Scarred Survival (Scarred Series Book 5)

by Jackie Williams

  The silence around them was only interrupted by Geraldine’s broken sobs. The women gathered around her, helping her back to the chaise.

  Ryan touched David on the arm.

  “Where’s your helicopter? Is there any chance...”

  David shook his head.

  “It’s not far...There’s a landing site over at Château Bratz. Antoine, the owner of the château sold me the helicopter a couple of months ago. It’s practically brand new, only done a couple of hundred hours. He bought it when he began flying emergency organ donations to where they were needed, but the French government were almost embarrassed and began their own fleet. Antoine thought he’d keep it for personal use but he had a heart attack and after recovering, decided to give up flying altogether. When I said that I might be interested, he jumped at the chance to offload it.” He gave up explaining and looked about frantically. “But I can’t fly the damn thing and Antoine can’t fly it without endangering his health. I know that you have a license, Patrick, but you haven’t flown for years and there’s no one around here mad enough to take it up in this weather anyway.” He shuddered as the wind and rain shrieked over the château.

  Ryan clapped him on the shoulder and gave a grim laugh.

  “Idiot. I live for challenges like this. Let’s go!”

  David stared at him, his eyes filled with hope he couldn’t voice. He could never have asked the man, never have expected him to offer. Ryan owed him nothing, would gain nothing.

  “But...your hand and your leg? You can’t fly while you’re still injured.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes and began dragging David towards the door.

  “Shut up, idiot. Sure, it’ll be a bit bumpy and maybe even dangerous, but these are your children and Gemma who we are talking about. I’ll need this phone for a GPS until I can check the system you have on board, but after that we should be fine. Just get me to that bird.”

  David glanced back at his wife. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  “Bring them back, David. Please,” she begged him

  Gemma knew that she was in trouble well before the phone call. The sail had ripped away from her hands, but she’d stubbornly carried on, ignoring all the signs of a storm rolling in with the tide. Now, she ducked the block quickly as she tried to grab hold of the trailing lines, but only succeeded in having her arm nearly wrenched from its socket by the force of the gale. The sail flapped uselessly in the wind and rain and she almost sobbed at the futility of it all.

  Ryan’s treachery continued to tear at her heart. She should never have trusted him. He was a flight jockey, a wanna be hero, a risk taker. She’d known from the start that he would never be the one for her. He couldn’t be. She could never love someone who only lived for the sky.

  Discovering that he’d been piloting the helicopter when her arm was severed was the greatest blow of all. He’d lied. Even if he hadn’t known that she had survived, he had still lied to her about his past. He’d lied to everyone. She couldn’t believe that Patrick and the others had taken the news so calmly. It was as if it hadn’t mattered that they had been deceived; they were just glad he was alive.

  Her heart gave another almighty heave. If she was being honest to herself, she was glad that Patrick’s friend was alive too, but the cover up had been so contrived. So there had been a leak, an inside traitor who was selling their secrets, but she had only wanted a lift. She’d only wanted to be back at work without three hours worth of dirt on her skin and instead she’d been maimed for life.

  Ryan, as she was getting used to calling him, hadn’t returned to the château the previous day, not that she wanted him to, but it still hurt that he hadn’t tried to fight for her. Maybe he thought it was a lost cause or maybe he thought that she would just slap his all too handsome face.

  Joe had obviously thought the situation wasn’t worth pursuing. He had come over that morning to collect the cakes and a bag of clothes for the airman. Gemma waited for him to try and persuade her to see sense, but he just closed the car doors and said that he’d be back in an hour for Paul and Amy. He had asked if she was coming too, but Gemma just glared at him and he had quickly put the car into gear and driven off.

  The rain lashed down in her face. The storm had come in from nowhere, the day turning from beautiful warm sunshine to angry wind and black clouds within hours of her setting out. She’d thought that a day on the water would do much to clear her mind and she had relaxed in the boat for a good part of the afternoon, letting it drift with the tide and the wind. It was only as she thought about returning to the château that she discovered that the weather and her sails had other ideas. She cursed herself silently for making the basic mistake of not looking at the weather report.

  She’d lost grip of the mainsheet after what felt like hours of holding on, unable to use the cleat for assistance as he fingers turned numb in the frigid water. She shuddered and whipped her sodden hair from her eyes as a wave suddenly broke over jagged rocks that were visible beneath the surface of the dark grey sea. The boat tipped to an alarming angle on the backwash and Gemma threw herself across the boat as a counterweight. The small vessel slapped back hard on the water, missing the treacherous rocks by mere inches. As the boat caught another gust of wind, Gemma peered through the lashing rain to see is she was close to any viable stretch of land.

  She knew that the hundreds of tiny islands just off the coast of Brittany could be treacherous to navigate, but there was just the hope that one of them still had room to land. If she couldn’t find a safe harbour, there was nothing she could do in this kind of storm save keep the bows into the wind and hopefully ride it out.

  Yet another huge wave broke over her and in the lee of it she suddenly saw a wall of rock. She heard a sickening scrape as the underside of the boat hit ragged, but invisible ground, and then she was free again as another wave scooped the boat up and back out onto the open water.

  Her heart raced as she spun around and grabbed at the rudder arm. It gave a strange squeal as the boat veered sharply and for a panicked moment she thought it was about to sheer off with the pressure of water, but it squealed again and eventually responded to her touch. She let out a sigh of relief as the boat slithered away from the rocky outcrop, and was about to search the horizon for safe ground again when she heard a strangled cry followed by something that sounded exactly like someone gagging.

  She shook her head in disbelief and slapped the side of her head. She must have water in her ears. It wouldn’t have surprised her given the lashing rain that swept over the small deck. A cry of a seagull and the water sucking beneath the little craft perhaps, but there was another sudden heaving retch just as the lid of the box containing the life jackets shot open, and a lanky, vomit covered boy stood up.

  Gemma was so shocked she just stared open mouthed for a moment before her eyes became even wider at the sight of a green faced little girl who popped up beside her brother.

  Robbie stood with his hands on his hips as he glared at his younger sister.

  “Trust a girl to spoil everything.” He looked down at his shirt and then back into the box of yellow jackets. He reached in, shoved the jackets aside and pulled out what looked like an old carpet bag. He opened it and peered inside before he smiled widely. He held the bag open wide for a speechless Gemma to inspect while he looked up at her. “At least she didn’t smother Luc too.”

  The swaying deck and storm instantly forgotten, Gemma gulped before she peered inside the bag, already knowing what, or rather who, she was going to discover. The bald, four month old baby was fast asleep, one minute thumb stuck contentedly in his mouth, his other tiny hand grasping what looked like a small, fluffy, white sheep.

  For a moment Gemma thought she was about to faint. Her heart rate climbed to somewhere near jack-hammering and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her. She swallowed rapidly and blinked the salty spray away from her eyes as she stared down at the run-a-way trio in glazed eyed horror.

  Another wave broke over the
side of the boat and Gemma managed to catch Fran before she was swept off her feet. Robbie stood grinning into the wind, standing in the spray of the wave as he rinsed his sister’s vomit from his shirt.

  Gemma screwed up her eyes, then opened them again and blinked several times.

  This couldn’t possibly be happening! All three of David’s precious children could not be on this boat. The stress of the last few days must have caused hallucinations.

  She was going to give herself another ten seconds to wake up from this nightmare before she jumped over the side to end it all once and for all!

  The ten seconds passed. Nothing happened except that they all stood there looking at one another silently. Fran suddenly piped up.

  “It was Robbie’s idea. He said that we could all stay together if we lived on one of the islands. We’re going to catch fish every day for dinner and live in a tree house so lions can’t eat us. Robbie has a plan and he’s packed some books so he can teach me and Luc stuff, but I don’t like it on this boat. I was sick.” The little girl stated the obvious as what looked like half digested chocolate cereals clung to the front of her dress.

  Gemma would have laughed if the boat hadn’t suddenly begun rocking in an alarming fashion. She dived for the pile of life jackets in the box, shook off as much of the vomit as she could before she dragged them over the children’s shoulders and wrapped the cords tightly around their waists. She fitted the carpet bag containing the still sleeping Luc, inside another and tied it up tightly. She fastened the rest of the yellow jackets to the handles of the box in a desperate hope that it might float if they all ended up in the water. Checking that there were no more stow-a-ways hidden in the box she frowned as she discovered a big pile of books stacked in a carrier bag. Ignoring Robbie’s protests, she tipped them out onto the soaking deck. She handed the bag to Fran before picking her and the baby up and put them both back inside the box.

  “We’ll clean you up as soon as we can. Use that bag if you feel sick again, sweetie.” She gave Fran a quick kiss on the top of her head before she looked over to Robbie who stood glaring back at her.

  “How am I meant to teach them now? The books are all ruined.” He flung his hand towards the now soggy books as his determined little face challenged her.

  Robbie was clearly not at all happy with her. Gemma nearly rolled her eyes, but decided against it.

  “We’ll make paper out of the trees on the island we find and we can all write new ones. We’ll have to write about all our adventures and discoveries. We can teach Fran and Luc as we go.” She smiled encouragingly at the boy. His face immediately lost its glower.

  “Cool! Can we light fires and make charcoal to write with too? Joe showed me how to do it once. You have to...”

  Gemma caught hold of his shoulders as the boat rolled again.

  “We can do anything you like, Robbie, just so long as you get back in this box and promise me that you will stay there until I tell you that it’s safe to come out.” The frown came back instantly, but Gemma didn’t have time to argue it out with him. She squatted down in front of him. “I need you to do a really important job for me. I know that ladies should really look after babies and children, but I don’t know anything about babies and little girls. I would be hopeless at it. It’s very embarrassing, but you know far more than me, Robbie. Do you think that you could look after your sister and brother for me while I see if we can make land? You’ll make a much better job of it than me.”

  Robbie gave a thoughtful frown.

  “Promise, about the fires and charcoal?” He asked hopefully.

  Gemma nodded solemnly and made a big cross over her heart with her finger. Robbie gave a thumbs up and grinned as he hopped back into the box.

  “Aye, Aye, Captain Gem. Let me know if you need any help bringing her about and if these two play up we can keelhaul them later!” He squatted down and promptly pulled the box lid closed over his head again.

  Gemma stood there, completely flabbergasted by the scene she had just witnessed. If she couldn’t still see the books sliding about the bottom of the waterlogged boat she would have thought it all a bad dream. As it was, it was more like the stuff of nightmares.

  She jumped as a vibration buzzed in her pocket. Taking out her phone her stomach flipped as she saw Patrick’s name on the screen. She breathed a small sigh of relief. At least someone knew where she was. She pressed the button and then held the phone away from her ear as a blast of white noise screamed in her ear.

  Ryan’s mouth fell open at the sight of the gleaming, dark blue Eurocopter that sat on the rain soaked landing zone at the rear of yet another huge château. For a moment he didn’t wonder at the Revolutionary French peasants rising up to take back some of the wealth. The excesses of the rich and titled were enough to drive anyone to pick up a pitchfork and protest.

  “Jesus, David. How the fuck can you afford something like this?” He managed to speak as David acknowledged the château owners wave from the window.

  David grinned as the pair of them dragged the ropes and harnesses and blankets and a box of food and drink that Joe, Patrick and Ellen had raced round and hastily gathered, from the back of the Land Rover. Heaving it all onto their shoulders, David tapped his chest as they jogged to the handsome craft.

  “Multi-millionaire, remember. I know Ellen goes on about how much we’ve spent on both the Châteaux and needing to keep it funded, but you don’t really think that either of us would ever be short of cash. The money that we had over from our inheritance was invested wisely and now just sits in the bank earning more money. Maybe it sounds weird, but we don’t actually spend a lot on ourselves. Ellen and Patrick aren’t materialistic at all. I don’t think that they even own a television. Geraldine has a bit of thing for nice clothes but she’s not that extravagant and I can normally rein in any wild excesses that I might think about for myself, though I do feel guilty over this little extravagance. Property is so cheap over here that I could have easily set up yet another serviceman’s holiday venture on the money this little beauty cost.”

  Ryan opened the door of the craft and hoisted himself into the cabin. David heaved in all the supplies and followed.

  Ryan glanced around at all the controls. They weren’t that dissimilar to those on a Lynx. He looked back at David as the man pulled his seat belt around him.

  “You shouldn’t ever feel guilty about spending money on your family. You and Ellen have gone way above and beyond any call of duty to others. It’s incredible what the pair of you have done.”

  David raised an eyebrow.

  “I’d feel better about it if I had learned to fly the damned thing. I just can’t get the hang of it. Feels like it’s flopping about the sky like a drunken butterfly.”

  Ryan flipped some switches. The engine turned on and noise began to fill the cabin.

  “That’s one way to put it, I suppose. It’s not for everyone. I took to it like a duck to water, but some people find it difficult.” He took the phone out of his pocket and tapped a screen in front of him before punching some numbers into the computer. “Give it a mo and that should give us Gemma’s position. It’s lucky Patrick had her GPS programmed into his phone. Saved a load of time trying to locate her.”

  David snorted.

  “Nothing lucky about it. After the debacle earlier on in the year with Geraldine and Amy being bricked up in the centre, there was no way that any of us were ever going to get caught out like that again. We all have GPS chips in our phones that are linked directly to the château. Even if we couldn’t get Gemma’s signal here,” he gestured towards the massive château that could have easily blocked out any signal. “Patrick would have found her on his office computer. We’d only need to call him to find out her exact co-ordinates.”

  Ryan nodded as he brought a pair of earphones to his ears and spoke to the air traffic control tower at Morlaix. He rolled his eyes and flicked some more switches on the control panel in front of him as a frantic voice advised him that th
e weather situation was dangerous. The rotor blades above them began to turn.

  Gemma was soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone and well beyond desperate.

  If it had been only herself she might have felt somewhat philosophical about things and just awaited her fate with a gritty calm. She had cheated death years previously. It wasn’t as if you went into the armed services with any guarantee of coming out alive.

  Though she didn’t feel ready to meet her maker, she wasn’t actually that worried about it. If her time was up, it was up. She’d made peace with herself over little difficulties like dying unexpectedly, years ago.

  What boggled her mind now was that she had three of the most wonderful children in the world in her care and at that very moment in time she was making a pretty poor job of keeping them safe. She would have cursed Robbie and his daft plan is she hadn’t felt the child’s genuine pain. He was a young boy who wanted to stay with his sister and brother. Life had clearly become far too complicated for the kid to bear.

  The small sailing boat creaked loudly with every wave that slammed against its side. The currents that swept the craft between the rocks were both her friend and her enemy. She could see that they were being carried nearer to shore, but what with the high tide, the shoreline was a mass of tumbling waves and deadly granite. The rose coloured stone that gave the area its name and its outstandingly beautiful coastline, was treacherous to the unwary.

  The wind suddenly dipped in force and the lead line of the sail trailed near to her hand. Without thinking, she grabbed it and attempted to anchor it to the cleat, but the wind whipped up again and the line tightened around her flesh.

  For a moment she thought she could hear the wind shrieking until she realized that the sound was coming from her own mouth. She twisted wildly, grabbed the line with her prosthetic hand and released her crushed fingers. The nylon had bitten deep and torn her skin from her knuckles. Salty spray immediately soaked the wound and the sting was such that Gemma thought she might pass out, but she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She attached the rope to the cleat and pulled it tight before she cradled her injured hand to her chest.