by Anne Ashby
Was it wishful thinking on his part that Debra’s touch on his leg had lightened? He even sensed slight movement of her fingers, exploring movement, caressing movement.
His heart sang. She wasn’t only not pushing him away, she was responding. Lost in a sensuous world built for two, Jase’s flight of fancy was torn from him when the vehicle braked sharply.
“Bloody hell!” Chris jerked to a stop on the grass verge and jumped out, his cell phone already in his hand.
Jase and Debra had their seatbelts undone and followed him as he ran across to where two vehicles rocked together in a mangled mess of steel. Shocked and bleeding passengers were spilling out of, and milling about, what had been a minibus.
“There’s no reception, boss.” With arm extended high in the air Chris urgently twisted his phone around searching for a signal.
“Try your phone,” Jase shouted at Debra as he ascertained who needed help first.
“Nothing,” Debra replied desperately.
“Chris, drive back until you can get a signal—or you see a farmhouse. It’ll take a while for emergency services to reach here. We’ll do what we can until they do.”
“That’s the bastard who almost ran us off the road,” Chris indicated the second vehicle before he ran and jumped into the van, u-turned, and disappeared around the corner.
“I’ll organise the walking wounded.” Debra ran forward demanding, “Does anyone have medical training? First aid ability?”
A lone man stepped forward, wiping at blood dripping from a cut on his forehead, advising with a very broad eastern European accent that he was a soldier. Debra urged him toward Jase, who tried to access those still trapped inside both vehicles.
“Who else isn’t hurt,” Debra shouted. “We need someone at each side of the accident to warn traffic. Quick, a vehicle could come around these corners any minute. We have to stop anything further happening.”
The sound of her voice above the hysteria—checking for injuries, ordering people around, issuing instructions to help others less able—echoed in Jase’s ears as he began the gruesome task of seeing to the injured.
“He’s dead.” The certainty in the soldier’s voice and his grim expression as he turned from the mangled car convinced Jase of his ability to judge.
The driver of the car, and undoubtedly the cause of the accident in Jase’s eyes, drew little sympathy right now. Not when there were two other people trapped and in what appeared to be a serious condition because of his actions.
Jase and his soldier helper carefully manoeuvred a woman from the minibus’s front seat. Conscious, she’d been able to reassure them as to her injuries, which appeared to be confined to cuts and lacerations along with a probable broken arm or collarbone. A young Japanese woman rushed to comfort her as they lay her on a coat thrown on the grass.
“Everyone else is okay. Shocked but okay,” Debra reported, joining the two men as they hurried to the driver of the mini-bus. “They’re tending each other’s cuts with the first-aid kit Chris threw out before he took off.” She glanced toward the victim on the grass. “She appears okay. Her daughter’s looking after her.”
“This door is jammed tight.” Jase gave an ineffectual thump against the twisted metal. “We’ll have to try getting to him from inside.” He surveyed the wreck with a frustrated frown. He spoke through the window space to where his helper was checking the injured man’s condition in a professional manner from behind the driving seat. “What do you think? Can we move him?” The metal was twisted and buckled to such an extent Jase couldn’t see what they could do for the unconscious man.
The soldier pushed the airbag aside as he tried to ascertain the extent of the driver’s injuries. “His breathing is okay, pulse not so good. Maybe he’s bleeding?”
“He’s taken a fair clout on his head.” Jase could already see swelling beneath a bloody cut across the side of his head.
“It’s more than that.” The man jumped from the back and rounded the minibus to drag the deflated airbag through the broken windscreen. Jase joined him.
“I’ll squeeze in where the passenger was,” Debra said. “At least I should be able to see if there’s any excessive bleeding.”
“No.” Jase grabbed her arm. “It’s too dangerous.” The soldier had already dragged the passenger airbag out of the way to make room for Debra to enter the wreckage.
“We can’t just sit by until help arrives.”
Jase was loath to allow Debra to crawl into that twisted space. The chassis could shift, or the minibus might catch fire. “I’ll do it.”
Debra’s eyebrows rose and she stood for seconds staring at him. Finally he shrugged and let go of her arm. His heart thudded in his throat as she wriggled through the twisted metal. “I can’t see any blood, but I can’t see his legs. Hold on.” She wriggled some more. He watched her inch forward until her head and shoulders were under the dashboard and out of his sight.
“Jase,” she called. “There’s bleeding from one leg.” She wriggled some more. “Oh God, Jase,” her voice was muffled. “There’s blood everywhere. I can’t see if the blood is pulsating out or just oozing. We have to do something, quickly.”
Jase threw his jacket aside and tore off his shirt, rolling it up so he could ram it through a little gap under her arm. Relief surged through him as vehicles sounded behind him. “Chris?” he yelled. “Have we got a torch? Debbie can’t see.”
“Door’s jammed tight,” he muttered as a farmer following Chris arrived at his side. “We’ve just discovered blood, not sure how much but enough to be concerned about.”
“Fire brigade and ambulance will be about forty minutes, they reckoned. I got a crowbar in the truck.”
Jase positioned the beam of torch light toward the driver’s legs, hoping it allowed Debra better vision.
The chassis wobbled as she wriggled. “I’m going to need to apply pressure somehow.” She wriggled again. The breath caught in Jase’s throat as her butt and legs were all that were now visible.
“We’re trying to get the door open, Debbie.” He yelled to one of the uninjured passengers to come and hold the torch. He joined the farmer thrusting the crowbar into the mangled door frame. “Be careful the whole bloody thing doesn’t collapse.”
“No worries, mate. It’s not going anywhere.” The screech of metal clawed at him.
Valuable minutes were lost inching the door away from its frame. With Jase and the soldier tugging each time the crowbar was repositioned around the frame and Chris shoving from behind the driver’s seat with the tyre jam they slowly allowed light into the cavity where the man’s legs and Debbie’s head lay. Despite the winter chill Jase’s bare torso ran with sweat as he spied Debra’s suspended body and the awkward way she asserted pressure on the driver’s leg.
“I’m not holding this tight enough,” she reported urgently. “He’s still bleeding. Help me.”
A folded T-shirt was thrust over Jase’s shoulder as he knelt in the doorway. “I have your tie and my belt,” accented words accompanied the gesture. “Tell your lady to use extra to pad the wound. Can you tie it in place?”
Jase pressed the cloth toward Debra, holding his breath at her awkward fumbling to position it on top of the bloodied shirt already in place. With her help he was able to stretch in and clumsily secure the pads. They held their collective breaths until Debra called, “I think that’s better. At least it’s not gushing anymore.”
“Get out of there, then.”
The wriggles she made came to an abrupt halt. “I think I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean, you’re stuck?” Jase peered at the angle of her body and the obstacles that could be impeding her escape. Leaving the solider and the farmer to debate whether it was advisable to try moving the driver before professional help arrived, he tore around to the passenger door. Debra had been terrified in the lift. This incarceration would be so much worse. Sweat broke out. He had to free her.
With a firm hold on her legs he gave a
gentle tug.
“Ouch, what are you doing?” squawked an indignant voice.
He gritted his teeth, searching to see what trapped her. “Getting you free before you flip out.”
“I’m not going to flip out, for goodness sake.”
“You’re claustrophobic, aren’t you?” he snapped.
He wished he could see her face. Her butt gave a little squirm which did nothing to calm him. Then he heard a choking sound.
“Are you all right?” he rubbed his hands up and down her legs to reassure her. “We’ll get you out soon.”
Her voice had changed, losing its commanding quality. “I’m fine. Forget about me. Help this guy.”
“The others are helping him. But—”
“I can see daylight so I’m fine. I’m not going to flip out on you, I promise.”
Her legs wriggled and as much as he wanted to touch her, reassure her of his presence, it seemed that wasn’t what she wanted.
Helplessness washed over Jase. He looked around the site, at the walking wounded huddled on the grass verge, sore and shaken, sipping on hot thermos tea the farmer’s wife had arrived with. The injured woman was in the care of her hovering daughter. His gaze flicked over the car causing this mess and the dead man inside. He clenched his fist and swore—and swore again.
Chapter Eight
Debra hung upside-down in the smashed mini-bus. It felt like forever, but in reality the firemen had her extracted before even an hour had passed.
Jase had been so attentive she feared it must be obvious to him now she was not claustrophobic. Telling herself she was relieved to discover this, too, meant she then had to analyse her strange behaviour inside the lift.
Tipped upside down, weird sensations and thoughts had flooded into her mind, obviously caused by the excessive blood also flooding her head.
She was sure any attraction she felt toward Jase McEwan was a throwback from when she’d been a silly teenager. The racing of her pulse when he clutched her in his arms the second she’d been released was a response to the enormity of what they’d experienced here on the roadside. It was not a response to his nearness, or his bare chest under her face.
She forced such wayward thoughts aside. Today she had Jase’s character to concentrate on, not frivolous flights of fancy about his body.
“I’ve advised our guests of our delay and suggested a slight change of plan.” They were finally on their way, having given all the assistance they could to the emergency services and police.
Jase rubbed the creases on his forehead. “We’ll join them for dinner tonight and travel down tomorrow. It will mean I only have one day to impress them with the facilities at Riversleigh but...”
With interest Debra chalked up his use of the singular pronoun. So he wasn’t expecting Madeline to share in any promotion of the resort.
Then the breath sucked out of Debra as she grasped the implication of his words. Spending the night in Queenstown? With Jase? Impossible. “I’m not prepared to spend a night away.”
“Of course not, but the situation has changed, don’t you agree?”
A question she wasn’t expected to answer, it seemed, as he continued without missing a beat. “We both need new clothes before anyone sees us.”
Debra fervently agreed. Jase looked way too sexy with his suit jacket thrown over a bare chest. She’d kept her gaze focused everywhere but his chest since they’d got back into the van. That had taken more effort than she expected.
Afraid her cheek might show some sign of its rest against his heart, she lifted her hand, but dropped it before contact. Stop being so silly, it’s continuing warmth is just my imagination. Being that close to Jase has had absolutely no effect on me.
“I’ll replace your suit.”
Debra swung her head and gaped for a moment, her jumble of irrational thoughts denying her comprehension. At his nod she glanced down at the state of her own clothing. Or to be precise, her cousin’s clothing. She shuddered. The lower arms of her jacket and shirt were thick with blood. More red splashes were deposited across her front. Her stomach lurched. Stripping off the offending garments wasn’t an option.
A hand grasped hers. “Because of you, that blood belongs to a warm, breathing human being, not a corpse.” The St. John ambulance officers had suggested Debra’s actions probably saved the driver’s life. “We’ll get you cleaned up and into some new clothes as soon as we hit town.”
Jase seemed intent on keeping her hand in his again. Even her little wriggle didn’t dislodge his hold. It was dangerous, but why not? Why not just leave her hand resting in his? It felt so right and made her arm tingle all the way up to her shoulder.
With a conscious effort she forced her fingers to lie passive instead of curling around his and tightening the hold like they wanted to. Common sense told her his action this time had been a friendly, supportive gesture, not anything else. Certainly not a burning desire to touch her.
Just because her heart rate had trebled in the last few seconds didn’t mean Jase was similarly affected. If she made a scene of dragging herself away, he might guess how disturbed she was by his closeness.
Directing Chris to stop at a mall on the outskirts of Queenstown, Jase disappeared only to return with a bulging shopping bag.
As the vehicle edged back into the traffic, Debra caught a sudden closed expression on Jase’s face. She followed his gaze to where an impromptu rugby game was being played.
“You miss it, don’t you?”
His face hardened as he turned his back on the view outside. He showed no inclination to answer her.
“Rugby? You miss playing rugby, don’t you?”
Apparently not a subject he wanted to discuss, but she continued anyway. “You were so lucky.”
“Lucky?” The word exploding from his lips contained his frustration and anger.
“Yes, lucky.” Debra continued despite his narrowed, cold glare. “You got paid for playing a game, doing something you loved for ten or twelve years.”
His grimace didn’t stop her either. “How old were you when you got hurt? Thirty-four? Thirty-five?” She tucked some of her escaped hair behind her ear. “You couldn’t have played much longer, not and been on top of your game. Another season maybe? Then the selectors would have dropped you anyway. You’d have been too old, or you’d have slowed down.”
She smiled, hoping he could recognise sympathy was mixed in with her certainty. “I reckon going out injured was better than being dropped.”
“I wouldn’t have been dropped.”
She allowed her eyebrows to rise. “Maybe not that year, but what about the following?” She named Jase’s twenty-year-old understudy who’d filled his boots brilliantly.
She shrugged again. “If I were you I’d remember all the years you had, not whine about—”
“I don’t whine,” Jase snapped, his fists clenching white on his thighs. “I never whined.”
“I’ll bet you never.” Debra’s soft words contrasted starkly with his anger. “Maybe you should have. It might have got all the disappointment and anger out of your system.”
She risked putting a hand on his fist. “Hell, Jase, I’ve only just met you and I can sense all that resentment locked up inside you. Let it go and get on with the rest of your life.”
She tightened her grip. “You’re an intelligent man. Rugby can’t be a life-long career. So you started your next career a year or two earlier than you’d planned. So what?”
When the silence continued Debra risked making one last statement. “You were very lucky, Jase. Think about all the guys working their hearts out to wear that black jersey and never even getting to try one on. You wore one for twelve years. Twelve years, Jase. That’s almost one-third of your lifetime. One-third of your life you had a job thousands of others only dream about. And you loved every minute. In my mind that’s real lucky.”
Silence filled the van. Jase was probably fighting her words, disbelieving them, discrediting them. Doubtless
he was right. What did she know about such passion?
“Are you lucky in your job?”
Caught up in her own audacity Debra nodded. “I love my job. It’s challenging and stimulating and always excit...” She clamped her mouth shut and spun her head away.
She swallowed as Jase’s gaze bored into the back of her head. Her effort to ease his obvious pain had let her mouth run away with her.
Debra flinched as fingers caressed her neck. “One day you’re going to tell me all about that.”
She inched her gaze around to look. It wasn’t suspicion or alarm in his expression, but more like substantiation. She dipped her chin. He hadn’t been taken in by her waitressing ability.
“One day soon, Debbie.” The words were a subtle warning.
Biting the inside of her lip, she nodded. In twenty-four hours he’d know everything. And so would she.
****
A concerned porter dashed forward as Jase and Debra exited the van in front of the hotel. Reassured that their bloodied clothing didn’t signify personal injuries he ushered them inside with a relieved smile.
Debra caught sight of their reflection in the sparkling glass doors and acknowledged how gruesome they must appear to those staff and patrons throwing concerned and horrified glances in their direction. But Jase’s panache saved them from real embarrassment as they booked into the five-star hotel looking like characters from a horror movie. As if this was a normal occurrence, he provided the required information with extreme dignity, Debra decided.
The receptionist, after initially querying their need for medical treatment, hastily booked them in—probably to ensure they didn’t dribble blood anywhere—although her eyes frequently did collide with Jase’s chest. Debra’s head jerked up and she sent the younger woman a supercilious glare.
Stark realisation dawned on Debra. Jase was used to females’ adoring looks, and probably much more than just looks. He appeared completely unaware of the attention. A blinding flash of jealousy streaked through her, cramping her stomach muscles tighter than a guitar string.
