by Emily Forbes
It was slightly convoluted, but Lauren could see where she was coming from, and was amazed yet again at the wisdom of children.
‘Do you have a name?’ she asked—although she should be asking exactly who was in charge of her, and what she was doing at her back gate.
‘I’m Maddie,’ she said. ‘It’s really Madge, after my grandmother, but Daddy says that’s a name for an old person not a...’ she paused, as if trying out the next word in her head, and finally came up with ‘...youngser like me.’
‘Well, Maddie, perhaps your grandmother is looking for you and you should go home. Do you know the way?’
The girl rolled her eyes. ‘It’s just next door,’ she said, and Lauren thought she heard the echo of an unspoken Stupid! lingering at the end of the statement. ‘Although it’s not as next door as the next door was when we lived in London.’
From London to Paradise Lake. From a bustling, cosmopolitan city to a virtual backwater with a string of houses around a tidal lake. What a huge shift in their lives.
A huge shift in work, too, for the man she’d rescued. From city vet to a country one—and a different country at that.
Had he realised that when he’d come out here?
Did he intend to stay, or merely check out the place and put it on the market?
‘I could walk you home,’ she offered, concerned about the child, because she’d been quite right. ‘Next door’ here was about three hundred metres away, and once the sinking sun disappeared it would be gloomy in the sparse bushland between the two houses.
‘If you like,’ Maddie told her, climbing off the gate. ‘We have heaps of baby animals at our place—more than ten, anyway. People come in to help, because some of them are hurt, and some are too little to live in the... Well, we’d say woods in England, but here it’s called the bush—even if there isn’t any bush to live in.’
She waved a hand towards the blackened hills behind them, while Lauren realised that it must be another after-effect of the fires that she’d heard nothing of these new people in Henry’s house—not a hint of the gossip which was usually the life-blood of Lakesiders’ conversations.
There’d been a locum, of course, and she’d met him one time. And she’d known that volunteers were working all hours to keep the wildlife hospital and sanctuary going. She had done a couple of night shifts there herself, but because she entered and left through the gate in the animal cage, she hadn’t met or even considered the new owners.
She took Maddie’s hand, and was just leading her to the track she always took between the two places when a tall, dishevelled and totally distracted figure appeared, his left arm held tight to his chest by a sling, his left ankle tightly bandaged.
Campbell Grahame stopped and leaned on the stick he held in his right hand.
‘You shouldn’t be out walking after that fall,’ she said.
But he ignored her, calling out to his daughter and grabbing her as she raced towards him and flung herself at his legs.
‘What have I told you about wandering off into the bush?’ he demanded, though he didn’t sound as cross as she imagined he must be feeling after finding her missing.
‘But I only went next door. And this nice lady is going to build the flying machine again after she’s walked me home.’
‘You must be out of your mind,’ he said, and then must have realised he’d already been far too rude to her today. ‘Sorry. That was rude. I’ve been worried about Maddie.’
‘I said you’d help her,’ Maddie offered hopefully.
The man just shook his head and awkwardly scooped her up with his right arm, his stick now waving uselessly in his hand.
‘You should let Maddie walk,’ Lauren said, changing the subject before it became even more complicated. ‘You shouldn’t be bearing your own weight on that ankle, let alone hers.’
He frowned at her, but did let Maddie slide back to the ground.
Okay, the man was in pain, and he must have been worried sick about his daughter’s disappearance—but, really, one ‘sorry’ didn’t cover his rudeness.
She looked him directly in the eyes as she responded, daring him to make another prod at her. ‘Are you always this aggressive, or has the accident dented your masculine pride? Or is it because you were rescued by a woman?’ she asked, aware that it had happened before in the macho world out here in the lakes.
Without waiting for an answer—or an excuse—she turned on the spot and marched back towards her house.
Maddie’s, ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ came clearly to her through the still, early-evening air. ‘And she’s a very nice lady!’
* * *
Beautiful, too, Cam thought as he took Maddie’s hand and turned back towards Uncle Henry’s house—their house now, he supposed. Not that they had to stay here. A few weeks seeing to some necessary repairs, a bit of paint to brighten the place up, and then Cam and his mother could sell it and go back to the UK.
The locum the lawyers had arranged was still running the business and he could stay on—he might even like to buy it. If not, the solicitors could find another buyer.
The thought made him feel even more depressed than the pain in his shoulder. She’d been right, that woman—now soot-stained, probably from rescuing the ultralight—he shouldn’t be walking around. But he hadn’t wanted his mother to go looking for his daughter—that could have ended up with both of them being lost in the bush...
The bush.
Could he really go back to the UK after seeing the beauty of this lake and experiencing the sense of community around it? Meeting a few of the locals...learning that he owned, apparently, a wildlife hospital and sanctuary, not to mention some of that burnt-out bush behind the house... Henry and some friends of his had planted trees there—a variety of the special trees whose leaves koalas ate—to encourage the local koala population to stay in the area.
For so long he’d dreamt about Australia—this strange land at the bottom of the globe.
Sell out?
He didn’t think so.
They were in sight of the house now. The stately old stone building looked so incongruous among the holiday shacks and the new modern houses that straggled along the shores of the lake. He’d learned that it had been built by the owner of a local coal mine, back when the area had first been settled, and the owner had obviously believed strongly in his own importance.
Even with the old servants’ quarters at the back now annexed by the wildlife hospital and sanctuary, and his veterinary rooms set up on the ground floor at the front, it was still a lot of house for three people. Spacious and elegant, if somewhat shabby.
‘I’ve forgotten her name...the lady who lives next door...but her house looks even bigger than ours. And there’s a sign outside with pictures of cakes. Do you think she’s a cake-maker?’
He thought of the tall, slim woman who’d not only popped his shoulder back into its socket but had then also helped carry him down the hill.
‘If she is a cake-maker, I don’t think she eats many of them,’ he said to Maddie.
She grinned with delight. ‘Because she’s not roly-poly, like Madge says I’ll get if I eat too much cake?’
He smiled down at this small human who held his heart in her currently rather grubby hands. ‘Exactly,’ he said.
And they were both smiling as they entered the house through a French door on one side of it, directly into a rather dim but potentially pleasant sitting room.
* * *
Having shifted the pieces of the ultralight to her back shed, Lauren went upstairs to shower and change. She studied her soot-stained self in the bathroom mirror and shook her head. Pity to have made such a terrible first impression on her new neighbour!
Really? a voice in her head replied. Why should it bother you what impression you made?
She didn’t answer the voice, not wanti
ng to admit that she’d found him attractive—very attractive. And definitely not wanting to admit that seeing him had caused nerves in some parts of her body to jangle, and tighten, and heat—nerves that hadn’t felt much for years.
Certainly not warmth.
As for heat...?
Good grief!
What was she thinking?
She sighed. It was because she had no life—that was all it was. Years of medical training, the horrors of internship, and then eight years caring for a wonderful but increasingly difficult father had limited her social life to zilch. No wonder someone—a male someone—taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze had made her skin tingle.
Had that ever happened before out here in the very beautiful but isolated Paradise Lake community? No. The residents were mostly retired, or newlyweds building their first house in the place where they’d come for holidays as children.
Single men were scarcer than hen’s teeth, and as for married men...
Disaster!
But she loved the lake, and she had taken over her father’s practice as well as his care when his forgetfulness had finally had to be acknowledged as dementia rather than just old age.
Don’t brood.
She’d shower, wash her hair, pull on some jeans and a top and—
And then what?
Take herself to dinner at the new restaurant that had opened further along the shore?
She shook her head, her wet hair flapping about her face. Pulled out a dry towel and rubbed at it roughly, remembering times when she’d have spent half an hour drying it carefully, persuading it into gentle waves that looked as natural as she could make them.
Looking good for David.
As she dragged a comb through her still-damp hair, she wondered where that had come from.
It had been years since she’d given David even a passing thought.
And, more to the point, why was the man she’d rescued today intruding into her brain?
Surely not just because he was an attractive man?
An attractive man who’d made her spine skitter and her skin tingle...
He was a new neighbour, nothing more, and obviously married as he had a child.
Although hadn’t the child—Maddie—said something...?
The thought of her encounter with the man at the head of the gully reminded her that she hadn’t downloaded her drone’s latest pictures. She’d sent the drone home, grabbed her backpack, and then raced off to find whoever it was she’d seen crash.
Glad to have something to do, she went to her office and detached the SIM card from the small machine’s belly, pushed it into her computer, and sat down to study what it had picked up.
Nothing much, she decided, when she reached the point where her neighbour had crashed. But as the drone had obeyed her instructions and flown back home before she’d headed out on her rescue mission, it had crossed a new area.
And what was that she could see?
A lump in a burnt-out tree—exactly what she’d been looking for. The lumpy shape of a koala.
She checked the co-ordinates but really didn’t need them, for she could see the back fence of the wildlife sanctuary.
She zoomed in.
Could it have come from the sanctuary?
She shook her head.
She’d been there yesterday evening, and knew none of the recovering koalas had been released for over a week. Even those that had been released had gone into suitable forests far removed from the fire grounds.
No, this little fellow—and he or she was little—had somehow escaped the worst of the fires and was trying to find a new home.
In a burnt, and therefore leafless tree...
She grabbed a rope and her spiked climbing shoes and hurried towards the sanctuary, wondering who was on duty tonight, hoping it would be someone who could help her.
‘Oh, Beth!’ she groaned as she let herself in through the security gate in the outer yard. ‘Are you on your own here tonight?’
Petite and seven months pregnant, Beth smiled at her. ‘Just me, and I’m shutting up soon. The animals that need night feeds have gone home with Helen. There are only two of them, and she says they’re pretty good, so she can feed them both at once. The new vet came in to look around early this afternoon, though.’
The new vet with a dislocated shoulder...although his shoulder wouldn’t have been dislocated then...
Henry’s great-nephew, with a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.
But was he here to take over the practice, or sell it and move on?
Enough.
She needed to concentrate on the animal in danger. Night was falling fast, and to try a rescue in the dark would be foolhardy, to say the least.
But on the other hand...
She headed for the inner door—the one that led into the veterinary surgery.
His shoulder had been X-rayed and expertly strapped to his chest, and he’d been walking—albeit with a stick...
She knocked on the connecting door, loudly, because it was more likely he was in the house itself and wouldn’t hear a gentle tap.
The door opened immediately!
‘Yes?’ he said, sounding abrupt.
But when she saw the glass beaker in one hand and the pipette in the other, she realised she’d interrupted something he’d been doing.
Following her gaze, he said, ‘Sorry. I’ve just been testing some of the old supplies at the back of the cupboard. I’ll be right back.’
She’d have liked to tell him again that he shouldn’t be moving about on his ankle, but as she was about to ask his help in an operation more complicated than beakers and pipettes, she kept her lips firmly closed.
And shut her mind firmly to the man himself who—as a man, for heaven’s sake—was causing her more problems than her concern for his welfare.
Internal problems.
Physical problems.
Things she hadn’t felt in years.
The shivery spine and tingling fingers had only been the start...
Get with the program!
‘There’s a small koala, not far from here. My drone picked it up,’ she said, as she confronted her grumpy neighbour for the second time—no, third—today. ‘The problem is, he’s up a burnt tree, and will have realised there’s no food, so as soon as it’s fully dark he’ll climb down and head further into the burnt area and we might not find him again.’
She paused, hoping the look on her new neighbour’s face was incomprehension, not disbelief.
She tried again. ‘I can climb up and get him. I just need someone to hold the rope and the bag and take him from me so I can climb down.’
He frowned at her, a quick glance taking in her coiled rope and spiked boots, and the bag she’d grabbed as she’d walked through the sanctuary to his door.
‘I know you’re not one hundred percent, but I can’t ask Beth to help me, and it would take too long to get one of the other volunteers here, so do you think you could? Please?’
The silence seemed to echo through the room, and then he smiled in a way that made her wonder if this was a good idea. Plenty of men smiled at her—but none of those smiles sent warmth bubbling through her veins.
Really, this was getting out of hand!
How could she possibly be attracted to a total stranger?
She was tired—exhausted, in fact—after two treks up the gully today, so it was probably just her imagination anyway.
‘I suppose one good turn deserves another,’ he said, and smiled again. ‘I’ll get my walking stick and you can lead the way.’
She threw him her grateful thanks and moved back into the sanctuary, where small wombats poked their noses from old hollow tree trunks and sleepy koalas barely noticed her.
She breathed deeply, smelling the so-famil
iar scent of eucalyptus leaves, and told herself he probably smiled at everyone that way.
Breathing certainly calmed her nerves, so when he reappeared she was able to say, ‘It’s just out here—not far,’ and lead him out through the side gate of the sanctuary.
She pointed into the second row of the burnt-out plantation. ‘Don’t look at the tree. Look for the lump in it.’
‘Got it,’ he said. ‘But how do we go about this?’
He lifted the coiled rope off her shoulder, his fingers brushing the bare skin on her upper arm.
‘This one’s easy,’ she said, resolutely ignoring the accidental touch, for all it had shaken her. ‘See that branch just below the animal? We throw the rope over that, then I swing on it to make sure the branch will take my weight, rope myself up, and climb. You just have to play out the rope. You’re really here just in case I slip, so you can stop me crashing to the ground.’
She took the weighted end of the rope from him and swung it around before flinging it into the tree.
‘Okay, the branch looks strong enough. Just let out the rope so the end falls back to the ground, then we’ll detach the weight and attach me.’
He played out the rope, but his silence was a little unnerving.
‘Sometimes you have to climb up to attach the rope,’ she said—nervous chatter, she knew, but it was better than silence. ‘Or attach it in stages as you climb, so if you do fall, you don’t fall far.’
She tied the rope around her waist, grabbed the bag, and handed it to him.
‘Make sure you hold him by the scruff of his neck when I pass him to you, and the sooner you get him into the bag the better. They’re fighters, and their claws are sharp and can really rip into you.’
She headed for the tree.
‘And keep one foot on the rope!’ she reminded him as she began to clamber up the trunk.
* * *
Struck dumb by the rapid sequence of events, Cam could only shake his head. Keep one foot on the rope—he understood that part. She didn’t want him struggling to put a panicked animal into a bag and forget he was also the brake on her rope.
