Louisa George - Saved By Their One-Night Baby

Chase turned and looked, then he turned away and walked into the darkness.

‘Chase!’

But then he was there. Looming up in front of him as he had in the tight, dark prison a few minutes earlier, but the bravado from before had gone. He had red rings around swollen eyes. A gruff expression. Hell, he was just a seventeen-year-old kid living a nightmare. Like me. ‘Look, Reid, I gotta go.’

Ethan held up his hand to stop the paramedic from closing the ambulance door. ‘And Nick?’

Chase shook his head and his words came out on a sob that he coughed away. ‘He didn’t...make it. That’s his mum. She’s broken. He was her only child.’

The paramedic fiddled with the drip and then said softly, ‘My count was four. I’m so sorry, buddy.’

Four dead? Four of the team? His brothers in sport, if nothing else. Ethan’s heart twisted as his gaze settled back on Chase. ‘But you told me they were safe.’

‘I told you they were out.’ Chase shrugged. Empty. His best friend had been in danger and he’d chosen to save someone else’s life. How would that make you feel? You had a chance and you didn’t take it. You bet on someone else. On the someone you didn’t even like.

‘But you made me think they were alive. I thought they were safe.’

‘You needed something to hang onto.’

And he’d hung on tight. ‘I’m so sorry about Nick. I heard the conversation. I heard you make a choice. No one should ever have to do that.’

‘You were closest.’ Chase’s face clouded, the way it did when they fought. The way it did in their stand-offs. The way it had just a few hours ago when he’d been trying to make Ethan apologise in their stupid argument. Chase’s hands fisted as he wrestled some emotion or other away. His best friend had died and maybe he could have done something to prevent that. God knew how that felt. ‘You’d better be worth it, Reid. Make it worth it.’

Judging by the way Ethan’s parents had treated him to date, and knowing what a great guy Nick had been, Ethan doubted he could ever be worth it. But this was a second chance and he was going to make the best of it. ‘I damned well will. Chase, I owe you my life. Thank you. If you ever need me, anything at all, just find me and I’ll be there for you.’

But the way Chase looked at him told Ethan that he’d never call. And, worse, that he believed he’d made the wrong choice after all.

FRANCE.

Not a place he’d ever thought he’d return to, and he’d done everything in his power to avoid it. But sometimes honour and duty overrode everything else, even good sense.

Dr Ethan Reid dropped his khaki holdall onto the hotel bedroom floor and chanced his luck for a minibar. After opening all the cupboards and drawers, he grunted. Seemed his luck was all out. But if he was forced to be in France he was going to drink, at least tonight, and then he’d have some chance of sleeping.

After a quick shower and change out of flight-weary clothes he took the stairs down two at a time from the eleventh floor, courting the usual looks of astonishment from anyone he passed peeking out from the generic hotel corridors at a tall, lumbering, sandy-haired and probably sandy-coated—given he’d been in Africa for the last four years—guy gunning down the stairs instead of sedately hitching a ride on the elevator. Seemed no one walked these days.

Never mind. Or, as they said around here, tant pis.

After spending years living under canvas his first instinct was to sit outside on the terrace in the fresh air as he was used to, but the thunderstorm that had threatened as his plane was landing had become a reality, so he was forced to stay in the bar. Even so, the place was quiet with just a few suited singletons dotted at the tables staring at smartphones and laptops, probably in Marseille on business given the outfits.

The end of April was too early in the season for the sun crowd, though he suspected the port city would be busy all year round. He ordered his whiskey and soda, and slumped down at the bar, trying not to engage in extended conversation with the bar staff, which left him plenty of scope to chill and get his head round being back here, in the place that still gave him nightmares.

His instructions were on his phone. He tugged it from his pocket and ran through them again with the same trepidation he’d felt the first time he’d read them. How had he agreed to this?

6.30 a.m. Orientation with Medicine For All Search and Rescue Co-ordinator Chase Barrington on the bridge of the SOS Poseidon.

7.00 a.m. Pre-launch safety briefing

7.30 a.m. Under way

So that was it. A six-week deployment to pluck refugees from the Mediterranean Sea, assess and treat those with medical needs and transport them to a receiving port.

And somehow survive.

‘Aperol spritz, s’il vous plaît. ’

A woman’s voice behind him cut through his thoughts. After his initial knee-jerk disquiet at hearing the French language again he was impressed to realise he still understood it a little.

‘ Merci. It’s a beautiful night. I love thunderstorms. I know...crazy.’ As she seamlessly switched from French to English she laughed, a soft sound that breathed life through the dull, stale atmosphere in the bar, and continued her conversation with...whoever. ‘Here’s to freedom, excitement. Adventure.’

A strange toast that conjured up all manner of stories in his active imagination. Curiosity getting the better of him, Ethan turned to see who the laugh belonged to and who needed all of those things. A little further along the bar was a petite woman dressed casually in contrast to the suits in a dark blue flared skirt and a navy-and-white-striped T-shirt, a dark silk scarf looped loosely round her neck and a small black leather backpack slung over one shoulder. Very chic. She had large, dark eyes and loose honey-coloured waves framing her face. Pretty too.

As if she felt him looking, her gaze sought him out. Whoa. So much more than pretty. She had the kind of face that pulled you to her, a heady charisma, eyes buzzing with energy, a generous smile, olive skin that had him thinking of cloudless skies and skinny-dipping. And now he was just getting carried away.

Glancing around the room, he noticed all the single suits watching her too.

Ethan looked away. No point getting in any deeper than one look. Tomorrow he was facing a demon or two and he had to keep his head straight. He tried to shrug off the trepidation of meeting up with Chase after all these years, and spending the next six weeks rescuing refugees. The doctoring part he could do in his sleep, but living on a ship would only add more spice to his nightmares. He looked down at the menu but the gnawing sensation in his gut had nothing to do with hunger.

She laughed.

Oh, what the hell? He chanced another look, because he couldn’t not. Something about her compelled him to take a second viewing. And there wasn’t anything else to look at in this place other than a baby grand piano that no one was playing, dark velvet drapes and that bar menu, which he’d scanned and disregarded a dozen times already.

She was talking to, but standing a little away from, a guy who had about fifteen years on her. Thin, wiry. Like a stoat. No, a weasel, in a shiny, cheap suit that was clearly tailored to bulk him up. They seemed oddly matched. Too old to be a boyfriend, too young to be a parent.

The weasel leaned in, leering. Unsteady. He had the kind of smile that was all mouth and no eyes. Greedy. He said something to her.

Her body snapped taut as she stepped back. ‘No. I’m not interested, thank you.’

Something about her reaction and the fleeting shock in her eyes had Ethan on high alert. He edged closer to listen.