Dangerous Love (7 page)

This was not the Regan Tyler he knew, or thought he knew. The Regan Tyler he knew wouldn’t be climbing up rocks and she’d definitely be more coy about showing off her underwear.

“What are you laughing at?” she called down.

“Just enjoying the view.”

“Look the other way, Fletcher.”

He stopped laughing, reminding himself why she was climbing up the cliff. You had to laugh sometimes or you’d go mad, but he had an awful feeling that there wouldn’t be anything to smile about today.

“Just be careful,” he said soberly.

Regan pushed herself forward onto her stomach and slithered into the shallow cave. Amazing how the technique all came back to her despite it being many years since she’d done it. It hurt a lot more now though than it did when she was a kid.

There were signs of a camp, but it was an old one, probably left over from last summer which was when the local kids tended to play down here. Some things never changed she thought wryly. Kids were always up for a bit of adventure away from the television and computer games.

But it meant that Jay hadn’t been here. She was bitterly disappointed. She’d hoped to crawl in and find him huddled up in blankets looking sorry for himself or at least to find some of his stuff.

And now she had to get back down again. How could she have forgotten how hard that was? Getting up to the cave was the easy part. Getting down was another animal entirely.

Getting down was cutting yourself on sharp barnacles and jagged stone and bruising yourself on lumps of unforgiving rock. And it was one thing to get those kind of wounds when you were ten years old and shrugged off such things, but when you were a grown woman of twenty-nine with a lot less bounce and a lot more fear, it was quite another.

And why oh why hadn’t she grabbed trousers when she got dressed?

Just how did she used to do it? She looked up. There was always the choice of keeping on right to the top. At least then she wouldn’t have to look down. When she did look down she saw Bram looking up at her, arms folded across his broad chest and fought back a wave of dizziness. Ugh, it looked a long way to the bottom.

“Nothing,” she called down, trying to hide the wobble in her voice. “No sign of him at all.” She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Her heart hoped it was a good thing, but her head told her something else. Georgie said he’d disappeared and Jay wasn’t the sort of boy to have gone off and left Georgie behind. Not deliberately.

“Come on down then,” he said. He knew very well that coming down was harder than going up. She had no idea how to even start.

“I can’t,” she admitted.

“Why not? You want to stay up there and live in a cave? Your bed would get wet every time there was a spring tide and you’d end up smelling like a fish.”

Damn him, this wasn’t funny. She was tired, wrung out and she just wanted to be back on the beach so she could continue looking for Jay who was probably hiding out somewhere with absolutely no idea that such a big search was taking place. At least she still hoped he was, because she was not going to listen to that voice in her head telling her they were too late.

Maybe he hadn’t disappeared at all. Perhaps he was there and saw Georgie go over the cliff and panicked. He might even have made his way home and be hiding under his bed or something equally daft. She hoped so. She hoped so with all her heart.

“Want me to come up and get you?”

“No!” she said. “Not with your back and your ankle.”

“Well I can’t leave them on the beach,” he said.

“Oh, ha ha,” she said sarcastically, but still she couldn’t stop a smile twitching the corners of her lips.

He looked up and grasped a handful of weed, shoving his foot into a dent in the rocks.

“Bram, don’t you dare come up here. Stay where you are. I’ll get down somehow and if I can’t, then…” she looked upwards. “I’ll just keep going up. I’ve done it before.”

Going up was easier than coming down.

“Now that really would be stupid,” Bram said and he was already six feet off the beach. “I’m not coming all the way up to you, just far enough to guide you down. Okay?”

She wanted to tell him to get lost, but she knew she needed help and there was nothing to gain by trying to do it on her own. Except maybe a few broken bones and a badly bruised ego.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly and when he was just a few feet below her, he told her to turn round and come back down towards him.

“I’ll guide your feet into place,” he said. “Trust me.”

Trust him? But what choice did she have? Very soon others would join them and she’d be showing off her lack of climbing skills not to mention her knickers to half the town.

“Okay, Regan, keep coming, keep coming… steady… that’s it. There.”

He reached up and guided her foot into a dip.

“Now the other one. Slowly, honey, relax. You’re doing fine.”

It went perfectly well until her foot slipped and she began to slide. Her knees scraped painfully against the rock and she landed back against Bram, pushing him away from the cliff face and sending them both into a fall.

She screamed, but it was cut abruptly short.

They’d only fallen a few feet and she’d landed on top of him, luckily on the sand.

“Are you all right?” she cried, struggling to get off him. “Did I squash you?”

“No,” Bram groaned. “It’s my chest. I think you crushed my ribs. I can’t breathe…”

“Oh, Bram,” she knelt down beside him. “I’m so sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have let you discharge yourself. You’re obviously not fit and now…”

He began to shake. It took a moment to realise he was laughing. He propped himself up on his elbows and grinned at her.

“I think you broke my heart, Nurse.”

“Oh! What? You!” She scrambled to her feet and kicked him in the thigh with her bare foot, which was sore as well as freezing cold, then she wrenched off his jacket and flung it at him.

She’d forgotten this side of him. The teasing; the way he could wind her up so easily. She’d completely buried the fun and laughter they used to have and had chosen to just remember the serious, determined Bram Fletcher that had scared her to death every time he went out on a shout.

It had been like a dark cloud over their relationship, shadowing everything they did. Always there at the back of her mind. What if he gets called out on a shout? What if he doesn’t come back? He’d told her she had too much imagination.

“Regan… wait…”

“This is not funny,” she said. “We’re meant to be looking for Jay, not all this stupid messing about.”

He grabbed her arm and swung her back round. His face was deadly serious, his expression as dark as she’d ever seen it.

“Don’t for one minute think I don’t realise how serious this is,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I want to find that kid safe and well as much as you do.”

“I know,” she whispered.

She turned away from him and started to stamp across the rocks, not taking such care as before, then she remembered Georgie’s shoe and turned to sweep it up from the sand where Bram had dropped it.

Her knees were raw and bleeding, her fingers likewise and as she spun away from him again she caught sight of a little pile of rags standing proud of the outgoing tide. Just a dark heap.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Oh no… Jay…”

She ran out. There weren’t so many rocks, but more tiny stones, more areas of sinky mud and more slippery clay flats and she had to fight to keep her balance. All the time she ran, she prayed this was just what it looked like, a heap of old clothes. She was aware of feet slapping on the mud behind her and as she reached the pathetic little mound, Bram was beside her, both of them breathing hard.

“Oh no,” Bram muttered.

Jay was a scruffy little boy, smaller and skinnier than the other kids in the class. His hair was too long, always untidy and his clothes were literally coming apart at the seams in some cases. He’d go off to school in the mornings looking neat and smart, but by the end of the day he looked as if he’d been dragged through a hedge. He had the cheekiest little grin and the most sparkly eyes.

“Oh, Jay,” she sobbed and bit on the back of her hand, tasting salt and blood. His black hair was matted with sand and blood and God only knew how many bones he’d broken when he’d fallen to the rocks and she could only hope he wasn’t conscious when it happened.

She brushed his hair back from his face. He was so cold. She couldn’t let this happen. She turned him onto his back and prepared to perform CPR, but Bram reached out and stopped her.

“It’s much too late, Regan. He’s been dead for hours.”

She could see that! She wasn’t stupid! It was just that she wanted him to be alive, wanted to breathe life back into his little body. She didn’t want to have to tell his poor mother that she’d lost her child. How could anyone live through pain like that? It was unbearable.

She prayed his death had been instantaneous as she gathered the little boy up in her arms, held him against her chest and wept. He was so white. So white and so very cold.

This cheeky little boy had taken Georgie under his wing when she started school and although he was little, he was tough. He and Georgie insisted they were going to get married when they grew up and eat pizza for tea every day. They helped each other with their reading and sat next to each other at school.

“I’ll get…” Bram began, but he choked on the words. There was nothing he could get. Nothing that would bring this child back. And instead of trying to get anything, he sank onto the mud beside Regan and folded his arms around her and the little boy.

A shout went up in the distance. Help was coming, but it was too late. No one could do anything.

Bram wasn’t weeping like Regan, but she could feel the ragged catch of his breath and the tremors shaking his whole body. His arms tightened around her and she leaned against him and sobbed.

Regan sat down in the quiet hospital corridor and buried her face in her hands. Her eyes were sore and swollen, but no matter how awful she felt, she knew it was nothing compared to how Katie was feeling. The poor woman. She’d collapsed when the news was broken to her and then she’d started to blame Georgie.

“If she hadn’t encouraged him, he’d never have gone to the cliffs!” she’d screamed.

Regan didn’t know if that was true or not, but one thing was certain, she was not going to let Georgie carry the burden of guilt for the rest of her life. They were just kids. What had happened was a terrible, tragic accident for which no one was to blame.

Katie had even lashed out, punching Regan in the chest, but her punch had no power and she’d collapsed into Regan’s arms, sobbing before Lally drew her gently away and took her home.

And then she had to tell Georgie. It was the most painful, most difficult thing she’d ever had to do and she couldn’t help but feel, despite not wanting to blame anyone, that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t split up with Bram when she did.

Perhaps having a father around would have curbed Georgie’s wild streak. No, no that was silly. If Jay hadn’t taken Georgie with him, it would have been someone else. And even if Bram was around, it wouldn’t necessarily have stopped Georgie running off like that to help a friend.

But what was even sillier was the realisation that her whole break up with Bram had been so stupid, so futile. Of course the world needed men like him who were willing to put their lives on the line to save others. Thanks to her and her stubbornness, her daughter was growing up without a father, a father who would have adored her given half a chance.

They wanted to keep Georgie at the hospital for another night and she was quite happy about that. She’d made friends with a little girl in the next bed and having spent time in the hospital crèche as a toddler, she was very familiar with the place.

Regan knew she should go home, but once she’d sat down, the weariness had overwhelmed her. Lally had already left, taking Katie home and promising to take Bonnie for the night just in case Regan got any silly ideas about staying over at the hospital.

She could use one of the on call rooms, she supposed. If she could gather up the energy to actually move.