of the parents are at the school,’ the bus driver told him. ‘I’ll take this lot there, then come back.’
Marty nodded, hoping he hadn’t misjudged the tide and that he would be bringing back the other children, the teacher and the unknown Emma Crawford.
As yet unknown? he wondered, then shook his head. Hospital staff were off limits as far as he was concerned.
Besides which, she was short and dark-haired, not tall and blonde like most of his women.
Most of his women! That sounded—what? Izzy would say conceited—as if he thought himself a great Lothario who could have whatever woman he liked, but it really wasn’t like that. He just enjoyed the company of women, enjoyed how they thought, and, to be honest, how they felt in his arms, although many of his relationships had never developed to sexual intimacy.
What colour were her eyes?
Not Izzy’s eyes, obviously, but the short, dark-haired woman’s eyes—the short, dark-haired woman who wasn’t at all his type.
The switch in his thoughts from sexual intimacy to the colour of Emma Crawford’s eyes startled him as he flew back towards the beach.
Meanwhile, the woman who wasn’t at all his type was attempting to calm the children left on the beach. Three were in tears, one was refusing to go in the helicopter, and the others were upset about not being in the first lift. The teacher was doing her best, but they were upsetting each other, vying to see who could be the most hysterical.
‘Come on,’ Emma said, gathering one of the most distressed, a large boy with Down’s syndrome, by the hand, ‘let’s go and jump the little waves as they come up the beach.’
Without waiting for a response, she steered the still-sobbing child towards the water’s edge, and began to jump the waves herself. A few others followed and once they were jumping, the one who still clung to Emma’s hand joined in, eventually freeing her hand and going further into the water to jump bigger waves.
‘Now they’ll probably all compete to go the deepest and we’ll be saving them from drowning,’ Emma said wryly to the teacher, who had joined her at the edge of the water.
‘At least they’ve stopped the hysteria nonsense,’ the teacher said. ‘They work each other up and really...’ She hesitated before admitting, ‘I was shaken by it all myself, so couldn’t calm them down all that well.’
‘No worries,’ Emma told her. ‘They’re all happy now.’
Which was precisely when one of them started to scream and soon the whole lot were screaming.
And pointing.
Emma turned to see a man race down the beach and dive into the water, her fleeting impression one of blackness.
‘He was on fire,’ one of the children said, as they left the water and clustered around their teacher, too diverted by the man to be bothered with screams any more.
Emma waded in to where the man was squatting in the water, letting waves wash over his head, her head buzzing with questions. How cold was the water? How severe his burns? Think shock, she told herself. And covering them...
‘Can you talk to me?’ she asked, and he looked blankly at her.
Shock already?
‘I’m a doctor, I’d like to look at your burns. I’ve got pain relief in my bag on the beach.’
She touched his arm and beckoned towards the beach but he shook his head and ducked under the water again.
Time to take stock.
He was young, possibly in his twenties, and very fair. His hair was cut short, singed on one side and blackened on the other. The skin on his face on the singed side was also reddened, but not worse, Emma decided, than a bad sunburn.
If the rest of his body was only lightly burned then maybe waiting in the water for the helicopter was the best thing for him. She tried to see what she could of his clothes—now mostly burnt tatters of cloth. At least in the water they’d have lost any heat they’d held and not be worsening his injuries.
But shock remained an issue...
‘Can I do anything?’ the teacher called from the beach.
‘If you’ve got towels you could spread a couple on the beach—just shake any sand off them first.’
Not that shaking would remove all the sand, but if she could get him out, lay him down and cover him loosely with more towels, she could take a better look at him and position him to help with possible shock.
The low rumble of the helicopter returning made them all look upward, and Emma was pleased to see the children running back to the rocks.
Pleased to think she could avoid the difficulty of examining him here on the beach, she was also relieved to have help getting the man out of the water.
‘Rescue helicopter,’ she told him, hoping the words might mean something. ‘It will fly you to hospital.’
This time she got a nod, but as she reached out to take his arm and help him to stand upright, he pulled back again.
She didn’t argue—he was probably better staying where he was rather than risk getting sand on his burnt skin.
Marty saw the two heads bobbing in the water below him and wondered what was happening. At least the kids were all over in the rocks.
He hovered for a minute before touching down, checking the seemingly minute area of sand that was still above the incoming tide. It would have to be a really quick in and out.
As soon as he jumped down, the children hurtled towards him, all talking at once. Jumping waves, man on fire, doctor might drown...
He thought the last unlikely but had pieced together the information by the time the teacher arrived to explain.
‘He won’t come out,’ the teacher told him. ‘And every time Emma tries to take his arm, he dives away from her. He might be a foreign backpacker and not understand she’s trying to help him.’
Marty nodded.
Most of the backpackers roaming Australia had some knowledge of English, but the shock of being caught in the fire could have been enough for this poor bloke to lose it. He pulled a couple of space blankets out of the helicopter and gave them to the teacher to hold.
He turned to the kids.
‘Now, all of you sit down on the sand, and the one sitting the stillest gets to fly up front with me, okay?’
The children dropped as if they’d been shot and although Marty doubted they’d stay still long, it should be long enough to get Emma and the man out of the water.
And work out what he was going to do next.
Maybe the man was very small...
Emma had apparently finally persuaded her patient to move towards the shore so Marty had only to go into knee-deep water to reach the six-foot-plus
