‘Maybe we need to parley with the natives,’ he agreed. ‘Trade. You think they’d be interested in our barley sugar wrappers?’
‘In exchange for what?’
‘Water would be good.’
‘Water would be excellent,’ she agreed. ‘How lucky I brought my rain jacket.’
‘Um...’ He thought about that for a moment, looking at it from all angles. ‘You’re planning a war dance?’
‘No, but I can make a still.’
‘A what?’
‘A water still. We need a nice scoopy hollow,’ she said, and amazingly she sounded enthusiastic. ‘In full sun. And then we find a hollowed rock or something that can fit in the middle to be used as a container. The idea is we pack around the container with anything green—there’s enough plant life here to use. Then we cover the whole lot with my waterproof jacket. We weigh it down and the heat makes the plants sweat. The water collects on the plastic and runs down into the container. It works a treat.’
‘How do you know this?’ he said faintly.
‘I’m a geologist. I’ve never been stuck for water but the first time I was ever out in the field our instructor showed us how to do it. Just in case. It’s neat.’
‘And that’s why you hung onto your jacket,’ he managed, stunned.
She smiled at that, and looked a bit embarrassed.
‘Um...apart from not wanting to lose my eighty dollars, that would also be modesty,’ she conceded. ‘I know, it was really dumb when people were shooting at us, but this nightie is really skimpy.’
‘I’d noticed,’ he admitted, and she glared.
‘Well, stop noticing. I don’t even have any kn...’ She stopped mid-word and she turned bright, glorious pink. ‘Just stop noticing,’ she repeated and he thought, she’s gorgeous. She’s plain, unarguably gorgeous.
He’d been ordered not to notice. How was a man not to notice?
He was still wearing trousers and a T-shirt. He was relatively respectable. Rachel’s nightdress, on the other hand, was of the flimsiest cotton and it wasn’t respectable at all.
And she wasn’t wearing any kn...
How was a man not to notice?
But she’d stopped thinking of her appearance. ‘Do you think they’ll come looking for us?’ she asked, and he knew that, despite the distractions, fear was still front and centre. Their moment of shared humour died.
‘No,’ he said, and he put everything he knew how into making that word absolute.
Her face changed, just a little but enough for him to know his authority had sunk home.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Esme and her crew decided not to do a full scale search last night. If they had, there’d have been lights on, searchlights, tenders out, all of which we’d have still been within distance to hear and see. They won’t know that I know the currents and tides, which means they’ll assume we’ve drowned. Their plan must be to simply go about their business and wait for us to be missed.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Which won’t even be yet. It’s not breakfast time and unless you and Maud meet before breakfast...’
‘We don’t.’
‘Then no one will realise we’re missing until then. By the time they do, the Temptress could be almost a hundred miles from where we are now. And the boat that dropped the drugs won’t be Australian. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by spending time searching for people who are Esme’s problem, not theirs.’
‘So we wait to be rescued by the good guys,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Yes,’ he agreed but he didn’t get the inflexion right because Rachel looked at him sharply.
‘You don’t think that’ll happen?’
‘Of course it will.’
But...
But this place was like a giant haystack, and they were a needle. The resources needed to search an area as remote as this were enormous. How many choppers could be brought from Darwin or Broome—and how likely was it that the authorities would hold out any hope for them at all? There’d be a token search, he thought, but the search area was vast. He and Rachel could have come off the ship any time between supper and breakfast. The area to be searched would be thousands of square miles.
‘Well, you don’t need to fret,’ Rachel said, and this time she was doing the comforting. ‘Maud will find us. Though I hate to think of her stuck on that ship with those creeps.’
‘They’ll hardly harm any more of the passengers,’ he told her. ‘Maud’s safe. But as for helping us...’
‘If you think my Maud will leave this to the authorities, you have another think coming,’ she said and, amazingly, her smile had returned. ‘I’ve seen Maud in action and I know what she’s capable of. I’m lucky enough to call her my friend, and she doesn’t lose friends lightly. She and her grandson run Thurston Holdings, and they have mines all through the northern outback. I’m guessing the entire Thurston workforce will be redirected into saving a couple of bedraggled strays before the breakfast coffee’s served on the Temptress.’
‘But you said yourself,’ Finn said faintly. ‘You only met the lady three weeks ago.’
‘Maud loves me,’ Rachel said. ‘That’ll do it.’
‘After three weeks?’
‘Don’t you dare sound derisive,’ she snapped. ‘Maud’s fabulous.’
‘But loving after three weeks...’
‘How long do you think it takes to love someone?’
‘I wouldn’t know. But you don’t even know someone in three weeks.’
‘What about your parents?’ she asked, and he thought, she’s using this as a way to stop thinking about where we are for a moment. She’s giving herself time out. ‘How long did they know each other before they...?’
‘They knew each other for a week,’ he snapped, because suddenly he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t tell people this. He barely told himself, yet here was this waif of a woman, blindly believing in love at first sight, and she needed to be set straight now. ‘They were together for a week. I was conceived and they never saw each other again. Three weeks to love? I’d need three years more likely, and even then I’d want references.’
‘Oh, Finn...’
‘And the father of your baby?’ he demanded, still angry. Maybe the tension of the night had got to him in a way that was doing something to his head—demanding honesty from himself as well as from her.
‘That was a mistake, too,’ she whispered. ‘So maybe your three-year rule’s better. Maybe that’s what I should hang onto.’ She bit her lip and closed her eyes—but then she opened them and she was resolute again. ‘But, sensible or not, loving is what Maud does, and she loves me and she’ll search for me, and so will my sister, Amy, and my brother-in-law-to-be, Hugo. They’ll find me. And you? Will your family help?’
‘No.’ How to tell her his family—Connie and Richard—didn’t even know where he was, or that he was travelling under a false name. They shared a house but they didn’t live in each other’s pockets. He’d told them he was going away for work, and had left it at that.
If he didn’t get home he’d left instructions with his lawyers. Maybe they’d be a bit upset, but they were provided for.
They’d be okay—but he’d prefer the lawyer’s instructions weren’t needed, he conceded. Especially if it meant a pile of bleached bones lying on some deserted island.
Love or not, Rachel’s Maud was looking a good option, he conceded. Maybe Rachel was right. From what he’d seen of Maud, no matter if the Temptress’s crew was saying they’d both been seen eaten by crocodiles, she’d be scouring the sea looking for crocs to hold accountable.
She loved Rachel.
The thought was weirdly unsettling and, on a morning when his thoughts should be focused anywhere else, he was suddenly thinking of affection and how ra
re it was, and how could an elderly lady possibly love a young woman after three weeks’ acquaintance?
He glanced at Rachel and thought...love?
And then he thought, that nightdress is way too sheer and this island is far too small.
She caught his gaze—and firmly hauled her jacket over her salt-encrusted nightdress and did up the buttons.
‘You’ll be hot.’
‘I’m not hot,’ she said firmly, definitely, and it was as much as he could do not to refute it and tell her how hot she actually was. But a man had some sense of self-preservation. ‘We need to find water, loner boy,’ she snapped. ‘Much as my water-making ability is awesome, it’s slow. The water I can make should help us survive but not much more, and we’d look a bit silly if there’s a waterfall just behind that rock.’
‘And it rained here two days ago.’
‘How do you know that?’ she demanded, astounded.
‘Weather forecast. I’ve been watching the whole route on the Internet.’
‘The ship’s Internet’s been out of order.’
It had. That was another thing that made him suspicious. Esme and her crew had obviously taken precautions. The Internet failing was just one more minor hiccup that plagued the cruise, annoying the passengers, but it meant that if anyone had seen anything suspicious there’d be no way of contacting the authorities. Except using the ship’s radio.
The Captain allowed the radio to be used for urgent contact home, but the times had to be booked in advance, and he was always within earshot.
The Captain must be in on this. He was starting to see the whole set-up, and it made him feel ill.
But now wasn’t the time for thinking about what had happened. Rachel was looking at him with speculation. ‘You know the currents and tides. You know the islands and you know the weather.’
‘I’m travelling by myself. I have...’ Why not say it? ‘I have satellite connection in my cabin and I have time to trawl the Internet.’
‘You’re not an undercover policeman, are you?’
That caught him. This lady was smart. ‘No,’ he managed.
She gave him another thoughtful glance, almost disbelieving, but then obviously decided not to pursue it. ‘What a shame,’ she said, obviously making an effort to keep it light. ‘If I’ve been caught up in an undercover drug bust...if you were official I might be able to sue the government.’
‘You might be able to sue the cruise line.’
‘There is that,’ she said, brightening. ‘I’ll have my lawyers look into it. Meanwhile, water.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said and they went to search.
* * *
They found three pools of fresh water, two only three or four inches deep but wide—maybe four feet or so—the other only eighteen inches wide but maybe two feet deep.
At the sight of them Rachel gave a sob of relief and knelt to scoop a drink from the deepest.
He stopped her before she touched it.
‘Sense here,’ he told her. The deep pool was the run-off from a couple of smooth rocks sloped above. It was the most secure of the water sources.
By the look of the other two, they’d almost evaporated. The day promised to be hot and clear and they were in full sun. Shallow and wide... Another day like yesterday and they’d be gone by day’s end.
He needed to think this through.
They were both desperately thirsty. Their faces were salt encrusted—they were totally salt-encrusted—but who knew how long they’d be stuck here?
‘We can live for weeks without food,’ he said, still gripping her. ‘But not without water and there’s no forecast for rain in the foreseeable future.’
‘Are we thinking weeks?’ Rachel said in a small voice. ‘My barley sugar won’t last.’
‘Hey, we can always eat each other,’ he said grandly, as if he were offering her a degustation menu at the world’s best restaurant, and she glanced up at him and he smiled and she managed a smile back.
‘So... We’re planning on drawing straws?’
‘I’m voting the lizards get it before we do,’ he said, mock grave. ‘I’m also depending on your Maud that we don’t go past barley sugar, but it’s going to be hot today and water’s vital.’
‘So our plan is?’ Rachel said, looking longingly into the depths of the little pool.
‘We drink now from the shallow pools, then we work fast to preserve as much as we can before they evaporate,’ Finn said. ‘We can use your jacket to scoop water from the shallow pools to the bigger pool. Then we cover the deep pool with your jacket so it doesn’t evaporate.’
‘You want me to take my jacket off again,’ she said and sighed, but she was already undoing the buttons. ‘Okay, this might be flimsy but you get any ideas, I’ll report you straight to Dame Maud, nerd boy.’
‘Nerd boy?’
‘Anyone who spends a cruise like this in his cabin studying charts and weather forecasts and currents, and isn’t a policeman doing it for good, has to be a nerd. I bet you play Dungeons and Dragons on the side. I’m stuck on a desert island with a geek.’ Sigh. ‘How do we shift this water?’
‘We use your sleeves,’ he told her and, before she could object, he’d ripped off a sleeve and knotted it firmly to make a long, narrow bag. Then she watched as he started scooping the water into his ‘bag’ from the shallow pools and carrying it to the deeper pool.
She stood back, impressed. This man was purposeful and clever. Maud might be in the background as her saviour but Finn was here and now.
She set to work with the other sleeve. Their deep hole grew deeper.
They worked for fifteen minutes, getting every drop of water they could from both pools. Finally they’d scooped all they could—the water was too shallow to scoop more. Finn covered the deep pool with the body of Rachel’s jacket, weighed it down with rocks and then looked up at her and smiled.
‘Now the reward,’ he said softly, motioning to the remnants of the shallow pools. ‘We can’t get the last inch from either. As soon as the sun gets some heat, it’ll be gone. How about a bath each?’
A bath. Oh, my.
‘One each,’ he said and she closed her eyes in bliss.
She had a nice flat plane of clear water. It might only be an inch or so deep but it was hers. All hers.
Finn could do what he liked with his but she knew what she was doing with hers.
She lay and drank as much as she could, and then she washed her face, and then, because she knew there was no way she could do this again—from now on the precious deep hole must be for drinking only—she decided to be really indulgent.
It wouldn’t work if she kept her nightie on, she thought. The water wasn’t deep enough. But she could take the garment off and rinse it in the remnants—and then she could wallow herself, all over.
The thought of getting the salt from her skin was irresistible.
‘Turn the other way,’ she told Finn, who washing his face in his pool.
‘Sorry?’
‘This is my bath,’ she declared. ‘It might be a while until I see another so I’m making the most of it. Don’t you dare look. But if you do the same in your pool I promise not to look at you either. If we take it in turns I suspect we’ll lose even more from evaporation and I’m not waiting one minute.’
He looked at her.
‘Look away,’ she ordered—and he turned.
Trust him, she told herself and, for some reason, she did. Honourable scoundrel. Nerd boy. The guy who’d saved her life.
She slipped off her nightdress and she lay full length in the shallow pool. She rolled and she rolled and then—as much as anyone could in an inch of water—she wallowed.
She splayed her curls out and ran her fingers through them over and over. The pool was uneven
so there were deeper dips—there was enough water here to make this work.
‘Good?’ Finn asked in a voice that sounded strangled.
‘Heaven.’ She dared a glance back at him. ‘Why aren’t you doing the same? You’re wasting time.’
She could see him tense. She could feel him tense. Maybe she was testing the honourable scoundrel too far.
‘I’m not looking,’ she said, and deliberately turned away from looking at that broad back, the thick thatch of hair that made her think of running her fingers through it...
Whoa? Who was the scoundrel here?
She rolled to her side and deliberately turned her back on him.
Ten seconds later, she heard him roll into the water and she knew he was doing the same.
* * *
It would have been fine except for the eagle. Or osprey.
One minute she was splashing the cool, clear water over and over her body. The next the bird swept down from nowhere, a vast black shadow, blocking the sun, screeching from the heights, talons outstretched, straight towards her.
‘Rachel, duck!’ Finn’s words were a roar.
Did she scream? She had no idea. All she knew was that one minute she was soaking in sun and water and safety, the next she was over in Finn’s pool, closer to the cliff, grabbed, held, rolled out of the pool and under the shelter of the cliff face.
Then held until the giant shadow wheeled and retreated and there was nothing but clear sky.
‘It’s gone,’ Finn said, and she heard herself whimper.
What a baby—yet she couldn’t stop herself shaking.
She was safe, yet still he held her, and still she needed to be held.
She was wet and warm and safe—and totally naked.
So was he.
She didn’t care. The terror of the night before and the fear of not being found combined. Simple overwhelming fear was all around her, and this man and his body were the only things between her and terror.
And he held her as she needed to be held, tight and hard and strong, and, she thought afterwards, maybe he was taking comfort as well as giving.
A Bride For The Maverick Millionaire (Journey Through The Outback #2) Page 7