The Most Magical Gift of All

by Fiona Lowe

  ‘Bad’ was all she allowed herself these days and Jack Armitage was deliciously bad.

  A memory of Simon surfaced, all anguished eyes and barely contained fury. She shut it out and focussed on Jack. He’d left as promised, gone from her life as planned, which was perfect because, although it had been the best sex she could remember, that was all it was: sex, fun and no looking back. Jack wouldn’t be blaming her for breaking his heart and ruining his life, in fact he wouldn’t even be thinking of her full stop. All he’d be thinking of was the open road.

  That’s what you wanted, right?

  She rolled over and caught the time. Four o’clock. She closed her eyes with a groan and then opened them again. She really needed to get up because if she slept now she’d be awake at three a.m. It was bad enough having to do that on-call, so it was completely crazy to do it if there was no reason. Fighting the tendrils of fatigue, she swung her legs out until her feet touched bare polished boards, the cool feel of them reminding her she had a house to explore, her home for the next three months.

  Apart from Jack’s room, all she’d seen of the house was what she’d noticed when they’d pulled up on the bike and that had been pretty impressive. Made of what she assumed was the local stone—a combination of cream, rust-red and deep yellows—it had an enormous veranda around at least three sides and it said, ‘old, large and full of stories’. It didn’t remotely say, ‘bachelor pad’.

  She padded towards a door and stepped into an en suite bathroom. It was like being in a hotel, with its basket of rolled fluffy-soft towels and a range of soaps, and a far cry from her Frontline accommodation. After a quick shower she was soon stepping into a pair of crumpled shorts and an old T-shirt and crossing Jack’s room to enter the hall.

  With a wide, central corridor, deep skirting-boards, high ceilings and numerous doors opening off from the hall, the old homestead reminded her of the only house of her childhood she had ever bothered to remember: the house in Surrey where life had been happy and the family had all been together. The place where they’d celebrated their last Christmas before their lives had changed irreparably and the fabric of their family had been cruelly ripped apart.

  She started opening doors and found a sitting room with a well-worn but comfy-looking couch, two winged chairs with matching ottomans, a large-screen television and the biggest DVD collection she’d ever seen. It said, ‘home; retreat from the world’ and Sophie smiled in anticipation of catching up on years of missed films. The next room contrasted so dramatically with the sitting room that she gasped. In the centre of a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows which opened onto the veranda was an enormous mahogany dining table complete with sixteen chairs. Two brightly gleaming silver candelabra sat on a large sideboard, hinting at a full set of china and cutlery tucked away behind its carved doors. She felt her brows draw together. Somehow she couldn’t quite match the image of Jack the biker-doctor with the elegant style of entertaining this room absolutely demanded.

  Two doors remained before the house opened up into a modern kitchen and living area and she crossed the hall to investigate. The china door-handle felt cool to her touch as she turned it and the door swung open to reveal a bedroom that obviously belonged to an older woman. Floral curtains pulled back with a tasselled tie let sunshine spill in over an intricately quilted white bedspread tucked in around an iron bed-end. A massive wardrobe took up one wall, a light-cotton cardigan was draped over the back of a chair and a beautifully carved dressing-table held a large silver photo-frame containing a black-and-white photo.

  Sophie picked it up, and suddenly Jack’s eyes reflected straight back at her, only the face wasn’t Jack’s. She was pretty certain she was staring down at Jack’s father when he had been much the same age as Jack was now. She set down the photo and turned to examine the plethora of other photo frames of various shapes and sizes that adorned a tallboy. All the photos were of people—a child sitting on Santa’s lap with last year’s date clearly above Santa’s head, another child on a horse, children playing in a pool—but it was the picture of a family group that really caught her eye. A woman stood surrounded by three younger adults—two women and Jack. Was this Jack’s mother’s room? Were these children her grandchildren?

  Suddenly feeling like she was prying, she backed out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her, and she opened the final door. She blinked at the bright-pink room with its pink-and-blue-striped curtains. Stuffed toys tumbled out of a box and books and puzzles mixed chaotically on shelves, having been put away haphazardly. It was without doubt a little girl’s room, but it didn’t have the faded, aged look of a room once used, loved, and now abandoned. Nor did it have the feel of a space kept as a memorial, forever trapping the memory of a child the age they had been the last time they’d used the room. Sophie could recognise rooms like that in a heartbeat. No; this room lived in the here and now, its tale told by the presence on the window sill of the current fad doll-craze sweeping the western world. Perhaps it belonged to one of the children in the photo. Jack’s niece, perhaps?

  Jack’s daughter? Why else would a man live with his mother?

  Does it matter and do you really care?

  She gave herself a shake. No, none of it mattered. All that mattered was this was her house for her exclusive use over the next three months, the perfect place to avoid Christmas. She pulled the door shut with a click and decided she needed a cup of tea before she did any more exploring and found a bedroom for herself. A cup of tea, a biscuit and then she’d make a shopping list for her supply-trip into town. A shopping list. She laughed out loud, recognising the irony. She’d never been one for domesticity, not since she’d been seventeen anyway, but there was something about this house that made her want to try.

  The kitchen was at the end of a large sunroom and it combined farmhouse cosiness with modern practicality. While she waited for the stainless-steel kettle to boil, she picked up a worn, leather book with faded tooled-gold writing. Running her fingers over the indentations, she traced the word ‘guestbook’ before opening the cover:

  Welcome to Armitage Homestead, built 1885.

  Please sign our guestbook.

  Armitage. The name hit her in the chest. Jack’s surname. Had Jack’s family been in this region and lived in this house for over a hundred and twenty years? The thought utterly boggled her mind, because her own family had moved often and she’d moved even more. She scanned the entries of the last thirty years and imagined all sorts of dignitaries sitting around that very impressive table. Jack had called this place a rambling homestead, and he was right, but that didn’t lessen the fact that this house was steeped in history. His family’s history. A history that connected him to this house and this town. The concept of belonging like that was completely alien to her.

  As she sipped her tea, she noticed a black folder on the flecked-granite bench and she pulled it towards her. It was filled with detailed information about the house such as where the keys to the car were hung and where cleaning supplies were kept and it included many instruction pamphlets, all filed alphabetically, detailing how all the appliances worked. It had all the same dividers in it as the procedure folder Jack had given her at the hospital, the one she’d assumed his receptionist must have put together.

  She wrinkled her nose. She guessed he could have beamed his flirting smile and convinced his receptionist to make up this folder as well. A flash of the serious-eyed doctor giving orientation suddenly jumped unbidden into her brain, lingering for a moment before being quickly replaced by the image of the man in leather, which was how she’d always remember her welcome gift to Barragong. But the delicious welcome was sadly over and now it was time to focus on being Barragong’s doctor.

  Jack had left maps and a GPS so she studied the route back into town and found shopping bags in the large walk-in pantry that groaned with food. She could probably live off the contents for the full three months and restock at the end of her contract, but she never depended on anyone. Sh
e’d see to herself, starting from today. Glancing at the house map in what she’d christened ‘the useful OCD folder’, she located the office and in it, pen and paper to make her list. A sticky note was stuck to the computer screen: ‘Use the internet. Password in instruction folder’.

  She shook her head, a silent chuckle on her lips. Of course it would be.

  ‘Min! I’m here.’

  An excited child’s voice accompanied by the echoing sound of fast-running feet on the bare boards made Sophie jump and duck under the desk. Her hand flew to her chest as her heart hammered fast against her ribs, and she breathed deeply to find calm before investigating.

  ‘Min, are you hiding?’ The voice had gone from excited to confused.

  Sophie returned to the sun room to find a dark-haired little girl standing in the middle of the room wearing grubby yellow shorts, a faded and too-small T-shirt and with a pink, plastic rucksack on her back. She clutched a soft-toy emu firmly in the crook of her elbow, its legs dangling against her tummy, its body squished against hers and the vivid-blue neck leaning rakishly over her arm. The beady eyes, astonishingly similar to the live version of the bird, bored into Sophie, making her shiver. The intense brown eyes of the child had the same effect.

  ‘Who are you?’ The little girl stared straight at her with the open scrutiny of a child.

  The patch of eczema on Sophie’s arm prickled and itched. ‘I’m Sophie.’

  The child frowned. ‘Where’s Min?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know who Min is.’ She tugged at a damned curl that fell over her eyes. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘You talk funny.’

  Sophie sighed, trying to keep a lid on the rising anxiety she always experienced when dealing with children. ‘Yes, well, that’s because I’m from England. Where’s your mother?’

  The child pointed behind her, back towards the front door, as she ran past Sophie towards the back wing of the house calling out, “Min.”

  Sophie hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if she should follow the girl and tell her no one else was here or to go and find her mother. A second later she jogged up the hall, astonished to find the front door wide open. She stepped onto the veranda, expecting to see a woman waiting for an invitation to enter, but apart from the cane chairs the veranda was empty. A low-slung, rusted station-wagon, packed to the gunnels and with a plume of red dust trailing out behind it, was on the opposite side of the circular drive, heading away from the house and back towards the cattle grid.

  With a shout, Sophie leapt off the top step of the veranda and hit the ground running, waving at the car. A woman hung her head out of the window, nodding, and waved back. Sophie stopped running and breathed out before catching her breath, fully expecting the car to reverse back to her. It didn’t. It just kept moving forward and in a heartbeat it had crossed the grid with a loud thrum and disappeared around the bend and out of sight.

  Stunned disbelief rocked her to her toes. The mother of the child in the house had just driven off, leaving her daughter without so much as a ‘by your leave’. It was incomprehensible. Exactly what sort of country was Australia if children were just dumped? Her brain struggled to make sense of it all. Who was the child and who in heaven’s name was Min? But, most of all, how on earth was she going to deal with a little girl?

  Sophie forced herself to head back inside, a million questions pounding her, and she found the little girl in the pink bedroom, sitting on the floor looking at a book. She still clutched the toy emu tightly but the rucksack had been abandoned on the floor.

  Sophie stood in the doorway, wondering what to do and say next. ‘Is this your room?’

  The child’s little shoulders rose and fell. ‘When I come and see Min.’

  Sophie’s eczema burned with an insatiable itch. ‘But Min’s not here.’ She heard the slight rise of hysteria in her voice and tried to pull in deep, calm breaths, the ones that had kept her in control in a war zone. This wasn’t a war zone but it held its own terrors.

  I hate you, Sophie, I really hate you.

  She pressed her fingers to her now-throbbing temples. This situation was insane; she was quizzing an unreliable pre-schooler for information but she didn’t have much of a choice. Who dropped their child at a house without making sure there was an adult at home?

  She stepped into the room and immediately felt like a giant, so she sat down on the floor. ‘You know I’m Sophie, so what’s your name?’

  The child looked at her with enormous chocolate eyes. ‘Imogen.’

  ‘Imogen, do you know Dr Jack?’ The words snapped out in the brisk tone that always surfaced when she was nervous and she held her breath, wondering if the child would answer.

  The girl nodded. ‘His room’s over there. She pointed vaguely towards the door and giggled. ‘We dance to the Wiggles.’

  Sophie’s crowded brain saw Imogen point in the correct direction. If Imogen knew that was Jack’s room, then she knew the layout of the homestead. ‘Can you show me Min’s room?’

  ‘’Course I can.’

  They both stood up and Sophie followed her to the bedroom next door, the room with all the photos. ‘So this is Min’s room, is it? Can you show me Min in a picture?’ Sophie pointed to all the pictures on the tallboy.

  ‘Can’t see.’ Imogen dropped the emu and turned around with her arms outstretched. ‘Lift me up.’

  ‘All right.’ Sophie licked her lips and moved to stand behind the child. Placing her hands around Imogen’s waist, she picked her up and held her out in front of her like a package.

  ‘That’s Min.’ The child pointed to the family group photo. ‘Ouch, you’re hurting me.’ She wriggled and kicked her feet out against Sophie’s legs.

  ‘Sorry.’ Sophie almost dropped her in her haste to put her down and then picked the photo up off the tallboy and squatted down so she was at the same height as Imogen. ‘So, which one is Min?’

  A pudgy finger pointed to the older woman who stood with matriarchal dominance in the centre of the group. The woman with Jack’s mouth and nose—the woman Sophie would bet money on was Jack’s mother.

  ‘Min’s my special gran.’

  So Jack’s mother was her grandmother. ‘And which one of these ladies is your mother?’

  Imogen shook her head.

  Sophie sought confirmation. ‘None of these ladies are your mother?’

  ‘No.’ Imogen shook her head firmly. ‘Min is them’s mum.’

  ‘Min is their mother,’ Sophie automatically corrected as she stood up and put the photo back in place, her head spinning. Min’s my special gran. Imogen’s knowledge of the family tree, her raven hair so close to the colour of Jack’s… Was this Jack’s daughter?

  No! Jack wouldn’t leave a child without care.

  Why not? You know nothing about him except he had sex with you and has ridden out of town on his bike. This child could be the result of a similar fling.

  Seeds of doubt rumbled inside her, just waiting for a drop of incriminating water so they could sprout.

  Sophie scratched her inner elbow. Hard. Focus on the child. She had a little girl in the house and no idea where the elusive Min was; no idea where Jack was.

  Breathe and think. Surely there was something in the folder, a contact number? She wracked her brains trying to remember what Jack had said to the staff when he was leaving the hospital. First overnight stop, the Parachilna pub.

  She pulled out the map, turned on the GPS and located the dot on the map that was Parachilna. Perhaps she should ring Diana first?

  ‘When’s Min coming home?’ Imogen’s thumb crept to her mouth as she picked up the emu and cuddled it tightly.

  I wish I knew. ‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’

  Jack leaned against the long, wooden bar at the Parachilna pub, sinking his first ice-cold beer and revelling in the live music from one of South Australia’s best blues bands. Later in the evening they’d play in the old shearing shed to an eclectic crowd ranging from loc
als, to Sydney executives, to a noisy group of backpackers from all over Europe. Parachilna was barely a dot on the map but the pub was known worldwide for its ‘feral food’ and outback hospitality. As a nod to the looming festive season, the bar had a couple of tubs of eucalypt saplings, their thin branches weighed down by Christmas baubles.

  A group of six tall, willowy blonde women Jack guessed were from Scandinavia kept laughing and tossing their hair and sending him fairly pointed glances. He was now officially on holidays—out of Barragong and well on his way. The invitation to flirt with a group of pretty young women should have had him pulling up a chair and regaling them with tall tales of the outback, but he had no interest in being a raconteur tonight. He smiled before turning away to chat to the bar tender, and for the hundredth time since leaving home and making the two-hour journey to Parachilna he thought of Sophie, the woman he was supposed to have left firmly behind in Barragong.

  He’d never experienced such an intense attraction for any woman before, not even Mary. It was as though he’d been hurled towards Sophie by an unstoppable gravitational force. She’d given herself to him with an almost untamed passion, a ferocity of pleasure that had initially stunned him but had then entered his own veins and urged him on to do the same. ‘Amazing sex’ didn’t come close to describing it.

  Consider me your first holiday treat. He heard her high-class accent, so at odds with the other wonderful things her mouth could say and do, and he laughed out loud. She’d kick-started his holiday with a huge bang and he was finally on his way. So what the hell was he doing thinking about a woman in the town he’d worked so hard to actually escape? He had three months ahead of him where he didn’t have to think about Barragong at all.

  The band took a break and he pushed his glass towards Greg, the barman. ‘Another, thanks.’ He glanced back at the young women and one of them waved.