‘Drew... Drew!’
He didn’t hear her the first time, but when she screamed at the top of her voice, he stopped rowing, grinning up at her. That wasn’t what she’d meant him to do. He should be heading for the beach, where he’d be safe.
‘What are you doing? Be careful!’
He seemed to be allowing the tide to bring him closer to the foot of the cliff.
Drew swung one of the oars into the boat and waved at her. He was just twenty feet below her now, the boat bobbing up and down on the water, and he seemed to be looking for something. Then he reached forward, pulling the boat right up against the rocks.
‘I said I’d be here at twelve.’ He looked up at her, his face all innocence. He could cut that out right now.
‘I didn’t expect you to row here. What are you going to do now?’ The cliff face that separated them was a sheer expanse of rock. No one could get up it, and certainly not a man with an injured leg and a puppy to contend with.
‘Have you been down into your basement?’
‘Only once.’ The agent had insisted on showing her the whole of the house, but the dark, empty space hadn’t much appealed to Caro.
‘I’ll meet you there.’
‘What?’
Too late. The boat had disappeared into a crevice and taken Drew and Phoenix with it. She could hear the puppy’s excited barking, but short of throwing herself into the sea there was no way of seeing what Drew was up to now. Caro wrapped her arms around her, tramping back to the house.
The door into the basement was locked, and she twisted the key, switching on the light and walking down the stone steps. What was she supposed to do now? Caro looked around and caught sight of a new-looking door at the far end of the space.
That too was locked, but the key was in the lock and the mechanism turned smoothly when she tried it. The door swung open, and she saw Drew, walking towards her with a torch in one hand and Phoenix’s lead in the other. The puppy seemed to be having a fine old time, still wearing her lifejacket and yelping excitedly.
Drew grinned at her. His shoulders seemed somehow broader now that she’d seen them powering the fragile craft through the waves towards her, and he looked deliciously windswept. That was something she could think about later, when she’d questioned the advisability of arriving this way.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Drew? Couldn’t you just wait for the tide?’
He shrugged. ‘Rowing’s a lot easier than climbing steps.’
‘And it’s a lot more dangerous as well. Goodness only knows what might have happened to you. And Phoenix.’ If he had little heed for his own safety, then she knew that he’d baulk over having put Phoenix at risk.
‘It’s an easy row, around from Dolphin Cove. If it was dangerous I wouldn’t have come this way, but it’s a nice day and these waters are sheltered enough. I’ve been rowing back and forth in them since I was a kid.’
‘You’re a vet, Drew. Not a crusty old fisherman.’
He chuckled. ‘True. But my grandfather’s a crusty old fisherman, and he was the one who taught me how to row and showed me every inch of this coastline.’
Caro puffed out a breath. ‘All right, then. I still don’t like it.’
‘What on earth did you do when you were in California? I hear there’s a great deal of sea there.’
‘They call it ocean. And, yes, there is, but...’ She shrugged awkwardly.
‘You were a bit busy with other things?’
‘Yes, as it happens, I was.’ Caro peered past him into the darkness. ‘What is this, some kind of secret passage?’
‘It’s an open secret, most people around here know about it.’ He turned, beckoning her into the gloomy space.
When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Caro could see that it was more of a cavern than a passage. She could hear the sound of the sea and see light at the other end.
‘So this is a landing? For any visitors who can’t be bothered to climb the steps?’ The small wooden rowing boat was pulled up out of the water, inside the mouth of the opening onto the sea.
‘You really don’t know? What’s this place called?’