of the space was taken up with an ancient-looking couch and an armchair, positioned in front of an open fireplace. Two doorless openings in the walls on either side of the fireplace led to dark spaces beyond. The bedrooms?
‘Don’t just stand there.’ The authority in her voice made Jake feel like he was back at school. Or under the charge of one of the many nannies the Logan boys had terrorised. Incredibly, he had to hide a wry smile. No woman had ever spoken to him like this in his adult life. And then he remembered being shouted at on the beach. Being told that no one would be going back to rescue his brother.
What did it matter whether Ellie knew who he was? Or what she thought of him?
Nothing would ever matter if he’d lost Ben.
Ellie was opening a cupboard in the kitchen. She pulled out a big tin. ‘Do something useful. You’ll get even colder if you don’t move. You can get some wood in from the porch.’ She prised open the lid of the tin. ‘Yes...we have matches.’
A fire. Warmth. This basic survival need drove any other thoughts from Jake’s head as he obeyed the order. He took an armful of small sticks in first to act as kindling and then went back for the more solid lumps of wood. His brain felt as frozen as his fingers. Worry about Ben was still there along with the anger of no attempt being made to rescue him, but he couldn’t even harness the energy of that anger to help him move faster. And then something scuttled away as he lifted a piece of wood. Did New Zealand have poisonous spiders, like Australia did? Or snakes?
Man, he was going to have some story to tell Ben when he saw him again.
If he saw him again.
There was a puddle of water on the floor where Ellie was crouching to light the fire and he could see how badly her hands were shaking, but she’d managed to arrange small sticks on a nest of paper and while the first two matches spluttered and died, the third grew into a small flame.
She looked up as he walked towards her with the wood. He saw the way her eyes widened with shock.
‘You’re limping.’ Her tone was accusing. ‘You’re hurt. And I let you carry me all that way. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m not hurt.’ He dumped the wood on the floor beside her. His old injury was hardly a state secret, but it wasn’t something he mentioned if he could avoid it.
‘I’m a paramedic, Jake. I’ve got eyes. I can see—’
‘Drop it,’ he growled. ‘I told you. I haven’t been injured. Not in the last ten years anyway.’
‘Oh...’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Maybe she was attempting a smile. ‘Old war wound, huh?’
He glared at her. ‘First time anyone’s found it funny.’
Her face changed. Was she embarrassed? Not that she was about to apologise. There was an awkward silence as she turned her attention back to the fire and then she must have decided that it was best ignored.
* * *
‘Some rats or mice had shredded the paper for me,’ Ellie said. ‘Good thing, too, because my fingers are still too cold to work properly.’ Her tone was deliberately lighter. Impersonal, even. ‘Don’t think we’ll use the beds, but the blankets might be okay.’
The wood sizzled a little, but the flame was still growing. The glow caught Ellie’s face as she leaned in to blow gently on the fire. Water dripped from her long braid to add to the puddle at her feet. Smoke puffed out and made her cough.
‘There could well be a bird’s nest or two in the chimney, but they should burn away soon. We’ll get the potbelly going, too, if we can, and that should get things toasty in no time.’
Jake had to forgive the dismissal of his old injury as some kind of joke. She didn’t know the truth and, if he wasn’t prepared to enlighten her, it would be unfair to hold a grudge. And he had to admire her. She was capable, this Eleanor Sutton, but that was hardly surprising given what she did for a job. Jake was given the task of feeding larger sticks into the fire as it grew while Ellie limped over to the kitchen to get the stove going. His hands began aching unbearably as heat finally penetrated the frozen layer of skin and, when he looked up, he saw Ellie’s pained expression as she shook her hands.
‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s good. Means there’s some circulation happening and nerves are waking up.’ She nodded in satisfaction at the fire Jake was tending. ‘I’ll see if I can find us some dry clothes. My dad kept a trunk of stuff under the bed and it’s a tin trunk so it should have kept the rats out.’
‘Do you get snakes, too?’
‘No snakes in New Zealand. Have you never been here before?’
‘No.’
‘I guess you were just passing by with the yacht race. Wasn’t there a stop planned in Auckland?’
‘Yeah. I was getting off then. I’m here for a job. That was why I talked Ben into giving me a lift on his yacht.’
‘Ben? That’s your friend who was on the life raft with you?’
‘He’s my brother. Twin brother.’
‘Oh...’
The enormity of having to leave Ben behind and not trying to go back and get him was clearly registering.
‘I...I’m sorry, Jake.’
‘Yeah... Me, too.’
‘It was a good life raft. There’s still hope that he’ll make it.’
Jake found himself staring at Ellie. It felt very odd—his gaze clinging to hers like this. As if he was pleading...
Desperately wanting to believe.
Begging her to prove herself trustworthy?
She was in the business of rescuing people who found themselves in dire situations so she should know what she was talking about.
‘We weren’t the only rescue team out there,’ she told him quietly. ‘There were other choppers. Planes. And there’s other boats. Container ships as well as the coastguard. There’s plenty of daylight left and...’
There was such compassion in her eyes and her body language. The way she was leaning towards him. Holding out one hand. If she’d been close enough, she’d be touching him right now.
He wished she was that close.
‘And there are literally hundreds of islands on this part of the coastline. All it needs is for a current to get him close to land and he’ll be able to find shelter until the worst of the storm is over.’
Maybe it was the compassion he could see that did it. Or the comfort of the reassurance she was offering. Or maybe it was because of that longing that she had been close enough to underpin her words with human touch.
Whatever it was, Jake could pull back. Yes, she was offering him what he wanted more than anything in this moment. And the invitation to believe her was so sincere,
