Книга - Nine Months to Change His Life

Nine Months to Change His Life
Marion Lennox


''I rescued you on this island…and you rescued me right back."Ben Logan never asks anyone for help. Until, during a deadly hurricane, he's washed up on a deserted island. There he finds his life in the hands of sparky, petite nurse Mary Hammond. Trapped with only each other for comfort, Ben and Mary turn to one another.Back home safely, Mary dominates Ben's dreams. And when, three months later, Mary arrives at Ben's New York office, it's with news that their one night had the power to change their lives forever….Don't miss Ben's twin brother's story, The Maverick Millionaire by Alison Roberts, on sale next month!







THE LOGAN TWINS

Twin brothers Ben and Jake Logan have each become wildly successful in their own way, and yet they’re still getting into trouble together. This time it’s when they’re sailing off the coast of New Zealand and a massive storm hits, tearing their boat apart …

But the Logan brothers aren’t beaten easily. And when they find themselves on very different shores neither of them knows just how much the storm—and the strong, irresistible women they meet in the heart of it—will change their lives for ever!

Available in June 2014

NINE MONTHS TO CHANGE HIS LIFE by Marion Lennox

And don’t miss

THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE by Alison Roberts available in July 2014


Nine Months to Change his Life

Marion Lennox






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor', Marion writes for the Mills & Boon


Medical Romance™ and Mills & Boon


Cherish™ lines. (She used a different name for each category for a while—readers looking for her past romance titles should search for author Trisha David as well). She’s now had more than seventy-five romance novels accepted for publication.

In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!


Contents

CHAPTER ONE (#uef24b4ad-344c-5c5d-8c11-37f6faf18bec)

CHAPTER TWO (#u2f47ecff-d449-5760-adbf-2ae2cdb3afa5)

CHAPTER THREE (#u07bdb4d5-4e41-5403-bc57-922f3f5f36c5)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u7fd7f388-3712-5af6-ba8d-1d943fb937b9)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE

FROM THE MOMENT they were born, the Logan boys were trouble.

They were dark-haired, dark-eyed and full of mischief. Usually ignored by their wealthy, emotionally distant parents, they ran their nannies ragged and they ran themselves ragged. There wasn’t a lot they wouldn’t dare each other to do.

As they grew to men, tall, tough and ripped, their risks escalated. Some of those risks turned out to be foolish, Ben conceded. Joining the army and going to Afghanistan had been foolish. Back in civvies, attempting to get on with their careers, the trauma was still with them.

Sailing round the world to distract Jake from his failed marriage had also turned out to be stupid. Especially now, as Cyclone Lila bore down on their frail life raft, as one harness hung free from the chopper overhead.

‘Take Ben first,’ Jake yelled to the paramedic who’d been lowered with the harness, but Ben wasn’t buying it.

‘I’m the eldest,’ Ben snapped. He was only older by twenty minutes but the responsibility of that twenty minutes had weighed on him all his life. ‘Go.’

Jake refused, but the woman swinging from the chopper was risking all to save them. The weather was crazy—no one should be on the sea in such conditions. Arguing had to be done hard and fast.

He did what he had to do. The things he said to get Jake to go first were unforgivable—but he got the harness on.

‘The chopper’s full,’ the paramedic yelled at Ben as she signalled for the chopper to pull them free. ‘We’ll come back for you as soon as we can.’

Or not. They all knew how unlikely another rescue was. The cyclone had veered erratically from its predicted path, catching the whole yachting fleet unprepared. The speed at which it was travelling was breathtaking, and there was no escape. Massive waves had smashed their boat, and they were still on the edge of the cyclone. The worst was yet to come.

At least Jake was safe—he hoped. The wind was making the rope from the chopper swing wildly, hurling Jake and the paramedic through the cresting waves. Get up there, he pleaded silently. Move.

Then the next wave bore down, a monster of breaking foam. He saw it coming, slammed down the hatch of the life raft and held on for dear life as the sea tossed his flimsy craft like a beach ball in surf.

We’ll come back for you as soon as we can.

When the cyclone was over?

The wave passed and he dared open the hatch a little. The chopper was higher, but Jake and his rescuer were still swinging.

‘Stay safe, brother,’ he whispered. ‘Stay safe until I see you again.’

A cyclone was heading straight for him. Until I see you again... What a bitter joke.

* * *

This was no mere storm. This was a cyclone, and in a cyclone there could surely be few worse places to be than on Hideaway Island.

Hideaway Island was tiny, a dot on the outer edge of the Bay of Islands off New Zealand’s north coast. Two of Mary’s friends, a surgeon and his lawyer wife, had bought it for a song years ago. They’d built a hut in the centre of the island and bought a serviceable boat to ferry themselves back and forth to the mainland. They’d decided it was paradise.

But Henry and Barbara now had impressive professional lives and three children. They hardly ever made it out here. It’d been on the market for a year, but with the global financial crisis no one was buying.

Right now, Henry and Barbara were in New York, but before they’d left, Henry had tossed Mary the keys to the hut and boat.

‘You might use some solitude until this fuss dies down,’ Henry told her with rough kindness. ‘Could you check on the place while we’re away? Stay if you like; we’d be grateful. It might be what you need.’

It was what she needed. Henry was one of the few who didn’t blame her. Hideaway had seemed a reasonable place to run.

Until today. Heinz, her terrier-size, fifty-seven-or-more-variety dog, was looking at her as if he was worried, and his worry was justified. The wind was escalating by the minute. Outside the trees were bending and groaning with its force, and the roughly built hut felt distinctly unstable.

‘We could end up in Texas,’ Mary muttered, shaking her useless radio. Had a transmission tower fallen in the wind? Her phone was dead and there was no radio reception.

At six this morning the radio had said Cyclone Lila was five hundred miles off the coast, veering north-east instead of in its predicted northern trajectory. There was concern for a major international yacht race, but there’d been no hint that it might turn south and hit the Bay of Islands. Residents of New Zealand’s north had merely been advised that the outside edges could cause heavy winds.

‘Tie down outside furniture,’ the broadcast had said. ‘Don’t park under trees.’

That was a normal storm warning—nothing to worry about. Mary had thought briefly of taking the boat and heading for the mainland, but the wind was rising and the usually placid sea around the islands was rough. It’d be safer to sit it out.

Or it had seemed safer, until about an hour ago.

Another gust slammed into the hut. A sheet of iron ripped from the roof and sleet swept inside.

The foundations creaked and the pictures on the wall swayed.

Uh-oh.

‘I think we might head for the cave,’ she told Heinz uneasily. ‘You want a walk?’

The little terrier-cum-beagle-cum-a-lot-of-other-things cocked his head and looked even more worried. Right now a walk didn’t appeal even to Heinz.

But the cave was appealing. Mary and Heinz had explored it a couple of days ago. It was wide and deep, set in the cliffs above the only beach where swimming was possible. Best of all, it faced west. It’d protect them from the worst of the gale.

Now that the roof was open, there didn’t seem to be a choice. She had to go, and go now before it got worse. But what to take? The cave was only two or three hundred yards away. There was a flattish track and she had a trolley, the one Barbara and Henry used to lug supplies from boat to hut.

The boat. There was a sickening thought. The tiny natural harbour on the east of the island should protect the boat in all but the worst conditions—but these were the worst conditions.

She had no communications. No boat. She was on her own.

So what else was new? She’d been on her own now for as long as she could remember. Like it or not, she’d learned to depend entirely on herself, and she could do it now.

Concentrate on practicalities.

She grabbed plastic garbage bags and started stuffing things inside. Provisions, dog food, firestarters, kindling, bedding. Her manuscript. That was a joke, but she was taking it anyway.

Water containers. What else? What would Barbara and Henry want her to save?

Barbara’s patchwork quilt? The lovely cushions embroidered by Barbara’s grandmother? They went into plastic bags, too.

Another sheet of roofing iron went flying. The cottage was now totally open to the weather.

She had to stop. This was starting to be seriously scary and she had to pull the trolley.

‘Why couldn’t you be a sled dog?’ she demanded of Heinz as she hauled open the door and faced the weather. ‘You could help me pull.’

In answer, Heinz stared up at the wildly swaying trees, jumped onto the trolley and wriggled down among the plastic bags.

He was terrified. So was Mary, but she made herself pause. She made herself think. What else might be important?

‘First-aid kit,’ she muttered, and headed back into the already soaking cottage to find her medical bag. As a district nurse she still had it with her, and she’d brought it to the island just in case.

In case of splinters. In case of colds in the head. Not in case of cyclones.

She could hear branches splintering from the trees. There was no time for more.

And then the rest of the roof peeled off, with a shriek of tin against tin.

‘Go,’ she muttered, and started pulling. Heavy didn’t begin to describe it. Sleet was stinging her eyes, her face, every part of her.

What to discard? Everything but essentials? Nothing Barbara and Henry cherished?

‘Don’t be a wuss,’ she told herself. ‘They entrusted you with their island. The least you can do is save their stuff. The path’s reasonably flat. Come on, muscles, pull.’

She tugged and the trolley moved.

‘I can do this,’ she said through gritted teeth, and put her head down into the wind and pulled.

* * *

The life raft was in freefall. Ben was falling over and over. It felt like one of those crazy fairground rides, only he’d forgotten to buckle his seat belt. Who had designed this thing? It’d be safe enough on a calm sea but who got shipwrecked on a calm sea?

He could find nothing to anchor himself to. He was flailing, bashing against the sides of the raft with every bounce.

He felt ill but he didn’t have time to be ill.

At least Jake was safe. It was a mantra, and he said it over and over. He had to believe the chopper had pulled his twin to safety. Thinking anything else was the way of madness.

The raft crashed again, but this time it was different. It was smashing against something solid.

They’d been miles from land when the yacht had started taking on water. Ben knew what this must be and his nausea increased. The raft would be bashing against what remained of the yacht’s hull. Caught in the same currents, with no way to get himself clear, he’d be hurled against timber at every turn.

The second crash ripped the side of the life raft. Another wave hurled over him, and the life raft practically turned itself inside out.

Tossing its human cargo out with it.

He grabbed one of the ropes around the outside of the raft. The bulk of the craft should stay upright. If he could just hold...

Another wave hit, a massive breaker of surging foam. No man could hold against such force.

And then there was nothing. Only the open, smashing sea. The GPS was in the life raft. Chances of being found now? Zip.

It was no use swimming. There was no use doing anything but hope his lifejacket wouldn’t be torn from him. He could only hope he could still keep on breathing. Hope... Hope...

There was nothing but hope. He was fighting to breathe. He was fighting to live.

There was no help. There was nothing but the endless sea.

* * *

She had to round the headland to get to the cave. It meant putting her head down and pulling almost directly into the wind. She had no idea how she was doing it, but the trolley was moving.

Tourists came to this place in summer, beaching their kayaks and exploring. The cliff path had therefore been trodden almost flat. It was possible, and she had terror driving her on. ‘This is mad,’ she muttered, but her words were lost in the gale.

She was at the point where the path veered away from the headland and turned towards the safety of the cave. Five more steps. Four...

She reached the turn and glanced down towards the beach, beyond the headland where the storm was at its worst. And stopped.

Was that a figure in the water, just beyond the shallows? A body? A crimson lifejacket?

She was surely imagining things, but, dear God, if she wasn’t...

Triage. Her medical training kicked in. Get the provisions safe, she told herself. She was no use to herself or anyone else without dry gear.

She had to haul the trolley upwards for the last few yards but she hardly noticed. In seconds she’d shoved the trolley deep inside the cave. At least the cave was in the lee of the storm, and so was the beach below.

It was wild enough even on the safe side of the island.

‘Stay,’ she told Heinz, and Heinz stuck his head out from the plastic bags and promptly buried himself again. Stay? He was in total agreement. It was dry and safe in the cave but outside the scream of wind and ocean was terrifying.

She had to face it. She wasn’t sure what she’d seen was...someone, but she had to find out.

The path down to the beach was steep but manageable. Running along the beach on the lee side of the island was almost easy as well. Thankfully the tide was out so she was running on wet sand.

She could do this.

And then she rounded the headland and the force of the storm hit head on.

She could hardly see. Wind and sand were blasting her face, blinding her.

Was it all her imagination? Was she risking herself for a bit of floating debris? The tide was coming in—fast.

She’d come this far. There were rocks at the water’s edge. She was pushing her way along the rocks, frantically searching, trying to see out into the waves. Where...?

* * *

He was falling and falling and falling. He had no idea how long he’d been in the water, how far he’d drifted, how desperate his position was. All he knew was that every few seconds he had to find the will to breathe. It was as easy and as impossible as that.

His body was no longer his own. The sea was doing what it willed. Waves were crashing over and around him. The chance to breathe often stretched to twenty, even thirty seconds.

He could think of nothing but breathing.

But then something sharp was crashing against his leg. And then his shoulder. Something hard, immoveable...

Solid. Rocks?

The water washed out and for a blessed moment he felt himself free of the water.

Another wave and it must have been twenty seconds before he could breathe. Whatever he was lying on seemed to be holding him down.

Another wash of water and he was free, hurled away from the sharpness, tossed high.

Onto sand?

He was barely conscious but he got it. His face was buried in sand.

Until the next wave.

Somehow he lifted his head. Sand. Rocks. Cliff.

The water came again but he was ready for it. He dug down, clung like a limpet.

The wave swept out again and somehow miraculously he stayed.

He couldn’t resist the water’s force again, though. He had to crawl out of the reach of the waves’ power. Somehow...somehow... The world was an aching, hurting blur. The sand was the only thing he could cling to.

He clung and clung.

And through it all was the mantra. Make Jake safe. Dear God, make Jake be okay.

Another wave. Somehow he managed to claw himself higher, but at what cost? The pain in his leg...in his head...

He could close his eyes, he thought. Just for a moment.

If Jake was safe he could close his eyes and forget.

* * *

And then she found it. Him.

Dear God, this was no detritus washed up in the storm. This was a dark-haired, strongly built man, wearing yachting gear and a lifejacket.

He was face down in the sand. He’d lost a shoe. His pants were ripped. Lifeless?

As she reached him she could see a thin line of blood seeping down his face. Fresh blood. He’d been alive when he’d been washed up.

His hands were sprawled out on the sand. She knelt and touched one and flinched with the cold. His skin was white and clammy—how long had he been in the water?

She touched his neck.

A pulse! Alive!

She hauled him over—no mean feat by itself—so he lay on his side rather than face down. She was frantically trying to clear sand from mouth and nostrils. She had her ear against his mouth.

He was breathing. She could hear it. She unclipped his lifejacket and she could see the faint rise and fall of his chest.

There was so much sand. His face was impossibly caked. Wiping was never going to get rid of that sand.

He’d be sucking it into his lungs.

She hauled off her raincoat and headed into the waves, stooping to scoop water into the plastic. That was a risk by itself because the waves were fierce. She backed up fast, up the beach to where he lay, then placed her back to the wind and oozed the water carefully around his face. She was trying to rid him of the caked sand. How much had he already breathed?

Why was he unconscious? That hit on the head? Near drowning? With his mouth clear, she put her mouth against his and breathed for him. It wouldn’t hurt to help him, to get more oxygen in, to keep that raspy breathing going.

His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, more surely now that she was breathing with him.

She kept on breathing while the sleet slashed from all sides, while the wind howled and while wet sand cut into her face and hands, every part of her that was exposed.

What to do? The tide was coming in. In an hour, probably less, this beach would be under water.

She thought of the trolley, but to pull it on a sandy beach was impossible. This man must be six foot three or four and strongly built. She was five foot six and no wimp, but she was no match for this guy’s size.

How to move him? She couldn’t.

‘Please,’ she pleaded out loud, and she didn’t even know what she was pleading for.

But as if he’d heard, his body shifted. He opened his eyes and stared up at her.

Deep, grey eyes. Wounded eyes. She’d seen pain before and this man had it in spades.

‘You’re safe,’ she said, keeping her voice low and calm. Nurse reassuring patient. Nurse telling lies? ‘You’re okay. Relax.’

‘Jake...’ he muttered.

‘Is that your name?’

‘No, Ben. But Jake...’

‘I’m Mary and we can worry about Jake when we’re off the beach,’ she said, still in the reassuring tone she’d honed with years of district nursing. ‘I’m here to help. Ben, the tide’s coming in and we need to move. Can you wiggle your toes?’

She could see him think about it. Concentrate.

His feet moved. Praise be. She wasn’t coping with paraplegia—or worse.

She should be factoring in risks. She should have him on a rigid board with a neck brace in case of spinal injury.

There wasn’t time. Survival meant they had to move.

‘Now your legs,’ she said, and one leg moved. The other shifted a little and then didn’t. She could see pain wash over his face.

‘That’s great,’ she said, even though it wasn’t. ‘We have one good leg and one that’s sore. Now fingers and arms.’

‘I can’t feel ’em.’

‘That’s because you’re cold. Try.’

He tried and they moved.

‘Good. Take a breather now. We have a little time.’ Like five minutes. Waves were already reaching his feet.

He had a slash across his face. The bleeding had slowed to an ooze but it looked like it had bled profusely.

Head injury. He needed X-rays. If he had intracranial bleeding...

Don’t even go there.

Priorities. She had a patient with an injured leg and blood loss and shock. The tide was coming in. There was time for nothing but getting him off the beach.

The sand and sleet were slapping her face, making her gasp. She was having trouble breathing herself.

Think.

Injured leg. She had no time—or sight—to assess it. The slashing sand was blinding.

Splint.

Walking-stick.

She made to rise but his hand came out and caught her. He held her arm, with surprising strength.

‘Don’t leave me.’ It was a gasp.

She understood. She looked at the ripped lifejacket and then she looked out at the mountainous sea.

This guy must be one of the yachties they’d been talking about on the radio this morning. A yacht race—the Ultraswift Round the World Challenge—had been caught unprepared. The cyclone warning had had the fleet running for cover to Auckland but the storm had veered unexpectedly, catching them in its midst.

At dawn the broadcasters had already been talking about capsizes and deaths. Heroic rescues. Tragedy.

Now the storm had turned towards her island. It must have swept Ben before it. He’d somehow been swept onto Hideaway, but to safety?

Would this be as bad as the storm got, or would the cyclone hit them square on? With no radio contact she had to assume the worst.

She had to get him off this beach.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said, and heaven only knew the effort it cost to keep the panic from her voice. ‘I’m walking up the beach to find you a walking-stick. Then I’m coming back to help you to safety. I know you can’t see me clearly right now but I’m five feet six inches tall and even though I play roller derby like a champion, I can’t carry you. You need a stick.’

‘Roller derby,’ he said faintly.

‘My team name is Smash ’em Mary,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to mess with me.’

‘Smash ’em Mary?’ It was a ragged whisper but she was satisfied. She’d done what she’d intended. She’d made him think of something apart from drama and tragedy.

‘I’ll invite you to a game some time,’ she told him. ‘But not today. Bite on a bullet, big boy, while I fetch you a walking-stick.’

‘I don’t need a walking-stick.’

‘Yeah, you can get up and hike right up the beach without even a wince,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. Lie still and think of nothing at all while I go and find what I need. Do what the lady tells you. Stay.’

* * *

Stay. He had no choice.

‘Smash ’em Mary.’ The name echoed in his head, weirdly reassuring.

The last few hours had been a nightmare. In the end he’d decided it was a dream. He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness or that was how it’d seemed. The past was mixing with the future. He and Jake as kids in that great, ostentatious mansion their parents called home. Their father yelling at them. ‘You moronic imbeciles, you’re your mother’s spawn. You’ve inherited nothing from me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.’

That’s how he felt now. Stupid.

Jake, flying through the air with the blast from the roadside bomb. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Jake on a rope, smashing through the waves.

‘Ben, look after your brother.’ That was their mother. Rita Marlene. Beautiful, fragile, fatally flawed. ‘Promise me.’

She was here now. Promise me.

Where was Jake?

This was all a dream.

His mother?

Smash ’em Mary.

There was no way a dream could conjure a Smash ’em Mary. The name hauled him out of his stupor as nothing else could.

Stay.

He had no choice but to obey. The nightmare was still there. If he moved, it might slam back.

He’d lie still and submit. To Smash ’em Mary?

She’d been so close he’d seen her face. She had an elfin haircut, with wet, short-cropped curls plastering her forehead. She had a finely boned face, brown eyes and freckles.

She had shadows under her eyes. Exhaustion?

Because of him? Had she been searching for him—or someone else?

How many yachts had gone down?

Memory was surging back, and he groaned and tried to rise. But then she was back, pushing him down onto the sand.

‘Disobedience means no elephant stamp,’ she told him. ‘I said lie still and I meant lie still.’ Then she faltered a little, and the assurance faded. ‘Ben, I can’t sugar-coat this. Your leg might be broken and there’s no way I can assess it here.

‘In normal circumstances I’d call an ambulance, we’d fill you full of nice woozy drugs, put you on a stretcher and cart you off to a hospital, but right now all you have is me. So I’ve found a couple of decent sticks. I’ll tie one to your leg to keep it still. The other’s a walking-stick. You’re going to hold onto me and we’ll get you off this beach.’

He tried to think about it. It was hard to think about anything but closing his eyes and going to sleep.

‘Ben,’ Mary snapped. ‘Don’t even think about closing your eyes. You’re cold to the marrow. The tide’s coming in. You go to sleep and you won’t wake up.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ It was a slur. It was so hard to make his voice work.

‘Because Jake needs you,’ Mary snapped again. ‘You pull yourself together and help me, and then we’ll both help Jake. Just do it.’

And put like that, of course he’d do it. He had no choice.

* * *

Afterwards she could never figure out how they managed. She’d read somewhere of mothers lifting cars off children, superhuman feats made possible by the adrenalin of terror. There was something about a cyclone bearing down that provided the same sort of impetus.

She was facing sleet and sand and the blasting of leaves and branches from the storm-swept trees of Hideaway Island and beyond. She had to get this man two hundred yards up a rocky cliff to the safety of the cave. The sheer effort of hauling him was making her feel faint, but there was no way she was letting him go.

‘If I had to find a drowned rat of a sailor, why couldn’t I have found a little one?’ she gasped. They were halfway up the path, seemingly a million miles from the top. Ben was grim-faced with pain. He was leaning on his stick but his left leg was useless and he was forced to lean on her heavily. His weight was almost unbearable.

‘Leave me and come back when the storm’s done,’ he gasped.

‘No way,’ she said, and then, as he propped himself up on the walking-stick, turning stubborn, she hauled out the big guns. ‘Keep going. Jake needs you even if I don’t.’ She didn’t have a clue who Jake was but it shut him up. He went back to concentrating on one ghastly step at a time, and so did she.

His leg seemed useless. He was totally dependent on one leg, his stick and her support. Compound fracture? Blocked blood supply? There hadn’t been the time or visibility on the beach to see. She’d simply ripped her coat into strips and tied the stick on his leg to keep it as steady as she could.

But it was bad. He was dragging it behind him and she could feel that every step took him to the edge.

She felt close to the edge herself. How much worse must it be for him?

‘If I were you, I’d be screaming in agony,’ she managed, and she felt him stiffen. She could feel his tension, his fear—and now his shock.

‘Smash...Smash ’em Mary screams in agony?’

‘I’m good at it,’ she confessed. ‘It’s great for getting free points from the referee.’

‘You’re...kidding me.’

‘Nope.’ She was trying desperately to sound normal, to keep the exhaustion from her voice as they hauled themselves one appalling step after another. Dizziness was washing over her in waves, but she wouldn’t succumb. ‘I’ve watched wrestlers on the telly. I swear their agony is pretend but they make millions. Some day I might.’

‘As a wrestler, or with roller derby?’

‘I might need to work on my muscles a bit for wrestling. I should have done it earlier. Muscles’d be helping now.’

They surely would. He was doing his best but she was practically dragging him.

Left to his own devices, he’d have lain where he was until the storm passed. Or not. This diminutive woman was giving him no choice.

‘Mary—’

‘Shut up and keep going.’

‘You don’t have to—’

‘Lie down and we lie down together,’ she muttered, grim with determination. ‘I don’t give up. I might get it horribly wrong, but I don’t give up. Ever.’

He had no clue what that meant. All he knew was that she was iron. She wasn’t faltering. No matter how steep the ground grew, she wasn’t slowing.

But she stopped talking. She must be as close to the edge as he was, he thought. If he could only help...

And then suddenly, blessedly, the ground flattened. His leg jolted with the shock of a change of levels but she didn’t pause.

‘Heinz... Heinz’s waiting just round this corner.’ She was gasping for breath, not bothering to disguise her distress now they were on level ground.

‘Heinz?’

‘My...my guard dog.’

Somehow she hauled him another few steps, around a bluff that instantly, magically chopped off the screaming wind. Ten more steps took them towards darkness...the mouth of a cave? Five more steps and they were inside. The rain ceased. The light dimmed.

‘Welcome to my lair,’ Mary managed, and that was all she could get out.

‘I can’t...’ she muttered—and she folded into a crumpled heap.

What the...?

Somehow he dropped beside her, fumbling to lift her head, to clear her face from the sandy ground. Was this a faint? Please, God, let this just be exhaustion. To have hauled him so far...

This woman had put her own life on the line to save his. She’d given her all and more. Her faint had to be from sheer exhaustion, he told himself fiercely. It had to be. If it was worse, he’d carry the guilt for the rest of his life.

Her eyes were open, dazed, confused.

‘Hey,’ he managed. ‘It’s okay. We’re safe now. You’ve saved me, now it’s your turn to relax.’

He was so close to the edge himself. He could do so little but he did his best. Somehow he got his arm under her shoulders. He lifted her head so her face was resting on his chest instead of the rock and sand. He felt her heartbeat against his.

Somehow he hauled her deeper into the cave, tugging her along with him. His leg jabbed like a red-hot poker smashing down.

They were out of the wind. They were out of danger.

He held her but he could do no more. The darkness was closing in. The pain in his leg... He couldn’t think past it.

Exhaustion held sway. He closed his eyes and the dim light became dark.


CHAPTER TWO

SOMETHING WARM AND rough was washing his face.

Someone was hauling away his clothes.

How long had he let darkness enfold him? Too long, it seemed. Things were happening that were out of his control.

Who was he kidding? He’d been out of control ever since the yacht’s mast had snapped. Or ever since the cyclone had turned and headed straight for them.

His sodden jacket and sweater were off. There was a towel around his chest.

His pants were coming off. He grabbed at them but too late—they were down past his knees and further.

The face washer was working faster.

‘Heinz, leave the man alone. He’s all sandy,’ a voice said. ‘He’ll taste disgusting.’

His rescuing angel was alive and bossy again, and for a moment relief threatened to overwhelm him. She’d survived. They both had.

He opened his eyes. There was a light to his left, a flame, a crackling of wood catching fire.

A dog was between him and the flame. A scruffy-looking terrier-type dog, knee-high, tongue dangling for future use and his tail waving hopefully, like adventure was just around the corner.

His pants disappeared. He had what seemed like a towel around his torso. Nothing else?

A blanket was lowered over his chest on top of the towel. Fuzzy. Dry. Bliss!

Not over his legs.

‘Now let’s see the damage.’ The bossy, prosaic voice was becoming almost a part of him. He wanted to hold on to that voice. It seemed all that stood between him and the abyss. ‘But first let me wriggle a blanket under you. I need to get you warm.’

Two hands held him, hip and chest. They rolled, slowly but firmly, just enough to haul him on his side. His leg responded with even more pain, but her body held him close enough to her to stop his leg flopping. The rolled blanket slipped under, unrolling so he had a base that wasn’t sand. Her hands rolled him the other way and he was on a makeshift bed.

It had been a professional move.

She was a roller-derbying medic?

‘Who...who are you?’

‘I told you. Mary to my friends. Smash ’em Mary to those who get in my way.’ She hauled something else over the top of him, some kind of quilt. Soft and deep.

He was naked? How had that happened?

He wasn’t asking questions. The blanket was under him. The quilt was on top. The beginnings of warmth...

If it wasn’t for his leg he could give in to it but his leg was reminding him of damage with one vicious jolt after another. The fearsome throbbing left room for little else, pushing him back to the abyss.

She had a torch and was playing its beam down on the source of pain. He felt light fingers touching, not adding to the pain, just feather-light exploring.

‘I want an X-ray,’ she said fretfully.

‘I’d assumed you’d have the equipment,’ he managed, trying desperately to get his words to sound normal. ‘X-ray equipment in the next room.’ What else did she have in this cave? That he was lying on a blanket under a quilt with a fire beside him was amazing all by itself. The pain eased off for a moment but then...

Jake.

Jake was suddenly front and centre, his body dangling precariously from the chopper.

‘Who’s Jake?’ she asked. Had he said his name aloud? Who knew? His head was doing strange things. His body was no longer under his control.

‘My...my brother,’ he managed. Hell, Jake... ‘My twin.’

‘I’m guessing he was on the boat with you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Idiots,’ she said, bitterly. ‘Off you go, great macho men, pitting yourselves against the elements, leaving your womenfolk lighting candles against your return.’ She was still examining his leg. ‘I remember my dad singing that song, “Men must work and women must weep...and the harbour bar be moaning...”’ I bet you didn’t even have to work. I bet you did it just to prove you’re he-men.’

It was so close to the truth he couldn’t answer. He and Jake, pushing the boundaries for as long as he could remember.

‘No...no womenfolk,’ he managed.

‘Except me,’ she said bitterly. ‘Lucky me. Was Jake with you? Could he be down on the beach as well?’

And he knew, he just knew that, no matter how warm and safe this refuge was, if he said yes she’d be out there again, scouring the beach for drowned sailors. She’d passed out from exhaustion and yet she was ready to go again. This wasn’t a woman for weeping. This was a woman for doing.

‘No,’ he managed.

‘You got separated?’

‘We were well clear of the rest of the fleet, making a run for the Bay of Islands.’

‘Which is where you are.’

‘Great,’ he managed. ‘But I hadn’t planned on floating the last few miles.’

‘And Jake?’

‘They tried to take him off.’ He was having real trouble getting his voice to work. ‘The last run of the rescue chopper.’

‘Tried?’

‘They lowered a woman with a harness. The last I saw he was hanging on to the rescue rope off the chopper.’

‘Was he in the harness?’

‘Y-yes.’ Hell, it was hard to think. ‘They both were.’

‘Well, there you go, then,’ she said, in such a prosaic way that it broke through his terror. ‘So the last time you saw him he was being raised into a rescue chopper. I know those teams. They never lose their man. They’ll bring him all the way to Auckland dangling from his harness if they have to, and he’ll get the best view of the storm of anyone in the country. So now I can stop fretting about idiot Jake and focus on idiot Ben. Ben, I reckon your kneecap is dislocated, not broken.’

‘Dislocated?’ What did it matter? Broken, dislocated, if he had his druthers he’d have it removed. But there was an overriding shift in the lead around his heart. Jake was safe? What was it about her words that had him believing her?

But she was now focused on his leg. ‘You’ve figured I’m a nurse?’ she demanded. ‘I spent two years in an orthopaedic ward and I think I recognise this injury. Given normal circumstances, I wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole. If it’s broken then I stand to do more damage. But we’re on the edge of a cyclone. The island you’ve been washed up on is the smallest and farthest out of the group and I have no radio reception. There’s no way we can get help, maybe for a couple of days. If I leave this much longer you might be facing permanent disability. So how do you feel about me trying to put it back?’

He didn’t feel anything but his leg.

‘Ben, I’m asking for a bit more of that he-man courage,’ she said, her voice gentling. ‘Will you trust me to do this?’

Did he trust her?

His world was fuzzy with pain. He’d spent hours with the sea tossing him where it willed. He’d convinced himself Jake was dead.

Right now this sprite had hauled him from the sea, almost killing herself in the process. She’d put him on something soft. She’d given him Jake back. Now she was offering to fix...

‘It’ll hurt more while I’m doing it,’ she said, and he thought, Okay, possibly not fix.

‘And if it’s broken I might do more damage—but, honestly, Ben, it does look dislocated.’

And he heard her worry. For the first time he heard her fear.

She was making a call, he thought, but she wasn’t sure. If his leg was broken, she could hurt him more.

But her instincts said fix, and right now all he had in the world were her instincts.

‘Go for it.’

‘You won’t sue if you end up walking backwards?’

‘I’ll think of you every time I do.’

She choked on laughter that sounded almost hysterical. Then she took a deep breath and he felt her settle.

‘Okay. I’m going to wedge pillows behind you so you’re half sitting and your hip is bent. That should loosen the quadriceps holding everything tight. Then I’m going to slowly straighten your knee, applying gentle pressure to the side of the kneecap until I can tease it back into place. I can’t do it fast, because force could make any broken bone worse, so you’ll just have to grit anything you have to grit while I work. Can you do that, Ben?’

‘If you can, I can,’ he said simply. ‘Do it.’

* * *

To say it was an uncomfortable few minutes was putting it mildly. There was nothing mild about what happened next. When finally Mary grunted in satisfaction he felt sick.

‘Don’t you dare vomit in my nice clean cave,’ she said, and her tremor revealed the strain he’d put her through. She was tucking the great soft quilt around him again. ‘Not now it’s over. I’ve done it, Ben. You can relax. If you promise not to vomit, I’ll give you some water.’

‘Whisky?’

‘And don’t we both need that? Sorry, my cellar doesn’t run to fancy. Water it is.’

She held a bottle to his lips, and he hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. How much salt water had he swallowed?

He tried a grunt of thanks that didn’t quite come off.

‘Stop now,’ he managed. ‘Rest...rest yourself.’

He couldn’t say anything else. The blackness was waiting to receive him.

* * *

Rest? She’d love to but she daren’t. She was back in control.

What had she been about, fainting? She’d never done such a thing. Probably if she had no one would have noticed, she conceded, but now, regaining consciousness sprawled on this man’s chest had scared her almost into fainting again.

She had no intention of doing so. She was in control now, as she always was. To lose control was terrifying.

So she hauled herself back into efficiency. She cleaned his face, noting the blood had come from a jagged scratch from his hairline to behind his ear. Not too deep. She washed it and applied antiseptic and he didn’t stir.

He looked tough, she thought. Weathered. A true sailor? There were lines around his eyes that looked wrong. What was he, thirty-five or so? Those lines said he was older. Those lines said life had been tough.

Who was he?

What was she supposed to do with him?

Nothing. Outside the wind was doing crazy things. The way the cave was facing, the sleet with the wind behind it seemed almost a veranda by itself. The ground swept down and away, which meant they were never going to be wet.

So now it was like being in front of a television, with the entrance to the cave showing terror. Trees had been slashed over, bent almost double. The sea through the rain was a churning maelstrom.

They’d only just made it in time, she thought. If this guy was still on the beach now...

She shuddered and she couldn’t stop. She was so very cold. Her raincoat was in tatters and she was soaked.

Heinz whined and crept close. She hugged him.

Control, she told herself. Keep a hold of yourself.

The wind outside was screaming.

She stoked up the fire with as much wood as she dared. There was driftwood at the cave entrance—she should drag more inside, but she didn’t want to go near that wind.

She couldn’t stop the tremors.

‘Rest yourself,’ he’d said, and the urge to do so was suddenly urgent.

Ben was lying on her blanket. He was covered by her friend’s gorgeous quilt. Queen-sized.

He looked deeply asleep. Exhausted.

She might just accept that she was exhausted as well.

She should stay alert and keep watch.

For what? What more could she do? If the wind swung round they were in trouble, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

If her sailor stirred she needed to know.

She was so cold.

She touched his skin under the quilt and he was cold, too. Colder than she was, despite the quilt.

What would a sensible woman do?

What a sensible woman had to do. She hauled off her outer clothes. She left her bra and knickers on—a woman had to preserve some decency.

She arranged her wet clothes and Ben’s on the trolley, using it as a clothes horse by the fire.

She hugged Heinz close and gently wriggled them both onto the blanket.

Under the quilt.

She’d hauled off Ben’s soggy clothes but she winced as she felt his skin. He was so cold. How long had he been in the water?

There should be procedures for this sort of situation. Some way she could use her body to warm him without...without what? Catching something?

Catching cold. This was crazy.

‘Men must work and women must weep...’

Not this woman. This woman put her arms around her frigid sailor, curled her body so as much skin as possible was touching, tried not to think she was taking as much comfort as she was giving...

And tried to sleep.


CHAPTER THREE

HE WOKE AND he was warm.

How cold had he been and for how long? There was a nightmare somewhere in the dark, the pain in his leg, his terror for Jake. They were waiting to enclose him again, but the nightmare was all about cold and noise and motion, and right now he was enclosed in a cloud of warmth and softness, and he was holding a woman.

Or she was holding him. He was on his back, his head on cushions. She was curved by his side, lying on her front, her head in the crook of his shoulder, her arm over his chest, as if she would cover as much of his body as she could.

Which was fine by him. The warmth and the comfort of skin against skin was unbelievable.

There was a bit of fur there as well. A dog? On the other side of him.

Well, why wouldn’t there be, for on that side was a fire.

He was enfolded by dog and woman and hearth.

Words came back to him...

‘Men must work and women must weep’?

Had she said that to him, this woman? Some time in the past?

This woman wasn’t weeping. This woman was all about giving herself to him, feeding him warmth, feeding him safety.

He didn’t move. Why move? He remembered a wall of pain and he wasn’t going there. If he shifted an inch, it might return.

Who was she, this woman? She was soundly asleep, her body folded against his. Some time during the darkness he must have moved to hold her. One of his arms held her loosely against him.

Mine.

It was a thought as primeval as time itself. Claiming a woman.

Claiming a need.

His body was responding.

Um...not. Not even in your dreams, he told himself, but the instinctive stirring brought reality back. Or as much reality as he could remember.

The yacht, the Rita Marlene.

The storm.

Jake, hanging from that rope.

‘Want to tell me about it?’

Her voice was slurred with sleep. She didn’t move. She didn’t pull away. This position, it seemed, was working for them both.

It was the deepest of intimacies and he knew nothing about her. Nothing except she’d saved his life.

She must have felt him stiffen. Something had woken her but she wasn’t pulling away. She seemed totally relaxed, part of the dark.

Outside he could still hear the screaming of the storm. Here there was only them.

‘You already told me I’m a dumb male. What else is there to tell?’

He felt her smile. How could he do that? How did he feel like he knew this woman?

Something about skin against skin?

Something about her raw courage?

‘There’s variations of dumb,’ she said. ‘So you were in the yacht race.’

‘We were.’

‘You and Jake-on-the-Rope.’

‘Yep.’ There was even reassurance there, too. She’d said Jake-on-the-Rope like it was completely normal that his brother should be swinging on a rope from a chopper somewhere out over the Southern Ocean.

‘You’re from the States.’

‘A woman of intuition.’

‘Not dumb at all. How many on the boat?’

‘Two.’

‘So you’re both rescued,’ she said with satisfaction, and he settled even further. Pain was edging back now. Actually, it was quite severe pain. His leg throbbed. His head hurt. Lots of him hurt.

It was as if once he was reassured about Jake he could feel something else.

Actually, he could feel a lot else. He could feel this woman. He could feel this woman in the most intimate way in the world.

‘So tell me about the boat?’ she asked.

‘Rita Marlene.’

‘Pretty name.’

‘After my mother.’

‘She’s pretty?’

‘She was.’

‘Was,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘A long time ago now.’ This was almost dream-speaking, he thought. Not real. Dark. Warm. Hauled from death. Nothing mattered but the warmth and this woman draped over him.

‘You sailed all the way from the States?’

‘It’s an around-the-world challenge, only we were stopping here. Jake’s an actor. He’s due to start work on a set in Auckland.’

‘Would I have heard of...Jake?’

‘Jake Logan.’

‘Ooh, I have.’ The words were excited but not the tone. The tone was sleepy, part of the dream. ‘He was in Stitch in Time, and ER. A sexy French surgeon. So not French?’

‘No.’

‘My stepsister will be gutted. He’s her favourite Hollywood hunk.’

‘Not yours?’

‘I have enough to worry about without pretend heroes.’

‘Like antiheroes washed up on your beach?’

‘You said it.’ But he heard her smile.

There was silence for a while. The fire was dying down. The pain in his knee was growing worse, but he didn’t want to move from this comfort and it seemed neither did she.

But finally she did, sighing and stirring, and as her body slid from his he felt an almost gut-wrenching sense of loss.

His Mary...

His Mary? What sort of concept was that? A crazy one?

She slipped from under the quilt and shifted around to the fire. He could see her then, a faint, lit outline.

Slight. Short, cropped curls. Finely boned, her face a little like Audrey Hepburn’s.

She was wearing only knickers and bra, slivers of lace that hid hardly anything.

His Mary?

Get over it.

‘Heinz, you’re blocking the heat from our guest,’ she said reprovingly, but the dog didn’t stir.

‘I’m warm.’

‘Thanks to Barbara’s quilt,’ she said. ‘Her great-grandmother made that quilt. It’s been used as a wall hanging for a hundred years. If we’ve wrecked it we’re dead meat.’

He thought about it. He’d more than likely bled on it. No matter. He held it a little tighter.

‘I’ll give her a million for it.’

‘A million!’

‘Two.’

‘Right,’ she said dryly. ‘So you’re a famous actor, too?’

‘A financier.’

‘Someone who makes serious money?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You mean Heinz and I could hold you for ransom?’

‘You could hold me any way you want.’

Um...no. Wrong thing to say. This might be a dream-like situation but reality got a toehold fast.

‘I’m sure I told you my rollerball name,’ she said, quite lightly. ‘Smash ’em Mary. Some things aren’t worth thinking about.’

She was five foot five or five foot six. He was six four. Ex-commando.

He smiled.

‘Laugh all you want, big boy,’ she said. ‘But I hold the painkillers. Speaking of which, do you want some?’

‘Painkillers,’ he said, and he couldn’t get the edge out of his voice fast enough.

‘Bad, huh?’ She’d loaded wood onto the fire, and now she turned back to him, lifted Heinz away—much to the little dog’s disgust—and checked his face. She put her hand on his neck and felt his pulse, and then tucked the quilt tighter.

‘What hurts most?

There was a question. He must have hit rocks, he thought, but, then, he’d been hurled about the lifeboat a few times, too.

‘Leg mostly,’ he managed. ‘Head a bit.’

‘Could I ask you not to do any internal bleeding?’ She flicked on her torch and examined his head, running her fingers carefully through his hair. The hair must be stiff with salt and blood, and her fingers had a job getting through.

Hell, his body was responding again...

‘Bumps and scrapes but nothing seemingly major apart from the scratch on your face,’ she said. ‘But I would like an X-ray.’

‘There’s no ferry due to take us to the mainland?’

‘You reckon a ferry would run in this?’ She gestured to the almost surreal vision of storm against the mouth of the cave. ‘I do have a boat,’ she said. ‘Sadly it’s moored in a natural harbour on the east of the island. East. That would be where you came from. Where the storm comes from. Any minute I’m expecting my boat to fly past the cave on its way to Australia. But, Ben, I do have codeine tablets. Are you allergic to anything?’

‘You really are a nurse?’

‘I was. Luckily for you, no one’s taken my bag off me yet. Allergies?’

‘No.’

‘Codeine it is, then, plus an antinauseant. I don’t fancy scrubbing this cave. You want to use the bathroom?’

‘No!’

‘It’s possible,’ she said, and once again he fancied he could feel her grinning behind the torch beam. ‘The ledge outside the cave is sheltered and there’s bushland in the lee of the cliff. I could help.’

‘I’ll thank you, no.’

‘You want an en suite? A nice fancy flush or nothing?’

‘Lady, I’ve been in Afghanistan,’ he said, goaded, before he could stop himself.

‘As a soldier?’

‘Yes.’ No point lying.

‘That explains your face,’ she said prosaically. ‘And the toughness. Thank God for Afghanistan. I’m thinking it may well have saved your life. But even if we don’t have an en suite, you can forget tough here, Ben. Not when I’m looking after you. Just take my nice little pills and settle down again. Let the pain go away.’

* * *

Her clothes were dry on one side and not the other. She rearranged them, wrapped a towel around herself and headed out to the ledge to look out over the island.

If there wasn’t an overhang on the cliff she wouldn’t be out here. The flying debris was terrifying.

It was almost dark, but in truth it had been almost dark for the last few hours. She checked her watch—it had been four hours since she’d hauled her soldier/sailor/financier up here.

The storm was getting worse.

She had so much to think about but for some reason she found herself thinking of the unknown Jake. Twin to Ben.

She only had a hazy recollection of the shows he’d been on, but she did know who he was. One of her stepsisters had raved about how sexy Jake Logan was. Mary remembered because it had been yet another appalling night of family infighting. Her stepsister had been trying to make her boyfriend jealous and he’d been rising to the bait. Her stepmother had been taking her sister’s side. Her father had, as usual, been saying nothing.

She’d only arrived because she’d tried one last-ditch time to say how sorry she was. To make things right.

It had been useless. Her family wouldn’t interrupt their fighting to listen. It was her fault.

Her fault, her fault, her fault.

Terrific. She was surrounded by a cyclone, she had a badly injured guy stuck in her cave—and she was dwelling on past nightmares.

Think of current nightmares.

Think of Jake.

She’d given some fast reassurance to Ben, but, in truth, the last radio report she’d heard before communications had been cut had been appalling. The cyclone had decimated the yachting fleet, and the reporter she’d heard had been talking of multiple deaths.

There’d been an interview with the head of the chopper service and he’d been choked with emotion.

‘The last guy...we came so close... We thought we had him but, hell, the wind... It just slammed everything. The whole crew’s gutted.’

The last guy...

Was that Ben’s Jake?

She had no way of knowing, and there was no way she was passing on such a gut-wrenching supposition to Ben.

She felt...useless.

‘But I did save him,’ she told herself, and Heinz nosed out to see what was going on; whether it might be safe enough for a dog to find a tree.

Not. A gust blasted across the cliff in front of them; he whimpered and backed inside.

‘You and Ben,’ Mary muttered. ‘Wussy males.’

She glanced back into the cave. All was dark. All was well.

She hoped. She still had no way of telling whether Ben’s leg was fractured or, worse, if that crack on his head had been severe enough to cause subdural haemorrhaging. What if she walked back in and he was dead?

She walked back in and he was asleep, breathing deeply and evenly, with Heinz nuzzling back down against him.

What to do?

What was there to do? Sit by the fire and imagine subdural bleeding or twins falling from ropes into a cyclone-ravaged sea? Think of home, her family, the past that had driven her here?

Or do what she’d been doing for the last few weeks?

She lit a fat candle. Between it and the fire she could sort of see.

She shoved a couple of cushions behind her, she tucked a blanket over her legs, she put her manuscript on her knees and she started to write.



The door to the bar swung open.



She glanced at the sleeping guy not six feet from her.



He was six foot three or four, lean, mean, dangerous. His deep grey eyes raked every corner of the room.

Could he tell she was a werewolf?



She grinned. Hero or villain? She hadn’t figured which but it didn’t matter. There was a nice meaty murder about to happen in the room upstairs. A little blood was about to drip on people’s heads. Maybe a lot of blood. She wasn’t sure where Ben Logan would fit but he’d surely add drama.



‘Call me Logan,’ he drawled...



She thought maybe she’d have to do a search and replace when she reached the end. Maybe calling a character after her wounded sailor wasn’t such a good idea.

But for now it helped. For now her villain/hero Logan could keep the storm at bay.

There was nothing like a bit of fantasy when a woman needed it most.

* * *

He woke, and she was heating something on the fire.

That’s what had woken him, he thought. The smell was unbelievable. Homey, spicy, the smell of meat and herbs filled the cave.

He stirred and winced and she turned from the fire and smiled at him. Outside was black. No light was getting in now. Her face was lit by flickering firelight and one candle.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Dinner?’

He thought about it for a nanosecond or less. ‘Yes, please.’

‘You can have the bowl. I’ll use the frying pan. I wasn’t anticipating guests. Would you like to sit up a little?’

‘Um...’

She grinned. ‘Yeah, I’m guessing what you need before food. Are you ready to admit I might be a nurse and therefore useful? If I’d known I’d have brought a bedpan.’

He sighed. ‘Mary...’

‘Mmm?’

‘Can you hand me my clothes?’

‘Knickers is all,’ she said. ‘The rest are still wet.’ She handed him his boxers—and then had second thoughts. She tugged back the quilt and slid his boxers over his feet before he realised what she intended.

‘Lift,’ she ordered, and he did, and he felt about five years old.

She was still scantily dressed, too, in knickers, bra and T-shirt.

Her T-shirt was damp. He shouldn’t notice.

He noticed.

‘So it’s okay for you to stay cold but not me?’ he managed.

‘That’s the one.’ She was helping him to stand, levering herself under his shoulder, taking his weight.

‘Mary?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Hand me my stick. I can do this.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘Not in my dreams,’ he said. ‘For real. I won’t take your help.’

‘This is Smash ’em Mary you’re talking to. I’m tough.’

‘This is a five-feet-five-inch runt I’m talking to. Let me be.’

‘You want to sign an indemnity form so if you fall down the cliff it’s not my fault?’

‘It’s not your fault. How could it be your fault?’

‘Of course it could be,’ she said, and there was a sudden and unexpected note of bitterness beneath her words. ‘Somehow it always is.’

* * *

He managed. He got outside and in again. He almost made it back to his makeshift bed but he had to accept help for the last couple of yards.

He felt like he’d been hit by rocks. Maybe he had been hit by rocks.

Propped up on pillows again, he was handed beef casserole. Excellent casserole.

There were worse places for a man to recuperate.

‘How did you manage this?’ he demanded, intrigued.

‘There’s a solar-powered freezer in the cabin,’ she told him. ‘The solar panels were one of the first victims of the storm so I packed a pile of food and brought it here. I loaded whatever was on top of the freezer so who knows what the plastic boxes hold. This time we got lucky but we might be eating bait for breakfast.’

‘The storm came up fast, then?’

‘The radio said storm, tie down your outdoor furniture. They didn’t say cyclone, tie down your house.’

‘This isn’t a cyclone,’ he told her. ‘Or not yet. I’ve been in one before. This is wild but a full-scale cyclone hits with noise that’s unbelievable. We’re on the fringe.’

‘So it’s still to hit?’

‘Or miss.’

‘That’d be good,’ she said, but he heard worry.

‘Is there someone else you’re scared about?’ he demanded. He hadn’t thought...all the worrying he’d done up until now had been about Jake.

‘You,’ she said. ‘You need X-rays.’

‘I’m tough.’

‘Yeah, and you still need X-rays.’

‘I promise I won’t die.’ He said it lightly but he somehow had the feeling that this woman was used to expecting the worst.

Well, she was a nurse.

Nurses didn’t always expect the worst.

‘I’d prefer that you didn’t,’ she said, striving to match his lightness. ‘I have a pile of freezer contents that’ll be fine for up to two days but then they’ll decompose. If you’re decomposing too, I might be forced to evacuate my cave.’

He choked. Only a nurse could make such a joke, he thought. He remembered the tough medics who’d been there in Afghanistan and he thought...Mary could be one of those.

The nurses had saved Jake’s life when he’d been hit by a roadside bomb. Not the doctors, they had been too few in the field and they’d been stretched to the limit. Nurses had managed to stop the bleeding, get fluids into his brother, keep him stable until the surgeons had time to do their thing.

He kind of liked nurses.

He kind of liked this one.

He ate the casserole and drank the tea she made—he’d never tasted tea so good—and thought about her some more.

‘So no one’s worrying about you?’ he asked, lightly, he thought, but she looked at him with a shrewdness he was starting to expect.

‘I’ve left a note in a bottle saying where I am and who I’m with, so watch it, mate.’

He grinned. She really was...extraordinary.

‘But there is no one?’

‘If you’re asking if I’m single, then I’m single.’

‘Parents?’

That brought a shadow. She shook her head and started clearing.

She was so slight.

She was so alone.

‘You want to share a bed again?’ He shifted sideways so there was room under the quilt for her.

She must be cold. The temperature wasn’t all that bad—this was a summer storm—but the cave was earth-cool, and the humidity meant their clothes were taking an age to dry.

She was wearing a T-shirt but he’d felt it as she’d helped him back into bed and it was clammy.

She needed to take it off. This bed was the only place to be.

She was looking doubtful.

‘It’ll be like we’re flatmates, watching telly on the sofa,’ he said, pushing the covers back.

‘I forgot to bring the telly.’

‘That’s professional negligence if ever I heard it.’ Then he frowned at the look on her face. ‘What? What did I say?’

‘Nothing.’ Her face shuttered, but she hauled off her T-shirt and slid under the covers—as if the action might distract him.

It did distract him. A woman like this in his bed? Watching telly? Ha!

He pushed away the thought—or the sensation—and managed to push himself far enough away so there was at last an inch between their bodies.

The temptation to move closer was almost irresistible.

Resist.

‘So tell me why you’re here?’ he asked. If she could hear the strain in his voice he couldn’t help it. He was hauling his body under control and it didn’t leave a lot of energy for small talk.

Mary was an inch away.

No.

‘Here. Island. Why?’ he said, but the look on her face stayed. Defensive.

‘You. Yacht in middle of cyclone. Why?’ she snapped back.

And he thought, Yeah, this lady has shadows.

‘I’m distracting my brother from a failed marriage,’ he told her. He didn’t do personal. The Logan brothers’ private life was their own business but there was something about this woman that told him anything he exposed would go no further.

Armour on his part seemed inappropriate. Somehow it was Mary who seemed wounded. She wasn’t battered like he was, not beaten by rocks and sea, but in some intensely personal way she seemed just as wounded.

So he didn’t do personal but they were sharing a bed in the middle of a cyclone and personal seemed the only way to go.

‘So Jake needed to be distracted?’ she said cautiously.

And he thought, Yep, he’d done it. He’d taken that look off her face. The look that said she was expecting to be slapped.

Smash ’em Mary? Maybe not so tough, then.

‘Jake’s a bit of a target,’ he said. ‘He came back from Afghanistan wounded, and I suspect there are nightmares. He threw himself into acting, his career took off and suddenly there were women everywhere. He found himself with a starlet with dollars in her eyes but he couldn’t see it. She used him to push her career and he was left...’

‘Scarred?’

‘Jake doesn’t do scarred.’

‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you do scarred?’

‘No!’

‘How did you feel when your brother was wounded?’

The question was so unexpected that it left him stranded.

The question took him back to the dust and grit of an Afghan roadside.

They hadn’t even been on duty. They’d been in different battalions and the two groups had met as Ben’s battalion had been redeployed. Ben hadn’t seen his brother for six months.

‘I know a place with fine dining,’ Jake had joked. ‘Practically five-star.’

Yeah, right. Jake always knew the weird and wonderful; he was always pushing the rules. Eating in the army mess didn’t fit with his vision of life.

The army didn’t fit with Jake’s vision of life. It was a good fit for neither of them. They’d joined to get away from their father and their family notoriety, as far as they could.

Fail. ‘Logan Brothers Blasted by Roadside Bomb. Heirs to Logan Fortune Airlifted Out.’ They couldn’t get much more notorious than that.

‘Earth to Ben?’ Mary said. ‘You were saying? How did you feel when Jake was injured?’

‘How do you think I felt?’ He didn’t talk about it, he never had, but suddenly it was all around him and the need to talk was just there. ‘One minute we were walking back to base on an almost deserted road, catching up on home talk. The next moment a bus full of locals pulled up. And then an explosion.’

‘Oh, Ben...’

‘Schoolkids,’ he said, and he was there again, surrounded by terror, death, chaos. ‘They targeted kids for maximum impact. Twelve kids were killed and Jake was collateral damage.’

‘No wonder he has nightmares.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did he lose consciousness?’

What sort of question was that? What difference did it make?

But it did make a difference. He’d thought, among all that carnage, at least Jake was unaware.

‘Until we reached the field hospital, yes.’

‘You were uninjured?’

‘Minor stuff. Jake was between me and the bus.’

‘Then I’m guessing,’ she said gently, ‘that your nightmares will be worse than his.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘He’s your younger brother.’

‘By twenty minutes.’

‘You’ll still feel responsible.’

‘He’s okay.’ He flinched at the thought of where he might be now. Put it away, fast. ‘He has to be okay. But tell me about you. Why are you here?’

And the question was neatly turned. She had nowhere to go, he thought as he watched her face. He’d answered her questions. He’d let down his guard. Now he was demanding entry to places he instinctively knew she kept protected.

They were two of a kind, he thought, and how he knew it he couldn’t guess. But they kept their secrets well.

He was asking for hers.

‘I’m escaping from my family,’ she said, and she was silent for a while. ‘I’m escaping from my community as well.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Worse,’ she said. ‘Baby killer, that’s me.’

It was said lightly. It was said with all the pain in the world.

‘You want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘You expect me to stay in the same bed as a baby killer?’

She turned and stared and he met her gaze. Straight and true. If this woman was a baby killer he was King Kong.

He smiled and she tried to smile back. It didn’t come off.

‘I’ve exonerated you,’ he told her. ‘Found you innocent. Evidence? If you really were a baby killer you’d be on a more secure island. Alcatraz, for instance. Want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘I told you mine.’ He lifted the quilt so it reached her shoulders. ‘If you lie back, there are cushions. Very comfy cushions. You can stare into the dark and pretend I’m your therapist.’

‘I don’t need a therapist.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘You have nightmares.’

‘And you don’t?’ He put gentle pressure on her shoulder. She resisted for a moment. Heinz snuffled beside her. The wind raised its howl a notch.

She slumped back on the pillows and felt the fight go out of her.

‘Tell Dr Ben,’ Ben said.

‘Doctor?’

‘I’m playing psychoanalyst. I’ve failed the army. I’m a long way from the New York Stock Exchange. My yacht’s a hundred fathoms deep. A man has to have some sort of career. Shoot.’

‘Shoot?’

‘What would an analyst say? So, Ms Smash ’em Mary, you’re confessing to baby killing.’

And she smiled. He heard it and he almost whooped.

What was it about this woman that made it so important to make her smile?

Shoot, he’d said, and she did.


CHAPTER FOUR

SHE GAVE IN.

She told him.

‘Okay,’ she said, and he heard weariness now, the weariness of a long, long battle. ‘I’ve told you that I’m a district nurse?’

‘Hence the drugs,’ he said. ‘Nice nurse.’

She smiled again, but briefly. ‘I’m currently suspended from work and a bit...on the outer with my family,’ she told him. She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, potted history. My mum died when I was eight. She’d been ill for a year and at the end Dad was empty. It was like most of him had died, too.

‘Then he met Barbie. Barbie’s some kind of faith-healer and self-declared clairvoyant. She offered to channel Mum, using Ouija boards, that kind of thing, and Dad was so desperate he fell for it. But Barbie has three daughters of her own and was in a financial mess. She was blatantly after Dad’s money. Dad’s well off. He has financial interests in most of the businesses in Taikohe where we live, and Barbie simply moved in and took control. She got rid of every trace of my mother. She still wants to get rid of me.’

‘Cinderella with the wicked stepmother?’

‘She’s never mistreated me. Not overtly. She just somehow stopped Dad showing interest in me. With Barbie he seemed to die even more, if that makes sense, and she derided the things I had left to cling to.’

‘There are worse ways to mistreat a child than beat them,’ he said softly, and she was quiet for a while, as the wind rose and the sounds of the storm escalated.

He thought she’d stopped then, and was trying to figure how to prod her to go further when she started again, all by herself.

‘School was my escape,’ she told him. I liked school and I was good at it. I liked...rules.’

‘Rules make sense when you’re lost,’ he agreed. ‘Sometimes they’re the only thing to cling to.’ Was that why he and Jake had joined the army? he wondered. To find some limits?

‘Anyway, I studied nursing. I became Taikohe’s district nurse. I now have my own cottage...’

‘With a cat?’ he demanded. ‘Uh-oh. This is starting to sound like cat territory.’

And she got it. He heard her grin. ‘Only Heinz, who’ll eat me when I die a spinster, alone and unloved.’ She poked him—hard, in the ribs.

‘Ow!’

‘Serves you right. Of all the stereotyping males...’

‘Hey, you’re the one with the wicked stepmother.’

‘Do you want to hear this or not?’

‘Yes,’ he said promptly, because he did. ‘Tell Dr Ben.’

‘Your bedside manner needs improving.’

‘My bedside manner is perfect,’ he said, and put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her closer. ‘I’d like some springs in this mattress but otherwise I can’t think of a single improvement.’

‘Ben...’

‘Go on,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Tell me what happened next. Tell me about the baby.’

There was a long silence. She lay still. Seemingly unbidden, his fingers traced a pattern in her hair. It felt...right to do so. Half of him expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.

Tell me, he willed her silently, and wondered why it seemed so important that she did.

Finally it came.

‘So now I’m grown up, living in the same community as my stepmother and my stepsisters and my dad. My dad’s still like a dried-up husk. The others ignore me. I’m the dreary local nurse who uses traditional medicine, which they despise. They put up with me when I drop in to visit my dad but that’s as far as the relationship goes.

‘But now they’ve started having babies—not my stepmum but the girls. Sapphire, Rainbow and Sunrise. Home births all. No hospitals or traditional medicine need apply. They’ve had six healthy babies between them, with my stepmother crowing that traditional medicine’s responsible for all the evils of the world. And then...catastrophe.’

‘Catastrophe?’

‘One dead baby,’ she said, drearily now. ‘Sunrise, my youngest stepsister, is massively overweight. The pregnancy went two weeks over term but she still refused to be checked. Then she went into labour, and a day later she was still labouring. She was at home with my stepmother and one of her sisters to support her. And then I dropped in.’

‘To help?’

‘I hadn’t even been told she was due,’ she said. ‘When I arrived I realised Dad was in Auckland on business but they’d taken over the house as a birthing centre. I walked in and Sunrise was out of her mind with pain and exhaustion. There was bleeding and the baby was in dire trouble. I guess I just took over. I rang the ambulance and the hospital and warned them but I knew already... I’d listened... The baby’s heartbeat was so faint...’

‘The baby died?’

‘They called her Sunset. How corny’s that for a dying baby? She was suffering from a hypoxic brain injury and she died when she was three days old. Sunrise was lucky to survive. She won’t be able to have more children.’

‘So that makes you a baby killer?’

‘I didn’t know,’ she said drearily, ‘how much my stepmother really resented me until then. Or make that hate. I have no idea why, but at the coroner’s inquest she stood in the witness stand and swore I’d told Sunrise it was safe. She swore I’d said everything was fine. I’d been the chosen midwife, she said, and my stepsisters concurred. Of course they would have gone to the hospital, they said, but one after another they told the court that I’d said they didn’t need to.

‘And you know what? My dad believed them. The coroner believed them. They came out of the court and Sunrise was crying, but my stepmother actually smirked. She tucked her arm in Dad’s arm and they turned their backs on me. She’s had her way after all this time. I’m finally right out of her family.’

Silence. More silence.

He shouldn’t have asked, he thought. How to respond to a tragedy like this?

‘My roller-derby team has asked me to quit,’ she said into the dark. ‘My dad—or Barbie—employs two of the girls’ partners. Some of my medical colleagues stand by me—they know what I would and wouldn’t do—but the town’s too small for me to stay. I’m on unpaid leave now but I know I’ll have to go.’

‘So you’ve come to the great metropolis of Hideaway.’ His fingers remained on her hair, just touching. Just stroking. ‘I can see the logic.’

‘I needed time out.’

‘What are you writing?’

‘Writing?

‘By the fire. While I was snoozing.’

‘That’s none of your business,’ she said, shocked.

‘Sorry. Diary? No, I won’t ask.’ He hesitated for all of two seconds. ‘Did you put something nice about me in it?’

‘Only how much you weigh. Like a ton.’ The mood had changed again. Lightness had returned. Thankfully.

‘That’s not kind,’ he said, wounded.

‘It’s what matters. My shoulder’s sore.’

‘My leg’s worse.’

‘Do you need more painkillers? We can double the dose.’

‘Yes, please,’ he said, even though a hero would have knocked them back. Actually, a hero would have put her aside, braved a cyclone or two, swum to the mainland and knocked the heads of her appalling family together. A hero might do that in the future but for now his leg did indeed hurt. Knocking heads together needed to take a back seat. But it wouldn’t be forgotten, he promised himself. Just shelved.

‘If I have hurt your shoulder...you can take painkillers too.’

‘I’m on duty.’

‘You’re not on duty,’ he told her, gentling again. ‘You need to sleep.’

‘In a cyclone?’

‘This isn’t a cyclone. This is an edge of a cyclone.’





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/marion-lennox/nine-months-to-change-his-life/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.