Marion Lennox: Nine Months to Change His Life

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.