Rescued by the Single Dad Doc

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Then Christopher needs not to get them wrong,’ Marjorie said. ‘Don’t be a baby, Marcus. You know you belong in our world. It’s where your mother was raised.’

  ‘Mum hated it there.’ Marcus was starting to cry, his voice becoming choked. ‘She said you were always away. She said her violin teacher used to hit her fingers, too.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake. Your mother didn’t make the most of the advantages we offered her but I didn’t think she was stupid enough to talk of such foolishness to her children.’ Marjorie’s voice was turning shrill but Charles laid a placating hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Keep it calm, Marjorie. Heaven knows what these children have been told, by their mother and by this man, but we know where our responsibility lies. Our role is simply to get them back on track as fast as possible. So what’s it to be, Dr Lavery? You put them in the car with us, or you face a court order and legal costs that’ll make your head swim. Decide now.’

  ‘We’re not going with you.’ Kit had started crying as well. ‘We won’t!’

  ‘Don’t be foolish, boy,’ Charles said. He took a step towards his grandson and put a hand on his shoulder, tugging him towards the car. Kit pulled away but the grip tightened.

  ‘Let me go!’

  And then Tuffy decided it was time to step in. The little dog had been partying all afternoon and had retired to the back steps for a nap in a sunbeam. Now, though, with the boys’ voices raised, he’d stumped down to see what was going on. Now he started barking, high, hysterical yips, clearly confused, clearly worried.

  And then Charles grabbed Kit and Kit cried out and pulled away—and Tuffy saw his duty. Normally the most docile of dogs, he darted forward and sank his teeth into Charles’s shoe.

  It wasn’t a bite. The shiny brogues were solid and, as a rescue dog, Tuffy was missing enough teeth to make any bite pretty much a token affair, but he managed to grip and hold. Charles gave his foot an angry shake but the dog’s hold firmed.

  ‘Get the damn thing off me,’ he snapped.

  Tom lunged forward but, before he could reach dog or child, Charles tried another tack. He set his foot down, then pulled back his other foot and kicked. Hard.

  The little dog flew six feet away and landed with a sickening thud on the gravel in front of the car. For one appalling moment he lay totally motionless. Then, as Charles stepped towards him—to kick him again?—he struggled to his feet and headed out of the gate. He was around the fence and into the bushland at the back of the house, and he was gone.

  With three boys running after him.

  ‘Get back here!’ Charles roared and made to go after them, but Tom gripped him and held.

  ‘Leave them be. Don’t you dare...’

  And then Rachel was beside him, her tea towel flung aside.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘You get rid of these people.’

  It made sense. Every instinct told him to follow the kids, but the way Tuffy had run signified he hadn’t been badly hurt. The boys were best out of the way while he said what he had to say to this pair. And Rachel was already following them.

  ‘Let me know how Tuffy is, but take your time bringing them back,’ he called after her. ‘Though probably five minutes is all I need to say what needs to be said here. Charles, Marjorie, into the house. Now.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS ALL very well to say she’d follow them, but she wasn’t sure where they’d gone.

  The track around the house led to a path winding down to the beach. She assumed that was where they were, but a fork a little way from the house veered upward. Rachel had investigated once and decided against exploring further. It was pretty much overgrown above waist height—or kangaroo head height—so she suspected it was used by wildlife rather than people.

  But now she hesitated. It’d make sense for the boys to have taken the fork to the beach, but they’d been following Tuffy, and Tuffy could have gone either way.

  She called and got no answer.

  Okay, beach first. She ran, but three minutes later she was staring at a deserted beach. No footprints in the sand. Nothing.

  Back to the fork.

  She headed up the path, kicking herself mentally for wasting time. It did look as if they’d been this way. The leaf litter had been disturbed, leaving damp ground exposed. The boys were significantly shorter than she was. They’d have got through this easier than she could. Still, she moved fast.

  Ten minutes later she was where the path ended, at an obviously little-used lookout giving broken views over the bay. She could see a muddle of fresh footprints but they weren’t here now, and all around her was dense bush.

  No dog.

  No boys.

  She stood and called.

  Nothing.

  There were smaller tracks leading into the bush, but they were surely animal tracks. It was drier up here. There were no tell-tale signs of disturbed foliage.

  Had they backtracked? Had she missed them when she’d run to the beach?

  Her phone was in her jeans pocket. Crossing every finger and toe, she phoned Tom.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ he said before she could speak. ‘I told them they could sue me for every cent I own before I let them have the boys. Heaven knows what’ll happen now, but you can tell them it’s safe to come home. How’s Tuffy? Is he hurt?’

  ‘I can’t find him. Tom, I can’t find the boys.’

  There was a moment’s pause. The beginnings of alarm.

  ‘They’re not on the beach?’

  ‘Nor up the mountain path. I’m at the lookout. I think they’ve come this way, but I’ve called and called and nothing.’

  ‘They’ll be hiding.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘I’ll join you,’ he said. ‘Give me a couple of moments to ask Rose to come over. I don’t want them coming back to an empty house.’

  So she stood and waited, staring at the myriad of tiny tracks, agonising over what to do.

  If they were indeed hiding it’d be okay. Surely.

  But the tracks led into bushland, and the bush was dense. Shallow Bay National Park ran for miles in every direction. These were city kids. If they lost their bearings...

  ‘I’m catastrophizing,’ she told herself and forced herself to wait.

  Tom was with her in minutes, looking anxious.

  ‘I wasn’t sure where to go from here,’ she told him. ‘There’s lots of little tracks but I can’t see any sign of which one they took. I thought...if I tried then I might cover up signs...things someone more experienced can see.’

  ‘They must be hiding,’ he said, sounding worried. ‘But if Tuffy’s hurt... I need to find them.’

  He raised his voice and called—the ‘Cooee!’ that was used as an almost universal cry in the Australian bush. Apart from in movies, Rachel had never heard it—she was a city girl—but it was truly impressive. It echoed out to the bay, and back to the mountains behind them. Surely the boys could hear.

  They listened. Silence.

  ‘They must be close,’ she told Tom nervously. ‘I wasted time heading to the beach first, but I can’t have been any more than fifteen minutes behind them.’

  ‘They must be hiding,’ he said again, but her fears were reflected on his face. ‘They’ll be terrified. Charles is a bully. I’ve talked enough to Marcus now to know he can use his fists as well as his words to hurt them. Claire told me he never physically hurt her, but she was a girl. Charles is older now, probably less patient, and to be honest I think Claire’s death—something he couldn’t control—has left them a little crazy. He sees the boys as a duty, to be licked into shape, no matter what it takes. They’re not going back there.’

  ‘They don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘I don’t know that for sure,’ he admitted. ‘With the legal team that pair has at their disposal...and the fact that
I’m single and only their stepdad...’

  ‘The hitting...’

  ‘They’ll say I prompted the boys to say it. There’s no physical proof.’ He closed his eyes to disguise a wash of pain that looked bone-deep—but when he opened them the pain had been replaced by determination.

  ‘Rachel, will you head home? I explored this area as a kid. Many of these paths meander down to the creek. If they reach the creek, they’ll see a path that leads one way to the beach, the other into the town. I’ll go down now and see if I can head them off. Meanwhile, if you could act as base, backing up Rose... If they get home... I don’t know how badly Tuffy’s hurt and they’ll all need...’ He broke off and closed his eyes again but then resumed.

  ‘They’ll all need cuddles. Rose will do her best but they’ll need multitudes. Can I depend on you?’

  ‘I... Sure.’ Cuddles weren’t her forte, but in this case...

  Actually, in this case she was tempted to go for it right now. So why not?

  Because she’d just backed off from Tom’s warmth? Because she’d reacted this afternoon with almost as much fear as the boys running from their grandparents?

  That’s cowardice, she told herself, and Tom was looking grey.

  She did it. For the first time in her life Rachel Tilding stepped forward and wrapped her arms around someone.

  Not someone. Tom.

  ‘You’ll find them, and we’ll work it out,’ she told him, holding him close.

  He put his face in her hair, taking deep breaths. Taking strength? That was fanciful, she thought, but the idea stayed.

  ‘We?’ he asked.

  ‘We,’ she said, more definitely. ‘We’ll get this sorted, Tom Lavery. You go find your kids and I’ll go home and be ready with cuddles.’

  * * *

  It was a good plan—except he didn’t find them.

  What followed was a long, long wait, where Rachel and Rose sat and worried, and Tom’s calls back home were increasingly desperate.

  ‘Nothing,’ she told him over and over, and as the sun sank he returned. His phone battery was dying. He was exhausted. He needed help.

  ‘I assumed they’d come home by dusk,’ he said heavily. ‘It’s time to call in the big guns.’

  Five minutes later a police car pulled into the drive. That was followed by the local fire truck and a State Emergency Services vehicle. Men and women piled out, wearing serious faces and high visibility clothing. Kids lost in this bush meant trouble. No one was wasting time.

  Locals were arriving too. Word was out. Shallow Bay was preparing to search.

  Tom wasn’t allowed to join in.

  ‘No,’ the local police sergeant told him. ‘And no argument. You have scratches all over you already. You’re exhausted and emotional. We’re the professionals. You stay here and let us bring the kids to you.’

  It nearly killed him, and it nearly killed Rachel to watch him. Like Tom, she’d prefer to be searching herself rather than going nuts with the waiting. But she wasn’t even a local. Any volunteer with no experience of night-hiking and bushcraft was being sent home and she knew she’d be useless.

  ‘Come back at dawn if we haven’t found them by then,’ the local volunteers were being told, and the words sent a chill right through her.

  And watching Tom... Watching his fear...

  He loved these kids. She saw it on his face and it left her feeling awed.

  How could a man take three children into his heart, leaving himself exposed to such pain?

  But how could he help it? She was starting to get it, she decided as the night wore on, because the thought of the kids out there was doing her head in. And every time she looked at Tom her own heart twisted.

  She didn’t do love. She didn’t do commitment. It hurt. It was hurting so much now she couldn’t bear it, but she had no choice.

  Maybe this love thing was something that didn’t get decided in any sort of rational manner, she decided. It was a scary thought, but she hardly had headspace to examine it now.

  She should go home, get some sleep, Tom told her. There’d still be medical needs tomorrow. It’d be sensible to keep herself grounded, to stay rested and ready for whatever might be required.

  She could no sooner go home than she could fly. It was as if her heart had been ensnared, caught in a fine web of...loving?

  She was so confused, so fearful, and as the night wore on it grew worse.

  It was dark, late, and it had started to rain.

  By midnight the police were treating it as deadly serious, and they’d called in the heavies. A helicopter arrived and started doing sweeps, using the house as the epicentre and moving out.

  ‘It has heat-seeking cameras,’ the sergeant told them. He’d set up base in Tom’s living room. Rose had reluctantly gone home but they could still see her light on. She’d be pacing too.

  Half of Shallow Bay seemed to be awake.

  People cared.

  ‘The chopper’s thermal cameras are our best bet in these conditions,’ the policeman was saying. ‘Kangaroos make it hard, though. They’re about the same mass as a child, so every warm body has to be checked. If we knew the kids were together we could cut out a lot of false sightings, but we can’t assume it.’

  ‘They’d never leave each other,’ Tom said, his face bleaching even whiter than it had been before.

  ‘If one of the kiddies hurt himself and another tried to go for help...’ The sergeant’s voice trailed off. ‘Well, we don’t need to tell you that.’

  He headed back to his radio.

  Rachel made tea and bullied Tom to drink it. She found some leftover party pies and made him eat them too. She even ate a couple herself, finding some sort of weird comfort in their warmth and ordinariness. It didn’t last though. They seemed to sit in her stomach, making her feel ill.

  Maybe it was other things making her feel ill.

  Every time the radio crackled into life, Tom’s whole body seemed to clench. He was sitting on the settee, leaning forward, as if he was willing the radio to give him good news.

  Nothing.

  Finally Rachel could stand it no longer. She moved across, sat beside him and took his hand in hers.

  His fingers tightened on hers, almost convulsively. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he managed. ‘I have to do something. I’m going crazy. Sergeant...’

  ‘You’re going nowhere,’ the policeman told him, not without sympathy. ‘Sorry, Doc, but I’ve read the handbook. First rule of thumb when you’re looking for lost kids—or lost anyone, for that matter—is keep their family safe. I let you out there and you’d try and search the whole National Park on your own. You’d end up lost or injured or dead with fatigue. I know it’s killing you, but you stay where you are.’

  ‘He’s making sense,’ Rachel said softly. ‘But I want to be out there, too.’

  ‘You’d get loster,’ Tom said, with a valiant attempt at humour. It didn’t work. His voice broke and that was the end of any last thought of holding him at a distance.

  He turned and held her. He just held. Hard. It was as if he needed every skerrick of warmth, of contact, he could get and there was no way she would deny him. She simply held, while the radio spat its stupid static into the room and the policeman toyed with his mug of tea and tried not to look at them. How did cops cope with seeing this level of pain?

  ‘You know what else?’ Tom said into her hair. ‘They’ll use it. If...when we find them... Marjorie and Charles... With this level of search, they’ll know about it by yesterday. And they’ll add it to the list. Cut hand through negligence. Now lost kids. They’ll say it’s my negligence and they’re right, it is.’

  ‘It’s not,’ she told him. ‘It was them. They scared the boys.’

  ‘Do you think I can prove that? I haven’t a hope of keeping them.’

  ‘I might be able t
o help there,’ she said diffidently, and tugged back a little to retrieve her phone from her pocket. ‘When Charles and Marjorie arrived... I guess you don’t remember, but I came out to find you. And I stopped, thinking I was interrupting something personal, but then you and the kids looked so threatened...’

  ‘We were threatened.’

  ‘Backstory,’ she said, still diffident. ‘One of the kids I was in care with... Between placements. We were in a home with some pretty rough kids and one of the younger girls was hurt by a couple of bullies. Badly. And I saw it happen but even then there was this code of silence, and the bullies were protected. My word wasn’t enough to hold weight. The social workers knew I was telling the truth but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

  ‘But afterwards one of them said, half-jokingly, “You should have had a camera, Rachel. If all the world had cameras it’d make our job so much easier.” Somehow, her words stuck. I guess...because of how I react to fear, because there’s been...a few other times when I’ve been scared...if I can’t do anything about it, my instinct is to document. It’s paranoia, I know, but...’

  ‘It’s not paranoia,’ he said gently, and he took her hand again. ‘It makes sense. So...?’

  ‘So I held up my phone and recorded it,’ she told him. ‘It was almost a gut reaction. I know it’s an infringement of privacy and normally I’d delete it straight away but maybe... I just thought...it might help.’

  She held up her phone and clicked on the video she’d taken. She’d been standing back and it was grainy, but there they were, the tableau of people she’d seen as she’d emerged from the back door. The sounds had been caught, too. She’d started recording as Charles had raised his voice, as she’d sensed the children’s fear. As voices had grown more threatening she’d started moving closer, in an instinctive move to protect.

  The camera zoomed in with her. Charles, large, loud, imperious. Marjorie, shrill and threatening. The two of them speaking harshly, without a word of greeting to their grandchildren.