The Maverick Millionaire

by Alison Roberts

  She was so tired now, her eyes were drooping shut. That was enough of a foray into personal space, wasn’t it?

  Apparently not.

  ‘I don’t get it.’ Jake’s words broke a silence in which Ellie had been drifting closer to sleep.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why someone like you is all alone.’

  ‘Someone like me?’ Ellie opened heavy lids and turned her head far enough to find Jake staring at her again.

  ‘Yeah... Someone talented, incredibly brave...gorgeous...’

  His words were doing something to her stomach. It felt like she’d swallowed one of the flames from the fireplace and it was tickling her with tendrils hot enough to be uncomfortable.

  It made a response easy to find. ‘Once burned, twice shy, you know?’

  ‘Oh, I do know.’ The words were laced with bitterness. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Same old story. Fell in love. Got betrayed. I won’t bore you with the details, but it would have made a pretty good story line for a soap opera.’

  The huff of sound that came from Jake managed to encompass both disgust and empathy. ‘Good way to look at it, anyway.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Like it’s a movie and you can see the whole disaster up there on the big screen.’

  A strangled sound of mirth escaped Ellie. ‘And what would the humiliated, heartbroken heroine do in this movie?’

  Jake’s voice was soft. ‘Pretty much what you’ve done. Got on with her life and turned herself into a real-life heroine.’

  Ellie didn’t want to hear any more of his praise. ‘Life’s not a movie,’ she muttered.

  ‘Helps to look at it like that sometimes, though.’

  That woke Ellie up a little. Annoyed her, in fact. ‘How does avoiding reality help exactly?’

  ‘Because you see your life up on the screen and you’re part of the audience. How would you feel if you were watching yourself giving up? Pulling the blankets over your head or crying in a corner? You wouldn’t think it was worth watching any more, would you? Isn’t it better to be cheering yourself on as you face the obstacles and overcome them?’

  ‘Is that what you do?’

  ‘Kind of, I suppose.’ Ellie got the impression she was hearing something very personal here. ‘Gets you through the tough bits.’

  ‘The “fake it till you make it” school of thought?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ The negative sound was very American. ‘It’s not fake. You’re not pretending to be someone else. You’re practising being the best person you can be, even if it feels like the skin doesn’t quite fit yet.’

  Had she annoyed him this time? The lapse into another silence suggested she had.

  ‘So...’ Ellie tried to keep her tone light. ‘I’m guessing you’re not married either?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  It shouldn’t make any difference to know he was single so why did her heart rate pick up a little?

  ‘Used and abused, too, huh?’

  ‘You said it.’

  This time the silence felt like a door slamming. There was no point waiting for Jake to say anything else and his guard was up so firmly that Ellie wondered if she’d imagined that she’d been allowed briefly into a personal space. Instinct told her that if she pushed, that barrier would only get bigger.

  She backed away. ‘What’s the happy ending going to be in the movie of my life, then? Do I get swept off my feet by the love of my life? Some gorgeous guy that I have no trouble trusting absolutely?’

  ‘Of course.’ There was a smile in Jake’s voice that almost felt like praise. For not prying, perhaps?

  She had to dismiss the fairy tale, though. ‘That’s why I don’t watch movies. What’s the point in escaping into fiction instead of facing reality?’

  ‘If we couldn’t hope for something better, life could be a pretty miserable business sometimes for a lot of folks.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Ellie snuggled deeper into her blanket and let her head sink into the pillow. ‘Can’t see it happening for me.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  The agreement felt like a connection. They were on the same page. And maybe what he’d said about playing a role had some merit. She could try faking it a bit herself.

  ‘I’m happy with my reality,’ she said. ‘Why would I risk that happiness by hanging it on someone else? When it really boils down, the only person you can trust is yourself. Unless...’ The words were sleepy now. Almost a murmur. ‘Unless you’ve got a twin. That would be like having two of yourself.’

  Jake said nothing and Ellie drifted closer to sleep, happy that they had got to know each other a little better. Had found a connection of sorts, albeit a negative one, in that relationships were currently a no-go area for both of them. Did that open the door, perhaps, to a friendship without the hidden agenda that always seemed to become a problem?

  No. In those last moments before losing consciousness, Ellie’s mind—and her body—insisted on remembering how it had felt to be so close to Jake’s bare skin. To touch him. And just the thought of it meant she could still actually feel that sizzle that had been in the air when she’d felt him staring at her back.

  There would be an agenda there all right, even if she didn’t want it.

  And it might not be just Jake’s agenda.

  * * *

  It was a sudden change of temperature that woke Jake from a fitful, nightmare-plagued slumber. A slap of cold air on his face.

  Sitting up to see over the back of the sofa, he found Ellie struggling to open the outside door.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Ellie was wearing a heavy, oilskin coat. Her hair was still loose, but she had a woollen hat pulled down over her ears. ‘I just need to go to the bathroom.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Now fully awake, Jake realised that all hell seemed to have broken out beyond the walls of their small shelter. The howling shriek of the wind was as unearthly as the weird half-light of the new day. Rain hammered at the tin roof and there was an ominous banging noise that suggested a piece of the roofing was coming loose.

  Ignoring painfully stiff muscles and joints, he got to his feet and close to the window in time to see the meat safe give up any attempt to stay attached to the porch wall and the wind pick it up and send it bouncing into the trees.

  ‘Wow...’ Ellie sounded impressed by the force of the wind.

  And she was planning to go out there? ‘It’s dangerous,’ Jake growled.

  ‘It’s urgent,’ Ellie said calmly. ‘It’s only a few steps. It’s not as if I’m in danger of getting blown over a cliff or something.’

  ‘There’s branches flying everywhere. You could get hurt.’ It was the sheer stupidity of what she was intending to do that was making Jake sound fierce. Or was it a sudden urge to protect this woman?

  ‘You can get hurt crossing the road.’

  She wasn’t about to listen to him and who was he to tell her about assessing risk anyway? This woman dangled on thin wires underneath helicopters for a living, for goodness’ sake.

  ‘There’s a pot of water on the stove,’ Ellie told him. ‘I’ll be back by the time you’ve made us some cocoa.’

  He could do that. He should do that instead of standing here by the window watching as Ellie bent almost double to force herself forward against the wind. It looked like she wasn’t going to get the narrow door of the outhouse open against the wind, but he saw her wedge her boot inside a crack and then use her shoulder to force it open further.

  Man...her strength was impressive, but her determination was downright intimidating.

  Jake rubbed his eyes as he turned back to the stove. Not that he needed to be any more awake but there were still fragments of his nightmares that were swirling in his head.

  Ellie—looking like a warrior princess with her long hair flowing in the wind behind her—pointing a finger at him and shouting.

  Fake...fake...fake...

  And Ben had bee
n standing beside her. Equally accusing.

  Play-acting... Just like Mom... You can’t face reality.

  But you’re another me. I’m another you.

  No. Jake prised the lid off the cocoa tin with the edge of a spoon. Ellie had been way off the mark with that sleepy observation. He and Ben had always been a unit, for sure—united against the outside world—but there were two distinct parts of that unit. They weren’t the same person—not by a long shot.

  Not even two halves of a whole. More like yin and yang. Very different but a perfect fit together.

  And he’d never feel the same shape if Ben was gone.

  But she hadn’t been so far off the mark in suggesting that using a movie mode was sidestepping reality. Or Ben had been when he’d said pretty much the same thing in the life raft. Wasn’t that pretty much how it had all started, even though he’d been far too young to realise what he was doing?

  The water in the pot was boiling now. Ellie had been gone quite long enough so any second now she would burst back in through the door. Jake tipped water into the mugs, grateful for the need to focus and the distraction of the rich smell of chocolate. He could get on with surviving another day and banish the last of those disturbing dreams.

  Especially the one where he hadn’t been able to tell himself apart from his brother. When it was him who was lost on that unforgiving ocean. Tossed out of the life raft and dragged deeper and deeper under the weight of icy water. Drowning...

  The explosive cracking noise from outside was more than enough to send that dream fragment into oblivion. It was enough to drain the blood from Jake’s face. The whole house seemed to be shaking and the noise just got louder. One of the mugs toppled over and steaming liquid poured onto the floor, but Jake didn’t notice. The light was changing. Getting darker. And then there was an impact that had all the force of an earthquake. The second mug crashed to the floor and shattered. A chair toppled. The kerosene lamp swung so violently the flame was extinguished.

  The sound of any wind or rain felt like silence after that.

  A very ominous silence.

  Jake was already at the door, wrenching it open. He’d never shouted so loudly in his life.

  ‘Ellie...’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE FELT THE first shudders of the ground just as she tried to open the door of the outhouse again.

  She heard the terrible cracking that could only mean one thing. A tree was coming down. A very large tree.

  Was she about to get crushed? Trapped in what was little more than a wooden box?

  This was more terrifying than being dragged through that wave like a fish on a line yesterday. At least she’d had a crew looking out for her and elements of the situation she could control herself. As she felt the outhouse being picked up with her still inside it and thrown through the air, Ellie was convinced she was about to die.

  Did she imagine hearing someone calling her name?

  A split second of sheer longing overwhelmed her. She wanted to be inside the beach house. With Jake’s arms around her. Holding her tight. Keeping her safe.

  The impact of hitting the ground shattered the old wooden boards around her, but instead of seeing daylight, Ellie found she was inside a layer of branches and the stiff leaves of a pohutukawa tree. A layer so thick it was hard to breathe. Miraculously, she didn’t seem to be injured. Curling onto her knees, she started snapping small branches around her face and pushing them away to clear a space.

  ‘Ellie...’

  She definitely hadn’t imagined it this time.

  ‘I’m here, Jake.’

  ‘I can’t see you.’

  ‘I’m under branches. I... Ahh...’ Ellie groaned with the effort of trying to snap a bigger branch.

  ‘Oh, God...are you hurt?’

  The concern in his voice was enough to bring a lump to Ellie’s throat. She might not have the backing of an experienced rescue team right now, but there was someone there who seemed to care whether or not she was okay.

  She had to swallow hard before she could shout back. ‘I don’t think so. I’m just...stuck.’

  ‘I’ll get you out. Keep shouting so I know where you are.’

  Ellie did keep shouting. She kept trying to find a way through herself, too, squeezing herself through smaller gaps and turning away from branches so big they would need a chainsaw to break them. She could hear the snapping of wood as Jake tried to create a path from the other side of the massive tree canopy.

  It was dirty work and exhausting and Ellie could feel the scratches and bruises she was accumulating on her bare face and hands. Her hair kept getting caught and having to be painfully wrenched free. She was going to get it cut off when she got out of here, she decided.

  If she got out of here.

  The next desperate attempt to wriggle through a gap was badly judged. Ellie’s leg got caught and trying to get free only wedged her foot further into a fork of thick branches. It was her injured foot that was caught, too, and even trying to pull it clear brought a sob of both frustration and pain from deep in her chest.

  ‘I knew you were hurt.’ After what had seemed an interminable amount of time, there was Jake’s face only inches from her own. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘It’s just my ankle. From yesterday. But...it’s wedged... I can’t...’

  ‘I can.’ Jake crawled further into the mess of tangled tree and took hold of her foot. ‘Sorry—this might hurt a bit.’ He held onto her ankle and eased it out of the boot with a seesawing motion. Without her foot inside, it was easy enough to pull the boot free.

  And then he was showing her which way to crawl after him.

  ‘We’ll go around the roots. The path’s not so blocked that way.’

  It was so wrong, seeing the massive trunk horizontal to the ground, with half the roots snapped off and taller than Jake’s head. He had his arm around Ellie, taking most of her weight as he helped her move forward against wind that felt like a wall that kept shoving them viciously, but Ellie’s cry, as they stumbled on the uneven, disrupted earth that had been beneath the tree, halted their progress. They were on the edge of a large hole and the earth was crumbling.

  ‘I’ll carry you.’

  ‘No—it’s not that. Look...’ She had to shout to make herself heard. This was worse than it had been on the beach but not simply because of the weather.

  Jake pulled strands of hair away from his eyes as he turned his head to where she was pointing.

  ‘What is it? A rat?’

  ‘It’s a kiwi. A brown kiwi.’ He wasn’t to know how rare and precious this native bird was, but Ellie was too close to tears.

  ‘Nothing we can do. It’s been squashed. We’ve got to get inside or it’ll be us next.’

  But Ellie shook her head. ‘There might be a nest. We’ve got to check.’

  Jake was looking at her as if she was crazy. Could he see the tears that were now escaping? How important this was to her?

  He stared at her for just a heartbeat longer. ‘You stay here. What am I looking for?’

  ‘A burrow. An egg...or a baby...’

  Jake slipped as he stepped down into the hole and there he was on his hands and knees, with a cyclone raging around them, looking to rescue a small creature that could be in danger because it was important to Ellie.

  He didn’t even know what a kiwi was, so it couldn’t matter to him.

  He was doing this for her.

  A piece of her heart felt like it was breaking away. Ready to offer to Jake? And then he was coming back—streaked with dirt and a trickle of blood on his forehead—with a huge, creamy egg in his hands. The wind was even louder now and Jake didn’t bother trying to say anything.

  He put the egg inside the boot that had come off Ellie’s foot, shoved it into her hands and then kept one arm firmly around her body as he pulled them forward for the short distance back to the house.

  ‘Let me look at that ankle.’

  ‘No. I have to look at the egg first.’
/>
  * * *

  What was it with this egg?

  Okay, he’d heard of kiwis. It was what New Zealanders called themselves, wasn’t it? Weird enough that they identified so strongly with some flightless bird, but was it that big a deal?

  Had he really kept them both out there in such dangerous conditions because she was so worried that there might be an orphaned chick or egg?

  Yeah... But he’d seen the tears, hadn’t he? And coming from the bravest woman he’d ever met, they had been shocking.

  Now the whole episode felt ridiculous. Jake ignored Ellie as she eased the egg out of the boot and examined it. He picked up a toppled chair and unhooked the lamp so that she could show him how to light it again. As the room brightened, however, her exclamation made him stop and join her at the table.

  ‘Look at this.’

  It was a hole at one end of the egg. Something was poking out of it.

  ‘Must have got damaged when the tree came down. Shame.’ Was Ellie going to start crying again and, if so, what would he do about it this time? Hold her in his arms?

  But she was smiling. ‘It’s called an external pip. It’s hatching.’

  ‘No way...’

  Even more astonishing was the way Ellie picked up the egg and sniffed at the hole.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want to know how far along it is. Sometimes you can tell by the smell whether the chick’s all sweaty and in trouble.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘My granddad was passionate about birds. We looked after a lot of them on the island. And I volunteer, these days, at a captive rearing centre that’s trying to save endangered kiwi. It’s run by one of my best friends, Jillian. We look after eggs and chicks and then release them back into the wild.’

  Okay. It was official now. Eleanor Sutton was the most extraordinary woman Jake had ever met. He knew he was staring and probably looking vaguely starstruck.

  Ellie simply shrugged. ‘I’ve got a thing for nature, that’s all. Enough Maori blood in me to revere the land. And our taonga. The treasure.’

  Something fell into place. That gorgeous, olive skin and the impressive mane of black hair. The fighting spirit. It wasn’t surprising in the least that Ellie was in some part descended from a warrior race.