His workshop was new. He’d created a flat space inside a retaining wall and built a garagelike structure, with high ceilings, two large doors, one on each side to let the breeze through, room for his tools, a well-protected kiln—fire was always a terrifying concern in Big Sur—and a small loft with a bed and bath for those times when he drove himself too hard and needed a place to collapse.

Adjacent to the shop, the outdoor shower was enclosed in rough cedar. A toilet and sink were in a separate enclosure, and to make it all work to the satisfaction of the California environmental inspectors, he’d been forced to spend a fortune on a pump to carry the waste up the hill to the Gothic sewage station.

It was worth it: he was self-sufficient here, and he lived days and days without seeing anyone. And now he had somewhere for Elle to clean up.

He helped her up the steps and into the shower stall.

The outer cedar boards fit together like a fence, tight in spots but with long, narrow gaps. The floor was a fiberglass shell. The ceiling was the sky. And right now the sun shone into the stall with cheerful indifference to her trauma.

He leaned her against the wall, turned the shower on, waited until the instant hot-water heater kicked in, then stood with his back under the water to wash away the vomit, and he studied her.

Her face and arms looked as if every piece of driftwood in the ocean had taken the opportunity to beat on her. Or maybe the guy who’d throttled her had also been free with his fists. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, hoodie, boat shoes. He wished that guaranteed she’d been aboard a boat. But her clothes were the kind of clothes any sensible woman would wear outside in a storm. “Can you wash yourself?” he asked.

She opened her eyes, and sighed and straightened away from the wall...and sank down on her knees.

“Okay.” He didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t see a choice. “We’re going to have to take off your clothes.” He expected to hear her choke out an emphatic no.

She nodded.

Well, hell.

He knelt beside her, pulled off her shoes and unzipped her jeans.

She rolled back on the floor, lifted her hips and inched her damp, salty jeans off her hips. She did not remove her panties.

He was more relieved than he wanted to admit. “We’ll shampoo your hair first.”

She sat up and bent her head, waiting for him without protest.

He loosened her braid, washed gently, barely touching the spots on her scalp that were raw and torn.

She winced anyway.

He removed the handheld shower nozzle from its hook and rinsed, then gathered a washcloth and his bar of unscented soap. “Now we’ll, um...”

Slowly, creakily, she removed her T-shirt.