Annie Claydon – Saved By The Single Dad: A Single Dad Romance (страница 2)

He barely had a chance to lock his hands around one of the trunks and suck in one desperate breath before the water slammed against his back, expelling all of the precious oxygen from his lungs in one gasp as it flattened him against the bark. A great roar deafened him and he kept his eyes tight shut against the water and grit hitting his face. Hang on. The one and only thing he could do was hang on.

Then it stopped. Not daring to let go of the tree trunk, Jack opened his eyes, trying to blink away the sting of the dirty water. Another sickening roar was coming from upstream.

The next wave was bigger, tearing at his body. He tried to hold on but his fingers slipped apart and he was thrown against the other three trunks, one of them catching the side of his head with a dizzying blow. There was no point in trying to hold his breath and a harsh bellow escaped his lips as his arms flailed desperately, finding something to hold on to and clinging tight.

Then, suddenly, it stopped again. Too dazed to move, Jack lay twisted in the shelter of the branches, his limbs trembling with shock and effort. He was so cold...

Mimi... He tried to call for her, hoping against all hope that she hadn’t been on the bridge when the water had hit, but all he could do was cough and retch, dirty water streaming out of his nose and mouth.

He gasped in a lungful of air. ‘Mimi...’

‘Stay down. Just for a moment.’

A woman’s voice, husky and sweet. Someone was wiping his face, clearing his eyes and mouth.

‘Mimi... My partner.’

‘She’s okay. I can see her on the other side of the river.’ That voice again. He reached out towards it and felt a warm hand grip his.

He opened his eyes, blinking against the light, and saw her face. Pale skin, with strands of short red hair escaping from the hood of her jacket. Strong cheekbones, a sweet mouth and the most extraordinary pale blue eyes. It was the kind of face you’d expect to find on some warrior goddess...

He shook his head. He must be in shock. Jack knew better than most the kind of nonsense that people babbled in situations like this. Unless she had a golden sword tucked away under her dark blue waterproof jacket, she was just an ordinary mortal, her face rendered ethereal because it was the first thing he’d seen when he opened his eyes.

‘Are you sure? Mimi’s okay?’

The woman glanced up only briefly, her gaze returning to him. ‘She’s wearing an ambulance service jacket. Blonde hair, I think...’

‘Yes, that’s her.’ Jack tried to move and found that his limbs had some strength in them now.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No...’ No one part of him hurt any more than the rest and Jack decided that was a good sign. ‘Thanks...um...’

‘I’m Cass... Cassandra Clarke.’

‘Jack Halliday.’

She gave a small nod in acknowledgement. ‘We’d better not hang around here for too long. Can you stand?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay, take it slowly.’ She reached over, disentangling his foot from a branch, and then scrambled around next to him, squeezing her body in between him and one of the tree trunks. With almost no effort on his part at all, he found himself sitting up as she levered her weight against his, her arms supporting him. Then she helped him carefully to his feet.

He turned, looking back over the bridge to find Mimi. Only the bridge wasn’t there any more. A couple of chunks of masonry were all that was left of it, rolling downstream under the pressure of the boiling water. He could see Mimi standing on the other side, staring fixedly at him, and beside her stood a man who he thought he recognised. Behind them, the lights still on and the driver’s door open, was a black SUV.

‘All right?’ Now that he was on his feet, he could see that Cass was tall, just a couple of inches shorter than him.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Jack felt for his phone and found that he had nothing in his pocket apart from a couple of stones and a handful of sludge. ‘I need to get to a phone...’

‘Okay. The village is only ten minutes away; we’ll get you up there first.’ She spoke with a quiet, irresistible authority.

Jack waved to Mimi, feeling a sharp ache in his shoulder as he raised his arm. She waved back, both hands reaching out towards him as if she was trying to retrieve him. Moving his hand in a circular motion as a sign that he’d call her, he saw the man bend to pick something up. Mimi snatched her phone from him and looked at it for a moment and then turned her attention back on to Jack, sending him a thumbs-up sign.

‘Did you mean to park the ambulance like that?’ There was a note of dry humour in Cass’s husky tones.

Jack looked over the water and saw that the ambulance had been washed off the road and was leaning at a precarious angle against a tree. He muttered a curse under his breath.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

Jack chuckled, despite the pain in his ribs. ‘What are you?’

She flushed red as if this was the one question she didn’t know how to answer. In someone so capable, the delicate shade of pink on her cheeks stirred his shaking limbs into sudden warmth.

‘What do you mean?’

‘None of this fazes you very much, does it? And you’ve been trained in how to lift...’ Jack recognised the techniques she’d used as very similar to his own. A little more leverage and a little less strength, maybe. And, although Cass didn’t give any orders, the men around her seemed to recognise her as their leader.

‘I’m a firefighter. I work at the fire station in town, but I’m off duty at the moment. On duty as a concerned family member, though—my sister Lynette’s the patient you’re coming to see.’

‘Then we’d better get going.’ Jack looked around for his bag and saw that one of the men was holding it, and that water was dripping out of it. He really was on his own here—no Mimi and no medical bag. He turned, accepting a supportive arm from one of the men, and began to walk slowly up the steep path with the group.

* * *

This wasn’t what Cass had planned. She’d hoped to be able to get Lynette safely to hospital well in advance but, stubborn as ever, her sister had pointed out that it was another two weeks before her due date and flatly refused to go.

The hospital was now out of reach, but a paramedic was the next best thing. And the floods had finally given her a break and quite literally washed Jack up, on to her doorstep.

Despite the layers of clothing, she’d still felt the strength of his body when she’d helped him up. Hard muscle, still pumped and quivering with the effort of holding on. It had taken nerve to stay put and hang on instead of trying to run from the water, but that decision had probably saved his life.

He was tall as well, a couple of inches taller than her own six feet. And despite, or maybe because of, all that raw power he had the gentlest eyes. The kind of deep brown that a girl could just fall into.

Enough. He might be easy on the eye, but that was nothing to do with her primary objective. Jack was walking ahead of her and Cass lengthened her stride to catch up with him.

‘Lynette’s actually been having mild contractions. She’s not due for another two weeks, but it seems as if the baby might come sooner.’ It was better to think of him as an asset, someone who could help her accomplish the task ahead. Bravery had got him here in one piece and those tender eyes might yet come in useful, for comforting Lynette.

‘Her first child?’

‘Yes.’ And one that Cass would protect at all costs.

‘Hopefully it’ll decide not to get its feet wet just yet. The weather’s too bad for the HEMS team to be able to operate safely tonight, but we may be able to airlift her out in the morning.’

‘Thanks. You’ll contact them?’

‘Yeah. Can I borrow your phone? I need to get hold of Mimi as well.’

‘Of course, but we’ll get you inside first. Who’s the guy with her?’

‘If it’s who I think it is, that’s her ex.’ A brief grin. Brief but very nice. ‘Mimi’s not going to like him turning up out of the blue.’

‘Complicated?’

‘Isn’t it always?’

He had a point. In any given situation, the complications always seemed to far outweigh the things that went right. Which meant that someone as gorgeous as Jack was probably dizzyingly complicated.

‘She’ll be okay, though? Your partner.’

‘Oh, yeah. No problems with Rafe; he won’t leave her stranded. He might have to tie her to a tree to stop her from killing him, but she’ll be okay.’ Despite the fact that Jack was visibly shivering, the warmth in his eyes was palpable.

Maybe Cass should have done that with her ex, Paul. Tied him to a tree and killed him when she’d had the chance. But he was a father now, and probably a half decent one at that. He had a new wife, and a child who depended on him.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any way we can get some more medical supplies over here?’ Jack’s voice broke her reverie. ‘Rafe’s a doctor and, knowing him, he’ll have come prepared for anything. I could do with a few things, just in case.’

Cass nodded. ‘Leave it with me; I’ll work something out. You need to get cleaned up and into some dry clothes before you do anything else.’

‘Yeah.’ The tremble of his limbs was making it through into Jack’s voice now. ‘I could do with a hot shower.’