A Bride For The Maverick Millionaire (Journey Through The Outback #2) Read online

  And, with no hesitation at all, she raised her gun and she aimed at Rachel.

  And Finn dived straight at Rachel, and knocked her overboard.

  * * *

  She could swim, and she didn’t panic.

  He learned that about her in the first seconds after they hit the water. He grabbed her hand as they fell, and held. Instead of flailing for the surface, she twisted toward him underwater and he felt her make the decision to stay with him. He tugged her down, and she came, diving back beneath the ship and sideways.

  They had to release hands to fight their way under the shelter of the hull, but he kept with her, just touching. Holding his breath as long as she did. Each moved instinctively away from the murderous thugs at the ship’s rear.

  Thank God the boat had stopped. Thank God there were no propellers.

  They surfaced towards the front of the ship, as close to the hull as they could get. They were shocked to numbness, but tucked right under the forward hull was the safest place for them. They couldn’t be seen unless someone walked along the rail, bending over with a flashlight. Searching. With a gun.

  Maybe someone would.

  ‘I can scream,’ Rachel whispered, sounding stunningly composed. ‘My scream can wake the dead.’

  He thought fast, and rejected it just as fast. ‘You heard them,’ he managed. ‘Even if someone’s already heard yelling... It’ll play to their story. We fell, they saw us, they saw a croc. Once they know we’re here, they’ll have no choice but to shoot.’

  ‘Then...’ Her composure faltered.

  ‘We need to swim,’ he whispered, his thoughts bleak as death but knowing it was their only chance. ‘They can’t search. If they put on floodlights they’ll wake the boat. Unless they’re sure they can kill us before anyone else reaches the deck, they can’t risk it. The water’s choppy. They won’t be able to see without searchlights. How well can you swim?’

  ‘As far as I must,’ she said, calm again, and if he was astounded already at her composure, he just grew more so.

  But he didn’t have time to be astounded. There was only time for survival.

  ‘The tide’s going out. The current will take us north.’ He was thinking as he was whispering, holding her with one hand, touching the hull with the other to make sure they didn’t drift out from the ship to where they could be seen. ‘There’s an outcrop a few hundred yards to our north. That’s obvious—if they send out a tender to search they’ll find us—but there are smaller outcrops behind. Do you think...?’

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  ‘We don’t have...’

  But she was fast. She was twisting herself out of her jacket, whirling it into a rope, knotting it round her waist. ‘Just making me streamlined,’ she explained. ‘Go.’

  They went.

  * * *

  It was the swim of nightmares, but the nightmares had to be blocked out or tempered with reason.

  The water was rough and ink-black, and behind them were people who wanted them dead. The guy in the rowing boat played in his mind. He’d have come from a bigger boat. If the Temptress left the area, he could use searchlights.

  But the guy was angry with Esme, he thought. That might help. He wasn’t a crew member. He’d know neither Finn nor Rachel would be able to identify him—or the boat he came from. He may well refuse to search for someone who couldn’t necessarily incriminate him.

  He decided to hold that thought and block out others.

  Like reef sharks. Like crocodiles.

  They were in the open sea. Crocs usually stayed close to land, sticking near estuaries and river mouths.

  They did go further afield...

  And reef sharks? Don’t go there, he told himself. It achieved nothing to know that any minute they might be a sea creature’s snack.

  They. That was the word to keep nightmares at bay. Beside him was Rachel, swimming strongly and steadily alongside him.

  He needed to rein back to keep beside her but that was no hardship. They swam so that at every second stroke their hands touched. They swam as if they were rowing, stroke for stroke, keeping solid, steady rhythm. Together.

  The feeling grew, a solid, tangible comfort. Apart, there was nothing but the sea and the blackness and the fear, but together they could do this.

  He was aware of her as he’d never been aware of a woman in his life.

  They couldn’t stop except for occasional gasping pauses where he tugged her hand and stilled and checked the horizon until he found what he was looking for—a rocky crag lit faintly by the moonlight. Each time he signalled to her, adjusted their course, pressed her hand—that part seemed more and more important—and then kept right on going.

  There was no room and no energy for talk. There was nothing but the sea and the blackness and each other.

  This was no short swim. An hour? Who knew? Time couldn’t be measured. He wasn’t trying to measure. There was a crazy intimacy within this peril and, weirdly, he found himself thinking of the sensation.

  He didn’t do intimacy.

  Finn was the only child of a sickly, emotional woman whose life had been shattered by her loss of control. His grandmother had been even more emotional, disintegrating when her daughter died and never recovering. By the time she, too, had died, when Finn was fifteen, he and his grandfather had suffered enough emotion to last a lifetime. ‘You keep your feelings to yourself,’ the old man had told him, over and over. ‘You don’t inflict them on everyone else. It gets you nowhere.’

  And when he’d questioned the old man’s stony face at his grandmother’s funeral, his grandfather had turned on him.

  ‘You don’t need people,’ he’d snapped. ‘Look at your grandmother. Your mother died and she decided her life was over. She did nothing but weep for ten years until she died herself. That sort of emotion...it destroys people and you’re better without it.’ He’d stared down at his wife’s fresh grave and his face had grown grim. ‘Ten years of grief, followed by yet more grief,’ he’d muttered. ‘Learn from me, boy. You don’t need people.’

  That was how he’d been raised. Right now, though, Finn needed Rachel.

  She wasn’t as strong a swimmer as he was. Without her, he’d be closer to the island by now, but without her he’d also be alone in this appalling blackness—and alone was the way of madness.

  Though...without Rachel, he wouldn’t be here. Without Rachel, he could have stayed in the shadows, learned what he needed to learn to place this whole mess in the hands of the police when they reached Broome. It was Rachel stepping innocently onto the aft deck who’d thrown them into such deadly peril.

  But then... It wasn’t Rachel’s fault.

  The dark and fear were making his thoughts convoluted, twisting backwards and forwards.

  Rachel was a passenger on his ship. She was a passenger taking a night stroll and she’d walked into harm’s way because of the illegal activities of his crew.

  He’d had his suspicions. He could have gone to the police in Darwin. They might not have taken his concerns seriously—what evidence did he have, other than delays and inconsistencies?—but he could have tried. Or he could have cancelled the whole cruise.

  There was no use going down that road. Guilt achieved nothing.

  In truth, there was no use thinking of anything. There was only the night, the sea and the touch of Rachel’s hand.

  The further they went, the harder it grew to fight against the current, and the last hundred or so yards to reach the island was the worst. Rachel was hardly making progress. Another woman might panic, he thought—anyone could panic right now, himself included—but there was no choice.

  Head down. Stroke after stroke. Touching hands. Always touching hands.

  They were fighting through breakers now. The tidal currents were fighting each ot
her, causing a surge of white water.

  Stay in contact. Stroke, stroke...

  And then, magically, there was a patch of calm, where the water stilled. He looked up and saw a platform of flat rock, just out of the water as the tidal currents surged back.

  A landing place.

  He gripped Rachel’s hand and she paused and looked up and saw what he was seeing.

  Deep breath.

  Head for the platform.

  He reached it and hauled himself up on the rocky ledge, then turned to grasp her. They had to be together. For him to reach the ledge and lose her was unthinkable.

  He had her. The current caught and tugged but he had her fast, lifting her as if she were a featherweight, up onto the rock-face and out of the sea.

  He had her.

  She sagged in his arms.

  ‘Not yet, sweetheart,’ he told her, harsh and loud into the night. ‘Not now. We need to climb.’

  He didn’t say more. Exhausted or not, they had to move. Maybe she knew but, if she didn’t, he wasn’t telling her. Flat rock ledges on these islands were rare enough, and they were places crocodiles could use to rest or digest their kill. Or find something else to kill. A croc could launch itself at them here in an instant.

  They had to get higher.

  He tugged her to her feet and pulled.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said inexorably. ‘Now.’

  They stumbled in the dark—of course they did. Both were barefoot. The rocks were rough and sharp but he couldn’t allow her to pause. He kept the pressure on her hand and he could feel her limping. He knew her hip would be killing her, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was dragging her upward and she was doing her best to help.

  And finally, finally, he found what he was looking for. A sheltered crag, high above sea level, out of the path of the wind, a ledge too far up for crocs to reach. It was dry and flat and sand covered, enough to make it softer than sheer rock.

  A refuge. Safety.

  The relief was almost overwhelming. He hauled her the last few steps and turned and took her into his arms. He dropped to his knees and she did the same. He held her hard against his chest and he let his chin drop onto her soaking curls.

  Heartbeat to heartbeat, he simply held.

  ‘We’ve made it, sweetheart,’ he said at last, in a voice that was none too steady. ‘We’ve done it. We’ve made it to safety.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY lay on the sand and they held each other.

  For an hour or so they did nothing but hold each other and let the shock of the night wash over them. There was nothing sexy about the way they held; this was a simple primitive need for contact, and Finn thought at one stage maybe they would have held if they both were men.

  He almost smiled at that, thinking of his manly mates, the guys who’d shared his boat-building apprenticeship. Okay, maybe they wouldn’t have held, but it still would have been sensible, for what both of them needed was warmth and reassurance that the ground was solid and what had happened was real but over.

  The sand still held vestiges of the sun’s warmth from the day before. Under the curve of the cliff, they were protected from the night breeze. Rachel lay spooned into the curve of his body. The cold and the shock gradually eased. The warm night air enveloped them, promising a safety of its own. He held her close, murmuring words of comfort, reassurance that was as much for himself as it was for her.

  After a while he realised she’d drifted into an exhausted doze, and with that came new sensations.

  The feeling of protectiveness was almost overwhelming. And anger on her behalf. Here was a woman who’d been taught the hard way that bad things happened, he thought savagely, and tonight had been yet another horror.

  His crew had caused it.

  Thankfully, right now, her mind was shutting down, blacking out what was around and giving her time out. That was fine by him. More than fine. They’d ended up entwined on the sand, their bodies as close as they could be for maximum warmth. That was also fine. He was content to lie and wait for her to recover, and her warmth was giving him the comfort he needed as well.

  There was nothing to do but try to sleep. Rescue was the last thing on his mind. A signal fire could bring—probably would bring—the very people they were trying to escape from.

  So think about rescue in the morning. For now... Sleep?

  Easier said than done, even when Rachel’s warmth flooded him, soothed him, made the night intimate and the terrors of the past hours recede.

  At one stage Rachel stirred and he felt her stiffen as memory flooded back.

  ‘They’ll come for us,’ she muttered, fearful.

  ‘No,’ he said solidly, hugging her closer. ‘They’ll think we’ve drowned. Without knowledge of location and currents we couldn’t have made it here.’

  ‘How did you know...?’ she whispered.

  ‘Masculine intuition,’ he murmured back, and she managed a feeble chuckle before drifting off again.

  Masculine intuition. Not so much. His baggage contained detailed maps of this whole area, navigational charts, tide charts... He’d been studying them intently ever since he’d left Darwin.

  They owed their lives to that knowledge—but that he’d dragged Rachel into this mess...

  She’d stepped into it.

  No. It was his mess.

  But guilt achieved nothing. For now there was nothing to do but hold this woman close and give thanks that they were here and he had her safe.

  Until morning.

  * * *

  They both woke fully as the first rays of dawn broke the horizon. For a while neither said anything, just savoured the stillness, the faint rising warmth and the sheer awesomeness of the place where they’d landed.

  And the comfort of each other. Neither felt inclined to pull apart. Together seemed more than okay when out there was...what?

  They were on a rocky outcrop rising almost sheer from the sea. In the distance—the far, far distance—was the mainland. Beyond was the horizon. A few similar outcrops were in the middle distance; the larger one they’d avoided last night was the closest but even that was far. The currents had carried them to as remote a place as they could be.

  Nothing, nothing and nothing.

  ‘Oh, my,’ Rachel murmured at last. ‘Where on earth are we?’

  ‘Somewhere in the Timor Sea.’

  ‘That’s helpful.’ Finally she wriggled and stirred and sat up and he was aware of a sharp stab of loss. ‘Um...I’m hungry.’

  Uh oh. There weren’t a lot of food outlets around here.

  But he might have known. Rachel wasn’t complaining she was hungry because she was expecting him to do something. She was stating facts as a precursor to doing something about it herself.

  ‘I think I still have a packet of barley sugar in my jacket pocket,’ she said. ‘It’s zipped. You want me to see if it’s still there?’

  Barley sugar... Yes! ‘I can’t think of a better breakfast,’ he told her, meaning it, and she wriggled out of his hold and undid the knot around her waist.

  She’d kept hold of her jacket.

  How many women would do that? he thought. How many anyones? To lie under the hull of a boat with guns above and calmly remove her jacket—and not let it drift away...

  ‘You kept your jacket because...’

  ‘I’m thrifty,’ she said, and managed another smile. ‘I paid eighty dollars for this jacket. But I’m happy to share my barley sugar.’

  She was, he decided quite simply, quite definitely, quite gorgeous. She was sand and salt-coated. She was wearing a skimpy nightdress which clung transparently to her slim figure, and her curls were clinging every which way.

  He’d never seen
a woman so lovely.

  She found her barley sugar. The wrappings were soaked but inside the sweets were fine. They sucked in contented silence, savouring the sweetness, each acknowledging the unsaid—the reason why they didn’t eat half a dozen barley sugars in a row, but rather Rachel placed the rest back into her jacket pocket as if they were treasure.

  ‘Breakfast done. Now, I wouldn’t mind a bath,’ she said conversationally. ‘Where do you suppose the bathrooms are?’

  ‘Behind that rock?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The thought of the promised bathrooms obviously didn’t have her racing to find them. She hugged her knees and stared out at the horizon. ‘Do you understand what happened last night?’

  He groaned inwardly, but he knew that nothing would do but the truth.

  ‘I suspect that was a drop-off,’ he told her. ‘I think the crew is smuggling drugs into Australia, and that was a transfer of drugs from Indonesia. The fact that they were prepared to kill to protect themselves says it’s a huge drug haul. We walked right in on it.’

  ‘I walked right in on it,’ she said softly. ‘You overheard?’

  ‘I was on the next level up.’

  ‘You could have gone for help,’ she said, surveying him thoughtfully, thinking it through as she spoke. ‘But by then I’d have been dead. You’re in this mess because of me.’

  ‘I’m in this mess because of drug runners,’ he said so savagely that his words echoed out into the stillness. ‘There’s no blame to be laid at anyone’s door, apart from those...’

  ‘Shh.’ She laid a finger on his lips, an intimate gesture that made him still. ‘Don’t say it. The lizards will be shocked.’

  Maybe they would. He followed her gaze and saw a host of tiny skinks emerging out from the shadows to catch the first rays of the morning sun.

  ‘This is Robinson Crusoe territory,’ she said, and amazingly he saw laughter lurking in those gorgeous brown eyes. ‘I bet these guys have never met anything even vaguely like us. You want their first experience of humankind to be guys muttering oaths?’