Despite the driving wind and rain in his face that was nearly blinding him, Jax ran quickly to cover the distance between where he’d been standing on the beach and the cove beyond, where he’d just seen someone slip and fall onto the rocks. He’d actually spotted them sitting on the rocky ledge there earlier, as he’d emerged from the ocean just moments ahead of the storm. He’d been playing his own version of chicken with the storm, riding some of the most awesome waves he’d ever experienced in his life, when he looked up to see someone huddled on the rocks of the cove.
He’d assumed from their small stature that it was a child - or perhaps a young teen - and he’d wondered what they were doing out there with this storm fast approaching? But the wild surf had gotten his attention at that point, and he’d briefly forgotten about them until he was back on the beach again. Then he’d tried getting their attention by shouting to them, and he’d thought that they’d heard him as they had moved after that, but instead of climbing down to safety, they’d inexplicably climbed higher before turning to finally move down off the rocks. That was when they’d fallen.
He reached the cove within moments, carefully climbing the slippery rocks to where he’d seen the person fall. The rain and wind were so strong now that he had difficulty seeing two feet in front of him, and he shielded his eyes, scanning desperately for a body. Finally, he saw something small and unmoving, lying in a heap, just to his right. From there it looked like he’d been right in his earlier assumption that it was a teenager. He crawled over to them, praying that he wasn’t too late and that they were still alive. It was then that he saw that it was a woman, and she was lying motionless on her side. She was breathing and her pulse was rapid, but strong, and she didn’t appear to have any broken bones. In fact, she had no obvious injuries, other than a small gash on her forehead that was trickling blood down her face. He was a certified lifeguard, so he knew moving her was risky since improper movement could further aggravate any neck or back injury, but the storm was worsening and leaving her here until he ran for help would be even riskier. The waves were already licking at them and the worst of the storm was yet to come, so he made the decision to get them both off the rocks before the waves washed them out to sea.
The thunder crackled loudly and out of the corner of his eyes he could see lightening streaking across the sky, as he gingerly gathered her into his arms and then slowly and carefully edged back off the rocky ledge, stopping only to brace himself against each successive crash of the rising waves. Fighting the elements, it took him several minutes to climb back down off the rocks with her in his arms, and he was grateful that she wasn’t any larger than she was. As soon as he reached the beach, he moved quickly toward the shelter of his beachfront home, that still lay a few hundred yards away and up a steep hill.
Cradling her against his chest and protecting her as best he could from the rain that pounded them mercilessly, he carefully ascended the rain-slicked steps, finally reaching the deck that extended from the back of his house. Racing past the pool and the hot tub on the large deck, he ran through the large set of French doors that led into the great room of the spacious home and lay her down gently on one of the two large, white sofas that flanked the fireplace. He then grabbed for a decorative cashmere throw from off the back of a nearby chair and covered her with it. It wasn’t much but it would have to do for the moment. He’d get her out of those wet clothes and dried off after he’d called for help.
He grabbed for the nearby phone, immediately dialing 9-1-1 as he put it to his ear, but the line was dead. “Dammit!” he shouted, wondering how the area code connected to some of the most expensive real estate in the world seemed to have worse phone service than he’d had as a kid back in the outback of Australia? He supposed it had something to do with the storm, but the reason for the outage didn’t matter. He needed phone service now!
Where the hell was his cell phone? He’d had it earlier because his brother had called him on it just before Jax had gone out to surf. He’d been in such a hurry to end the call and make it out onto the waves before the storm hit that he’d simply tossed the phone on his way out the door, but now he couldn’t remember where he’d tossed it. He’d look for it later; now he needed to check the woman more thoroughly for serious injury, especially a possible head injury.
He flipped the switch on the nearby lamp to give him some light to examine her, but there was nothing. “Dammit! No electricity now either! What’s with this place?” he muttered, and, as if in reply, a loud clash of thunder rumbled overhead, followed almost immediately by a flash of lightening that lit the room like the midday sun, giving him a momentary glimpse of the woman’s blood-streaked face and reminding him that he needed a reliable light source quickly. “Where the hell are the flashlights in this place?” he swore, as he stumbled toward the kitchen, where he hoped he’d either find a flashlight or some candles and matches.
He owned the place, but he’d only been here a few days and he hadn’t taken the time to unpack or even go upstairs to one of the many bedrooms, for that matter, let alone check out drawers or closets in the house for emergency supplies. His brother Jerry had found the place and handled the purchase and had even interviewed and hired the house staff that was scheduled to arrive next week, but up until a few days ago, Jax hadn’t set foot inside the place, and he wasn’t even sure what was in the refrigerator and pantry, let alone what might be in the closets and drawers.
Technically, Janeway, LTD. owned this place, but since he and Jerry owned Janeway, LTD., this place was his, for all intents and purposes. He and Jerry had used Janeway simply as a front to purchase the large, fully furnished hillside estate so they would have a place to call “home” while attending to their ever-growing number of business interests here in the States, especially the top-secret takeover of a major West Coast business that they were now planning.
Janeway was a small holding company the brothers had set up to handle transactions that they didn’t want publicly linked to their much larger, internationally known company, Jacks International, of which they were the sole stockholders and which was headquartered in their native Australia. Jacks International - or JI, as it was generally referred to in the business world- had begun as a small, family operation and now was one of the world’s largest and most financially sound corporations.
Nearly two decades before, Jax’s father, John Jacks, had been a sheep farmer trying to eke out a living with his wife, Jane, and two young sons on a small, 400-acre plot of marginally fertile farmland in southeast Queensland, when serendipity had stepped in and changed his family’s life forever. While drilling for water on the back half of his small farm, he’d made an amazing discovery: their humble farmstead was located on one of the richest veins of silver found anywhere in Australia, and they owned the exclusive mineral rights to that particular mother lode. So, rather than tilling the soil, he began digging in it. The Lucky Jacks Mining Company was born that fateful day, and less than a year later, John Jacks packed up his family and moved them from that small farm to a large estate on Australia’s Gold Coast.
Within five years the company had branched out into other areas, including local hotels and industry, bringing even more financial success for the family and a name change for the company: the Lucky Jacks Mining Company became J&J Jacks of Australia, and both the family and the company headquarters moved to Sydney. The company name changed once again - to Jacks International - about five years ago, when Jax and Jerry unexpectedly took over the reins of the company upon their parents’ deaths in a plane crash. The brothers branched the company’s fingers out into the world marketplace for the first time then, and they soon became internationally known for their keen intellects and financial savvy, as well as their gutsy and often cutthroat business styles. But what the outside world viewed as gutsy and cutthroat, the Jacks brothers saw as simply being prepared. They made it their business to know each prospective business that caught their eyes inside and out - its strengths, but especially its weaknesses.
He was here in the States now, preparing for a hostile takeover of LA-based GenCorp, a leader in the highly profitable field of genetic research. He’d just arrived from Australia just a few days before, and he was keeping a low profile, so as not to alert any of JI’s rivals that a possible deal was afoot. Any mention of interest by JI in any company sent that company’s stock soaring, and Jax and Jerry both wanted to avoid that until after they’d purchased the majority of GenCorp’s stock. Jax had been so involved in reading the mountains of reports on the company for the upcoming takeover that he’d barely had time to find the kitchen, let alone check out the drawers or closets for emergency supplies. He hadn’t even made it upstairs to his bedroom, instead spending both his days and nights in the first floor office, surrounded by faxes, files, and empty pizza boxes and stained coffee cups. His only breaks from that routine over the past few days had come when he’d taken an hour or so each day to venture out onto the ocean to help clear his head and make him feel energized again because, even though he had a head for business, his heart longed for something more.
At 30, Jasper “Jax” Jacks seemed to have everything. He was considered a genius in financial circles, a man revered for his remarkable business acumen. He and his brother, Jerry, 36 - whom Jax considered the real genius behind JI - sat atop one of the most successful enterprises in the world. They seemed to have the world at their feet, as they hobnobbed with the rich and famous, dined with heads of state, and simply lived the good life, often envied by rich and poor alike.
To the outside world Jax appeared to be the happiest man in the world. He was rich and powerful and handsome, and success seemed to beat a path to his door, no matter where he was or what he was doing. But, as his father always used to say, appearances could be very deceiving, and “happy” was not a word that Jax had been able to use to describe himself for some time now. To the outside world Jax looked like a man who wanted for nothing, but there was one thing that all of his money and his success could not buy him and that was the one thing he so desperately longed to find - true love. He wanted someone who would love him for who he was inside, not simply love his money or power or success.
Not that he hadn’t had plenty of offers of so-called “love”. He and Jerry were rarely without a beautiful woman on their arms, and they’d each bedded some of the world’s most famous, not to mention beautiful, women. Many of those women had sought them out, not the other way around - and more than a few of those women had proposed marriage. But Jax was a very astute man, not only when it came to reading his business rivals, but also when it came to reading the women who so readily professed their love for him. It was glaringly apparent to him that all of them had been blinded by his wealth and his status; they’d simply had dollar signs in their eyes, not romantic notions of love in their hearts. Jerry constantly told him that he was a fool to waste time hoping to find true love whom he could marry and grow old with, when a steady diet of nubile, young beauties more than willing to satisfy his lust and longing could easily sustain a man in their financial and social stratus until he was cold and needed to be planted in the ground. But Jax still hoped for that kind of love - the kind of love he saw between his mother and his father from the day he was born until the day that they’d both died.
And that was one of the things he’d actually been mulling over as he’d played chicken with Mother Nature this afternoon: How empty he felt, despite how full his life appeared. If he died now, he’d mused, his obituary would likely cover nearly a full page, detailing all the worldly success that he’d had in his relatively young life; but, in reality, he’d had no life at all because he’d yet to experience the kind of love his parents had found with each other - the kind of love that nurtured the soul and freed the spirit.
He’d only been snapped out of his musings when a disoriented seagull, struggling to keep its dinner in its beak as it battled against the wind to get itself airborne, nearly flew into his head, knocking Jax off-balance and sending him beneath the mammoth wave he’d been gingerly riding as it sped toward the shore. Indeed, that wave had taken him back to shore, but not in the manner he had planned; instead, unceremoniously dunking him under before depositing him and his battered ego and his surfboard up onto the beach, all covered with the rest of the refuse that the storm had carried in from the ocean’s depths. It was as he was removing the seaweed from his hair and spitting the salt water out of his mouth that he’d looked up to see the woman still high atop the cove, apparently oblivious to the storm that was beginning to swirl around her. He’d called to her to get her attention and he thought that she’d heard him, but then she’d climbed higher on the rocks, slipping on the rain slicked surface and falling to the ledge below, where he’d rescued her and brought her into his home. Which brought him back to where he was now - ransacking the drawers and cupboards in his state-of-the-art kitchen in search of a light source to use to check her for injuries.
Finally, after he’d torn apart the entire kitchen, he found a box of flashlights and batteries on the top shelf of the cleaning closet that was located in the hall, just beyond the kitchen. As he turned on a flashlight and ran back toward the living room to check on the woman, he made a mental note to himself to advise the staff when they finally arrived to put flashlights in every room of the house, in case of any future emergencies such as this.
Shining the flashlight on her, he knelt down beside the sofa. She was still unconscious and unmoving, except for the slow and steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. “You’re breathing; that’s good,” he murmured, as he directed the flashlight toward her face. There was dried blood on her cheek, but nothing fresh, which was good, but he needed to get a better look at that gash on her forehead and also he needed to check her pupils for any sign of intracranial bleeding.
He gently pulled off her Yankees cap - which had somehow managed to stay on her head, despite the raging wind and being jostled against his chest as he carried her - and watched in fascination as a river of thick, dark curls cascaded down around her face and onto her shoulders. “God, you’re beautiful!” he murmured, as he momentarily forgot his mission and simply stared at her face. She was probably in her mid-to-late twenties - definitely on the shy side of thirty - with a flawless, olive complexion that, despite her present pallor, had the underlying golden glow of a recent tan. Her lips were full and sensuous, and, though they were pale now, he imagined them to normally be a deep rose color. And she had the most extraordinarily lush, dark lashes he’d ever seen, and, judging from her skin tone, he imagined that they fringed an equally extraordinary pair of dark eyes.
Gently, he opened her right eye and briefly directed the beam of light at the pupil. It immediately constricted. “So far, so good,” he murmured, as he repeated the procedure with her left eye and got the same response. “Well, there’s no bleeding inside your head, which is a plus. Let’s take a look at where you were bleeding on the outside of your head,” Jax said, as he gently brushed her wet curls away from her face to further expose her forehead where he’d seen the gash earlier. It was a minor cut that had produced minimal bleeding, but the area was already showing a dark bruising and she had a good-sized goose egg there also. He imagined that she’d have a good-sized headache, as well, when she finally came to.
He couldn’t do anything about her headache for the moment, but he could minimize the swelling on her forehead, he decided. He started back toward the kitchen to get some ice when he saw her move slightly, then her entire body began to shake. He ran back to her side and was relieved to find that she was shivering, not convulsing.
He should have known that, as wet as she was and as small as she was, she’d quickly would chill to the bone. He pulled the cashmere throw further up on her body, but he knew that was not going to be enough to warm her. He needed to get some heat into the room and then he’d need to get her out of those wet clothes.
He ran to the nearby gas fireplace and flipped the switch, instantly igniting it. The dark room was immediately bathed in eerie, flickering light, and the radiance of the flames quickly began to warm the room. He knelt back down at her side and quickly pulled the throw off her, then pulled her wet shoes off and tossed them aside. Her feet felt like ice cubes, and he wondered why he hadn’t thought to remove them before this? Next, he unzipped her wet windbreaker and carefully lifted her to slide it off her. She had on a white tank top, which was also soaked through, and he could clearly see that she wore either a black bra or a black bathing suit top beneath it. Well, it didn’t matter which it was because the tank top had to come off, as did the khaki shorts she wore, since they were both wet and taking much needed heat away from her body. He wouldn’t go further than that; he’d save her some embarrassment that way.
The sofa on which she’d been laying was wet and cold by now, but he lay her back down there and covered her with the throw again for the moment, while he gathered the cushions from the other couch and threw them on the rug in front of the fireplace. That was the warmest place in the room, and, as cold as she was, that was where she needed to be. He lifted her off the couch and gently placed her on the cushions, wrapping the cashmere throw around her as best he could, then grabbing another throw he’d spotted on a chair by the fireplace and piling that on top of her also. Despite the fact that the air-conditioning had stopped when the electricity went out and the fireplace seemed to be putting out a fair amount of heat and he’d wrapped her with what he had available, she was still shivering. He realized that he should probably go upstairs to look for more blankets, but he hated to leave her for as long as it would likely take him to locate the linen closet and the extra blankets.
Towels! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He could use towels to wrap around her. There was a full bath attached to the first floor office he’d been camped out in these past few days, and it had a closet filled with large, fluffy bath towels. He’d used several over the past few days after his showers and surfing, but he’d barely made a dent in the supply there and they would serve double duty here - drying her off and keeping her warm, too.
He ran through his office, using the flashlight to light the way, helping him to avoid the computer printouts and empty coffee cups and half-empty pizza boxes that littered the path. It was only 7:15 p.m. according to his watch, but the thick, dark storm clouds made the sky nearly pitch black. The frequent flashes of lightening were the only things brightening the area for miles around. Even the lights of nearby LA had been extinguished by this power outage.
He returned quickly with an armload of large bath towels. He set them down on the floor beside her, then dropped to his knees and pulled off the throws that he’d wrapped around her just moments before. Her skin felt just as cold as before, so he immediately grabbed the top towel and covered her with it, rubbing briskly on her arms and legs to dry her and stimulate her circulation. “Too bad the electricity’s out because that towel warmer in the bathroom would sure come in handy now,” he quipped aloud, when his efforts seemed to be doing little to quickly warm her chilled body.
Then it occurred to him that, although he might not have a working electric towel warmer at the moment, he did have the next best thing - his own warm body. His wetsuit, which he was still wearing, had kept his body insulated from the cold of the rain and the ocean. He’d simply use his body heat to warm her. It was a basic survivor skill that he’d learned years ago as a child in Australia. The days in the outback could get very hot, but the nights could get very cold very quickly, and shared body heat was a quick and easy way to survive a cold night in the wilderness.
He stood, and then he realized that he was dripping wet himself. He grabbed one of the towels and briskly rubbed his face and head, briefly running a hand through his blonde locks to tame them. Then he quickly peeled off his wetsuit to reveal the skimpy swimsuit he wore beneath it. He grabbed for the well-worn jeans he’d discarded earlier on the floor by the nearby couch and started to put them on, but decided that the direct contact of his skin against hers would likely do more to warm her than his panted legs would, given the fact that his jeans had been in an air-conditioned house all afternoon. He just hoped that this woman wasn’t the shy sort because they were about to get to know one another very up close and personal.
He hesitated momentarily, as he thought about searching for his cell phone now that he had a flashlight, but he decided that her condition wasn’t life-threatening and she likely didn’t need an ambulance. He also thought about driving her to the hospital himself, but he hadn’t rented a car here, as he’d been relying on a limo service to transport him thus far since he’d been here in the States, but he’d dismissed the driver hours ago. It was an on-call service and he would have to call the service to get someone to come and pick them up. Besides, what driver in his right mind would go willingly out on a night like this, when it was raining so hard that you couldn’t see a foot in front of you? Certainly not one that he’d want to risk both of their lives on, when her present condition was not all that serious. Right now, she just needed to warm up and then she’d likely wake up, he reasoned.
He settled onto the cushions beside her, briefly debating how to hold her so that she would get the maximum benefit from his body heat, then he gently rolled her on top of him, so that she was facing him, her left cheek against his chest. She sighed softly as he moved her, but she still did not regain consciousness. He was briefly startled as he felt himself tremble at the feel of her body against his, but he quickly attributed that involuntary shudder to the contrast of her cold, still damp skin against his warm, dry skin. He carefully maneuvered them so they were closer to the warmth of the fireplace, then he piled several thick bath towels and the two cashmere throws on top of them, before wrapping his arms tightly around her cold, shivering body.
He was suddenly aware that he was extremely tired and that his heart was racing. It had been a long day for him even before all of this added excitement. He’d only just arrived from Australia a few days before, and he had yet to recover from the long flight and the 18-hour time difference. Couple that with the fact that since arriving here he’d been living and breathing GenCorp statistics 24/7, existing on take-out pizzas and countless cups of very black, very strong coffee, and catching brief catnaps, all while juggling calls from his brother at all hours of the day and night (When exactly was Jerry sleeping these days? he wondered.), it was surprising that he was still functioning at all. He’d felt like a zombie these past few days. The only time he’d actually felt alive in that time had been on those brief occasions when he’d been out on the ocean, riding the waves and letting his heart and mind wander - and today, when he’d rescued this woman.
He glanced down at her, moving to brush the curls aside so that he could see her face more clearly. She really is beautiful, he thought, as he gazed at her. Even with the cut on her forehead - which was very visible, as it sat atop a definite goose egg - she was still gorgeous. He wondered what she was like as a person? Was she as beautiful inside as she was out, or was she a spoiled brat, who thought her good looks entitled her to anything and everything? And why exactly was she sitting on the rocks of that cove with a major storm beginning to swirl around her? He remembered seeing someone sitting there nearly all day every day since he’d arrived. He hadn’t really paid much attention then, just noticed it in passing, as he was too wrapped up in his own problems, but now he knew it had to have been her and he wondered what her story was?
He brushed her hair completely away from her face then, so that he could get a better look at her color. He wasn’t sure if it was simply the glow from the fire or what, but she appeared to have more color in her cheeks now. At least, she’d finally stopped shivering, and her skin felt considerably warmer now. He figured that, other than a major headache and good-sized bump on the head, she’d likely be none the worse for wear after all of this.
She sighed then and moved slightly, but she still didn’t awaken, which, for some reason, relieved him. He knew that he should probably ease her back onto the pillows and off of him now that she was warmer. She could probably rest more comfortably that way, and he could get up and get dressed and search for his cell phone then. After all, once she woke up, they’d need the phone. She’d likely want to call home to let her family know she was okay. Someone had to be missing her… worried about her… Yes, he really should think about moving now, but he really didn’t want to… He was strangely comfortable like this, and for the first time since he’d arrived here in the States, he actually felt like he could get some real rest, not simply a catnap. He wondered why that was? Another rumble of thunder shook the house, as if to answer his silent question. Ah, yes, the storm… He had always found thunderstorms to be relaxing, even the sensational ones they’d had back on the farm when he was a kid; the ones that made this storm look like nothing more menacing than a gentle sprinkle.
Jax relaxed and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply of her scent as he did so. She smelled of jasmine, and the heady fragrance only served to further soothe him. That, combined with the sound of the rain urgently pelting the roof and the insistent claps of thunder alternating rapidly with the spectacular bursts of lightening, helped to lull Jax into a state of relaxation that he hadn’t felt in ages. Despite the fact that he was in a foreign country, in an unfamiliar house, falling asleep cradling a total stranger in his arms, there was something about it that felt right and strangely satisfying. It was a wonderful feeling, and, just as he made that final step from wakefulness to sleep, his unconscious mind recognized something that his conscious mind had yet to realize: for the first time in a long time he actually felt happy…