And then she admitted the real reason for the first time, and even as the knowledge surfaced she knew it had been there all along. From too far back to ever be pinpointed accurately.
She was in love with Alex Henry.
When he had suggested marriage, there had been a heart-stopping instant when something like pure excitement had flooded right into her bones. Not that it was believable, coming from the mouth of someone who’d always sworn off marriage just as vehemently as Sam had herself.
But…if Alex had told her he wanted marriage because he loved her, her world might have tilted to a very different degree on its axis. She would have been prepared to concede that a partnership where respect and genuine friendship existed along with the rush of such a fantastic physical compatibility could be the making of a lifelong bond that would have the potential to enhance, rather than undermine, their individual independence.
He hadn’t told her that, though, had he?
Alex said he liked her. Liked. What an insipid word. That they ‘got on OK’. Also damning with faint praise. No. The real reason, the only reason Alex had suddenly considered marriage was because he wanted to stake a claim on his offspring. To be more than a part-time father.
He’d had to throw in that suggestion of a gender identification problem again, too. There was nothing wrong with being a woman. Sam was proud of herself and what she’d achieved. There was certainly nothing wrong with being a mother. She was quite prepared to make whatever sacrifices it took to be the best mother she could possibly be.
There would be nothing wrong with being a wife, either, if she had a partner who loved her as much as she loved him.
As much as she loved Alex.
But it wasn’t going to happen. The tears rolled more freely as Sam stared through the darkness at her ceiling and realised what she’d done.
In the space of just a few short months she had changed her life irrevocably. She had alienated her best friend and rejected the best lover she could ever hope to have. And she had set in motion a chain of events that would drastically alter, potentially even destroy, the career she’d worked so hard to achieve.
Yes, she would have the baby she wanted so desperately, but what else would she have? The plan had been to add something meaningful to her life. It wasn’t supposed to be an exchange. She was going to lose the job she loved—not just because it could become intolerable having to work with the father of her baby but because, deep down, Sam knew there was probably no way she could live with the risks she took in her job, knowing that there was a baby waiting for her to come home.
And if she lost Alex and what they’d always had, never mind what they’d discovered so recently…
Then maybe it wasn’t worth it.
CHAPTER TEN
‘PANCAKE ROCKS, ten o’clock.’
Alex stared down at the famous west coast landmark but there was no time to admire the eerie beauty of rocks eaten by wind into unique formations.
‘We need to follow the Pororari River, yes?’
‘Yup.’ Terry turned inland again when they spotted the waterway. ‘Though it sounds like the target is closer to the Punakaiki River.’
The country below was familiar. It seemed like no time since they had flown into an area not far from here to go underground and rescue the cavers. The night that Sam had delivered that baby. The night that had changed everything for ever. You never knew what a job was going to bring, Alex mused wryly. Up until now, he’d always considered that to be a perk. Now that he knew what kind of repercussions could ensue, he wasn’t so sure any more.
They flew on, buffeted by a gusty easterly. At a point somewhere in the lush rainforest of the Paparoa National Park, trampers had been using a narrow swing bridge to cross a steep gully over a swiftly flowing mountain creek. Apparently, one of the cables that formed the sides of the bridge had snapped, sending three people plunging into the gully.
One had been swept away by the creek but had been lucky enough to suffer only bruises and a badly sprained ankle. Miraculously, his mobile phone had survived both the fall and the dunking and the cellphone coverage was just sufficient for him to make an initial call for help. He thought his two companions had fallen to one side of the creek amongst the giant rocks, but he was unable to try and return to help them.
Alex and Sam had been despatched over an hour ago. The plan was that they would find a landing point if possible or get winched into the nearest area that was clear enough. Copilot Bryan was on board if they both needed to winched down. If they couldn’t get to a point at the base of the gully, they would need to go in from the top and then climb down to reach the injured trampers. A team of land-based search-and-rescue personnel was making their way in from the coast road but it would take them several hours to reach the scene and that could well be too late for anyone seriously hurt.
Various creeks fed into the main rivers and it took some time to locate the one they were looking for.
‘There!’Alex finally said triumphantly. ‘Three o’clock, two hundred metres. I can see the bridge.’
The narrow base of the bridge was still intact—a strip of heavy netting over metal rungs. Upright poles were still attached but several of them hung beneath the bridge, the wires that had held them upright trailing like spider web beside them. With the weight of three people, perhaps too close together, there would have been no chance of keeping their balance or hanging onto the hand wire on the other side.
‘Roger.’ Terry decreased the air speed and reduced altitude. They made a pass along the length of the creek that snaked well below the bridge.
‘Amazing that anybody survived that drop straight into the water,’ Alex commented. ‘It must be sixty metres.’
‘The sides aren’t completely sheer,’ Bryan responded. ‘He might have broken his fall by sliding and he had his backpack to protect him.’
Alex grunted, his concentration on the terrain below. The sides weren’t sheer. It was going to be a difficult climb with sections that would need abseiling and more than one large overhang to contend with. Not a mission that a pregnant woman should be attempting. But he wasn’t going to suggest that Sam stay in the helicopter. He could just imagine what sort of reaction he’d get to that.
They saw no sign of the trampers on the first pass. Terry circled and dropped even lower this time. They were almost brushing the canopy of tall beech trees that flanked the gully.
‘Can’t see a thing.’
‘Maybe they got washed away as well. We could check further downstream.’
Sam still sounded as weary as she’d looked when she’d arrived at work that morning. Alex hadn’t made any comment on her wan appearance. She’d probably take even a query about her well-being as interference in her life. Alex had managed to suppress his concern quite effectively. He was still far too angry to have any desire to try and get back on friendly terms with his partner.
If she wanted him out of her life, he was only too happy to oblige. The next week or two might be horrible but she’d be gone after that and he’d get over it in his own good time. Sam could go off and have her own life with the baby and Alex would stay well clear. After a long night of fuming, he’d decided the only way forward was to wash his hands of the whole messy business. He wasn’t going to push himself in somewhere he wasn’t wanted.
Sam had chosen this so she could live with it. It was Sam who had dumped him, Sam who was making all the rules. If she wanted to try and repair the fallout from their fight yesterday and make the next week or two more tolerable at work, it was entirely up to her. Alex wasn’t going to offer any assistance.
He wasn’t even going to agree with her.
‘They could have managed to climb out. Maybe they didn’t fall very far. There’s a big overhang not far below the bridge.’
‘What’s that?’ Sam’s tone sounded almost normal. Focussed and alert.
‘Nine o’clock. Right at the bottom of the gully.’
‘I see it.’ Personal issues
were forgotten as Alex spotted the flash of blue. ‘It’s a backpack.’
‘Where’s the tramper, though?’
They spotted their first patient only seconds later, about halfway up the side of the gully. Someone who was lying very still in the shadow of a huge rock.
‘There’s the other one.’ Sam was excited enough to forget to use a clock face to direct the others. She was pointing instead. ‘Look, he’s waving.’
Waving, but not moving. If the tramper was at all mobile, he would have moved closer to his injured companion, surely?
‘Are they closer to the bottom or the top?’ Terry wondered aloud. ‘Do you guys want to winch into the base of the gully and climb up, or go down from the top?’
‘Be quicker going down. We’ve got abseiling gear but we’re not equipped for rock climbing and some of the overhangs would be too much of a challenge.’
And far too dangerous to let Sam attempt.
‘We’ll see what we can do to stabilise them,’ Alex decided, ‘and then lower them to the base of the gully. We might have help from the search-and-rescue boys by then. We can winch the patients out from a point further downstream maybe.’ Belatedly, Alex realised he should have let Sam have some input into planning their course of action. ‘What do you think, Sam?’
‘Sounds fine to me.’
‘Bit short of potential landing spots,’ Terry observed as he circled again. ‘I don’t want to try putting you down too close to those trees. Not in this wind.’
The reminder of what could happen if a winching line tangled in trees made Alex’s blood run cold for a second. It wasn’t fear for himself—it was the thought of Sam getting into trouble that bothered Alex. Sam…and the baby.
Alex could feel his lips settling into a grim line. She shouldn’t be doing this at all. Having to worry about her was adding a new and unwelcome tension to the job, and it wasn’t as if she even wanted him to worry. Or to be involved in any way. The bubble of renewed anger was too much of a distraction in itself. Alex squashed it ruthlessly.
‘What about that rock? Down the gully a little from the bridge?’
The lichen-covered rock was reasonably flat and as large as a small sitting room. It hung over the edge of the of the gully near the top, which gave them extra space away from the trees. It was as safe as they were likely to find in the vicinity.
‘I’m happy if you are,’ Terry agreed. ‘Turning downwind, then.’
They lined up their target. Sam was checking the contents of the trauma pack. Oxygen, IV gear, fluids, bandages and splints and an array of drugs to control pain and nausea. Foil sheets to combat hypothermia. They couldn’t carry a lot but it should be enough to stabilise a patient or two until they could evacuate them.
Alex’s pack held the abseiling gear they would need. Harnesses, ropes and carabiners. He was also taking the lightweight stretcher.
He was winched down first and was there to help steady Sam as she touched down and to release the winch hook and pull her to the gully side of the rock before she could lose her balance and become another accident victim herself.
Not that she appreciated his assistance.
‘Let’s get on with this, shall we?’
They could scramble a short distance from their landing point but then the sides of the gully became far too steep to negotiate safely.
‘We can’t be more than thirty metres above the target,’ Alex said. ‘Let’s find an anchor point and see how the abseiling goes.’
‘Fine.’ Sam’s gaze roamed quickly. ‘I’ll use that tree as an anchor. Can you get my harness out, please? And a rope?’
‘I’ll go down first,’ Alex stated. ‘I’ve had more experience abseiling than you have.’
‘I don’t think so. We both did that refresher course not very long ago.’ There was a challenge in Sam’s tone that indicated a line was being drawn in the sand here. If Alex stood his ground—which he could, given his seniority—he would simply be justifying all the reasons Sam had used to shove him out of her life. He would be trying to tell her what to do. To control her.
An echo of something her brother, Phil, had said on the night of that engagement party popped into his head.
‘We never tried to control you. We just tried to stop you killing yourself.’
Sam had survived her childhood, hadn’t she?
No doubt she would survive whatever else she chose to do with her life. And she’d survive alone because she didn’t want anyone sharing that life. Especially not Alex.
‘Fine.’ Alex opened the pack and took out the gear Sam would need.
He said nothing more as he watched her prepare her equipment, pulling on her harness, making competent knots and snapping carabiners into place. In a short time Sam was in position, leaning back into her harness, allowing the rope to lengthen slowly through the descender attachment as she started to move cautiously down the almost vertical slope.
Alex bit back an automatic admonition to be careful. Instead, he turned his attention to attaching a rope to the trauma pack, ready to lower it to Sam. He sent it down when she had reached the overhang they couldn’t avoid, about fifteen metres from the start of their descent.
Again, Alex watched for a moment as Sam prepared to go over the lip of the overhang. She was walking backwards very slowly, looking over her shoulder. It would be the trickiest part of the descent by a long way. Rope work needed careful control and focus. The strain on the rope would be at its peak when Sam hung below the overhang, lowering herself until she could gain another foothold fifteen metres or so below. Alex couldn’t help glancing back at the anchor point, double-checking that Sam’s knots were adequate.
When he looked down again, Sam had disappeared over the lip.
Alex checked his own gear and then anchored his rope to a tree beside the one Sam had used, noting the strain on her rope. It was taking her a long time to gain a new foothold, but that was good. It meant that Sam was taking her time. Being careful.
The radio headset in his helmet crackled into life as Alex prepared to take his first bouncing step down the side of the gully. What sounded like static quickly became recognisable as the background noise of the rotors from the helicopter still hovering above them.
‘Sam?’ It was Terry’s voice. ‘Come in, Sam.’
Was he wanting a report on patient status to relay to the other emergency services on the way? But the strain on Sam’s rope was still there. She hadn’t reached the ground near the trampers yet.
And there was no response from her on the radio frequency.
Alex felt the chill start as a nasty prickle on the back of his neck that snaked down the whole length of his spine.
‘What’s up, Terry?’
‘Not sure,’ the pilot responded, ‘but I think Sam might be in a spot of bother.’
Sam closed her eyes.
‘Don’t panic,’ she ordered herself. ‘Think!’
If she’d been thinking a minute ago, this wouldn’t have happened. And she certainly couldn’t afford to make it any worse.
She had made a beginner’s mistake, thanks to letting her concentration lapse. If she hadn’t looked up as she’d leaned out to take the step that would obscure Alex from her line of vision, she wouldn’t have been distracted by the solid, solitary figure above her.
Wouldn’t have been taken back so instantly to the moment she’d arrived at work that morning to be greeted with an implacable, angry glance from her partner. The icy chill of that glance had been enough to freeze any fantasy she had conjured up in desperation during her miserable night—that she could somehow put things right. Frozen and then shattered them.
It was too late now to realise the implications of that momentary lapse of concentration. The worst had happened. Her rope work had been uneven enough to cause the knot circling the figure-of-eight descender, attached to her car-abiner, to flip over and lock. There was no way she could move any further towards the safety of the ground below.
And that ground wa
s still a very long way beneath her. Ten, maybe fifteen metres. If she fell, it would be onto the rocks that broke the swift current of icy water. She could easily be killed instantly. Or knocked unconscious and then drown. If, by some miracle, she wasn’t badly injured, she could guarantee that a fall of that magnitude would be enough to kill the baby she carried in her belly.
No!
She was letting it happen again. Letting personal issues interfere with how well she could do her job. No wonder Alex had had reservations about her continuing to perform at normal capacity. He’d been justified. She had taken too much of a risk and it looked like payment might be due.
But it could be fixed. All Sam needed to do was to take her weight off the rope for long enough to flip the knot back to where it should be. She reached up with her left hand and grasped the rope as tightly as she could. Then she pulled. As hard as she could.
The wind was gusting even this far down in the gully and Sam’s body was swinging gently, which made it harder to try and haul herself up. She needed both hands and the muscles and joints in her arms protested loudly at what she was asking them to do.
But it was working. The rope between her hands and the attachments to her harness were becoming slacker. Now all she needed to manage was to hold her weight for a few seconds with one hand while she used the other to flip the knot.
She almost succeeded. She had the knot grasped in her right hand when her muscles decided they’d had enough. Her left arm trembled and then produced a shaft of pain that circumvented any instructions her brain was issuing. Her arm gave way and Sam dropped the tiny distance she had won. Her arm flopped with enough force to crash against her helmet and the harness cut in painfully at the tops of her thighs.
Sam managed to stifle the wash of panic doing its best to surface. She would rest a minute and then try again. Harder. But then she looked up as she swayed in mid-air and her heart skipped a beat.
‘Oh…my God!’ she whispered in horror.
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