The Tortured Rebel Read online

  Hate was the flip side of love.

  And a hate this vehement had to be the flip side of adoration.

  A teenage crush.

  A desperate desire to be noticed as more than just the kid sister of a member of that elite tribe. The four ‘bad boys’ of Greystones Grammar school. She’d only been eight years old when she’d first met him, when he’d come home with Matt for a holiday from boarding school. That had been the start of it.

  Matt’s death had finished it, of course. She’d never wanted to set eyes on Jet again.

  Becca armed the emergency light in the helicopter and checked the voltmeter. She fired up the engines and finally watched the rotors start to move and pick up speed and height. It was then that the black-clad figure emerged from the hangar door, stooping a little as he came under the rotors to climb into the side door.

  Her sigh was unheard, but heartfelt.

  Maybe it was true that you should never say never.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE ocean was never far away in this island country and the lights of New Zealand’s largest city swiftly became a backdrop to the airborne helicopter.

  The only communication on board had been between Becca and the mainland. The traffic controller supervised her clearance, confirmed her flight plan and provided a detailed report on weather conditions. For some time after that, the conversation was between others on the ground. Patchy conversations came through about the precise position of the closest ship to the island, the direction it was taking and how long it might be before they reached the island. Confirmation was sought and gained that Becca would be able to refuel using Department of Conservation stores on the island. A worrying update on the condition of the injured people was received and relayed and if it had been possible to fly faster, it would be happening.

  With plans in place and the sense of urgency increased, it seemed that any further conversation between anybody was pointless for the time being and, nearly an hour into the flight, the only sound in the cockpit was the roar of powerful engines and the chop of the spinning rotors.

  Jet was wearing a helmet with built-in earphones so he could hear whatever was going on. There were open channels to flight control, the helicopter rescue base and the army command in charge of this mission and he’d been taking notice of everything said. Becca could also flip channels so that they could talk to each other without being overheard by anyone else but so far Jet hadn’t bothered to pull his microphone attachment down from the rim of his helmet.

  He’d been content to listen and simply watch, in no small way amazed that Matt’s little sister was doing this at all. Doing it well, too. He had plenty of experience in helicopters. He could fly one himself if he had to, so he could appreciate her skill and the calm control she had over this machine. Just as well, he thought wryly, given that they were carrying enough extra fuel to blow them both to smithereens if something had gone wrong on take-off.

  Yep. However unlikely it seemed, Becca Harding had grown up to become a helicopter pilot. Maybe it shouldn’t seem so odd. Matt had loved nothing more than getting out with the rest of them and pushing his body and a big bike to the limits. Or was that one of the things that had created the bond between them? The knowledge that Matt didn’t have quite the same bravado and that his courage was tested every time? Part of Jet had been impressed. Another part had wanted to watch over him like a big brother and make sure that nothing bad happened.

  But something bad had happened, hadn’t it?

  Jet pushed the accusation back where it had come from with a ruthless mental shove but that only seemed to send other things bubbling to the surface. An image of the small girl he’d met, way back when he’d gone home with Matt for a school holiday. A lonely child being raised by very wealthy and largely absentee parents. Another from years later when they had all stopped in for a day or two at the country mansion on a road trip. More specifically, the memory was the absolute admiration and adoration on a teenage girl’s face as she saw her much older brother after too long apart. And the memory that had been captured unwillingly the next day when she had joined them in the swimming pool in her bikini and more than just his brain had taken note that she was no longer a child.

  Holy cow! That particular memory had been buried with enough shame to ensure it never escaped. What was happening to him? Jet’s scowl deepened as he slumped into his harness, letting minute after minute tick past. Given the roar of engine noise, it was amazing how the atmosphere in this cockpit was starting to feel like a brooding silence. How the tension was ratcheting upwards.

  It was ten years ago! It hadn’t been his fault, any more than it had been Max’s or Rick’s. They’d blamed themselves, of course. Especially him, because he’d been the one to have the hunch that Matt’s headache wasn’t just a hangover hanging on too long. He’d been the one to earn an ED consultant’s wrath, arguing that a CT was justified despite the lack of any real symptoms. They had been such junior doctors then—already branded as being brilliant but maverick. None of them had been able to juggle rosters to keep an eye on Matt when he’d decided he’d go to an on-call room and sleep it off.

  And it had been Jet who’d gone to try and rouse him, hours later. Nobody had argued about the CT being needed after that. The horror of finding him and learning that a brain aneurysm had ruptured as he slept would never go away completely. Or the pain of being shut out for the next few days as Matt’s parents tried to cope with his grief-stricken sister and make agonising decisions about organ donation and turning off the life support.

  They’d gone over and over it so many times. They’d made peace with it. He shouldn’t have to go through it all again. Shouldn’t have to be even thinking about it. It was Becca’s fault. For being here. For still hating him.

  How much longer was this ride going to last? Jet reached to touch the GPS screen and get an update on what distance had been covered.

  ‘Hands off,’ Becca growled. ‘I’m the only person who touches the controls in here.’

  ‘Whoa …’ Jet drawled, his hand now in a ‘stop’ signal of mock surrender.

  Another minute of an even more tense atmosphere. He sighed inwardly and then flipped his microphone into place as he slid a sideways glance at Becca.

  ‘What if you pass out or something? You expect me to hurtle to my doom even when I’m perfectly capable of handling a BK117?’

  Becca was staring straight ahead, as though she was driving a car and needed to keep her eyes on the road. A jerk of her head said that the notion was too farfetched to be worth commenting on.

  ‘You want information, you ask,’ she said. ‘My bird. My rules.’

  Man, she sounded tough. Jet would normally find that worthy of respect but this was Becca and the image she was presenting jarred with what he remembered of her. Especially the last time he’d seen her, a few weeks before her brother’s death, at a party hosted by the four of them in the old house they’d rented together. Becca had just arrived in the city to start her nursing degree.

  An eighteen-year-old, glowing with the excitement of launching herself into the adult world. She’d been all dressed up and ready to party with rings on her fingers and killer heels on her toes. Her hair had been a wild cascade of curls that bounced on her bare shoulders and she had even smelled. amazing.

  The effect of witnessing this butterfly girl emerging into womanhood had been absolutely riveting. Matt hadn’t missed the way Jet’s jaw had dropped.

  ‘Don’t even go there in your head,’ his mate had growled. ‘You’re the prime example of the kind of guy I intend to keep my kid sister well away from.’

  The warning had been tempered with a good-natured grin and a friendly punch on the shoulder but it had been serious enough to cause a flash of fear later that night. When Matt had almost walked in on what had happened in the kitchen …

  Oh … man. Did that memory have to surface again now, as well?

  Of course it did. It had never been buried all that well, had it?r />
  Jet had to break this train of thought. He sent a sideways glare at the cause of this mental turbulence. Becca was still staring resolutely straight ahead, seemingly confident of being in control. He couldn’t even see that much of her head with that helmet on and it was helpful to remember that she was nothing like the way she was in that memory of that party night.

  Now her hair was as short as a boy’s and, as far as he could tell, she was wearing neither jewellery nor make-up. And what had her boss called her?

  Bec.

  The shortest, sharpest diminutive of her name possible.

  What was wrong with her old nickname? Was Becca too feminine now? Too soft?

  What had happened to that girl?

  Jet had to swallow hard. As if he didn’t know.

  And he didn’t want to remember, anyway, did he? He hadn’t seen this woman in a decade. They were strangers now. Besides, maybe it wasn’t so out of character, now that he came to think of it. Jet felt a corner of his mouth lifting. He couldn’t help it. He actually snorted with amusement.

  ‘What?’ Becca turned towards him. The helmet seemed too big for her and it made her look younger. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips almost pursed with annoyance. ‘You have a problem with something? Like the fact that I’m in charge here?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘What’s so damn funny, then?’

  ‘It just reminded me of something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You. Cheating at Snakes and Ladders.’

  ‘I didn’t cheat.’

  ‘No. You just made up your own rules. What was it? Throw an odd number and you got to go up the snakes instead of down?’

  ‘I was eight years old. A lifetime ago.’ Her tone was a warning. ‘Keep your memories to yourself, OK?’

  ‘My game, my rules,’ Jet murmured.

  It was probably coincidence that they happened to hit some turbulence at that precise moment but he glared suspiciously at his pilot anyway. He might have no choice about her being in charge right now but he didn’t have to like it, did he?

  Damn it!

  She’d just begun to think that this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Jet had always been the brooding type. An intrinsic part of the group but inclined to listen more than speak. To be there. Often leading the action, in fact, but fully informed and able to watch everyone else’s back at the same time.

  Powerful. With an edge of darkness that had intrigued her from the word go. She’d been scared of him on that first meeting, as any eight-year-old kid would have been, but then she’d finally seen him smile and chasing down that rare occurrence had become her mission. Learning that she could tease and coax him, as easily as her big brother, into doing exactly what she wanted—like playing Snakes and Ladders her way—had been a bonus.

  Becca was checking every single dial and switch on her control panel. Altitude and power. Fuel supply and speed. RPMs of the main and tail rotors. Checks that were only necessary right now due to her desperate attempt to focus on nothing more than the job in hand.

  Yeah. It had been going fine while her passenger had been sitting there quietly. She’d been a bit too aware of him, of course. His size and the sheer … maleness he had always emanated. The tension had been noticeable but manageable, as well. Becca was only too happy to put up with a silent, sulky passenger in this particular instance.

  But then he’d tried to mess with her controls! He’d almost smiled. Made fun of the fact that she was in charge here. He’d even brought up a somewhat embarrassing reminder of her past and taken her back a little too clearly. Good grief, she’d actually felt eight years old again for a heartbeat or two.

  She hadn’t liked it, either. Not one little bit.

  Because she didn’t want to remember or was it because she didn’t want him thinking of her as someone’s kid sister any more?

  The tight feeling in her chest increased until it was painful to suck in a breath. She wasn’t anyone’s kid sister any more, was she? And it was his fault.

  And she really, really didn’t want to spend the next couple of hours or so thinking about what life had been like back then and how much she still missed her big brother. It would have been bad enough simply seeing Jet from a distance. Being this close to him and only him, miles from anywhere, was almost unbearable. It was opening an old wound that had been too huge to ever heal over completely and the opening process was a threat. There were soft things underneath that scar that had to be protected at all costs.

  Memories.

  Feelings.

  Hopes and dreams.

  Her heart.

  Maybe he was right to make fun of her being in charge and trying to sound tough.

  Maybe it was all a sham.

  The patch of turbulence was great. Becca could feel every tiny nuance of the buffeting and hear the changes in engine noise as though her chopper was talking to her. She became absorbed in her flying and found the thrill creeping back. Being so connected that she became a part of the machine. Or maybe it was an extension of her body. Whatever. They were aloft. She could see the patchy moonlight catching the whitecaps on the ocean below and they were speeding into the night. The turbulence added just enough to the adrenaline rush of it all and by the time they were back into calm air, Becca had found an inner equilibrium, as well.

  It didn’t matter what Jet remembered or what he thought of her now. She was in charge. Of this chopper and who touched its controls. Of what communication, if any, took place between the people involved in this mission.

  Flipping channels, Becca checked in with flight control and with her base. Richard was close to the radio.

  ‘Any update on patient status?’ she queried.

  ‘No further communication,’ Richard responded. ‘The link was patchy and we think we might have lost it.’

  ‘Roger that. Any update from the met office?’

  ‘Aftershocks being recorded. Nothing major.’

  ‘Roger. I’ll get back to you when we’re closer to target.’

  Closing off her outward channel to the mainland, Becca left the internal link open. Just in case she felt like talking to Jet.

  Which she didn’t.

  They had nothing in common other than this mission. If it had been anyone else with her, she’d be practically grilling him about what it was like to be part of an elite group like the SAS. What kind of training they got and where they’d been. She would have soaked up every story she could extract and revelled in vicarious dangers. But to ask anything would be opening a Pandora’s box with Jet. She’d end up getting filled in on what he’d been doing for the past ten years. She’d probably hear about Max and Rick, as well, and she had to stay away from those connections to the past.

  She didn’t want to hear about how close they would still be with each other. That whole ‘bad boy’ vibe that had been a secret pact and bond that she’d been so in awe of. Good grief, she’d actually taken up nursing simply to stay in their orbit. All of them had been special but Matt and Jet had stood out, of course. So different from each other but way too much alike in the power they’d had over her.

  The power to be the centre of the universe. Trustworthy and indestructible.

  Yes. She had to stay away from it to protect herself. Because she knew now that it wasn’t true. That it was just an illusion.

  She had to focus on the present. That fact that she and Jet had nothing in common but this mission. She would take him to the island, drop him off and then fly out of his life and probably never see him again.

  Her salvation lay in that, she realised. Or was it a bad idea to break the silence that had filled in such a good chunk of time now? She could be professional but distant. Discussing the mission might be vastly preferable to sitting in a verbal desert for hours and fighting the pull into the past.

  ‘How much do you know about Tokolamu island?’ The question came out abruptly, almost an accusation of ignorance. No wonder Jet’s eyebrow rose.
r />   ‘As much as I need to know.’ The tone was laid back enough to be a drawl. ‘It’s the tip of a volcano that could erupt at any time. There are people on top of it who need to get off.’

  His voice was right in her ears. As dark and deep as everything else about this man. That mix of being offhand and supremely confident was him all over, too. A lot of people would find that insufferable rather than attractive.

  Maybe she was one of them.

  ‘Some of those people are hurt,’ Jet continued. ‘It’s my job to look after them. Your job is to get me there.’

  Yep. She was one of them. Arrogance, that’s what it boiled down to.

  ‘Tokolamu’s more than just the tip of a volcano,’ she informed him. ‘It’s a significant nature reserve. It’s got about seventy species of birds on or around it and that includes a successful breeding programme for endangered kiwi.’

  The grunting sound indicated minimal interest but the conversation was working for Becca. Impersonal. Safe.

  ‘There’s weka there, too. And even kakapo. Did you know they’re the world’s heaviest parrot?’

  ‘Can’t say I did.’

  ‘They’re also the only flightless and nocturnal parrot in existence.’

  ‘Flightless, huh?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘They’d be mates with the kiwis, then?’

  It was Becca’s turn to make a vaguely disparaging sound. Was he putting her down again?

  ‘Well, I reckon the other sixty-eight or so species of bird must think they’re a bit inferior.’ There was something more alive in Jet’s tone now. ‘When did you decide you wanted to fly, Becca?’

  Becca. Nobody called her that these days. She was Rebecca to people who didn’t know her well and Bec to her closer associates. A short, firm kind of name. No frills. Just the way she liked it.

  So why did he make it sound like that was her real name? As though everyone else, including herself, had been using the wrong one all these years? She shook the disturbing notion away and latched on to his query with relief.