Storm Haven

CHAPTER FOUR

THE night was still and warm. A gentle breeze from the sea stopped it being oppressively hot. October on the coast along the Great Barrier Reef was the loveliest of months-the time before the real oppression of the steamy wet season began.

Nikki walked slowly down towards the sea. As she had risen from the car Luke had released her hand and had gone before, leaving her to follow if she would. Now he strode easily across the firm, tide-washed sand, his face lifting to the moonlight as though soaking in its beauty.

Once more Nikki found herself wondering about this man of many parts. How many men took time to soak up the loveliness of a night like this?

What had she expected? That he would use this opportunity to make a pass at her? He seemed now to be oblivious to her presence, and Nikki knew that Luke would have stopped the car and walked even if he’d been alone.

As he was now. He walked alone across the moonlit beach, alone with whatever demons drove him, and Nikki was left to her own demons.

And they were there. The ghosts from Nikki’s past were never far from this place. Her parents. Scott…

What was Scott doing now? Married again? Of course he’d be married, Nikki told herself bitterly. Scott was charming and personable and desperate for money. He’d be married now to some lady who could support the lifestyle he craved.

Bitterness at the past rose up in her, threatening to overwhelm her. How could he have treated her like that? Men were bastards, she thought bleakly, remembering Sandra Mears’ haggard face. She and Sandra both…

Why on earth hadn’t she been able to see Scott’s true colours before she’d been crazy enough to marry him? She’d been so stupid.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. Not ever. She needed no one and Amy was solely dependent on her. Amy would be brought up with security and love, but no man was needed.

The bitter words Scott had flung at her had stayed in her heart for five long years. He had called her a lying, deceitful whore. He had laughed at her for believing that he had married her for love-he’d told her that no one would ever want her for herself alone.

Nikki took a deep breath and turned her face into the warm night air. The bitterness was all around her, and she was so alone. She looked down to the water’s edge at Luke, and a sense of empathy edged into her consciousness. Somehow this man was alone as she.

It was curiously comforting. The soft night wind whipped the fine fabric of her dress around her bare legs. Her hair blew lightly around her face and she drank in the salt air greedily.

Something was happening to her. She didn’t know what it was but she only knew that something inside her was being released-just a little-from the bondage that Scott had imposed. Was it Charlotte’s crazy, impulsive action in forcing her into attractive clothes? Or was it something else?

Luke was walking slowly back up the beach towards her, his face in shadow with the moon behind him. As he reached her he held out his hands and Nikki took an involuntary step back.

‘I’m not going to rape you,’ he said easily, and there was a trace of mocking laughter in his voice. ‘Oh, so scared, Miss Prim. Why?’

‘I’m not scared.’ Nikki sounded like a defiant child.

He nodded as though humouring her, then sank on to the sand and hauled his shoes off. Then his socks. Then…

‘What are you doing?’ Nikki gaped open-mouthed, and then blushed crimson as she realised just what he intended.

‘I’m going for a swim, of course.’ She couldn’t see his face but there was no mistaking the laughter. ‘Coming?’

This was something Nikki had done in the long-forgotten past. Eurong beach stretched for miles and the tiny population meant that it was almost always deserted. Eurong was not a tourist destination-the locals kept its beauty as a closely guarded secret-and it meant it was possible to come down here, strip to nothing and swim undisturbed.

The last time Nikki had done such a thing had been five years ago-five years…

‘Don’t be…’ Nikki turned away with a gasp as she realised her protest was falling on deaf ears. His naked body in the moonlight was breathtaking-and the last thing she wanted to do was look. ‘I’ll…I’ll wait for you in the car.’

‘It’s a magnificent night,’ he protested, still half laughing. ‘Why waste it on prudery, Miss Prim?’

‘I’m not…’

‘You don’t have to strip,’ he told her. ‘Or are you worried about spoiling your beautiful new clothes?’

‘I’m…’

‘Scared?’ To Nikki’s horror she felt his hands grip her shoulders. His body touched the soft fabric of her dress, sending a sensuous shiver through her skin. ‘Life’s short,’ he said softly. ‘And you’re wasting it, Dr Russell. You wouldn’t really go back to bury yourself in books tonight, would you?’

‘Let me go.’ Nikki wrenched herself away but was no match for his strength.

‘Why?’ His voice softened and the humour faded. ‘Nikki, life is for living. God knows what tomorrow holds. Surely you can’t ignore tonight?’ His grip on her shoulders tightened. ‘Look up. The stars are magnificent. The sea is ours. The night is ours, Dr Russell, and I don’t intend to go tamely home to bed. And I can’t soak it up if I know you’re sitting in the car tapping your fingers on the dashboard with impatience. So, as far as I see it, there’s only one thing for it.’

‘I-’

‘You’re going to have to come in too.’

‘No!’ Nikki’s cry of refusal was cut off in a staccato shriek. It was ignored. In one fluid movement Luke Marriott had dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her up into his arms.

There was nothing she could do. Nikki was cradled helplessly against him, powerless to struggle. Heedless of the futility of her actions, she crashed her fists into his bare chest. It was as much use as a moth fluttering against a lighted window. Luke’s chest showed as little impact, and he strode purposefully forward.

‘Put me down.’ It was a cry of outrage. No man had touched Nikki Russell for five years and she had no intention of permitting it now. Especially not this man!

‘I’ll put you down,’ Luke promised drily, ‘when I’m ready.’

‘But-’

‘Dr Russell, you are withering into dust with your old house and your elderly housekeeper and your books. Beattie has more life in her than you and she’s near seventy. Your housekeeper says you need something to cheer you up, and I’ve taken it on board as a personal challenge.’

‘If you think dumping me in the water will cheer me up…!’ She pummelled again and her feet lashed out, but he kept right on walking, implacably quiet, towards the water.

And Nikki fell silent, speechless. The feel of Luke’s hard body under her was doing crazy, crazy things to her equilibrium. This was mad. Her whole world was mad.

‘I’m not dumping you in the water,’ he said cheerfully as they neared the shallows. ‘I’m taking you for a swim.’

‘There are stingers in the water. And stingrays.’

‘Beattie tells me the stingers won’t be here for another few weeks,’ he reassured her kindly. ‘And with the amount of noise you’ve been making, any self-respecting stingray will have lit out for Texas ten minutes ago. Now shut up, hold your nose and enjoy yourself.’

‘But…’

She got no further. While Luke had been talking he had broached the waves at the water’s edge. Now they were surging around his waist, and as Nikki uttered her last word a large crest surged towards them, shoulder-high. Luke simply lifted his burden and deposited her neatly into the foaming surf.

Nikki had forgotten what it would be like…She had expected coldness-shock-but…the tropical water was almost warm. It had been five long years since Nikki had granted herself the indulgence of a beach swim and, despite her shock and anger, her overwhelming sensation was that of being welcomed back by a friend. She had loved the sea. Now it folded her back into its clasp with a sensual pleasure that was almost a caress.

Involuntarily Nikki felt her body moving into a graceful dive, turning away from the man throwing her into the wave and sweeping under the crest in a lithe arcing of her slim body.

Oh, it was lovely! Why had she stayed away for so long? The salt water surrounded her, encasing her in its cool caress, cooling her overheated body, taking the shards from her anger…

What on earth was she doing? She wasn’t swimming! There were texts she hadn’t opened yet and she was in the water, cavorting…

She rose unsteadily to her feet, her feet finding the sandy bottom. Her dress clung and swayed around her legs, pulled by the strength of the water. Luke was only feet from her, his eyes in the dim moonlight amused and appreciative.

‘Well, well,’ he said slowly. ‘The lady can swim. Now, why does Beattie tell me you haven’t swum in the sea for years?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ Nikki spluttered, trying to stalk forward. Another wave pounded into her back, making her stumble and spoiling the effect of her damping words entirely. Where on earth was her dignity? Before she could fall, strong arms reached out and held her.

‘It’s OK to have fun,’ Luke Marriott said softly, looking down at the sodden girl in his arms. ‘It’s OK, Nikki.’

‘Well, this is hardly my idea of fun,’ Nikki snapped. ‘To be half drowned…’

‘You? Half drowned? You can swim like a fish.’

‘You didn’t know that when you threw me under!’

‘No.’ He was staring down at her in the soft light. ‘I didn’t. But I could guess. As I can guess a hell of a lot about you, Nikki Russell.’

‘Well, keep your guesswork for someone else.’ Nikki was almost crying. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’

‘Or anyone else,’ he said softly. ‘At least, that’s what you say.’

‘It’s true.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You have needs, just like the rest of us, Dr Russell.’

‘I don’t…’

‘Well, let’s just see.’ His grip suddenly tightened. Her body was drawn hard against his naked chest and his blond head sank to kiss her.

Nikki froze. His lips took hers to him, yet they couldn’t force her to respond. Her mouth was hard, immobile, and then her hands came up to shove him away.

It was that movement that was her undoing. Her fingers touched his wet, bare skin and a tremor ran through her. Five years. Five long years of nothing…

And now this. Lips that searched hers, hands that held her hard against him, making her body feel his strength-his maleness. Her dress might not have existed. Wet and limp, it was a frail barrier between them, and Nikki’s body knew his beneath it.

His hands held her tighter, tighter still, pulling her to compliance, moulding her breasts into his muscled chest. Waves of salt foam swept in and out around them but the surging water just deepened the caress, isolating them more against the world.

And to her horror Nikki felt herself respond. The night was magic. This moment was magic. The warmth of the water, the light of the waning moon and the sweeping whisper of the surf all combined to drug her into euphoria. She was powerless to resist. Powerless…

Slowly, slowly, her lips parted, allowing his insistent tongue to enter. He tasted of the sea, salt and something else…something of the night and the mood and the maleness of him.

Oh, God, she was mad and yet she couldn’t stop. It was as if she were indeed drowning and this man’s body was the only thing between her and the end of the world. There was the ocean around them. They were an island in the sea and they were stranded forever. His hands fell to her hips, caressing her thighs, pulling her in to feel his maleness, and she felt her body mould to him. If she were to die now, this was what heaven would feel like. She arched back, her neck white and satin-sheened in the moonlight, and from a distance she heard herself moan. The sound held pain and desire and…

And what? Who could know?

His mouth fell to the swell of her breasts, and the top button of her dress was suddenly undone. A hand went in to tease the tautness of her nipples and Nikki moaned again.

And then the sea intervened. A surge of surf, larger than the rest, tossed itself at the entwined couple. They staggered together and Luke’s hand fell away to save them both from falling.

It was enough. The tiny movement of withdrawal was enough to give Nikki back her senses. With a gasp of horror she pulled away, her hands coming up to cover the gaping nakedness of her breasts. Mad. She was mad. They were both mad.

And then they were staring at each other over the moon-drenched sea and Luke’s eyes reflected what Nikki was feeling. There was horror in his eyes as well, and Nikki knew that he too had not intended what had just happened.

‘Nikki…’ Luke’s voice was unsteady, uncertain, for the first time since Nikki had met him. Nikki shook her head and turned away.

‘I’ll be in the car,’ she whispered. ‘When you’re ready…’

Luke dressed swiftly on the beach while Nikki sat sodden in the car, waiting. When he came, she was hunched as far away as it was possible to be on the passenger side of the car and, after one swift, hard glance at his companion, Luke started the car and turned for home. They drove home in silence.

Luke’s face was set and grim, and his customary cheerfulness seemed to have deserted him. It was almost as though he was as shaken as she was, Nikki thought bitterly, though such a thing was hardly possible. A ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ man, was Luke Marriott, if Charlotte’s information could be relied on. Which it could be, Nikki thought. To do this…to seduce her…

He hadn’t seduced her. He had kissed her and she had responded. That truth made Nikki hug her arms into her breasts and shiver, and Luke cast a glance across at her.

‘My sweater’s over the back,’ he said impersonally, and another shudder ran through Nikki’s body. How could he? How could he act as if nothing had happened?

Maybe it was the only way to act, but some emotion which Nikki could not define was running between them, and to talk-to try for impersonal conversation-would somehow strengthen that emotion. The tension scared Nikki half to death and, by the look of it, Luke also didn’t know how to react.

Good, she thought nastily. To get the great Luke Marriott off balance…

Curiously the thought didn’t help at all. All it did was make her want to cry.

Finally the little car pulled off the road into the driveway of Whispering Palms. Nikki looked out in relief at the sight of her home-her refuge. If only she could turn to Luke Marriott and tell him it was no longer his. That he should find somewhere else-even if it did mean sleeping on a park bench!

She turned to him and found him watching her, but before she could speak he laid a finger on her lips.

‘I’m sorry, Nikki,’ he said gently. ‘I should never have kissed you.’

The great Luke Marriott apologising! Nikki could hardly believe her ears, and yet all it did was make her urge to burst into tears even greater. And then, before she could respond, before she could realise what he intended, his head came down and his lips touched hers.

It was a kiss of contrition-a feather-light kiss that should have caused no feeling. She had been kissed many times like that before. Instead Nikki felt her heart turn within her. She put a hand up to touch his face but he had already withdrawn.

‘And I’m sorry for that, too,’ he said unsteadily. ‘It won’t happen again.’

How was a girl supposed to study after that?

Heaven knew. Nikki didn’t. She showered the salt and sand from her body, donned a housecoat, rinsed her sodden dress and then went to tackle her texts. It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had wasted so much time!

What was Luke doing? The words of the text danced before her eyes in a meaningless jumble. What on earth was she trying to study?

Hearing difficulties…problems with the ear… She had to concentrate. If she kept going like this, she’d fail.

And then what? A thin, insistent little voice started up in the back of her head. So what if you fail? There’s always next year. And your income doesn’t depend on it.

What on earth was she saying? This was work she was rejecting, and one thing Nikki Russell hadn’t done in the last five years was reject work. It was only a matter of blocking out the thought of Luke Marriott. The memory of his hands…his lips…

Damn the man. She stared down at her page and started to read aloud, forcing her tired mind back on to track. ‘Tinnitus…ringing in the ears…’ What on earth did she know about tinnitus?

‘Do you need some help?’

Nikki jumped close to a foot in the air. The house had been deathly still and she hadn’t heard Luke come up behind her. Now she nearly dropped her text as he placed his hands on the back of her chair and read over her shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t be working,’ he said conversationally. ‘But if you insist, then I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t need it.’ It was as much as Nikki could do to get the words out.

‘What do you need, then?’ he quizzed her gently. ‘You tell me you don’t need a walk. You don’t need a swim. You don’t need help.’ He smiled down at her, his mobile eyebrows arched upwards. ‘I’m a paid employee, Dr Russell. So start employing me.’

Nikki shoved her book down on the desk with a bang and rose unsteadily to her feet. She should be wearing something more substantial than her flimsy housecoat. It was sheer cotton and not respectable in the least.

‘I’m employing you to attend to my normal medical duties,’ she said tightly. ‘And I’m…I don’t want anything else.’

He wasn’t listening. Luke had picked up the text she had just dropped. ‘OK,’ he said absently. ‘What are the three types of tinnitus?’

‘Look-’

‘What are they, Dr Russell?’

Nikki stared helplessly at him. Arguing was impossible. The man was like a bulldozer. She forced herself to focus on what he was saying.

Tinnitus. Types. What were they?

‘Low-frequency noise, like hearing the sea,’ she started hesitantly.

‘Cause?’

‘Typically impacted wax. Or maybe otosclerosis.’

‘Good,’ he approved. ‘Next type?’

‘High-frequency noise, like a cicada,’ Nikki told him. Her hand was on the back of her chair as if for support, but her mind was steadying as she focused on work. ‘Suggestive of inner ear pathology such as ototoxicity, trauma or tumour compressing the nerve.’

‘And the last?’

‘Look, you don’t have to do this.’

‘I wasted your time taking you swimming. Now I’m making amends. Next, Dr Russell.’

‘I don’t-’

‘Think, Dr Russell.’ Luke’s voice was clipped and professional, reminding Nikki of nothing so much as her old professors, grilling her until she was exhausted during final exams. She took a deep breath. She knew. She had to know.

And it was there, locked in the recess of her tired mind. She brought it out and dusted it off. ‘Pulsatile tinnitus,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Noise coinciding with the patient’s heart-rate.’

That’s the one. And cause?’

‘I don’t know.’ Then at his look of disgust she changed her mind. ‘Yes, I do. Intercranial vascular lesion, for instance jugular tumour.’

‘And if you can’t treat tinnitus, what do you do about it?’ Luke demanded, and Nikki stared.

‘I thought you were a surgeon,’ she muttered. ‘Surgeons never admit you can’t treat something.’

He smiled then, his eyes weary but acknowledging a hit. ‘This is an exam for general practitioners,’ he smiled, ‘not for surgeons. Let’s assume we’ve done our worst-all the medical possibilities are exhausted, the surgeons have sent your patient back to you with a “too hard” label on him and your patient still has ringing in his ears. What then, Dr Russell?’

‘Antidepressant?’

‘It can make the noise more tolerable,’ Luke agreed. ‘But then what? Do you leave your patient taking pills for the rest of his or her life? The examiners won’t like your answer, Dr Russell.’

Nikki flushed. ‘Well, the accepted treatment is the use of white noise,’ she said stiffly. ‘A noise simulator which produces something like the noise of a running stream, or rain on a tin roof. Most unmedical, but effective.’

‘And that’s what this exam is all about,’ Luke told her. ‘How Nikki Russell has learned to dispense medicine in the real world, and knows when to shove the prescription pad aside.’

‘It sounds as if you know it all,’ Nikki said resentfully.

‘And I’m just a surgeon.’ He flipped to the next page. ‘What next?’

Nikki moved to the door. ‘I’m going to bed.’

He shook his head. ‘You intended to work for at least a couple of hours before I appeared, didn’t you, Dr Russell?’

Nikki nodded reluctantly. ‘But I can’t now.’

‘Yes, you can.’ He moved back to block her exit from the door. ‘Dr Russell, I am here to ensure you pass this exam, come hell or high water. And it’s only come Dr Marriott. So sit down and answer questions. Now, Dr Russell!’

‘But-’

‘Sit down,’ he said quietly, but his low voice held the trace of a threat. ‘Sit or I’ll sit you down in a way you’ll find distinctly undignified.’

Nikki stared up at his face, but the humour was gone. His eyes were stern and implacable.

And she did want to pass this exam. If he could really help…

She sat.

To Nikki’s amazement the ensuing two hours were the most productive she had spent so far. What had passed between them earlier in the night had somehow been driven aside. It was still there, latent, unresolved, but it was another part of them. The professional part-the part that had put them through stringent medical training-was in play and it produced the most effective study Nikki had done. When the big grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight she lifted her head in amazement. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘I will go to bed now.’

‘To sleep?’ The blue eyes watching her saw too much.

‘Of course.’

‘The shadows let you sleep, then?’

‘What…? What do you mean?’ Unconsciously Nikki clutched the neckline of her housecoat as though seeking warmth from its flimsy fabric. ‘What do you mean-shadows?’

They stand out a mile,’ Luke told her. He stood, stretching his long limbs. He was barefoot, wearing light cotton trousers and a soft, short-sleeved shirt, open at the throat. The two of them could be taken for a married couple, Nikki thought suddenly, and then grimaced. It was a crazy scenario-the two of them alone at this hour. Beattie was long since gone to bed and the house was in whispering stillness. The palms along the veranda which gave the house its name murmured in hushed tones in the night breeze.

‘You’re crazy.’ Nikki stood too and then wished she hadn’t. The movement brought her too close to Luke. She half expected him to move back, but he stayed, looking down at her.

‘Tell me about Scott,’ he said softly.