She steadied and shone her torch across the waves.
He was maybe twenty feet from the base of the cliff, forty or fifty yards from her, on what was a tiny rocky island. He must have been trying to reach the ledge where she was when the tide had beaten him.
The tide was still rising. While she watched, another wave smashed over his tiny island.
He was down on all fours, screaming and clinging. Erin sucked in her breath in horror. She had to wait for the wave to recede to see if he was still there.
He was-but only just. Once more wave would push him in.
Some things were just plain dumb. Like jumping into the sea, in the dark as the wind was rising.
But the wave was receding, giving her a moment’s calm. It was all the time she had-and she was all Nathan had.
She slid from her ledge and struck out for Nathan.
‘So why isn’t she answering the phone?’
‘I don’t know, dear,’ Ruby said. ‘Maybe she isn’t carrying it. Some people have been known to live to a ripe old age without ever owning a cellphone.’
He smiled but his smile was perfunctory. ‘The first time I rang, it rang out. Now it says the phone’s turned off or out of range. There’s no way she’ll have turned it off. She’s as worried as I am.’
‘Yet you sent her home.’
‘Okay. I’m a fool. But now…’
‘It’s probably out of battery,’ Ruby said wisely. ‘You young ones spend your lives looking for phone chargers or getting cross ’cos your battery’s flat.’
‘We recharged her battery last night.’
‘Maybe it got soot in it.’ She regarded him sideways. ‘You know what? You’re going to have to find out.’
‘I can’t leave here. You heard Graham.’
‘I heard Graham tell us you need to be available if any of the search parties need you. I suspect Erin’s made up her own search party. I suspect she needs you.’
‘You think?’
‘Hey, don’t ask me,’ Ruby said wryly. ‘I’m just an old lady who doesn’t own a cellphone. But I’m here and I can talk Nathan out of a hidey-hole at a hundred paces if need be. Martin’s asleep. I can go to Nathan if they need me. So you go look for Nathan yourself. Look for Erin, too.’ She smiled and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘And while you’re about it, what about searching for your family at the same time?’
Nathan’s ‘island’ was eight feet wide at its widest. In the centre was a jagged knob. That’s why he hadn’t been swept off-he’d been able to cling to it.
Erin swam the few yards to the rock in record time. She hauled herself up onto the ledge then grabbed Nathan and the rocky knob as another breaker crashed over them.
It took all her strength to hold on. When the wave receded, Nathan was stuck to her like a limpet, holding on with hands and feet, and she was clutching the knob beyond him.
With the incoming tide this was only going to get worse. It was a miracle Nathan had held on this long.
‘Can you swim?’
‘N-no.’
‘Then you’ll have to float,’ she said, spitting water. ‘And let me hold you. But, Nathan, if you try and hold me, we’ll both drown.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Me, too.’ So much for reassurance, but it seemed to work. Nathan seemed to steady. The bravery of him…All of five years old and he was a hero.
A smaller wave washed over them. They didn’t go under this time but another wave was bearing down.
‘After this next one,’ Erin said, urgently. ‘We’ll roll back into the water and let the wave push us toward the cliff. As soon as the wave’s past you lie on your back and I’ll tow you. If another wave comes you’re not to panic- just hold your nose and wait till it passes. I’ll hold you around your shoulders. You’re not to try and grab me ’cos I have to use all my energy to swim. Do you think you can do that?’
‘Is Dom coming?’ Nathan quavered.
‘Of course he is,’ Erin said. ‘Here’s the wave, Nathe. Ready, set, go.’
She wasn’t at the house but Marilyn was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth to the back door.
‘So where’s your mistress?’ Dom said, crouching down and fondling her ears. ‘What have you done with her?’
As if in answer, Marilyn crossed to the open back door and stared anxiously into the night.
Toward the beach.
‘I told her not to search,’ Dom said, so savagely that Marilyn looked up at him in surprise. He relented and crouched down to give her another pat. ‘I s’pose you think that’s dumb. Telling Erin to keep out of my life.’
Marilyn groaned in agreement-or maybe because she really liked what Dom was doing behind her ears.
But doggy massage wasn’t on the agenda. ‘Okay,’ he said, and straightened. ‘Let’s assume she’s gone along the beach. I’m guessing she’s heading toward my place.’
He should wait for help. For back-up. But…
‘Everyone’s looking for Nathan,’ he told Marilyn. ‘I don’t want them to stop just because one dumb, female doctor…’
Who you happen to love…
Where had that come from? No matter-it just had-and once thought couldn’t be retracted.
‘Okay, who I just happen to love,’ he said, resigned. ‘Regardless. She’s risking her neck and her feet walking along the beach at high tide in the dark. But who am I to query her motives? Okay, Marilyn, while we wait for the rest of the world to find Nathan, I need to find Erin.’
She had Nathan safe. For now. She was shoving him out of the water onto the rock ledge she’d set off from, but even as she did so she saw their escape route had been cut off.
Part of the ledge she’d clambered over was now awash.
At least the rocks they were on now were dry. She hauled herself up after Nathan, she hugged him tight and she tried to assess whether they could clamber back to the beach between waves.
The answer was no. The sea was building; the strengthening wind whipping up waves already swelling with the tide. It had been risky enough trying to get Nathan here. She daren’t move any further.
At least the rock they were on wasn’t slippery. Maybe it was higher than the high-water mark.
Please…
‘Will Dom come and find us?’ Nathan asked in a tiny voice, and she hugged him close and thought he was such a brave little kid. Brave beyond his years. To be allocated a father like Michael…
It wasn’t fair. She wanted…she wanted…
She knew what she wanted. Dom only took kids in peril. When the peril was past…if she could manoeuvre her way round the challenge of Nathan’s appalling father…if Dom didn’t want Nathan…if Dom didn’t want her…
‘I seem to be adding to my family,’ she told Nathan, hugging him close. ‘Me and Marilyn and three puppies. And now you, if I can find a way to wiggle you into my life. If we can figure what to do with your dad. They say the heart expands to fit all comers. I wonder how my mum and dad feel about becoming grandparents?’
‘Erin!’ Dom was shouting into the rising wind, starting to worry in earnest as he saw the sea building. Storms could arrive without warning, and this had all the signs of being a beauty.
Dear God, Nathan was out in it. And Erin…
What the hell was she playing at? ‘Erin!’
‘Cooee.’
He stopped dead.
‘Erin?’
‘Cooee.’ It was the Australian bush call, echoing over the waves.
Where…?
There was no way she could have got further than the ledge he’d reached. Where…?
‘Cooee?’
She must have reached further. Before the tide came in?
Dammit, was she trying to kill herself? Didn’t she know-?
