the boys, who were full of their gardening exploits, then said goodbye.
An emergency telephone would be kept fully charged, but it was not for idle chatter. Who knew when she might need it again?
* * *
Marty delivered his passengers to the hospital, following the stretcher with the burns victim into Emergency. He’d radioed ahead to make sure there was a senior doctor on duty, and was relieved to see Matt, another of the chopper pilots also there on standby.
‘I’ll do the major hospital run,’ he told Marty. ‘You’ve had enough fun for one day.’
As he’d spent hours this morning helping out with water bombing the fire, Marty knew his official flying hours were just about up. But his day was far from finished. He left the hospital, getting a cab back to the rescue service base where his pride and joy was kept—his own, smaller, private helicopter.
A quick but thorough check and he was in the air again, this time heading for the seaside town of Wetherby. The man he and all his foster siblings called Pop had levelled a safe landing area for him behind the old nunnery that had housed his foster family, and within ten minutes he was home.
Home. Funny word, that—four small letters but, oh, the massive meaning of it, the security it held, the memories...
Hallie was first out through the back garden to meet him, Pop emerging more slowly from his big shed. Both of them were older now, well into their seventies, but still fit and healthy, always ready with help or advice, or even just a cup of tea. They had been the first people in the world to offer him love—unconditional and all-encompassing love—and were still the most important people in his life.
He lifted Hallie in the air and swung her around, explaining as he swung that he couldn’t stay. He’d left a woman on Izzy’s porpoise beach and had to get her off while the tide was still high enough to take the jet ski in.
‘What jet ski?’ Hallie demanded. ‘You boys took all your fast, noisy toys when you left here.’
He grinned at her.
‘The jet skis at the surf club are bigger, stronger, and faster than any we ever had, poor orphans that we were!’ he said, unable to resist teasing her. ‘I’ve phoned a mate to have one fuelled up for me.’
‘You’re going around there on a jet ski in the middle of the night.’
He had to laugh.
‘Hallie, it’s barely seven o’clock. We’ll be back before you know it. I’ll take her straight to Izzy and Mac’s as she’ll need a shower and some dry clothes. Something of Nikki’s will probably fit her. There’s not much of her.’
‘Then bring her here for dinner when she’s dry,’ Hallie insisted, but he shook his head.
‘She has her own family to get back to,’ he said, ‘but we have to come back here to get the chopper so I’ll introduce you then.’
He turned to Pop.
‘Okay if I take your ute down to the club?’
‘Just don’t run into anything,’ Pop growled, and they all laughed as the ute was ancient and, having survived numerous teenagers learning to drive in it, was a mass of dents and scratches.
Down at the club, while his mate checked the fuel on the jet-ski, he called the emergency phone, and knew from Emma’s voice when she answered that he’d startled her.
‘It’s okay, it’s only me, Marty. I’m coming to get you and want you to stand in the middle of the beach and point the torch that’s in the emergency kit straight out to sea so I don’t run aground on the rocks.’
Silence on the other end told him she didn’t know what to make of these instructions, but the jet ski motor was on and he had to get going, this time while the tide was high, not low.
‘See you soon, don’t forget the light,’ he said, and disconnected.
Fortunately, the sea was calm, as it often was when a westerly had been blowing across the land. But his heart raced as he thought of the woman he’d left on the beach—standing there in the darkness, the world behind her ringed with fire. Surely she’d be...
Frightened?
The thought made him smile. He might not know Emma Crawford very well—not at all, in fact—but he doubted fear would be upmost in her mind.
Apprehension, yes, but fear?
He revved the engine, anxious to get to her—frightened or not, it must be an unnerving experience for her, especially on her first day at work!
* * *
Emma stared at the phone in her hand.
Had it really rung?
Was Marty serious about coming in by water to get her off the beach—what little of it was left?
Presumably...
She lifted the emergency backpack he’d left with her, took out the torch, and slipped the pack onto her shoulders. She then paced the beach and decided where the centre of it was, waded in knee deep then turned on the torch as instructed, pointing its beam out to sea.
She was just beginning to feel a little foolish when she heard the loud roar of an engine, definitely somewhere in the darkness of the ocean, then light appeared, at first shining across the width of the bay, the motor throttling back but still very loud in the otherwise silent night.
Now the light turned towards her and, as if drawn along the path of torchlight, a large jet ski rumbled her way, the noise cutting as it approached so it drifted right up to where she stood.
Marty was off in an instant.
‘On you hop,’ he said cheerfully, while she was still considering what seemed like a miracle night rescue.
‘Quickly—we need the tide high now,’ he added, holding the craft steady in the small waves while she clambered on board.
‘Now shove back to make room for me, then hang on tight,’ he said, and before she could say thank you, or marvel at the fact that he had come for her, he had the craft moving again and they were off, the roaring motor preventing even the most basic of conversations.
But she did hang on tight, very tightly indeed, for they were travelling at what seemed a ridiculous pace, bouncing over waves as they sped back to wherever he’d come from.
Wetherby?
The beach town she and the twins had visited last week?
Was that the closest place?
And was she thinking these thoughts to keep from considering the strange reaction she was experiencing with her arms around a man’s body, her breasts pressed against his back—the solidity of it, the different feel...
The maleness...
Not that she’d been clasping a woman’s back recently, but there was something decidedly odd going on within her body.
