Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

And Hugo needed to tell them. Hugo had achieved the impossible. This was his gift.

The theatre team agreed. David lifted the tape from Hugo’s nerveless fingers and started applying it. Job done.

‘You’re being kicked out of Theatre, Dr McInnes,’ the young nurse told him, giving his senior a cheeky grin that was still flushed with triumph. They were all high on success. It was a fabulous feeling. ‘The lady’s told you to leave and what the lady wants the lady should get. Don’t you agree?’

Hugo stepped back from the table. He gave Rachel a long, assessing look and then his face broke into the beginnings of a crooked smile.

‘I guess. We owe the lady big time.’

‘There you go, then,’ Rachel said with a lot more placidity than she was feeling. ‘Pay your debt to us all by getting out of here.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’ And then for some reason she couldn’t fathom she put her hand on his arm. It was a fleeting gesture-of congratulation?-of comfort? She wasn’t sure but she knew that she was compelled to do it.

Her hand stayed. He looked down at her fingers resting on the sleeve of his theatre gown and his face twisted into an expression she didn’t recognise. For one fleeting moment his hand came up to cover hers. Warmth flooded between them-and something else. Something she couldn’t begin to recognise.

‘You’re right, Dr Harper,’ he said softly, so softly she could hardly catch the words. ‘I need to get out of here.’

He left. The two nurses wheeled Kim through to Recovery and Rachel was left with Jane, the lady with the video, and Pat, the lady on the floor holding the mobile phone.

They’d never met until three hours ago and they were grinning at each other like fools.

‘That was fantastic,’ Rachel said, and if she couldn’t keep her voice steady, who could blame her? ‘Jane, I have no idea how you filmed that without fainting.’

‘Fainting isn’t what I felt like,’ Jane admitted. ‘What I felt like was far more messy. But I figured I could do the messy stuff afterwards when no one needed me and, hey, guess what? Now I don’t feel like it at all any more.’

‘You realise you guys saved Kim’s leg.’ The video recording and computer link had meant the specialists on the end of the line had been able to watch them every step of the way and Pat’s relayed instructions had given Rachel every skill she’d needed.

‘We all saved Kim’s leg,’ Pat decreed. She rose and came across to give her friend a hug and then the two of them hugged Rachel. This wasn’t something that’d happen in a big city hospital but it was an entirely appropriate action here. A great action. ‘We make a fantastic team,’ Pat said roundly. ‘We’re so glad you’re here now, Dr Harper. Something tells me Dr McInnes is going to need the best team he can get.’

The words somehow broke through her exhaustion. They didn’t make sense. What was Pat saying? Something about Hugo needing a team? Surely that need was past.

‘Why now?’ she asked. ‘Why would Hugo need me any more now?’

‘A really solid medical team is exactly what we’re going to need now,’ Pat told her. ‘The wind’s swung around. Word came through as we were on our way in here. The fire’s blocking the highway. There’s no way in and there’s no way out, and the fire’s getting bigger by the minute.’

Rachel walked through to the sink and hauled off her theatre gown without even thinking. She was so tired she could hardly stand. She ran cold water over her wrists and then splashed her face, trying to haul her tired mind into gear.

She was stuck in this town?

‘Well done, you.’ The voice behind her made her jump and she turned to find Hugo in the doorway. The exhaustion in his face matched hers.

‘Well done, yourself,’ she managed. He’d startled her. More… He unnerved her.

He really did have a gorgeous smile, she decided. Crooked but nice. And the way he’d touched her…

No. She didn’t want to think about the way he’d touched her.

What was a doctor like Hugo-a doctor with such skills-doing in a place like this? The surgery he’d just performed had been amazing. He should have trained in surgery. He could be one of the country’s finest.

‘I like Cowral,’ he told her, and her eyes widened.

‘What…?’

‘You were thinking what’s a nice boy like me doing in a place like this?’ he told her, and he was so near the truth that she gasped.

‘I don’t… I wasn’t…’

‘It’s what all city doctors think. Why on earth would anyone practise in such a remote area? But I think that Cowral’s fantastic. I’m here through choice. While you, Dr Harper, are truly stuck.’

At some time since she’d kicked him out of the operating suite he’d hauled off his theatre gown. Underneath he was wearing moleskins and a casual shirt similar to the ones he’d been wearing at the dog show, though without the gore. Somehow he’d found time to change before surgery. He was transformed again, she thought. Doctor to farmer.

Doctor to farmer? What was she thinking? she wondered. She was finding it hard to concentrate on what mattered.

The fires. Being stuck here.

Craig…

Oh, God, she shouldn’t be here.

She was here. She was trapped. Without Craig.

‘The fires are bad?’

‘The fires are a problem,’ he told her. He was splashing cold water on his face as if he needed to wake himself up, and his voice was muted. ‘The burn’s in the national park. There’s no private property threatened but the neck of land into town has been cut. When the fire shifted, everyone who wasn’t local got out of town before the road closed. You were in Theatre when the evacuation call came through. We didn’t give you that option.’ He rubbed his face on a towel and then looked at her. Really looked at her. And his voice softened. ‘I’m sorry, Rachel, but you’re stuck here for the duration.’

She swallowed and tried to think through the implications. ‘We could get helicopter evacuation,’ she said at last, and he nodded. Still watching her.

‘We could. If it was urgent. But Kim’s no longer an urgent case. Are you urgently required back in Sydney?’

Was she urgently needed?

No, she had to admit. At least, not by the hospital. As of last Friday she was officially on holiday. The trip to Cowral had been intended to be a weekend away followed by two weeks of lying in the sun. Back in Sydney, though. She’d have lain on Bondi beach so she could still visit Craig morning and night.

Craig needed her.

No. Craig didn’t need her. She needed to get her head around that, once and for all.

She couldn’t. But the reality was that no one would complain if she wasn’t back in Sydney for the next few days, least of all Craig. She may as well admit it.

‘Um…no.’

‘That’s great,’ he told her. ‘Because I may just need you myself.’

Hugo needed her. Great.

Everyone needed Rachel. Everyone always had. So what was new?

Dear God, she wanted to go home. Craig…

She didn’t have a choice. She was here. With Hugo. While Craig was…

Craig just was.

RACHEL walked slowly back to the showgrounds, dragging her feet in too-big sandals. She’d told Hugo she needed to see to Penelope. Kim’s parents were needing more reassurance. He’d been distracted and she’d slipped away.

He had enough to worry about without her worries. Which were considerable.

It was just on dusk. The evening was still and very, very warm. The sound of the sea was everywhere.

Cowral was built on a bluff overlooking the Southern Ocean. The stars were a hazy sheen of silver under a smoky filter. To the north she could see the soft orange glow of threatening fire. It was too far away to worry about, she thought. Maybe it’d stay in the national park and behave.

Meanwhile, it’d be a great time for a swim. But she had things to sort. Penelope. Accommodation.

Sleep!

Michael’s Aston Martin was parked at the entrance to the showgrounds and she looked at it with a frown. She’d thrown the car keys back at Michael. Were they in his pocket right now as he did his heroic lifesaving thing back in the city, or had he left the keys in Penelope’s dog stall?

It was all very well standing on one’s dignity, she thought ruefully, but if he’d taken his keys then she’d be walking everywhere. She didn’t like her chances of hot-wiring an Aston Martin.

Meanwhile… Meanwhile, Penelope. Rachel pushed open the wire gates of the dog pavilion and went to find the second of her worries.

Michael might have taken his car keys but he hadn’t taken his dog. Penelope was right where Rachel had left her, sitting in the now empty dog pavilion, gazing out with the air of a dog who’d been deserted by the world.

‘Oh, you poor baby.’ She hugged the big dog and hauled herself up into the stall to think about her options. ‘I haven’t deserted you, even if your master has.’

Penelope licked her face, then nosed her Crimplene in evident confusion.

‘You don’t like my fashion sense either?’ She gave a halfhearted smile. ‘We’re stuck with it. But meanwhile…’

Meanwhile, she was hungry. No. Make that starving! She’d had one bite of a very soggy hamburger some hours ago. The remains had long gone.

Penelope didn’t look hungry at all.

‘You ate the rest of my hamburger?

Penelope licked her again.

‘Fine. It was disgusting anyway, but what am I supposed to eat?’ She gazed about her. The pavilion was deserted.

Michael hadn’t left his keys.

Her bag was over at the caretaker’s residence where she’d showered. She could walk over there and fetch it, but why? The contents of the bag were foul. She had her purse with her-she’d tucked it into a pocket of the capacious Crimplene. She needed nothing else.

Wrong. She needed lots of things.