Nine Months to Change His Life

‘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.

Her fault, her fault, her fault.

Terrific. She was surrounded by a cyclone, she had a badly injured guy stuck in her cave—and she was dwelling on past nightmares.

Think of current nightmares.

Think of Jake.

She’d given some fast reassurance to Ben, but, in truth, the last radio report she’d heard before communications had been cut had been appalling. The cyclone had decimated the yachting fleet, and the reporter she’d heard had been talking of multiple deaths.

There’d been an interview with the head of the chopper service and he’d been choked with emotion.

‘The last guy...we came so close... We thought we had him but, hell, the wind... It just slammed everything. The whole crew’s gutted.’

The last guy...

Was that Ben’s Jake?

She had no way of knowing, and there was no way she was passing on such a gut-wrenching supposition to Ben.

She felt...useless.

‘But I did save him,’ she told herself, and Heinz nosed out to see what was going on; whether it might be safe enough for a dog to find a tree.

Not. A gust blasted across the cliff in front of them; he whimpered and backed inside.

‘You and Ben,’ Mary muttered. ‘Wussy males.’

She glanced back into the cave. All was dark. All was well.

She hoped. She still had no way of telling whether Ben’s leg was fractured or, worse, if that crack on his head had been severe enough to cause subdural haemorrhaging. What if she walked back in and he was dead?

She walked back in and he was asleep, breathing deeply and evenly, with Heinz nuzzling back down against him.

What to do?

What was there to do? Sit by the fire and imagine subdural bleeding or twins falling from ropes into a cyclone-ravaged sea? Think of home, her family, the past that had driven her here?

Or do what she’d been doing for the last few weeks?

She lit a fat candle. Between it and the fire she could sort of see.

She shoved a couple of cushions behind her, she tucked a blanket over her legs, she put her manuscript on her knees and she started to write.

The door to the bar swung open.

She glanced at the sleeping guy not six feet from her.

He was six foot three or four, lean, mean, dangerous. His deep grey eyes raked every corner of the room.

Could he tell she was a werewolf?

She grinned. Hero or villain? She hadn’t figured which but it didn’t matter. There was a nice meaty murder about to happen in the room upstairs. A little blood was about to drip on people’s heads. Maybe a lot of blood. She wasn’t sure where Ben Logan would fit but he’d surely add drama.

‘Call me Logan,’ he drawled...

She thought maybe she’d have to do a search and replace when she reached the end. Maybe calling a character after her wounded sailor wasn’t such a good idea.

But for now it helped. For now her villain/hero Logan could keep the storm at bay.

There was nothing like a bit of fantasy when a woman needed it most.

* * *

He woke, and she was heating something on the fire.

That’s what had woken him, he thought. The smell was unbelievable. Homey, spicy, the smell of meat and herbs filled the cave.

He stirred and winced and she turned from the fire and smiled at him. Outside was black. No light was getting in now. Her face was lit by flickering firelight and one candle.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Dinner?’

He thought about it for a nanosecond or less. ‘Yes, please.’

‘You can have the bowl. I’ll use the frying pan. I wasn’t anticipating guests. Would you like to sit up a little?’

‘Um...’

She grinned. ‘Yeah, I’m guessing what you need before food. Are you ready to admit I might be a nurse and therefore useful? If I’d known I’d have brought a bedpan.’

He sighed. ‘Mary...’

‘Mmm?’

‘Can you hand me my clothes?’

‘Knickers is all,’ she said. ‘The rest are still wet.’ She handed him his boxers—and then had second thoughts. She tugged back the quilt and slid his boxers over his feet before he realised what she intended.

‘Lift,’ she ordered, and he did, and he felt about five years old.

She was still scantily dressed, too, in knickers, bra and T-shirt.

Her T-shirt was damp. He shouldn’t notice.

He noticed.

‘So it’s okay for you to stay cold but not me?’ he managed.

‘That’s the one.’ She was helping him to stand, levering herself under his shoulder, taking his weight.

‘Mary?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Hand me my stick. I can do this.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘Not in my dreams,’ he said. ‘For real. I won’t take your help.’

‘This is Smash ’em Mary you’re talking to. I’m tough.’

‘This is a five-feet-five-inch runt I’m talking to. Let me be.’

‘You want to sign an indemnity form so if you fall down the cliff it’s not my fault?’

‘It’s not your fault. How could it be your fault?’

‘Of course it could be,’ she said, and there was a sudden and unexpected note of bitterness beneath her words. ‘Somehow it always is.’

* * *

He managed. He got outside and in again. He almost made it back to his makeshift bed but he had to accept help for the last couple of yards.

He felt like he’d been hit by rocks. Maybe he had been hit by rocks.

Propped up on pillows again, he was handed beef casserole. Excellent casserole.

There were worse places for a man to recuperate.

‘How did you manage this?’ he demanded, intrigued.

‘There’s a solar-powered freezer in the cabin,’ she told him. ‘The solar panels were one of the first victims of the storm so I packed a pile of food and brought it here. I loaded whatever was on top of the freezer so who knows what the plastic boxes hold. This time we got lucky but we might be eating bait for breakfast.’

‘The storm came up fast, then?’

‘The radio said storm, tie down your outdoor furniture. They didn’t say cyclone, tie down your house.’

‘This isn’t a cyclone,’ he told her. ‘Or not yet. I’ve been in one before. This is wild but a full-scale cyclone hits with noise that’s unbelievable. We’re on the fringe.’

‘So it’s still to hit?’

‘Or miss.’

‘That’d be good,’ she said, but he heard worry.

‘Is there someone else you’re scared about?’ he demanded. He hadn’t thought...all the worrying he’d done up until now had been about Jake.

‘You,’ she said. ‘You need X-rays.’

‘I’m tough.’

‘Yeah, and you still need X-rays.’

‘I promise I won’t die.’ He said it lightly but he somehow had the feeling that this woman was used to expecting the worst.

Well, she was a nurse.

Nurses didn’t always expect the worst.

‘I’d prefer that you didn’t,’ she said, striving to match his lightness. ‘I have a pile of freezer contents that’ll be fine for up to two days but then they’ll decompose. If you’re decomposing too, I might be forced to evacuate my cave.’

He choked. Only a nurse could make such a joke, he thought. He remembered the tough medics who’d been there in Afghanistan and he thought...Mary could be one of those.

The nurses had saved Jake’s life when he’d been hit by a roadside bomb. Not the doctors, they had been too few in the field and they’d been stretched to the limit. Nurses had managed to stop the bleeding, get fluids into his brother, keep him stable until the surgeons had time to do their thing.

He kind of liked nurses.

He kind of liked this one.

He ate the casserole and drank the tea she made—he’d never tasted tea so good—and thought about her some more.

‘So no one’s worrying about you?’ he asked, lightly, he thought, but she looked at him with a shrewdness he was starting to expect.

‘I’ve left a note in a bottle saying where I am and who I’m with, so watch it, mate.’

He grinned. She really was...extraordinary.

‘But there is no one?’

‘If you’re asking if I’m single, then I’m single.’

‘Parents?’

That brought a shadow. She shook her head and started clearing.

She was so slight.

She was so alone.

‘You want to share a bed again?’ He shifted sideways so there was room under the quilt for her.

She must be cold. The temperature wasn’t all that bad—this was a summer storm—but the cave was earth-cool, and the humidity meant their clothes were taking an age to dry.

She was wearing a T-shirt but he’d felt it as she’d helped him back into bed and it was clammy.

She needed to take it off. This bed was the only place to be.

She was looking doubtful.

‘It’ll be like we’re flatmates, watching telly on the sofa,’ he said, pushing the covers back.

‘I forgot to bring the telly.’

‘That’s professional negligence if ever I heard it.’ Then he frowned at the look on her face. ‘What? What did I say?’

‘Nothing.’ Her face shuttered, but she hauled off her T-shirt and slid under the covers—as if the action might distract him.

It did distract him. A woman like this in his bed? Watching telly? Ha!

He pushed away the thought—or the sensation—and managed to push himself far enough away so there was at last an inch between their bodies.

The temptation to move closer was almost irresistible.

Resist.

‘So tell me why you’re here?’ he asked. If she could hear the strain in his voice he couldn’t help it. He was hauling his body under control and it didn’t leave a lot of energy for small talk.

Mary was an inch away.

No.

‘Here. Island. Why?’ he said, but the look on her face stayed. Defensive.

‘You. Yacht in middle of cyclone. Why?’ she snapped back.

And he thought, Yeah, this lady has shadows.

‘I’m distracting my brother from a failed marriage,’ he told her. He didn’t do personal. The Logan brothers’ private life was their own business but there was something about this woman that told him anything he exposed would go no further.

Armour on his part seemed inappropriate. Somehow it was Mary who seemed wounded. She wasn’t battered like he was, not beaten by rocks and sea, but in some intensely personal way she seemed just as wounded.

So he didn’t do personal but they were sharing a bed in the middle of a cyclone and personal seemed the only way to go.

‘So Jake needed to be distracted?’ she said cautiously.

And he thought, Yep, he’d done it. He’d taken that look off her face. The look that said she was expecting to be slapped.

Smash ’em Mary? Maybe not so tough, then.

‘Jake’s a bit of a target,’ he said. ‘He came back from Afghanistan wounded, and I suspect there are nightmares. He threw himself into acting, his career took off and suddenly there were women everywhere. He found himself with a starlet with dollars in her eyes but he couldn’t see it. She used him to push her career and he was left...’

‘Scarred?’

‘Jake doesn’t do scarred.’

‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you do scarred?’

‘No!’

‘How did you feel when your brother was wounded?’

The question was so unexpected that it left him stranded.

The question took him back to the dust and grit of an Afghan roadside.

They hadn’t even been on duty. They’d been in different battalions and the two groups had met as Ben’s battalion had been redeployed. Ben hadn’t seen his brother for six months.

‘I know a place with fine dining,’ Jake had joked. ‘Practically five-star.’

Yeah, right. Jake always knew the weird and wonderful; he was always pushing the rules. Eating in the army mess didn’t fit with his vision of life.

The army didn’t fit with Jake’s vision of life. It was a good fit for neither of them. They’d joined to get away from their father and their family notoriety, as far as they could.

Fail. ‘Logan Brothers Blasted by Roadside Bomb. Heirs to Logan Fortune Airlifted Out.’ They couldn’t get much more notorious than that.

‘Earth to Ben?’ Mary said. ‘You were saying? How did you feel when Jake was injured?’

‘How do you think I felt?’ He didn’t talk about it, he never had, but suddenly it was all around him and the need to talk was just there. ‘One minute we were walking back to base on an almost deserted road, catching up on home talk. The next moment a bus full of locals pulled up. And then an explosion.’

‘Oh, Ben...’

‘Schoolkids,’ he said, and he was there again, surrounded by terror, death, chaos. ‘They targeted kids for maximum impact. Twelve kids were killed and Jake was collateral damage.’

‘No wonder he has nightmares.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did he lose consciousness?’

What sort of question was that? What difference did it make?

But it did make a difference. He’d thought, among all that carnage, at least Jake was unaware.

‘Until we reached the field hospital, yes.’

‘You were uninjured?’

‘Minor stuff. Jake was between me and the bus.’

‘Then I’m guessing,’ she said gently, ‘that your nightmares will be worse than his.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘He’s your younger brother.’

‘By twenty minutes.’

‘You’ll still feel responsible.’

‘He’s okay.’ He flinched at the thought of where he might be now. Put it away, fast. ‘He has to be okay. But tell me about you. Why are you here?’

And the question was neatly turned. She had nowhere to go, he thought as he watched her face. He’d answered her questions. He’d let down his guard. Now he was demanding entry to places he instinctively knew she kept protected.

They were two of a kind, he thought, and how he knew it he couldn’t guess. But they kept their secrets well.

He was asking for hers.

‘I’m escaping from my family,’ she said, and she was silent for a while. ‘I’m escaping from my community as well.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Worse,’ she said. ‘Baby killer, that’s me.’

It was said lightly. It was said with all the pain in the world.

‘You want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘You expect me to stay in the same bed as a baby killer?’

She turned and stared and he met her gaze. Straight and true. If this woman was a baby killer he was King Kong.

He smiled and she tried to smile back. It didn’t come off.

‘I’ve exonerated you,’ he told her. ‘Found you innocent. Evidence? If you really were a baby killer you’d be on a more secure island. Alcatraz, for instance. Want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘I told you mine.’ He lifted the quilt so it reached her shoulders. ‘If you lie back, there are cushions. Very comfy cushions. You can stare into the dark and pretend I’m your therapist.’

‘I don’t need a therapist.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘You have nightmares.’

‘And you don’t?’ He put gentle pressure on her shoulder. She resisted for a moment. Heinz snuffled beside her. The wind raised its howl a notch.

She slumped back on the pillows and felt the fight go out of her.

‘Tell Dr Ben,’ Ben said.

‘Doctor?’

‘I’m playing psychoanalyst. I’ve failed the army. I’m a long way from the New York Stock Exchange. My yacht’s a hundred fathoms deep. A man has to have some sort of career. Shoot.’

‘Shoot?’

‘What would an analyst say? So, Ms Smash ’em Mary, you’re confessing to baby killing.’

And she smiled. He heard it and he almost whooped.

What was it about this woman that made it so important to make her smile?

Shoot, he’d said, and she did.

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