The Package Deal: Nine Months to Change His Life / From Neighbours...to Newlyweds? / The Bonus Mum. Jennifer Greene
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