Beth did her best to get busy lifting items out of the car to avoid staring at him, open-mouthed. Once-gangly Marc Duncannon had spent some time in the gym, apparently. The weights section. Her belly flipped on itself in a most unfamiliar way.
He tossed the disconnected phone into the back of the vehicle and stepped into his wetsuit, hauling it up over muscular legs and then flexing his broad back as he shrugged it up over his shoulders and arms. As soon as it was secure, he snared up the first aid kit and a small bag of supplies and thrust the phone into it. He shoved a snatch-strap, rope and every ockie-strap he could rummage up in behind it. Then he threw his T-shirt, a hooded trainer and an old towel at Beth, saying, ‘You’re going to need this,’ and was off, down the dunes, racing towards the water.
Beth did her best to keep up. She stumbled several times in the thick sand and paused to kick off her unsuitable shoes, losing more ground on Marc. But she didn’t need to be near him to know what was going on; his stiff body language was as clear as a neon sign as he ran down the shore, close to the first whale.
The sleek, marble-skinned animal was already dead.
An awful sorrow washed over her: that she might have delayed Marc for the precious minutes that counted. That this enormous creature was already gull-food because of her.
Marc paused briefly, those magnificent shoulders drooping slightly, but then he kicked on, further down the beach to where the second body rolled in time with the surf. As he got closer, he slowed and took a wide approach, lifting his hands high in the air in warning. Beth instantly slowed.
It was alive.
By the time she caught up with him, he was on his second wide pass of the beleaguered mammal. It lay partially submerged in the quicksand where earth met ocean, every second wave high enough to wash gently over its lower half. But exposed parts of its upper body were already dangerously dry. Compared to the liquid mercury-looking surface of wet whale skin, the dry parts looked like the handbag she’d left in her hire car at Marc’s farm.
That couldn’t be good.
‘Put the sweatshirt on, Beth.’ He didn’t bother with a please and she didn’t expect niceties right now. But it didn’t mean she was prepared to be dictated to. Not any more.
‘It’s thirty-three degrees. I’ll boil.’
‘Better that than burn to a crisp. We’re going to be out here for some time.’ He moved to her side and relieved her of his T-shirt and the towel. Then he zipped up the wetsuit more fully over his chest, fastened the neck strap and tugged a cap down hard over his shaggy hair. ‘And you’re about to get wet. You’ll thank me in two hours.’
‘Two hours?’ They’d be out in the water for a couple of hours, with an injured dinosaur? Alone? But Marc wasn’t worried; he ran headlong into the water between the dead whale and the live one and soaked the towel and his shirt.
His five-times experience certainly showed.
By the time Beth had wriggled herself into Marc’s sweatshirt and pulled up the hood for some shade, he was already beside the dangerous giant. A false killer whale, Marc told her. The fact it was not a true killer whale didn’t fill her with any confidence. It was still big enough to send them both flying with a toss of its wishbone tail, which bore an arrow-head-shaped scar. One enormous dark eye rolled wildly at his approach. Marc slowed and started speaking softly. Steadily. Random words that meant nothing.
The eye wasn’t fooled for a minute.
But when Marc gently laid the saturated towel onto its parched skin, the eye rolled fully shut and the beast let off a mighty groan that vibrated the sand beneath Beth’s feet. Her heart squeezed. It wasn’t pain, it was sheer relief. She sprinted forward and met Marc in the water, hoping that he’d think the tears in her eyes were from the glare coming off the ocean.
‘Around the other side,’ he ordered brusquely, glancing up as she wiped a stray one away. ‘Stay up-beach from that ventral fin; it’s pure muscle.’
‘The what fin …?’
‘Underneath.’ He threw the sodden T-shirt her way and she just caught it. ‘The fin closest to her belly.’
The whale barely moved as they took it in turns draping the wet fabric over its parched skin. Within fifteen minutes, Beth’s wrists ached from wringing out the water to run down the whale’s hide and she moved to a slosh-and-drag technique instead. Brutal on the back, but the most effective way of keeping the poor animal wet. A fierce concentration blazed in Marc’s eyes, a flush of exertion highlighting the familiar ridge of his cheekbone. Familiar yet unfamiliar.
Her mind bubbled with memories of a younger Marc studying. Or whipping her butt at chess. Or listening to her dramas. That same focus. That same intensity. No question that some parts of him hadn’t changed.
Even if the rest had.
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