He went over the edge like someone from an action movie and Jenna blinked. Clearly there was plenty she still had to learn about Ryan, and the more she knew, the more she liked and admired him.

‘I should have stopped him,’ Nick muttered, and Jenna lifted an eyebrow because the idea of stopping Ryan doing something he was determined to do seemed laughable to her.

‘How?’

The policeman gave a short laugh. ‘Good question. Still, what Ryan doesn’t know about ropes and climbing isn’t worth knowing. I’m going to get this on you Jenna.’ He had a harness in his hands. ‘Just in case. I have a feeling he’s going to need you. I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

‘If he’s going to need me, why didn’t he just say so?’

‘Honestly? I’m guessing he’s being protective. Either that or he doesn’t want any of us to know how easy it is.’ With a weak grin, Nick adjusted the harness and glanced at her face. Jenna wondered if he knew that there was something going on between them or whether he was matchmaking like the others.

Ryan’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘Nick, do you read me? I need you to lower that rope to me, over.’

‘What he really needs is a miracle,’ Nick muttered, lowering one end of a rope down to Ryan and securing the other end to a rock. ‘That should keep the boy steady while Ryan finds out what’s going on. I hope he does it quickly. There’s a storm coming. Great timing. Can today get any worse?’

Only an hour earlier she’d been lying on the grass on Ryan’s cliffs, bathed in sunshine and happiness.

Eyeing the rolling black clouds, Jenna approached the edge cautiously. Peering over the side, she caught her breath. Here, the cliff face was vertical. The rocks plunged downwards, the edges ragged and sharp as sharks’ teeth, ready to razor through the flesh of the unwary. Her stomach lurched, and the sheer terror of facing that drop almost swallowed her whole.

‘I can’t believe they thought they could jump down there,’ she said faintly, biting her lip as she saw Ryan attaching the rope to a boy clinging halfway down. Then her gaze drifted lower and she saw Lexi’s small figure, crouched on an exposed rock at the bottom. The girl had her arms around a boy’s shoulders, holding him out of the water, straining with the effort as the sea boiled and foamed angrily around them, the level of the water rising with each incoming wave.

Watching the waves lick hungrily at her daughter, Jenna felt physically sick. ‘That boy is going to be under the water in another few minutes. Lexi isn’t strong enough to pull him out. And she isn’t going to be strong enough to keep herself out.’ Feeling completely helpless, she turned to Nick. ‘Get me down there now. Don’t wait for Ryan to talk to you. He has his hands full. I can help—I know I can.’