Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

‘But your wife…’

‘I’m a widower,’ he said bluntly. ‘But I’m trustworthy.’ He put on his most trustworthy smile and she had to smile.

‘No, but-’

‘Exactly. No buts. Can you think of anywhere better?’ He smiled across at her and his smile had her insides doing strange things. Very strange things indeed. This was no trustworthy smile. It looked exactly the opposite.

But he was still speaking. She had to concentrate. ‘There’s no women’s refuge to be had,’ he was saying. ‘Despite the rumours. The dog pavilion’s closed for the night and something tells me you weren’t very comfortable there last night anyway. And the park benches are exceedingly hard. So it’s us or nothing.’

‘We really want you to stay,’ Toby announced from the back seat. ‘Me and Digger like you. Even though your dress looks funny.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ She fingered the Crimplene and wondered how it was that the Crimplene was the least odd thing in the succession of things that had happened to her today.

‘We’ll do something about that tomorrow,’ Hugo announced. ‘But for now, we’d be very pleased if you took up our offer of accommodation, Dr Harper. What about it?’

What about it? There was only one answer to that. She had no choice.

‘Yes, please,’ she said, and decided then and there that arguing was out of the question.

Things were entirely out of her hands.

THE house they took her to was a big old timber home in the same grounds as the hospital. It had wide verandas all around and a garden that in the dim light cast by the hospital nightlights looked overgrown and rambling. Digger was lying on the front steps. When they arrived he rushed down to greet them, his whole body quivering in delight. Hugo pushed open the front door, Rachel walked inside as he followed, carrying Toby-and she stopped still in astonishment.

This wasn’t a home. It was an artwork.

A magnificent artwork.

Like something out of Vogue , it had been furnished with exquisite taste. In rich reds and golds, every piece of furnishing was richly ornate and highly decorative. The floor was sleekly polished with gorgeous Persian rugs scattered at artistic intervals. There were elegant pieces of sculpture, carefully placed. The settees and chairs were colour co-ordinated with dainty matching cushions, artfully arranged. Heavy brocade curtains were held back, looped and looped again with vast gold tassels that hung to the floor.

Good grief!

This wasn’t a doctor’s residence. It wasn’t a child’s residence.

It was frankly…scary.

But Hugo seemed oblivious, both to his surroundings and to her reaction. ‘Toby, would you show Dr Harper where she’ll sleep?’ he asked. ‘I’ll put the coffee on.’ He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen while Toby towed her through to the back of the house.

The further she went the more awful it became.

‘This room’s where my daddy sleeps and this is where Digger and I sleep,’ Toby told her, and Rachel had glimpses of two rooms with the same amazing furnishings. He towed her further. ‘You can have this room or this room.’

It made no difference which. Gorgeous brocade beds with hugely rich furnishings. Huge gold bows of something like velvet with threads of something shining and metallic hung at each corner of the bed. The beds looked like they took half an hour of intense concentration and a degree in interior design to make each morning!

Ugh.

‘Do you and your daddy like…um…really decorated houses?’ she asked, as Toby stood and waited for her verdict.

His small face furrowed in concentration. ‘Why?’

‘Your whole house is sort of…frilly. And red. And gold. You guys must really like red and gold, huh?’

‘I like purple,’ Toby told her.

‘So Daddy likes red and gold?’

‘I think he likes blue.’ Toby considered some more. ‘Or maybe yellow. Mr Addington at the bank has a really yellow car and whenever my dad sees it he whistles and says what a beauty.’

‘So why is your house red and gold?’

‘My mummy decorated the house,’ Toby told her. ‘My mummy died just after I was born. Daddy was really sad.’

‘I guess he would be.’ Rachel’s face softened. ‘Losing your mummy would be really hard.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t know her,’ Toby said with the blunt pragmatism of a six-year-old. ‘My daddy says Aunty Christine looks like her. The photos are a bit the same. And Aunty Christine loves this house. She comes in here and looks at it and cries.’

Oh, great…

‘Aunty Christine says Digger shouldn’t come into the house because he messes it up but Daddy said he put his foot down over that, whatever that means,’ Toby told her. ‘And I want a Darth Vader poster on my bedroom wall ’cos Daddy and I love that movie, but Aunty Christine says my mummy would hate it and I mustn’t even ask Daddy because it’d make him sad. Do you think it’d make him sad? Or is it something else he’d put his foot down about?’

‘Maybe.’ This wasn’t a conversation she should get drawn into, she decided. Not when she’d known these people for not much more than two minutes.

There was lots of background here that she didn’t understand.

But at least she had a bed, she decided, brightening. An amazing bed. She’d had a truly excellent meal. She could put up with a little red and gold opulence.

She sat down on the bed. It gave under her weight. She gave a tentative bounce and the bed bounced back.

The symmetry of the covers was ruined.

Great.

‘Do you do much bouncing?’ she asked Toby, and he looked like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

‘You ruin the covers if you bounce,’ he told her. ‘Aunty Christine says so. She says don’t move things. Don’t touch. She says Mummy would have everything perfect.’

Rachel’s eyes widened. What an extraordinary statement. ‘But…bouncing’s fun. I’m sure your mummy would want you to have fun.’

‘Aunty Christine would growl at me if I bounced on my bed.’

‘Would she growl at you if you bounced on mine?’

Toby thought about it. Deeply. ‘I guess she wouldn’t,’ he said at last. ‘You’re a grown-up. She couldn’t growl at you.’

‘I’d like to see her try.’ She’d never met the unknown Aunt Christine but already she held her in aversion. And Hugo… What had they created? A shrine to a dead wife and sister when it should be a home.

She knew-who better?-that life was to be lived by the living. For the living. Not for the dead.

It could all be taken away so quickly…

Enough. She bounced again. And smiled at Toby and moved along so that there was room beside her. ‘Want to try?

‘Yes,’ Toby said, and went to join her.

They bounced.

Digger, watching from the doorway, ventured further in, looking as stunned as it was possible for a goofy dog to look.

They continued to bounce.

Digger started to bark and Toby giggled and bounced higher.

It was great. Stupid but great.

It had been one heck of a day. Rachel’s emotions had been pushed to the limit. She didn’t know what she was doing here. She didn’t have a clue what was happening to her, but for now…for this minute there was just one crazy time, a tousle-headed child who looked as if he didn’t get enough laughter in his life and Rachel. And Rachel knew she definitely needed more laughter. More bouncing.

If the springs broke, she’d pay for them, she decided. If the tassels frayed. If the gilt was tarnished. Some things just had to be done, and they had to be done now. She had hold of Toby’s hands and they were bouncing in unison as Digger barked a crazy accompaniment on the side.