Authors: Meredith Webber,Alison Roberts
‘That I can’t dance with you,’ he said, his words as cross as his first statement had been.
‘Then it’s just as well I’m not your mother or your wife,’ Grace retorted, unable to keep up the ‘friends’ pretence another second. ‘Because if I was, you’d be expected to dance with me.’
She tried to turn away but the greenery defeated her—the greenery and Harry’s hand on her shoulder.
‘I shouldn’t have said that to you,’ he said, tightening his grip when she tried to shrug it off. ‘I’m sorry.’
Grace looked at him for a long moment. The flush
had faded, leaving his face pale and so tired-looking she had to sternly stem the flash of sympathy she felt towards him.
‘No,’ she told him, knowing this was the perfect time to begin to distance herself from Harry. ‘I think it needed to be said. You were right, it’s not my place to tell you what to do or what not to do. I overstepped the boundaries of friendship but it won’t happen again, I promise you.’
Harry stared at her, totally befuddled by what had just occurred. Hadn’t he apologised? Said what had to be said to make things right again between himself and Grace? So why was she rejecting his apology? Or, if not rejecting it, turning things so it had been her fault, not his?
He opened him mouth but what could he say?
Please, keep telling me stuff like that? Please, stay concerned for me?
Ridiculous!
He should let it go—walk away—and hope everything would come right between them in time.
Hope they could go back to being friends.
But if he walked away she’d dance with someone else, and seeing Grace in that Italian doctor’s arms, laughing up at some funny thing he’d said, had made Harry’s gut churn.
‘I can shuffle if you don’t mind a shuffling kind of dance,’ he heard himself say, and saw astonishment similar to what he was feeling reflected on Grace’s face.
Her ‘OK’ wasn’t overwhelmingly enthusiastic, but he was happy to settle for even grudging acceptance.
He put his arms around her, tucked her body close to his, and felt her curls tickle the skin beneath his chin.
Grace knew this wouldn’t do much for her distancing-Harry plans, but surely a woman was allowed a little bit of bliss. She slid into his arms and put her arms around his back—allowable, she was sure, because it was going to be a shuffling kind of dance.
You are stupid, the sensible voice in her head muttered at her.
It’s just pretence, she told her head. Everything else seemed to be about pretence these days so why not pretend, just for a short while, that they were a couple? After all, she could go back to distancing tomorrow.
It was heaven.
The band was playing a slow waltz, or maybe a slow two-step. Dancing was something she did naturally but had little knowledge about, and she and Harry were at the edge of the dance floor, barely moving to the music, content, as far as Grace was concerned, just to be in each other’s arms.
What Harry was thinking was a mystery but, then, Harry in a social setting—apart from coffee at the pub—was something of a mystery as well.
No matter—he had his arms around her and that was enough.
Well, nearly enough. Outside the wind had gathered strength again and rain lashed the garden beyond the restaurant and flung itself against the windows. It was definitely ‘snuggling closer’ weather. If she moved just slightly she could rest her head against his chest, and for a little while she could dream.
Later, she couldn’t remember whether she’d actually
made this daring move or not, but what she did remember was that the lights went out, then Harry spun her around, into even denser blackness in a corner of the restaurant.
And bent his head.
And kissed her.
Harry kissed her …
Folded in his arms, her curls tickling at his chin, Harry had ignored the cleavage as much as possible as he’d shuffled back and forth with this different Grace on the corner of the dance floor. But when the lights went out, he lost the slim reins of control he’d been clinging to and whisked her into the shadows of one of the palms that dotted the restaurant.
He bent his head, and kissed her, curls first, then her forehead, finding the salt of perspiration on her skin and a sweetness he knew by instinct was pure Grace.
His lips moved to her temples, felt the throb of a vein, then claimed her mouth, more sweetness, but this time mingled with heat as Grace responded with a fire that lit his own smouldering desire, so need and hunger fought common sense and a determination to not get involved.
A losing battle—as useless as trying to stop the wind that now raged again outside—as useless as trying to stop a cyclone …
He clamped Grace’s curvy body hard against his leanness, and drank in the taste of her as his mouth explored and challenged hers. She met his challenge and responded with her own, so he was lost in the wonder and sweetness and fire that was this new Grace.
Gripped in the toils of physical attraction, a voice whispered in his head, but he ignored it and kept kissing the woman in his arms.
Lamplight. Flickering candles. Maybe the voice wasn’t in his head. Someone was calling his name.
Urgently.
‘Harry Blake.’
C
HARLES
W
ETHERBY
, the wheelchair-bound head of the hospital, was illuminated by candelabrum, held aloft by a young policeman, Troy Newton, the newest member of Harry’s staff.
‘Charles?’
Harry eased Grace gently away, tucking her, he hoped, into deeper shadows, and took the two long strides needed to bring him close to Charles.
‘Bus accident up on the mountain road—road’s subsided and the bus has slid down the mountain. Dan Macker called it in.’
‘Do we know exactly where, and who’s on the way?’ Harry asked, looking towards the windows and knowing there was no way the rescue helicopter, based at the hospital, could fly in this wind.
‘Where? This side of Dan’s place. He saw the bus go past, then later heard a noise, and when he investigated he saw the landslide. Who’s on the way? The fire truck, two ambulances each with two crew and the hospital’s four-wheel-drive is on its way here to pick up whatever hospital staff you think you might need on
site. Have you seen Grace? If we’ve got to set up a triage post and then get people off the side of the mountain, we’ll probably need an SES crew up there as well—she can organise that.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ Harry said, ‘and head out there myself.’
Charles made an announcement aimed mainly at the hospital staff, telling them the hospital would go to the code black disaster plan, then Harry spoke, reminding people who would be taking part in the rescue on the mountain that there were open diggings and mine shafts on the slopes, legacy of the gold rush that had led to the birth of the township that had become Crocodile Creek.
He looked around the room, wondering who he’d take, picking out hospital staff he knew were fit and active, telling them to take the hospital vehicle while he’d check on his other staff and be right behind them.
He turned back towards the shadows but Grace had gone, no doubt because she’d heard the news. More candles had been lit, but it was impossible to pick her out in the milling crowd. Joe touched his arm.
‘You go, I’ll organise a lift back to the cottage for Grace and Christina then go up to the hospital to see if I can help.’
Harry nodded to Joe but his eyes still searched for Grace, although common sense told him she’d be in a corner somewhere, on her mobile, starting a phone relay to gather a crew at SES headquarters in the shortest possible time. Then she’d head to the headquarters herself to organise the equipment they’d need.
As he left the restaurant, striding towards his vehicle, that thought brought with it a sense of relief he didn’t quite understand. Was it tied up with the fact that Grace
was safer at headquarters, organising things, than on the side of a slippery mountain riddled with old mineshafts, fighting cyclonic winds in pitch darkness?
Surely not!
Although, as a friend, he was entitled to feel some concern for her safety, so it had nothing to do with the aberration in his feelings towards her—which was purely physical.
The wind was now so strong he had to struggle to open the car door—memories of a soft body held against his chest …
Get your mind focussed on the job!
He started the car and turned out of the car park, concentrating on driving through the lashing wind and rain.
Ignoring the physical aberration?
That was the voice in his head again.
Of course he was ignoring it. What else could he do? Physical attraction had led him into a terrible mistake once before and had caused pain and unhappiness, not only to himself but to Nikki as well. It had flung him into an emotional swamp so deep and damaging he’d blocked emotion out of his life ever since.
So there was no way he could allow whatever physical attraction he might be feeling towards her to touch his friendship with Grace.
If he still had a friendship with Grace. Her words before the dance had indicated she was backing away from whatever it was they’d had.
Yet she’d kissed him back—he was sure of that.
He’d have to put it aside—forget about the kiss and definitely forget about the lust he’d felt towards his friend.
Determinedly setting these thoughts aside, Harry
drove cautiously down towards the town, automatically noting the level of the water beneath the bridge, forcing himself to think rescue not Grace.
He had to go, of course he did, Grace told herself as she watched Harry leave. She was on the phone to Paul Gibson, still the nominal head of the local SES, although since he’d been undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, Grace, as senior team leader, had taken over a lot of his responsibilities. But Paul’s knowledge and experience were still invaluable, so Grace forgot about Harry and listened, mentally repeating all Paul had said so she’d remember.
Rolls of netting—she’d seen them in the big shed and often wondered about them—were useful in landslides. You could anchor them on the level ground and unroll them down the slope to make it easier for rescuers to clamber up and down.
‘Belongings,’ Paul continued. ‘Gather up what you can of people’s belongings. They’re going to be disoriented enough, ending up in a strange hospital—if we can return things to them, it helps. And remember to search for a hundred yards all around the bus—people can wander off. As soon as my wife gets back from checking on the family, I’ll get her to drive me up to Headquarters. I mightn’t be much use out in the field, but I’ll handle the radio calls and relays up there, which will leave you free to be out in the field.’
Through the window Grace saw Harry’s big vehicle leave the car park.
‘Thanks, Paul,’ she said, staring out the window at the vehicle, hope sneaking in where wonder and amazement had been.
Harry had kissed her.
Surely he wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t interested in her?
The sneaky scrap of hope swelled like a balloon to fill her chest.
Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to get over Harry after all.
Or was she being stupid? The way she’d been with James? Thinking flowers and dinners out and a physical relationship meant love?
Not that she’d had any of that with Harry. Only one interrupted kiss.
The balloon deflated as fast as it had filled, leaving her feeling empty and flat.
One thing she knew for sure—she’d been stupid for kissing him back, for letting her lips tell him things her head knew she couldn’t tell him.
She tucked her phone back into her beaded handbag and looked around the room, checking who was leaving, who might give her a lift home so she could change before going to Headquarters. Charles was leading the way out the door, Jill Shaw, director of nursing, moving more slowly to guide Susie, who was swinging along on crutches, thanks to her accident the previous day.
‘Would you lot drop me home?’ Grace asked, coming up to them. ‘I can hardly organise my crew dressed like this.’
‘No problem,’ Charles told her, while Jill, who must have been running through the nursing roster in her head, added, ‘You’re off duty until Tuesday, aren’t you, Grace?’
Grace nodded. Her month on night duty had finished at seven that morning and the change in shift meant she had three days off.
‘But I grabbed a few hours’ sleep this morning so I’m happy to be called in. If Willie’s really heading back towards us, we’ll need all available staff standing by.’
‘We might need all staff back on duty, not standing by, if the bus that’s come off the mountain had a full load of passengers,’ Charles said, as the women ducked behind his wheelchair to escape some of the wind that was ripping across the car park, grabbing at Charles’s words and flinging them into the air. ‘With this weather, we can’t fly people out, and at last report the coast road was flooding. We could have a very full hospital.’
Jill confirmed this with a quiet ‘I’ll be in touch’ as she dropped Grace at the cottage, but nursing was forgotten as Grace stripped off her dress and clambered into her bright orange SES overalls, fitted on the belt that held her torch, pocket knife and radio then grabbed her keys and headed for Headquarters. The crews would be gathering. She’d send one support vehicle straight up the mountain, and hold the second one back until she heard from Harry in case some special equipment not on the main rescue vehicle was needed.
Or …
She went herself, with the first crew, partly because Paul had arrived to handle the office but also because she knew an extra person with nursing skills would be useful in the rescue mission. This truck held the inflatable tent they’d use for triage and the generator that kept it inflated. They’d have to make sure the tent was anchored securely in this wind.
The men and women chatted casually, but Grace, huddled in a corner, mentally rehearsed the jobs that lay ahead as she watched the wind slice rain across the windscreen and cause the vehicle to sway from side to side. Willie had turned and was heading their way—the cyclone warnings on the radio had confirmed what increased velocity in the wind had already told most locals.
How much time did they have to get ready?
Who would need to be moved from their homes? An evacuation list would have been drawn up but before she, or anyone else, could start moving people to safety, they had to get the accident victims off the mountain …
‘Your crews finished?’
Grace was kneeling by a young woman, the last person to be pulled from the bus after the jaws of life had been used to free her. Unconscious and with probable head injuries, she lay on an undamaged part of the road, her neck in a collar, her body strapped to the cradle stretcher on which she’d been pulled up the muddy slope. Now, as the wind howled around them, they awaited the return of one of the ambulances that had been shuttling back and forth to the hospital for hours.
About half an hour earlier, once most of the accident victims had been moved out of it and ferried down the mountain, Harry had deemed the inflatable tent too dangerous. So Grace’s crew had packed it and the generator back into the SES truck prior to departure.
A makeshift shelter remained to protect this final patient, but the wind was getting stronger every minute
and now blew rain and forest debris beneath the sodden tarpaulin. Grace had angled her body so it shielded the young woman’s face. She smoothed the woman’s hair and removed leaves that blew onto her skin, but there was little else she could do for her—just watch and wait, holding her hand and talking quietly to her, because Grace was certain even unconscious people had some awareness.
‘Are your crews finished?’
As Harry repeated his question, Grace turned to look at him. She’d heard him the first time but her mind had been too busy adjusting to his abrupt tone—and trying to work out what it meant—for her to answer.
‘Just about,’ she said, searching his face, lit by the last emergency light, for some hint of his mood. Disappointment because they’d failed to save the bus driver? No, deep down Harry might be gutted, but he would set it aside until the job was done.
Was his leg hurting?
It had to be, though if she offered sympathy it was sure to be rejected.
She stopped guessing about his mood, and explained, ‘One of the team is already on its way back to base and the other is packing up the gear and should be leaving shortly. Why?’
‘Because I want everyone off the mountain, that’s why,’ Harry said, his voice straining against the wind, but Grace’s attention was back on her patient.
‘She’s stopped breathing.’
Grace leant forward over the young woman, tilted her head backwards then lifted her chin upward with one hand to make sure her airway was clear, and felt
for a pulse with the other. Her fingers pushed beneath the woman’s chin, and found a flutter of movement in the carotid artery.
She stripped off the oxygen mask and gave the woman two breaths, then checked the pulse again. Looked at Harry, who was now squatting by her side.
‘You monitor her pulse—I’ll breathe.’
They’d practised so often as a team, it seemed effortless now, Grace breathing, Harry monitoring the young woman’s vital signs. Yet it was taking too long—were their efforts in vain?
‘We’ll get her,’ Harry said, and the conviction in his voice comforted Grace, although she knew he couldn’t be as certain as he sounded.
Or could he?
Grace stopped, and held her breath. The rise and fall of the young woman’s chest told them she’d resumed breathing on her own.
‘Yes!’ Grace said, lifting her hand for a high-five of triumph, but Harry’s hands were by his side, and the bleak unhappiness on his face was far from triumph.
Whatever pretence at friendship they’d managed during the wedding was gone.
Burnt away by the heat of that kiss?
Though why would
he
be upset over the kiss? Because it had broken some rule he’d set himself when his wife died?
Thou shalt kiss no other after her?
That was weird because Harry wasn’t stupid and he must know that eventually nature would reassert itself and he’d want a sexual relationship with some woman—sometime.
Although as far as she knew, monks didn’t …
‘I want you off the mountain,’ he said.
‘I want us all off the mountain,’ Grace retorted, battling to understand his mood. OK, he was worried about the cyclone, but they all were, and it certainly hadn’t made the other rescuers go all brisk and formal. In fact, the others had made an effort to smile even as they’d struggled up the steepest parts of the slope—everyone encouraging each other.
All but Harry, who’d frowned at Grace whenever they’d passed, as if he couldn’t understand who she was or perhaps what she was doing there.
‘But that’s hardly possible,’ she continued crisply, ‘without magic carpets to whisk us all away. The second SES crew will be leaving soon. The rest of the hospital personnel have gone back to deal with the patients as they arrive. I’m staying with this patient and I’ll go back in the ambulance when it gets here.’
‘This place is dangerous. The wind’s increasing all the time. More of the road could slip, trees could come down.’
He was worrying about her safety. That was the only explanation for Harry’s strange behaviour. The thought brought such warmth to Grace’s body she forgot about distancing herself. She forgot about the cruel words he’d flung at her, and reached out to touch his arm.