Long Hot Summer

by Victoria Purman

  And—“Why the hell are you spying on my aunt?” Hannie stood, feet apart, in a fighting stance. Her hands automatically went to her hips, something that wasn’t lost on Dylan, judging from the way his eyes dipped.

  “Settle down.”

  She really, really hated when someone told her to settle down, like they thought she was a puppy or something.

  He registered the anger on her face and raised his hands in mock defeat. He was still crouched down by Mandy. His thigh muscles bulged inside his jeans. His elbows were perched on his knees and then he returned those his big hands to his examination of Mandy.

  “Whoa, take a rain check there before you get all vigilante on me. I was up there at my place on the front deck”—he glanced over his shoulder to the top of Reynolds Ridge—“I had my binoculars out to check my property and all those around the valley, looking for spot fires. I saw Mandy lying here and I jumped in the car. Not stalking, I promise. Not spying, either.”

  “Right.” A wave of relief washed over Hannie.

  She looked down at her poor aunt. Wait a second. Her poor aunt seemed to be enjoying this argument with Dylan Knight just a little too much, judging from her wide eyes and the smirk on her face.

  “So, is anybody going to help me up?”

  “Oh, hell,” Hannie exclaimed.

  “Damn it,” Dylan said at the same time. He then leaned in to Mandy, “Okay if I lift you?”

  “Go ahead, handsome,” Mandy replied. “I haven’t been manhandled by a man in a bloody long time. Make it slow.”

  And when Hannie glanced from Mandy’s cheeky grin to Dylan’s face, damn if he wasn’t blushing.

  When Mandy was upright, Dylan slipped an arm around her waist and half carried, half supported her up the slate steps and across the veranda towards the back door of her house.

  “Take her to the living room,” Hannie called from close behind, where she tried not to examine Dylan’s arse in his jeans. “I’ll get some ice.”

  A couple of minutes later, Mandy was propped up on the sofa, an ice pack on her ankle, chatting with Dylan.

  Hannie had gone back to the kitchen and was standing by the sink trying to get her bearings. She stared out the window to the valley, trying to convince herself the shaky feeling that was still thumping through her chest had everything to do with seeing her aunt lying helpless on the ground a few minutes ago and not seeing Dylan Knight again.

  What the hell was he doing back in Reynolds Ridge? He’d jumped out of his car like a ghost from her memory, as handsome as ever, still with the same ability to get her pulse thumping and her lady bits wanting all kinds of things. The Knight boys – Dylan and his twin Caleb – had grown up on the property next to her family’s, and had enjoyed the notoriety that their genetics created. They weren’t identical but were so alike in other ways. Sometimes their hair colour was the only clue for people to hang on to when they were trying to tell which brother was which. Hannie had never been confused about which Knight brother was Dylan. Only one of them had ever been able to get her heart thumping and her pulse racing.

  Only one of the Knight boys had kissed her.

  Damn her lady bits. Damn her traitorous pulse. Damn him, that Dylan Knight.

  All those years of man-crushing she’d done on the boy next door had led to nothing but an unhealthy obsession with Julia Roberts romantic comedies. Notting Hill, especially.

  Her view from the window, out past Mandy’s property, down to the bottom of the valley where the creek flowed when there had been rain, calmed her. The smoke had cleared a little, although she could smell it in the air. Probably would for days. Hannie took a glass from the dish rack, rinsed it, filled it from the tap, and drank it down in huge gulps. Then, she cleaned it and filled it for her aunt. It was important to keep Mandy’s fluids up in this heat, especially with an injury. The forecast for the next few days was typically South Australian and summer—hot, damn hot, like the middle of Simpson Desert hot, with forecasts up to forty-four degrees Celsius and overnight lows of a mere twenty-nine degrees. In that moment, like a hundred others during the eighteen months she’d been living on her aunt’s property, Hannie was so glad she was close.

  Although it now seemed that Mandy had a new guardian angel to look out for her as well as a niece living just a couple of minutes’ walk away.

  “Hannie,” Mandy called out from the living room. “Can you come in here for a minute, love?”

  Hannie took a deep breath and turned with the glass of cool water in her hand. She walked around the kitchen table to the living room and, as she appeared in the doorway, Aunty Mandy was smiling up at her. So was Dylan Knight.

  She tried not to look at him as she handed the glass of water to Mandy, who took a small sip.

  “C’mon, Aunt Mandy. You’ll need more than that. Drink that whole sucker down.”

  “I know how to drink, you know.” Mandy winked at her niece. “Now, Hannie, I was wondering if you could call Alice and let her know what’s happened. And, do I have to say it, tell her not to worry?”

  “Sure. I’ll call her.” Hannie flicked a glance at Dylan, tried to ignore the pounding in her chest. “Won’t she be pleased to know that a Knight in shining armour arrived just in the nick of time to save the day?”

  Mandy laughed. “Oh, you’re funny, love. Did you get that, Dylan? A knight in shining armour?”

  He frowned “Yeah, she’s hilarious.”

  “I’ll call Alice in a minute but first I’ll get you some paracetamol. I think you’re going to need it.”

  A few minutes later, medication successfully swallowed by her aunt, Hannie was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to her cousin, Alice, on the phone. They were the same age but that was about all they had in common. Alice had never liked that her mother had invited Hannie to move into the cottage on her property. Not that she’d ever come out and said exactly that, but Hannie knew. The simple fact was that Alice didn’t trust her. Not after what had happened at the end of year party in their final year of high school. It had been fourteen years ago, but still Alice bore a grudge.

  And Hannie still felt the guilt.

  “She’s fine, Alice. Someone came to help her just as I got home.”

  Please don’t ask who the someone is. Please don’t.

  “Someone came to help her? Where were you?”

  Settle down. Don’t bite back. Hannie had to believe Alice was actually worried about her mother more than she wanted to make Hannie feel guilty.

  “I was with a client down at Semaphore. I was on my way home when I saw the smoke in the hills and I came right here. We’re all safe. I haven’t had time to flick on the radio to see what the latest reports are, but the smoke has dissipated and the wind has dropped.”

  “There was a fire?” Alice sounded horrified. For someone who’d grown up in the very house Mandy still lived in, one would think Alice had never heard of the bushfire season.

  “Look, Alice, she’s good. She can put weight on her ankle so I think it’s just a sprain. She’s resting with ice on it.”

  “I can’t believe you haven’t got her in the car right now and taken her to hospital.” Alice said. “Honestly, Hannie, what is the point of you freeloading on my family if you’re not even going to look after her at times like this?”

  Hannie clamped her lips shut. She shouldn’t say out loud what was sitting in the top of her tongue. Oh, but she wanted to. “If I thought she needed it, Alice, she would be in hospital right now and you know it. Why don’t you come up and see for yourself? I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

  There was hesitation down the line.

  Alice cleared her throat. “Well, of course, I know she’d like that, but it’s almost school pick up time and I have to go and pick up the kids. It’ll only upset Mum if she thinks we’ve rushed up from town to check on her. Perhaps it’s best if I don’t.”

  No, of course you’re not coming. Hannie didn’t want to count how many months it had been since Alice had made the
twenty minute trip into the hills from her lovely home in the city to visit her mother. There was always an excuse—Natasha’s soccer practice or Ainslie’s theatre group. A very important work dinner or her husband’s travel. Hannie had always thought Alice was selfish and self-centred, but how could a daughter not visit her mother? If Hannie’s mother, Lucy, was still in the same state, Hannie would be the kind of daughter who would visit twice a week, at least. Especially for dinner. No one cooked like her mother. As it was, Hannie managed to get to far North Queensland, more than three thousand kilometres away – a three hour flight – once a year. When Lucy’s husband had died, only a year after they’d married, she’d decided to sell up everything and move to a place where there were no bushfires.

  “Tropical cyclones I can handle,” her mother had said when she’d announced her decision to move to Cairns. “But not another fire. I simply can’t do it, Hannie.”

  Hannie couldn’t argue. When Hannie’s mother had lost her husband – Hannie’s stepfather – in a fire, she had been devastated. The newly-married couple had only had two years together when he died.

  Hannie tried to concentrate on what Alice had said. Oh yeah, the fact that Alice didn’t want to rush up and see her own mother.

  “I’ll let you know if anything changes,” Hannie said. “I promise.”

  “I’ll ring her later.”

  The cousins ended the call. Hannie crossed her arms on the kitchen table and flopped her head down on them. She felt tired. It must have been the adrenaline rush or maybe the heat or the smoke. This jittery feeling had nothing to do with the fact that Dylan Knight was in the next room. No, nothing at all.

  “Hey.”

  She jerked her head up. Okay, so not in the next room. In this room. With her.

  “Were you talking to Alice?”

  “Yes.”

  The mere mention of her name clouded the atmosphere between them. Dylan’s frown returned and Hannie couldn’t bear to see it on his handsome face.

  His voice was businesslike suddenly. “I hope you told her there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got Mandy all propped up on the sofa with a couple of pillows under that ankle. It’s not broken. She’s got a mild sprain, but it probably shook her up.”

  Dylan swaggered over to the table and pulled out a chair. Dylan Knight didn’t simply walk anywhere. He spun the chair around and sat on it backwards, his elbows on the back rest.

  “Maybe I should take her to hospital,” Hannie said, trying to stare at the grainy lines of the pine table and not his eyes. She glanced up quickly. Come to think of it, his hair was the same golden yellow as the table.

  Oh, crap.

  “If you want, sure. But I’ve checked her out. It’s a sprain.”

  “But what if you’re wrong? What if it’s broken?”

  “News flash. One of the first things you learn when you go to firefighter school is all the boring first aid. You know, like sprains and broken bones and heart attacks and delivering babies. That stuff.”

  “Yeah, of course.” She hesitated. “You’ve delivered a baby?”

  “Once or twice.” He shrugged. “But go ahead and take her to hospital if you want to.”

  Hannie finally looked him in the eye. She couldn’t share her suspicions about Mandy with anyone, especially not him. “If I even suggested that, she’d bite my head off.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. Paracetamol and ice.”

  “Right. Paracetamol and ice. I can do that. I mean, I’m no first responder or anything, but even I can manage that.”

  He smiled at her. Little lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. His teeth were very white against his tanned face.

  “So. How long have you been back?” Hannie asked.

  “A month.”

  “A month?” She hadn’t noticed lights on in the house across the valley. She hadn’t seen him around. Not at the café. Or on the road. Not across the valley looking lovelorn in her direction. It wasn’t like Reynolds Ridge was a thriving metropolis. Puff. Her spidey sense hadn’t tingled once at his proximity the way she thought it might have.

  Maybe she really was over him.

  That would be good. It would be very good. It would be entirely excellent.

  But here he was in her aunt’s kitchen and something was definitely tingling. Perhaps it was her guilt pinging back to life.

  “I hadn’t planned on coming back from Melbourne but when Mum and Dad didn’t like any of the offers they had for the property... I got a convenient case of homesickness.”

  “And you bought the property?”

  “Yep.”

  “Caleb didn’t want it?”

  “Yep. He did. But I wanted it more.”

  “Oh.” Hannie knew what he was talking about.

  He couldn’t bear to let the place go, to be sold into another family, to end his family’s history and connection with this area. Her family and his had been neighbours since they were kids, and their families before them. Four generations of Knights and Reynolds had lived alongside each other. She knew from her mother that Dylan’s father hadn’t been well after a heart attack two years ago, when he’d had to retire from the fire service, and Dylan’s purchase of the property was about securing the future of his parents in a retirement village, closer to medical care in somewhere more manageable.

  “How are they enjoying life in the retirement village?”

  His smile widened. “It’s a nice place. Not far from here. Dad makes a big show of hating the place, of course. But Mum loves it. Probably because she’s not stuck with him twenty-four hours a day. She gets to do things like Zumba dancing and Thai cooking classes and the place has a tennis court and a pool.”

  “That sounds nice,” Hannie said. “I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  “Yeah, he will. As long as they’re together, he’ll be happy.”

  There was something unspoken, though, in his explanation. She knew how much his parents would be missing Reynolds Ridge—the foggy winter mornings, the winter chill, the open fires, the bursts of spring leaves in the trees and the cooling gully breezes in summer. The view out across the apple orchards and the crisp clean scent of an autumn morning. That was exactly what she’d missed when she’d moved away. They didn’t have a choice to leave though and, it seemed, Dylan didn’t have one about coming back.

  “So you’re back...” Her voice trailed off. She really wanted to keep going to ask him if he was back for good, but stopped herself. It really was none of her business, no matter how much traitorous tingling was going on inside her.

  “Yep. For good.”

  “And you’re back in the South Australian fire service?” It was a casual question.

  “Yep. Back on the trucks,” he said, distracted.

  “Well. Welcome home, Dylan Knight.”

  She met his eyes. He did nothing for a moment. He simply stared back at her.

  And, oh, god. She was back in the school hall and he was about to kiss her.

  Then her phone beeped and vibrated on the table. She glanced down. It was a message from Alice. She felt hot and nauseous all of a sudden.

  “Please make sure Mum keeps her leg elevated”

  Hannie blew out a breath.

  “What’s the matter? Who’s that?”

  Hannie met his eyes when she said, “It’s Alice.”

  Dylan’s back straightened.

  Your first love, Alice. The one we betrayed.

  A heavy silence descended, thicker than the smoke from any bushfire.

  “Well,” she said.

  “Well.” Dylan stood, flipped the chair around and tucked it under the table. “I’d better get going.”

  “Sure.” Hannie grabbed her phone, stood to tuck it into her pocket. “Ice and paracetamol.”

  “Ice and paracetamol. And make sure she keeps it elevated for the rest of the day.”

  Hannie flicked a pointed finger at him. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

  “No,” he said gruffly. “I�
�m sure I don’t. I’ll get going.”

  Hannie tapped her skull. “Up here for thinking.” Then she pointed to her feet. “And down here for dancing.”

  She froze. Dancing. Why the hell did she have to mention that?

  Dylan didn’t move. He just stood there in her aunt’s kitchen, his feet planted, his head close to the ceiling of the old cottage. “It’s good to see you, Hannie.”

  “You too,” she replied with a forced smile.

  He dipped his head in goodbye, then turned and walked out the back door. A moment later, the rumble of his car starting echoed in the valley and the sound of it faded as he drove out the long driveway onto the main road.

  Chapter Three

  Hannie made a quick trip to her cottage. She had to cuddle Ted, make sure he had enough water and let him outside for a pitstop and a quick sniff around the yard. Then, she returned to her Aunt Mandy’s place. She’d been visiting a lot more lately, as her concerns had continued to grow. After dinner, they watched a Rambo movie on DVD—her aunt had had a thing for Sylvester Stallone since the 1970s—then Hannie helped Mandy get in to bed, and left after promising to return in the morning to see that she could get up and about and keeping up with the paracetamol and fluids.

  Closing the back door behind her, Hannie stepped down from the veranda and slowly walked the driveway to her own cottage. It was a quiet night. The stars were putting on a twinkling show in the sky and, with few street lights in the hills, there was no city glare to distract from their brightness. There was rustling in the big oak tree by the drive way, and the familiar call of a boobook owl was reassuring. If the birds hadn’t flown away, it felt safe.

  It had been a long day. Semaphore that morning with Beck and Bella. The smoke. Mandy. Dylan.

  Hannie sighed. If she had a bath tub, she would have filled it to the brim and added scented bubbles to soak in it for about four hours. But she didn’t, so when she pushed open her front door, she headed straight to the bathroom for a cooling shower before slipping into bed.

  Most nights, the gully breezes cooled her cottage, slipping in through the tall living room windows and exiting from her bedroom windows, fluttering the net curtains all night in a pretty dance. But tonight it was still. And still hot. At least Hannie was using the heat as an excuse for her inability to sleep. She turned on one side, then the other. Flicked off the thin sheet covering her, then scrabbled around on the floor looking for it when she felt cool.