Read Online No Rescue by Jenny Schwartz - Free Book Online

Chapter 1
    Miri blamed the pelican.
    If it hadn’t greeted the dawn with a comically wide yawn of its great bill and an awkward ruffled spread of its wings, like a toddler staggering with sleep, then she wouldn’t have laughed.
    If she hadn’t laughed, then Action Man wouldn’t have looked up at the balcony and caught her watching.
    â€˜Are you busy?’ he’d shouted up.
    Her fingers tightened around the mug of her soothing herbal tea. No caffeine for her.
    She couldn’t ignore him. It would be rude. And it would be even worse to get up and go inside. There was only so often a woman could retreat from life before losing her self-respect.
    â€˜I mean, are you working today?’ he called.
    She put the mug on the railing and leaned over the first-floor balcony. ‘I don’t know you.’ She pitched her voice midway between conversation and a shout.
    He grinned and came closer, standing below her. Sunlight glinted on his cropped fair hair and showed darker sweat patches on his tight grey T-shirt. Black running shorts revealed lean, powerful thighs and calves.
    Not that she could see the length of those legs from this angle, but she’d been watching him for the last two weeks, timing her early morning cuppa to include the sight of him against the incredible backdrop of Sydney Harbour at dawn.
    â€˜I’m Tad Robertson, Sergeant Thaddeus Robertson from the Water Police.’ He sketched a reporting-for-duty salute.
    Marine Area Command was just down the shore from her borrowed apartment.
    â€˜Do you have some ID?’
    â€˜On me?’ Comically, he patted the tight shirt and flimsy shorts. They couldn’t hide the muscles of his body, let alone a badge.
    â€˜Never mind.’ She picked up the mug of tea.
    â€˜I thought we could go to the zoo.’
    â€˜Pardon?’ Tea sloshed.
    â€˜Ride the ferries and go to the zoo. Public and safe. A good first date.’
    First date.
    â€˜You’re nuts.’ So was she, for being tempted. ‘You can’t pick up women as you run past.’ Although he did have the body for it. Probably women tried to pick him up. She shook off the thought. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
    â€˜Day off. The zoo has a baby giraffe. I saw it on the news.’
    He had to be psychic. She loved giraffes, collected statues of them, and had seen the same news story on TV. Only she hadn’t been able to summon the energy to get herself to the zoo. It wasn’t a lack of physical energy. It was ‘a malaise of the soul’, to quote her Sorbonne-educated gran.
    â€˜Thirty minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you back here in thirty minutes. Wear your walking shoes.’
    He ran off, moving with purpose, and with the power and control of a well-trained body.
    She could believe he was a sergeant: he was bossy. Still she leaned over the railing, craning her neck for a final view of him, a mighty fine view — and he looked back!
    Smart-ass.
    He turned around, running backwards a few steps, to salute her. ‘Thirty minutes.’
    Yep. Definitely a sergeant’s voice.
    She sipped her tea as a small act of defiance, but as he jogged around the red-brick house on the corner she knew she’d be downstairs in thirty minutes. He’d done the impossible and ignited a spark of interest in her.
    A lot of things changed for her seven weeks ago, but apparently she still couldn’t resist a dare. Especially one who looked like Sergeant Tad Robertson.
    ***
    Tad ran the familiar harbour-side path back to Marine Area Command on auto-pilot, his mind filled with the vision of the woman he’d just invited on a date. He shook his head, silently laughing. He still didn’t know her name, only that she’d appeared two weeks ago, always alone, always on the balcony in the early morning. He’d changed the routine of his training so that he ran past daily.
    Maybe it had been too long between