Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,26

and activated the emergency beacon.’

Rob swallowed hard twice.

‘I could see them, the orange of their life vests, as they clung together in the water further and further away. I tried to stand, to motor the boat to them, but then I slipped in my own blood...I fell onto my bad arm and passed out.’

Her voice was faint. She could hear the silence of that day, broken only by the sound of the sea and her own agonised moans as she lay on deck, rocking with the swell. She made the same sound now. Rob’s eyes glittered as he stared at her.

Her voice now was hollow, exhausted. ‘They sent a chopper from the military base in Exmouth. I lost a third of my blood before they found me. I came to a week later in Darwin hospital and I hated the doctors for saving my life. They wouldn’t tell me, but I knew.’

She dragged her eyes up to his. ‘Justin and Nate were gone.’

CHAPTER SIX

ROB swallowed hard and squinted. Tears wouldn’t help her now, while she sat there bleeding from her very soul.

He remembered the story in the newspapers. An Indonesian trawler found the bodies still lashed together a hundred miles from where they’d gone overboard. There was no imagining the physical and emotional agony Honor must have suffered in the weeks—months—after the accident.

He kneeled and tipped her wordlessly forward into his arms. What did you say to a woman who had lost everything and survived to relive it daily? She didn’t resist this time. She clung to him and sobbed dry tears. The horrible, agonised wheeze broke his heart.

A dozen image fragments tumbled through his mind. Her scars, the razor-sharp propeller of a marine motor, Honor bleeding to death on the deck of a yacht while her son and husband drifted away.

Then he saw himself, joking about whether she was going to send him back out to drown; telling her she would make a good mother; criticising the turtles for not protecting their young. And Honor refusing to leave the dying booby chick.

So it wouldn’t be alone.

How had she not gone mad?

Rob thought about his own life—the challenges of his parents and their expectations and the revolving door of empty relationships—and realised it wasn’t even close to what this tortured woman had lived through.

And he’d judged her for being brittle.

‘Shh...’ He could do nothing but stroke her and rock her while she cried. It was completely inadequate. He wasn’t equipped for this, figuratively or literally. Back in his own world, he would have given her a couple of Valium, a few kind words and tucked her into bed as he’d done so often with his mother. Here there were no drugs and absolutely no words.

But there was a bed.

He swung her into his arms and moved towards the tent. He lay her on her side and let her curl into the foetal position. She looked so fragile, lying there, her sobs turning into exhausted hiccups and eventually to sleepy breaths. He imagined her story in his head, imagined it was his family out there, him waking in the hospital to find his life destroyed. Honor and his child gone.

He frowned. Not Honor. A wife, any wife.

It was simply unimaginable.

He lay down and curled around her, tucking her back into his chest. He wanted to tighten his hold but didn’t want her to stir. If she slept, hopefully dreamless, she wouldn’t hurt. He could do that much for her, at least.

He draped a heavy arm across her cold body and rocked and rocked and rocked.

* * *

Day turned to evening before they spoke again. Honor had fallen into an exhausted sleep and Rob stayed, tucked close to her, stroking her hair from time to time and murmuring senseless words into her fevered ear.

She finally stirred in his arms and stiffened, resisting him even before she fully woke. He rolled away and gave her some space.

‘I wanted to make sure you were warm,’ he said, before she gave him a serve for being in her bed.

She sat up shakily. ‘What time is it?’

Not the first words he’d expected. ‘Ten to six.’

Her head whipped around. ‘In the morning?’

‘In the evening. Same day as the dive.’

She sagged. ‘Oh. Good. I thought I’d missed the first night of the hatch.’ Her voice was hollow but otherwise normal. His heart sank. Back to business. Was she really going to say nothing?

She shuffled to the entrance of the tent and climbed out into the golden light of