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

This one. This victim.

Ben was going out of his mind.

‘Do you know if my brother’s safe?’ he demanded. ‘Jake Logan. He was pulled up on a chopper before the cyclone hit.’

‘That’ll have been a New Zealand crew,’ the guy told him. ‘We’re Australian. I don’t know who they did and didn’t pull off.’

‘The choppers are all safe?’

‘I don’t know that either,’ he said apologetically. ‘This is our first run. Please, our time’s short.’

He didn’t need to say more. Others were missing. He had to get back in the air.

‘Put the harness on,’ Mary said, and something inside him snapped.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You go first and that’s an order. I’ll grab your manuscript and follow.’

‘It’s not important.’

‘It is. Go!’

‘Blimey,’ the guy said, obviously astounded at the vehemence behind his words. ‘Women and children first? The island’s not sinking, mate.’

It wasn’t, but the memory of Jake was all around him. He didn’t know where Jake was. He wanted Mary safe.’

‘You go first and I’ll bring Heinz and the manuscript up with me,’ he told Mary, and Mary looked at him as if he was out of his mind.

‘You’re the one with the bang on his head and the gammy leg. You’re planning on holding my dog and my book while you air-swing? In your dreams, mister.’

The chopper guy sighed. ‘Quiet dog?’

‘He’s eaten so many dead fish this morning he won’t raise a wriggle,’ Mary told him. ‘But I wouldn’t squeeze him.’

The guy grinned. ‘Name?’

‘Heinz.’

‘I might have known. Okay, boys and girls, I’m taking the dog up while you sort the remaining order between you. No domestics while I’m away. Sheesh, the stuff we heroes have to put up with. Heinz, come with me while Mummy and Daddy sort out their rescue priorities.’

* * *

She went first, clutching the battered quilt. ‘Because Barbara will forgive me everything but losing this.’

He came after, with her manuscript. He’d spent time in choppers in Afghanistan. He didn’t like the memories.

He was hauled into the chopper and Mary was belted onto the bench. She was holding Heinz as if she needed him for comfort. She looked somehow... diminished?

Lost.

She’d come to the island to escape, he remembered. Now she was going home.

He sat beside her but she wouldn’t look at him. She buried her face in Heinz’s rough coat and he thought suddenly of the streams of refugees he’d seen leaving war zones.

Surely that was a dumb comparison—but the feeling was the same.

He touched her shoulder but she pulled away.

‘Um, no,’ she said, and she straightened and met his gaze full on. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said softly. ‘But I’m on my own now.’

‘You’re not on your own.’

‘This was a fairly dramatic time out,’ she said. ‘But it was just that. Time out. Now we both have stuff we need to face.’ She shook herself then, and Smash ’em Mary took over. He saw the set of her chin, the flash of determination, the armour rebuilding. ‘What I’m facing is nothing compared to you, but Jake will be okay. I’m sure of it.’

He had no room to respond.

In any other situation he would have...

Would have what? He didn’t know.

For suddenly he was there again, in Afghanistan, watching a bloodied Jake being loaded onto the stretcher, knowing he couldn’t go with the ambulance, knowing Jake’s fate was out of his hands.

Loving brought gut-wrenching pain.

When he was fourteen years old his mother had suicided. That day was etched into his mind so deeply he could never get rid of it.

Pain.

And here was this woman, sitting beside him, hurting herself. He’d forgotten his pain in her body. He’d used her.

He could love her.

Yeah, and expose him—and her—to more of the same? If he did...if he hurt her...

He hadn’t been able to stop his mother’s suicide. The emotional responsibility was too great.

Where was this going? He didn’t have a clue. He only knew that he withdrew his hand from her shoulder, and when she inched slightly away he didn’t stop her.

It was better to withdraw now. Kinder for both of them. He had relationships back in the US, of course he did, but the women he dated were strong, independent, never needy. They used him as an accessory and that was the way he liked it.

He never wanted a woman to need him.

‘We’re heading to Paihia,’ the voice of the chopper pilot told them through their headphones. ‘From there we’ll have people help you, check you medically, find you somewhere to go.’

Mary nodded, a brisk little nod that told him more than anything else that she had herself contained again. She wasn’t as strong as she made out, though, he thought. Strong, independent woman? Not so much.

It didn’t matter, they were moving on.

It was what they both needed to do.