Chapter Twenty-Four

Leaving Bevan to work on the plane, Cody and Annabel slowly made their way back to Villa Luna, stopping every so often to clear branches from the jungle track.

Walking a little ahead, Annabel was caught up in a description of the damage in Avarua and how petrifying it had been to get off the ground. Listening to the husky sweetness of her voice, Cody felt like a sleepwalker who had stumbled into a dream so wonderful she could not bear to wake.

Annabel turned suddenly. “I don’t know why I’m chattering like this. I think it’s adrenalin.” Beaming, she reached for Cody, pulling her close, kissing her with wild joy.

“I can’t believe you’re home.” Cody’s words were all but silenced by Annabel’s mouth.

Stripping Cody’s T-shirt away, she fell on her hungrily and they sank onto the hot crush of the jungle floor, each frantically removing the other’s clothes. It occurred to Cody that any minute Bevan would probably show up, or one of the women from the cave would stumble across them. But she didn’t care. Grasping Annabel’s breasts, she buried her face between them, then captured a nipple, tormenting it with teeth and tongue until it grew marble hard in her mouth.

Urgently, desperately, she pushed her knee between Annabel’s thighs, pressing hard against her wetness. Backing her up against a fractured tree trunk, reason and restraint lost to some primal imperative, she cradled that sweet slippery core against her palm.

With a breathless whimper of pleasure, Annabel arched her back and rocked her hips hard against Cody’s hand, offering herself for the taking, urging her on with hoarse little pleas.

Filling her, working into her with hard, rapid strokes, Cody lifted her head, finding her mouth once more, exploring its depths with a craving so profound she thought it could never be slaked. Blood mixed with the taste of salt and sweat, and Cody drew back slightly, uncertain whose mouth was bruised.

In that instant she felt Annabel’s fingers dig into her shoulders, refusing to be denied the release she needed. Braced against one another, they seemed merged somehow, locked in a ritual known only to their bodies.

With a sense of wonder, Cody felt Annabel clench around her, drawing her deeper. Then she was shaking uncontrollably, engulfed by a series of contractions that radiated from her womb to the heart pounding against Cody’s breast.

Panting, barely able to stand, they rested their heads one against the other for what seemed an eternity. When finally their breathing grew more even, Cody said, “Did I mention I’m happy to see you? ”

Annabel smiled into her shoulder. “Mmmn… maybe you should tell me again.”

Villa Luna had lost its verandah and part of its roof, but otherwise it appeared to be remarkably intact. Cody and Annabel reached the front door just in time to hear a loud petulant complaint from within.

“All I can get is a pile of static. The fucking thing must be broken.”

Annabel drew a startled breath.

Lifting a hand, Cody whispered, “That would be Dawn.” Obviously the young woman was none the worse for wear.

“They must have landed by now, ” said another voice. Brenda.

“Well, one of us is going to have to find that bloody strip, and I guess it’ll have to be me.”

Could anyone sound resentful and pleased all at once? Dawn certainly gave it her best shot.

“Look after her, ” she ordered, and Cody felt a stab of alarm. How was Catherine’s leg? The wound was looking inflamed by the time she had left.

“That bloody Cody Stanton.” Dawn was on a roll. “She was definitely here. That bed’s been slept in and her T-shirt’s on the floor. She’s probably sunbathing on the beach or something while we’re half dead. Just wait ’til I find her.”

Annabel raised expressive eyebrows.

“Looks like I’m dog food, ” Cody mouthed.

“…a bloody knuckle sandwich, ” the litany continued.

As footsteps approached, Cody and Annabel jumped guiltily into the shadows. A bedraggled young woman emerged from the Villa, hovered for a moment in the doorframe then dropped down onto ground. Picking her way through the wreckage of the verandah, she started into the jungle in the opposite direction from the strip. She was filthy, jeans and T-shirt torn and stained with sweat and jungle. Her wavy honey-colored hair was matted and tied back into a sorry ponytail with a shoelace that looked like one of Brenda’s fluorescent orange specials.

Cody took a couple of paces into the open and called, “Dawn, you’re going the wrong way.”

The blonde ponytail bobbed as Dawn stopped in her tracks and spun round. “You! ” she burst out. “Where the fuck have you been? ”

Her face was a picture. Anger, relief and mortification all at once. Cody expected to be slapped, but instead Dawn virtually threw herself into her arms.

Completely overwrought, she wailed, “Thank God you’re all right. We were so worried, and Catherine’s leg is all swollen, and we got lost. It was awful.” She wiped her running eyes and nose on her fist, then slapped Cody with both hands, sobbing. “Where were you? You promised you’d come back for us.”

“I’m sorry.” Cody stilled her hands and led the hysterical young woman over to Annabel. “I’m here now, and you made it all on your own. That was really brave.”

She dragged the wicker chaise lounge from beneath a pile of smashed timber and sat Dawn on it, giving her shoulders an encouraging squeeze. “Sit out here with Annabel and relax. I’m going inside to take a look at Catherine’s leg.”

“We’ve got a full medical kit in the plane, ” Annabel said as Cody hoisted herself up into the doorway.

They were both surprised when Dawn scrambled up, dusted herself off, and said, “I’ll get it. Which way do I go? ”

Annabel opened her mouth to give directions, thought again, and said, “Come with me.”

It was nearly daybreak when Annabel and Cody finally crawled exhausted into bed.

Dawn, Brenda and Catherine were bunked down in the guest room and Bevan in the living room. They had patched the roof as best they could with wood and leaves.

Fortunately the Dominie’s medical kit was well equipped with local anesthetic, antibiotics and surgical instruments, and Bevan and Cody between them had stitched Catherine’s leg where the wound had reopened. Bevan, Cody had discovered, was often called on by the islanders if a doctor wasn’t available. He was a trained paramedic and told Cody that since flying the islands, he had also acquired a specialty in emergency pig surgery.

After Catherine had been made comfortable with pain-killers and the two other women were sound asleep, Cody and Annabel had met to devise a plan for getting everyone off the island and back to Rarotonga. Bevan made radio contact with Avarua to provide a status update, and within the next twenty-four hours an army medical team would arrive to chopper them out.

“What a day! ” Cody snuggled against Annabel and sighed contentedly. “I wish I had some energy left.”

Annabel stroked her face lovingly. “Me, too. But we need to get some sleep. We’ve got a heap of work to do tomorrow...today.”

“I can’t believe all this has happened, ” Cody said. “Twenty-four hours just doesn’t seem long enough for a hurricane, a plane crash, and major surgery.”

Annabel smiled at the embellishments, then said, “A month doesn’t seem long enough to have had my whole life turned upside down. I haven’t even had a chance to tell you about it all.”

“Me neither, ” Cody said. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“We’ve got plenty of time, ” Annabel said and kissed her gently. “I want us to be together always. We belong together.”

Cody felt a rush of emotion at Annabel’s words. She’d experienced that same sense. Of belonging with Annabel. Of destiny throwing them together from continents apart. At times it seemed so bizarre and unlikely that it was almost beyond belief. Cody had been laid off the day Annabel’s aunt had been buried. If Cody’s employer hadn’t made a mistake with zeros she would never have dreamed of “escaping” to an island, if Margaret hadn’t left her...if...

“We were meant for each other, ” she murmured sleepily. “I tried to run away, but I couldn’t.”

“Me, too.” Annabel rocked her slowly, kissed her eyelids closed. “I love you, ” she whispered.

And while they slept in each other’s arms, an innocent breeze stirred the palms on Passion Bay and the island awoke to an untroubled horizon.

Epilogue

A year later in a Back Bay apartment, Annabel Worth slid onto her lover’s knee and bit her neck softly. “What’s the book, sweetheart? ”

“It’s the latest Amanda Valentine, ” Cody enthused. “And guess what. It’s set in Rarotonga! Hey! ” she objected as Annabel whipped the book out of her hands and scanned the opening lines.

The second Amanda Valentine laid eyes on Lucy Jones she knew she was looking at trouble. But she liked what she saw anyway. Lucy was sitting two tables down, mutilating a fish.

With mounting disbelief, Annabel snapped the book shut and examined the jacket as though it were alive with crawling things. Last Tango in Rarotonga by Rose Beecham, and an artist’s impression of the Rarotongan Resort Hotel on a stormy night.

“So what do you think of it? ” she asked Cody faintly.

“It’s great, ” Cody pronounced. “Although a bit far-fetched, especially that first scene when she meets Lucy and they jump straight into bed. Right in the middle of a hurricane. I mean, really.”

Cody rolled her eyes and Annabel dropped the book back into her lover’s lap, snuggling closer and smiling at a private joke.

“You know, Cody Stanton, ” she said, sliding her hands over her lover’s midriff. “I love you.”