wasn’t his head holding enough mess already? The Iraq posting, then finding out about his wife and her physical attractions...
Ex-wife!
He shook his head to free it of the past and studied the animal as he approached, determined to take control of this situation.
Wasn’t that what ED specialists did?
‘I’m deepening the hole—not easy because the sand just washes back in with the next wave but I think if we persist we can do it,’ the woman, Izzy, said. ‘Do you mind wetting his eyes again?’
So much for taking charge!
But as the tide rose and the water in their porpoise paddling pool grew deeper, he forgot about messy heads and wars and women, determined now to get this creature back into the deeper water where it belonged. He dug until his arms ached, pushing the sleeping bag beneath the heavy body, reaching for Izzy’s fingers, grasping towards his from the other side.
By the time the water in the hole was knee deep they had their sleeping bag sling in place, each holding one side, lifting as the waves came in and easing the docile creature inch by inch into deeper water.
‘Look, he’s floating now,’ Izzy said, and Mac was surprised to realise the weight had gone from their sling.
‘You’re right,’ he said, feeling a surge of relief for the animal. ‘But just keep the bag underneath him. We need to roll him back and forth so he gets the feel of his body moving in the water. Well, I think that’s the idea. I just know when you catch, tag, and release a big fish, you have to ease it back and forth in the water until it swims away.’
He pushed at the huge body and Izzy pushed back, the pair of them moving into deeper and deeper water until, with a splash of his tail, the rescued animal took off, diving beneath the surface and appearing, after an anxious few minutes, further out to sea.
‘He’s gone! We did it—we did it!’ Izzy yelled, leaping towards Mac and hugging him so the sloppy, wet sleeping bag she was still holding wrapped around him like a straitjacket and he sank beneath the waves.
But once untangled and in shallower water, he returned the hug, the success of their endeavour breaking the reserve of strangers.
He was beginning to enjoy the armful of woman and wet sleeping bag when Izzy eased away, hauling the sleeping bag out of the water and attempting to fold it.
‘I don’t usually hug str—’ she began, then frowned as if something far more important had entered her head.
‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t come back,’ she said anxiously. ‘I hope the rest of the pod are somewhere out there looking for him and he can find them. Do you know that when a whole pod is beached, and rescued, they try to let them all go at once so they can look after each other?’
Well, that got us over the awkwardness of the ‘stranger hug’.
He’d have liked to reply, Not our problem, but now she’d mentioned it, he did feel a little anxious that the porpoise—their porpoise—would be all right.
Nonsense—he wasn’t even certain porpoises swam in pods, and probably neither was she. The job was done and he needed to resume his walk—without his sleeping bag and without drinking water.
Alone?
‘I don’t suppose you’d like to walk with me as far as Wetherby, or as far along the track as you’re going?’
She looked up at him and he noticed surprise in the gold-flecked eyes.
Noticed it because he’d felt it himself, even as he’d asked the question. Wasn’t he off women?
Taking a sabbatical from all the emotional demands of a male-female relationship?
Not that it mattered because she was already dismissing the idea.
‘Oh, no,’ she was saying—far too quickly, really. ‘I have to run. I’m just off nights and I’ve got to check my daughter’s ready for school on Monday and my sister’s up from Sydney for the weekend, and I think my brother might be in town—’
‘Okay, okay!’ he said, holding up his hands in surrender, then he smiled at the embarrassment in her face, and added, ‘Although in future you might like to remember something my mother once told me. Never give more than one excuse. More than one and it sounds as if you’re making them up on the spot.’
‘I was not! It’s all true.’
Indignation coloured her cheeks and she turned to go, before swinging back to face him.
‘There’s a fresh water tap just a few hundred metres along the track; you can refill your bottle there.’
After which she really did go, practically sprinting away from him along the track—
For about twenty paces.
‘Oh, the sleeping bag,’ she said, pointing to the wet, red lump on the beach. ‘You can’t carry it wet, so hang it on a tree. I’ll be back this way in a day or two and collect it so it’s not littering the track, and if you tell me where you’ll be staying I’ll get you a new one.’
Izzy was only too aware that most of her parting conversation with the stranger had been a blather of words that barely made sense, but she did need to get back, or at least away from this stranger so she could sort out just what it was about him that disturbed her.
Had to be more than blue eyes and a hunky body—had to be!
‘I won’t be needing the sleeping bag.’
The shouted words were cool, uninterested, so she muttered a heartfelt, ‘Good,’ and turned away again, breaking stride only to yell belated thanks over her shoulder. Duty done, she took off again at a fast jog, hoping she looked efficient and professional, instead of desperate to get away.
By the time she slowed to cool down before reaching the car park, she’d decided that the silly connection she’d felt towards the man had been nothing more than the combined effects of night duty and gratitude that there had been someone to help her with the porpoise.
Which, hopefully, would not re-beach himself the moment they were out of sight!
* * *
Mac resumed his walk with a lighter pack.
But vague dissatisfaction disturbed the pleasure he’d been experiencing for the past three weeks. Maybe because his solitude had been broken by his interaction with the woman, and it had been the solitude he’d prized most. It was something that had been hard to come by in the army, even when his regiment had returned from overseas missions and he’d been working in the barracks.
Strange that it had been the togetherness of army life, the company of other wives and somewhat forced camaraderie, that had appealed to Lauren—right up to his first posting overseas.
‘But you’re a doctor, not a soldier,’ she’d protested, although she’d seen other medical friends sent abroad. ‘What will happen to me if you die?’
He could probably have handled
