Maybe Alice was too. Suffering from exhaustion. Or low blood sugar or something. Having some kind of delusional experience.
‘Are you a princess?’
Definitely delusional. ‘No.’
‘Is he magic?’
A tiny finger was pointing at Ben. Big blue eyes were looking up. Way up at the head of her horse. Something in the child’s expression was very familiar. The kind of longing she remembered from when she was that small. A longing that had become a dream of one day having her own pony.
Alice smiled. ‘He’s kind of magic,’ she said softly. ‘Because he makes good things happen. Would you like to pat him?’
Already big eyes widened dramatically and Alice could see the sudden tension in the small body. A flash of fear. She heard the deep breath Emmy sucked in and then saw a determined nod.
‘Yes, please.’
Brave kid. Alice held out her hand. ‘He wouldn’t hurt you. He loves children.’
The diminutive hand went trustingly into hers. ‘I’ll lift you up,’ Alice said, ‘so you can reach his neck. That’s the best place to pat him.’
Emmy’s fingers looked tiny and very pale against Ben’s black coat.
‘He’s big, isn’t he? That’s why he’s called Ben. After Big Ben. That’s a clock. In London.’
‘I know that.’ The child sounded indignant. ‘I’m five!’
Alice was too startled to smile at the tone. She’d been chatting quietly simply to put Emmy at ease. It was only now that she registered the accent.
‘Did you live in London, Emmy?’
‘Yes.’ Emmy was stretching up to reach Ben’s mane.
‘Where do you live now?’
‘Here.’
She couldn’t have walked from a neighbouring farm to get here by herself, surely. That left only one potential home. The big house. It was still quite a walk for a five-year-old to have made by herself. Who was Haylee? A sister? And where were the parents? Did they have no idea of the kind of hazards a property like this could present? What if she hadn’t been home or Ben wasn’t as gentle as he was? What about the river, for heaven’s sake?
Alice would have something to say to Emmy’s parents when she saw them.
‘What’s your last name?’ she queried.
Emmy didn’t answer. She was busy threading her fingers through a handful of mane.
Alice tried again. ‘What’s Daddy’s name?’
‘Daddy.’
Alice smiled. She gave up. Surely someone would come looking for the child soon enough. They were probably busy moving in right now and hadn’t noticed her wandering off.
‘Would you like to sit on top of Ben?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’ll need to wear my hat. It’s a special helmet just for people who sit on horses.’
A moment later and there she was. A little princess with blonde curls poking from beneath the helmet, sitting on the huge black horse which made her look like a pea on a pumpkin. A very happy princess. It was the first time Alice had seen the child smile and it was the best smile, simply radiating joy, quite contagious enough to have Alice standing there, smiling back.
They could have stayed like that for a very long time. Both totally content, but then Jake raised his head from his paws. The shaggy hair on his neck came up and he emitted a low growling sound.
And then, from some distance behind Alice, came the sound of a man’s voice. A very angry man.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing with my daughter?’
Emmy burst into tears.
Jake’s growl reached an ominous level and was reinforced with a loud bark.
But Alice didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not when she’d recognised that furious voice.
By some twist of a malevolent fate, ‘Daddy’ was Andrew Barrett and he was closer by the moment.
Oh…God!
‘Don’t cry,’ she said to Emmy. Or was she talking aloud to herself? ‘It’s all right.’
‘Nooo!’ Fat tears rolled down pink cheeks. ‘Daddy’s cross with me.’
‘Actually…’ Alice found a smile ‘…I think he’s cross with me.’
Emmy’s tears stopped. She stared at Alice. ‘Why?’
Why, indeed? If anyone was to be blamed for anything right now, it most certainly shouldn’t be Alice. She turned and had the satisfaction of seeing Andrew stopped in his tracks. Not only by the menacing form of Jake, who’d positioned himself between his mistress and the threatening man, but by the shock of recognition.
‘What are you doing here?’
There was dawning horror on the face of her old boss and, for just an instant, Alice had the peculiar notion that he was afraid of her. Totally ridiculous, of course, but it was enough for her to dredge up some confidence.
‘I live here. What are you doing here?’
‘I own this property,’ Andrew snapped. ‘And you most certainly do not live here.’
‘Yes, she does, Daddy.’ Emmy gave a huge sniff. ‘So does Ben.’
‘Be quiet, please, Emmeline. I’m talking.’
Good grief! What kind of father was Andrew Barrett? Talking to a five-year-old this sternly made any fantasy of his parental skills evaporate into an unpleasant mist. Alice didn’t like what she was seeing. Neither did Emmy, apparently. The small girl stuck out her bottom lip and scowled at her father. Andrew tried to take a step forward and Jake growled again.
‘Call it off,’ Andrew commanded.
Alice waited for a heartbeat. And then another. ‘Jake,’ she said softly. Her wonderful dog moved to sit beside her, pressed against her leg.
‘And now get my daughter down from that monster.’
That was too much for Emmy. ‘He’s not a monster!’ she declared. She leaned forward in the saddle and tried to wrap her arms around Ben’s neck. They barely made it to the halfway mark. ‘He’s lovely,’ Emmy said passionately. ‘He’s my new friend and he’s a magic horse. Alice said so.’
Alice was gripping Emmy’s leg, unsure of the child’s balance. At the same time, she was watching the muscles in Andrew’s face move. As though he was trying to digest the mutiny he was faced with and decide how he would deal with it. Or maybe he was trying to understand how this could possibly be happening.
Alice was with him on that one. This was a nightmare! Part of her brain, however, was registering the fact that Andrew wasn’t punishing his daughter in any way for the contradiction. Maybe he wasn’t as strict and controlling as first impressions had suggested. Or maybe he was just distracted by dealing with her for the moment. He didn’t look indecisive any longer. He looked furious. His gaze was chilly enough to send a shiver up her spine.
‘Where—precisely—do you live?’
‘In the cottage.’
Andrew shook his head. ‘No. The tenant in the cottage is someone called Amanda.’
Alice nodded. ‘Mandy Jones. She signed a twelvemonth lease but she decided to go to Italy with her boyfriend. I was already living with her so I took over the lease last October, when it still had six months to run.’
‘I wasn’t informed of any sub-lease.’
‘We saw the solicitor. I signed a contract.’
‘We’ll have to see about that. Won’t we?’
A horrible thought occurred to Alice. What if the contract was somehow illegal? Could Andrew simply kick her out? Where on earth would she go, with a horse and dog? She touched Jake’s head with her free hand, seeking reassurance. Trying to stem the awful sinking feeling that, once again, her life was falling apart.
‘Alice?’
She turned her face up to Emmy.
‘I’d like to get down now, please.’
‘Sure. Bring your leg over to this side and I’ll help you.’ Alice raised her arms and caught Emmy as she slid off the horse. Ben stood like a rock, bless him, but she held the little girl closer for just a moment when her feet touched the ground. Letting her know that she was safe. It was a long time since she’d
hugged a child and her arms felt curiously empty when she let go.
Emmy patted Jake on his head and then walked towards her father. ‘Come on, Daddy,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry and I want to go home.’ She looked over her shoulder at Alice. ‘Can I have another ride, please? Tomorrow?’
‘Um…you’ll need to talk to your daddy about that.’
A discussion that was unlikely to give Emmy what she wanted, judging by the look Alice was receiving from Andrew right now. If she’d felt unwanted in Resus this afternoon when he’d chosen Jo over her, she felt far less desirable right now. More like something he needed to scrape off his shiny black shoe.
Except his shoes weren’t very shiny any more, after storming over the paddock. The ends of his pinstriped trousers looked a little worse for wear, too. No doubt he would blame Alice when he noticed and then she would have to face him again at work in the morning. Not that she had to do anything to gain this man’s displeasure. Existing was more than enough.
Alice had to fight the urge to burst into tears the way Emmy had on hearing her father shouting. Just as well she was good at fighting. She’d learned to tap into stronger feelings. Like anger. She raised her chin.
‘You might like to let Emmy’s mother know it’s not a good idea to let her wander around by herself,’ she said crisply. ‘The river’s quite deep in places and it’s not fenced off.’
Emmy turned again. She was shaking her head. ‘I haven’t got a mother,’ she told Alice. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she, Daddy?’
‘Yes.’ The monosyllabic response was giving nothing away.
It certainly wasn’t inviting even one of the questions Alice had tumbling in her head. What had happened to Melissa? How long ago? Did Emmy miss her dreadfully? Did Andrew? Was that why he had decided to come to the other side of the world to be a solo parent?
‘I’ve got a nanny instead,’ Emmy continued.
‘Not any more.’ Andrew sounded weary now. ‘Haylee’s not going to be staying with us any longer.’
‘Because she was so tired?’
That got a smile. One that Alice was completely excluded from. The bond between this father and daughter was clearly strong enough for her to have been forgotten as the two of them talked to each other. That impression was deepened as Andrew bent down and Emmy raised her arms to be picked up. And when she was, she wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and her legs around his waist and tucked her head against his neck. A fluid series of movements that spoke of a well-rehearsed routine.
‘Yes, sweetheart. Because she was too tired to look after you properly. Now say goodbye to Alice. We’re going home.’
Emmy peeped over the solid wall of her father’s shoulder. Big blue eyes and golden curls, just like her mother had had. The same kind of fragile prettiness that most men had found irresistible, but it had been Andrew that Mel had chosen.
‘Goodbye, Alice,’ the little girl said.
‘Bye, hon.’
She was used to living here alone. It was more than five months since Mandy had gone. She had Ben. And Jake.
So why on earth did watching the retreating figure of Andrew, holding his child in his arms, make her feel not only alone but lonely?
Afraid, even.
CHAPTER THREE
‘ARE you sure?’
‘I’m sorry, Dr Barrett. This is a witnessed signature and all perfectly legal. The reason I wasn’t aware of the sub-lease was because I was overseas at the time it was arranged and my junior partner dealt with it. Unfortunately, the filing of the document was incorrect.’
‘So I’m stuck with it.’
‘Only for another three weeks or thereabouts.’ The solicitor raised an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t seem concerned about waiting for the lease to expire when you purchased the property.’
‘That’s because I had no idea who was really living in that cottage.’
‘And the tenant is a problem?’
‘Yes.’ The word was heartfelt.
‘In that case…’ The solicitor smiled, pulling a blank piece of paper in front of him. ‘What is she doing that’s unacceptable?’
Andrew frowned. She was just…there; wasn’t that enough? It was more than enough for him to find it disturbing. Especially when his daughter seemed convinced that Alice Palmer had magic powers of some kind. It was all she could talk about last night and she’d been almost breathless with excitement and talking so fast at times it had been hard to hear everything.
Apparently she had watched her gallop up a big hill with her hair streaming out behind.
‘Like a real princess, Daddy. Will my hair grow that long one day?’
His precious daughter had been sitting on that monster of a horse that seemed to have a peculiar name, like Clock.
‘Alice would teach me to ride if I asked really, really nicely, wouldn’t she? She’s a nice lady, isn’t she, Daddy?’
The name of Ben had come up more than once in that non-stop stream of chatter that had carried on through dinner and bath time. It had even interrupted the bedtime story.
Andrew’s nod was unconscious. ‘She may be sharing the cottage,’ he informed the solicitor, ‘with a man by the name of Ben.’
‘Ah…I’ll have to check, Dr Barrett, but I’m not sure that would constitute breaking the terms of the lease agreement. Unfair eviction could lead to an appearance in the small claims court if this Ms Palmer was unduly upset by it. Is she—or this male companion—causing any damage to your property?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
In fact, the neat flower beds and patch of vegetables he’d noticed as he carried Emmy past yesterday had made the area around the cottage look far better maintained than anything else on his vast new property. The general neglect had been something of a shock, to be honest, but that was the downside of making such a purchase via the Internet.
Andrew breathed out in a sigh. He didn’t want to ‘upset’ Alice. Or find himself the bad guy in a minor court case. He would just have to grit his teeth and get through the next three weeks. And hope that Emmy didn’t fall any further in love with this ‘princess’ she’d discovered.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Never mind,’ he growled. ‘I don’t have the time for this. I’m late enough for work as it is.’
At least the crisis involving Emmy’s care had been temporarily solved. The school had an excellent care facility that was open for extended hours on either side of the school day. Peter had been very understanding about why Andrew would be late in today and he’d also promised to look at the shift roster later so that both the Barretts could get past this hiccup in the settling in process.
And that was all this was. A hiccup. One that might last a little longer than Andrew was happy with, but he could cope. He was still in control, after all.
‘This sounds perfect!’
‘What is it?’
‘Five-acre property set up for the horse-lover. Threebedroomed house, stables. There’s a dressage arena and swimming pool and it’s only thirty minutes drive to the CBD. Available immediately, it says.’
‘How much?’
‘Um…six hundred dollars a week.’
Alice almost choked on her coffee. ‘Get real, Jo!’
‘OK…’ Jo scanned the newspaper column. ‘How ’bout this? Two-bedroomed cottage on farm. Private and peaceful. Paddock available if required. Two hundred dollars a week.’
‘Sounds promising.’
‘Oh…’ Jo groaned. ‘It’s way up in north Canterbury. Probably be a two-hour drive to work.’
A distinctly glum silence fell in the emergency department staff room.
‘Do you really think you’ll have to move?’
‘Yeah…’ Alice had no trouble recalling that expression on Andrew’s face when he’d seen her on his property. ‘And I’ve only got three weeks until my lease runs out. I might have to live in the wilds of north Canterbury.’
‘It would certainly be peaceful,’ Jo said wryly. ‘Seriously, though. Couldn’t
you just find a paddock for Ben? Look, there’s a whole section of grazing for hire. You could move in with me, then, while you’re hunting.’
‘Are you allowed dogs in your apartment? Large and particularly hairy ones?’
Jo shook her head sadly. ‘Not even little bald ones. You wouldn’t think of putting Jake in kennels? Just temporarily?’
‘No way. He was an abandoned dog when I rescued him. I couldn’t let him think it might be happening all over again.’
Jo sighed but smiled at the same time. ‘You really love those critters of yours, don’t you?’
‘They’re my family,’ Alice said simply. ‘No. There’s got to be a way round this and I’m going to find it. Later…’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Come on, Jo. We’re short-staffed and we were only supposed to be having a two-minute break, remember?’
‘We’re not that busy.’
‘Don’t even think like that. You’re tempting fate.’
Andrew pushed open the double doors of the emergency department, having left his suit jacket and briefcase in his office, and paused, taking in what appeared to be a scene of bedlam.
The curtains on all three resuscitation areas were pulled shut and the sound of screaming was coming from somewhere behind them. Technicians and nurses were going in all directions. One was pushing a trolley into Resus 1. Another came from Resus 2 with a sealed bag of blood samples and she was heading for the vacuum tube system that would suck them straight to the laboratory. An orderly was trying to manoeuvre a bed past two ambulance stretchers queuing for the attention of the triage nurse. The cubicles all looked occupied.
So early in the day and it was chaos. Controlled, but only just.
Cursing the fact that he was well over an hour late to start his shift, Andrew made a beeline for the triage nurse, trying to ignore the fact that the person doing this important job today was the one person he least wanted to see.
Alice was talking to one of the paramedics standing beside the first stretcher.
‘I’m afraid a sprained ankle isn’t going to get a high priority at the moment. Can you find a wheelchair and take her through to Reception?’ She glanced up and spotted Andrew’s approach.
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