Prescription-One Husband

CHAPTER TEN

FERN didn’t sleep.

This was her last night on the island.

What was she leaving?

Towards dawn she rose, pulled jeans and a blouse on over her swimming costume and made her way down to her cove.

There were traces of blood on the path where Pete had run the night before.

Stupid twit, she thought savagely. What sort of mindless idiot would shoot at dolphins and then turn the gun on a child when he was discovered?

If he was that stupid, surely Sergeant Russell would catch him. Whoever was responsible needed to be locked up fast.

She shed her jeans and walked steadily into the water, welcoming the cool surf on her tense body, and then swam strongly out to deep water. This would be her last swim…

Two hundred yards out she floated over on her back and looked back at the island.

Her home…

It wasn’t her home. She didn’t have a home. She’d never had one and she never would.

Quinn Gallagher was her home.

The errant thought crept into her mind, unbidden, and she blinked back tears. He said he loved her and the tone in his voice made her believe him. She’d never had love like that. Never.

‘I’ll always need you,’ he’d said.

But he needed Jess and he was married to Jess.

He was married to Fern’s friend, a girl who Fern couldn’t hurt if her life depended on it.

Maybe…maybe, in years to come, if he and Jess were divorced…

Oh, yes. After the baby-or whatever was holding them together…

Fat chance.

She closed her eyes again, drifting lazily in the currents, and only opened them when a black form nudged her side.

A dolphin…

‘Hi.’ Fern managed a smile. ‘Where’s your mate?’

She searched the water for the dolphin she had seen time and time again. The two normally swam as a pair.

She’d never seen just one.

‘I hope that clod last night didn’t do any damage,’ she whispered and then she drew in her breath.

Her searching eyes had caught something black. Something lying on the shore at the far end of the cove where the headland started to rise from the beach.

Maybe it was only a lump of seaweed.

Maybe not.

The lone dolphin nudged Fern again and then again, as if imparting an urgent message.

They weren’t stupid, these creatures.

Not as stupid as the cretin who’d been firing at them last night.

‘OK,’ she whispered to the dolphin, and Fern turned towards the beach. She put her head down and swam and the solitary dolphin followed her almost to shore.

It was the dolphin.

Of course it was the dolphin. As Fern neared the beach the mound on the sand focused into gleaming black. By the time she was wading through the shallows she could see its movement.

It was alive but stranded, thrashing uselessly on the dry sand.

‘Oh, no…’

Fern ran swiftly up the beach and squatted on the sand beside the stranded creature. Out to sea, its companion swam round in tight, anxious circles.

How on earth had it been beached?

The gun…

Of course it was the gun. A deep laceration ran through the flesh of the dolphin’s back, marring the gleaming body.

It had been shot. In pain and confusion it must have tried to escape the stinging hurt and ended up beached.

Fern bit her lip. She looked down at the laceration again. It was deep-but not too deep. If she could get the dolphin down to the water again…

She couldn’t. The dolphin must weigh as much as she did and it was a hundred times more slippery.

The creatures didn’t come with handholds.

So…

‘So, let’s get you wet,’ she muttered savagely, anger at this wanton act of cruelty welling through her. The dolphin’s skin was drying and if he was dry for long then he’d die. The sun was already warm.

Swiftly she ran to the other end of the beach where her jeans and blouse lay abandoned. She took them quickly into the water, soaked them and then carried them up to the dolphin.

Taking care to avoid the dolphin’s breathing hole, the small crescent-shaped hollow on his back, she wrung the sodden clothes out over him and then raced to the water again.

Five, six times she went until the dolphin was wet all over, its eyes watching her with weary vigilance.

‘OK, sweetheart,’ Fern whispered, laying the soaking clothes over him. Hopefully the wet cloth would keep most of him moist and the sun from burning his skin. ‘I’m going for help.’

It took five long moments for Fern to reach the farmhouse. Her uncle was still sleeping but it wasn’t her uncle Fern wanted.

She wanted a vet.

She rang the hospital and Jess answered on the first ring.

‘Fern?’ Her voice sounded astonished. ‘What’s wrong?’

Swiftly Fern outlined the problem.

‘OK.’ Like Quinn, Jess could also be clinically efficient ‘If it’s only a flesh wound then there shouldn’t be a problem-as long as we get him back in the water. I’ll bring some antibiotic and someone to help lift. See you soon.’

‘I’m sorry to wake you…’ Fern apologised before ringing off.

‘I was up, anyway.’

Someone else had suffered a sleepless night, then. The young vet’s voice was tight with strain.

Fern replaced the receiver with a heavy heart. Had Fern already hurt Jessie by her presence?

There was nothing she could do about that now.

There was nothing to do but wait.

Jess arrived ten minutes later and, as promised, Jess wasn’t alone.

She’d brought the heavy artillery.

Sergeant Russell-and Quinn.

‘Jess thought I should see what other damage the crazy coot’s done,’ the policeman told Fern. Even though it was still only a little after six in the morning he was fully uniformed-and he had a service pistol at his shoulder. He grimaced down at the dolphin.

‘I checked the beach last night,’ he said apologetically to Jess. ‘There was nothing here. I’m sure I would have found this beauty if he was here.’

‘If he was injured he might have been disorientated for a while.’ Jess was already kneeling in the sand, carefully inspecting the cut. ‘It doesn’t look as though he’s been beached for too long, Fern. See his eyes? They’re still quite bright and focusing. If he’d been here all night his eyes would be dull by now.’

‘So, what do we do?’ Fern had brought buckets from the farmhouse and she was carefully ladling water over the dolphin’s black body. She was just as carefully avoiding Quinn’s eyes.

Quinn was hardly looking at Jess or the dolphin-or Fern. His eyes raked the headland as though searching for someone.

The policeman knew who.

‘He’s hardly likely to be out at this hour,’ the sergeant said heavily, and Quinn nodded.

‘OK.’ Quinn turned his attention back to Jess. ‘What do you want us to do?’

‘Why did you come?’ Fern demanded shortly. ‘What if there’s an emergency at the hospital?’

Quinn laid his mobile phone down on a towel beside the dolphin.

‘Then I run,’ he said grimly. ‘But I’m staying here until this is sorted out.’ His eyes were heavy and as stressed as any of them. Now he turned from Fern to Jess. ‘What do you want of us, Jess?’ he repeated.

‘There’s a tarpaulin in my truck,’ Jess told him. ‘The wound seems to be clean enough. The shot must have just grazed him. I can’t see any evidence of lodged pellets.’

‘So?’ Quinn’s voice was sharp and his eyes were wandering again to the headland.

‘So I’ll give him a shot to prevent possible infection and we get him back in the water fast.’

There was still the strange tension in Jess. Her voice was so tight it was as though she was stretched to breaking point.

‘OK…’

They moved swiftly as a team. All seemed to have their private thoughts but all seemed to be keeping them to themselves as they worked.

The policeman and Quinn kept glancing up at the headland-as though they were expecting trouble any minute. Bad trouble.

It was enough to make Fern nervous herself-if she hadn’t been so desperately unhappy.

Jess didn’t look up. All her attention was on the dolphin, her small fingers skilfully clearing the air-hole and cleaning the wound. She filled her syringe and administered antibiotic and then, finally, she tugged the tarpaulin in and wedged it hard under the dolphin.

Then all four of them burrowed with their hands, pulling the heavy canvas under so that the dolphin was no longer lying on the sand.

He was cradled on canvas.

After that it was just a case of brute strength. It took the full strength of the four of them to drag the dolphin’s dead weight back down into the shallows.

‘Don’t let him sink,’ Jess warned as the water took most of the weight. Fern was the only one in a bathing costume but it didn’t seem to matter. The other three ignored their clothing and kept wading out, supporting the dolphin’s weight as he wallowed in the shallows.

They took him out to breast-deep and, under Jessie’s direction, headed his nose out to sea.

Still they held on.

The dolphin hardly moved.

‘It’ll take time for him to regain his balance,’ Jess told them. ‘I want you to rock him from side, gently at first. And keep his air-hole clear.’

They worked in silence. Half an hour. More. The dolphin lay passive in their hands.

The tension in the group was almost a physical thing. As a group they were worried about the dolphin but there was more than that.

The men kept glancing up at the headland. They were waiting for something.

Someone…

Fern couldn’t care. She was so aware of Quinn by her side that she wanted to weep. His sea-soaked body was touching hers, their shoulders brushing as they stood side by side in the water and their hands linked under the surface. The feel of him was almost unbearable.

She wanted to run-but she couldn’t…

And then the dolphin stirred in their grasp. They felt the taut muscles rippling as his body came alive.

He seemed to flex and flex again.

‘OK,’ breathed Jessie. ‘Let him try. Move back.’

With one accord they stepped back, their eyes all on the dolphin.

The dolphin sank slightly and a convulsive shudder ran through his gleaming black body.

It was like a dog, shaking himself after a bath.

Out to sea his mate watched and waited.

And waited.

And then the shuddering ceased. The dolphin steadied, firmed and his eyes seemed to focus. To look out to sea…

The massive muscles rippled.

He was ready.

Instinctively they stepped back further, granting him room. Granting him freedom…

And then the dolphin was moving, his gleaming body slicing through the water like a black arrow, leaping and coursing out through the shallows-to where his mate was waiting.

It was a fantastic sight. The clumsy, stranded creature was clumsy no more. He was with his mate and the pair were glistening shafts of light in the morning sun, headed for the freedom of the open sea.

They were safe.

It was all that mattered. It had to be all that mattered.

Fern was sobbing with mingled tension and relief. She stood shoulder-deep in the waves and watched them go and she had never seen anything more beautiful.

And then Quinn’s arm came round her. Like Fern, he was moved almost to tears. His arm held her tight, tighter, and she was lifted off her feet against his body in the water.

The hold tightened.

He was hers, the arm said.

A wave washed hard against her, knocking her off balance, and Quinn’s arms steadied her. Steadied…

Claiming his own!

Her face lifted to his-driven by forces stronger than either Fern or Quinn.

Forces not to be reckoned with.

And then Quinn was kissing her as though there were no one else in sight. As though there were no Jessie…

As though there were no tomorrow…

But, of course, there was.

‘Quinn!’

The kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun.

The policeman’s yell of warning spun Quinn round like a pistol shot. Sergeant Russell was staring up at the headland and his hand was hauling out his service revolver.

Fern was released as though she burned. She fell backwards into the waves.

There was a man on the headland and he was pointing a gun.

He was pointing a gun straight at the group in the water.

Fern floundered backwards, losing her footing almost completely but still staring up at the headland in mesmerised horror.

And Quinn had deserted her.

Quinn Gallagher was launching himself at Jess as though possessed.

‘Jess…’ he yelled desperately, and his voice held all that Fern would ever need to know. ‘Jess…’

He reached the vet and grabbed her, twisting her body round so that he protected her, cradling her against hurt.

And then the morning was shattered into a million pieces.

A searing, red-hot pain cut across Fern’s head. She lifted her hand-and her fingers came away warm and red with blood.

It was the last thing she knew.