A Whirlwind Engagement

by Jessica Hart

  Bella couldn't believe how suddenly the conditions had changed. One minute they had been puttering along in the flat calm and the next they were in the middle of a screaming gale. And the wind was just a foretaste of what was to come. Another second and the sun had been swallowed up by the boiling black clouds, and the rain hit them with the force of a ten-ton truck.

  'Bella!' Josh had to bellow over the screaming wind and crashing rain. He had taken over the tiller from Elvis, who was frantically throwing water overboard with a ludicrously small plastic baler. 'Get everyone baling!'

  Blinking through the water that streamed down her face, Bella gave Josh the thumbs up sign to show that she had understood.

  How she was going to go about it was another matter. She looked around desperately before grabbing a mask from the muddle of snorkels and flippers and abandoned shoes which were already floating in the rainwater accumulating in the bottom of the boat and began baling. Not very effective, it had to be said, but it was better than nothing.

  'I feel sick,' moaned Cassandra.

  'Here.' Bella shoved the mask at her and groped around for another one. 'Help get rid of some of this water. You'll feel better if you've got something to do.'

  Although what would she know? Bella asked herself wryly. Still, she had obviously convinced Cassandra who began scooping up water obediently with her mask.

  Aisling had seen what they were doing and was handing out masks on the other side. Even Bryn took one. Bella wasn't sure that was a good sign. Things must look really bad for him to come out of his sulk and follow Josh's advice.

  Buffeted by waves on all sides and submerging under the deluge of water, the little boat seemed to be standing still in the water. It seemed a lifetime since they had stood on the sunny jetty that morning and pooh-poohed Josh's caution about life-jackets, a lifetime of bending and scooping and chucking the water from the bottom of the boat that filled up as quickly as they could try and empty it. The rain was relentless, hammering down on them while the wind shrieked and the sea surged, slopping waves over the side and tearing at her hair.

  Bella's shoulders ached with baling, but she managed to get into a rhythm eventually which made it easier. What am I doing here? she wondered. I'm a city girl. I should be at my computer or in some bar, not stuck on a sinking boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I do text messages and buying shoes, not survival.

  Someone near her was crying, but Bella couldn't see who it was and anyway, if she had to do survival, she was going to survive, and that meant keeping on baling rather than stopping to offer comfort. She felt oddly detached. The whole thing had happened so suddenly and was so overwhelming that it seemed vaguely surreal, but beneath her surface calm she was absolutely terrified.

  Whenever fear threatened to become too much, she would fix her mind on Josh. She could hardly make him out through the lashing rain, but even an indistinct glimpse of his solid figure, holding onto the tiller with one hand and baling like everyone else with the other, was enough to reassure her. Josh was there and in control, and he wouldn't let anything happen to her.

  It was like being trapped in a nightmare. Bella baled and baled and baled, and forgot what it was like to feel warm and dry and safe. She was in such a zombiefied state that a shout from Elvis barely penetrated her consciousness and it wasn't until Cassandra prodded her that she looked up to see the island.

  After longing for the sight of land, it loomed terrifyingly close through the driving rain, The little boat was already perilously close to the rocks that fringed the island, but still they all cheered at the sight and redoubled their efforts to stop it sinking before they could reach the shore.

  After some consultation with Elvis, Josh put on his shoes and made his way cautiously to the front of the boat.

  'What are you doing?' Bella shouted over the sound of the wind and rain as he passed her.

  'We can't risk running the boat onto the rocks or we might never get off again,' he shouted back. 'Elvis is going to get as close as he dares, and by then it should be shallow enough for me to get in and anchor it. I can pull the boat the rest of the way.'

  'You're going to jump into the sea?' Bella was horrified. 'Josh, you can't! It's too dangerous.'

  His hand rested briefly on her cheek. 'Don't worry, it'll be fine.'

  Bella could hardly bear to watch as he disappeared overboard. The water was wild and the wind furious, tossing the boat around spitefully. How could he even stand, let alone manoeuvre them into the shore?

  It was hard to see what was going on, but those at the front of the boat passed the message back down the line that Josh's feet had touched the bottom and that he was slowly but surely, dragging them through the rocks into the shore. The waves slapped him in the face and made him stagger, but when he was knee-deep he signalled to Elvis to cut the engine and drop the anchor.

  They would all have to wade the rest of the way but they were so wet by that stage and so relieved to have reached land that no one objected, not even Bryn. Forming a chain, they passed the iceboxes, awning and various bags over their heads and then huddled together on the tiny beach.

  If anything the storm seemed worse here, as if maddened by their attempt to escape its clutches. The palm trees bent almost to the ground before the force of the wind, which whipped their leaves savagely and tossed debris into the air, while the rain slashed down in a deafening torrent.

  'Welcome to paradise!' Bella shouted above the tumult, and they all laughed rather hysterically.

  Under the conditions, it was difficult to tell much about the island, but eventually it was decided to explore inland to see if they could rig up a rudimentary shelter with the awning.

  Josh stayed behind with Elvis to see if they could make the boat more secure, but he watched Bella struggle up the beach with Cassandra, carrying an icebox between them. She was smiling encouragingly and apparently even managing to make jokes, judging by the way her companions laughed as if despite themselves.

  It didn't take long to explore the island, which was rocky and covered in sparse vegetation. On the lee side Josh found another beach which was relatively sheltered, and they managed to tie the awning between some trees, where a rocky wall behind gave them the illusion of protection from the rain, although the benefit was largely psychological. By the time they had carried everything over there, they were all exhausted, and they collapsed together under the canvas with groans of relief.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Only Josh resisted the temptation to slump with the others. 'I think it would be a good idea to bring the boat round here,' he said, eyeing the beach critically. 'It's more protected here and we can keep an eye on it.'

  Bryn heaved an exaggerated sigh. 'Oh, God, he thinks he's Robinson Crusoe now! Can't it wait? We've only just sat down.'

  'It would be safer to do it now,' said Josh. 'I know we're all tired, but if the boat breaks loose we're going to be stuck here and it might be some time before anyone finds us and we really will get a chance to play Robinson Crusoe. It's just a question of walking it round the shoreline. I could do with a hand, though.'

  'Take Elvis,' said Bryn dismissively. 'The boat is his responsibility.'

  'Elvis is barely more than a child.' Josh glanced at where the boy sat slightly apart, not listening to what was going on but with his head slumped onto his knees. 'He's exhausted.'

  'We're all exhausted! For God's sake-'

  'Why don't we rest for a bit?' suggested Aisling quickly as it became obvious that Bryn was working himself up for a rant. 'Then we can deal with the boat.'

  Josh hesitated. Bella could see that he was really concerned about the boat, and somehow she managed to haul herself to her feet.

  'I'll go with you,' she said, although her limbs felt like lead and she wasn't sure she could even get back to the other side of the island, let alone struggle through the water with a boat.

  The wind whipped her wet hair around her face as she stood there, utterly bedraggled and swaying with exhausti
on. Josh had an incongruous vision of her as she had looked at Kate's wedding, glossy in her hat and her high heels. He had always given her a hard time for being a bit of a princess, but there was no doubt about it: she was a princess with guts!

  Her offer shamed a couple of the other men into going with them and, although Bryn resolutely maintained that the expedition could wait until they had all recovered, the four of them set off straight away. They were only just in time, too, as the boat was straining at its makeshift mooring and it wouldn't have been long before it dragged itself free and smashed into the rocks.

  Bella had expected it to be hard work to move it round to the other side of the island, and in the event it was much more difficult than even she had imagined. There were times during that terrible trip when she was sure they would never make it.

  For most of the way, the water wasn't too deep, but the boat was difficult to manoeuvre in the choppy sea. The rain blinded them, and the waves pounded relentlessly at them, knocking them off their feet and pushing them back towards the rocks.

  At a couple of points they had to edge their way carefully around rocky promontories, where the footholds were slippery and uneven, and the water deeper. Bella slipped and was submerged several times, and once she disappeared completely under the boat before Josh thrashed frantically through the water to drag her back, gasping and choking, to the surface.

  He kept them all going by sheer will-power, shouting encouragement and refusing to let them give up. Bella's hands were numb, but just when she was sure that she couldn't hold onto the boat a moment longer, the beach came in sight. The others were there to help pull it up to safety, but by then Bella couldn't even make it to the cover. She collapsed onto the sand, heedless of the thrashing rain, unable to move a second more.

  The next moment she found herself lifted in strong arms as Josh carried her the last few yards. 'I'm all right,' she roused herself to protest, knowing that he must be as exhausted as everyone else. 'Put me down before you fall down!'

  'Stop wriggling and shut up,' said Josh, raising his voice above the sound of the wind.

  'Well, that's not very lover-like!' Bella pretended to be offended. 'We are supposed to be engaged, you know.'

  She had wanted to make Josh smile, but although the corner of his mouth quirked upwards, his eyes were deadly serious as he laid her down under the awning.

  'I hadn't forgotten,' he said.

  Bella was embarrassed to find herself greeted as a heroine by the women who had stayed behind. In the way women do, they had contrived to make the makeshift shelter as much of a home as they could, ranging the bags around the edge, laying out towels and sarongs as sleeping mats, and setting out the iceboxes as a table. Bella half expected to see that someone had hacked their way into the undergrowth to find some flowers.

  It was Cassandra who noticed that Bella's foot was bleeding and promptly whipped the towel out from beneath her leg. 'That's a really bad cut,' she said with a grimace.

  'I must have done it when I slipped on the rocks. Those sandals were designed for walking to and from the pool, not clambering over rocks.' Bella contemplated her ruined shoes sadly. They had been her favourites, delicate, strappy affairs with appliquéd flowers and sequins. 'They're never going to be the same again!'

  'You should be worrying about your foot, not your shoes,' said Josh sternly, lifting her left foot to inspect the unpleasantly jagged tear along one side. 'Cassandra is right. That's really nasty. Why didn't you say something?'

  'I didn't know I'd done it. I still can't feel it, to tell you the truth.'

  She could feel his fingers gently probing around the cut, though. He must be as cold and as wet and as numb as she was, but his hands were wonderfully warm against her skin.

  Bella studied her foot with an odd air of detachment. She was usually a terrible baby about anything like that, and if she'd cut herself in London would have been squealing and yelping and demanding emergency treatment, preferably from a tall, dark, good-looking doctor in a white coat who might or might not have an uncanny resemblance to George Clooney. E.R. just hadn't been the same since he had left.

  It was strange to be thinking about E.R. when she was stuck on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Indian Ocean with the wind howling and screaming and shaking the awning, and the rain thundering down onto their pitiful shelter, and Josh and Cassandra peering at her foot in concern.

  'Must it be amputation, doctor?' she asked solemnly, and Josh's smile did more to warm her than a lorry load of duvets and hot-water bottles.

  Although Bella wouldn't have said no to a nice, warm, dry bed right then. With Josh in it.

  'I think you'll survive,' he said, breaking into her fantasy. 'You're going to need some stitches, I think, but we'll just have to tie it up for now.'

  After a fruitless search for something that could be used as a bandage, Josh tore a wide strip off the bottom of his short-sleeved shirt. Like Bella's foot, it had been thoroughly soaked in sea water so at least had the advantage of being cleaner than any of the alternatives.

  He bound up her foot with a brisk professionalism. 'There, how does that feel?' he asked as he secured it with a knot.

  'Better than a pedicure,' said Bella.

  Wet and weary as she was, she felt bizarrely happy. The storm was no longer terrifying, but merely background noise to the fact that she was with Josh and that horrible tension between them had been blown away along with their plans for a peaceful afternoon snorkelling.

  Later, they shared out the food from one of the iceboxes. Bella was almost too tired to bother by then, but Josh told her roughly that she had to eat, so she chewed obediently on a sandwich. Packed into plastic boxes and sealed in the icebox, the food had stayed miraculously dry, and once they had started eating they all discovered that they were ravenously hungry. Eyes began turning to the other two iceboxes.

  'Do you think we should keep the rest for later?' Cassandra asked, turning instinctively to Josh as their unelected leader.

  'I think it would be a good idea,' he said. 'We should put out the empty icebox, too, and collect some rainwater.'

  Bryn rolled his eyes to the awning above their heads where the rain was already gathering in another great pool. They had to keep knocking the canvas to send it cascading down the sides to stop the awning collapsing beneath the weight of the water.

  'I wouldn't have said shortage of water was our problem here!' he said sarcastically.

  'It might be when the storm passes,' said Josh evenly. 'I didn't see any fresh water on the island and it's best to be prepared. The boat got pretty bashed around on those rocks. If we can't get the engine going tomorrow we might be here some time and in that case the one thing we're going to need is water.'

  'I'm sure you'd love that,' sneered Bryn. 'It would give you a chance to show off all those survival skills of yours. I can just see you rubbing sticks together to make a fire and impressing the girls by spearing a fish!'

  'It wouldn't just impress the girls,' said one of the men who had helped bring the boat round. 'It would impress me too!'

  'Yes, shut up, Bryn!' said Aisling sharply, getting up to put the empty icebox outside to catch the rain. 'You're behaving like a spoilt child!'

  'Oh, right, just because I don't jump whenever your precious Josh says jump! Who put him in charge anyway?'

  'He's in charge because he knows what he's talking about, which is more than I can say for you!' Aisling snapped back.

  'If he's so perfect, why didn't you stick with him?' snarled Bryn.

  'I'm beginning to wish I had!'

  'Oh, well, fine!' he said petulantly. 'Just because I'm not macho man like Mr SAS over there!'

  'You can say that again,' murmured Cassandra in Bella's ear. 'Did you know that his name is really Bryan? I had to collect in all the passports, so I queried it when the names didn't match. Apparently he dropped "a" because he thinks Bryn is sexier and suits him better. Talk about self-deluded!'

  Bella was deli
ghted to have her theory confirmed, but hoped that Cassandra hadn't picked up on Bryn's jibe about Aisling leaving Josh.

  She had, of course. Bella knew that she would have pricked up her ears at that too, and she was beginning to feel that Cassandra might be a kindred spirit.

  'What was that about Aisling and Josh?' she asked curiously. 'Did they use to go out?'

  'They were engaged briefly,' admitted Bella reluctantly, and Cassandra shot her a perceptive glance.

  'No wonder you didn't like it when they went off diving together all the time! You don't need to worry, though,' she went on comfortably. 'It's obvious that he absolutely adores you.'

  Bella knew that Josh adored her, but not in the way Cassandra meant. Until she realised how much she loved him, she would have said the same. 'Oh, yes, I adore Josh,' she would say if anyone commented on how nice he was, or how close they seemed, but she had meant as a friend, not as a lover.

  Not the way she wanted him to adore her now.

  Josh had ignored Bryn's taunts, and had gone out to check on the boat, leaving Bryn and Aisling to argue in snappy whispers. When he came back, he lay down beside Bella and, without a word, lifted an arm so that she could nestle into him, too tired to worry about looking clingy or needy or revealing too much and needing only the warmth and comfort of his body.

  'How long do you think those sandwiches will last?' she asked sleepily. Lying close like this, they could talk without being heard by the others above the sound of the rain and in the darkness it was like being in their own private world.

  'They'll stretch to breakfast,' said Josh. 'I wouldn't bank on any lunch if we can't get the boat going.'

  'I hope we don't have to revert to cannibalism,' she murmured. 'We might end up like that parlour game where you have to argue that you're so essential that you shouldn't be eaten, and I'd be bound to be the first one in the pot. It's true,' she said as she felt Josh shake with quiet laughter. 'I must be the most useless person here. PR isn't exactly a survival skill!'