style="font-size:15px;"> He could turn around and try and help.
Yeah, like he’d tried to help with Jess. Useless, useless, useless.
He’d given her money to survive. ‘Don’t waste it all,’ he found himself saying out loud, to no one, to the girl inside, to the bright Hawaiian sun. But it was a forlorn hope, as his hopes for Jessie had always been forlorn.
Enough. It was time to move forward. It was time to forget the waif-like beauty of the girl inside this nightmare of a place. It was time to accompany his brother’s body home for burial.
It was time to get on with the rest of his life.
CHAPTER ONE
SHE HAD THE best job in the world—except right now.
Dr Kelly Eveldene was the physician in charge of the International Surf Pro-Tour. For the last four years she’d been head of the medical team that travelled with the world’s top surfers. She was competent, she was popular, she understood the lingo, and she knew so many of the oldtimer surfers that the job suited her exactly.
There were a couple of downsides. This year the pro tournament had moved to Australia for the world championships. She wasn’t happy about coming to Australia, but Australia was big. The other Eveldenes lived in Sydney and the surf championship was to be held on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Her chances of running into...anybody were minuscule.
She’d done the research now. Henry Eveldene—her ex-father-in-law—was a business tycoon, rich beyond belief, and Eveldene was an uncommon name. Still, surely the presence in the country of a couple of inconspicuous people with similar names wouldn’t come to his attention.
Her other quibble was that Jess was competing this year, his first time out of juniors. He was seventeen years old, surf mad and as skilled as his father before him. She couldn’t hold him back and she didn’t want to try. Her son was awesome. But now, at this level, with the surf so big and Jess trying so hard, she had qualms.
She had qualms right now.
She was in the judging tent on the headland, as she always was during competition. There were paramedics on jet skis close to the beach, ready for anything that happened in the surf. In the event of an accident she’d be on the beach in seconds, ready to take charge as soon as casualties were brought in. If it looked like a head or spinal injury—and after long experience with the surf she could pretty much tell from seeing the impact what to expect—she’d be out there with the paramedics, organising spinal boards from the jet ski, binding open wounds so they didn’t bleed out in the water, even doing resuscitation if it was needed.
The job had its grim moments, but at this professional level she was seldom needed for high drama. What she dealt with mostly were cuts, bruises, rashes and sunburn, plus the chance to combine her medicine with the surfing she loved. It was a great job.
But now Jess was competing and her heart was in her mouth.
He had thirty minutes to show the judges what he could do. The first wave he’d caught had shown promise but had failed to deliver. It hadn’t given him a chance to show his skills. He’d be marked down and he knew it. He hit the shallows, flagged down an official jet ski and was towed straight out again.
Then there was an interminable ten minutes when the swell refused to co-operate, when nothing happened, when he lay on his board in the sun while the clock ticked down, down. Then, finally, magically, a long, low swell built from the north-east, building fast, and Kelly saw her son’s body tense in anticipation.
Please...
She should be impartial. She was an official, for heaven’s sake.
But she wasn’t impartial. She wasn’t a judge. For this moment she wasn’t even Dr Eveldene. She was Jessie’s mother and nothing else mattered.
He’d caught it. The wave was building behind him, swelling with a force that promised a long, cresting ride. The perfect wave? He rode to the lip and crested down, swooped, spun, climbed high again.
But...but...
There was another wave cresting in from the south-east. The surfers called this type of wave a rogue, a swell that cut across the magic wave that had seemed perfect for the best of the rides.
Jess wouldn’t be able to see it, Kelly thought in dismay, but maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe his wave would peak and subside before it was interfered with. And even the waves crashed together, surely he’d done enough now to progress through to the next stage.
But then...
Someone else was on the rogue wave.
The surf had been cleared for the competition. No one had the right to cut across a competitor’s wave. Only the competitors themselves were in the catching zone—everyone else was excluded. But a pod of enthusiastic juniors had set themselves up south of the exclusion zone, lying far out, hoping to get a better view of the surfer pros. This must be one of those kids, finding a huge swell behind him, unable to resist catching it, too much of a rookie—a grommet—to see that it would take him straight into a competition wave.
Uh-oh. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.
The judges were on their feet. ‘Swing off. Get off,’ the judge beside Kelly roared. His voice went straight into the loudspeaker and out over the beach but the surfers were too far out, too intent on their waves...
Jess was in the green room, the perfect turquoise curve of water. He’d be flying, Kelly knew, awed that he’d caught such a perfect wave at such a time, intent on showing every ounce of skill he possessed. He’d be totally unaware that right behind...
No. Not right behind. The waves thumped into each other with a mighty crest of white foam. The grommet’s surfboard flew as high as his leg rope allowed, straight up and then crashing down.
She couldn’t see Jess. She couldn’t see Jess.
That impact, at that speed...
‘Kelly, go,’ the judge beside her yelled, and she went, but not with professional speed. Faster.
This was no doctor heading out into the waves to see what two surfers had done to themselves.
This was Jessie’s mother and she was terrified.
* * *
‘Matt, you’re needed in Emergency, stat. Leg fracture, limited, intermittent blood supply. If we’re to save the leg we need to move fast.’
It was the end of a lazy Tuesday afternoon. Matt Eveldene, Gold Coast Central Hospital’s orthopaedic surgeon, had had an extraordinarily slack day. The weather was fabulous, the sea was glistening and some of the best surfers in the world were surfing their hearts out three blocks from the hospital.
Matt had strolled across to the esplanade at lunchtime. He’d watched for a little while, admiring their skill but wondering how many of these youngsters were putting their futures at risk while they pushed themselves to their limits. No one else seemed to be thinking that. They were all just entranced with the surfers.
Even his patients seemed to have put their ills on hold today. He’d done a full theatre list this morning,
