she said, and she subsided again into misery. ‘Jess wouldn’t have wanted his mother hurt more than she has been. If you don’t want to tell her, then don’t.’ Her face crumpled and he fought a crazy, irrational impulse to take her into his arms, to hold her, to comfort her as one might comfort a wounded child.
But this was no child. This girl was part of the group that had destroyed his brother. Drugs, surf, drugs, surf... It had been that way since Matt could remember.
Get out of here fast, he told himself. This girl has nothing to do with you. The cheque absolves you from all responsibility.
Wasn’t that what his father had said?
‘Sign the papers,’ he told her roughly, rising to his feet with deliberation. ‘And don’t shoot the entire value of that cheque up your arm.’
She met his eyes again at that, and once again he saw fire.
‘Go back to Australia,’ she said flatly. ‘I can see why Jessie ran.’
‘It’s nothing to do—’
‘I’m not listening,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll sign your papers. Go.’
* * *
Kelly sat where she was for a long time after Matt had left. The receptionist would like her gone. She could understand that, but she was the widow of the deceased. The funeral home would be repatriating the body to Australia. It’d be a nice little earner. It behoved the receptionist to be courteous, even if Kelly was messing with the décor.
She needed a wash. She conceded that, too. More, she needed a change of clothes, a feed and a sleep. About a month’s sleep.
She was so tired she could scarcely move.
So tired...
The last few days had been appalling. She’d known Jess’s depression had deepened but not this much, never this much. Still, when he’d disappeared she’d feared the worst, and the confirmation had been a nightmare. And now... She’d sat in this place waiting for so long...
Not for him, though. For his father. She hadn’t expected a man who was scarcely older than she was.
Matt Eveldene. What sort of a name was Eveldene anyway?
A new one. She stared at the bright new ring on her finger, put there by Jess only weeks ago. ‘You’ll be safe now,’ he’d told her. ‘It’s all I can do, but it should protect you.’
She’d known he was ill. She shouldn’t have married him, but she’d been terrified, and he’d held her and she’d clung. But she hadn’t been able to cling hard enough, and here she was, in this nightmare of a place.
She’d been here for almost twenty-four hours, waiting for whoever came as the representative of Jess’s family. She knew they’d have to come here.
She had to ask.
‘If ever something happens, will you scatter my ashes out to sea, babe?’ Jess had asked her. Had that only been a week ago? It seemed like a year.
She’d failed at that, too. Matt had simply overridden her.
Like father, like son? Jess had told her of his bully of a father. She’d been gearing herself up to face Henry Eveldene, but Matt’s arrival in his father’s stead had thrown her.
She’d failed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the closed door behind which Jessie’s body lay. ‘I’m so sorry, Jess.’
There was nothing more she could do.
She rose and took a deep breath, trying to figure how to find the strength to walk outside, catch a bus, get away from this place of death. Nausea swept over her again but she shoved it away. She didn’t have the energy to be sick.
‘Mrs Eveldene?’ The receptionist’s voice made her pause.
‘Yes?’ It was so hard to make her voice work.
‘You’ve dropped your cheque,’ the girl said. She walked out from behind her desk, stooped to retrieve it and handed it to her. As she did, she checked it, and her eyes widened.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t want to lose this, would you?’
* * *
Matt stood outside the funeral parlour, dug his hands deep into his pockets and stood absolutely still, waiting for the waves of shock and grief to subside. The image of Jess was burned on his retinas. His beautiful, adored big brother. His Jess, wasted, cold and dead on a mortuary slab.
He felt sick to the core. The anger inside him was building and building, but he knew deep down that it was only a way to deflect grief.
If he let his anger take hold he’d walk right back in there, pick up that piece of flotsam and shake her till her teeth rattled, but it would do no good at all. For that was all she was, a piece of detritus picked up somewhere along Jessie’s useless mess of a life.
What a sickening waste.
But suddenly he found himself thinking of the girl inside, of those huge, desperate eyes. Another life heading for nothing.
But those eyes...that flash of anger...
That was more than waste, he thought. There was something that Jess had loved, even a kind of beauty, and, underneath the anger, part of him could see it.
He could turn around and try and help.
Yeah, like he’d tried to help with Jess. Useless, useless, useless.
He’d given her money to survive. ‘Don’t waste it all,’ he found himself saying out loud, to no one, to the girl inside, to the bright Hawaiian sun. But it was a forlorn hope, as his hopes for Jessie had always been forlorn.
Enough. It was time to move forward. It was time to forget the waif-like beauty of the girl inside this nightmare of a place. It was time to accompany his brother’s body home for burial.
It was time to get on with the rest of his life.
CHAPTER ONE
SHE HAD THE best job in the world—except right now.
Dr Kelly Eveldene was the physician in charge of the International Surf Pro-Tour. For the last four years she’d been head of the medical team that travelled with the world’s top surfers. She was competent, she was popular, she understood the lingo, and she knew so many of the oldtimer surfers that the job suited her exactly.
There were a couple of downsides. This year the pro tournament had moved to Australia for the world championships. She wasn’t happy about coming to Australia, but Australia was big. The other Eveldenes lived in Sydney and the surf championship was to be held on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Her chances of running into...anybody were minuscule.
She’d done the research now. Henry Eveldene—her ex-father-in-law—was a business tycoon, rich beyond belief, and Eveldene was an uncommon name. Still, surely the presence in the country of a couple of inconspicuous people with similar names wouldn’t come to his attention.
Her other quibble was that Jess was competing this year, his first time out of juniors. He was seventeen years old, surf mad and as skilled as his father before him. She couldn’t hold him back and she didn’t want to try. Her son was awesome. But now, at this level, with the surf so big and Jess trying so hard, she had qualms.
She had qualms right now.
She was in the judging tent on the headland, as she always was during competition. There were paramedics on jet skis close to the beach, ready for anything that happened in the surf. In the event of an accident she’d be on the beach in seconds, ready to take charge as soon as casualties were brought in. If it looked like a head or spinal injury—and after long experience with the surf she could pretty much tell from seeing the impact what to expect—she’d be out there with the