The Package Deal: Nine Months to Change His Life / From Neighbours...to Newlyweds? / The Bonus Mum

The yacht, the Rita Marlene.

The storm.

Jake, hanging from that rope.

‘Want to tell me about it?’

Her voice was slurred with sleep. She didn’t move. She didn’t pull away. This position, it seemed, was working for them both.

It was the deepest of intimacies and he knew nothing about her. Nothing except she’d saved his life.

She must have felt him stiffen. Something had woken her but she wasn’t pulling away. She seemed totally relaxed, part of the dark.

Outside he could still hear the screaming of the storm. Here there was only them.

‘You already told me I’m a dumb male. What else is there to tell?’

He felt her smile. How could he do that? How did he feel like he knew this woman?

Something about skin against skin?

Something about her raw courage?

‘There’s variations of dumb,’ she said. ‘So you were in the yacht race.’

‘We were.’

‘You and Jake-on-the-Rope.’

‘Yep.’ There was even reassurance there, too. She’d said Jake-on-the-Rope like it was completely normal that his brother should be swinging on a rope from a chopper somewhere out over the Southern Ocean.

‘You’re from the States.’

‘A woman of intuition.’

‘Not dumb at all. How many on the boat?’

‘Two.’

‘So you’re both rescued,’ she said with satisfaction, and he settled even further. Pain was edging back now. Actually, it was quite severe pain. His leg throbbed. His head hurt. Lots of him hurt.

It was as if once he was reassured about Jake he could feel something else.

Actually, he could feel a lot else. He could feel this woman. He could feel this woman in the most intimate way in the world.

‘So tell me about the boat?’ she asked.

‘Rita Marlene.’

‘Pretty name.’

‘After my mother.’

‘She’s pretty?’

‘She was.’

‘Was,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘A long time ago now.’ This was almost dream-speaking, he thought. Not real. Dark. Warm. Hauled from death. Nothing mattered but the warmth and this woman draped over him.

‘You sailed all the way from the States?’

‘It’s an around-the-world challenge, only we were stopping here. Jake’s an actor. He’s due to start work on a set in Auckland.’

‘Would I have heard of...Jake?’

‘Jake Logan.’

‘Ooh, I have.’ The words were excited but not the tone. The tone was sleepy, part of the dream. ‘He was in Stitch in Time, and ER. A sexy French surgeon. So not French?’

‘No.’

‘My stepsister will be gutted. He’s her favourite Hollywood hunk.’

‘Not yours?’

‘I have enough to worry about without pretend heroes.’

‘Like antiheroes washed up on your beach?’

‘You said it.’ But he heard her smile.

There was silence for a while. The fire was dying down. The pain in his knee was growing worse, but he didn’t want to move from this comfort and it seemed neither did she.

But finally she did, sighing and stirring, and as her body slid from his he felt an almost gut-wrenching sense of loss.

His Mary...

His Mary? What sort of concept was that? A crazy one?

She slipped from under the quilt and shifted around to the fire. He could see her then, a faint, lit outline.

Slight. Short, cropped curls. Finely boned, her face a little like Audrey Hepburn’s.

She was wearing only knickers and bra, slivers of lace that hid hardly anything.

His Mary?