First Love, Second Chance: Friends to Forever / Second Chance with the Rebel / It Started with a Crush...

Neither of them spoke, their focus centred on the whale. Beth’s reason for coming to the south coast flitted entirely out of her head, dwarfed in significance compared to the life and death battle going on in the shallows of Holly’s Bay.

‘You need a break.’ Marc’s voice was reluctant enough and firm enough to cut through the hypnotic routine of slosh-and-drag … slosh-and-drag. But it was also dictatorial enough to get Beth’s hackles up.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re parched. Your lips are like prunes. Stop and rehydrate. You’re no use to either of us if you collapse.’

Either of us. Him or the whale. Beth didn’t want to see the sense in that but he was right; if his focus was on rescuing her, the whale could die. She straightened and used the sleeve of his sweatshirt to wipe at the sweat streaming into her eyes.

‘I could use a swig of water myself,’ he said, clearly hoping she’d fall for the incredibly juvenile ploy, but she barely heard him, focusing only on four little letters.

Swig.

Her body immediately picked up and ran with the evocative image: an icy bottle straight from the cooler, the hissing sound the cap made twisting off. The clink of the cap hitting the sink. Her near favourite sound in the world. Second only to the breathy sigh of a cork coming out of a good bottle of Chenin Blanc.

A sound she hadn’t heard for two years. Since she’d stopped drinking.

Her mouth would have watered if it hadn’t been so dry. Like Pavlov’s dog, just the thought of a particular spirit could still make her saliva flow. Despite everything she’d done to put it behind her, her body still compromised her from time to time. When she least expected it. It sure was not going to be happy with what was about to cross its lips.

She moved up the beach and hauled a two-litre bottle of still water out of one of Marc’s supply bags and then cracked the cap. She suddenly realised how thirsty she was, but she was determined not to let Marc see that. She stood and jogged back to his side of the whale and passed him the bottle first. He glared at her meaningfully, but took it and helped himself to a deep, long draw of purified water. His Adam’s apple bobbed thirstily with each long swallow.

‘Once this is gone we can use the bottle to help wet the whale, ‘ she said.

Marc shook his head. ‘We’re going to have to make this last. I only have one more.’

Four litres of water. Between two people, on a blistering Australian day, with reflected light bouncing up off the surface of the salty, salty water.

Oh, joy.

He finished drinking and passed the bottle straight back to her. Beth’s pride had limits and watching the way the clean water had leaked down his throat had stretched it way too far. Every fibre of her being wanted to feel liquid crossing her tongue.

If that had to be water, so be it.

She didn’t guzzle, though she well could have. At least AA had taught her something about restraint. Greedily sculling their precious water supply was not something she wanted Marc to witness. And a small part of her was afraid that once she started she might not stop.

She made herself lower the bottle after a few restorative swallows and, buoyed by the wetness coursing into her body, she jogged lightly back through the beach sand and knelt to slide the bottle into the shade of Marc’s supply bag. As she did, she dislodged the other occupants. The satellite phone. First aid kit. A clutch of muesli and chocolate bars, a small hand-wound torch. The second container of water. And a—

Beth leapt back as if burned.

A large seventies-era silver hip flask tumbled out onto the sand. Ornate, neatly stoppered and probably his father’s before it was Marc’s, one of the few remembrances he might have of the man who had died when Marc was nine. The sort you kept whisky in, or vodka, or just about any liquor you didn’t care to advertise. Beth didn’t need to pick it up to know it was full of something bad. He wouldn’t have thrown it in the emergency pack for nothing.

She shoved it back into the bag and rose to her feet, shaking. She hadn’t worked this hard for two years to blow it now. She glanced at Marc to see if he’d noticed, but he was too busy gently rubbing the wet towel over the whale’s bulbous face to notice.

She’d finally hardened herself against facing her demons on every street corner in the city. Every billboard. Every radio commercial. To encounter liquor on a remote beach in the middle of nowhere. In front of Marc. What kind of a sick karmic joke was this?

She stumbled as her feet sank back into the loose shore sand and water rushed into the twin voids around her ankles. As she went down onto one knee, a wave came in and soaked her to her middle, her pale blue jeans staining instantly darker with salt water, the cold assault shocking her mind off the hip flask and what it held.

But her sunken perspective was how she noticed something else. The whale’s ventral fin was partly underwater, even after the wave washed back out. The one that had been high and dry a couple of hours ago when they’d arrived.

She scrambled to her feet, nearly falling across the whale in her haste.

‘Marc …’

He looked up at her, fatigue in his face, and something else. Fierce determination. This whale was not going to die while he breathed.

‘Marc … the tide’s coming in.’

He turned his eyes heavenward and closed them briefly in salute. His lips moved briefly.

‘Is that good?’

Hazel eyes lowered back to hers, clear and honest, as if they’d forgotten she was an unwelcome blast from the past. ‘That’s very good. Maybe we can refloat her.’

‘It’s a her?’

‘You can tell by her short, curved dorsal fin.’ His head jerked in the direction of the other whale. ‘I think that one might have been her calf.’

The unfamiliar stab of grief slid in under her ribs and washed over her with another shove of the waves. This mum had followed her baby in to shore. Maybe she’d stranded herself trying to save her little one. Was that why her eyes kept rolling around—was she trying to find her calf? Empathy for the animal’s loss nearly overwhelmed her, stealing the breath she desperately needed to keep her muscles working. But she embraced the pain and almost celebrated it. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have felt such sorrow. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have felt much of anything.

Her eyes fell back on the suffering whale. Her ire—and her voice—lifted. ‘Where are they?’

He kept up the rhythmic sloshing. ‘Who?’

‘The rescuers. Shouldn’t they be here by now?’

The sloshing stopped. He stared. ‘We are the rescuers, Beth. What do you think we’ve been doing for the past three hours?’

‘I meant others. People with boats. Shovels. Whale-rescue devices.’

The sun must have been causing a mirage … That almost looked like a smile. The one she’d never imagined she’d see today.

‘Oh, right, the whale-rescue devices.’ Then he sobered. ‘A big group of volunteers is about fifty clicks to the west, helping with another stranding. As soon as they have that situation stabilised they’ll be out to help us. Our solo whale doesn’t stack up against their entire pod, unfortunately.’

‘A whole pod stranded?’ Beth cried. ‘What is wrong with these creatures?’

If not for the tender way she ran the dripping T-shirt across the whale’s skin, taking unnecessary care to avoid its eyes, Marc would have read that as petulance. But he squinted against the lowering sun and really looked at her strained face. Much paler than when they’d started. Despite the blazing sun. Back to the colour it had been when she’d first climbed out of her rental car back at his property.

Beth was tired. Emotionally and physically spent already, and they’d only been out here a couple of hours. She looked as wretched as his mother when she was coming off a particularly bad bender. The bleached cheeks and shadowed eyes had the same impact on him that his mother’s had.

Used to. Before he shut down that part of him.

Beth had much worse to get through yet. The rescue was only just beginning. Maybe he should have shoved her out back at the homestead. Done her a favour and sent her packing. If he’d left just five minutes earlier he would have been out here alone, anyway, so what was the difference if she left now? He had enough supplies to get him through the night.

Water for life. Food for strength. Potassium for cramps. Whisky and wetsuit for warmth. Enough for a day, anyway. Hopefully by then backup would have arrived.

‘It often happens this way,’ he said, taking pity on her confusion. ‘There’s nearly forty volunteers at the other stranding, apparently.’

Beth stared at him between refreshing her whale-washer in the ocean and leaning towards him over the animal as the water ran down over it. ‘Forty! Couldn’t they spare us a couple of people?’