The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marion Lennox, Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy

‘No cyclone’s going to shift that baby,’ Alistair said in satisfaction. ‘And it’s still strong enough to deflect anything that falls on it. Right, that’s the boys safe.’ He grabbed a roll of crêpe bandage from his backpack and attached one end to his torch.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

  ‘Leaving them some light. It’s too scary otherwise.’ And his torch was pushed through the crack of shaft entry left at the side of the log, and lowered.

  ‘Got it?’ he yelled.

  ‘Got it.’ Max’s cry was more muffled now that the shaft was covered. ‘We like the jackets. But Scruffy’s whimpering. I reckon his leg’s broken. Now I can see … it’s bleeding a bit.’

  Alistair was at his backpack again. ‘Aspirin,’ he said. ‘Charles is great. Ask and you shall receive.’

  He tossed a small blue packet down the shaft.

  ‘Max, give Scruffy a quarter of one of these,’ he yelled. ‘Not more. Just a quarter of one and put the rest where he can’t get to them. Put it in a chocolate so he’ll eat it. Or if he won’t, then hold his mouth open, ask your friend to pop it right at the back of his throat and then stroke his throat until he swallows. If his leg keeps bleeding, use the dressing on the torch to bandage his leg. Keep him still and tug the bandage really tight. You can rip the bandage with your teeth if you have to.’

  ‘But you’ll be gone.’

  ‘I’m not …’ Georgie started, but Alistair caught her to him, held her fast and put a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Yes, we’ll be gone, and it might be a few hours before we’re back. Max, I have to keep your Georgie safe.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘We don’t want to go either,’ Alistair called. ‘But we need to. You tell each other stories. Eat the chocolate and keep drinking. Make some of the foil round the chocolate into a cup in your hands and give Scruffy a drink. Look after the pup and we’ll be back as soon as the storm lessens and it’s safe to get you out. OK?’

  ‘Uh, OK.’ It wasn’t but it had to be.

  His face grim, Alistair eased back from the shaft, hauling Georgie with him.

  ‘No,’ she sobbed, and he lifted her in his arms and hauled her further back.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No!’ OK, what he’d said was reasonable but she was beyond reason. Every inch of her being was screaming that to leave Max alone during the storm was crazy. Criminal. Appalling.

  The combination of weariness, shock and fear was overwhelming. Crazy or not, she thumped her hands against Alistair and contorted her body, fighting to get away from him.

  In answer he simply cradled her tightly against him and started pushing his way back to the creek bed. As if she were a child. A burden of no note.

  To fight him was useless. The hysteria of fear finally faded. Alistair didn’t speak until she’d stopped fighting him, then he said mildly, ‘You’re carrying the only torch.’ He stumbled a little. ‘It’d help if you shone it ahead instead of using it to thump me.’

  She was crying, helpless tears of anger and terror. ‘Put me down. I’m staying. Please, Alistair, I’m not leaving him. In a cyclone … We don’t know how long it’ll be. I can’t. I can’t.’

  ‘I know you can’t, which is why I’m carrying you,’ he retorted, keeping right on walking. ‘Georgie, point the torch.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He stumbled. He sighed. He put her down in front of him and held her by the shoulders.

  They were far enough from the shaft now for the boys not to hear. He could say what he needed to say.

  ‘Georg, if I thought you’d fit, I would have let you slide down with them,’ he said grimly. ‘God knows, it looks the safest place anyone can be right now, and the shaft’s not horizontal—it’s mostly a steep slide rather than a fall. But there really is no room, and I’m not letting you stay up top. What use are you to Max if you’re dead?’

  ‘He’ll be terrified. I’ll just stay. I wouldn’t be dead.’

  For answer another limb cracked off a tree above their heads.

  ‘You want to bet on it? We go back to the car. It’s right next to a fallen tree, the tree’s vast and it’s protecting the car from the worst of the wind.’

  ‘But if we can’t come back … And if the storm’s hours …’

  ‘We’re much more likely to be alive to come back if we get to safety now.’ He’d caught her hand and was tugging her after him. ‘If we stay here we’ll be dead, and what use is that?’

  ‘Oh, God …’

  ‘I know,’ he said more gently. ‘You love him. But love has to make hard choices, Georg, and this is one of them.’

  ‘Love? What do you know about love?’

  ‘I’m just starting to find out,’ he said grimly, and kept right on tugging.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BY THE time they got back to the crashed bus the wind had reached the point where speech was almost impossible.

  Georgie had ceased to fight. OK, he was right. She knew he was right, but it made it no easier.

  At the bus she paused but Alistair shook his head.

  ‘I don’t trust those cables,’ he said briefly. ‘And I’m damned if I want to be in that thing if it hurtles right down to the valley floor.’

  Fair enough. He tugged her on, but she was moving with him now, accepting she had no choice. They reached the bikes and used them to get back to the car. That was a hair-raising ride, where they hugged the cliff side of the road to get what shelter they could from the windbreak it formed, avoiding as much as they could of the mountain of debris starting to form on the far side of the road.

  Georgie had cause to be thankful they were both wearing full-face helmets. The rain made her almost blind. She needed windscreen wipers, but even if she’d had them, they’d have been useless. They needed their jackets. They were being whipped by debris every inch of the way and her arms were a mass of scratches.

  But giving the boys the jackets had been a master stroke of Alistair’s, she conceded. It was a comfort to think the little boys were as protected as they could make them.

  But finally they reached the truck. Here in the lee made by the combination of the cliff and the massive fallen log, the wind was almost manageable. They wedged their bikes in behind the log, then fought their way against the wind to the back of the truck.

  This was a work vehicle. A big four-wheel-drive, with the whole back clear for cargo. There was a blanket tossed into a corner and a crate containing some sort of work gear. Alistair shoved the crate aside and spread the blanket over the bare metal floor.

  ‘Welcome to safety.’

  She hadn’t realised the full strength of the wind’s force—how hard she’d been leaning into the wind. As Alistair tugged her inside she almost fell.

  He caught her, steadied her, set her on her knees beside him.

  It was too small, she thought, winded, exhausted, shocked. Much too small.

  And how long did a cyclone last? They’d radio to find out but, no matter how long it would be, it’d be much too long when Max was stuck out there in the wilderness.

  And it’d be too long when she was stuck in the back of a truck with Alistair. He made her feel … He made her feel …

  Just cut it out, she told herself breathlessly. She was feeling dizzy and more than a little sick. To find Max and then to be forced to leave him had almost torn her apart.

  ‘I’m running the truck hard against the cliff,’ Alistair said. ‘That way if it’s blasted it can’t topple.’

  ‘Can a cyclone really push a truck over?’

  ‘I have no idea but I’m not willing to find out. I want it wedged securely.’

  He moved it, blessing Harry for having the forethought to leave the keys in the ignition. Within two minutes he’d backed the truck further toward the cliff so it was edged in a V, with cliff on one side and the fallen tree on the other. Only the front windscreen of the truck was exposed.

  There was a cargo screen between the front windscreen and
the rear. They should now be safe, even if anything blasted through the windscreen.

  How long till the cyclone hit in its full force? Who knew? She surely didn’t.

  Max.

  Oh, God, she’d go mad.

  ‘Drink,’ Alistair said, and handed her a bottle. ‘Damn, what we really need is a decent whisky. Or any whisky. What the hell is this?’

  ‘Glucose-enriched sports drink,’ she said. ‘To give us energy. I thought you gave it to the boys.’

  ‘Jill sent us with four bottles. I’m sharing. Handing over all drinks when we might be stuck here for twenty-four hours would have been dumb. And I may be heroic enough to hand over my jacket and enough chocolate to keep the boys happy, but all the chocolate would be ludicrous. So eat some chocolate.’ And then as she looked at the bar with distaste, he unwrapped it and handed it to her again. ‘Eat,’ he said, softly but forcibly. ‘Last time you ate was at the wedding and you’ve been working all night. Eat and then sleep.’

  ‘How can I—?’

  ‘Just do what comes next,’ he told her. ‘Max won’t thank you for collapsing before we can get him out. Hell.’

  A particularly violent gust was shaking the truck. Georgie shivered and Alistair tugged her close.

  ‘Drink your drink and eat your chocolate and don’t worry about it,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t patronise me.’

  ‘I would never do that.’

  ‘You just did.’

  ‘By telling you not to worry?’

  ‘As if I could.’

  ‘I know it’s impossible,’ he said, his voice softening. ‘But they’re as safe as we can make them. So we just focus on getting through this next few hours.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘No,’ he said equitably. ‘We should be safe back at Croc Creek. But our best chance of retrieving the boys as soon as possible is to stay right here.’ He was opening his backpack again, hauling out the radio.

  ‘We should have left the radio with Max,’ she said fretfully.

  ‘And if he hadn’t been able to use it? We’d have half Croc Creek thinking we were dead. Use your brains, Georg. Let’s tell them we’re safe.’

  ‘We’re not safe.’

  ‘We’re as safe as anyone within two hundred miles is right now. Charles?’

  Another gust rocked their safe haven. The radio crackled into life. ‘Carmichael. Where the hell are you? Carmichael.’

  By mutual consent they’d turned off their remaining torch. The batteries should last the night but they had no need of them so why push their luck? If this storm was so bad that they were trapped for longer …

  Don’t go there.

  ‘We’re OK,’ Alistair said into the radio transmitter and Charles’s sigh of relief was loud enough to be heard over the wind.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Finding the kids,’ Alistair said.

  ‘You’ve found them?’

  ‘We have. Three of them. There’s Max, a dog called Scruffy and another child, a boy of about five.’

  ‘Do we know who he is?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Alistair said patiently. ‘He doesn’t talk.’

  ‘He’s hurt?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be. He’s just silent. They both seem OK.’

  ‘So you’re on your way in now? How—?’

  ‘We’re staying put.’ Briefly Alistair outlined the situation. When he finished there was a moment’s pause before Charles spoke again.

  ‘You’re sure they’re safe?’ he said at last.

  ‘As safe as we can make them.’

  ‘They’ll be terrified.’ He paused. ‘Well, we can’t help that. We’re all terrified. In some situations it makes sense to be scared. The full force is coming in now. I was contacting you to say get off the road fast. But you’re protected where you are?’

  ‘As protected as we can be.’

  ‘And Georgie’s being sensible?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No, of course about it. This is Georgie.’

  ‘I’m being sensible,’ Georgie yelled, frustrated and incensed, and Charles’s chuckle sounded through the static.

  But then the chuckle faded. ‘We’re in for it,’ he said, and his voice was now grim. ‘Starting now. You guys stay safe. We can’t get to you to help. As of ten minutes ago I ordered everyone inside and no one’s moving. I just hope to hell …’ He paused. ‘OK. Enough. God be with you.’

  And the line went dead.

  ‘Um …’ Georgie whispered.

  ‘Um?’

  ‘Did Charles just say, “God be with you”?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘He’s never said anything so … personal in his life. I didn’t think he knew how.’

  ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ Alistair said, and tugged her against him again. ‘OK. The way I see it is the worst that can happen to us is the truck goes over. But we’re protected—the downed tree will deflect anything else that falls. So we sit and wait it out.’

  ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ she said, and he stilled.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘I’m a girl. Girls don’t have bladders like boys.’

  He sighed. ‘There’s no argument about that one. You want the torch?’

  ‘I’m not going more than four feet from the truck.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  ‘So, yes, I want the torch and I want you to turn your back and close your eyes.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Then I’ll do the same for you.’

  ‘You’re sounding bossy again,’ he said, and she switched on the torch in time to see his grin. ‘Go ahead. My eyes are closed tight.’

  That was the end of laughter. Fifteen minutes later the full force of the cyclone hit. Georgie had been lying in the dark, listening to the wind, thinking of Max, growing more and more fearful.

  She was desperately tired but she couldn’t sleep. No way. The wind sounded terrifying.

  And out there was Max.

  She lay rigidly in the dark, willing him to be safe, willing the storm to be not as bad as they feared, willing everything to be OK.

  Alistair was right beside her. She was acutely aware of him—too aware of him—and it made things worse. She, who had spent her life fighting to have things under control, was suddenly so far out of her comfort zone that she felt like her world was tilting.

  Alistair let her be, seeming to sense she couldn’t talk. That she needed to be as far away from him as she could get.

  And then she didn’t have room to think anything.

  She’d thought the wind had been terrifying. With the first blast of the full cyclonic force she was on the other side of the truck and in Alistair’s arms and every single scruple was blasted right out of her mind.

  She didn’t speak. There was no point in speaking. She simply held on for dear life while the wind screamed like the hounds from hell, and the truck rocked back and forth on its axle as if it could take off any minute into the storm.

  But it didn’t take off. The wind was catching the nose of the truck and shoving it backward, pushing it further into its tight V. Alistair’s reasoning had worked. But, still, the force of its rocking was appalling enough. To hell with being alone. To hell with staying in isolation. She buried her face in Alistair’s chest and clutched him close.

  But who was giving comfort to who? He was holding her as tightly as she held him. There was no choice. In the face of this shared threat there was nothing to do but hold each other, hold and hold …

  How long she stayed rigidly fearful, locked against him, she didn’t know. The wind didn’t lessen and neither did the rocking, but the human body could survive on adrenalin for only so long. The terror that the world would end was fading. But still she stayed where she was. She lay holding tight to Alistair, letting his arms hold her, feeling the beating of his heart against her face. Letting her world settle on a new kind of axis.

  W
here terrifying was normal.

  Where being held by Alistair was normal. Safe.

  And something more.

  He kissed her hair.

  At first she thought she’d imagined it. But, no, she pulled back a little and saw that he was indeed kissing her.

  She could see now. There had been no glorious sunrise—the deep black stormclouds made it still almost as dark as night—but not quite. There was sun somewhere behind these stormclouds and there was enough light now to see. It was morning?

  And Alistair was smiling. Unbelievably, Alistair was smiling.

  ‘If you’ve known how long I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Six months, to be precise. Six long months.’

  ‘You didn’t …’

  ‘Georgie, I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. It’s not a good time now to say it,’ he agreed, his smile giving way to gravity. ‘It’s a crazy, dumb time to say it. But I’ve been lying here feeling like I’ve never been so afraid in my life, and suddenly I thought that if the wind finally does manage to pick this truck up and transport us to Kansas, I’d never told you. And I’ve been thinking and thinking, in between worrying about saving our skins, you understand, that I really ought to tell you that I’ve fallen in love with you.’

  She was having trouble breathing, much less speaking. ‘You haven’t,’ she whispered finally, and she wasn’t quite sure that she made a sound at all.

  ‘It’s too late to say that now,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’m thinking that I must have fallen in love six months ago. I just never knew I had. I knew you’d attracted me as no other woman had, but I thought it was crazy—that it was just some sexual need.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘See, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘What I felt then was so strong that when Gina interrupted us that night I could have wept. Afterwards I called myself all sorts of names, but I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of how I was feeling.’ He was whispering right into her ear. Any further away and she wouldn’t be able to hear him. It was the most intimate sort of speech. She should pull away, she thought, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

  ‘And then I walked off the plane two days ago and there you were,’ he said. ‘Just as I remembered you. And when I carried you away from Max, I felt sick. Because I knew you were torn apart and there wasn’t a goddam thing I could do about it, but I would have torn my own heart out to spare you pain. Anyway …’ He shifted slightly so he could kiss her, a feather kiss on the tip of her nose—no more—and then moved back so his lips were against her ear again. ‘I lay in the dark and it hit me like … well, with the force of a cyclone, that what I’m feeling is this love thing that the world raves about and I’ve never even believed in. Until now.’