Cara Colter - First Love, Second Chance

‘Oh, right, the whale-rescue devices.’ Then he sobered. ‘A big group of volunteers is about fifty clicks to the west, helping with another stranding. As soon as they have that situation stabilised they’ll be out to help us. Our solo whale doesn’t stack up against their entire pod, unfortunately.’

‘A whole pod stranded?’ Beth cried. ‘What is wrong with these creatures?’

If not for the tender way she ran the dripping T-shirt across the whale’s skin, taking unnecessary care to avoid its eyes, Marc would have read that as petulance. But he squinted against the lowering sun and really looked at her strained face. Much paler than when they’d started. Despite the blazing sun. Back to the colour it had been when she’d first climbed out of her rental car back at his property.

Beth was tired. Emotionally and physically spent already, and they’d only been out here a couple of hours. She looked as wretched as his mother when she was coming off a particularly bad bender. The bleached cheeks and shadowed eyes had the same impact on him that his mother’s had.

Used to. Before he shut down that part of him.

Beth had much worse to get through yet. The rescue was only just beginning. Maybe he should have shoved her out back at the homestead. Done her a favour and sent her packing. If he’d left just five minutes earlier he would have been out here alone, anyway, so what was the difference if she left now? He had enough supplies to get him through the night.

Water for life. Food for strength. Potassium for cramps. Whisky and wetsuit for warmth. Enough for a day, anyway. Hopefully by then backup would have arrived.

‘It often happens this way,’ he said, taking pity on her confusion. ‘There’s nearly forty volunteers at the other stranding, apparently.’

Beth stared at him between refreshing her whale-washer in the ocean and leaning towards him over the animal as the water ran down over it. ‘Forty! Couldn’t they spare us a couple of people?’

‘Anyone spare is already on their way to other isolated strandings that the aerial boys identify along this stretch of coast. They know we’ve got this one in hand.’

Beth laughed a little too much and waved her paltry, dripping T-shirt around. ‘This doesn’t feel very in hand.’ Marc dived forward and covered the whale’s blowhole to protect it from the cascading water. The whale feebly blew out at the same time. At least she could still do that much.

He found himself suddenly possessed of very little tolerance. ‘Hey, if you want to go, knock yourself out. I’ll do better without your negativity anyway.’

Beth lifted her head and glared, the first sign of fire in those bleak eyes since they’d got out of his Land Cruiser. ‘I’m not negative; I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m doing.’

The raw honesty spoke to some part of him a decade old. It triggered all kinds of unwelcome protective instincts in him. This really was more than she’d bargained for when she came cruising down his drive, looking all intense.

He sighed. ‘You’re doing fine. Just keep her body wet and her blowhole dry. It’s all we can do.’

They fell to silence and into a hypnotic rhythm in time with the wash of the ocean, the groans of the whale and the slosh … slosh of their wet fabric. Marc did his best to ignore her, but his eyes kept finding their way back to her. To features drawn tight that had once shone with zest. Trying to work out why she’d come. Part of him was curious—the part that had always wondered what the heck had happened all those years ago. But the other part of him wasn’t into lifting lids off unknown boxes any more. And he’d done far too good a job of driving Beth Hughes clear out of his memory. Until today.

‘Do you need to contact Damien? Tell him where you are?’

Frosty eyes lifted to his. ‘I’m not required to report in.’

‘I didn’t say that. But I figured he’d be concerned about you.’ She looked as if a stiff breeze would send her tumbling. I’d be worried if you were mine to worry about.

Whoa. Thank God for inner monologue. Imagine if that little baby had slipped out. A blast well and truly from the past.

Beth dipped her head so the hood shielded her face from his view. ‘He won’t be.’

There was something in the way she said it. So final. So cold. He couldn’t help himself, although he really didn’t want to have any interest in her life ‘Why not?’

Slosh … slosh. Silence.

‘Beth?’

Even the whale seemed to flinch at the sudden outburst of skinny arms to its right. ‘We’re not together any more, okay? I no longer answer to anyone.’

Her marriage was over? The King and Queen of Pyrmont High were no more? A nasty imp deep inside him badly wanted to smile. But there was nothing satisfying about the pain on her face.

‘I’m sorry, Beth.’

‘Don’t be,’ she mumbled from down the tail end of the whale. ‘I’m not.’

She moved like a car wash up and down the three metres of the whale’s body, sloshing as she went. The animal was relaxed and trusting enough now to let her do it without fussing. Her hand trailed along the marbled mercury of its skin as she went and every now and again it shuddered as though ticklish. He empathised completely. There was a time he would have given just about anything to have her hands touch him like that.

He slammed a door on that memory.

So she’d married McKinley young but now she was single again. And hot on the trail of her old pal Marc. A light bulb suddenly came on in his mind. ‘I hope you’re not expecting to pick up where we left off, Beth?’

She froze and looked up at him. ‘Excuse me?’

Ooh. He hadn’t forgotten that arctic look. The ice princess. There was a masochistic kind of pleasure in having it levelled on him again after so long. ‘Because as far as I’m concerned we were done that day behind the library.’

Even under the hood of her oversized sweatshirt he could see her nostrils flaring. About as wildly as the whale’s blowhole. ‘You think I’m here to come on to you?’

‘I’m still waiting to find out why you’re here. You came a long way for something. Go ahead and say what you wanted to say.’

Permission seemed to paralyse her. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly several times. Whatever she was going to say, it wasn’t easy.

Her hands stilled on the whale. ‘I hurt you back in school and I wanted you to know I’m very sorry,’ her soft voice began.

Every part of him stretched sling-shot taut. He cast her a sideways glance. ‘You didn’t hurt me.’

Her pretty face folded. ‘That can’t be true. I was there, I remember.’

‘What do you remember?’

She blew air out of full lips. ‘How you looked. How we left things.’

How badly he’d handled himself? He shrugged. ‘Like I said. Friendships end.’

‘Not usually like that. You kissed me, Marc.’

Right on cue, he got a flash of the wide-eyed awakening on her face. The coconut taste on his tongue as her mouth had parted with surprise. As he’d sunk into the heaven of her lips. He clenched his teeth against the bittersweet memory. Forced it back down deep where it belonged. His muscles clamped up again. He calmed himself for the whale’s sake. It was stressed enough for all of them.

‘That wasn’t a kiss, Beth. I was trying to make a point.’

Confusion marred her pale skin. ‘What point?’

A lip-searing, unforgettable point. A friendship ending point. ‘That you would have kissed anyone offering at that point.’ That you didn’t need McKinley for that.

She disguised her sharp intake of breath behind loudly dumping her whale-washer in the drink and then she bought herself some recovery time by wringing the life out of his old T-shirt. For one second he felt like a heel for hurting her. But he pushed that away too. Best course now—like back when he was a kid—was not to let himself feel anything at all for Beth Hughes. Time had passed. They’d both moved on. In a couple of hours she’d be gone.