First Love, Second Chance: Friends to Forever / Second Chance with the Rebel / It Started with a Crush...

CHAPTER TWO

BETH took one look at the scene unfolding on the beach and pushed herself into gear. It had been two years; her needs could wait a little longer. Those animals couldn’t.

Marc grabbed his satellite phone and started dialling even as he ran to the back of his vehicle, peeling off his clothes as he went. By the time he had his T-shirt and jeans off, he’d communicated their location and the number of stranded whales to someone at the Shire and asked them to rally assistance.

Beth did her best to get busy lifting items out of the car to avoid staring at him, open-mouthed. Once-gangly Marc Duncannon had spent some time in the gym, apparently. The weights section. Her belly flipped on itself in a most unfamiliar way.

He tossed the disconnected phone into the back of the vehicle and stepped into his wetsuit, hauling it up over muscular legs and then flexing his broad back as he shrugged it up over his shoulders and arms. As soon as it was secure, he snared up the first aid kit and a small bag of supplies and thrust the phone into it. He shoved a snatch-strap, rope and every ockie-strap he could rummage up in behind it. Then he threw his T-shirt, a hooded trainer and an old towel at Beth, saying, ‘You’re going to need this,’ and was off, down the dunes, racing towards the water.

Beth did her best to keep up. She stumbled several times in the thick sand and paused to kick off her unsuitable shoes, losing more ground on Marc. But she didn’t need to be near him to know what was going on; his stiff body language was as clear as a neon sign as he ran down the shore, close to the first whale.

The sleek, marble-skinned animal was already dead.

An awful sorrow washed over her: that she might have delayed Marc for the precious minutes that counted. That this enormous creature was already gull-food because of her.

Marc paused briefly, those magnificent shoulders drooping slightly, but then he kicked on, further down the beach to where the second body rolled in time with the surf. As he got closer, he slowed and took a wide approach, lifting his hands high in the air in warning. Beth instantly slowed.

It was alive.

By the time she caught up with him, he was on his second wide pass of the beleaguered mammal. It lay partially submerged in the quicksand where earth met ocean, every second wave high enough to wash gently over its lower half. But exposed parts of its upper body were already dangerously dry. Compared to the liquid mercury-looking surface of wet whale skin, the dry parts looked like the handbag she’d left in her hire car at Marc’s farm.

That couldn’t be good.

‘Put the sweatshirt on, Beth.’ He didn’t bother with a please and she didn’t expect niceties right now. But it didn’t mean she was prepared to be dictated to. Not any more.

‘It’s thirty-three degrees. I’ll boil.’

‘Better that than burn to a crisp. We’re going to be out here for some time.’ He moved to her side and relieved her of his T-shirt and the towel. Then he zipped up the wetsuit more fully over his chest, fastened the neck strap and tugged a cap down hard over his shaggy hair. ‘And you’re about to get wet. You’ll thank me in two hours.’

‘Two hours?’ They’d be out in the water for a couple of hours, with an injured dinosaur? Alone? But Marc wasn’t worried; he ran headlong into the water between the dead whale and the live one and soaked the towel and his shirt.

His five-times experience certainly showed.

By the time Beth had wriggled herself into Marc’s sweatshirt and pulled up the hood for some shade, he was already beside the dangerous giant. A false killer whale, Marc told her. The fact it was not a true killer whale didn’t fill her with any confidence. It was still big enough to send them both flying with a toss of its wishbone tail, which bore an arrow-head-shaped scar. One enormous dark eye rolled wildly at his approach. Marc slowed and started speaking softly. Steadily. Random words that meant nothing.

The eye wasn’t fooled for a minute.

But when Marc gently laid the saturated towel onto its parched skin, the eye rolled fully shut and the beast let off a mighty groan that vibrated the sand beneath Beth’s feet. Her heart squeezed. It wasn’t pain, it was sheer relief. She sprinted forward and met Marc in the water, hoping that he’d think the tears in her eyes were from the glare coming off the ocean.

‘Around the other side,’ he ordered brusquely, glancing up as she wiped a stray one away. ‘Stay up-beach from that ventral fin; it’s pure muscle.’

‘The what fin …?’

‘Underneath.’ He threw the sodden T-shirt her way and she just caught it. ‘The fin closest to her belly.’

The whale barely moved as they took it in turns draping the wet fabric over its parched skin. Within fifteen minutes, Beth’s wrists ached from wringing out the water to run down the whale’s hide and she moved to a slosh-and-drag technique instead. Brutal on the back, but the most effective way of keeping the poor animal wet. A fierce concentration blazed in Marc’s eyes, a flush of exertion highlighting the familiar ridge of his cheekbone. Familiar yet unfamiliar.

Her mind bubbled with memories of a younger Marc studying. Or whipping her butt at chess. Or listening to her dramas. That same focus. That same intensity. No question that some parts of him hadn’t changed.

Even if the rest had.

Neither of them spoke, their focus centred on the whale. Beth’s reason for coming to the south coast flitted entirely out of her head, dwarfed in significance compared to the life and death battle going on in the shallows of Holly’s Bay.

‘You need a break.’ Marc’s voice was reluctant enough and firm enough to cut through the hypnotic routine of slosh-and-drag … slosh-and-drag. But it was also dictatorial enough to get Beth’s hackles up.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re parched. Your lips are like prunes. Stop and rehydrate. You’re no use to either of us if you collapse.’

Either of us. Him or the whale. Beth didn’t want to see the sense in that but he was right; if his focus was on rescuing her, the whale could die. She straightened and used the sleeve of his sweatshirt to wipe at the sweat streaming into her eyes.

‘I could use a swig of water myself,’ he said, clearly hoping she’d fall for the incredibly juvenile ploy, but she barely heard him, focusing only on four little letters.

Swig.

Her body immediately picked up and ran with the evocative image: an icy bottle straight from the cooler, the hissing sound the cap made twisting off. The clink of the cap hitting the sink. Her near favourite sound in the world. Second only to the breathy sigh of a cork coming out of a good bottle of Chenin Blanc.

A sound she hadn’t heard for two years. Since she’d stopped drinking.

Her mouth would have watered if it hadn’t been so dry. Like Pavlov’s dog, just the thought of a particular spirit could still make her saliva flow. Despite everything she’d done to put it behind her, her body still compromised her from time to time. When she least expected it. It sure was not going to be happy with what was about to cross its lips.

She moved up the beach and hauled a two-litre bottle of still water out of one of Marc’s supply bags and then cracked the cap. She suddenly realised how thirsty she was, but she was determined not to let Marc see that. She stood and jogged back to his side of the whale and passed him the bottle first. He glared at her meaningfully, but took it and helped himself to a deep, long draw of purified water. His Adam’s apple bobbed thirstily with each long swallow.

‘Once this is gone we can use the bottle to help wet the whale, ‘ she said.

Marc shook his head. ‘We’re going to have to make this last. I only have one more.’

Four litres of water. Between two people, on a blistering Australian day, with reflected light bouncing up off the surface of the salty, salty water.

Oh, joy.

He finished drinking and passed the bottle straight back to her. Beth’s pride had limits and watching the way the clean water had leaked down his throat had stretched it way too far. Every fibre of her being wanted to feel liquid crossing her tongue.

If that had to be water, so be it.

She didn’t guzzle, though she well could have. At least AA had taught her something about restraint. Greedily sculling their precious water supply was not something she wanted Marc to witness. And a small part of her was afraid that once she started she might not stop.

She made herself lower the bottle after a few restorative swallows and, buoyed by the wetness coursing into her body, she jogged lightly back through the beach sand and knelt to slide the bottle into the shade of Marc’s supply bag. As she did, she dislodged the other occupants. The satellite phone. First aid kit. A clutch of muesli and chocolate bars, a small hand-wound torch. The second container of water. And a—

Beth leapt back as if burned.

A large seventies-era silver hip flask tumbled out onto the sand. Ornate, neatly stoppered and probably his father’s before it was Marc’s, one of the few remembrances he might have of the man who had died when Marc was nine. The sort you kept whisky in, or vodka, or just about any liquor you didn’t care to advertise. Beth didn’t need to pick it up to know it was full of something bad. He wouldn’t have thrown it in the emergency pack for nothing.

She shoved it back into the bag and rose to her feet, shaking. She hadn’t worked this hard for two years to blow it now. She glanced at Marc to see if he’d noticed, but he was too busy gently rubbing the wet towel over the whale’s bulbous face to notice.

She’d finally hardened herself against facing her demons on every street corner in the city. Every billboard. Every radio commercial. To encounter liquor on a remote beach in the middle of nowhere. In front of Marc. What kind of a sick karmic joke was this?

She stumbled as her feet sank back into the loose shore sand and water rushed into the twin voids around her ankles. As she went down onto one knee, a wave came in and soaked her to her middle, her pale blue jeans staining instantly darker with salt water, the cold assault shocking her mind off the hip flask and what it held.

But her sunken perspective was how she noticed something else. The whale’s ventral fin was partly underwater, even after the wave washed back out. The one that had been high and dry a couple of hours ago when they’d arrived.

She scrambled to her feet, nearly falling across the whale in her haste.

‘Marc …’

He looked up at her, fatigue in his face, and something else. Fierce determination. This whale was not going to die while he breathed.

‘Marc … the tide’s coming in.’

He turned his eyes heavenward and closed them briefly in salute. His lips moved briefly.

‘Is that good?’

Hazel eyes lowered back to hers, clear and honest, as if they’d forgotten she was an unwelcome blast from the past. ‘That’s very good. Maybe we can refloat her.’

‘It’s a her?’

‘You can tell by her short, curved dorsal fin.’ His head jerked in the direction of the other whale. ‘I think that one might have been her calf.’

The unfamiliar stab of grief slid in under her ribs and washed over her with another shove of the waves. This mum had followed her baby in to shore. Maybe she’d stranded herself trying to save her little one. Was that why her eyes kept rolling around—was she trying to find her calf? Empathy for the animal’s loss nearly overwhelmed her, stealing the breath she desperately needed to keep her muscles working. But she embraced the pain and almost celebrated it. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have felt such sorrow. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have felt much of anything.

Her eyes fell back on the suffering whale. Her ire—and her voice—lifted. ‘Where are they?’

He kept up the rhythmic sloshing. ‘Who?’

‘The rescuers. Shouldn’t they be here by now?’

The sloshing stopped. He stared. ‘We are the rescuers, Beth. What do you think we’ve been doing for the past three hours?’

‘I meant others. People with boats. Shovels. Whale-rescue devices.’

The sun must have been causing a mirage … That almost looked like a smile. The one she’d never imagined she’d see today.

‘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.

‘It’s been ten years. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around obsessing about it.’ At least not for more than a few months. ‘What else is there to say?’

Slosh … slosh. Her eyes glittered as she measured what he’d said. ‘Other than “Good to see you, Beth”.’

Her tight words cracked and his stomach flipped fully over. He was still a sucker for those big brown eyes if they were awash. Either she was a master manipulator or this really was a big deal for her. But it was for him too, after years of not letting himself think about her. Good to see her?

‘We never lied to each other before.’

Her face grew pale beneath his hoodie and he turned his attention back to the whale, unable to stomach her expression.

They worked silently for another twenty minutes until Marc couldn’t stand the quiet. ‘If you want to take the Cruiser back to my place, that’s fine. I’ll get a lift back when reinforcements come.’

She lifted tired eyes. ‘No, thank you.’

No? ‘Why are you still here? You’ve said what you came for. You’re sorry for the hurt you imagine you caused. ‘ He made his shrug much more casual than he felt. ‘Doesn’t that mean we’re done?’

It should. If it was the real reason. He could see in her eyes it wasn’t.

They flicked away and back in a blink. ‘You haven’t accepted my apology yet.’

That stopped his hands and he slowed his bend to re-wet his towel. ‘Is that a requirement?’

Her eyes held his. ‘I’d like you to.’

Which meant the apology was more about her than him. Why does that surprise you? Just acknowledge the woman’s apology and get her the hell off this beach! Yet something in him couldn’t do it. ‘I don’t see you for ten years and then you turn up looking for absolution?’ Uncertainty filled her eyes. ‘Why would you expect it?’

‘Because … ‘ Her pale face scrunched up, confused. As if she hadn’t thought about that until now. ‘Because you’re Marc.’

He had to take two steps back from the whale for that one. In case it felt his surging anger through his touch. ‘That might have been our dynamic as kids, Beth, but a lot has changed in the years you’ve been gone. I’m not a gutless boy any more.’

She seemed shocked. ‘You were never gutless, Marc. You always went straight for what you wanted.’

Not always. He struggled to get his temper under control, his hands back on the whale. ‘Bully for me.’