Читать книгу The Package Deal - Marion Lennox - Страница 12
ОглавлениеTHE REAL WORLD broke in half an hour later.
Helicopters appeared in the distance, buzzing out over the islands but mostly out to sea.
‘The yacht race was a disaster,’ Ben said as they watched them. ‘That’s who they’ll be looking for. The race was full of idiots like us, in expensive boats but not enough skills to cope.’
‘How many sailors have the skills to cope with a cyclone?’
‘We could have done better. I never questioned the seaworthiness of the life raft. The salesman told me it was state of the art. I knew how to set it up but it never occurred to me that it was little more than a giant beach ball. I just hope other yachts had better equipment.’ He shaded his eyes, watching a couple of dots of helicopters flying out on the horizon. ‘If they’re still searching, I hope whoever they’re looking for had a better life raft than ours.’
‘They’re probably looking for you.’
‘Or Jake.’
‘Let’s face probabilities, shall we?’ she said astringently. ‘At last report, Jake was being winched to safety. You, on the other hand, were drifting in a beach ball. So they’re looking for you. Driftwood. Matches, fire, smoke. Stat. We need to get smoke up there fast before the weather closes in again.’
‘Is the weather closing in?’
‘Who knows? I hope someone, somewhere is working frantically to restore a transmission tower but nothing’s coming through on my radio. Or my phone.’ She flicked her cellphone out of her pocket. ‘Dead.’
‘Is it charged?’
‘You tell me to try turning it off and on again and I’ll tell you where to put it, tech-head.’ She tossed him the phone. ‘Here. You play with the on and off buttons, then make your way back to the cave at your leisure. I’m off to try a less tech-heavy form of communication.’
‘Mary...’
She’d started to turn away but she stopped and looked back at him. ‘Yes?’
‘Thank you,’ he said simply, and they were a mere two words but all the power in the universe was behind them. He looked at her, just looked. Their gazes held for a long, long moment, and in the end it seemed to tear something when she had to turn away.
‘My pleasure,’ she managed, but as she headed back to the cave she felt those stupid tears slipping down her face again.
What was wrong with her? Smash ’em Mary was turning into a wuss.
There was a part of Smash ’em Mary that didn’t even want the helicopter to come.
* * *
Only the helicopter did come. The fire took hold and she covered it with green leaves. Smoke billowed upwards, the chopper changed course and headed toward them.
Ben had made his way back by then, limping heavily, using his sticks for support. She should have moved slowly, staying to help him, but rescue had seemed more important.
Of course it was.
They stood in silence as the chopper approached. There seemed little to say, or maybe there was lots to say but neither of them could think what.
There was no way the chopper could land. The island was hilly, and the beach, normally a possible landing place, was a mess. The chopper came in low, assessing the situation, and then someone came down a rope.
A guy, Ben noted. Neither was it the chopper that had taken Jake away. Why not? His stomach clenched, thinking of the chopper in that wild weather. Surely if it had survived...
‘That’s called catastrophising,’ Mary said. ‘Stop it.’
‘How did you know...?’
‘Your face is like an open book. Just because this isn’t the chopper that took Jake, it doesn’t mean Jake’s at the bottom of the sea. I know you think New Zealand’s tiny compared to the US, but we do run to more than one helicopter.’
He managed a smile and then the guy on the rope landed near them, and she headed forward to help.
Ben stayed where he was. He’d pushed too hard. His leg seemed like it was at the end of its useful life. He’d never felt so useless.
Jake...
‘Take Ben first,’ Mary was saying.
He roused himself and thought, What?
‘She tells me you’re injured, sir,’ the paramedic said. ‘Do we need to splint your leg before we move you? Any other injuries?’
‘I don’t think he wants to be stretchered up,’ Mary said, and she was smiling.
He wasn’t smiling.
‘My brother...’ he said, and the paramedic’s face grew grim.
‘You’re one of the race crew?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re very pleased to see you,’ he said. ‘There are still crew members missing.’ He turned to Mary, obviously forming a question, but she answered before he could ask.
‘I’ve searched the beach and found no one.’
‘Could someone have made their way inland?’
‘If they were capable of getting inland they’d have found the remains of the hut. It’s the obvious high point.’
‘It’s probably worth sending a team over to look more thoroughly,’ the guy said, ‘if this one’s washed up.
This one. This victim.
Ben was going out of his mind.
‘Do you know if my brother’s safe?’ he demanded. ‘Jake Logan. He was pulled up on a chopper before the cyclone hit.’
‘That’ll have been a New Zealand crew,’ the guy told him. ‘We’re Australian. I don’t know who they did and didn’t pull off.’
‘The choppers are all safe?’
‘I don’t know that either,’ he said apologetically. ‘This is our first run. Please, our time’s short.’
He didn’t need to say more. Others were missing. He had to get back in the air.
‘Put the harness on,’ Mary said, and something inside him snapped.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You go first and that’s an order. I’ll grab your manuscript and follow.’
‘It’s not important.’
‘It is. Go!’
‘Blimey,’ the guy said, obviously astounded at the vehemence behind his words. ‘Women and children first? The island’s not sinking, mate.’
It wasn’t, but the memory of Jake was all around him. He didn’t know where Jake was. He wanted Mary safe.’
‘You go first and I’ll bring Heinz and the manuscript up with me,’ he told Mary, and Mary looked at him as if he was out of his mind.
‘You’re the one with the bang on his head and the gammy leg. You’re planning on holding my dog and my book while you air-swing? In your dreams, mister.’
The chopper guy sighed. ‘Quiet dog?’
‘He’s eaten so many dead fish this morning he won’t raise a wriggle,’ Mary told him. ‘But I wouldn’t squeeze him.’
The guy grinned. ‘Name?’
‘Heinz.’
‘I might have known. Okay, boys and girls, I’m taking the dog up while you sort the remaining order between you. No domestics while I’m away. Sheesh, the stuff we heroes have to put up with. Heinz, come with me while Mummy and Daddy sort out their rescue priorities.’
* * *
She went first, clutching the battered quilt. ‘Because Barbara will forgive me everything but losing this.’
He came after, with her manuscript. He’d spent time in choppers in Afghanistan. He didn’t like the memories.
He was hauled into the chopper and Mary was belted onto the bench. She was holding Heinz as if she needed him for comfort. She looked somehow... diminished?
Lost.
She’d come to the island to escape, he remembered. Now she was going home.
He sat beside her but she wouldn’t look at him. She buried her face in Heinz’s rough coat and he thought suddenly of the streams of refugees he’d seen leaving war zones.
Surely that was a dumb comparison—but the feeling was the same.
He touched her shoulder but she pulled away.
‘Um, no,’ she said, and she straightened and met his gaze full on. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said softly. ‘But I’m on my own now.’
‘You’re not on your own.’
‘This was a fairly dramatic time out,’ she said. ‘But it was just that. Time out. Now we both have stuff we need to face.’ She shook herself then, and Smash ’em Mary took over. He saw the set of her chin, the flash of determination, the armour rebuilding. ‘What I’m facing is nothing compared to you, but Jake will be okay. I’m sure of it.’
He had no room to respond.
In any other situation he would have...
Would have what? He didn’t know.
For suddenly he was there again, in Afghanistan, watching a bloodied Jake being loaded onto the stretcher, knowing he couldn’t go with the ambulance, knowing Jake’s fate was out of his hands.
Loving brought gut-wrenching pain.
When he was fourteen years old his mother had suicided. That day was etched into his mind so deeply he could never get rid of it.
Pain.
And here was this woman, sitting beside him, hurting herself. He’d forgotten his pain in her body. He’d used her.
He could love her.
Yeah, and expose him—and her—to more of the same? If he did...if he hurt her...
He hadn’t been able to stop his mother’s suicide. The emotional responsibility was too great.
Where was this going? He didn’t have a clue. He only knew that he withdrew his hand from her shoulder, and when she inched slightly away he didn’t stop her.
It was better to withdraw now. Kinder for both of them. He had relationships back in the US, of course he did, but the women he dated were strong, independent, never needy. They used him as an accessory and that was the way he liked it.
He never wanted a woman to need him.
‘We’re heading to Paihia,’ the voice of the chopper pilot told them through their headphones. ‘From there we’ll have people help you, check you medically, find you somewhere to go.’
Mary nodded, a brisk little nod that told him more than anything else that she had herself contained again. She wasn’t as strong as she made out, though, he thought. Strong, independent woman? Not so much.
It didn’t matter, they were moving on.
It was what they both needed to do.
* * *
Paihia. A massive army clearing tent. People with clipboards, emergency personnel everywhere, reminding them both that they were bit-part players in a very big drama.
‘Ben’s hurt,’ Mary managed, as a woman wearing medic insignia on her uniform met them off the chopper. ‘I’m a nurse. He had a dislocated knee that I managed to put back in but it needs checking for possible fractures. He also had a bang on the head. I’ve pulled the cut together with steri-strips but it probably needs stitches.’
‘We’ll take it from here,’ the medic said. ‘And you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Can you come this way, sir? Would you like a wheelchair?’
‘I don’t need help,’ he growled. ‘I need to find my brother.’
‘Your brother is?’
‘Jake Logan. One of the yachties.’
‘You’re part of the round-the-world challenge?’ Her face cleared. ‘Thank God for that. They’ve lost so many, the organisers are frantic.’
That was a statement to make him feel better. Not.
‘Jake...’ he managed.
‘The organisers have evacuated all survivors to Auckland,’ she said. ‘I don’t have names.’ She hesitated. ‘We’re sending a chopper with a couple of patients needing surgery in about ten minutes. If you let me do a fast check on your leg and head first, I can get you on that chopper.’
He turned and Mary was watching, still with that grave, contained face. The face that said she was moving on.
‘Go, Ben,’ she said. ‘And good luck.’
‘Where can I find you?’
‘Sir...’ the woman said.
The chopper was waiting.
‘I need an address,’ he told Mary. ‘Now!’
‘Email me if you like. I’m MaryHammond400 at xmail dot com.’
‘MaryHammond400?’
‘There’s so many of us I got desperate.’
‘There’s only one of you.’
She smiled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so but there are millions of Marys in the world. Good luck with everything, Ben. Email me to let me know Jake’s safe.’
‘I will. And, Mary—’
‘Just go.’
‘Give me the quilt,’ he told her, and she blinked, and he thought bringing the quilt into the equation, a touch of practicality, threw her.
‘You want it for a keepsake? You can’t have it.’
‘I’ll have it restored for Barbara and send it back to you,’ he told her. ‘And I don’t need keepsakes. Thank you, Mary 400. Smash ’em Mary. Mary in a million. I don’t need keepsakes because I’ll remember these last few days forever.’
* * *
She watched the chopper until it was out of sight. She hugged Heinz. She felt...weird.
She should feel gutted, she told herself. She felt like the man of her dreams was flying out of her life forever.
Only he wasn’t. She even managed a wry smile. He’d been a dream, she decided, a break from the nightmare of the past. She was glad she’d made love with him. Abandoning herself in his body, she’d felt as if she’d shed a skin.
Was she now Mary 401?
‘What can we do for you, Miss Hammond?’ Another official with a clipboard was approaching, bustling and businesslike. ‘Your American friends who own the island are frantic. We’ve fielded half a dozen calls. Would you like to ring and reassure them?’
‘I’ll do that,’ she said, still feeling weird. ‘I’ll tell them their quilt’s safe.’
‘Is there someone else we can contact? You live in Taikohe. Can someone collect you?’
‘Are the normal buses running?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then I’ll take a bus.’
‘I’m sure we can arrange someone to drive you. We have volunteers eager to help.’
‘Thank you but no.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I need to put this behind me. Somehow life needs to get back to normal.’
