Bushfire Bride

CHAPTER FOUR

THE house they took her to was a big old timber home in the same grounds as the hospital. It had wide verandas all around and a garden that in the dim light cast by the hospital nightlights looked overgrown and rambling. Digger was lying on the front steps. When they arrived he rushed down to greet them, his whole body quivering in delight. Hugo pushed open the front door, Rachel walked inside as he followed, carrying Toby-and she stopped still in astonishment.

This wasn’t a home. It was an artwork.

A magnificent artwork.

Like something out of Vogue, it had been furnished with exquisite taste. In rich reds and golds, every piece of furnishing was richly ornate and highly decorative. The floor was sleekly polished with gorgeous Persian rugs scattered at artistic intervals. There were elegant pieces of sculpture, carefully placed. The settees and chairs were colour co-ordinated with dainty matching cushions, artfully arranged. Heavy brocade curtains were held back, looped and looped again with vast gold tassels that hung to the floor.

Good grief!

This wasn’t a doctor’s residence. It wasn’t a child’s residence.

It was frankly…scary.

But Hugo seemed oblivious, both to his surroundings and to her reaction. ‘Toby, would you show Dr Harper where she’ll sleep?’ he asked. ‘I’ll put the coffee on.’ He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen while Toby towed her through to the back of the house.

The further she went the more awful it became.

‘This room’s where my daddy sleeps and this is where Digger and I sleep,’ Toby told her, and Rachel had glimpses of two rooms with the same amazing furnishings. He towed her further. ‘You can have this room or this room.’

It made no difference which. Gorgeous brocade beds with hugely rich furnishings. Huge gold bows of something like velvet with threads of something shining and metallic hung at each corner of the bed. The beds looked like they took half an hour of intense concentration and a degree in interior design to make each morning!

Ugh.

‘Do you and your daddy like…um…really decorated houses?’ she asked, as Toby stood and waited for her verdict.

His small face furrowed in concentration. ‘Why?’

‘Your whole house is sort of…frilly. And red. And gold. You guys must really like red and gold, huh?’

‘I like purple,’ Toby told her.

‘So Daddy likes red and gold?’

‘I think he likes blue.’ Toby considered some more. ‘Or maybe yellow. Mr Addington at the bank has a really yellow car and whenever my dad sees it he whistles and says what a beauty.’

‘So why is your house red and gold?’

‘My mummy decorated the house,’ Toby told her. ‘My mummy died just after I was born. Daddy was really sad.’

‘I guess he would be.’ Rachel’s face softened. ‘Losing your mummy would be really hard.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t know her,’ Toby said with the blunt pragmatism of a six-year-old. ‘My daddy says Aunty Christine looks like her. The photos are a bit the same. And Aunty Christine loves this house. She comes in here and looks at it and cries.’

Oh, great…

‘Aunty Christine says Digger shouldn’t come into the house because he messes it up but Daddy said he put his foot down over that, whatever that means,’ Toby told her. ‘And I want a Darth Vader poster on my bedroom wall ’cos Daddy and I love that movie, but Aunty Christine says my mummy would hate it and I mustn’t even ask Daddy because it’d make him sad. Do you think it’d make him sad? Or is it something else he’d put his foot down about?’

‘Maybe.’ This wasn’t a conversation she should get drawn into, she decided. Not when she’d known these people for not much more than two minutes.

There was lots of background here that she didn’t understand.

But at least she had a bed, she decided, brightening. An amazing bed. She’d had a truly excellent meal. She could put up with a little red and gold opulence.

She sat down on the bed. It gave under her weight. She gave a tentative bounce and the bed bounced back.

The symmetry of the covers was ruined.

Great.

‘Do you do much bouncing?’ she asked Toby, and he looked like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

‘You ruin the covers if you bounce,’ he told her. ‘Aunty Christine says so. She says don’t move things. Don’t touch. She says Mummy would have everything perfect.’

Rachel’s eyes widened. What an extraordinary statement. ‘But…bouncing’s fun. I’m sure your mummy would want you to have fun.’

‘Aunty Christine would growl at me if I bounced on my bed.’

‘Would she growl at you if you bounced on mine?’

Toby thought about it. Deeply. ‘I guess she wouldn’t,’ he said at last. ‘You’re a grown-up. She couldn’t growl at you.’

‘I’d like to see her try.’ She’d never met the unknown Aunt Christine but already she held her in aversion. And Hugo… What had they created? A shrine to a dead wife and sister when it should be a home.

She knew-who better?-that life was to be lived by the living. For the living. Not for the dead.

It could all be taken away so quickly…

Enough. She bounced again. And smiled at Toby and moved along so that there was room beside her. ‘Want to try?

‘Yes,’ Toby said, and went to join her.

They bounced.

Digger, watching from the doorway, ventured further in, looking as stunned as it was possible for a goofy dog to look.

They continued to bounce.

Digger started to bark and Toby giggled and bounced higher.

It was great. Stupid but great.

It had been one heck of a day. Rachel’s emotions had been pushed to the limit. She didn’t know what she was doing here. She didn’t have a clue what was happening to her, but for now…for this minute there was just one crazy time, a tousle-headed child who looked as if he didn’t get enough laughter in his life and Rachel. And Rachel knew she definitely needed more laughter. More bouncing.

If the springs broke, she’d pay for them, she decided. If the tassels frayed. If the gilt was tarnished. Some things just had to be done, and they had to be done now. She had hold of Toby’s hands and they were bouncing in unison as Digger barked a crazy accompaniment on the side.

‘What on earth…?’

She looked over to the doorway. Hugo was watching them. Stunned. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

She refused to give up the moment. Not yet. She’d had a very big day and so had Toby. A vision of Toby’s face as he’d watched them work on Kim came back to her. It was too much horror for a six-year-old to be put to bed with. He needed to sleep with bouncing.

‘We’re bouncing, Dr McInnes,’ she told him, then gripped Toby’s hands tighter and bounced again. ‘Care to join us?’

‘You’ll break the bedsprings.’

‘I’ll pay for them,’ she said nobly. ‘I’m donating one set of bedsprings to the common good. I need a bounce and so does Toby. I’m sure you do, too.’

‘I wouldn’t fit,’ he said faintly, and she grinned.

‘That’s what you get for showing your guest to a room with a single bed.’

‘Daddy’s got a bigger bed,’ Toby volunteered, mid-bounce. ‘Can we can go there?’

Digger barked again as if he thought that was a truly excellent idea.

‘My bed’s for sleeping in,’ Hugo told them, and Rachel grimaced.

‘How boring.’

‘The kettle’s boiled. Do you want a drink?’

Rachel considered. She bounced a couple of times and looked down at Toby. He bounced with her and met her look-co-conspirators. Co-bouncers. ‘Do we want a drink, Toby?’

‘I’d like some hot chocolate,’ he told her, and bounced again.

‘That sounds good.’ Another bounce. ‘Maybe we could stop and bounce again tomorrow night.’

‘Are you staying for two nights?’

She cast a sideways glance at Hugo and bounced a bit more. ‘I may,’ she told him. ‘If I’m not kicked out because of my bouncing habits. I think I’m needed.’

‘Because of the fire?’ Toby asked, and she nodded.

‘Because of the fire. And because…maybe because you guys could do with a bit of bouncing. Like me.’

What was happening here?

Hugo prepared three mugs of hot chocolate and listened to their laughter. He’d backed out of the room fast.

Why?

He didn’t know. Confusion, he thought. He was definitely confused. The sight of one crazy doctor, gorgeous in her borrowed Crimplene, holding his little son and bouncing as if she were six years old, too…

Confusion summed it up, he thought. She was like no one he’d ever met.

She was…gorgeous?

She was also married. She was wearing a band of gold very definitely on the third finger of her left hand. She was attached to a creep called Michael.

How attached?

Married attached.

But, then…he wore a wedding band as well.

Why?

Habit, he guessed. Beth had been dead for almost six years now.

So why did he keep wearing the ring?

The vision of Christine came into his head. Beth’s older sister. Christine, who came in every day and cared for Toby, fussed over this house, made sure Toby had a memory of his mother.

Christine would marry him. He knew that. She was just waiting for him to move on from her sister.

So he wore a wedding ring.

‘It’s time you got over it,’ Christine had told him, but he wasn’t ready. He hadn’t been ready to marry Beth. He hadn’t wanted to marry anyone.

The memory of his parents’ loveless marriage was always there-his mother, cool and calculating, with eyes only for things of monetary value, and his father who’d had eyes only for women he could bed. He himself had been raised to be self-contained, aloof and indifferent, and only Toby had ever been able to get under his skin.

The thought of Rachel came back into his vision. Bouncing. Christine would never bounce. Not in a fit.

Neither would Beth, his ex-wife, have bounced. Neither would his mother.

Rachel was…different.

But Rachel had a husband. He thought back to the silver-haired cardiologist he’d met so briefly. The man might be odious, but he was obviously an extremely wealthy and well-connected doctor, and they were married. So Rachel might be bouncing in his spare bedroom with his small son but she had a husband and an Afghan hound and a life back in the city.

So stop thinking of her like…what?

Like his father thought of women?

No. It wasn’t like that. This was something he had never felt before-in truth, he’d never known he could feel this way. Ever. But he was certainly feeling, and the problem was-he couldn’t stop to save himself.

The hot chocolate was excellent. Exhausted, glowing with exertion from their bouncing, Rachel and Toby enjoyed it equally. Hugo watched them as he’d watch two kids with their play lunch, and Rachel looked up and caught his eye and said, ‘What?’

‘What do you mean-what?’

‘What are you grinning at?’

‘I was just thinking you and Toby look of an age.’

‘Toby is very mature for six.’ She set her mug down on the table and rose to her feet, which all of a sudden didn’t feel too steady. It had been a roller-coaster of a day and she was rolling downward to sleep. ‘And I’m sure it’s Toby’s and my bedtime. Toby had an afternoon nap. I didn’t even have a nap last night.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’d take far too long to explain,’ she said with dignity. She eyed him with indecision. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t happen to have a spare toothbrush, would you? My gear’s still at the showgrounds.’

‘Not only a toothbrush.’ He grinned. ‘While you and Toby were bouncing I made you up a sleeping kit. One pair of pyjamas, slightly large, one brand-new toothbrush and a comb. Everything else you need you’ll find in the guest bathroom.’

She swallowed. Heck. It was a small enough gesture, but it was enough. The man was thoughtful.

The man smiled!

The man was seriously gorgeous.

‘Goodnight, then,’ she said, and there was a distinct tremor in her voice.

His smile died and their eyes met. Something passed between them that was indefinable but it was still…there.

But there was nothing to say. To try and bring it into the open-this thing…

Impossible.

‘Goodnight,’ he said, and she knew he was thinking no such thing. He was thinking exactly what she was thinking.

Impossible!

What was it with her?

Hugo stood and watched while Rachel walked away from him down the corridor to her bedroom. Her door closed behind her but he stood and watched for a very long time.

What was it?

‘Dottie?’

‘My dear, why are you ringing at this time of night?’

‘I’m checking.’ Rachel was tucked into her opulent bed, her cellphone resting on her pillow. ‘I just need… Dottie, I need to know…’

‘You know he’s just the same. He always will be just the same, whether you’re here or not. Now, are you somewhere nice with that nice young man?’

‘I…’ Rachel bit her lip. That nice young man.

Maybe she could apply the adjective to Toby.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Has he taken you somewhere gorgeous?’

She smiled at that. This, at least, was an easy question. ‘It’s all red and gold brocade,’ she whispered. ‘And incredibly luxurious. Dottie, you should see the bed.’

There was a moment’s silence. And then Dottie spoke again, deeply satisfied.

‘Then why are you wasting time on the phone talking about it?’ she demanded. ‘You put your phone down this minute and go and make the most of it.’

Make the most of it? That was a joke.

Rachel put the phone down and pulled up her covers but in the end she did make the most of it. Or she did what she most needed to do.

She slept.

Digger was barking.

Rachel surfaced to sunlight streaming in over her bed. She blinked, trying to figure out just where she was. Memory came flooding back. She stretched out in her too-big pyjamas and thought this wasn’t such a bad place to live if you took away the brocade. And the tassels. And the particularly ghastly cupids staring dotingly down from the mantelpiece.

Her bedroom was facing east. She’d hauled back the dreadful crimson drapes the night before and now she could see right out to the ocean beyond. Why the bedroom had drapes she didn’t know, unless the local cows were nosy. There were cows in the paddock beyond the house, the sea was beyond the cows and beyond the sea was the horizon. A smoky haze was filtering the light but it still looked great.

Her apartment at the hospital looked out at a brick wall.

Maybe she could move to the country when Craig…

Yeah, right. Get a grip.

Craig.

She groped under her bed for her purse, checked the time-it was eight o’clock, far later than she usually slept even after huge nights on call!-found her phone and dialled home. Some things were automatic.

But some things weren’t needed. Or wanted.

‘What are you doing, ringing again?’ Dorothy sounded cross that she’d contacted her. ‘I told you not to and I meant it. Rachel, leave it be. I can’t tell you how delighted we are that you’re having a good time.’

‘But Craig?’

There was silence. Then: ‘You know very well how Craig is, dear. I told you. Lewis popped in before breakfast and he’s stable. As he always is. Rachel, it’s no use ringing.’

‘But you will let me know…’

‘Rachel, love, nothing’s going to change and you know it. You go back to whatever it is you’re doing,’ her mother-in-law said gently. ‘Stop ringing. Move on. Get yourself a life.’

A life. Right. Dorothy thought she was having a nice romantic time.

She looked down at herself, dressed in what she guessed were Hugo’s spare pyjamas. Blue and yellow stripes. Very fetching.

She looked at the bedside chair where Doris’s Crimplene lay waiting.

‘Which?’ she said to herself. ‘Romantic choice, eh? Which would Cinderella wear, and where’s my fairy godmother when I need her?’

Hugo and Toby and the plump, round-faced lady she’d seen taking care of Toby yesterday were all having breakfast. Oh, and Digger. The lady was just setting down a plate of scraps under the table. This was clearly doggy heaven.

It was Rachel heaven. She sniffed. Bacon. Coffee. Toast.

Some things were irresistible. She hitched up her pyjamas and hiked right in.

‘Hi,’ she said, and tried not to look self-conscious.

‘Hi,’ said Toby, while the lady and Hugo just looked.

‘No comment is required,’ she told them. She glared at Hugo-at the lurking laughter she could see behind his eyes. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ She held out her hand to the bacon lady, while the other still clutched her waist. ‘I’m Rachel.’

‘I’m Myra Partridge,’ the lady told her, taking her hand and gripping it with warmth and real friendliness. She eyed Rachel’s outfit in concern. ‘They’re not the doctor’s pyjamas?’

‘I have no idea,’ she told her. ‘They’re the ones the doctor kindly gave me last night. All I know is that they’re not this doctor’s pyjamas. They’re threatening to slide, but I’ve decided that they still look better on me than Doris Keen’s frock does.’

‘Oh, my dear…’ Myra’s lips twitched. She was in her late fifties, Rachel guessed, with eyes that said she smiled most of the time. She reached into a kitchen drawer and proffered a safety pin-which Rachel accepted with real gratitude. ‘I saw you in Doris’s frock last night. Doris rang a while back.’

‘If she wants her frock back, she’s welcome to it.’ Rachel thought about it. ‘Though she might want to come and get it. I can’t see myself hiking over to her place in these.’

‘Sit yourself down.’ They were all smiling now as she stuck the safety pin in place-all three of them. The kitchen felt great. Here the opulence and over-decoration were toned down by the sheer domesticity of cooking and the dog under the table and smiling people. There were pots and pans and…

‘Pancakes?’ Rachel said faintly.

‘I thought you’d all be hungry.’ Myra beamed. ‘The doctor’s been out since dawn.’

‘Has he?’ Rachel’s smile slipped. She looked across the table at Hugo. ‘Problems?’

‘Kim’s running a fever. Not too bad. I’m hoping it’s nothing. I’ve upped the antibiotics to maximum. And a couple of the fire crews have been working through the night. I checked them as they came in.’

‘He’d be doing something else if it wasn’t Kim and the fire crews,’ Myra said comfortably. ‘He’s always gone at dawn. I come in and look after the wee one…’

‘Until Aunty Christine comes in and takes me to school,’ Toby told her. ‘Mrs Partridge would take me to school and I want her to, but Aunty Christine makes Dad let her.’

She wasn’t buying into any family argument. Not yet. ‘Well, lucky you to have two ladies to escort you.’ She wriggled herself around in her pyjamas, testing the security of the pin. She let go the waist and did a little test jump-her hands hovering just in case, while Hugo, Toby, Myra and Digger looked on, fascinated. They were doomed to disappointment. The safety pin held. She sat herself down and reached for a pancake, deeply satisfied. ‘You were going to wake me up for some of these, right?’

Hugo was looking at her with a very strange expression. ‘Um…right.’

‘I wanted to wake you up hours ago,’ Toby announced. ‘But Daddy wouldn’t let me.’

‘You have a very kind daddy.’ Rachel beamed. ‘Just as long as he lets me share his pancakes and his bacon and coffee. Very kind indeed.’

Clothes. That was the most important thing.

‘Doris dropped your bag off an hour ago,’ Myra told her. ‘But she’s kept your clothes. There’s stains…’

‘I don’t want to know about them,’ Rachel said firmly, thinking about the last time she’d seen them and deciding if she never saw them again it’d be too soon. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Crimplene and flannelette.’

‘Digger saved your bra,’ Toby told her, and she faltered. Her bra. The last time she’d seen that had been…

Whoops!

‘Flannelette and Crimplene and lacy black bras are hardly professional,’ Hugo told her, and Rachel managed a sickly sort of smile.

‘Um…no. Not your white-coated doctor image, huh?’

‘No,’ he said faintly, and her grin widened. Hey, it wasn’t he who was doing the discomposing. It was suddenly Hugo who was discomposed. She had Hugo McInnes out of his comfort zone, which felt…good.

Definitely good, she decided. He made her discomposed. It was nice to have him a little discomposed in return.

But he was about to discompose her again. ‘I think we have the problem sorted,’ he told her.

‘Mmm?’ She was into a mouthful of bacon. Yesterday’s hunger was still fresh enough to make her really appreciate her food and this was seriously good.

‘Christine’s bringing you some clothes.’

She thought about it. ‘Christine.’ She looked at Toby. ‘Red and gold Christine?’

They all knew what she meant. There were three smiles. But Hugo was rising, pushing back his coffee-cup. ‘She’s very good. I don’t know where we’d be without her. And she’s not red and gold at all. She has a style all her own.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She should be here in a few minutes to take Toby to school. I need to do a house call. If it’s OK with you, Rachel, I’ll collect you in an hour and take you out to our nursing home. I was hoping you might be able to help.’

He paused as if what he was asking was an impertinence, but she wasn’t in the mood for worrying over impertinence.

‘Of course I’ll help. If I’m trapped here I may as well be useful. But how?’

‘The fires are worsening.’ He motioned to the window and the haze between there and the sea seem to be thicker. ‘They’re not threatening the town yet but the crews are working hard to keep it like that. And most of the crews are made up of volunteers with differing levels of fitness-as well as differing levels of common sense. There are lots of medical problems. I need to go up to the ridge.’

‘So you’d like me to do the coughs and colds and the like while you do the hero stuff?’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course I would.’ She grinned at him. There was something about this man that made her want to smile-even when she was offering to do his mundane work for him while he did the exciting stuff. ‘Though I guess that means I don’t get to drive fire trucks any more.’

His smile matched hers. ‘I heard about your fire-truck driving. Very impressive. But still…’ His eyes smiled at her-linking them-warming parts of her she hadn’t known were cold. Crazy. But…nice? ‘You’re hardly dressed for fire-truck duty.’

She looked down at her pyjamas and pouted. ‘What’s wrong with these? I reckon I’d look pretty snappy behind the wheel of a fire truck in flannelette pyjamas.’

‘Your safety pin would never hold.’ He chuckled, and the strange link was broken. For now. ‘OK. Let’s negotiate the duty roster when we’re organised. When you’re wearing something a bit more doctor-like. Meanwhile, I have to go. Myra, can you-?’

He was interrupted in mid-sentence. The back door swung wide-and in walked Christine.

It wasn’t hard to pick her. Rachel looked up from her bacon and she knew straight away who this had to be.

The lady was seriously lovely. She also wasn’t decorated at all. She didn’t need to be. What had Hugo said? ‘She has a style all her own.’

She certainly did.

She was tall, with flame-coloured hair swept up into a sleek knot, the hair itself seeming to tug the flawless complexion free of any lines.

No lines would dare come near this woman. She was wearing cropped black pants to calf length, a tiny white top, strappy black sandals and a silver bracelet that must have cost a fortune.

She looked as if she belonged in an inner-city art gallery, Rachel thought, with only one very fast rueful glance down at her pyjamas. She thought back to the people she’d seen yesterday at the Cowral show. This woman didn’t fit.

‘Hello, all.’ The woman’s greeting was bright and warm. She smiled straight at Hugo, though, Rachel noticed, and Toby didn’t look up from his breakfast. ‘Are you ready, Toby?’

You can see he’s still eating his breakfast, Rachel thought, but she didn’t say so. The question seemed to be rhetorical. Christine had dropped a carry bag on the floor and was reaching for the coffee-pot. ‘Heaven. You make the best coffee, Hugo.’

‘Harrumph.’ Myra rose and stumped over to the sink and Rachel wondered who had made the coffee. By the expression on Myra’s face it wasn’t hard to guess. Maybe it didn’t matter, though. Christine had moved on.

‘You’re the new doctor?’ Christine sank into the chair Myra had just left, as if it was her right, and turned her attention to Rachel. ‘So you’re Rachel. I’ve heard all about you.’ She motioned to the bag. ‘There are some clothes I purchased for you from our local discount store. I hope they’re what you want, Hugo?’

They’re what Hugo wanted?

Rachel raised her brows at Hugo and he attempted a smile. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

‘I phoned Christine and told her you were in trouble.’

‘Who, me?’ Rachel tried hard to sound nonchalant. ‘I like pyjamas.’ Discount store, hey? Obviously she’d been categorised by Crimplene. She swallowed her last piece of pancake and smiled at all of them.

Discount store.

Maybe she should put that aside. There were undercurrents here that she clearly didn’t understand. Undercurrents that were maybe more important than her pride.

Toby was concentrating fiercely on his pancake and wasn’t looking at anyone. Myra was looking angry. What was going on?

It didn’t matter. This wasn’t her place and these people had nothing to do with her. In a couple of days the fires would die down and she’d be out of here.

‘The clothes are all here.’ Christine swept a manicured hand at her bag and smiled at Hugo, and Rachel thought, Unconcerned or not, I’m with Toby here. His little nose was practically in his toast.

But she knew her manners. ‘Thank you, Christine,’ she told her. ‘Have you bought them? How much do I owe you?’

‘I’ll pay,’ Hugo said, but Christine put a hand sweetly on his arm.

‘It’s fine, dear. The Mathesons, who run the discount store, know you’re stuck. They won’t charge you.’

Hugo was stuck?

Gee, she was having fun here, Rachel thought-or she didn’t think.

She rose and lifted Christine’s obnoxious bag. She hated it already, even though she hadn’t opened it. ‘I’ll pick up my bill from…who did you say? Mathesons? If I really need this,’ she told them. ‘Otherwise I’ll return it. Thank you anyway, Christine. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

She huffed at the lot of them. Toby looked up at her and she caught the six-year-old’s eye and gave him a tiny sideways wink.

Then she sailed from the room with as much dignity as a girl in too-big pyjamas could muster.

‘They’re horrible.’

They were all gone-Toby and Hugo and Christine. Christine to take Toby to school and Hugo to do his house call. Rachel peered out into the kitchen where Myra was washing the dishes. The housekeeper turned and Rachel looked at her with despair in her eyes.

‘I can’t wear these.’

‘Sorry?’ The housekeeper wiped her hands on the dish-cloth and looked Rachel up and down. Rachel was wearing Doris’s Crimplene again.

‘Look!’

She held up a pair of black trousers. Plain. Dead plain. Voluminous with a heavy vinyl belt. She held up a neat white cotton blouse. Another identical blouse. A plain black cardigan. Black flat-soled sandals.

‘At least Doris’s Crimplene has flowers on,’ she wailed. ‘And Hugo’s pyjamas have stripes. Myra, I may be stuck here, but these are awful.’

‘Christine only wears black and white,’ Myra said dubiously, coming forward and taking the offending garments away from her. ‘Only…’

‘Only Christine’s clothes are beautifully cut and really, really stylish and these clothes are built to fit anyone! Anyone at all. Or no one. These are burial clothes, Myra.’

Myra cast her another dubious glance. ‘You don’t think maybe you’re going over the top here?’

‘No.’ Rachel’s chin jutted. ‘I may be stuck here but I refuse to look like Christine’s welfare case while I’m here.’

‘You don’t wear black, huh?’

‘No way.’ It was the one thing she had in life-her clothes. She wore happy clothes, the sort of clothes that’d make Craig smile if he…

No. She wasn’t going down that road, but she didn’t wear black. Ever.

‘You’re wearing pink,’ she told Myra, and if she sounded a bit like a sulky teenager she couldn’t help it.

But Myra was smiling. ‘Tell you what. I’ve finished the dishes,’ she told her. ‘I’m officially off duty until Toby comes home from school. We have an hour before Dr McInnes returns.’

‘So?’

Myra glanced at her watch. ‘It’s not yet nine and Eileen Sanderson doesn’t usually open until ten. But if it’s for you…’

‘Eileen Sanderson?’

‘Kim’s mum.’

‘Oh, no. I can’t-’

‘She owns Cowral Bay’s only decent dress shop and it’s great. Expensive but good.’

‘But she’ll be with Kim.’

‘She’s home. I saw Brian, her husband, swap shifts with her a couple of hours ago as I was coming here and she lives next door to the store.’

‘But she’ll be asleep.’

‘Not Eileen.’

‘I can’t-’

‘Rachel, you saved her daughter’s life,’ Myra told her. ‘You helped the firefighters last night. There’s not a soul in Cowral Bay who wouldn’t drop everything to help you right now.’ She frowned and looked again at the black, shapeless trousers. ‘Except maybe Christine.’ And she tossed her dish-cloth aside with a determined throw, grasped Rachel by the hand and towed her out to her car.

Hugo drove home an hour later, his thoughts overwhelmed with what lay ahead.

The fire was worse. The forecast was for a strong northeast wind, which would bring the fire down from the ridge. Already the town was shrouded by a pall of smoke so heavy Hugo had to put on his headlights.

There’d be heat exhaustion as well as fire-related injuries, he thought grimly. It was already scorchingly hot. If the fire grew worse… If there were emergencies…

He needed back-up.

He was set up here as a single doctor. Usually-well, sometimes-one doctor was enough. In a sleepy fishing village there was no need for a huge medical presence. Few doctors wanted to practise in such a remote area and the swell of campers during summer wasn’t enough to tempt medics wanting a high income.

Normally Hugo didn’t mind working alone-he even liked it-but his radio was telling him a quarter of the state was under threat from fire. That meant relief medical teams wouldn’t be forthcoming even in an emergency. There was only him-but now at least there was Rachel as well.

But if the road cleared just for a few hours…

She’d be out of here, he thought grimly. She had a husband and the world’s stupidest dog and a city career. She was a fine doctor-hell, she had the skills he desperately needed in a partner-but she’d be out of here.

The road was still cut, though, he thought, and as far he could see that was the only bright spot on his horizon. He had a captive worker and she’d said she’d work.

A captive worker…

He thought of Rachel as he’d last seen her. In those crazy pyjamas. His mouth twitched and his bleakness lifted a little. She was here. She had said she’d work. Now, as long as Christine had fitted her out in some sensible clothes…

He pulled into the driveway, looked down at the list of things he still had to do this morning and went to find his colleague.

He walked through the screen door and stopped dead.

Good grief!

Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table, helping Myra pod peas. She’d obviously reclaimed Penelope. Penelope and Digger were lying side by side under the table looking extraordinarily pleased with each other, but that wasn’t where Hugo’s attention was caught and held.

Rachel was only five-four or so-a good eight inches shorter than he was-but what she lacked in height she made up for in impact. This morning in his pyjamas she’d looked amazing. But now…

She was wearing bright yellow leggings that stopped at mid-calf, and a white overshirt that looked as if it had been splashed by daubs of yellow paint. Her shirt was rolled up, businesslike, but there was nothing businesslike in the way it was unbuttoned to show enough cleavage to be interesting. Very interesting! So interesting he could hardly take his eyes away.

What else? He could scarcely take her in. Apart from the cleavage… Her riot of shining brown curls was caught back with a wide yellow ribbon and her feet were ensconced in gold and white trainers.

‘Christine never gave you those clothes,’ he said faintly, and she chuckled.

‘Good guess. Mrs Sanderson’s a darling and she has such taste. I returned the clothes Christine brought me. I’m very grateful but they just weren’t me.’ She held up a shoe and admired it. ‘And gold and white trainers…how practical are these?’

‘Very practical,’ he said weakly, and she grinned. She rose and looked expectantly out to the car.

‘Are we heading out to the nursing home now?’

‘You’re not wearing that outfit to the nursing home?’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I’m thinking of their hearts. I don’t think I’m carrying enough anginine,’ he said, and she chuckled again. She had the nicest chuckle…

‘You’re telling me the oldies won’t like my clothes?’

‘I have no idea,’ he managed. ‘I do know they’ll never have seen anything like it in their lives.’ He looked down at her amazing shoes. ‘You don’t think gold and white in this ash might be just a little impractical?’

‘They’ll wash. I’m not putting Doris’s sandals back on for quids. They may be sensible but I don’t do sensible.’

‘So I see.’

The oldies not only loved Rachel’s clothes-they loved Rachel.

In this heat and smoke-filled atmosphere, the ills of a group of sixty frail retirees could be depended on to keep Hugo busy for half a day, but only a couple of problems were serious. Hugo expected to do the tricky stuff himself while Rachel took a routine clinic, but Rachel had no sooner been introduced to the sitting room in general, and the nurse in charge in particular, than she balked.

‘Tell me why you’re staying?’

‘I have a couple of bed-bound patients I’ll check before I go.’

‘You’re telling me that I can’t check them? That you don’t think I’m competent?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then you’re not needed anywhere else?’

‘Of course he is.’ Don, the nursing-home charge nurse, a beefy, bearded giant, was clearly amused by the strange tension between the two. And the way Hugo kept glancing at his colleague as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘I’ve had a call from the hospital already saying there’s another couple of firefighters need looking at, and they’ve just admitted Harry Peters’s kid, who fell off the back of the fire truck and broke his arm. They want you back there, Hugo.’

‘I can’t just leave you here,’ Hugo said, frowning at the jonquil-yellow apparition in front of him.

‘Why not?’ The jonquil-yellow apparition raised herself up on her jonquil-yellow toes and glared. ‘Are you saying you’re a better doctor than I am?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then take me to the patients you’re worried about, talk me through what needs to be done and then get out of here. No more buts. You’re wasting time, Dr McInnes.’

Wasting time?

No one had ever accused Hugo McInnes of wasting time. Ever. It was all he could do not to gasp.

‘Go on, then.’ Don was clearly intrigued and enjoying himself. ‘What are you waiting for, Hugo?’

He hardly knew.