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ONE

Luke Hargreaves had never seen such an unholy mess in all his life Uprooted trees co debris Dangerous electrical and glass hazards lay strewn everywhere Only one out of the dozen buildings that hts had sprawled for forty years had survived intact

Holy crap The resort was never going to recover from this

It was hard to believe standing underneath the perfect untainted blue of a tropical north Queensland sky, listening to the gentle kiss of waves as they lapped at the crescent beach fringing this idyllic tourist spot, that weather could be responsible for such violence

That the light breeze could build to cyclonic, that the cloudless sky could blacken with oe and pound

Sure, cyclones were one of the hazards of living on the northern Australian coastline and the resort had sustained daularly stalked the coast from November to March

But never like this

This one had been a monster and Crescent Cove’s number had been up

A decade in the UK had anaesthetised hi at the destruction now, it was a miracle no one had been killed

All thanks to Claudia

Luke’s gaze trekked fro on the beach, her back to the ocean as she surveyed the da it all in her stride But he knew Claudia Davis well Too well And her look of hopeless despair was evident even from this distance

Somehow inside his head, despite the march of titails and skinned knees And there was soly innocent about her today Her ponytail fluttering in the gentle breeze, her petite frame encased in the God-awful polyester Tropicana unifored since the seventies, that damn stupid clipboard she always carried around clutched to her chest

The intense little wrinkle of her brow as if she was trying to wish it all better from the power of her mind alone

He sighed He was not looking forward to this