There was dead silence on the beach.

The child’s parents and the other lifesaver were working frantically, rubbing off tiny parts of tentacle from legs and arms and around Ryan’s pounding hands, while the older boy kept the affected area awash with vinegar. A small crowd had gathered around, but no one spoke. The parents’ faces were streaked with tears, but no one made a sound.

They just worked.

And then there was the sound of the siren. Moments later, the ambulance appeared across the headland and lurched across the beach. It stopped before it reached Ryan’s car, the driver clearly worrying more about being bogged down than Ryan had, and in seconds two ambulance officers were running across the sand toward them.

They had what Ryan most needed. Oxygen. Adrenalin. And antivenom.

‘Give it to Ryan,’ Abbey ordered, pointing at Ryan as the ambulancemen stopped, astounded at the sight of her. ‘Dr Henry. He’s in charge now.’

And two minutes later the boy started breathing again.

Despite their success, they still couldn’t relax. The fact that they had the child breathing again meant little yet in terms of whether he lived or died. The boy was still deeply unconscious but, breathing, he had a chance. That was all they knew. Keeping him breathing gave the antivenim time to work. It meant there was time for a miracle.

He was loaded speedily into the ambulance, and Ryan took charge.

‘I’ll go with the ambulance,’ he said crisply, with only a fleeting thought as to what he should be doing right now. Damn, this was his holiday-his honeymoon, for heaven’s sake-but there wasn’t a lot of choice here. He looked across at the lifesavers. ‘Can one of you bring Dr Rhodes in to the hospital? She has a dislocated knee, possible fracture and possible concussion.’ He’d like to take her in the ambulance but if the child stopped breathing again they’d need all the space they had and more.

‘Dr Rhodes…?’ The ambulance officers looked blank.