Marion Lennox - Cinderella And The Billionaire

Rowan Bay was a marine reserve, a fish breeding ground. It was tidal, shallow, full of drifting sand and water grasses. It was a good place to add to your catch for the day—if you weren’t caught by the fisheries officers.

And if you didn’t care about your boat.

She was suddenly hearing her grandpa’s voice.

You go in there in anything bigger than a dinghy, you’re an idiot. Operating in murky waters can cause blockages in the cooling-water intake. That can lead to engine overheating.

Graham was an idiot.

But now wasn’t the time for blaming. Almost instinctively, she shut the motor down, grabbed the fire extinguisher and headed below.

The whiff of smoke became a wall.

Meg O’Hara was not known to panic. There’d been dramas at sea before. She’d swum to shore when a motor died. She’d dived overboard to clear a fouled propeller. She’d even coped with a punter having a heart attack as he’d caught a truly excellent bluefin tuna.

But fire at sea, this far out...

Fire extinguishers had limited volume. It was useless to simply point it at smoke and pull the trigger. But how to get to the seat of the fire?

She hauled her windcheater over her face and tried to open the hatch over the engine...

Flames.

‘Get out.’ The voice was harsh, deep, and then repeated, a roar of command. She hesitated, shoving the extinguisher forward, trying desperately to see...

‘Now!’ And a hand hooked the collar of her windcheater and hauled her upward.

She dropped the extinguisher and went. He was right. The speed of this fire...

There was a bag at the entrance to the galley. Heavy. Lifesaving. She grabbed it and lugged it upward.

‘Let it go,’ the voice roared, and the hand on her collar was insistent.

Pigs might fly, she thought, clinging like a limpet as the hand hauled her higher. And then she was out on the deck, clinging to her precious bag.

‘The tender...’ A condition of charters in these waters was that a lifeboat was with them at all times and she’d checked the inflatable dinghy before she left. Thank God. The deck was now a cloud of smoke. If the fuel went...

She had to get the tender into the water and get them all into it. Now!

She grabbed the lifeboat’s stern pulley. Matt was beside her, seeing what she was doing, matching her at the bow. Lowering it with her.

It hit the water. Almost before it did, she grabbed Henry and thrust him into Matt’s arms.

‘In. Now.’ She grabbed one of the lines from the tender and thrust it into his hand. ‘Don’t let go. If you fall in, shove the tender away from the boat and pull yourselves in.’

‘You take him,’ Matt snapped.

‘Don’t be a fool.’ The engine could go up at any minute. ‘Take care of the kid. Go.’

She copped a flash of concern but the decision was made. Henry had to be his first priority. He lifted the stunned Henry onto the side of the boat, steadied for a moment and slipped downward.

Thank God she had them both in lifejackets. Getting into an inflatable from a wallowing boat was fraught at the best of times. But he had Henry in, tucking him into the bow. Then he was standing, holding on to the boat. ‘You!’

It was the kind of order her grandfather would have made. A no-nonsense order, the kind you didn’t mess with, but she still had stuff to do.

‘Boof!’ she yelled and the big dog was in her arms. She thrust him downward and somehow Matt caught him.

‘Get down here,’ he yelled.

She could no longer see him. The smoke was all around her.

One last thing...

She grabbed her bag and slid over the side. Strong hands caught her, steadied, but she allowed herself a mere half a second for that steadying. Then she was at the tiller of the tender. The little engine purred into life. Thank You, God.

Without being asked, Matt was shoving with all his might, pushing the tender as far from the boat as he could.

Into gear... Full power... Away.

And maybe twenty seconds later the fuel tank caught and Bertha erupted into a ball of flames.

She kept the tender at full throttle. The danger wasn’t passed yet. Burning fuel could spread across water.

A minute. Two. The distance between them and the flames was growing. She could breathe again.

Just.

She did a quick head count. Not that it was necessary but she needed it for her sanity.

Matt. Henry. Boof. Bag.

They should survive.

* * *

‘Wow, that was exciting. We’re safe now, though, Henry. We’re okay.’

He couldn’t think what else to say. Matt sat in the bow of the little boat and held Henry. Tight. He was giving comfort, he told himself, but the feel of the child against him, the solidness of the little body, the safeness of him ... It was a two-way street.

The charter boat was now a smouldering wreck. The flames were dying. It was already starting to look skeletal.

They’d been so lucky. From the time he’d seen Meg’s head jerk around, heard her cut the engine, from the time he’d caught the first whiff of smoke himself... A minute? It must have been more but it didn’t feel like it.

He felt stunned to numbness.

They were safe.

Meg was at the tiller. She was coughing, but she was in control. She’d been hit by a wall of smoke as she’d gone below and she’d fought him for that stupid bag. When she’d got herself together, he was going to have words with her about that bag. Like passengers on an airliner trying to save their carry-ons after a crash landing, she could have killed them all. His and Henry’s baggage was now ashes, and he wasn’t grieving about it one bit. For her to fight to get her bag...

Mind, there was nothing unprofessional about the rest of the way she’d performed. She’d moved seamlessly. All he’d done was follow what she was doing. She’d made them safe.

Safe was a good word. A great word.

He held Henry and let it sink in.

And then he thought, Where are we?

Maybe they weren’t so safe.

Meg had pointed out Garnett Island to him a few moments ago. It was still in the distance, surely too far to head for in these seas, in this little boat. The tender was sitting low already. The swells didn’t cause a problem but the wind was causing a chop on the top of the water. Meg was steering into the wind, minimising water resistance, but if one of those waves veered sideways...

He looked ahead and saw where she was steering.

A rocky outcrop rose, almost like a sentinel, straight up from the ocean floor. Maybe half a kilometre from them? Maybe less. It looked rough and inhospitable, but part of the rock face seemed to have slipped, forming what seemed a little bay. A few hardy plants must have fought their way to survival, because there was a tinge of green.

‘That’s where we’ll land,’ Meg said, watching his look, and then she had to stop and cough again. And again.

She buckled, fighting for breath. She’d copped so much smoke.

‘We’re swapping places,’ he said.

‘I’m not moving anywhere.’ Every word was a gasp.

Time to be brutal.

‘No choice. Your breathing’s compromised. Think about what happens if you collapse at the tiller.’

‘You can’t...’

‘I can handle a boat.’

And he saw her shoulders sag, just a little. Relief? She was only just holding herself together, he thought, and with that thought came another. She’d gone down below, to try to fight a burning engine.

‘The flames... Is your throat burned?’

‘Only...only smoke. Not...burned.’

‘Good, but you’re still moving. When I say go, move.’

She didn’t reply, fighting another paroxysm of coughing.

‘Meg needs help,’ he told Henry. He was torn. Henry needed to be held, but the tiller had to be priority.