A Perfect Cornish Escape by Phillipa Ashley Page 0,45

a community again must be difficult, especially when it goes against your nature.’

He nodded, staring out to sea.

Marina tried to give him her attention, while noting that the divers had returned to their boat. She was conscious of doing her job while not discouraging Lachlan, now he’d started.

‘Getting involved isn’t all it’s cracked up to be …’ He paused and then raised the smaller binoculars he had around his neck. ‘Marina, I could be wrong, but isn’t that kite surfer a hell of a way out?’

She pulled the large scope to her eyes and focused. ‘Yes, I’ve got her. I think it might be the woman we saw on the beach with a purple kite. She is a long way out … and she’s in the water. It’s pretty rough out.’

She watched for a while longer. The kite surfer was trying and failing to haul the sodden kite out of the water so she could get some lift and surf back to shore.

‘I had a go at kite surfing once with Aaron in Scotland,’ Lachlan said, still with the binoculars to his eyes. ‘It was bloody hard work once the kite was wet. We struggled to get going again.’

‘Yes. It’s easy for people to get very cold and tired, so they can’t self-rescue. How long do you think she’s been in the water? I’m concerned that she’s been struggling for longer than we realise,’ she said, glancing at the clock and cursing herself for not focusing on the task in hand.

‘It’s been over ten minutes since I first noticed so it could have been fifteen or twenty or even more. Plus, weren’t there two kite surfers out on the water earlier? Where’s the guy who was with her? I can’t see him.’

‘Nor me,’ she said, adrenaline kicking in. ‘I’m calling this in.’

While Lachlan kept an eye on the stricken kite surfer, she called the coastguard and resumed her visual search for the woman’s companion.

‘Look. There, at the far end of the west beach on the rocks. He’s dragging his kit out of the sea now. The kite looks trashed.’

‘He must have been carried in on the tide.’ Marina gave an update on the situation to the coastguard.

Lachlan was on the move. ‘I’ll go down and see how he is. I can get there quickly. The guy could have hypothermia and I can ask him about the other kite surfer and call you with any info.’

‘Are you sure?’ she said, alarmed at him getting involved.

‘I’ll not get into trouble,’ he said, pausing at the door.

‘Well, be careful going over the rocks to the far beach,’ she called after him.

A few minutes later, Marina saw him scrambling over those very rocks. Meanwhile, an update had come through from the coastguard. The big all-weather boat had been diverted from its training session to an incident down the coast so the small inshore lifeboat was being launched from Porthmellow, along with a coastguard helicopter.

She had a quick look to see Lachlan appear, jogging along the beach but Marina daren’t take her eyes off the kite surfer for more than a moment. She was clinging onto her kite and at the mercy of the swell. All Marina could do was keep updating the coastguard, and she sighed with relief when, a few minutes later, she saw a black dot in the sky approaching from the west.

Lachlan called her on his mobile. ‘I’m with the male casualty. He’s sustained a few cuts and bruises from being blown onto the rocks but seems to be in good shape, otherwise. He’s far more worried about his girlfriend. She’s called Ursula and she’s diabetic. He’s worried that she’s grown very weak.’

‘Tell him the helicopter’s on its way for her and the lifeboat for him.’

There was no answer but the wind was blowing. ‘Lachlan?’

‘OK. They’d better be quick,’ he said, and rang off.

The inshore craft arrived at the same time as the helicopter and soon, Ursula was being airlifted from the water. It flew off with her to hospital while the inshore lifeboat crew picked her boyfriend up.

An hour after they’d spotted the kite surfers, Marina was still waiting for Lachlan to return to the station and he wasn’t answering his phone.

The helicopter and the whole rescue had clearly brought back the trauma of his accident or he wouldn’t have made such a rapid exit. Should she call in to the cottage and see how he was, or did he want to be left alone? Her attempts to draw him