The Tortured Rebel (5 page)

When she had turned and kissed him.

She could still remember that moment when their lips had actually touched. The sheer
bliss
of it.

And then there’d been the sound of her brother coming down the hallway. Calling out to Jet to see why the beer was taking so long to arrive. And Jet had let her go and turned so fast he had practically been on a fridge shelf by the time Matt came into the room seconds later.

And he hadn’t even looked at her once for the rest of that night.

Her grin was fading as rapidly as Jet had dismissed her way back then. Pandora’s box had been split wide
open. During the crash? No. The cracks had been apparent the moment she’d seen Jet step out of that vehicle at the base. It had only been a matter of time before the contents began to spill out. There was so much of it, how could it all be appearing with such speed? Maybe it would be helpful to hang on to the devastation that had come in the wake of being ignored after taking the risk of that kiss.

Jet was just registering the mischievous grin that had already vanished. He gave an impatient huff. ‘Your retrograde memory is too good. OK, remember these things coz I’m going to ask you again in five minutes. A brown dog, the number six and the name Reginald. Which is marginally better than Frederick,’ he added wryly. ‘Now, let me see your arm. It was bleeding.’

He’d tied a makeshift kind of tourniquet around it, she noticed. No wonder he was checking her level of consciousness. She had no memory of him ripping the sleeve of her flight suit to make the wide bands.

The wound began bleeding heavily as soon as the bands were loosened.

‘Needs stitching,’ Jet muttered.

Becca saw her own blood covering his hands as he examined her arm. She was horrified.

‘You’re not wearing any gloves.’

His raised eyebrows that framed a very intent look. ‘Something you want to tell me?’ He made a tutting sound. ‘What
have
you been up to, Rebecca Harding?’

He was teasing her. Just the way he had when she’d been a kid and had come inside with grazed knees or muddy clothes. Only this was about a very adult subject.
Becca had been shivering with the cold but could feel heat suffusing her face right now.

‘N-nothing.’ Unfortunately true but did he really have to know how sad her love life had been for so long? Did she need current humiliation to add to a long-ago memory? Definitely not.

‘Not recently, anyway,’ she added in what she hoped was an offhand tone. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not going to catch any blood-borne nasty. It’s just not good practice, is it?’

Jet probably saw right through her small attempt to get a grip on things.

‘Least of our worries right now, I would’ve thought.’ He had retied the strips of the dense, waterproof fabric. ‘Wriggle your fingers for me.’

The attempt wasn’t impressive.

‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’

Becca shrugged. ‘A bit. I’ll be fine. What’s happened to
your
head? You’re bleeding, too.’

He wasn’t going to be distracted from his careful examination of her wrist and arm. He bent her hand carefully.

‘Ouch,’ Becca muttered.

‘Could be broken,’ he pronounced. ‘Could just be a bad sprain. I’ll put a compression bandage on when I’ve sorted that bleeding. Anything else hurting?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’ His gaze narrowed. ‘No headache?’

‘A bit, I guess.’

‘What were the three things I told you to remember?’

‘A brown dog … number six and the name.’ The urge to tease was childish. Or maybe she couldn’t resist
seeking the same kind of rapport he might have been trying to tap into when he’d been chiding her about her possible sex life. ‘. Frederick,’ she said decisively.

She held his gaze. Jet sighed heavily but she was sure she’d seen a gleam of appreciation there at her feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Don’t move. I’m going to get my kit.’

‘What? Where is it?’

‘In the chopper. Along with a lot of other useful medical gear I should try and retrieve. We’ve still got an appointment with some injured people who can’t be too far away.’

‘But …’ Becca looked past him. The light was stronger now. A little less red maybe but no less strange. The air looked thick. With ash? She didn’t know much about volcanoes but surely they’d need to find some kind of masks to breathe through?

The helicopter wreckage was clearly visible, a bent rotor sticking up in the air like a distressed swimmer’s arm. The other rotor seemed to be wedged in the rocks but it wasn’t enough of an anchor for stability. The mortally wounded aircraft was rolling with each wave. Tipping and sliding on the rocks.

‘You can’t go back inside,’ she told Jet. ‘It’s far too dangerous.’

But Jet was standing up.

What if something happened to him? If he got trapped inside and the wreckage got sucked off the rocks by an extra-big wave? He’d drown and … and it would be worse than sitting here alone, waiting for a wall of molten lava to swallow her up.

‘Don’t go … Please …’

The words were a whisper but he seemed to have
heard them. He crouched swiftly, putting his hands on her shoulders.

‘I have to,’ he said quietly. ‘We need the medical supplies. It won’t take long.’

His gaze was holding hers. Was he trying to reassure her? Give her strength?

It wasn’t working.

‘I’ll be right back,’ Jet said with absolute confidence. ‘I’ll look after you, OK?’

Becca nodded but bit her lip at the same time. She shouldn’t need looking after. She was a grown-up. A highly trained helicopter pilot. A woman in complete control of her life and her future. At least, she had been, until a very short time ago.

At this precise moment, she was only too grateful to be given that promise. To pull it around her like a comforting hug.

Jet was standing up again. He looked down. His face was half-covered in blood and his expression could only be described as grim but those dark eyes were so alive. Gleaming, in fact.

‘We’re on land now,’ he told her. ‘My game.
My
rules.’

And with that, he was gone. A shape so dark and lithe it was only seconds before he virtually vanished against the rocks.

Leaving Becca, huddled alone on that tiny, stony beach, was one of those ‘lesser of two evils’ decisions.

Jet’s head told him that it was what had to be done. He needed his medical gear to help her as well as the other people on this island. What use were his skills if he had no pain relief or fluids or any of the dozens of other
things compressed into his specialist backpack? There were items in the helicopter he’d been counting on, as well, but they would have to be left behind. Things like portable oxygen and traction splints and the life pack. There was no point in retrieving anything he wouldn’t be able to carry himself.

Part of his brain was pointing out that Becca still had one good arm so she’d be able to carry something but Jet was arguing the notion as he scrambled back over the rocks. He could feel the pain in his hands, despite how cold they were, as he tried to grip the sharp surfaces and he made a mental note to keep an eye out for the leather gloves he’d stripped off in order to feel what he was doing in that first check on Becca’s condition.

He’d felt it all right. No amount of mental discipline could shove it all into a doctor-patient box. The relief of finding she wasn’t badly injured had warned him of an unprofessional involvement. The wrench of putting her down on the beach had been another warning and even that had paled in comparison to having to leave her behind moments ago, with that look in her eyes.

She had wanted him to stay with her.

She
needed
him.

Jet didn’t try and climb directly into the cockpit. Eyeing the hole they had escaped through gave him a moment of satisfaction at the achievement. Would he have even attempted that without the incentive of getting Becca out as fast as possible?

Probably not.

This time, he went around to the back of the aircraft. Cautiously. Allowing a wave to break high on his legs and then ebb before going for the tail hatch. Another wave broke before he managed to get it open and the
whole chassis rocked so that he barely kept his grip on the handle. He’d have to be quick about this but that was a good thing. It left no room for fear. Or the distraction of that image of Becca on the beach, looking to him to keep her safe.

His pack was easy enough to find and drag out from where it had wedged itself under the stretcher. He shoved it through the hole in the front with enough force to get it far enough up on the rocks to stay dry. The action made the hole even bigger, which would be good if he had to dive for safety but it was letting a lot more water in at the same time. He was sloshing around almost up to his knees as it was but he took the time to do a swift search in the dim light of the cabin. He grabbed a drug kit and an IV roll and bags of fluids, unzipping the jacket of his suit to tuck them against his body. A whole box of masks. He was adding a handful of extra bandages when the slide of the wreckage on rock tipped him off balance and he barely got himself upright before it moved again.

Without thinking, he snapped the clip holding the life pack in place and clutched it in his arms as he stepped forward and then turned to roll backwards through the same hole through which he’d lifted Becca to safety. His ankle caught and he felt a nasty wrench that wasn’t coming simply from his own momentum. The chopper was really moving this time. Far and fast enough to break the rotor blade that had been caught between rocks.

Jet sucked in a breath as he realised that that relatively tiny piece of metal had been all that had kept the chopper where it was. It rolled away now, giving itself up to the sea.

He still had the life pack in his arms and lumpy supplies tucked into his jacket. His pack was safe. Carefully, Jet got to his feet, testing his ankle. It hurt like hell but it could take his weight, thank goodness. He could see that Becca was standing, as well. Staring in his direction. He couldn’t see her expression but he could imagine what it was, having just watched her helicopter slide into the sea and probably not aware that he’d rolled to safety. He raised his hand, thumb up, to signal her.

Mission accomplished.

This time, the deep breath he sucked in was a satisfied one. He’d done what he’d set out to do. Showing Becca how capable he was, even in a dangerous situation, felt damn good.

He’d said it wouldn’t take long and that he would be back. She would know she could trust him to honour his word.

He would do what he’d promised her he would.

He would look after her.

T
HE
sea was the same colour as the sky.

The colour of blood.

The dark silhouette of the man was only recognisable because it moved and the surrounding rocks didn’t. When he stood still, having risen and raised his hand in a triumphant fist, he looked like another shape carved in stone.

A human rock.

Becca didn’t bother reminding herself that she never cried. That her tears had all been spent on Matt. A choked sob escaped as she realised that, in no small part, this was still about Matt.

Her brother had been her human rock in a fluid, lonely world and Jet had been there beside him for as far back as she could remember clearly. Too real and too powerful to be considered a shadow but he’d still been in the background. Like a guardian angel. A flesh-and-blood angel with a loyalty that was so absolute it was impossible to think of Matt without thinking of Jet, and vice versa.

So it was like part of her brother was here with her now. Promising to look after her. Expecting her to trust him, but how could she when she knew that that trust
could be broken? Unintentionally, maybe, but the effect would be the same and she’d be alone again. In the end, Becca knew she had only herself to rely on with that kind of certainty.

But the pull towards leaning on Jet and giving him that trust was so strong it was a physical pain and that was why Becca was crying now. Maybe, if she hadn’t just watched in horror as the wreckage of her aircraft had slipped into that blood-red sea when she had been sure Jet was still inside it, she might have been powerless to resist that pull on her heart. But for just a few of its beats there she’d known how unwise it would be to give Jet any part of her heart, and trusting him would do precisely that.

For those few, ghastly seconds she’d known she was on her own again and she’d known that she
could
survive. She’d done it before and she knew how. She knew that a big part of being able to survive was about dodging emotional as well as physical damage. For however long it would take to get off this island, the man coming towards her now, weighed down by the bulky gear he was carrying, was just as dangerous as the exploding volcano high above them.

‘Sorry, this is going to sting like mad.’

‘You could just stitch it up. You don’t need to waste the local.’

Jet snorted. ‘I don’t happen to have a bullet handy for you to bite on. Hold still. Damn, this light is still awful.’

‘I’m sure you can do this with your eyes shut. Your reputation precedes you with the speed of light. Hey, well done! You’re wearing gloves this time.’

Was she mocking him? Jet sent her a suspicious glower but Becca’s head was bent. Good grief, she actually wanted to watch him cobbling up this nasty gash on her arm? And she was prepared to have it done without the benefit of local anaesthetic?

She had a mask on now. They both did. It was the first thing Jet had sorted, having arrived back on the beach and emptied the extra supplies from inside his jacket, just in case they suddenly got enveloped by an ash cloud. He was perfectly used to being around people wearing surgical masks. He was even used to being in environments where the light was weird due to explosions and smoke and so forth, but Becca had never been in a war zone, as far as he knew. This had to be an extraordinary experience for her, sitting hunched and injured on a beach in the middle of nowhere, bathed in the glow of molten lava and shivering with the cold and probably fear and yet, here she was, managing to keep her arm steady on his knee ready for him to do some minor surgery.

He grunted softly. A sound of respect. ‘Pretty tough, aren’t you?’

Becca shrugged. ‘When I need to be.’

It had to hurt, sliding the needle in deeply enough to numb the edges of this wound. He saw the way she flinched and he could feel it himself. It wasn’t that he was ever without sympathy for any patient he was inflicting a painful procedure on but this felt different. Unpleasant enough to make this an ordeal for both of them so it was best he got it done as efficiently as possible.

And he was wearing the damn gloves for her protection, not his.

Waiting only a minute or two for the local to take effect, Jet busied himself sorting the dressing and bandages he’d need. He located his suture materials and some small pouches of saline. Ripping the corner of the first pouch, he tipped the sterile liquid onto the wound. Becca sucked in her breath and Jet winced inwardly.

‘Not quite numb, huh?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said through obviously gritted teeth. ‘Just get on with it. We need to get out of here.’ She was silent for a moment and when she spoke again, her tone was far less sure. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to get to the conservation base?’

‘May as well give it a go,’ Jet said cheerfully. ‘Not too much else to do, is there? How much do you know about this volcano?’ He was onto the second pouch of saline now, trickling it into the centre of the wound and tipping her arm carefully so that it drained towards the edges.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m wondering how many craters there are, for instance. And whether any of them had lakes.’ Having made the wound as clean as possible, Jet swabbed it dry with clean gauze and then ripped open the packet containing the curved suture needle and attached thread. He had to swab fresh bleeding away then and decided it needed a couple of deep stitches before he closed the surface.

Becca looked away as the needle advanced. ‘Does it make a difference? Having lakes?’

‘Could do. Lakes mean you can get lahars. Rivers of mud and stuff that can do a lot of damage. They can move a lot faster than anyone can run and they set
like concrete. They’ve been known to wipe out entire villages.’

‘So we might get to the base camp and find it’s too late,’ Becca said quietly.

Jet made no response. What was the point? They might not even get there at all but they had to try.

‘Lava’s not so bad,’ he said a short time later, now working swiftly to insert, knot and clip the neat sutures closing the wound. ‘Generally moves slowly enough so you can keep out of the way. The problem will be if it’s cut access off completely.’

‘What about the gases volcanoes give off? Aren’t they poisonous?’

‘Some of them,’ Jet admitted. ‘But there’s no point worrying about it given that we’re a bit limited in what we can do. Staying upright is a good idea because a lot of those gases are heavier than air and will accumulate close to ground level. Respirators would be ideal but I guess we’re lucky we’ve got these good quality antiviral-type masks. If we moisten them, they’ll be more effective against gases as well as ash.’

He clipped the final suture and put a sticky, clear dressing over the wound.

‘I’ll bandage it for now. If it gets any more painful we’ll splint it properly. Try not to put too much weight on it.’

‘Thanks, Doc. I’ll keep that in mind.’

Definitely mocking him now and he probably deserved it. Heaven only knew how rough the journey they were about to undertake might be. Becca might well need to climb up steep cliffs or get down rough gullies. Not using an arm was hardly going to be on
a priority list if you were trying to save yourself from further injury.

‘I should have kept our helmets on,’ he muttered. ‘Stupid.’

‘I’ve got sunglasses.’ Becca patted a top pocket of her flight suit. ‘Have you?’

‘Yeah…. somewhere, I think.’

‘Should help keep ash out of our eyes at least. Mine are starting to sting a bit.’

‘Yeah … mine, too.’ Jet tore the end of the bandage with his teeth and made strips to tie it in place around Becca’s arm. ‘There you go. That should hold together a bit better than crocodile clips.’ He turned to begin putting unused supplies back into the pack.

‘Leave some saline,’ Becca ordered. ‘And a sticky dressing. And have you got some Steri-strips?’

‘What for?’ He swung his head back towards her sharply. Was she hurt somewhere else, as well?

‘Because you’ve got a dirty big gash on your forehead, that’s why.’

‘It can wait.’

‘Have you not even noticed how often you’re wiping blood off before it can get in your eyes? Quite apart from the risk of infection if it’s not covered up, it might be helpful not to get your vision obstructed at some critical point.’

Jet grimaced but had to concede the point. He dampened another gauze dressing and swabbed at his forehead. The fluid stung enough to let him know the gash was not small.

‘Give that to me,’ Becca ordered. ‘You’re probably making it worse, scrubbing at it like that.’

With a frustrated growl, Jet sat down and handed
the swab over. Becca knelt beside him and peered at his forehead. She was concentrating on the task at hand but she was so close to him that Jet had to drag his gaze away from her face. Not before he noticed how amazingly thick and dark her eyelashes were even without the benefit of mascara, however. Or that her nose was small enough to barely dent the mask. And he hadn’t needed X-ray vision to imagine what her lips were like beneath the stiff fabric. Did she still trap the tip of her tongue between them when she was totally focussed, the way she always had as a child?

He could actually sense her body heat in this proximity. Along with the light but confident touch of her fingers, it was disturbing.

‘Get on with it,’ he muttered. ‘We need to get going. Get to higher ground, at least, so we won’t be sitting ducks for a lahar.’

‘Fine.’ Becca used a fresh dressing to dry the wound. ‘This could do with stitching, I expect, but Steri-strips will have to do until you get to an expert. You up to date with a tetanus shot?’

‘Yep. Are you?’

‘I think so.’ Becca was trying to open the vacuum-sealed package containing the small, super-sticky strips. The corner of the plastic side was eluding her because her hands were shaking.

With the cold? Or was she finding this as disturbing as he was?

‘Here. Let me.’ Closing his hands over hers to take the packet without dropping it, Jet was startled by a blast of heat. How could Becca be shivering with cold when her skin could scorch his with such a brief touch? He had to suck in a deep breath.

He found himself sucking in a flashback at the same time.

That moment behind the fridge door at that party. The kiss.

It had just been a combination of teenage excitement and alcohol. Hadn’t it?

She must have known as well as he had how Matt would have reacted. How impossible it would have been. And she’d been barely old enough for anything other than him being a ‘big brother’ figure to be remotely ac ceptable.

Hadn’t stopped him thinking about it, though, had it?

Considering the amazing possibility that might be there if Matt ever came around to the idea one day. Thinking about how.
right
it would seem.

But Matt had never guessed his errant thoughts in those last few weeks he’d had to live and if it had been an embryonic dream, it had been buried along with his best mate. He hadn’t even thought about it since.

Until now, that was. Jet cleared his throat, hoping to clear the memory, as well.

‘You’re not wearing gloves,’ he managed to say casually as he handed her back the opened packet. ‘Tch, tch.’

‘Hmm.’ Becca pressed an end of a strip to his forehead and then he could feel her squeezing the edges of the wound together to bring the other side close enough to capture. ‘And I’ve probably got more to worry about in that direction than you have.’

Was he imagining an odd note in her voice? Disapproval?

Unless …

Unless there
had
been more to that kiss than too much champagne and being unexpectedly in such close proximity.

Maybe the attraction had been there on both sides.

But, even if it had been, it was ancient history. So long ago it was ridiculous to think it had any relevance now.

She hated him. She had told him that with a vehemence that had been absolute and he had known it would be there for ever. They might have been forced into being this close now but this was about survival. She needed him whether she liked it or not. And he needed her, too. This could potentially be the biggest challenge he’d ever faced and who knew? If it came down to the wire, the extra incentive of his determination to get Matt’s little sister to safety might be enough to tip the balance from giving up to being successful.

‘I think not,’ he said aloud, in as cool a tone as he could manage. ‘Thanks to a career in front-line emergency medicine, I get regular checks for any blood-borne nasties, as you call them. I’m as clean as a whistle.’

‘Good for you.’ The pressure of her fingers was even firmer this time. Enough to hurt. Not that he was going to let her know that. ‘And now you’ll have a sexy little scar on your head like a pirate. I’m sure it’ll add considerably to your pulling power with women.’

The sound of her ripping the backing off a sticky dressing was rather similar to the edge that had definitely been in her tone that time.

Jet couldn’t help teasing her. ‘Cool,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll be sure to remember to send you a thank-you card.’

She snorted. ‘You’ll need to get to a post office first.’ She stuffed supplies back into a plastic compartment of the pack and zipped it shut. Then she fished her sunglasses from her pocket and put them on, foiling the attempt to read her expression that Jet had been unaware of making. She stood up, her very effectively disguised face pointed down at him. ‘Well? What are you still sitting around for? Which way shall we go?’

Jet got to his feet. He opened a side pocket of the pack to extract a heavy-duty ‘hazardous waste’ plastic bag, which he handed to Becca.

‘Make yourself useful,’ he ordered. ‘Put the extra stuff in there. Those bandages and masks and things.’

He hefted the pack onto his back as she complied. Then he lifted the life pack with one hand and held out his other hand for the bag she had filled.

‘I’ll take this. I can carry the life pack, as well.’

‘What with? Your potentially fractured arm? I don’t think so.’ Jet was scanning the area, his gaze narrowed and focussed.

The red glow had diminished enough to bleach a lot of the colour from the sea and sky and the daylight was strengthening by the minute, but he could see the glow well enough to pinpoint the location of the eruption. He turned in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, trying to feel whether there was any wind. Even a small breeze would help keep them safe from the effects of ash or gas if they could move into it. They needed high ground, too. Not just to keep out of the way of a mud flow. The island wasn’t that big. If they could get to more than one ridge, they would surely see the remains of the housing in the settlement area. Buildings that
would be sheltering the injured people they had come here in order to help.