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made her hot and sticky. The prospect of an ocean swim became decidedly inviting.
    She made a brief stop at home to change into her swimsuit and grab a towel, then set out for the small beach where she always swam. She was picking her way along the rocky path down the headland when a movement near the beach caught her eye. She stopped to look, then became paralyzed as she recognized Pete wading ashore. Anguish clouded her eyes as her searching gaze found Rhyder swimming toward the shallow water.
    Common sense told her to run before she was seen, but pride insisted that she had to show Rhyder that he meant nothing to her. Childishly she didn't want him to know how severely he had hurt her with his rejection of her love. With a determined toss of her raven hair, she continued along the rocky path to the beach.
    "Man, that beer is really going to taste good when we get back to the boat," Pete declared, a breathlessness in his voice from swimming.
    Rhyder didn't respond to the comment, and Gina glanced up as she took her first step onto the sand. He was staring at her, grim-faced, and she immediately looked away with a haughty lift of her nose. Pete turned to see what had captured Rhyder's attention and brought such a forbidding expression to his darkly tanned features.
    "Hello, Gina," Pete offered quickly.
    "Hi, Pete," she replied, but she deliberately avoided greeting Rhyder and he did the same. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pete glancing from one to the other and knew he felt the crackling tension in the air. She dropped her towel on the sand and started slipping off her sandals. "How's the water?"
    "Fine," Pete answered uneasily. "Look, er, we were just leaving. If I stay in the sun much longer, I'll turn into a boiled lobster." He laughed uncomfortably, trying to make a joke of it.
    In truth, Pete's fair skin was more inclined to freckle than tan, but she knew he was only trying to cover up Rhyder's pointed silence.
    "I couldn't care less whether you leave or not," she shrugged, and pushed her sandals under her beach towel.
    "Are you meeting someone?" Rhyder suddenly demanded in a curt tone.
    Her head jerked toward him, her expression cool and disdainful. "I don't see that it's any of your business, but no, I'm not."
    "You shouldn't swim alone."
    "I've done it hundreds of times and nothing has happened to me yet. I'm a very strong swimmer," Gina declared.
    "Ability has nothing to do with it," he growled roughly.
    "Really?" she answered mockingly. "Well, for your information, I'm also wise enough never to get out of my depth."
    "Are you?" His steel-blue eyes touched her mouth and the rounded swell of her breasts in a suggestive look that sent the blood rushing to her cheeks. "You could very easily get into trouble."
    "I certainly wouldn't call to you for help if I did," Gina muttered bitterly. "Go drink your beer and leave me alone. What might or might not happen to me has nothing to do with you." Impatiently she moved away toward the waves lapping the hard-packed sand of the beach.
    "Pete, go on back to the boat," Rhyder ordered curtly. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on her."
    As if she was a child, Gina thought wretchedly, and raced toward the waves, diving shallowly into the water to hide the mortification he made her feel. For several minutes she exerted herself to the limits of her physical ability. She had to force herself to settle into a less tiring stroke and edge closer to shore.
    After her rash boast, she didn't want to become too exhausted to reach shallow water and thus need to have Rhyder rescue her. Only once did she glance toward the beach to see if he had strayed. He was there and Pete had gone. She remained in the water for as long as she could, wanting Rhyder to have a long watch.
    Eventually her muscles began to tremble in protest and she turned toward shore. When her toe scraped the bottom, she stood up and waded in. Her gaze slid over him where he stood out of reach of the lapping waves. The wait