Trembling with reaction, she gulped a glass of water to wash away the medley of sweet and savoury tastes from her mouth, then spun out of the kitchen. If she looked back she was lost.
It was time to be honest with Harry, she told herself as she hurried down the shell path towards the beach. Even if he threw her feelings back in her face, she had to tell him. No matter that he didn’t want her love. Some things were beyond personal choice or control.
The cruiser had been repaired, and rose at anchor a short way out in the lagoon, she noticed as she passed it. Soon Harry would be able to take her back to Thursday Island for the journey home to Cairns. The thought made her more determined than ever to catch up with him.
He was loading fishing gear into the dinghy at the far end of the beach. Shading her eyes with one hand, she saw him push the boat away from the shore, then jump aboard. ‘Harry, wait,’ she called but the sea breeze carried her words away. He didn’t even look up.
By the time she reached the spot he was a good twenty feet from the shore. Gritting her teeth, she waded after him.
He saw her and swung the boat around, his expression set. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Are you, now? After your judgement of me this morning I’m surprised you want to be on the same ocean with me.’
Nevertheless he helped her to clamber aboard. Her jeans dripped sea-water into the boat, and she wrung the bottoms out ineffectually. ‘I want to apologise for what I said,’ she began.
‘You’re entitled to your opinion.’ He wasn’t going to make this easy for her, she thought as he steered the boat towards the reef guarding the entrance to the lagoon.
‘Are we going outside the lagoon?’ she asked as apprehension gripped her. At any other time he would have considered her fear of the ocean, but today he was much too angry to accommodate her.
She decided to wait until he started fishing before she said her piece. He rowed with such punishing intensity that she knew he was working off his anger. He didn’t even notice the way her fingers gripped the sides of the boat as fear began to take hold.
The ocean was so huge and this was such a small boat. With two of them aboard they were frighteningly close to the water. It was an effort to tear her eyes away from the white-capped surface, and her stomach began to heave in tune with the rolling waves.
Since she was here without his invitation, she couldn’t very well ask to be taken back, so she gritted her teeth and waited him out.
He anchored just outside the reef, where the sandy bottom abruptly shelved. On one side was the reef, and the other dropped away into darkness. As Harry laced the water with fragments of bread, fish clustered around the boat, mouths open and brown eyes rolling like beggars waiting for handouts. She was glad Harry was the fisherman. Much as she enjoyed eating fish, she didn’t think she could hook one of these human-looking creatures.
She focused on the flowering cliffs of coral which rose enamel-bright out of the shallow side. A travel brochure in her files said that the Great Barrier Reef was the world’s largest living thing, covering a distance as large as England, Wales and Ireland together.
Where the reef came close to the surface anemones danced like underwater willows, their long tentacles streaming like fawn and purple hair blown on submarine winds. No wonder the Greeks had named them ‘daughter of the wind’.
‘Lisa, hold on!’
She tore her eyes away from the coral to see Harry’s fishing line streaming away from the boat at lightning speed. Fear clutched at her as she caught sight of a slanted dorsal fin curving off above the surface of the water. A shark had taken Harry’s line.
He slashed at the streaming nylon with his knife, then hauled on the oars. She clung to the boat with all her might, a prayer hovering on her lips.
Suddenly something hit the boat with tremendous force. The boat skewed madly. Braced for another attack, Lisa bit back the scream which clogged her throat. She had never known such blind terror but she knew that, somehow, Harry would get them out of this.
Her eyes went to his face. He was white and his mouth was set in a thin line as he fought to control the boat in the boiling wake of the shark’s strike. They were almost at the entrance to the lagoon.
A shriek tore from her throat as the shark breached the surface almost within touching distance. As it turned on its side she glimpsed a hideous body like a great tree trunk, rust-coloured with huge pectoral fins. The conical head belonged unmistakably to a great white hunter, not for nothing known as the white death.
‘Harry, I love you!’ she screamed with all her might. They might be her last words but no shark was going to rob her of them, not even the white death itself.
His muscles flexed as he heaved on the oars, his concentration so acute that she wondered if he’d heard her. Then he looked up with a smile which rivalled the coral for luminosity.
She was jolted by a scraping along the side of the boat. At first she thought the shark had attacked them again, then she saw that they were passing over the bar with no time to choose where they crossed. Moments later they were safely inside the coral barrier. The shark’s dorsal fin streaked away towards the horizon. Harry had fought the white death and won.
Her fluttering heart felt as if it would leap from her chest as Harry brought them back to the beach. The moment they scraped on to the sand he leapt from the boat and lifted her out bodily, cradling her as if he would never let her go. His heartbeat pounded in time with hers.
His kiss was fiercely possessive, giving her no time to arm herself against the assault on her senses. She tasted salt on his lips, felt the invasion of his tongue, and kissed him back with reckless abandon.
She rested her head against his salt-frosted chest. ‘Oh, Harry, I thought we were going to die.’
Like a sleepwalker awakening, he set her down gently and bent to pull the boat higher up the beach. It was then that she saw how he could interpret her two statements. He thought her declaration was made because she thought they were doomed. Now that they were safe would he still want to hear it?
CHAPTER NINE
LISA was still shaking with reaction when she reached the house, but whether it was with the shock of the shark attack or the sudden violence of Harry’s kiss she didn’t know.
Although terrified by the shark, she had never doubted that Harry would get them safely back to shore. Where did this crazy belief in his omnipotence come from? He wouldn’t welcome it, she was certain.
Just as he didn’t welcome her love, she thought bitterly as she slammed into her bedroom and stripped off the sodden jeans. The encounter with the shark had soaked her to the skin. Unwilling to be caught in the shower when Harry returned, she dried herself roughly with a towel and dressed in fresh shorts and a T-shirt.
He was waiting for her when she emerged. As soon as she saw him standing amid the ruins of the kitchen her hand went to her mouth. The shark attack had driven the memory of her frenzied urge to eat from her mind. Now she stared in horror at the chaos she’d caused.
‘Like to talk about it?’ he asked quietly.
‘I was hungry. I made myself something to eat.’
Her defensive tone didn’t fool him for a moment. ‘It looks more as though the shark was in here in a feeding frenzy.’
He didn’t know how close to the mark he was. She covered her face with trembling hands. ‘I couldn’t stop myself. That’s why I had to join you in the boat, to get away from the temptation.’
Gently but insistently he pried her fingers away from her face. His grey gaze was soft as he looked at her. He understood, she realised in amazement. The most shameful secret she possessed had just been laid bare before him and he understood! Wonder flooded through her until she felt luminous with its healing light.
With an arm around her shoulders he steered her to the couch, dropping to his knees on the floor beside her. ‘How long have you been a compulsive eater?’
She closed her eyes as a shudder s
hook her, then she made herself look at him. He deserved as much. ‘Since my early teens,’ she confessed in a husky whisper.
‘Was it the insecurity of your upbringing?’
There was no censure in his voice and she basked in the warmth of his empathy. ‘I did some counselling, and it seems that when I was growing up eating was the only area of my life over which I had control.’
‘So you used it to block out the other parts of your life which were out of control,’ he observed. Then another thought struck him and he regarded her with horrified self-condemnation. ‘My lord, when I think of all the things I said to you about your weight when I was working on your father’s biography.’
The pain in his voice found an echo inside her. She rushed to assuage it, and her own. ‘You mustn’t feel badly. You meant to help, and, in a way, you did.’
‘By teasing you about something you couldn’t help?’ His voice was thick with self-disapprobation.
She sat up straighten. ‘Don’t you see, I could help it? I just didn’t know it. It took being teased by someone who…whose opinion mattered to me,’ her voice dropped at the reminder which he probably wouldn’t welcome. ‘You made me see that I needed help. My doctor recommended a group where all the members had similar problems. I was finally able to talk out my insecurity instead of eating it out. They taught me other ways to cope and gave me a sense of belonging somewhere for the first time.’
There was a fine sheen across his eyes as he said, ‘You poor kid. I never realised how bad it was for you.’
At his description of her she bristled. ‘I’m not a kid, Harry. And self-pity was one of the first things I learned to dispense with. It still surfaces occasionally, but not as much as it used to.’
Uncoiling from the floor, he paced to the kitchen and found glasses amid the chaos, pouring cold lemon drinks for them both. He handed one to her, then sat down opposite her, his expression stony. ‘I assume it takes a trigger of some kind to set you off again.’
‘Probably. It hasn’t happened to me for a long time.’
‘Until I came along,’ he reminded her.
Her hair spun around her head with the force of her denial. ‘It wasn’t your doing. Don’t you see? In the group I learned not to blame anyone else for my problems. I’m the one doing the eating.’
‘Which is commendable if not for the fact that you had it under control until I brought you here.’
He was determined to hold himself responsible for her lapse, just as he blamed himself for Kim’s death. She remembered accusing him of being a martyr, then wondered if it weren’t a perfect excuse to stay uninvolved.
Her spirits sank lower and lower. ‘There’s no need to sugar-coat it,’ she said, her tone defeated. ‘You’ve made no secret about how you feel, so there’s no need to blame yourself.’
‘It’s for your own good,’ he went on doggedly.
It was too much. She jumped to her feet, spilling the remains of the drink which was beside her on the floor. ‘Then for pity’s sake stop doing things for my own good; it’s killing me,’ she yelled at him and flung herself out of the room.
Dry-eyed, determined not to shed any more tears over Harry Blake, she remained in her room, pretending to herself that she was reading, until a knock came on the door-frame.
‘Yes?’ she said uninterestedly.
The bamboo curtain moved aside and he stood there. ‘I’ve refuelled the cruiser. It’s ready for the trip back to Thursday Island. We can leave first thing tomorrow.’
So that was that. He was taking her back where he had found her and she would probably never see him again. She tried to tell herself it was for the best. She had come to terms with life without him once. She could do it again.
But the aching sense of loss was still with her next morning as she repacked her few clothes into her travel bag. When she came to the sundress she’d worn the day he’d rescued her and they’d made love on the beach she held it against her cheek as memories came flooding back.
He must love her. He had told her so with his body, in every way that a man could. After saving her from the shark he had kissed her with a savagery which betrayed her importance to him. Yet he was letting her go.
Forlornly she folded the dress on top of the rest and added her parents’ wedding photo before closing the lid. It felt as if she was closing the door on the best part of her life.
‘Ready?’
She looked up to find Harry waiting in the doorway. The sight of him squeezed her heart so hard that she thought she would stop breathing. Moisture from his morning shower glistened on his dark hair like dew on the rain forest canopy. Dressed for town in tailored beige trousers and a cream pilot’s shirt, he looked stunningly handsome.
How would she remember him? Elegantly dressed like this, or heart-stoppingly pagan in torn canvas shorts, his mahogany chest bared, the curling hairs frosted with salt water? Whichever image it was, it was bound to haunt her, she knew as she finished fastening the suitcase. Five long years had taught her that Harry Blake was not an easy man to forget.
‘I’m ready,’ she said, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat at the incongruity of her remark. How could she be ready to do something which was tearing the heart out of her?
‘Then let’s go.’ He picked up her case and she noticed that he was carrying one of his own.
‘Are you staying on TI?’ she asked, as much for something to say as to hear the answer.
He shook his head. ‘I’m coming with you to Cairns.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She thought he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Light slowly dawned. ‘It’s the story, isn’t it? The photo wasn’t among the things I brought with me, so you still hope to find it at my flat.’
‘Will you let me look for it?’
So it was the story. The admission drove the breath out of her as if she’d been punched. ‘If I say no you’ll probably break in and search the flat anyway.’ It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said.
Yet, she noticed, he didn’t deny it. The story was the most important thing to him. Oh, he had tried to warn her but she, poor fool, hadn’t listened. How many women came up against similar brick walls and thought they were the only ones in the whole world who could change a man?
She remembered reading about a character in a television series, supposedly without any emotions. The actor who played him was said to receive more fan mail than any other actor in the series, mostly from women who thought they could break through his stoic facade and release the emotional man underneath.
It was the greatest of all conceits, the belief that you could change another person, she told herself. If she’d learned nothing else from her support group she had learned that the only person she could change was herself. ‘You can look for the photo,’ she said on a resigned sigh. ‘I doubt if you’ll find anything, but you’re welcome to try.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate it.’ But there was no gratitude in his impassive expression. He was probably sorry that he had to travel with her back to Cairns to achieve his aim. Waving her off at the airport would probably suit him better. A tiny glimmer of satisfaction flared inside her at the thought that he wouldn’t be rid of her quite so easily.
As they rowed in the dinghy out to the cruiser she realised they would have to go outside the lagoon again. ‘What about the shark?’ she asked nervously.
‘It won’t bother us in the larger boat,’ he assured her. ‘It wasn’t a big one in any case.’
To her the gaping mouth with its inward-angled rows of needle-sharp teeth had looked enormous, but perhaps it had been in comparison with the small boat. All the same, she looked around apprehensively for a curving dorsal fin cutting through the water. There was no sign of it as they moved slowly out across the bar and into the deeper water.
The journey back to Thursday Island seemed much shorter than the trip out. Was it because every mile which passed took her further
from where she most wanted to be? She found herself thinking yearningly of the honeymoon cave and the magical freshwater spring. If she saw them again it would be in the brisk, businesslike guise of a tour guide.
Her eyes blurred but she blinked hard, determined not to weaken now. She made a mental resolution to be the best tour organiser Harry had ever seen. ‘When do you want to start having organised visits to the island?’ she asked over the throb of the outboard engines.
He turned away from the steering-wheel. ‘Whenever you say we’re ready. I trust your judgement on this.’
But not about matters of the heart, she thought bleakly. Aloud she said, ‘I’ll draw up some plans and mail them to you.’
‘You’ll need start-up capital,’ he said. ‘I intend to contribute a substantial share.’
So they were going to be partners in every way except the one which mattered to her. Could she carry it off? Unconsciously her chin lifted and her shoulders straightened. She could and she would, if it killed her.
Harry had booked them on the early-afternoon flight back to Cairns. The plane was a small Fokker Friendship twin turboprop aircraft, which meant that there were only thirty or so other passengers.
They had a three-seat row to themselves. She accepted Harry’s offer of the window-seat, unreasonably annoyed when he then took the aisle seat, leaving the middle one vacant. He really couldn’t wait to put some distance between them, could he? It was something she should get used to, she supposed.
The rest of the flight passed in a blur. She drank the tea and ate the sandwiches served by the cabin staff, hardly noticing when the red bauxite cliffs of Weipa appeared beneath them. The mining town was the only stop on the flight and they reached Cairns soon after four-thirty.
‘Where are you staying in Cairns?’ she asked Harry as he loaded their bags into a hire-car. Her flat was only a ten-minute drive from the airport, and he had offered her a lift home.
‘I’ve booked a room at Hides.’ He named one of the oldest and most atmospheric of the Cairns hotels.
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