Only We Know

by Victoria Purman

  He scooted to the woman and searched desperately for a pulse, first at her wrist and then at her neck, and then putting his ear right down to her chest.

  That’s when he heard it.

  There were no breath sounds, no moaning.

  There was music coming from her helmet.

  It was the same song he’d been listening to when he’d heard the squeal of brakes and seen Calla’s red car in his rear-vision mirror, skidding into his.

  The flashing lights got brighter and the sirens wailed louder.

  Calla watched as an ambulance manoeuvred around Sam’s four-wheel drive, followed by a white truck with Country Fire Services in letters on the side. They pulled up ahead and a whole lot of people in uniforms jumped out.

  Something terrible had happened. An accident. Isn’t that what Sam had said? There had been an accident on the road and, by the look on his face as he’d told her, it was much more serious than the bingle she’d caused by running into him. She wiped the inside of the window, which had fogged up again with her breath. She went to turn on the engine but realised her keys were gone.

  Calla felt around on the floor in front of the passenger seat where her rucksack had been tossed. She shoved a hand inside, feeling around for her mobile, but it wasn’t there. When she sat up and peered through the window at the flashing lights on the road ahead, she was relieved that her head didn’t seem to be pounding so much any more.

  Where was Sam? What was going on?

  Calla slowly got out of her car, took a few cautious steps. Her back and arms ached. Her head pounded like a heavy metal song in her ears. She felt a chill, and it wasn’t from the cold. Her coat was back in the car but she didn’t turn around to get it. She began walking as fast as she could, closer to the emergency vehicles, to the flashing lights. Something bad had happened and she had to help.

  As she got closer, the damp grass smell became burnt rubber. Fuel and exhaust fumes. Car smells, like a mechanic’s garage. The wind was cold and she shivered again. She could hear sobbing and muttering, low voices, but couldn’t quite pick where they were coming from.

  To the right of the road, two people were hunched over on the grass, one in an ambulance uniform, shoulders and head bobbing up and down. Then the other person moved in and Calla guessed they were performing CPR. She knew what that meant and it made her head throb even more.

  She was closer, just metres away.

  She could smell petrol, so strong it made her wince, and sulphuric acid. Murmuring voices. Her footsteps crunched on the gravel at the road shoulder, and then softened as she hit grass.

  ‘Get her out of here.’ It was a shout. It was his voice cutting through the chill air. ‘Get her back to her car.’

  And then a uniformed arm was around her shoulders, shepherding her away. It was a young woman, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was serious, a smudge of dirt across her cheek.

  ‘I should help,’ Calla said with a shaky voice.

  ‘They’re doing all they can but it’s best that you stay back.’

  The police officer urged Calla away, but she looked back over her shoulder. The whole thing looked like a movie. All she could see was the top of Sam’s head, and his shoulders pumping, fast.

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’re doing all we can. Why don’t you go back to your car? I’ll get an ambulance officer to come and check you as soon as one can.’

  All Calla could do was nod. She walked back to her car in slow motion, her feet moving in direct contrast to her racing heartbeat, which was thumping in her chest like an exploding pulse. She couldn’t get the image out of her head. Two shapes in the grass. Black leather and twisted limbs at odd angles. The crumpled mess of a motorbike in a pile of silver and black.

  She made it back to her car just before her knees buckled and the pounding in her head turned into messy weeping she couldn’t control.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Sam’s feet crunched on the broken glass on the road as he walked back to Calla’s car.

  There was nothing more he could do. The ambos were on it. The smashed vehicles would be towed, including Calla’s. He’d given his statement to the local police, who’d told him that Major Crime officers were on their way from Adelaide to investigate the scene and the two fatalities. He’d done all he could, all that his training and experience as a firefighter allowed. And now he was turning his back on it. There was never a happy ending to an accident like this one. At least the couple in the sedan had survived. He’d seen a lot worse, had run into death too many times for it to rattle him.

  He knew he was good at his job. He hadn’t been made a Station Officer because he had a pretty face. Despite the death and destruction and sadness he saw at work, he had a sense of pride about knowing that he’d done as much as he could to assist those who hadn’t made it. Not everyone survived. But some did. He’d learnt to hold on to that and put the rest behind him.

  He hadn’t stopped thinking about Calla the whole time he’d been dealing with the accident and the victims. The stranger he’d stumbled upon with the flaming-red curls and the big green eyes. The full mouth and the stubborn stare. He knew she was okay — he wouldn’t have left her in her car if he hadn’t believed that. He hoped like hell she hadn’t seen too much.

  As he got closer to his car, he could hear her crying softly. He quickened his pace, his heart rate picking up as he jogged to her. Shit. What if he’d been wrong and she was hurt, in pain? He got to her and saw that she was hunched over the steering wheel, her arms crossed on it and her head buried in a damp nest of curls. Her shoulders shook as she cried.

  ‘Calla.’ His voice was louder than he’d planned, more urgent than he wanted.

  She looked up, glistening tears streaking down her cheeks. He felt something knot and pull in his stomach. He went to her, crouched down at the driver-side door, reached a hand to her forehead. She was clammy and cold. He couldn’t hold her. The best he could do was rest a hand on her shoulder. She fell back against the car seat and looked straight ahead through the windscreen.

  He was well aware that he’d shouted at her before. So he found the calmest, quietest voice he could manage. Inside, he was half in turmoil for this woman but he couldn’t show it. No good would come from panicking her. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Calla let out a deep breath, and he felt her shoulders shiver with it. ‘I can’t seem to stop shaking.’ Her quivering voice, the tears, the tremor. She needed help. Something stirred inside Sam. This wasn’t one for the ambos. He knew what to do. He could take care of it. Of her.

  He squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you before. You should have stayed in the car. You might have a concussion and I didn’t want you wandering around.’

  Calla turned tearful eyes to him and shook her head just a little. ‘I’m not concussed.’

  Sam couldn’t see if there was any dilation in her pupils. ‘You don’t know that.’

  Her breath hitched and she sniffed. Instinctively, he covered her hand with his. She looked down at where they touched. ‘You smell like petrol.’

  He managed a chuckle. ‘Yep, probably do.’ Her fingers were icy and the denim covering her thigh felt cold under this fingertips. They had to get out of there, to somewhere warm. And soon.

  Calla pulled in a shuddering breath. ‘How bad was it?’

  ‘Bad,’ Sam said seriously, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Did someone die over there?’

  Sam hesitated. She didn’t need to know the details, not now, anyway. He changed the subject. ‘Listen. We need to get you out of the cold, and judging by the way your car is wrapped around my tow bar, and by the radiator fluid all over the road, your little red wagon is cactus.’

  Calla’s bottom lip trembled. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  Sam lifted his hand to stroke her cheek. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, something to slow down her b
reathing, get her heart rate to settle. Instead, it sent his racing.

  ‘Listen. It’s cold out here and it’s starting to rain again. Between us we have one car that works. What do you think about loading any stuff you’ve got into my car and me taking you wherever you need to be?’

  Calla had a big coat over her like a blanket and she pulled it up to her chin while she looked to be considering his offer. The way he saw it, she didn’t have any choice. If she thought he was going to leave her on the side of the road, freezing, scared shitless, possibly concussed, crying and upset, she was crazy.

  ‘Where do I need to be? Back in Adelaide, that’s where. Not in the middle of nowhere on Kangaroo Island with a smashed car. With you. Sam. Sam whose last name I don’t even know.’

  She let out a bone-shaking sigh. Her lips, which had been pulled so tight, softened and trembled.

  ‘Hunter. Sam Hunter.’

  She shook her head ruefully. ‘I so don’t need to be stuck with you.’

  If it was meant to be a joke at his expense, he wasn’t seeing it. She wasn’t laughing. ‘I’m all you’ve got, sweetheart.’

  Calla pushed back the coat and dropped it onto the passenger seat. When Sam realised she was getting out of the car, he held out a hand to her and she took it. She stood slowly, nervously, as if she was expected something to hurt. She took another look over the accident scene and then turned her back on it.

  ‘I’m sorry about your car,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t even worry about it. Worse things have happened to that vehicle.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘You asked where I need to be. I’ve rented a cabin back at Penneshaw. I need to get back there, I guess. Have a hot shower. And a drink.’

  Sam took his car keys from his pocket. ‘Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER

  9

  Calla was ten kinds of exhausted and shattered; she could feel it in every nerve ending and in every bone in her body.

  As they pulled up in the driveway of the cabin, it began to rain again, the heavy purple clouds smothering the horizon, and it was chillingly cold. What Calla really wanted to do was dive into a hot shower so the pulsating water could soothe her head and her shoulders, and let it wash away everything about the day, which already felt twenty-four hours long, even though it was only the early afternoon. Her emotions were frayed, her plan to find Jem was looking as trashed as her car, she could barely think straight and there was a strange man in her cabin.

  ‘Hey, Calla. Where do you want this stuff?’

  Sam was standing in the middle of the room, his eyebrows raised in a question. He was holding a big overnight bag, the one she’d filled with her art supplies. She’d packed it for the trip, believing she might have some time to sketch and paint, to capture the rugged and wild scenery she’d seen on the web when she’d booked her ticket. She’d hoped that maybe being on the island would knock down the creative brick wall she’d been staring at for two years.

  ‘Calla?’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘Where do you want this?’ Fatigue had clouded Sam’s eyes and he was covered in dirt and grime. Something black was smudged up one side of his face. His navy hoodie was covered in dust and there were grass stains on his knees and something that might have been grease smudged on his right thigh. There were rips in the denim on both his knees. Calla looked him up and down, still smelling fuel and dirt and wet grass. And that’s when she realised how tall he was. Taller than she’d taken the time to notice before.

  ‘Here. I’ll take that.’

  Sam sighed and smiled at her. ‘I’m pretty filthy. Sorry if I dirtied up your stuff.’

  Calla huffed. ‘Please. Don’t worry about my things.’ She rested the bag against the dining table and dropped her coat on the washing machine in the laundry. ‘After what happened this morning … and the state you’re in.’

  Sam flicked a glance to his jeans. ‘Nothing that won’t come out in the wash.’

  ‘Thank you for bringing me back here.’

  ‘What else was I going to do? Leave you out there in the wet and the cold with that car?’

  Calla covered her eyes with her hands, trying not to think about the moment when she slammed into the back of him. ‘My car. Do you think it can be fixed?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The cops are having it towed to the garage here in Penneshaw. We can check it out tomorrow. Why don’t I swing by in the morning and pick you up and we can go and have a look?’

  Tomorrow? There would be no tomorrow with Sam Hunter. This had to end tonight. All this nice and kind and heroic was confusing Calla.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s a twenty-year-old bomb, Sam. I’ve never spent much money on it and I don’t reckon I’ll start now. Looks like I’m in the market for a new car. Well, new to me.’

  Sam yawned. ‘We’ll see.’

  It was infectious and Calla followed. ‘I’m really sorry about running into you.’

  ‘You mean in the supermarket or on the road?’

  ‘Funny. Both.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. I had to park my vehicle across the road that way to secure the accident scene. I didn’t want anyone else coming up over the hill and running into us.’ He stepped closer. Calla could smell something metallic.

  He looked into her eyes, unblinking. ‘How’s your head? Any headache?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Sam came closer again. He took her glasses from her face, then peered into her eyes. Up so close and without her glasses, all she could see was a blur of chocolate. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to the right. He lifted a hand to her face and gently pulled her left eye open. She startled and tried to pull back.

  ‘Don’t move, it’s okay,’ he said. With his other hand, he cupped her cheek to keep her still. Something, the way she’d seen him take control out there on the road, the calm way he was examining her, made her trust him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she murmured as she dropped her head backwards slightly. His fingers were surprisingly warm on her skin.

  ‘Any blurred vision?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she murmured. ‘But that’s because you took my glasses off.’

  ‘What about your chest? Any pain there?’ And he was so close now she could feel the warmth of his body, had become aware of his strength, how broad and tall he was compared with her.

  Pain? Only in my heart, she wanted to say, but that’s completely unrelated to the accident. Calla glanced down to her breasts and when she flicked her eyes up again she noticed his were fixed firmly on her jumper.

  ‘The seatbelt. You might have some bruising,’ he said quietly.

  For a half a second she wondered if he was going to pull up her jumper to check for himself. Damn it. The idea sent her pulse racing. ‘Are you a doctor, Sam?’

  He released his fingers from her eye and she blinked over and over to stop the stinging. He didn’t step back. ‘No, I’m not a doctor.’

  ‘You’re not?’ Calla instinctively held up her palms to push him away. When they hit a solid wall of muscle, she swallowed hard.

  He dropped a hand to her wrist and held it. ‘We need to get you to bed.’

  CHAPTER

  10

  Sam had rested Calla’s glasses on the kitchen bench when he was looking into her eyes like an optometrist and she snatched them up and shoved them on. One of the arms got stuck inside her ear and she swore as she fumbled with them until they were on properly. With her 20/20 vision restored, she could see that the whites of his eyes looked like a roadmap, bloodshot and tired. His black lashes framed his dark pupils and she was tempted to count the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘What did you say about bed?’

  ‘You need to lie down. To rest,’ Sam told her. ‘You’ve just been involved in a vehicle accident. I’m not taking any risk that you’ve got a concussion. Believe me, you’ll thank me in the morning.’

  Calla pushed herself away from him. ‘I’m
fine, really.’ Hell no, she wasn’t fine. Adrenaline was still coursing through her system and she felt wired and emotional and shaky. But she’d been trying to hold it all in so she didn’t expose all that emotion in front of Mr Cool As A Cucumber.

  ‘I’m perfectly okay. I do not need a nanna nap. And anyway, it’s the middle of the afternoon, for god’s sake.’

  ‘I don’t want you to sleep,’ he said firmly. ‘I want you to rest. Got some music you like? How about you plug in your earphones and just stop talking for a little while? Do some deep breathing. Whatever. Just chill.’

  She pulled her lips together in annoyance.

  Sam narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you ever do what anyone tells you?’

  ‘Not usually and especially not when that anyone is a complete stranger.’

  ‘Well, now,’ he smiled, ‘I’m not a complete stranger.’

  Calla looked him up and down. ‘I beg to differ. At the moment, all you are is a guy I’ve run into three times during the past twenty-four hours. And you haven’t been all that friendly. In fact, the first time we met you pushed me.’

  Sam lifted a hand. ‘Wait a minute. I pushed you?’

  ‘On the boat. You shoved me towards the door.’ Calla tried not to remember how much her stomach was roiling at the time.

  ‘Wait a minute. I gently urged you in the right direction so you didn’t vomit inside the cabin and cause a chain reaction among all the other passengers. I’ve seen it happen and, believe me, it’s not pretty.’

  Calla continued, ticking off the items on her fingers. ‘Then the second time I saw you, you tried to bribe me with lollies. The third time you invaded my quiet morning coffee. And the fourth time … well, you know what happened then. This isn’t going all that well, so far.’

  Sam looked like he was trying not to smile. His mouth didn’t budge but his eyes shone down at her. ‘I’m totally trustworthy, I promise.’ He held a hand to his chest.

  Calla sighed. She’d made so many mistakes with men that she didn’t trust her judgement any more. She’d thought Josh had been a good man.