Suddenly the doctor was on the deck. Quickly he released himself from the harness and the line was reeled back into the helicopter.
Almost unable to breathe, Abby watched him pick his way across the slippery deck, almost losing his balance as the boat shifted wildly in the heavy seas. Moments later another man dropped down from the helicopter, this one with a stretcher. Abby lost sight of the first man as he disappeared from view. Had he slipped overboard?
While she’d been watching, Emma had come into the room. Seeing Abby staring at the screen, she unplugged herself from her MP3 player and sat down next to her.
‘Is that what you’re going to be doing?’ Emma asked. ‘In your new job?’
‘Sometimes,’ Abby admitted. Although she hoped to hell she wouldn’t be involved in anything quite as dangerous as what was going on in front of her. It was one thing being trained to be winched up and down from a helicopter in calm conditions—this was something altogether different.
Emma looked at her wide-eyed. ‘Cool,’ she said.
Thankfully her daughter didn’t seem to appreciate the danger the men were in. That was good: Abby didn’t want Emma worrying about her.
It seemed like hours but it could only have been a few minutes before the stretcher, now loaded with the injured skipper, was being attached to the winch. Abby knew the danger was far from over. The yacht was sinking rapidly. She was amazed that it had managed to stay afloat as long as it had.
Then the men with the stretcher were being lifted back onto the helicopter. As soon as they were on board the aircraft swung away. Seconds later the boat tipped up and with a final surge was engulfed by the waves. Any sooner and it would have taken the three men with it.
‘I understand the mother and two children have been taken to hospital where they are being treated for hypothermia and shock,’ the reporter continued. ‘At this time we have no details about the condition of the skipper except that he is stable. But right now we can give you a live interview with some of the men involved in the daring rescue.’
The drama over, Emma went back to her music and left the room. Before Abby could switch the television off, the camera panned out slightly, revealing two men. One, a man in his fifties, was wearing the jumpsuit of the Royal Navy, the other the fluorescent jacket of a rescue doctor. Both men were smiling broadly, as if what they had just done had been exhilarating—and no more dangerous than a routine training exercise.
But as the camera zoomed closer, it was the younger man, the doctor, that made Abby’s heart leap in her chest. Underneath his five-o’clock shadow there was something disturbingly familiar about his hooked nose and wide grin. But before Abby could get a better look at him the camera, frustratingly, focussed solely on his colleague.
‘I have Sergeant Lightbody with me, who was the winchman involved in the rescue,’ the reporter said.
The older man shifted slightly, looking uncomfortable to find himself on TV.
‘Sergeant Lightbody,’ the newscaster continued, ‘can you tell the viewers at home what it was like out there today? From what I could see, it seemed that you just managed to get the victims off the boat in the nick of time.’
Sergeant Lightbody looked even more ill at ease. ‘It was certainly a little breezy out there. I guess it was one of the more difficult situations we’ve been involved in for a while.’
‘A little breezy? A bit of an understatement, surely? If you and your men hadn’t been able to get these people off, it could’ve ended in tragedy. That all the family members survived is testament to the skill and courage of your team.’
‘It’s what we do.’ Sergeant Lightbody shrugged. ‘Anyway, if it hadn’t been for Dr MacNeil here, we might not have got the skipper off without further injury—if at all.’
The camera shifted to the younger man. He was shaking his head. Despite the hat pulled low on his brow, shadowing his eyes, Abby realised with a jolt that she did recognise him. She didn’t need to check the photograph she had kept for all these years to know that Dr MacNeil was Mac—her dead sister’s lover and Emma’s father!
Her legs shaking, Abby got up and retrieved the remote then froze the screen. She was breathing rapidly as she studied the fuzzy picture. It was him! He was older, yes; there were faint smile lines on either side of his mouth and radiating from the corners of his ice-blue eyes. He had filled out a little, and his hair was shorter, although still sun-bleached at the tips. Still, she would know that wide smile and glinting, expressive gaze anywhere.
She pressed the remote and the picture moved again.
‘Dr MacNeil, could you tell us what happened back there? I understand you work with the Royal Cornwall Air Ambulance team. Is this just another typical day for you?’
Abby’s heart was pounding so hard she could almost hear it. She had found Mac! And not just found him, she was actually going to be working with him. She sank back down on the sofa as her legs threatened to give way beneath her. Thank God Emma had left the room. She would have known immediately that something was wrong, and right now Abby needed to make sense of what she was seeing.
Mac grinned into the camera. Unlike Sergeant Lightbody, he seemed completely at ease. ‘Not exactly a typical day but, yes, the Royal Cornwall Air Ambulance teams up with other rescue services when required. We believe that having immediate medical attention on the scene can often make the difference between life and death.’
‘Even if it means putting your own life at risk?’ The stunning blonde reporter was almost whimpering with admiration.
‘I’m pretty certain the Royal Navy wouldn’t let anything happen to me,’ Mac replied lightly. ‘Besides, they are the real heroes. They do this sort of thing day after day. If it wasn’t for the pilot of the helicopter and his team, we would have never been able to get to the casualties.’
Abby still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was ironic, really. Abby had tried desperately to find this man years before without any success, and now he was here, in Penhally, and she’d be working with him!
Incredible to think that the reason they were here in the first place was because Emma didn’t have a father.
A few months ago, just before Emma’s eleventh birthday, Abby had asked her whether she wanted to invite her schoolfriends over for a party. To Abby’s horror, Emma had burst into tears. When she’d eventually managed to calm her down, Emma had admitted that the children at the school had been ostracising her for the last couple of weeks. Only her best friend had still talked to her.
‘But why, darling? Has something happened? You used to have loads of friends.’
Between tears and sobs of anguish Emma had explained that one of the girls had started taunting her about not having a dad.
‘I told them that of course I had a dad,’ Emma had said, indignant. ‘So they asked where he was. When I told them I didn’t know, they made fun of me. They said that I was lying or else I must be a rubbish daughter that my dad didn’t want to know me. I tried to ignore them but they kept coming after me, saying these horrible things.’ She’d looked up at Abby, her blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘I know you’re not my real mum, Mum.’ She’d smiled, realising what she’d said. ‘I mean, you’re my real mum, but not my birth mum. But you’ve never told me who my father is. Why doesn’t he care about me? Why hasn’t he ever come to see me?’
Abby’s heart had ached for her child. Although, as Emma had put it, she wasn’t her biological mother, Emma was hers in every way that counted. She couldn’t love her more had she given birth to her, and Emma being her twin sister Sara’s child simply made the bond closer.
‘I