Quake

by Tracey Alvarez

  Daniel kissed Alyssa’s soft curls and settled her into John’s arms. Then he took up position at the bottom of the wall, ready to act as the belayer, while Ana chalked her palms. She crossed over to him, the carabiners of her harness softly clinking, and balanced on her toes, arching up to press her mouth to his.

  What she’d probably intended to be a lighthearted kiss turned hot, their connection spraying accelerant on the flame that was the constant heat between them. He gripped the warm skin of her nape under the heavy curtain of her hair and kept her lips in place for a few moments longer.

  More wolf whistles erupted around them when he let her go. She rolled her eyes and cheekily swiped a chalky finger across his cheek. “You’d better reward me with something a little longer than that when I make it to the top.”

  “I give you my word, Counselor,” he said. “Just remember, don’t look down.”

  She laughed and turned to the wall, gripping the first handhold. “I remember.”

  For the next five minutes, he and Theo called out encouragement. When Ana neared the top, everyone clustered around them, heads craned upward to watch her final ascent.

  “Nearly there, babe. Keep going.” He shot a glance at his little sister and she grinned mischievously, passing him and Theo and Alyssa three big sheets of paper that she’d hidden in her handbag.

  Ana reached the top of the wall with a rebel yell and boosted herself over the edge.

  “You can look down now, Mum,” Theo yelled.

  She did, and the expression on her face as she read the three giant words on the paper that he had outlined and the kids had colored in was priceless.

  Marry. Me. Counselor?

  Ana covered her mouth with a chalky palm, her eyes once again wide open but this time filled with tears. She nodded her head, her shoulders shaking.

  Joel clapped him on the back. “Mate, that’s the second time I’ve seen her speechless. World record, I reckon.”

  “Is that a yes?” Daniel said.

  Ana laughed and took her hand away from her mouth. “Yes!” she shouted. “Now get your brother to belay that damn rope and catch me—I’m coming in hot.”

  Daniel passed the rope to Matt, who gave Ana a cheeky thumbs-up and hurried over to the wall. Ana abseiled down like a pro—she had caved in to family peer pressure and climbed the beginner walls a few times—and Daniel scooped her into his arms before her feet could hit the floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling them both in the rope. But nothing was going to stop his woman covering his face with kisses.

  “I love you, Farm Boy, and I know you’ll never let me fall.” She tipped her head back with pretend scrutiny. “And if I do, you’ll be there to catch me.”

  “Damn straight,” he agreed, leaning in to kiss her again.

  She pressed a finger to his lips. “One thing—whatever did you tell Alyssa to get her cooperation?”

  He grinned. “I promised her my piece of birthday cake, since I have all the sweetness I’ll ever need.”

  Ana chuckled and pulled his mouth down to hers but left a whisper of space between them. “You big pushover. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

  “As do you,” Daniel said, and left her speechless once again. This time with a kiss that would last a lifetime.

  * * *

  Did you enjoy Quake? If you did, try Tracey’s first book in the Stewart Island series, IN TOO DEEP free!

  * * *

  Click here to download IN TOO DEEP.

  * * *

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of Chapter 1.

  (Preview) In Too Deep

  Chapter One.

  * * *

  When death revealed a pale hand to Piper Harland she didn’t turn away, but kicked toward it and grabbed hold.

  Sixty-five feet below Lake Tikitapu’s crystal blue water, she found the seventeen-year-old water-skier who’d disappeared yesterday evening. Now that they had pinpointed his location, Piper would return the boy to his grief-stricken family, huddled above on the shore of one of New Zealand’s most picturesque lakes.

  Through her face mask she examined the body, while tugging on her swim-line to signal the rest of the squad that she’d found their objective. And right now she needed to be objective. Sucking air from the regulator, her gaze returned to the boy’s waxen skin. Her heart clenched, stuttered, and raced faster and faster. Under her neoprene wetsuit, an icy shiver skittered down her spine.

  C’mon, Pipe. Forget the past. Don’t you dare lose it.

  A movement to her left and her dive buddy, Senior Constable Tom Carpenter, finned to her side. His eyebrows lifted above steady brown eyes, his gloved thumb and forefinger forming a questioning “O.” She nodded, mirroring the signal.

  She was okay, dammit.

  Piper hadn’t made the elite Police National Dive Squad two years ago by allowing on-the-job stress to shake her, and she wasn’t a rookie freaking out on her first body recovery dive. She’d been trained to deal with the dead.

  But the teen beside her bore a resemblance to a younger Ryan Westlake, her first love. She tried to shrug it off. She hadn’t thought of Ryan “West” Westlake in years. Well, maybe months. Okay, weeks.

  Piper glanced again at the boy, his shaggy, dark hair waving in the current like fine strands of kelp. Blood thrummed thickly in her eardrums as the regulator rasped, and she inhaled a quick gulp of air. And then another.

  No. She wouldn’t allow her mind to go there.

  But the momentary bolt of panic was enough to reduce her smooth, coordinated kicks to fumbled thrashes of her fins as she struggled to remain neutrally buoyant. Sediment billowed behind her and swept forward over the body, momentarily obscuring its features.

  Behind the face mask Tom’s gaze sharpened, and he pointed at the rapid belch of bubbles escaping from her regulator, a clear indication she was breathing in and out way too fast. He made a thumbs up, a mute instruction to ascend.

  Crap. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all herself.

  The victim’s lifeless eyes, focused through the deep blue to the sky above, set her heart slamming against her ribs. Tom tapped her arm and signaled again, this time with more emphasis. She released her grip on the boy’s wrist, placing it in Tom’s capable hands.

  She had to get out of there. Right now.

  Relying solely on her years of training Piper followed the line upward, keeping a check on her dive computer. She made the mandatory three-minute safety stop sixteen feet below the lake’s sparkling surface. Seconds dragged as she attempted to steady her breathing. The mask dug into her face, the bottled air bitter on her tongue. For the first time she understood at a gut level the panic that drove some divers to risk the bends as they thrashed away from the claustrophobic depths.

  Piper waited out her one hundred and eighty crawling seconds with her gaze fixated on the hull above, drawing on every hour of intensive training, every hard won skill, to remain static.

  She was okay, dammit.

  Bursting into bright sunshine she swam to the boat and didn’t look back.

  Nearly twenty-four hours after returning to the city where she lived and worked, Piper remained trapped at Wellington’s Central Police Station. She collated a report for the coroner’s inquiry and then endured a dour-faced psychologist picking through her brain—because Tom’s suspicions had been aroused thanks to her near freak out. And worse? She couldn’t blame him. Her reaction could’ve jeopardized the whole team.

  Piper slammed her locker door, glaring at it while buttoning her jeans. She adjusted her tee shirt and tugged on her battered leather jacket, feeling half clothed without her pressed uniform blues and heavy stab-resistant vest.

  Her pocket vibrated, and she yanked out her phone. The text from her sister said, “Call me when you get home. IMPORTANT.”

  Hell, what else could go wrong today?

  She shoved the phone back in her pocket, snatched up her backpack and left the locker room.

  “Hey, P
iper?” Tom strolled along the corridor toward her. “You ready to tell me what really happened at Tikitapu?”

  She froze.

  “You gave me the rose-colored version at yesterday’s debrief by the lake. Now I want the non-prettied up version.”

  “Nothing happened. I’m fine.” She swung the backpack onto her shoulder and folded her arms across her diaphragm.

  “Fisher the shrink doesn’t think so.” He leaned against the wall opposite, a six-foot-three chunk of solid muscle with a soft side few knew about—except perhaps his wife and twin baby girls. “How long have we worked together, kid? I know when you’re dodging bullets.”

  “I’m not a kid—ah, crap.” She raked shaky fingers through her hair, pulling the short strands until her scalp stung. “Fisher stood me down from the squad today—effective for two weeks. Two weeks back to the normal daily grind of paperwork and patrol.”

  Tom shoved his hands into the pockets of his regulation pants. “Well, you knew we were a part time squad when you applied. You did normal duties before you became a dive cop and you continue to do it daily unless we get a call out—be thankful we’re not pulling someone’s seventeen-year-old kid out of a lake every day.”

  “Sound like a whiny cow, don’t I?” Piper grimaced.

  He sighed. “Look, Fisher gave me a heads-up a few minutes ago that you’d failed the assessment and I hate to say he’s right—” his voice gentled “—but it’s not the first trouble you’ve had on a body recovery, is it?”

  When she glared at him, he shrugged. “Look Piper, you work like a woman possessed, so why not treat this as a holiday. Even better, go south and see your relatives. It’s, what, eight years since you’ve been home?”

  Home. Stewart Island. Bush-covered hills, cold azure ocean, and abundant birdlife.

  A lump of hardened grief and loss amassed in her belly.

  “Nine.” She planted her feet wide apart on the pitted linoleum floor. “But it’s not like I don’t keep in touch. I talk to Shaye and Mum all the time.” If she counted text messages and stilted phone conversations with her younger sister and mother as keeping in touch.

  “Kid, you don’t talk, really talk, to anyone.” Her chin lifted higher and Tom tugged on his earlobe with a sigh. “It’s unnatural for a woman not to yatter on about her feelings.”

  “Try saying that in front of your wife, boss.”

  “Well, my ear’s here if you wanna use it. You got a little squirrelly, but we all do at one time or another. Still, you did good. We gave the boy back to his family.”

  “I know.” She couldn’t meet his gaze as the old familiar ache rose in her chest.

  She did what she’d been trained to do, achieving the goals she set as an eighteen-year-old cadet entering Police College. She recovered the dead this time, but nine years ago she’d been unable to return her own father to the family.

  She fastened a fat, false smile on her lips. “Maybe I will take that holiday. Seats to the Gold Coast are on sale this week. See you ‘round, boss.”

  Tom shook his head as she sauntered past. “Not if I see you first.”

  Off the southernmost tip of New Zealand, Piper clung to the ferry’s handrail as it wallowed across Foveaux Strait to her hometown, Oban, on Stewart Island. Sea spray splattered onto her face, salt stinging the corners of her slitted eyes.

  She was about to throw up. Repeatedly throw up. And afterward she’d have to drag her weakened carcass under a bench and curl into a fetal ball to die. The manufacturers of useless seasickness pills had better watch out, because she’d be haunting their asses.

  God, she hated this stretch of water.

  Unpredictable and often dangerous, the churning grey waves of the Strait reflected the gathering storm clouds above. Another howling southerly squall on the way. Perfect. She could be sunning herself without a care on the Gold Coast, but instead she’d taken a call from her panicked sister two days ago and used up all her accumulated leave to head south. Now she endured a near-death experience to try and save her older brother Ben from losing his house and business—not that he’d thank her for it.

  “Just six weeks,” she muttered as the ferry roiled into the small harbor, the anchored boats bobbing and tossing so violently she closed her eyes. “Anyone could do six weeks.”

  Kind of made Fisher’s two weeks off squad duty almost look appealing.

  The ferry docked with a bone-rattling thump. She peered at the town’s distant lights shimmering through the light rain as she stepped onto the wharf, though “town” was too big a word for the local pub/restaurant/hotel, the cluster of small stores, and the community hall.

  Nothing changed. Time stood still here.

  Piper tugged the baseball cap lower on her head and zipped her leather jacket shut. People swept by, surrounding her with a chatter of bright voices and the rattle of suitcase wheels along the planks. She hoisted her hiker’s backpack and strode off the wharf onto Oban’s main road.

  Her stomach looped into a series of reef knots, each growing tighter the closer her steps carried her into the center of town. She stopped at the children’s playground opposite the Due South Bar and Restaurant. A grassy slope led to a jumble of rocks and a beach dotted with clumps of seaweed. Overturned dinghies framed a picture-perfect island scene—ruined only by spitting skies and the choppy grey waves surging across the sand.

  Raucous laughter drifted through the open doors of the bar. Someone roared, “C’mon Gav—drink, drink, drink!” The locals claimed Friday night as their own and without a doubt her brother Ben would be there. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and hunched her shoulders against the chilly air. Watching from the outside, yet again.

  Light spilled from the large windows of the double-story building. The Westlake family had owned and operated Due South for the last fifty years, and the watering hole was the hub and heart of the town. Cocooned behind the glass, secure and enfolded by the warmth of familiarity, men and women she’d grown up with drank beer and gossiped.

  She had to go inside and face her brother, face them all.

  Face Ryan Westlake.

  West.

  Piper’s pulse rate jetted into the stratosphere and she sucked in a gulp of sea air.

  You’re stronger than this, Constable Harland. You’ve faced gang members and addicts high on methamphetamines spoiling for a fight in dark alleyways. Just do it already.

  Willing steel into her spine, Piper strode across the road, dumped her bag under the shelter of the railed verandah overhang, and walked inside. The scents, smells, sights and sounds of Due South were a sly jab in the solar plexus, leaving her the village idiot frozen in the doorway.

  A musty wet-wool smell assaulted her nose. The same old photos of fishing boats remained mounted on olive green walls. Ford Komeke, the island’s mechanic, sat on a bar stool to one side, strumming his guitar. Old Smitty was hunched at a table, emphasizing a point to his sidekick Laurie by poking Laurie’s belly with an unlit cigar.

  Her gaze flicked away and circled the crowded room—there he was, in her father’s old spot by the corner. Slumped in a hard-backed chair, Ben stared at his empty beer glass.

  One of the knots in her stomach contracted a fraction. Her gangly big brother with the easy grin and overdue-for-a-trim mop of sandy hair had changed into a broad-shouldered, short-haired, scowling stranger.

  Piper adjusted her cap again, directing a quick glance at the guy working the bar. Not West, thank God. She ordered a bottle of imported lager, then impulsively held up two fingers when he returned.

  Keeping her head angled down, she grabbed the beers and plunged into the crowd. The nape of her neck prickled as she weaved past table after table of familiar faces. She gave it, oh, two minutes before every Islander knew of her arrival.

  Piper stood in front of her brother, since the bulk of his cast-covered ankle occupied the chair opposite. “Mum always said you’d break your neck on that mountain bike one day.”

  Ben didn�
��t move but his fingers cinched almost imperceptibly around the glass. Five endless seconds stretched, his silence burned her to the bone. He rolled his shoulders under his woolen jersey and met her gaze with insolent slowness.

  “Mum also said you’d always run toward trouble, not away from it.” The deep timbre of his voice scraped her nerves raw. Such a long time since they’d spoken. His gaze never wavered as he drained the beer dregs from his glass. “She was wrong about that too.”

  Piper shrugged and put the bottles down. “Well, I’m here now.”

  His glass settled on the table with a hollow clink. “So you are. And I suppose I’m the trouble you’re running to.”

  “I bought you a beer.”

  He turned the bottle around to read the label. “Only loopies drink this imported crap.”

  Loopies, the Islanders’ affectionate but slightly derogative name for visitors and tourists. Piper’s eyes narrowed as she took a sip from the second bottle. “Is that so? I seem to remember when you were seventeen, you and your mates pinched a couple dozen and drank until you passed out under a tree.”

  The corners of Ben’s mouth twitched, like the muscles there battled against a smile. He slumped further under the table lip and folded his arms. “Things have changed since those days.”

  “Uh-huh. You were a lot more responsible back then.”

  Ben winced as his foot jolted against the chair, and fired a scorching glare up at her. “Shaye told you about more than just my broken ankle, didn’t she?”

  Piper took another swig of beer but made no move to sit. Ben hated anyone looking down at him. “Of course she did. She’s worried sick.”

  All the fear and hurt and rejection exploded in her stomach, a shrapnel bomb of emotion. She slammed her bottle down, braced her clenched fists, and leaned in. “What the devil were you doing, risking your house to buy a bigger boat?”

  “Butt out, Piper,” he growled.