ALL
THE KING’S
HORSES
BY
ALETHEA DOWNS
Characters and events in this book are fictitious, similarities to any person living or dead is purely coincidence.
Copyright: Alethea Downs. All Rights Reserved.
Cover design: Ebookindiecovers
No part of this book may be copied, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express permission of the author.
NOTE: This novel contains no swearing or erotica.
Word count: 70000 words.
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER ONE
Christy Lane didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go on living like this either. This parasite someone had named cancer was sucking her life blood away, and she had no desire to be here when it caused her body to waste away. She had a decision to make, and right at this moment in time it didn’t seem wrong to do what she never thought she ever would. Slipping out of her shoes she stepped off the footpath and made her way down to the water’s edge.
It was a calm sea, and this early in the morning there were very few people about. Suppressing a squeal as the cold water rose above her knees she couldn’t prevent an involuntary shudder as an icy blanket enveloped her waist.
The sun was just rising up over the horizon casting its warm light bearing fingers across the tranquility of the bay as Christy slipped down into the deeper water.
♥
Kent London groaned as he watched the lone swimmer bob up momentarily before submerging again. At six o’clock in the morning he had no desire to be playing the hero for whatever fool was in trouble out there. That water would be cold, and he didn’t fancy taking a dip in it.
The head came up again, and it looked like a woman from where he was standing. The strange thing was, she didn’t seem to be putting up much of a fight.
Kicking off his shoes and peeling off his shirt as he ran he hit the cold water at a fast clip. With strong even strokes he lit out for the spot he had last seen her go down, praying all the while that he wouldn’t be too late.
He fancied he had caught a glimpse of dark hair break the surface about thirty metres ahead and slightly to his right, and so drawing on every ounce of his strength he made for the location.
“Where are you,” he muttered, as he desperately scanned the spot. “Come on show yourself!”
A flash of white caught his eye below his feet. Ducking his head under he saw what he was looking for and kicking out for the bottom soon had a handful of hair firmly in his grasp. Propelling himself upwards he broke the surface, and after sucking in a lung full of air struck out for the beach.
Kent was grateful that the sea was calm. If it hadn’t been he doubted he could make it back. The woman was a dead weight, and getting heavier by the second. He was thankful when his feet finally scraped sand and he was able to drag the unconscious woman and his exhausted body onto the beach.
Rolling her onto her stomach he did what he could to expel the water from her lungs. Relief engulfed him when she started to retch. He had got to her just in time, and now he must get an ambulance to her pronto. He reached into his pocket a split second before realizing he had forgotten to take his cell phone out before he hit the water. It would be less than useless now.
An early morning jogger shuffled by on the footpath above the beach. “Hey, mate,” Kent shouted, stopping the fellow in his tracks. “Have you got your cell phone on you? This lady needs an ambulance.”
The woman started to stir, and rolling onto her back looked up at him with the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly, “the ambulance will be here soon. They’ll take good care of you.”
As she went into a paroxysm of coughing he squatted down and held her gently by the shoulders, unsure of what else he should be doing. “They’ll be here soon,” he said again, as he glanced up to see how the jogger was getting on. He was still on the phone.
“Cold…”
“He shifted his focus back to the woman. “What’s that?”
“I’m cold,” she said again.
Kent walked over to where he had shed his shirt and brought it back. “Here, put this on, it’ll warm you up a bit.” He watched as she slowly pushed her arms into the sleeves, taking her features in for the first time. Pale skin, long auburn hair, high cheek bones, and of course those stunning green eyes singled her out as quite a beauty. What she was doing swimming in the bay at this time of the year was anybody’s guess.
The jogger was giving him the thumbs up signal, so the ambulance must be on its way. He was glad. He was beginning to feel the effects of the cold air on his bare chest, and needed that ambulance to hurray up so he could get his shirt back and be on his way.
He looked down at her again. She was definitely improving. She couldn’t have been in the water long enough to do her any serious harm. A day or two in hospital should put her to rights.
He figured she must be an out-of-towner, as he hadn’t seen her around before, and he definitely would have noticed her if she had been a local. What man wouldn’t?
He wanted to ask her what she had been doing out there so early in the morning, and how she had got into trouble in the calm but cold waters of the bay. But he could see she wasn’t in any state to be holding a conversation right now, and he was relieved when he saw the ambulance pull up next to the curb above the beach. She would be someone else’s problem now, and he could go home and get into some warm dry clothes.
With a stretcher in tow the ambulance crew scuttled across the beach towards him. “Good, she’s breathing on her own,” he heard one of them say.
They went to work on her immediately. “How long has she been in the water?” one of them asked him briskly.
“I don’t really know. I was on my way home and spotted her in trouble so jumped in and pulled her out.”
“You’re not her partner then?”
“No, I’ve never met her before.”
“Okay…and how long has she been out of the water?”
“About fifteen minutes. She coughed a bit of water up, but nothing too concerning. She was complaining about being cold though.”
“I’m not surprised. Winter time is not a good time to be a swim, even if it is in the Bay of Islands.”
Kent was trying to rob some circulation back into his arms. “You’ll get no argument out of me there.”
“We’ll run her through to Kawakawa hospital and keep her under observation for a day or two, but I think she’s going to be alright. It’s just as well you turned up when you did.”
Kent glanced back up at the footpath. Now the sun was up the town was starting to come alive. It had been a long night out on the water
for him. Six wealthy Japanese businessmen had chartered his boat to take them out fishing, and now he was tired, very tired.
“If you don’t need me here I think I’ll make my way back home,” he said wearily.
“No, we can take it from here and thanks for everything you’ve done.”
Kent strolled back up the beach to the footpath and turned for home. The township of Paihia was definitely starting to come alive now, with joggers and people heading off to work. He did his best to ignore the stares he was getting from passersby. He knew what they were thinking. ‘Who was this crazy man walking around half naked at this time of the morning and in winter time?”
He had left his shirt back there with the young woman. He hadn’t the heart to ask for it back, and so he was glad when he finally walked in the front door of his rented cottage.
He thought about the mornings events as he rummaged around in his drawer for a dry pair of trousers. He had never received a good soaking to save a damsel in distress before, and what was even stranger was he didn’t even know her name.
A strange feeling came over him. He wouldn’t ever see her again. He wouldn’t know where she came from or what she had been doing swimming out there, or even what she did for a job. It didn’t seem quite right considering he had just saved her life that she would now disappear from his forever.
He pulled on a pair of socks and wandered out to the kitchen to make a coffee. Flicking on the radio to catch the news he tried to put the whole business out of his tired brain. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t get the image of the bedraggled beauty out of his mind. What had she been doing swimming in the predawn light on a chilly winter morning? It really didn’t make any sense. She had looked up at him so sadly with those captivating green eyes that he knew he wasn’t going to get any rest until he had pieced all the bits of the puzzle together.
It wouldn’t hurt if he ran over to the hospital tomorrow morning to see how she was. After all, he could claim to have a vested interest in her welfare seeing as he had saved her life. He had a few chores to get through this morning before he hit the sack for some much deserved sleep, then another charter tonight. But after bringing the boat back in tomorrow morning he would down a quick breakfast before driving over to Kawakawa to visit the mystery lady.
♥
Christy looked up at the ambulance woman as she went about her job of checking her over. “I’m sorry I’ve put you to so much trouble,” she said sincerely.
“It’s okay. This is my job, so you’re not putting me to any trouble.” She looked down at her and smiled. “I’d suggest you don’t go swimming on your own again though, and definitely not in the winter. You were starting to turn blue by the time we turned up.”
“I was cold,” Christy admitted, the fog starting to clear from her brain.
“If that young man hadn’t pulled you out of the water and given you his shirt to wear I think you’d have died of hypothermia if not by drowning.”
Christy thought for a moment. “That poor man he must have been as cold as I was saving me. I never even got his name.”
“None of us did. But I can vouch for the fact he was one wet, cold, and sorry looking feller when he trudged off down the beach.”
Christy gazed up at the roof of the ambulance as they travelled along and forced her numb brain to remember. She had only got a brief glimpse of his face; she had been too busy coughing up seawater to take a good look at him. But what she had seen she had liked. He had a nice face, good-looking even. She felt a little sad that she wouldn’t get the opportunity to apologize to him.
The ambulance had pulled up at the hospital and so now the vehicle became a hive of activity. Ten minutes later she was tucked up in bed and carefully answering the questions of the duty doctor. She felt bad lying to him over the reasons for her being in the water, but if she was going to avoid the police getting involved she really had to make it look like an early morning swim gone wrong.
She could tell he was skeptical. He was an older man, somewhere between sixty and sixty-five, and not a man to be easily taken in. He fixed her with a penetrating glare, his bushy eyebrows turned down when she had finished her story.
“Alright,” he said coolly,” have it your way. But I don’t want to see you in here again or I promise you the outcome will be different.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when he turned aside to see to the other patients on the ward. He may suspect the truth, but without proof he wasn’t going to contact the authorities, and so when she had sufficiently recovered she could walk out of here without being kept under surveillance.
She wouldn’t be back here. She felt guilty enough about putting so many people out, everyone from the young man who had saved her, to the ambulance staff, to the hospital staff.
She had been selfish. She realized that now. All she could say in her defense was she hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. She would never try to take her life again. If this…thing…was going to take her life then so be it. It could do so in its own timing.
She would have to phone her father to come and pick her up. The hospital would release her with less hassle if they knew someone would be looking after her. He was going to be upset about the whole thing though. Since her mother had died he and Christy had become very close. He had cried when she told him she was leaving Auckland to move up north to Paihia. She hadn’t wanted him to witness her slow death. She had only been here a few weeks before she pulled that foolish stunt on the beach this morning. But now she would have to go back to Auckland and let him nurse her when the cancer took a hold.
It was best to get it over with as soon as possible. Asking the duty nurse for a phone she nervously tapped out the number. “Hello, Daddy.”
Christy…I’ve been trying to ring you all morning but you haven’t been answering your phone.”
“Daddy, I have something to tell you.”
“What’s happened?” His voice was full of concern.
“I’ve had a bit of an accident.”
The line went deathly quiet.
“Are you still there, Daddy?”
“Yes, I’m waiting for you to tell me what’s happened.”
“I went for a swim this morning and I got into a bit of difficulty.”
“Define difficulty,” he said carefully.
“I got out over my depth and swallowed a bit too much water.” She could hear his breathing become more labored.
“Are you going to be alright?”
“I’m fine now, Daddy, so don’t you worry about me. But I do need you to do a favor for me.”
“Of course, Sweetheart, what can I do for you?”
“The hospital doesn’t want to release me unless there’s someone to look after me for a few days.”
“Of course, I’ll be there to pick you up in the morning.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” She clicked the phone off and laying her head back against the pillow stared up at the ceiling. She felt terrible about getting him to make the three and a half hour trip to the Bay of Islands, but she really did need him here. She would persuade him to stay a few days before they headed back to Auckland. It would be nice to reconnect with him. After all, when all was said and done she was still his little girl, even though she was twenty-seven years old.
It had been difficult for him when she had been diagnosed with leukemia. She was his only child. He himself had been an only child. So if he lost her he would be all alone, and she knew the fear of that gnawed away at him more than anything else.
He had always said she was the only worthwhile thing he had ever done apart from marrying her mother, and she had no doubt he would be totally lost when she was no longer around.
He had been such a sad man when her mother had died. The only time he ever smiled was when he was remembering some happy event from his marriage, or when she was growing up.
Because he had never had much in the way of family he had thrown everything into creating his own and had succeeded. But how was h
e to know that his wife would be taken from him just before her forty-ninth birthday by a virulent strain of meningitis. Christy had been twenty-two at the time and newly married to her high school sweetheart Mike Lane. In one fell swoop she had lost her mother, friend, and confidant. For Jack, he had lost his soul mate, and now all that mattered to him was his daughter. A daughter he couldn’t accept was dying a slow death.
“How are we doing?”
Christy broke free of her thoughts as the duty nurse bustled into the room to check on her. “I’m doing fine.” She looked at the woman’s name tag. “Julie…I was wondering about the gentleman who pulled me out of the water.”
“No, sorry,” Julie said, anticipating what Christy’s next question was going to be. “Nobody got his name, and he hasn’t been in touch with the hospital.”
Her heart sank. She really had hoped to be able to thank him. If she had died out there this morning her father would have been devastated, and then there was no telling what he would have done. This mystery man had saved her from creating a world of pain.
“I did hear he was a good-looking feller though,” Julie said, with a wink in Christy’s direction. “The ambulance staff wouldn’t shut up about him.”
Christy managed a smile. “I must confess, even though I was busy expelling seawater from my lungs at the time I did manage to notice he was easy on the eye.”
“Well, if he’s a local Paihia lad you’ll no doubt run into him when you’ve been discharged.”
“I hope so.”
“I’m sure you will. There are not many places you can hide in a place as small as Paihia, and I doubt he’s gone into hiding.”
Christy thought about what she had said after she left. Paihia was a small place. It couldn’t have more than fifteen hundred residents, although it did swell considerably during the tourist season. He shouldn’t be too difficult to track down. She would feel like a real goose when she did come face to face with him though. She had put the poor man through a real ordeal this morning and she was ashamed of herself because of it.
All The King's Horses: A Tale Of Eternal Love Page 1
