Marion Lennox - The Package Deal

‘Ben’s hurt,’ Mary managed, as a woman wearing medic insignia on her uniform met them off the chopper. ‘I’m a nurse. He had a dislocated knee that I managed to put back in but it needs checking for possible fractures. He also had a bang on the head. I’ve pulled the cut together with steri-strips but it probably needs stitches.’

‘We’ll take it from here,’ the medic said. ‘And you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Can you come this way, sir? Would you like a wheelchair?’

‘I don’t need help,’ he growled. ‘I need to find my brother.’

‘Your brother is?’

‘Jake Logan. One of the yachties.’

‘You’re part of the round-the-world challenge?’ Her face cleared. ‘Thank God for that. They’ve lost so many, the organisers are frantic.’

That was a statement to make him feel better. Not.

‘Jake...’ he managed.

‘The organisers have evacuated all survivors to Auckland,’ she said. ‘I don’t have names.’ She hesitated. ‘We’re sending a chopper with a couple of patients needing surgery in about ten minutes. If you let me do a fast check on your leg and head first, I can get you on that chopper.’

He turned and Mary was watching, still with that grave, contained face. The face that said she was moving on.

‘Go, Ben,’ she said. ‘And good luck.’

‘Where can I find you?’

‘Sir...’ the woman said.

The chopper was waiting.

‘I need an address,’ he told Mary. ‘Now!’

‘Email me if you like. I’m MaryHammond400 at xmail dot com.’

‘MaryHammond400?’

‘There’s so many of us I got desperate.’

‘There’s only one of you.’

She smiled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so but there are millions of Marys in the world. Good luck with everything, Ben. Email me to let me know Jake’s safe.’

‘I will. And, Mary—’

‘Just go.’

‘Give me the quilt,’ he told her, and she blinked, and he thought bringing the quilt into the equation, a touch of practicality, threw her.

‘You want it for a keepsake? You can’t have it.’

‘I’ll have it restored for Barbara and send it back to you,’ he told her. ‘And I don’t need keepsakes. Thank you, Mary 400. Smash ’em Mary. Mary in a million. I don’t need keepsakes because I’ll remember these last few days forever.’

* * *

She watched the chopper until it was out of sight. She hugged Heinz. She felt...weird.

She should feel gutted, she told herself. She felt like the man of her dreams was flying out of her life forever.

Only he wasn’t. She even managed a wry smile. He’d been a dream, she decided, a break from the nightmare of the past. She was glad she’d made love with him. Abandoning herself in his body, she’d felt as if she’d shed a skin.

Was she now Mary 401?

‘What can we do for you, Miss Hammond?’ Another official with a clipboard was approaching, bustling and businesslike. ‘Your American friends who own the island are frantic. We’ve fielded half a dozen calls. Would you like to ring and reassure them?’

‘I’ll do that,’ she said, still feeling weird. ‘I’ll tell them their quilt’s safe.’

‘Is there someone else we can contact? You live in Taikohe. Can someone collect you?’

‘Are the normal buses running?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then I’ll take a bus.’

‘I’m sure we can arrange someone to drive you. We have volunteers eager to help.’

‘Thank you but no.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I need to put this behind me. Somehow life needs to get back to normal.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

New York

‘MR LOGAN, THERE’S a Mary Hammond on the line, asking to see you. I told her you were fully booked but she says her business is personal. She’s only in the country until Monday.’

Ben was knee deep in futures. The negotiations were complex and vital.

His secretary’s words made the figures in front of him blur.

Mary Hammond.

Mary.

‘Put her through.’

‘She doesn’t wish to speak to you on the phone,’ Elspeth told him. ‘She specifically said so. She’s asking for a personal interview. Will I tell her no?’

His pen jabbed straight through a certificate with three wax seals on it. Three rather important seals, one of which was from a head of state. It didn’t matter. ‘I can see her now.’

There was a moment’s silence while Elspeth returned to the outside line. His pen snapped.

‘She can be here in an hour,’ his secretary said, coming onto the line again. ‘She’s across town.’

‘I’ll send a car.’

‘She’s disconnected. Shall I delay the Howith negotiations?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you need fifteen minutes? Half an hour?’

‘I’ll need the rest of the day,’ Ben snapped. ‘Cancel everything.’

His secretary disappeared, off to tell some of the world’s top financiers that currency crises would have to wait. By the end of the day rumours would be flying. Ben Logan didn’t miss appointments, not at this level.

But, then, Ben Logan had never been visited by the woman who’d saved his life.

He sat and stared at his desk and all he saw was Mary.

He should have flown back to the Bay of Islands to say goodbye, he conceded. He’d done all he could do, but still...

The days after the cyclone had been a blur. Getting off that chopper in Auckland. Walking over to that damned list.

Seeing Jake’s name on the safe side.

Then he’d found Jake himself, in the admin office of the chopper company. He’d been shouting, offering to pay whatever it took, his entire fortune if necessary, to hire a chopper and head out to sea to personally look for Ben.

The look on his face when Ben walked in had been indescribable.

And then, of course, other things had superimposed themselves. Jake had insisted on doctors, on getting his knee checked.

Then a pub, late at night, and Jake saying quietly, ‘Tell me about our mother.’

He’d remembered then the words he’d hurled at Jake as he’d forced his twin into being the one to leave the life raft. He’d finally thrown his mother’s suicide into the equation.

‘This is reality, Jake, not some stage play where you can play the hero. Face it now and move on. You’re just like Mom. She couldn’t face reality. Why do you think she killed herself?’

Until then it had been Ben’s secret. Jake had been told she’d accidentally overdosed. Only Ben had known the truth, and twenty years on he hadn’t enjoyed sharing.

They’d talked into the night, and drank, and things hadn’t gotten easier. The pain of their mother’s death was still bitter. Love... Ben didn’t do it. He wouldn’t. He never wanted that kind of pain again.

There was a reason the Logan boys walked alone. Jake had tried and failed at marriage. The Logan men weren’t meant for the soft side.

So even though he’d meant to go back and see Mary, in the end he’d decided it’d be better, kinder even, to make a clean break. The storm had only been that: a storm. It was over.

Except that the aftermath of that storm would be in his office in less than an hour.

Mary.

He hadn’t quite managed to put her out of his head. On his laptop was a YouTube file, the final of the two top New Zealand roller-derby teams.

Smash ’em Mary was front and foremost, rolling for Taikohe. She was as she’d said, little, quick and smart, dodging girls twice her size, moving with lightning speed, taking her team to a win.

She’d played wearing fierce, warrior-woman make-up, black tights and purple socks, a tiny halterneck top and a short, short skirt.

The documents in front of him were important. He needed to concentrate.

He ended up watching the roller derby match, one more time.