And then, only then, did he realize that his heartbeat had reset. Still thundering, but not racing.

Back to something at least resembling a normal pace. So he’d stood in the water and just . . . breathed.

“You okay, man?” Roy had asked, the blood from his nose now clotted.

The whole thing felt surreal.

Still felt surreal an hour later as he and Tae sat on the dock. Roy had gone inside with Zoey, Raven, and Jethro, to brief them, or maybe just to sleep.

Colt might not sleep for a week.

“Calm down. You’re safe. Just breathe.”

That felt a little hard to do, sitting this close to Tae, their arms touching.

She was too far into his head, despite his best attempts to keep her out. In fact, earlier, he’d nearly missed the rustle of movement, nearly let Roy creep right up to them as he fought not to think about her.

Now, it was nearly impossible to escape the fact that she’d chosen to sit out here with him in his stubborn refusal to return to the house.

“This ever happen before?” Tae said.

This? “Someone trying to drown me? Maybe.”

She cocked her head at him. “Perfect. Exactly what I wanted to hear. No, your heart racing out of control.”

He was tempted to give her another quip, something about sitting next to her, but it sounded sappy, even in his head, so, “The glacier.”

In truth, the episode had him a little freaked out. He’d pushed his body to the limit more times than he could count, but never had his pulse ratcheted so high he couldn’t slow it down, couldn’t gain control. Until . . . “Maybe it was the stress of climbing up the ice.”

“And fighting Roy.”

His mouth tightened. “Nothing I haven’t done before.”

“Again, I don’t want to know.”

He looked at her. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”

“I know. But what if . . .” Sighing. “You might have stroked out. Or suffered a full cardiac arrest. Not good, Colt. Not good.”

“I’m not going to stroke out.” He had stopped shivering a little. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since I met you!”

He raised an eyebrow. “I remember being pretty fine when I rescued you off the houseboat.”

“Oh, you are so stubborn!” She held up her hand. “Yes. Okay, tough guy, you were very heroic. No one is saying anything different. But for one second will you listen to me? Maybe you’re more hurt than you realize. Maybe there is something permanently wrong with you.”

Permanently?

Her gaze seemed to burn into him.

Fine. “Yes, maybe I’ve had a harder time getting back into action, feeling like myself, but—”

“You were beaten really badly.”