His Island Bride (Harlequin Medical Series #359)

Dr Sam Renaldo's plans had never been detailed. He'd needed to leave—but he hadn't meant to burn his bridges in quite so spectacular a fashion.\ The tiny town of Ocean Spray was on an island joined to the Southern Australian mainland by a single-lane bridge. Sam's plane had landed in Melbourne that morning and he'd driven straight to the island, thinking as he'd driven that this was a weird place for his brother's ex-girlfriend to live. It felt like the ends of the earth.\ He drove onto the bridge, and it was almost enough to shake him out of the apathy that had been with him since his twin's death. The bridge was long and rickety, sea-worn timbers stretching across a tidal flat, with a wide, shallow river meandering through the centre.\ He could hardly even see the water. The island was shrouded in fog.\ There were some weirdly out-of-setting traffic lights at the start of the bridge. Technology in the middle of nowhere. The lights stayed red for five minutes, and he sat and waited and stared into fog as no car came from the opposite direction. Ocean Spray didn't look to be exactly a hub of tourist activity.\ Finally the lights turned green. He steered his rental car out further onto the bridge timbers. The structure was more solid than he'd thought. It was OK.\ The fog was thicker in the middle of the bridge. He could scarcely see.\ And then…\ He'd been concentrating on the bridge, not the river, and by the time he saw what was coming it was almost too late.\ A massive boat, some sort of game-fishing cruiser, with three tiers of cabins, a satellite dish set on top and fishing rods everywhere, was lurching through the fog like a beast out of control. It wassurging forward from the ocean, heading straight for the bridge.\ Straight for him.\ What the hell…\ He shoved his foot on the accelerator and his car surged forward.\ The boat slammed into the bridge behind him.\ On the other side of the island Susan Mayne's pilates class was in full swing—or as much swing as was possible to achieve when the average age of her clients was over eighty. 'You need to pull that tummy in. Muriel, you'll never achieve core balance if you leave your tummy out.'\ 'I last tucked my tummy in when I was a bride,'Muriel said, trying mightily. 'I ate rabbit food for a month and I wore a whalebone corset. The night of my wedding my Harold took my corset off; he told me I looked prettier without it and my tummy's been free ever since.'\ Susan chuckled. She knew Harold. Harold's beer belly matched Muriel's girth to a nicety. After sixty years of marriage Harold still thought his bride was perfect, and Muriel wasn't about to change now.\ 'You know I'm not interested in you changing shape,' she told Muriel. 'But you are having back pain. That's why you're here. We need to get core stabilisation—your spine has to support all of you without your bottom or your tummy making you sway either way. So tuck that tummy in while you do your leg circles.'\ 'I'm trying,' Muriel gasped.\ 'Eh, Muriel, you look like I did when I was having our Eddy.' The lady on the trapeze—Doris—was giggling as she pushed herself through her own exercises. 'All strung up in stirrups ready to pop a baby.'\ 'Our Susan'd get a shock if a baby popped out, I'll be thinking,' Muriel retorted. 'When was the last time a baby was delivered on the island?'\ 'Too dratted long,' Doris said. 'There's so few young uns on the island. It's become a retirement home all by itself.'\ 'It's because of the bridge,' Muriel said wisely, sucking her tummy in with fierce concentration as she did wide leg circles with her weighted stirrups. 'If we got a new bridge with two lanes it'd make a world of difference. No one can depend on the bridge if they're commuting.'\ It was true. Twenty minutes' drive away, on the other side of the bridge, was a railway line providing a fast train service to Melbourne. People lived on the mainland and commuted to the city, but with the bridge only having a single lane, when one broken-down car could block the bridge for hours, the number of people able to live here was severely limited.\ 'We're so lucky we have you,' Doris told Susan, and Susan grinned.\ 'You get those legs higher. Compliments will get you nowhere.'\ 'No, but we are,' Doris said, determined to have her say. She pushed her pelvis up with equal determination. 'You provide the only medical service for the whole island.'\ 'A pilates studio is hardly a medical service.'\ 'You do the emergency stuff as well,' Doris said stoutly. 'And your pilates clinic is a medical service. Before you came here I was a wreck. I was using my scooter to get around. You have me walking again.'\ It was encouragement as much as anything, Susan thought as she adjusted the weights for Maggie's arm stretches. Left to herself, Doris had been miserable after the death of her husband, isolated by grief and pain and afraid to walk. Now, three times a week, Doris did her gentle pilates exercises, she had her fill of encouragement and companionship, and she was discovering life free from her scooter. She was one of Susan's success stories and she did her proud.\ 'Can we change the music?' Doris asked. 'If I'm going to swing here like a strung-up turkey, I need a bit of something fun. What about some of that hip hop?'\ There were general groans, but Susan smiled and moved obligingly to the sound system.\ And then she paused.\ For the gentle piano concerto that had been playing had been replaced before she even reached the controls—by a crashing, splintering of timber, by a massive, ear-shattering explosion and by the sounds of disaster.\ There was a hole where the bridge had been. Sam climbed from the car and stared in disbelief at the chaos behind him. The boat had cut a swathe through the sea-worn timbers. The rails on the far side of the bridge were still intact—by the time the boat had reached it its cabins had been destroyed, meaning the remainder of the boat had gone under, rather than through. He gazed in horror as what was left of the boat's hull emerged from the other side.\ There was a man, still standing on the deck. The motor was still running. Hell, turn it off…\ Too late. Like a roar from a cannon, the fuel caught and blazed, turning what was left of the boat into a fireball.\ 'Jump,' Sam screamed, but his words were lost against the fury of the flames. Sam had a momentary glimpse of a figure leaping for his life. Of a figure diving into the water, carrying the flames with him.\ 'The bridge is down.'\ Muriel's yell followed her, for Susan was already outside, staring in horror at the bridge. She could hardly make out what had happened, but the glare through the thick fog was brilliant enough to tell its own story.\ Muriel was right behind her, having freed herself from her stirrups in what must have been record time. Usually she waited patiently for Susan to free her, but not today.\ 'It's a boat,'Muriel whispered as the flames shot higher. 'Oh, God…Susan, run.'\ Susan was already running.\ Where the hell…\ There. It was a fleeting glimpse, a figure against the flames. If Sam hadn't seen in which direction the man had jumped he could never have found him. But the figure from the boat was in the water, struggling, going down…\ Flames were licking out toward him.\ Sam couldn't go in there. The water under the bridge was covered in a sheet of flame. He ran further along the bridge toward the island, twenty yards to where the water was clear. No fuel here. Check again, he told himself. Suicide's no use to anyone.\ He checked. The water under him was definitely clear. A school of minnows darted under the bridge timbers, illuminated by the sheets of brilliant light. If the fuel had reached here there'd be a sheen. No sheen. Go! Now.\ He kicked off his shoes. He checked once more that he could see what he was aiming for. He jumped.\ Susan was running. Halfway across the bridge, just before the smashed timbers, there was a car. Empty. Its driver's door was open.\ Where was the driver?\ The flames were licking up the timbers. Any minute now they'd reach the car.\ Susan was desperately trying to get her shocked mind to think. This car was intact. It hadn't been the cause of the crash.\ So a boat had smashed into the bridge and the driver of the car had…Had what?\ A spurt of flame licked forward from underneath the car, signalling its own warning. She backed away, leaving the car to the flames.\ Where? Where?\ She was the only person on the bridge. Her pilates clients weren't fit enough to get here over the rough timbers. They'd be phoning for help, but for now there was only her.\ Someone must have been on that boat, and someone had been in the car. If they weren't on what was left of the bridge then they had to be…in the water?\ The fog was swirling into smoke, the flames a surreal glow. She was too high above the water. She couldn't see.\ There were rails between the bridge's pylons. She swung over the top of the bridge railing and climbed down.\ Where?\ Where the hell…?\ Sam surfaced just out of range of the fuel oozing out from the wrecked boat. Where…?\ The fog and smoke swirled away a little, letting him see. A figure, struggling. A hand raised, in the middle of the slick.\ The flames weren't here yet. There must have been one spurt of fuel and then another, as there were two slicks and only the one closest to the boat was alight. But they were drifting together already. Any minute now the flames would sweep across the surface of the water to reach the second slick. He had seconds.\ Sam took a long, considered look, forcing himself to take time, judge distance.\ He took one last, long breath and dived.\ She could see someone backlit by flames, in the centre of an oil slick, and that slick was desperately close to the flames. He raised a hand, feebly, and she thought, Oh, God, she'd never…She'd never…\ But then…\ A figure surfaced beside the first. If she hadn't been transfixed she'd never have seen him. The newcomer surfaced, the first guy grabbed, the rescuer reached forward, breaking his lethal, clutching grip, swinging him round so he was facing away from him in a move Susan knew from lifesaving.\ The fuel was igniting. It caught in one sweeping arc of flame. She screamed a warning, but the figures were gone, both of them, under the surface.\ They couldn't have stayed under water for more than a minute but it was probably the longest minute of Susan's life.\ She was under the level of the surface of the bridge now, balanced on a stay, leaning out, trying to see.\ Please. She wasn't even aware that she was praying but she heard the words. Please.\ No one.\ And then the surface of the water erupted not ten yards from her. One head—no, two—one figure held firmly in the clasp of the other.\ 'Here,' she yelled urgently but they didn't respond. The smoke was blanketing them. They were free from the fuel slick now, but the slick was moving. She saw the flames licking closer.\ There was no choice. She jumped into the water and struck out for them. Racing the flaming slick.\ Please.\ Where she'd come from Sam couldn't tell. His eyes were stinging, and he could hardly see. The guy in his hold was limp now. He'd struggled at first but then as Sam had hauled him underwater to avoid the oil, the guy had given one last wrench and had gone limp.\ And Sam no longer knew where he was. The smoke was all around him, the flames reflected in the water, in the fog, so even knowing which way was up was problematic. He gasped for air, trying desperately to get his bearings.\ And suddenly she was there. Right beside him. A woman, with blazing red hair swirling around her in the water, like the flames further out.\ 'Give him to me,' she gasped, and before he knew what she was about she'd slipped underwater, then surfaced against him, shoving herself upward between him and the man he was holding. She'd hauled the guy out of his grasp before he had room to argue.\ 'Follow me,' she yelled, and she kicked backward, then paused, waiting to see if he'd follow.\ She didn't have to ask twice. He was coming. She swam like a fish, hardly slowed by the burden in her arms, or maybe it was because he was still gasping for air that she seemed fast in comparison.\ But miraculously, gloriously, she seemed to know exactly where the shore was. She knew where she was going and all he had to do was put his head down and follow.\ There were shouts. 'Susan, Susan, Susan.'\ And two minutes later he was in the shallows. People were surging forward, eager to help. Hands were grasping for him, half lifting him, hauling him onto the sandbank.\ He was safe.