All The King's Horses: A Tale Of Eternal Love by Alethea Downs Page A

time in the bay this morning just to give them a chance to get their sea legs before he took them out to the deeper water beyond the harbor entrance. That’s where the big fish were at the moment and that’s what these four guys had come for. If there was one thing that Kent London always prided himself on it was that no one left his boat dissatisfied. He would throw everything at it to give them the best experience he possibly could.
    He offered up a little prayer of thanks when he spotted them. It was possibly the same pod of dolphins that Christy had swum with. He was glad they were still visiting the bay. “Gentlemen,” he declared, cutting the Bonnie lass’s speed right back, “we have some visitors.”
    He always marveled how dolphins could turn full grown men into excited schoolboys, and this group of men was certainly no exception. Still, it was good for business. He had never known anyone to complain yet who had encountered dolphins along the way, even if they hadn’t caught a single fish.
    He watched them now as they draped their hands over the side of the boat and eagerly coaxed the dolphins to swim over. It brought back the lovely memory of that day Christy swam with the elegant creatures. He had fallen for her that day, pure and simple. She had looked magnificent as she laughed and cavorted with them, and it hadn’t taken too big a stretch of the imagination to picture her as a mermaid sent from the depths to win over his heart.
    He missed her already. He had left her just over an hour ago but he missed her already. He hadn’t felt this way about anyone before. Not even Jocelyn and he had definitely loved her. But as close as he had felt to Jocelyn his feelings for her hadn’t hit the same dizzying heights they had for Christy. Both fear and excitement jostled for supremacy in his heart when he thought of his wife. She owned him, and that frightened him because there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her now. There was no sacrifice he wouldn’t be prepared to make for her. He was completely under her spell.
    He waited until they had finished interacting with the dolphins before moving on. The Hole in the Rock, Urupukapuka Island, he gave them the usual sightseeing tour before heading out to deeper water to catch some fish.
    “Have you lived in the Bay of Islands long, Kent?” Don asked, after they had been anchored for half an hour or so.
    “All my life, actually, I don’t think I could live anywhere else now. The place just gets into your blood and ends up being a part of you.”
    “It’s not hard to see why. It certainly is one of the more beautiful places I’ve travelled to. The scenery is out of this world.” He felt a couple of sharp tugs on his line and looked excitedly at Kent.
    “The fish have obviously arrived so it won’t be long now. Give it a few more minutes and you’ll be too busy reeling in fish to be enjoying the scenery.”
    “The guys and I don’t get to do this sort of thing very often,” Don confided. “It’s only because we were in Auckland for a conference on cancer research that we decided to travel up here. One of the Kiwi scientists we met recommended we do so.”
    Kent’s ears pricked up at the mention of cancer research. “So you’re all scientists working at the same research facility?”
    “Yes, we’re working on something relatively new. Hopefully it will cure a lot of cancers that don’t respond well to conventional treatment,”
    “I’m married to someone with cancer,” Kant said sadly.
    Don took his eyes off his fishing rod and looked at him sympathetically. “What type has she been diagnosed with?”
    “Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia.”
    “Ah, can be a difficult one to treat. But with the new drug we’re working on we may have something shortly that may just make CML a thing of the past.”
    “I hope it comes quick enough to save Christy,” Kent said hopefully.
    “If she was open to making herself available as a guinea-pig for our