Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

‘So you’d like me to do the coughs and colds and the like while you do the hero stuff?’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course I would.’ She grinned at him. There was something about this man that made her want to smile-even when she was offering to do his mundane work for him while he did the exciting stuff. ‘Though I guess that means I don’t get to drive fire trucks any more.’

His smile matched hers. ‘I heard about your fire-truck driving. Very impressive. But still…’ His eyes smiled at her-linking them-warming parts of her she hadn’t known were cold. Crazy. But…nice? ‘You’re hardly dressed for fire-truck duty.’

She looked down at her pyjamas and pouted. ‘What’s wrong with these? I reckon I’d look pretty snappy behind the wheel of a fire truck in flannelette pyjamas.’

‘Your safety pin would never hold.’ He chuckled, and the strange link was broken. For now. ‘OK. Let’s negotiate the duty roster when we’re organised. When you’re wearing something a bit more doctor-like. Meanwhile, I have to go. Myra, can you-?’

He was interrupted in mid-sentence. The back door swung wide-and in walked Christine.

It wasn’t hard to pick her. Rachel looked up from her bacon and she knew straight away who this had to be.

The lady was seriously lovely. She also wasn’t decorated at all. She didn’t need to be. What had Hugo said? ‘She has a style all her own.’

She certainly did.

She was tall, with flame-coloured hair swept up into a sleek knot, the hair itself seeming to tug the flawless complexion free of any lines.

No lines would dare come near this woman. She was wearing cropped black pants to calf length, a tiny white top, strappy black sandals and a silver bracelet that must have cost a fortune.

She looked as if she belonged in an inner-city art gallery, Rachel thought, with only one very fast rueful glance down at her pyjamas. She thought back to the people she’d seen yesterday at the Cowral show. This woman didn’t fit.

‘Hello, all.’ The woman’s greeting was bright and warm. She smiled straight at Hugo, though, Rachel noticed, and Toby didn’t look up from his breakfast. ‘Are you ready, Toby?’

You can see he’s still eating his breakfast, Rachel thought, but she didn’t say so. The question seemed to be rhetorical. Christine had dropped a carry bag on the floor and was reaching for the coffee-pot. ‘Heaven. You make the best coffee, Hugo.’

‘Harrumph.’ Myra rose and stumped over to the sink and Rachel wondered who had made the coffee. By the expression on Myra’s face it wasn’t hard to guess. Maybe it didn’t matter, though. Christine had moved on.

‘You’re the new doctor?’ Christine sank into the chair Myra had just left, as if it was her right, and turned her attention to Rachel. ‘So you’re Rachel. I’ve heard all about you.’ She motioned to the bag. ‘There are some clothes I purchased for you from our local discount store. I hope they’re what you want, Hugo?’

They’re what Hugo wanted?

Rachel raised her brows at Hugo and he attempted a smile. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

‘I phoned Christine and told her you were in trouble.’

‘Who, me?’ Rachel tried hard to sound nonchalant. ‘I like pyjamas.’ Discount store, hey? Obviously she’d been categorised by Crimplene. She swallowed her last piece of pancake and smiled at all of them.

Discount store.

Maybe she should put that aside. There were undercurrents here that she clearly didn’t understand. Undercurrents that were maybe more important than her pride.

Toby was concentrating fiercely on his pancake and wasn’t looking at anyone. Myra was looking angry. What was going on?

It didn’t matter. This wasn’t her place and these people had nothing to do with her. In a couple of days the fires would die down and she’d be out of here.

‘The clothes are all here.’ Christine swept a manicured hand at her bag and smiled at Hugo, and Rachel thought, Unconcerned or not, I’m with Toby here. His little nose was practically in his toast.

But she knew her manners. ‘Thank you, Christine,’ she told her. ‘Have you bought them? How much do I owe you?’

‘I’ll pay,’ Hugo said, but Christine put a hand sweetly on his arm.

‘It’s fine, dear. The Mathesons, who run the discount store, know you’re stuck. They won’t charge you.’

Hugo was stuck?

Gee, she was having fun here, Rachel thought-or she didn’t think.

She rose and lifted Christine’s obnoxious bag. She hated it already, even though she hadn’t opened it. ‘I’ll pick up my bill from…who did you say? Mathesons? If I really need this,’ she told them. ‘Otherwise I’ll return it. Thank you anyway, Christine. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

She huffed at the lot of them. Toby looked up at her and she caught the six-year-old’s eye and gave him a tiny sideways wink.

Then she sailed from the room with as much dignity as a girl in too-big pyjamas could muster.

‘They’re horrible.’

They were all gone-Toby and Hugo and Christine. Christine to take Toby to school and Hugo to do his house call. Rachel peered out into the kitchen where Myra was washing the dishes. The housekeeper turned and Rachel looked at her with despair in her eyes.

‘I can’t wear these.’

‘Sorry?’ The housekeeper wiped her hands on the dish-cloth and looked Rachel up and down. Rachel was wearing Doris’s Crimplene again.

‘Look!’

She held up a pair of black trousers. Plain. Dead plain. Voluminous with a heavy vinyl belt. She held up a neat white cotton blouse. Another identical blouse. A plain black cardigan. Black flat-soled sandals.

‘At least Doris’s Crimplene has flowers on,’ she wailed. ‘And Hugo’s pyjamas have stripes. Myra, I may be stuck here, but these are awful.’

‘Christine only wears black and white,’ Myra said dubiously, coming forward and taking the offending garments away from her. ‘Only…’

‘Only Christine’s clothes are beautifully cut and really, really stylish and these clothes are built to fit anyone! Anyone at all. Or no one. These are burial clothes, Myra.’

Myra cast her another dubious glance. ‘You don’t think maybe you’re going over the top here?’

‘No.’ Rachel’s chin jutted. ‘I may be stuck here but I refuse to look like Christine’s welfare case while I’m here.’

‘You don’t wear black, huh?’

‘No way.’ It was the one thing she had in life-her clothes. She wore happy clothes, the sort of clothes that’d make Craig smile if he…

No. She wasn’t going down that road, but she didn’t wear black. Ever.

‘You’re wearing pink,’ she told Myra, and if she sounded a bit like a sulky teenager she couldn’t help it.

But Myra was smiling. ‘Tell you what. I’ve finished the dishes,’ she told her. ‘I’m officially off duty until Toby comes home from school. We have an hour before Dr McInnes returns.’

‘So?’

Myra glanced at her watch. ‘It’s not yet nine and Eileen Sanderson doesn’t usually open until ten. But if it’s for you…’

‘Eileen Sanderson?’

‘Kim’s mum.’

‘Oh, no. I can’t-’

‘She owns Cowral Bay’s only decent dress shop and it’s great. Expensive but good.’

‘But she’ll be with Kim.’

‘She’s home. I saw Brian, her husband, swap shifts with her a couple of hours ago as I was coming here and she lives next door to the store.’

‘But she’ll be asleep.’

‘Not Eileen.’

‘I can’t-’

‘Rachel, you saved her daughter’s life,’ Myra told her. ‘You helped the firefighters last night. There’s not a soul in Cowral Bay who wouldn’t drop everything to help you right now.’ She frowned and looked again at the black, shapeless trousers. ‘Except maybe Christine.’ And she tossed her dish-cloth aside with a determined throw, grasped Rachel by the hand and towed her out to her car.