Nine Months to Change His Life. Marion Lennox

worse.

      She should be factoring in risks. She should have him on a rigid board with a neck brace in case of spinal injury.

      There wasn’t time. Survival meant they had to move.

      ‘Now your legs,’ she said, and one leg moved. The other shifted a little and then didn’t. She could see pain wash over his face.

      ‘That’s great,’ she said, even though it wasn’t. ‘We have one good leg and one that’s sore. Now fingers and arms.’

      ‘I can’t feel ’em.’

      ‘That’s because you’re cold. Try.’

      He tried and they moved.

      ‘Good. Take a breather now. We have a little time.’ Like five minutes. Waves were already reaching his feet.

      He had a slash across his face. The bleeding had slowed to an ooze but it looked like it had bled profusely.

      Head injury. He needed X-rays. If he had intracranial bleeding...

      Don’t even go there.

      Priorities. She had a patient with an injured leg and blood loss and shock. The tide was coming in. There was time for nothing but getting him off the beach.

      The sand and sleet were slapping her face, making her gasp. She was having trouble breathing herself.

      Think.

      Injured leg. She had no time—or sight—to assess it. The slashing sand was blinding.

      Splint.

      Walking-stick.

      She made to rise but his hand came out and caught her. He held her arm, with surprising strength.

      ‘Don’t leave me.’ It was a gasp.

      She understood. She looked at the ripped lifejacket and then she looked out at the mountainous sea.

      This guy must be one of the yachties they’d been talking about on the radio this morning. A yacht race—the Ultraswift Round the World Challenge—had been caught unprepared. The cyclone warning had had the fleet running for cover to Auckland but the storm had veered unexpectedly, catching them in its midst.

      At dawn the broadcasters had already been talking about capsizes and deaths. Heroic rescues. Tragedy.

      Now the storm had turned towards her island. It must have swept Ben before it. He’d somehow been swept onto Hideaway, but to safety?

      Would this be as bad as the storm got, or would the cyclone hit them square on? With no radio contact she had to assume the worst.

      She had to get him off this beach.

      ‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said, and heaven only knew the effort it cost to keep the panic from her voice. ‘I’m walking up the beach to find you a walking-stick. Then I’m coming back to help you to safety. I know you can’t see me clearly right now but I’m five feet six inches tall and even though I play roller derby like a champion, I can’t carry you. You need a stick.’

      ‘Roller derby,’ he said faintly.

      ‘My team name is Smash ’em Mary,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to mess with me.’

      ‘Smash ’em Mary?’ It was a ragged whisper but she was satisfied. She’d done what she’d intended. She’d made him think of something apart from drama and tragedy.

      ‘I’ll invite you to a game some time,’ she told him. ‘But not today. Bite on a bullet, big boy, while I fetch you a walking-stick.’

      ‘I don’t need a walking-stick.’

      ‘Yeah, you can get up and hike right up the beach without even a wince,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. Lie still and think of nothing at all while I go and find what I need. Do what the lady tells you. Stay.’

      * * *

      Stay. He had no choice.

      ‘Smash ’em Mary.’ The name echoed in his head, weirdly reassuring.

      The last few hours had been a nightmare. In the end he’d decided it was a dream. He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness or that was how it’d seemed. The past was mixing with the future. He and Jake as kids in that great, ostentatious mansion their parents called home. Their father yelling at them. ‘You moronic imbeciles, you’re your mother’s spawn. You’ve inherited nothing from me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.’

      That’s how he felt now. Stupid.

      Jake, flying through the air with the blast from the roadside bomb. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

      Jake on a rope, smashing through the waves.

      ‘Ben, look after your brother.’ That was their mother. Rita Marlene. Beautiful, fragile, fatally flawed. ‘Promise me.’

      She was here now. Promise me.

      Where was Jake?

      This was all a dream.

      His mother?

      Smash ’em Mary.

      There was no way a dream could conjure a Smash ’em Mary. The name hauled him out of his stupor as nothing else could.

      Stay.

      He had no choice but to obey. The nightmare was still there. If he moved, it might slam back.

      He’d lie still and submit. To Smash ’em Mary?

      She’d been so close he’d seen her face. She had an elfin haircut, with wet, short-cropped curls plastering her forehead. She had a finely boned face, brown eyes and freckles.

      She had shadows under her eyes. Exhaustion?

      Because of him? Had she been searching for him—or someone else?

      How many yachts had gone down?

      Memory was surging back, and he groaned and tried to rise. But then she was back, pushing him down onto the sand.

      ‘Disobedience means no elephant stamp,’ she told him. ‘I said lie still and I meant lie still.’ Then she faltered a little, and the assurance faded. ‘Ben, I can’t sugar-coat this. Your leg might be broken and there’s no way I can assess it here.

      ‘In normal circumstances I’d call an ambulance, we’d fill you full of nice woozy drugs, put you on a stretcher and cart you off to a hospital, but right now all you have is me. So I’ve found a couple of decent sticks. I’ll tie one to your leg to keep it still. The other’s a walking-stick. You’re going to hold onto me and we’ll get you off this beach.’

      He tried to think about it. It was hard to think about anything but closing his eyes and going to sleep.

      ‘Ben,’ Mary snapped. ‘Don’t even think about closing your eyes. You’re cold to the marrow. The tide’s coming in. You go to sleep and you won’t wake up.’

      ‘What’s wrong with that?’ It was a slur. It was so hard to make his voice work.

      ‘Because Jake needs you,’ Mary snapped again. ‘You pull yourself together and help me, and then we’ll both help Jake. Just do it.’

      And put like that, of course he’d do it. He had no choice.

      * * *

      Afterwards she could never figure out how they managed. She’d read somewhere of mothers lifting cars off children, superhuman feats made possible by the adrenalin of terror. There was something about a cyclone bearing down that provided the same sort of impetus.

      She was facing sleet and sand and the blasting of leaves and branches from the storm-swept trees of Hideaway Island and beyond. She had to get this man two hundred yards up a rocky cliff to the safety of the cave. The sheer effort of hauling him was making her feel faint, but there was no way she was letting him go.

      ‘If