Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

Her bedroom was facing east. She’d hauled back the dreadful crimson drapes the night before and now she could see right out to the ocean beyond. Why the bedroom had drapes she didn’t know, unless the local cows were nosy. There were cows in the paddock beyond the house, the sea was beyond the cows and beyond the sea was the horizon. A smoky haze was filtering the light but it still looked great.

Her apartment at the hospital looked out at a brick wall.

Maybe she could move to the country when Craig…

Yeah, right. Get a grip.

Craig.

She groped under her bed for her purse, checked the time-it was eight o’clock, far later than she usually slept even after huge nights on call!-found her phone and dialled home. Some things were automatic.

But some things weren’t needed. Or wanted.

‘What are you doing, ringing again?’ Dorothy sounded cross that she’d contacted her. ‘I told you not to and I meant it. Rachel, leave it be. I can’t tell you how delighted we are that you’re having a good time.’

‘But Craig?’

There was silence. Then: ‘You know very well how Craig is, dear. I told you. Lewis popped in before breakfast and he’s stable. As he always is. Rachel, it’s no use ringing.’

‘But you will let me know…’

‘Rachel, love, nothing’s going to change and you know it. You go back to whatever it is you’re doing,’ her mother-in-law said gently. ‘Stop ringing. Move on. Get yourself a life.’

A life. Right. Dorothy thought she was having a nice romantic time.

She looked down at herself, dressed in what she guessed were Hugo’s spare pyjamas. Blue and yellow stripes. Very fetching.

She looked at the bedside chair where Doris’s Crimplene lay waiting.

‘Which?’ she said to herself. ‘Romantic choice, eh? Which would Cinderella wear, and where’s my fairy godmother when I need her?’

Hugo and Toby and the plump, round-faced lady she’d seen taking care of Toby yesterday were all having breakfast. Oh, and Digger. The lady was just setting down a plate of scraps under the table. This was clearly doggy heaven.

It was Rachel heaven. She sniffed. Bacon. Coffee. Toast.

Some things were irresistible. She hitched up her pyjamas and hiked right in.

‘Hi,’ she said, and tried not to look self-conscious.

‘Hi,’ said Toby, while the lady and Hugo just looked.

‘No comment is required,’ she told them. She glared at Hugo-at the lurking laughter she could see behind his eyes. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ She held out her hand to the bacon lady, while the other still clutched her waist. ‘I’m Rachel.’

‘I’m Myra Partridge,’ the lady told her, taking her hand and gripping it with warmth and real friendliness. She eyed Rachel’s outfit in concern. ‘They’re not the doctor’s pyjamas?’

‘I have no idea,’ she told her. ‘They’re the ones the doctor kindly gave me last night. All I know is that they’re not this doctor’s pyjamas. They’re threatening to slide, but I’ve decided that they still look better on me than Doris Keen’s frock does.’

‘Oh, my dear…’ Myra’s lips twitched. She was in her late fifties, Rachel guessed, with eyes that said she smiled most of the time. She reached into a kitchen drawer and proffered a safety pin-which Rachel accepted with real gratitude. ‘I saw you in Doris’s frock last night. Doris rang a while back.’

‘If she wants her frock back, she’s welcome to it.’ Rachel thought about it. ‘Though she might want to come and get it. I can’t see myself hiking over to her place in these.’

‘Sit yourself down.’ They were all smiling now as she stuck the safety pin in place-all three of them. The kitchen felt great. Here the opulence and over-decoration were toned down by the sheer domesticity of cooking and the dog under the table and smiling people. There were pots and pans and…

‘Pancakes?’ Rachel said faintly.

‘I thought you’d all be hungry.’ Myra beamed. ‘The doctor’s been out since dawn.’

‘Has he?’ Rachel’s smile slipped. She looked across the table at Hugo. ‘Problems?’

‘Kim’s running a fever. Not too bad. I’m hoping it’s nothing. I’ve upped the antibiotics to maximum. And a couple of the fire crews have been working through the night. I checked them as they came in.’

‘He’d be doing something else if it wasn’t Kim and the fire crews,’ Myra said comfortably. ‘He’s always gone at dawn. I come in and look after the wee one…’

‘Until Aunty Christine comes in and takes me to school,’ Toby told her. ‘Mrs Partridge would take me to school and I want her to, but Aunty Christine makes Dad let her.’

She wasn’t buying into any family argument. Not yet. ‘Well, lucky you to have two ladies to escort you.’ She wriggled herself around in her pyjamas, testing the security of the pin. She let go the waist and did a little test jump-her hands hovering just in case, while Hugo, Toby, Myra and Digger looked on, fascinated. They were doomed to disappointment. The safety pin held. She sat herself down and reached for a pancake, deeply satisfied. ‘You were going to wake me up for some of these, right?’

Hugo was looking at her with a very strange expression. ‘Um…right.’

‘I wanted to wake you up hours ago,’ Toby announced. ‘But Daddy wouldn’t let me.’

‘You have a very kind daddy.’ Rachel beamed. ‘Just as long as he lets me share his pancakes and his bacon and coffee. Very kind indeed.’

Clothes. That was the most important thing.

‘Doris dropped your bag off an hour ago,’ Myra told her. ‘But she’s kept your clothes. There’s stains…’

‘I don’t want to know about them,’ Rachel said firmly, thinking about the last time she’d seen them and deciding if she never saw them again it’d be too soon. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Crimplene and flannelette.’

‘Digger saved your bra,’ Toby told her, and she faltered. Her bra. The last time she’d seen that had been…

Whoops!

‘Flannelette and Crimplene and lacy black bras are hardly professional,’ Hugo told her, and Rachel managed a sickly sort of smile.

‘Um…no. Not your white-coated doctor image, huh?’

‘No,’ he said faintly, and her grin widened. Hey, it wasn’t he who was doing the discomposing. It was suddenly Hugo who was discomposed. She had Hugo McInnes out of his comfort zone, which felt…good.

Definitely good, she decided. He made her discomposed. It was nice to have him a little discomposed in return.

But he was about to discompose her again. ‘I think we have the problem sorted,’ he told her.

‘Mmm?’ She was into a mouthful of bacon. Yesterday’s hunger was still fresh enough to make her really appreciate her food and this was seriously good.

‘Christine’s bringing you some clothes.’

She thought about it. ‘Christine.’ She looked at Toby. ‘Red and gold Christine?’

They all knew what she meant. There were three smiles. But Hugo was rising, pushing back his coffee-cup. ‘She’s very good. I don’t know where we’d be without her. And she’s not red and gold at all. She has a style all her own.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She should be here in a few minutes to take Toby to school. I need to do a house call. If it’s OK with you, Rachel, I’ll collect you in an hour and take you out to our nursing home. I was hoping you might be able to help.’

He paused as if what he was asking was an impertinence, but she wasn’t in the mood for worrying over impertinence.

‘Of course I’ll help. If I’m trapped here I may as well be useful. But how?’

‘The fires are worsening.’ He motioned to the window and the haze between there and the sea seem to be thicker. ‘They’re not threatening the town yet but the crews are working hard to keep it like that. And most of the crews are made up of volunteers with differing levels of fitness-as well as differing levels of common sense. There are lots of medical problems. I need to go up to the ridge.’