But Chase caught Ethan’s eye. Determination shone there as he nodded. ‘Right, let’s go again. I never thought I’d say this to you but, Ethan, I need you to work with me. Everything you’ve got, okay? Or you and I will die here and that, my man, is not the way I want to go. One. Two. Three.’
Next thing he knew Ethan was being dragged over brickwork and snow and something he didn’t even want to imagine but which felt soft and yet bony. And then he was hauling fresh air into suffocating lungs and watching the place where he’d been two seconds earlier disintegrate into rubble and dust and nothing.
And he breathed, sucking in huge gulps of air.
He breathed.
He was alive. Chase Barrington had saved him.
And that was something he’d never have believed possible.
* * *
Later, as the paramedics worked on him, he watched Chase talk to one of the newly arrived search and rescue guys. Saw the slump of his shoulders. The hand whisked across his eyes. Then his view was obliterated by a sudden convoy of vans. Tearful parents pouring out, screaming and sobbing. He craned his neck for his mother or father.
No.
As he’d imagined. He wondered what he’d have to damned well do to get their attention at all.
Then, as he was being shunted into the ambulance, Ethan saw Chase walk away from a woman, leaving her sobbing into the dark night. Ethan called out, ‘Chase! Chase.’
Chase turned and looked, then he turned away and walked into the darkness.
‘Chase!’
But then he was there. Looming up in front of him as he had in the tight, dark prison a few minutes earlier, but the bravado from before had gone. He had red rings around swollen eyes. A gruff expression. Hell, he was just a seventeen-year-old kid living a nightmare. Like me. ‘Look, Reid, I gotta go.’
Ethan held up his hand to stop the paramedic from closing the ambulance door. ‘And Nick?’
Chase shook his head and his words came out on a sob that he coughed away. ‘He didn’t...make it. That’s his mum. She’s broken. He was her only child.’
The paramedic fiddled with the drip and then said softly, ‘My count was four. I’m so sorry, buddy.’
Four dead? Four of the team? His brothers in sport, if nothing else. Ethan’s heart twisted as his gaze settled back on Chase. ‘But you told me they were safe.’
‘I told you they were out.’ Chase shrugged. Empty. His best friend had been in danger and he’d chosen to save someone else’s life. How would that make you feel? You had a chance and you didn’t take it. You bet on someone else. On the someone you didn’t even like.
‘But you made me think they were alive. I thought they were safe.’
‘You needed something to hang onto.’
And he’d hung on tight. ‘I’m so sorry about Nick. I heard the conversation. I heard you make a choice. No one should ever have to do that.’
‘You were closest.’ Chase’s face clouded, the way it did when they fought. The way it did in their stand-offs. The way it had just a few hours ago when he’d been trying to make Ethan apologise in their stupid argument. Chase’s hands fisted as he wrestled some emotion or other away. His best friend had died and maybe he could have done something to prevent that. God knew how that felt. ‘You’d better be worth it, Reid. Make it worth it.’
Judging by the way Ethan’s parents had treated him to date, and knowing what a great guy Nick had been, Ethan doubted he could ever be worth it. But this was a second chance and he was going to make the best of it. ‘I damned well will. Chase, I owe you my life. Thank you. If you ever need me, anything at all, just find me and I’ll be there for you.’
But the way Chase looked at him told Ethan that he’d never call. And, worse, that he believed he’d made the wrong choice after all.
FRANCE.
Not a place he’d ever thought he’d return to, and he’d done everything in his power to avoid it. But sometimes honour and duty overrode everything else, even good sense.
Dr Ethan Reid dropped his khaki holdall onto the hotel bedroom floor and chanced his luck for a minibar. After opening all the cupboards and drawers, he grunted. Seemed his luck was all out. But if he was forced to be in France he was going to drink, at least tonight, and then he’d have some chance of sleeping.
After a quick shower and change out of flight-weary clothes he took the stairs down two at a time from the eleventh floor, courting the usual looks of astonishment from anyone he passed peeking out from the generic hotel corridors at a tall, lumbering, sandy-haired and probably sandy-coated—given he’d been in Africa for the last four years—guy gunning down the stairs instead of sedately hitching a ride on the elevator. Seemed no one walked these days.
Never mind. Or, as they said around here, tant pis.
After spending years living under canvas his first instinct was to sit outside on the terrace in the fresh air as he was used to, but the thunderstorm that had threatened as his plane was landing had become a reality, so he was forced to stay in the bar. Even so, the place was quiet with just a few suited singletons dotted at the tables staring at smartphones and laptops, probably in Marseille on business given the outfits.
The end of April was too early in the season for the sun crowd, though he suspected the port city would be busy all year round. He ordered his whiskey and soda, and slumped down at the bar, trying not to engage in extended conversation with the bar staff, which left him plenty of scope to chill and get his head round being back here, in the place that still gave him nightmares.
His instructions were on his phone. He tugged it from his pocket and ran through them again with the same trepidation he’d felt the first time he’d read them. How had he agreed to this?
6.30 a.m. Orientation with Medicine For All Search and Rescue Co-ordinator Chase Barrington on the bridge of the SOS Poseidon.
7.00 a.m. Pre-launch safety briefing
7.30 a.m. Under way
So that was it. A six-week deployment to pluck refugees from the Mediterranean Sea, assess and treat those with medical needs and transport them to a receiving port.
And somehow survive.
‘Aperol spritz, s’il vous plaît.’
A woman’s voice behind him cut through his thoughts. After his initial knee-jerk disquiet at hearing the French language again he was impressed to realise he still understood it a little.
‘Merci. It’s a beautiful night. I love thunderstorms. I know...crazy.’ As she seamlessly switched from French to English she laughed, a soft sound that breathed life through the dull, stale atmosphere in the bar, and continued her conversation with...whoever. ‘Here’s to freedom, excitement. Adventure.’
A strange toast that conjured up all manner of stories in his active imagination. Curiosity getting the better of him, Ethan turned to see who the laugh belonged to and who needed all of those things. A little further along the bar was a petite woman dressed casually in contrast to the suits in a dark blue flared skirt and a navy-and-white-striped T-shirt, a dark silk scarf looped loosely round her neck and a small black leather backpack slung over one shoulder. Very chic. She had large, dark eyes and loose honey-coloured waves framing her face. Pretty too.
As if she felt him looking, her gaze sought him out. Whoa. So much more than pretty. She had the kind of face that pulled you to her, a heady charisma, eyes buzzing with energy, a generous smile, olive skin that had him thinking