MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO (30 page)

He would always look after them and keep them safe.

And Abby realised that she’d spent the whole day amongst wild animals. There’d even been a leopard or a cheetah or some big cat being walked around on a leash by a handler and not once today had she imagined something horrible happening.

Well, she’d thought about Tom’s imaginary yacht and Jack falling off and drowning but that had been before she’d been in Tom’s company.

Before she’d felt so...safe.

Before she’d felt like she’d come home.

Yes, Abby knew perfectly well that there would be heartbreak if she lost Tom but if she didn’t accept that future risk—something that might never actually happen—then she could never have this
now
.

And this now was absolutely perfect.

It was in this ultimately memorable moment that Abby gave Tom her heart.

Completely and for ever.

Even if they didn’t end up being married or together as a family, it was too late to lock her heart up and constrict her life by trying to keep it safe. Her heart was Tom’s. For better or worse, for richer or poorer. In sickness or health or even death.

He was her man just as decisively as Jack was her son.

Their
son.

Her smile was misty as she watched Tom and Jack coming back up the hill on all fours, being tigers, maybe. Tom got to her first and flopped onto his side, propping his chin on his hand.

She was still smiling and Tom smiled back.

‘Have I ever told you how gorgeous you are?’

He looked pretty gorgeous himself, with his hair all rumpled and bits of grass stuck in it. With his dark eyes still alight from the fun of the rough and tumble.

Or were they alight with something else?

They were so close. Abby could just lean forward and snatch a kiss. The sudden gleam in Tom’s eyes suggested both his understanding and agreement and a tiny quirk of his lips was an irresistible invitation, but just as Abby tossed her braid over her shoulder so it wouldn’t flop into Tom’s face, a small human missile landed on top of him from the other side.

‘Gotcha.’

‘Oof...’
Tom wrapped his hands around Jack’s midriff and lifted him as if he weighed nothing. ‘You sure did get me, buddy.’

Jack waved his arms and wriggled his legs but Tom’s hand held him securely out of harm’s way and then he tickled him and Jack shrieked with laughter and wriggled harder.

Abby could only laugh as well, tucking the disappointment over losing that kiss somewhere deep enough for it not to matter.

There was plenty of time.

Wasn’t there?

* * *

Talk about bad timing.

Abby had been about to kiss him when that human missile had found its target.

Tom put Jack down and looked at his watch. ‘If we head away now, we’d have time to drop into the rescue base. Would you like to see where I work, Jack?’

‘
Yes.
Can I have a ride in a helicopter?’

‘I’m not sure about that. Not today, anyway,’ Tom added, as Jack’s face fell. ‘You could sit in one, though, and pretend you were driving.’

‘Do I get a helmet?’

‘I’m sure we can manage that.’

‘Let’s
go
.’ Tom held out his hands to tug his parents from where they were still sitting on the grass.

So they went. Tom’s crew was off duty but Moz was apparently there talking to a mechanic who had been called in to look at a helicopter. Frank was using the gym and Fizz was there, too, apparently watching Frank use the gym. Was there something going on that he didn’t know about?

‘Can’t stay away from the place, can you? Fizz, this is Abby and this is Jack. My son. I told you about him.’

‘Yeah...’ Fizz grinned at Jack and then eyed Abby.

‘Abby, this is my crew partner, Fizz.’

Abby eyed Fizz.

Frank caught Tom’s eye and grinned. Both men could feel the wary vibe that had sparked instantly between the two young women.

‘I’m working out,’ Fizz said to Tom. ‘See?’ She opened her hand to show him a soft ball in her palm. ‘Building up strength in my wrist.’

She was still wearing a protective bandage on her wrist, although the stitches were long gone and she’d been back on active duty for the last two weeks.

Jack’s eyes were round. ‘What happened to your hand?’

Fizz laughed, her gaze flicking towards Abby before moving to Tom. ‘Your dad broke me.’

Tom cleared his throat—an annoyed sound. There were small ears here that might not detect a joke.

‘Fizz hurt her arm when we were out on a job,’ he told Jack.

‘Yeah...’ Fizz grinned at Jack again. ‘We had to crawl into a crashed car at the bottom of a cliff with waves crashing around us. It was awesome. D’you want to be a helicopter paramedic when you grow up? Like Dad?’

‘Yeah...’ But Jack was biting his lip. He didn’t sound confident, and why would he, when Fizz was making it sound so dangerous?

‘Let’s go and see a helicopter,’ Tom said.

‘The BK’s out on a job,’ Frank said. ‘MVA up north. It’ll be a while.’

‘Backup’s on site?’

‘Yeah. The mechanic’s going to have a look at that faulty fuel gauge. Moz is a bit worried it might be more than that.’

‘They won’t mind if Jack sits in the pilot’s seat for a few minutes?’

‘Might come and see how things are going myself.’ Frank picked up a towel and mopped his face.

Fizz threw the soft ball into a bucket of hand weights. ‘Me, too.’

The base manager was in the staffroom as they all trooped through.

‘You must be young Jack,’ he said. ‘My word, you look like your dad, don’t you?’

‘Yep.’ Jack stood on tiptoe to make himself taller. He stepped closer to Tom, who put his hand on his son’s head.

He’d never felt so proud in his whole life.

‘I’ll bet you—’ The base manager broke off his sentence as a signal announced an emergency radio message coming in. He moved swiftly towards his office and, with the door open, they could all hear as he picked up the microphone.

‘Rescue Base One. Go ahead.’

‘Rescue Base One, we have a priority one call from Kaimotu Island. I’ll patch you through.’

Priority One meant a life-threatening emergency. They all knew that, apart from Jack, but the little boy went as still as everyone else as they listened. Could he feel the professional interest from Frank and Fizz? The alertness with which he himself was now listening? Or was it the flash of fear on his mother’s face as she heard Ginny’s familiar voice?

‘Rescue One? We have a twenty-three-month-old boy, Blake Taggert, who’s choking. Came in with a GCS of eight and deteriorating vital signs. Dr McMahon’s tried to remove the obstacle with Magill forceps but without success. We’re going to secure his airway with a cricothyroidectomy but we need urgent backup and evacuation.’

The base manager shook his head. ‘Hold on.’ He released the button so that Ginny couldn’t hear him and turned towards Tom, looking rueful.

‘It’s a no-go for us. We’ll have to see if the air force can help. It’ll be an hour before the chopper’s clear of that MVA and the backup’s out of action.’

‘They might not have started working on it yet. It’s only a fuel gauge.’

‘Kind of important when it’s a distance that’s pushing fuel capacity,’ Frank reminded him.

‘And it would be out of order,’ the base manager snapped.

‘I’d go with you.’ Fizz had a sparkle in her eyes. An interesting mission with the added frisson of potential mechanical problems? She wanted in.

Was she crazy?

Was
he
crazy, even thinking about what he was thinking about?

Abby would think so. But when he caught her gaze, her eyes were shining, too. With tears.

‘Poor Ruth,’ she whispered. ‘She must be frantic. Imagine if it was Jack and we were that far away from backup?’

That did it.

‘I’ll go,’ Tom announced. ‘If Moz is okay with the mission.’ He was quite confident that the pilot would be prepared to take a small risk in a situation where a child’s life was at stake. And the base manager might grumble and fuss but he’d find a way to bend the rules.

‘Cool,’ Fizz said.

‘But no more crew,’ Tom added. ‘The less weight we have the less fuel we’ll need so the gauge problem won’t be such a major one.’

Tom left the base manager to update Ginny on what might be possible and moved swiftly towards the helipad. He knew Abby was following him. Any second now she would probably touch his arm and he’d stop and turn and have to see the plea in her eyes for him not to do something that must seem dodgy to someone who didn’t know this business.

She wouldn’t want him to risk his safety. For Jack’s sake, now, as well as her own.

This was it. The crunch test of whether having Abby back in his life was going to mess with his career. A blinding flashback to the crux of why it hadn’t worked the first time round.

Abby did touch his arm.

Tom did turn around.

But what he saw in her eyes wasn’t fear. Not for him, anyway. It was fear for Ruth and Damien, parents of a small boy. An understanding of the agony they must be going through. An understanding of what only Tom could offer by way of help.

She hugged him goodbye swiftly, knowing she would have to get out of the way as preparations became fast and focused.

‘Thank you,’ was all she said. And then... ‘I love you.’

That was when Tom kissed her.

Hard.

Right there on the helipad in front of everybody, including Jack. His words were far more private, however.

‘See you soon, babe. I love you, too.’

CHAPTER TEN

I
T
 
WOULD
 
BE
 
HOURS
before Tom returned.

There was the flight time to Kaimotu Island, the time needed to make sure little Blake was stable enough to travel, the trip back and then more time at the specialist paediatric hospital handing over his care before the chopper returned to base. There was probably a heap of paperwork that would need to be completed on top of that, especially given the protocols that must have been broken to send an aircraft out when it had been stood down for repairs.

Repairs that hadn’t even been started.

Oh...help. It would be so easy to let her imagination conjure up a juicy disaster scene or three but Abby was determined not to go there. She wasn’t going to let Jack see how worried she was.

They waved until the helicopter became no more than a speck in the distance and then Abby looked down to find Jack scowling up at her.

‘Why are you
smiling
, Mummy?’

Was she? Abby touched the tip of a finger to the corner of her mouth and, yes, there was a faint tilt there.

Because, despite her worry, she was still singing inside? Bathed in the glow that Tom’s last words had given her?

I love you.

Were there any other little words in the universe that were that powerful?

Actually...maybe there were. Those four words
‘I love you, too’
were more powerful because they confirmed something that was reciprocal. That brought people closer and cemented a relationship.

Her. And Tom. And Jack.

A real family.

So it was no wonder she was smiling a bit, was it? Not that Jack understood. Or approved.

‘You shouldn’t be happy,’ he told his mother.

‘Why not?’

‘Because...’ Jack sniffed. ‘Because Dad’s gone far away.’

‘He’ll be back soon.’

Jack’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘He said we could have hamburgers and chips for dinner and that there was a big playground just for kids at the hamburger place. Will he be back in time to take us?’

‘Hmm. Maybe not this time, hon.’ Abby crouched down beside her son. ‘But you might have to get used to things like this happening sometimes. It’s what your daddy does. He’s gone to rescue a very sick little boy. Brooke and Amber’s little brother, Blake. Amber’s in your class at school, isn’t she? Imagine how sad she’d be if someone like your daddy
didn’t
go and help make Blake better.’

Jack scowled harder but scuffed his foot thoughtfully, digesting Abby’s words.

‘Tell you what.’ Abby straightened and took Jack’s hand. They both needed distraction for a while, didn’t they? ‘Let’s say goodbye to everybody here and how ’bout we get a taxi and go into the city? We can look at all the boats and find that hamburger restaurant and have dinner. Then we can go back to our motel and that way Dad will know where to find us. He might even be back in time to tuck you up and say goodnight.’

And then she and Tom would have some time alone.

Time to talk. To touch. To simply
be
.

Together.

Abby closed her eyes and blew out a long, long breath. The next few hours could well seem interminable.

* * *

They were. They were over an hour checking out all the yachts down at the viaduct and another hour watching Jack tucking into a hamburger and playing with a crowd of other children in the extensive indoor playground. By the time they arrived back at the motel it had been well over three hours since the helicopter had taken off from the rescue base.

More than enough time for it to have reached Kaimotu and for Blake to be on the way back. Was he all right? Had they needed the surgical intervention? Somebody would be able to tell her. With Jack happily splashing in the bath and playing boats with a plastic scrubbing brush, Abby picked up her mobile phone and made a call to Kaimotu Hospital.

‘Ben.’
She hadn’t been expecting him to answer. ‘How’s Blake?’

‘Crisis over, thank goodness. We’re still monitoring his breathing and he’s obviously got a very sore throat but it’s hardly surprising when you’ve tried to swallow a small, plastic aeroplane with sharp wings, is it?’

Ben’s chuckle was wry but Abby was pushing away the cloud of relief to try and find what was ringing such a loud alarm bell in her mind. Was it because Ben knew what it was now that had caused the airway obstruction?

‘You had to operate?’

‘Not in the end. Once he was completely unconscious, there was no spasm to fight and I managed to get it out with the forceps. Not a moment too soon. Poor Ruth was beside herself.’

‘I’ll bet. Oh, I’m so glad to hear he’s okay.’ He must be more than okay if Tom had decided not to transfer him for follow-up.

The alarm bell rang louder.

‘How long did it take for the chopper to get there?’

‘We’re still waiting,’ came Ben’s response. ‘It hasn’t shown up.’

* * *

It was Frank who answered Abby’s call to the rescue base seconds later.

‘I’m so sorry, Abby,’ he said grimly. ‘We don’t know what’s happened yet. All we know is that the chopper didn’t make it to Kaimotu and it’s not visible on radar. Last radio contact was two hours ago. A search plane’s been dispatched.’

Abby felt curiously calm. It was probably the only benefit of a tendency to imagine the worst-case scenarios on an automatic basis. It meant that when they did happen, you didn’t crumple up in shock because you’d been expecting them. You were ready.

‘Can you call me, please?’ Her voice only shook a little. ‘Just as soon as you know anything?’

‘Of course. Hang in there, Abby. Tom wouldn’t give up without a bloody good fight. Especially now.’

Abby swallowed hard. ‘Why especially now?’

Frank’s voice was gentle. ‘Because he’s got so much to fight for, hasn’t he?’

He meant Jack, Abby thought, as she ended the call. And...maybe me, too?

She did crumple then. Onto the couch, dropping the phone beside her so that she could bury her face in her hands.

She hadn’t practised this scenario, had she? The one where she had to tell Jack that his daddy wasn’t coming back.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

She’d thought about having to do it and the prospect had been horrific enough for her to keep Jack’s existence a secret from his father.

Now her worst fear had been realised. No, it was worse than that. Jack had only just discovered his dad and fallen in love with him and now he was going to lose him. Thanks to her, he’d already lost all the years he could have had with his father in his life. How long would it be before her son could put those pieces of his life’s jigsaw together and hate her for what she’d done?

She could see it now. He’d be maybe ten or eleven and he’d demand to know why he’d only had a few weeks of having a dad. He’d accuse Abby of—

Whoa.
Why on earth was she doing this?

She didn’t need to imagine a future disaster.

She had one happening right now.

Somehow she was going to have to tell Jack what had happened to Tom’s helicopter.

To Tom.

Oh, God... The grief was pressing closer. She needed to get Jack into bed and sound asleep before that phone call came to confirm the worst. At least that way she’d have the rest of the night to try and find the best words to tell Jack.

And then they’d have to go home.

Only...Kaimotu Island would never really feel like home again, would it?

Home was where Tom was.

* * *

Didn’t they say that you never really knew how precious something was until you lost it?

Well, they were right.

Tom had never given much thought to how precious his own life was until he was seriously contemplating the end of it.

As his helicopter spiralled down towards the ocean somewhere in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between New Zealand and Kaimotu Island.

Moz was swearing like a trooper. It wasn’t just the fuel gauge that was faulty. Some major fault had wiped out so much they couldn’t even send out a radio distress signal. They were just about to disappear off the radar and nobody would know why.

Except they would know why. This was happening because he’d put his hand up to take a risk. Pushed the boundaries like he always did, but this time he’d run out of luck.

And it wasn’t just himself he was hurting. His best mate, Moz, was going down with him. And he was leaving the woman he loved behind.

Leaving the son he was only just getting to know.

Maybe he’d never stopped to think how precious his own life was because he’d never had that much to lose before. Maybe he’d avoided having that much to lose because then he’d be too aware of it and that was when you could start getting spooked. And then you couldn’t do this kind of job as well as you might otherwise be able to.

Not that Tom had time to think about all that on the way down but there was plenty of time to think as they floated in their tiny emergency raft on that vast, icy ocean.

It was a miracle that they’d survived the crash. Even more of a miracle that a spotter plane had found them within hours and another rescue chopper could be scrambled to winch them out of the sea.

They had radio contact now. Had Abby been told they were safe and on their way home? That Blake had been airlifted from Kaimotu and was doing well in hospital on the mainland? Tom tried a patch from the helicopter to Abby’s mobile phone but it rang and rang until he got voicemail.

He didn’t want to leave a message.

He wanted to talk to Abby.

He
needed
to talk to her. So much that he couldn’t go home to sleep when he and Moz had finally been checked out and then discharged, and had escaped from their base manager’s relief disguised as anger over the foolhardiness he’d let them talk him into.

He had to go to Abby’s motel and tap softly on the door, hoping that he would only wake her and not Jack, as well. That she wouldn’t be too scared at having someone knocking on her door at some ungodly hour of the night.

* * *

The soft tapping on the door finally penetrated the numbness that Abby had wrapped around herself.

With her heart hammering, Abby got slowly to her feet. They’d sent someone to tell her in person, hadn’t they? That was why she’d never received the phone call she’d been dreading so much.

She couldn’t do this. Halfway to the door Abby stopped and had to stifle a sob with her fist. This was unbearable.

‘Abby?’ The voice was as soft as the knocking had been. ‘Are you there?’

The voice was little more than a whisper but it was instantly recognisable. Abby could feel it slice through the numbness and bring every cell in her body back to life so intensely it was physically painful.

She threw herself at the door, fumbling with the lock in her haste to haul it open.

‘Oh, my God...’ she sobbed. ‘You’re still
alive
.’

And then Tom was through the door and filling the small space. Wrapping her in his arms and holding her so tightly her feet were off the floor and she couldn’t take a breath but it didn’t seem to matter because she’d never,
ever
been this happy.

Nothing was said for the longest time. They held each other very tightly and then Tom sank onto the couch with Abby still in his arms. She curled onto his lap with her arms still around his neck, gazing at his face as if she had to check that every pore of his skin was still intact. And then she had to touch and
feel
the reality of him. It was only then that their lips met in the gentlest kiss ever. The heartbreaking tenderness of that kiss sparked tears that rolled unheeded down Abby’s face.

‘I thought I’d lost you again,’ she finally whispered. ‘I...I’ve been sitting here for hours, wondering how on earth I was going to be able to tell Jack.’

‘But they should have told you I was safe a long time ago. I tried to ring you myself from the chopper but all I got was voicemail.’

‘What?’ Abby blinked. ‘But my phone was right beside me on this couch.’

They both looked for the phone but couldn’t see it. Tom let go of her long enough to dig in the space between the cushions. He held up the phone and pressed a couple of buttons.

‘It’s been on silent,’ he said. ‘Looks like you’ve got a few voicemails here, babe.’

‘Oh, no...’ Abby groaned. ‘And I’ve just been sitting here, imagining the worst when I didn’t need to. That’s the story of my life, isn’t it? Imagining the worst and then avoiding it so it can’t happen.’

‘Like avoiding me, because I couldn’t give you what you needed?’

‘Not anymore.’ Abby felt curiously shy as she met Tom’s gaze. ‘I realised today that it was too late.’

There was a flash of alarm in Tom’s eyes now. ‘Too late? You mean...for us?’

Abby wanted to smile but it didn’t happen. Her lips wobbled instead. ‘No...the opposite. Too late for me to try and keep my heart safe. It’s yours, Tom. Whether or not you want it, it’s yours. For ever.’

‘Oh, I want it. You can’t begin to know how much.’ He pressed another of those exquisitely tender kisses on her lips and then tucked Abby’s head against his shoulder, resting his cheek on her hair.

She was pressed against his heart. She could feel its steady beat right through her body. Could feel her own heart rate slowing a little until the beats matched.

‘I realised something, too,’ he said softly. ‘It made more sense today but I realised it a while back. When we all got out of that mine safely.’

Abby felt his chest swell as he took a deep breath. For a moment she couldn’t feel his heartbeat so clearly and then his ribs sank again and she could feel that comforting thud and her own breath came out in a contented sigh.

‘I’ve spent my whole life chasing danger,’ Tom went on. ‘Because I thought that was what made life worth living. Not the danger itself but that rush of feeling safe afterwards. I never knew how wrong I’d got it all. Until I met you and even then I didn’t understand.’

Abby was puzzled. She tilted her head, trying to find the answer in Tom’s face, but he just smiled at her.