Fired Waitress, Hired Mistress. Robyn Grady
out of this and get back home to see them all again.
Another wave smashed on the sand. Frothy scallops swirled up, and this time Nina barely held her chin above water. Jill had always said her sister’s one big flaw was her reluctance to accept help. Nina only wished Jill were here now. She wouldn’t merely accept help, she’d happily beg. That roller about to break looked big enough to drown.
Assessing the dense grey-green foliage behind her, she waited for the cackle of a kookaburra to fade. Then she filled her lungs and, giving it her all, cried out—
“Heeeelp! Can anyone hear me? I need help!”
Long before Gabriel Steele heard the distant cry for help, he was hyper-aware of three things.
A: the thousand branches lashing at his flesh as he tore down the slope hurt like a bitch.
B: his new track shoes were worth their weight in gold.
C: he was running out of time.
His heart belting against his ribs, Gabriel kept his eye on each footfall as he rushed to negotiate the rugged decline. Fast was good. Reaching the bottom in one piece was better. He’d be as useful to that woman as a tiger with no teeth if he broke his leg—or his neck.
And why, in high heaven, had she wandered so far from the resort complex anyway?
Standing atop that cliff earlier, contemplating its drop and the danger, he’d seen her advance along the beach—had watched, unconcerned initially, when she’d skipped across that log. As if the wood were paper, her foot had plunged straight through. She’d toppled back, and when her head had hit that rock he’d felt the thwack to his bones.
Out cold.
And, because things could always get worse, the tide was pushing in.
He could boast better than twenty-twenty, but a blind man could see the situation looked grim.
Now, with shirt-tails flapping behind him, Gabriel bounced down the same steep track he’d climbed half an hour earlier. So much for stealing time to face a challenge that, for once, had nothing to do with corporate tax law.
In truth, he loathed taking time out from his position as director of Steele Chartered Accountants. During his decade-long rise up the corporate ladder he’d accrued a sizeable fortune, but he still had a way to go before his personal worth equalled that of his more affluent clients. He’d worked too damn hard to slack off now—particularly after breaking a cardinal rule.
Never over-extend.
Four weeks ago he’d taken a huge gamble, investing nearly all his equity in a venture he felt to his bones would pay off. The business’s solvency had dropped close to bankruptcy, but if he made every move the right one he knew he could not only turn the entity around, he would also make it the envy of every tycoon in Australasia.
Now was “make or break” time. There was zero room for sentimentality. Less room for weak links.
“Help. Pleeease. Help!”
Brought back, Gabriel upped his pace. When a surprise branch whipped his forehead, his roar of a curse rattled the treetops. Once he’d shaken off the stars, he pushed all the harder. He had to reach that woman in time. He’d do the same for anyone.
Wished he could have done the same—
He tamped down futile memories to concentrate on his task, on that woman…and on the not unpleasant sensation that had curled in his stomach as he’d watched her from his vantage point earlier.
She seemed somehow familiar, her hair a caramel-gold waterfall pouring down her back, her legs endless, shapely and tanned. Stooping to collect a shell here and there, she’d conveyed a grace that only fine breeding could assure.
And yet her cut-offs were ragged around her firm thighs, and her feet were bare. No Manolo Blahnik flats in sight. Not that those legs needed expensive accessories. He could have watched her toned calves flex all day as she’d sifted through the powder-fine sand and—
A boulder sprang up out of nowhere. Gabriel hurdled and landed safely at the same time as a notion struck.
That was why she seemed so familiar. Watching her in those cut-offs had reminded him of a long-ago childhood vacation by the sea, when he’d gone barefoot twenty-four-seven and his fishing rod hadn’t left his hand. Aunt Faith had been a gem, providing her studious nephew with plenty to eat and lashings of love. Despite the tragic circumstances surrounding his mother’s disappearance, from the age of four Gabriel had enjoyed a well-rounded, relatively hassle-free upbringing.
Then his best friend had died.
At last Gabriel tore through the last layer of brush and burst into the light. His lungs burning from lack of air, his body lathered in sweat, he spotted the woman twenty metres away. He dug deep to mine what remained of his strength, then sprinted as the spill from a colossal wave consumed her.
His gaze held the circling froth where she’d disappeared until, plunging into the wet cool, he found her and urged her head clear of the torrent. As her arms shot out, and she gasped and coughed, he summed up the dire situation. Her ankle was locked at an ugly angle. No telling if bones had been broken.
One arm supporting her shoulders, he cleaned the filigree of clinging hair from her face as she struggled to take in air. If he’d had time to dwell he’d have said she was beautiful, in a bedraggled, drenched kitten kind of way.
“Can you hear me?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
She grasped the top of her leg and found a grateful smile. “I am now. I’m just a little—” She flinched. “A little in pain.”
As the wave sucked back out he laid her down, then manipulated his fingers between her ankle and the wood. It seemed her foot had slipped through a knot; sadly, the surrounding shell felt tough as nails. She wouldn’t have been able to budge it even if she’d had the strength to try.
After a couple of tugs, attempting to weaken the wood, he was quietly worried. He inhaled, rallied determination, and gave another, more serious wrench. A small piece broke off, then a bit more. No screams of pain; she gave little more than a thankful shudder as he freed her foot a second before water swept up and their world became a muted, cold-rush blur.
Fully submerged, holding his breath, he relied on his sense of touch to scoop the woman up and heave them both clear of the churning pool. He trudged well out of tide range and, on a sparsely grassed knoll, laid her down. Any minute the steady pump of adrenaline would give way to the burn of muscle fatigue, but for now he’d keep moving.
How bad were her injuries?
As she worked to catch her breath, Gabriel knelt close and collected her ankle. No compound fractures. When he rode two fingers over the arch of her foot, her peach-polished toes flexed up. Cupping her heel with one hand, his other palm resting on her shin, he applied a token amount of pressure to test the ligament. When she didn’t complain, he applied a bit more. She cringed, but didn’t cry out.
Brave girl.
There were nasty scratches and welts that would ripen to bruises. She’d need an X-ray, and a day or two of rest, but—fingers crossed—in a month or so her ankle would look as good as new.
Searching for other wounds, his gaze travelled the length of her leg, and higher. But at a tug low in his gut—a kick of kindling heat—he averted his eyes and cleared his throat. Inviting as she looked—wet tee-shirt moulding to the swell of her breasts, nipples puckered beneath transparent white interlock—this was so not the time.
He swept sand into a slanting step with one hand and then, to help with the swelling, set her foot upon the “pillow.” Finally falling back on his rump, he laid one forearm on a raised knee, dragged down a settling breath, then blew it out in a rush. His heart was chugging like a steam train. He hadn’t felt this juiced in years—not since torturing himself competing in triathlons in his late teens. Great for building