Miracle on Kaimotu Island

by Marion Lennox

  * * *

  Don’s crew consisted of eight emergency workers, tough, work-ready men and women who were trained to cope with stuff just like this, a few who’d been in earthquakes before, who understood about risk and urgency. This was no massive collapse of stone. It simply needed strength, skill and the right equipment, all of which they had.

  Ginny had been trying to haul sheets of iron back from where she’d last heard voices. Don put her aside, snapped a few incisive questions and then set his crew to work.

  In less than five minutes the vast sheets of tin were rolling back, exposing what was beneath.

  What was there was a massive pile of rubble, dust, grit—and two prone bodies, one almost completely covering the other.

  For one appalling moment Ginny thought they were both dead. She’d backed to the edge of the ruin to give the guys space to move but she hadn’t been able to take her eyes from what was being exposed.

  Two bodies...

  And then one raised his head, revealing a makeshift mask and a face so caked in dust it was unrecognisable. But, of course, she recognised it.

  Ben.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said in a voice that wasn’t the least bit fine; it was the merest croak through the mask. ‘And I reckon Henry’ll be okay, too, once we get this piano off his leg.’

  And miraculously there was a grunt of agreement from Henry.

  Ben was hauled to safety first. They tugged him to his feet, he staggered but then stood, unhurt, whole.

  Ginny started breathing again. She hadn’t been aware she’d stopped but her body sucked in air like she’d been drowning.

  Ben. Safe.

  He didn’t come to her. Instead, he watched as four strong men, one at each corner of the piano, acting in unison, lifting the thing clear. And Henry was out, free.

  There was stuff to do. Somehow she shifted into doctor mode, adding to Ben’s in-the-dark care, setting up IV lines while Ben snapped orders to keep Henry’s spine steady, watch for his hips and beware of a possible broken pelvis as they transferred him to a rigid stretcher to carry him back across the ruins.

  But Henry was giving sleepy directions himself. ‘When are you going to get a tarp here to cover this? There’s stuff here worth saving. Be careful of that piano.’

  And Ginny knew, she just knew, that he’d be fine.

  Finally, finally there was time for Ben to turn to her, for Ben to take her in his arms, to hug her close.

  ‘About time,’ Henry said weakly from his stretcher. ‘We’ve only been waiting twelve years for this to happen.’

  There was laughter, filled with relief, but Ginny hardly heard it. Ben had her in his arms, against his heart. Her world folded into his; into him. Heart against heart.

  He kissed her hair and then he tilted her chin and he kissed her on the mouth, a full, public proclamation that this was his woman, his love.

  She melted into him. This proclamation was okay by her. What were her qualms anyway? Last night had been the beginning of the rest of her life. Why had she ever thought she wasn’t brave enough to start again?

  How could she not when that start was Ben?

  There was slow clapping. Somehow they broke apart and found everyone was looking at them, cheering, and Henry was even leading the clapping from his stretcher.

  Ben smiled and smiled at her. Her love. Her Ben.

  And then he looked around, still smiling, and said, ‘Where’s Button?’

  * * *

  She’d forgotten Button. In the midst of her terror her thoughts hadn’t swerved from the two men fighting for their lives in the ruins. When the second tremor had hit she’d almost thrown Button into the Jeep. She’d said stay, and she’d run.

  But now...

  She was standing in the arms of Ben, who was safe, safe, safe, and a little girl who depended solely on her was no longer where she’d left her.

  Ginny was no longer in Ben’s arms. She was staring wildly around her.

  ‘Button!’ Her yell sounded out over the valley, echoing back and back and back.

  The Jeep was empty. She stared back at the ruins. Surely she would have seen... If Button had come anywhere near the ruins, she would have noticed.

  She should have noticed. What sort of a mother...?

  The cliff...

  But Ben was before her.

  ‘Button’s missing,’ he snapped to the team around him. ‘Four years old. Priority one.’

  Triage... When faced with an emergency, take time to assess then look at worst-case scenarios first. That meant no matter who was yelling, who was bleeding, you took the time to assess, see the guy with the grey face clutching his chest, know that even though it might simply be shock and bruising you checked that out first.

  So head for worst-case scenarios first. The worst scenario was that Button was buried under the debris...but maybe it wasn’t. Because Ben was turning away from the ruin and striding—no, running—towards the cliff.

  The cliff. Dear God.

  Below was the sea, fascinating, awesome for a little girl who had no sense of danger.

  Ginny gave a sob of terror and followed, but Ben was before her.

  He reached the edge.

  ‘Here,’ he snapped back at them. ‘She’s slipped down a bit but there’s a ledge. Button, don’t move. Sweetheart, I want you to play statues, don’t move at all. I’m coming down.’

  And just as he said it a tiny tremor, the vaguest hint of an aftershock, rocked the world. It may have been tiny but it was too much for what must have already been a weakened stretch of headland.

  A crack opened between Ginny and Ben. A tiny crack, but it was widening.

  Ben gave a yell of warning. ‘Ginny, stay where you are.’

  And then he slid over the edge of the cliff, helpless, as the crack widened still further and the land seemed to slide toward the sea.

  * * *

  What did you do when your life crumpled before your eyes?

  Nothing?

  There was nothing she could do. She stood numb with shock and terror while around her men and women leapt into action.

  They’d been in earthquakes before? Disasters? They must have been for instead of standing like useless idiots they had ropes out of the truck, they were gearing up with harnesses and shackles, and Don was edging out to where the edge of the cliff was a crumpling mess of loose dirt.

  Someone was holding onto her, a woman who seemed just as competent as the men but whose job, obviously, was to keep her out of harm’s way.

  ‘We’re belaying down,’ she told Ginny. ‘Hold on, love, Don’s good. If anyone can reach them, he can.’

  The world held its breath. There was no way anyone else could go near the edge—the headland was still crumbling, and another tremor could hit at any moment.

  Don edged out, slowly, slowly. Dirt was breaking away as he moved, but he was testing the footing each time before putting his weight on it. He was safe; they’d fastened the rope onto the Jeep and the crew was guiding it to keep it steady but the last thing they wanted was to cause further collapse.

  And then Don was over the edge and lower, lower.

  ‘They’re here.’ His voice crackled through the radio. ‘Send down two harnesses, a big ’un and a little ’un. The kid looks okay and Ben’s holding her. Ben’s shoved Button against the cliff face. He looks in pain—he’s hit something but he’s conscious. He’s kept her safe from the landfall. Harnesses fast would be good. It’d be a bit of a waste to lose them now.’

  * * *

  A bit of bruising and confusion—that was Button.

  One fractured pelvis—that was Henry.

  Pain, dropping blood pressure, possible internal injuries, that was Ben. Ginny set up IV lines, gave him pain relief, tried desper
ately to be a doctor rather than a woman whose man was in mortal danger.

  They called in the chopper, and Dave, the doctor Ginny had met the night before, came with it. Dave took over from Ginny, examining Ben fast, concurring with what she thought—or hoped. Was it foolish to hope for the best? ‘Query ruptured spleen,’ Dave barked into the radio—there were directives to take them straight to Auckland—and then there was nothing Ginny could do but hold Button and try to stop shaking.

  ‘Take Ginny down to the med centre,’ Dave told the team as the chopper prepared to take off. ‘She’ll need something for shock.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Ginny said as she watched the chopper lift. She’d said goodbye to Henry—and to Ben—but it had all been done in such a rush there’d been no time to talk. Ben had taken her hand and gripped hard, but she wasn’t sure if it had been need or pain making him hold on so tight.

  She wanted, so much, to go with him, but her priority had to be Button.

  She’d forgotten Button once. Not again.

  She felt sick to the depths of her soul.

  ‘You idiot.’ She heard James’s voice echo back to her, words that had been said over and over in their marriage. ‘You don’t have the brains you were born with.’

  She stood in the morning sun and let the words play and replay.

  It was her fault that Ben could be so hurt.

  Even Henry... She should have insisted he stay with her at the vineyard. She should have...

  ‘Come on, Ginny, let’s get you down to the hospital,’ Don said, and she shook her head.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said dully. ‘No thanks to me, but Button and I are okay. I can still drive. Thank you all for your care, but I need to manage by myself.’

  * * *

  ‘On a scale of one to ten, how bad’s the pain?’ Dave asked Ben as the chopper headed out over the sea.

  ‘Eleven,’ Ben said morosely, and then at Dave’s look of alarm he shook his head. ‘Sorry. Seven, I guess, so, yes, I would like a top-up. There’s just a few more things going on.’

  ‘Like leaving his lady,’ Henry said from beside him. They’d set both patients up with headphones so they could speak to each other. ‘He’ll be feeling bad because of Ginny.’

  ‘Ginny seems okay,’ Dave said, startled. ‘She’s a competent woman.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a competent woman and a fine doctor,’ Ben managed through his pain. ‘But the lady has demons. I thought I’d slayed enough of them to break through, but something tells me Henry and I have conjured up a whole lot more.’

  * * *

  She drove carefully back into town, filling her mind with plans, figuring how she needed to get the house inspected and repaired, get the manager’s residence liveable for Henry, persuade Henry to stay, get her and Button back to the vineyard.

  Her list was vast, and she concentrated on it fiercely, because if she didn’t concentrate, fears broke in. As well as that, the voices flooded back, accusing, and it was too hard to cope with.

  She’d had a whole lifetime of not being good enough, and she was weary to the bone.

  ‘I am good enough,’ she said out loud, finally cracking and letting the voices hold sway. Trying to defend herself by facing them down. ‘I will look after Button. I will.’

  ‘And that’s all,’ she added in a less fierce voice, a voice that was an acknowledgment that she couldn’t fight failure on more than one front. ‘That’s all I’m focussing on. I might love Ben. I might even love medicine, but I stuff things up and I won’t risk it any further. I’ll help Ben with emergency medicine until he finds someone else but that’s all. It’s Button and the vineyard and nothing else.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  A WEEK LATER Ben went out to the vineyard to find her. When he arrived Ginny was hammering boards onto the veranda of the vineyard manager’s residence. Button had a hammer as well and was banging everything in sight. Ginny paused in her hammering as the car approached, but Button kept right on going.

  His mother had driven him up from the town. She paused at the gate—there seemed to be unstable ground along the driveway and she wasn’t risking driving further—and looked at the woman and child in front of them.

  ‘You sure you want to do this? Do you want me to wait?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Ginny will drive me back.’

  ‘You might have trouble getting her out of here,’ Ailsa said worriedly. ‘Okay, it’s not the shaky ground I’m worried about. I know you can go cross-country. But she’s wounded and retreating, Ben. More wounded even than you are.’

  ‘What, worse than a ruptured spleen?’

  ‘You don’t have a spleen any more and Ginny still has her wounds,’ Ailsa said sternly. ‘Her father was a bully and a thug, and her mother was appalling. I know you love her but even when she was a kid I could see her shadows. From what I hear, her marriage has just meant longer ones.’

  ‘I can cope with shadows,’ Ben said, but uneasily because he wasn’t sure that he could.

  ‘Good luck,’ his mother said, and leaned across and kissed him before he climbed out of the truck, carrying his grandfather’s old walking cane for support. His ruptured spleen had been removed by laparoscopic surgery, he was recovering nicely but he’d been bruised just about everywhere it was possible for a man to be bruised. His mother had been fussing, and maybe she had cause.

  ‘Give me a ring if you don’t get anywhere,’ she said now, and glanced ahead at Ginny. ‘You might need more than a walking stick to get through this pain.’

  ‘If I travelled by helicopter to Auckland with a ruptured spleen, I can get through anything,’ Ben said, but Ailsa still looked doubtful as she drove away.

  Ginny had seen him arrive. She’d started walking towards them, pausing to fetch Button. It seemed Button wasn’t to be allowed out of her sight.

  She stopped coming towards him when Ailsa drove away.

  ‘H-hi,’ she managed, and then the doctor part of her took over. ‘Surely you shouldn’t be out here, walking. I... Can I get you a chair?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Ben said, and then they both looked at the walking stick. ‘And I’m tough,’ he said, like he was convincing himself. He managed a grin. ‘Chairs are for wusses. Thanks for the flowers.’

  ‘They were...the least I could do.’

  ‘And you always do the least you can do? That’s Hannah’s line, not yours.’

  They were twenty yards apart. It was slow going with his walking stick—he had a corked thigh that was still giving him hell a week after the event—and Ginny had stopped and wasn’t coming any closer. ‘I thought you might visit,’ he said. ‘I sort of hoped.’

  ‘I phoned.’

  ‘To enquire. And then didn’t ask to be put through. Coward.’

  ‘On the card I said I was sorry,’ Ginny managed. ‘There didn’t seem anything else to say. I am sorry, Ben. I can’t say more than that. So why would you want to see me?’

  ‘To ask you to marry me.’

  Marry...

  The word was huge. The word was impossible, Ben thought as he watched all the colour drain from her face. Maybe his plan to put it all out there hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  ‘Ben...’

  ‘What happened wasn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s your fault. You’re my Ginny and I’m your Ben. Bad things happen but whenever they do, we face them together.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to share...my bad things.’

  ‘Ginny...’

  ‘I always get it wrong,’ she blurted out. ‘I try and try but it never turns out right. Even Button...I’m so scared of caring for Button. I know she has no choice. I know she needs me, but she’d be so much better with someone who can love without messing things up.’

  ‘That sounds...’ He so
rted his words carefully, fighting for the right ones. ‘As if you’re seriously thinking of stepping away.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not from Button.’

  ‘And from me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘From you.’ It was a bald, harsh statement, and he thought suddenly of the harsh things Ginny had said to him when she’d been seventeen, and how he’d believed her and had let her go.

  It’d be easier to be a caveman, he thought suddenly. It’d be over the shoulder, a bit of manly exercise lugging her back to his lair and he’d have her for the rest of her life. But now...he had to make her see sense.

  ‘Do you love me?’ He asked it like it was the most natural question in the world, like it was totally reasonable for a guy who ought to be in bed to lean on his walking stick in the midday sun and wait for an answer to a question of such import that it took his breath away.

  But there’d never be a better time to say it, he thought.

  Maybe there’d never be a good time to say it.

  He watched the doubts flash across her face, the fear, and he drove his advantage.

  ‘Yes, my first question was marriage,’ he conceded. ‘That didn’t get me anywhere, so let’s try this from a different angle. No lies, Ginny. Do you love me?’

  ‘Too...too much,’ she whispered.

  He nodded. ‘As a matter of interest, did you love me when I was seventeen?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘So what Henry told me was true. We shared a ward in Auckland and he told me. You tossed me over because your old man made threatening noises about my career.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have told—’

  ‘Henry shouldn’t have told me?’

  ‘No.’

  It was too much, he thought. He was aching all over. She was standing there in her faded jeans, dirty from pruning grapes, holding Button’s hand, and she was just as unattainable as she’d been at seventeen. Dammit, did she really expect him to walk away?