he guided the sea urchin net over the platform.
    “Ralph Carlson.”
    “Yeah, I remember. I’ll be around for a while again. Decided to come back and claim my woman,”