One Baby Step at a Time

by Meredith Webber

  Growing up in Willowby, with mines on the doorstep of the town, he knew exactly where Macaw was, and if he hadn’t, the mass of emergency and private vehicles parked nearby would have told him. Daylight was fading as he pulled up outside the high wire fence but bright arc lights lit up the scene so it was like something out of a movie.

  Or a nightmare.

  Certain they wouldn’t let him in, he stood by the gate and scoured the grim faces of the men by the site office for one he knew.

  Dan de Groote!

  He yelled the name and Dan turned, saw him waving from behind the fence and came towards him.

  ‘Word was you were back in Sydney,’ Dan said, looking none too happy to see him.

  ‘I’m not, I’m here. Bill’s down there, isn’t she? Can I come in and wait?’

  Dan waved his hand towards the crowds of people gathered outside the fence.

  ‘I should let you in and not all of them—other relatives?’

  ‘I am a doctor,’ Nick reminded him. ‘I could be helpful.’

  Dan’s glance towards the ambulances already within the perimeter fence told Nick what he was thinking, but in the end he nodded.

  ‘Just wait there while I get you a tag and once you’re in keep out of everyone’s way, okay?’

  Nick almost smiled because just so had Dan, the eldest of the boys, always treated him and Bill, letting them join in some wild game the ‘big boys’ were playing, as long as they kept out of the way.

  * * *

  She couldn’t move.

  The tube had somehow changed the dynamics of the little tunnel. The tube and the probe and the dirt.

  Well, she had to move, to wiggle and wriggle and ease herself just a little, forget inches, they were old measurements, go for millimetres. A millimetre at a time—she could do it.

  * * *

  Tag hanging around his neck, Nick waited on the periphery of the crowd of sober, worried men near the mine office. Something had gone wrong, he could tell from their voices.

  And now arrangements were being made for more men to go down below, Dan saying very loudly he was going, Nick, without thinking, stepping forward.

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  Dan threw him a hard look.

  ‘You’re claustrophobic, remember?’ he said, ‘besides not being trained. But you can make yourself useful as a doctor. We brought up the badly injured man first and the doctor we had here has gone with him to hospital. The rest of the eleven men we’ve rescued are coming up now. Go check them out.’

  He pointed to where a large tent had been set up, close to where the ambulances were parked, and Nick, knowing Dan was right—an untrained person in this situation could bring risk to all the rescuers—went across to make himself useful.

  ‘Someone else is trapped, one of the mine rescue people.’

  He heard the whisper as he waited for his patients to arrive and knew, with cold certainty in his gut, that it was Bill.

  And he hadn’t told her he loved her.

  Where that thought came from he had no idea, but he knew it was true. The mad dash from Sydney had been for love.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  FINALLY ALL ELEVEN men were up, checked and reunited with their anxious families before being ferried to hospital for more comprehensive examinations and treatment.

  Night had fallen, and an eerie silence hung over the complex. Nick edged his way back towards the site office where, he knew, the rescue was being co-ordinated, and found not Dan but Pete.

  Nick heard an echo of Bill’s voice—Dan and Pete, both members of the elite rescue team—the best of the best.

  ‘I’m going down,’ Pete said. ‘Dan let me know you were here. You want to come?’

  One look at Pete’s face was enough to confirm that the rescuer in trouble was the boys’ adored little sister, Bill.

  And in bad trouble if Pete was here, too.

  Nick didn’t hesitate, taking the overalls Pete was holding and clambering into them as he followed the miner to an area behind the main buildings.

  ‘You won’t go soft on me?’ Pete demanded as he handed Nick a helmet with a light attached. ‘We’re going down three levels.’

  ‘I won’t go soft on you,’ Nick promised, and they started carefully down the ladder that led into what, to Nick, was like the very centre of the earth.

  One shaft, another, then another, until finally voices and bright lights led them to where the fall blocked the three men from escape. In the bright lights three miners, stripped down to underwear, sweat gleaming from their skins, were carefully levering and shifting rocks from the base of the fall. A rescuer in full gear talked quietly to the trapped men through a communication probe, and a thinish, flexible tube that led up and over the rock fall told Nick exactly where Bill was trapped.

  He couldn’t think of how far underground he was, all he could do was concentrate on Bill, willing her free from her prison. Pete had joined the men digging while Dan and the second rescue team member talked about tubes and probes and the possibility that there’d been a slight movement in the rocks that had been enough to trap Bill in her narrow tunnel.

  ‘Can you remove the tube?’ Nick asked Dan, and they all stared at the dark hole above their heads, seeking inspiration. ‘Would that help?’

  ‘Who knows? The danger is that in moving it we might do more damage. She’s okay, she’s only about a metre from the trapped men, and although she must have lost her mike while she was wiggling around, she is talking to them and they’re relaying information back to us. Apparently she had to dig away some dirt to get the tube through and she pushed it back underneath her as she dug. Now she’s using her free hand to dig it out from underneath her and trying to edge backwards that way.’

  Nick closed his eyes, trying to picture the situation, shutting down the panic in his chest when he considered just who was stuck in that unbearable situation.

  ‘Suction? Like a vacuum cleaner?’ he said to Dan. ‘Would it alter the dynamics and make things worse if we sucked some loose dirt and rubble away from up there?’

  Dan considered the idea for a moment then walked away to talk to the men.

  ‘We can’t use the mine’s ventilation suction,’ Pete said, ‘it’d be far too strong and could bring down more rock, but Nick’s idea is worth a go—some kind of industrial vacuum cleaner that’ll suck up dirt.’

  The second rescuer sent a message to the operations room and within ten minutes a very clumsy-looking barrel vacuum cleaner was in Nick’s hands.

  But not for long!

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ Dan said, ‘but you have to take a back seat on this one. We can’t risk a further fall.’

  The valiant little machine sucked, was emptied, sucked again, emptied again, until a yell of triumph went up from the man currently manning it—Bill’s boots were in sight, edging gradually towards them.

  He shouldn’t be here.

  He didn’t belong.

  But how could he be anywhere else?

  Pete reached up as the boots came closer, talking to Bill now, easing her feet down onto footholds in the rocks, talking all the time. But it was Nick who pushed both Dan and Pete aside to catch her as she fell the last few feet to the ground, catch her and hold her, just hold her.

  ‘You’re the doc, you’re supposed to be checking her out,’ Dan reminded him, but Nick’s arms wouldn’t unclamp from around the woman he’d so nearly lost.

  Eventually he climbed behind her up the first shaft, Bill recovering enough to tease him all the way about how at any moment the earth could come crashing down on them.

  ‘Don’t worry, when I heard about Macaw I thought it had,’ he told her. ‘I thought I’d lost you for ever without ever telling you I love you.’

  ‘Telling me you love me?�
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  Bill’s startled reply echoed down the shaft but hopefully they were far enough up for it not to have been heard by the men still working below.

  ‘Of course I love you. According to Serena I always have, I just hadn’t realised it.’

  Bill had reached the next level and waited until he emerged when, ignoring the miner standing guard there, she turned to hug him hard.

  ‘Serena?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll work it out,’ he assured her.

  ‘Steffi?’

  ‘We’ll work that out too.’

  Nick eased his arms from around her and looked into her dirt- and blood-streaked face.

  ‘Preferably above ground,’ he reminded her, and she led him to the next shaft and began to climb.

  ‘When did you get here?’ she asked, and it took most of that climb to explain their mad drive north.

  The third shaft was easier, the light from above reassuring Nick that the real world still existed. But Bill was tiring fast, so he climbed closer to her, trying to take some of her weight off her arms and legs, half carrying her when they finally reached the top and anxious helpers hauled out first Bill then helped him clamber up and stand upright.

  Paramedics had already put Bill onto a stretcher and as they wheeled her to the makeshift emergency room, he walked beside her, holding her hand, not caring what anyone thought.

  Apart from a multitude of scratches, torn nails and fingers from her digging, and red patches that would eventually be bruises, she was fine.

  ‘Nothing a good hot shower won’t cure,’ he told her, when he’d finished what he’d tried to make a professional examination, although his heart went into overdrive when he remembered the danger she’d been in.

  ‘Take me home,’ she said quietly, and Nick was only too happy to oblige.

  She was quiet in the car, sitting with one hand on his knee, and he knew the stress of her entrapment must be catching up with her.

  Except that when she spoke, it was to ask what she’d asked earlier.

  ‘Serena?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. All I know is that I’d be living a lie if I settled with her, loving you as I do. I had thought it was the right thing to do for Steffi, but now I realise it would be unfair to everyone. Somehow we’ve got to come to some agreement over Steffi without her becoming the rope in a tug-of-war. But all that can wait. You’re safe and you probably need some sleep and I definitely need some sleep, and tomorrow, as the wise men say, is another day.’

  ‘I think we might be at tomorrow already,’ Bill reminded him, and she moved the hand that lay on his knee, giving him a little squeeze that brought him more joy, right then, than a kiss.

  He took her back to her own apartment, where he helped her out of her clothes, showered her gently, applied antiseptic lotion to the scratches and put dressings on her hands, then slid a big T-shirt over her head and tucked her into bed.

  ‘I’ll take your spare key so Dolores can bring you some food,’ he told her, bending to kiss her on the lips.

  She slid her arms around his neck.

  ‘You’re not staying?’ she whispered. ‘I thought you’d wanted us to be here alone? That night at the yacht club?’

  ‘No, I’m not staying and, yes, I do want us to be alone, but not now, not like this, my love,’ he responded, kissing her again, but gently still. ‘You need to sleep and then you need to think about where you want to go in this situation. It might be hard, Bill, if I have to fight Serena because there’s no way I’m giving up Steffi. If that happens, you’ll be caught in the crossfire.’

  She cupped his face in her palms.

  ‘And if I said I didn’t care—that however bad things get they couldn’t be worse than life without you?’ she asked him. ‘If I said I loved you?’

  His heart was behaving badly again and it was only with a mammoth effort of will that he eased away from her, tucked the sheet around her and kissed her one more time, this time a goodnight kiss but not goodbye...

  * * *

  Bill woke, stiff and more than a little sore but with a sense of well-being in spite of her physical state. She examined her surroundings as she considered this state and slowly memory returned—Nick had kissed her goodnight—and she had to smile.

  Although...

  Might have to fight Serena—you’ll be caught in the crossfire—Steffi rope in tug-of-war...

  Memories of before the kiss dampened the sense of well-being.

  It was all very well being gung-ho about fighting side by side with Nick so he could keep Steffi, but what if they lost?

  What would it do to Nick?

  Thinking of that was bad enough, but she knew she was only throwing that around in her head to stop herself thinking of the big one.

  What would it do to her?

  Okay, so she already loved Steffi, but at a distance—a little closer than her nephews and nieces but still as an outsider in her heart. But if she married Nick—and that had seemed to be the gist of things last night—and having mother ‘rights’ so to speak, Bill knew damn well her love for the little girl would send its roots deep into her heart.

  And then to lose her?

  From being ready to leap out of bed, shower, and rush up to see Nick and Steffi, Bill indulged in a tiny whimper of self-pity and stuck her head under the pillow.

  Two minutes later she realised just how pathetic her behaviour was. She didn’t do the leap-from-bed thing but she did drag her body up and out into the shower, where all her scrapes were red and sore and her bruises coming out nicely.

  She stood under the steaming water until it started to get cold—Bob must have put in cheap water heaters—then she dried her herself, rubbed at her hair, carefully dressed herself—whimpering occasionally at the pain of movement or when she dragged clothing over an extra sore spot—then made her way up to Nick’s apartment.

  It was Nick she had to consider in this business—Nick her friend, Nick the man she loved and, if memory served correctly, Nick who loved her back.

  Nick who’d overcome his very real claustrophobia to come down a mine to help rescue her.

  And she was going to leave him to battle Serena on his own?

  Not stand beside him because of some wimpish fear of being hurt?

  She rang the bell of his apartment but when he appeared, Steffi in his arms, she felt again that dreaded fear of loss.

  Nick looped his arm around her and drew her inside, scolding quietly all the time.

  ‘You should have stayed in bed. Dolores is making some chicken soup for you. Have you had enough sleep? How are your cuts and scratches? I’ll have to have a look, put something on them. Come and sit down.’

  The words flowed over Bill like balm, but although they soothed it was the way Steffi’s fingers caught at her hair that hurt more than scratches.

  Bill eased away and sank down into an armchair, staring at a mess of Steffi’s toys on the living-room floor. Nick set the little girl down and she toddled off into the kitchen.

  ‘She’s walking properly now,’ Bill said, and the mix of happiness and dread made her voice crack.

  Nick came and sat on the arm of her chair, tangling his fingers in her still-damp hair the way his daughter had.

  ‘Tell me,’ he commanded, and somehow Bill did, pouring out her doubts and fears.

  ‘It hurt so much, losing the baby, Nick,’ she said, doing pathetic again, ‘that now, twelve months later, I’m only barely over it. I just don’t know if I could go through that again—if I’d find the courage a second time around.’

  Nick lifted her out of the chair, and sat down in it with her on his knee.

  ‘I can’t pretend there’s not a chance,’ he told her, his lips pressing kisses on her neck
by way of punctuation. ‘But do we throw away the joy and happiness we could have now—right now—because of what might happen in the future?

  ‘By some miracle we’ve found each other in a way we never expected to—we’ve loved each other for so long, but this love is different, special and all the more powerful because of the love that was already there. So it might not move mountains, but with you by my side—and now I’ve been down to Level Three in a mine—I’d give it a damn good try.’

  He turned her enough to kiss her properly now and Bill felt all his conviction—and all his love, their love—in that long, deep, probing kiss.

  Eventually, she kissed him back, telling him without words that she agreed.

  Or thought she did.

  A long time later he lifted his head and looked down into her face.

  ‘I would understand if you decided to run for your life—to head off to deepest, darkest somewhere to get away from this.’

  The slight tremor in his voice told her he meant every word, and it was that tremor that restored her courage.

  ‘When you’ve gone down to Level Three for me?’ she teased softly, then she kissed him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘SO, WHAT HAPPENED in Sydney?’

  Such a simple question, Nick thought as Bill clambered off his lap and settled on the floor close to his legs, looking up at him with such trust and love and hope he found it hard to talk.

  Let alone explain.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he admitted honestly. ‘Well, to a certain extent I can describe the visit, but the underlying currents are beyond me.’

  He hesitated.

  How could he tell Bill about Serena’s attitude without being disloyal to his daughter’s mother or portraying her as cold and heartless, which he knew for a fact she wasn’t?

  ‘Start when you arrived,’ Bill suggested, resting her head on his knee so she was no longer looking up at him.

  Which somehow made it easier...

  ‘It was weird, Bill. For a start, she barely acknowledged Steffi’s existence. Alex was there and he was delighted to see Stef and she was obviously just as pleased to see him, but Serena...’