Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

And all of a sudden Rachel was blinking back tears. Of…envy?

‘She was in the house.’

Hugo was sitting in the mud on the dam bank, his head in his hands. Behind them the whirr of the helicopter was fading into the distance.

They’d lifted Sue-Ellen from the dam bank, warmed her shocked body, covered her burns with antiseptic gel and the thin plastic burn wrap and continued her on intravenous fluids. They’d given her as much morphine as they could. Then they’d loaded her into the medical evacuation helicopter where a team of skilled medicos were waiting to take her to Sydney.

Gary had gone, too. It hadn’t been discussed.

She had every chance of survival, Rachel thought as she watched the chopper disappear into the distance. Although the burns to her legs and hands were too extensive to be treated in a small country hospital, they shouldn’t be extensive enough to be life-threatening. Not with the prompt treatment she’d had and the fact that in an hour she’d be in the best burns unit in the state.

And the schizophrenia? With love and devotion she had a good chance of a stable life. Gary wasn’t about to be pushed aside again, for however noble a motive, Rachel thought.

And here… Already the goats were emerging from the water, starting to forage over burned ground. Amazingly, they even looked as if they were finding things to eat.

The goats might be back to business as usual but Hugo wasn’t. He was sitting on the dam bank, looking sick. Rachel sat down beside him, hauled Pudge, Sue-Ellen’s pup, up onto her knee and held the shaking dog. With her free hand she took Hugo’s and held that, too. Tight.

‘Hugo…’

He looked dreadful. While they’d worked over Sue-Ellen he’d been efficient, doctor in medical mode, but as the chopper left the fight seem to have drained out of him.

‘Hugo,’ she whispered again, and he stirred, as if trying to rouse himself from a dreadful dream.

‘The house had started to burn before I reached her,’ he said at last, wearily, as if hardly conscious that Rachel was beside him. ‘She must have gone back in. I yelled out and I could hear her inside the house, screaming for Pudge. Screaming. But Pudge was outside. The pup came to greet me as I pulled up, desperate. As if he knew his mistress was inside.’

‘So you went in.’

‘Of course.’ He winced and Rachel looked down at the hand she was holding. There were blisters there. Burns. He’d been wearing protective clothing and that was intact, but there were spot burns on his hands and on his face.

He’d been through hell.

She pulled back on her hand, afraid she was hurting him, but his grip tightened.

‘But you found her,’ she said softly, and he nodded.

‘I found her in the back bedroom and the curtains were burning. The window had exploded inward. And she had bare feet. Bare feet!’

‘Hugo-’

‘I should have come last night. I should have thought of Sue-Ellen then.’ He groaned. ‘Hell, I should have-’

‘You’re one man,’ she said gently.

‘I went to the beach.’

‘There was no danger last night. And other people checked. Gary loved her and he checked. She sent him away. There was nothing else you could do. You know that.’

‘But today-’

‘Today you came. You came in time. They’re saying on the beach that Sue-Ellen refused to evacuate. Do you think she would have evacuated if you’d ordered her to? You’re not omnipotent, Hugo. You’re human. You’re a doctor and a really fine one at that, but you’re still human.’ She took his palms into her hands and looked down. He was burned but not too badly. Still… Her face twisted. Dear God, he’d come so close. ‘You’re a lovely, lovely man,’ she whispered. ‘The best… Oh, God, Hugo if I’d lost you…’

He wasn’t hearing. He was still with Sue-Ellen.

‘I thought she was stable,’ he said bleakly. ‘Sensible. Last time I saw her… I was out here three days ago when the fires first threatened. She talked about evacuation plans. So why didn’t I check?’

‘Because you can’t be everything to everyone,’ she said softly. Then, because she couldn’t bear to watch the pain in his eyes any more, she took his face in her hands and kissed him-softly, on each eyelid in turn. ‘Sue-Ellen made her own decision not to leave her animals. That’s her responsibility. Back at the beach… Sam called her a schizo-a mental case-and if that’s the way you regarded her then, yes, you were responsible for her because she wasn’t responsible for herself. You should have locked her up and taken total control. But you said she was a person capable of her own decisions.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘But nothing.’ Rachel’s voice was urgent now. She could see the self-loathing in Hugo’s eyes and she wasn’t having any of it. He was hurt, this man. She could put bandages on his hands but it wasn’t enough. What hurt more than a heart?

‘Sue-Ellen knew the dangers. Sam and Gary both said she’d been warned. She chose to stay.’

‘She was ill.’

‘Would you have locked her in a mental institution?’

‘No, but-’

‘But nothing. Sue-Ellen lived independently and she was hurt, making that life for herself. I won’t have you blaming yourself, Dr McInnes.’

He looked up at her, and the beginning of an exhausted smile crossed his face. Just a trace.

‘Bossy, aren’t we?’

‘It’s what I do best,’ she said softly, and smiled back at him.

Hugo gazed up at her. Really looked. His burned hand came up and brushed the curls from her face. They were tumbling every which way from under her hard hat.

She’d be smoke-grimed, she thought-black with soot and sand and smoke. But Hugo’s eyes were holding her and his fingers traced her cheekbone gently-a feather touch.

‘You’re so beautiful.’

‘Beautiful and bossy?’ she asked in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

‘That’s the one. Rachel…’

‘What?’

‘I need to kiss you,’ he told her.

And what was a girl to say to a request like that?

She kissed him.

More than that, she gave her heart. Right there and then.

Or maybe it had been given in those awful moments on the beach, under the sodden blanket with the fire roaring overhead, thinking that somewhere out here was Hugo. Her love…

Her love.

There was another love. Craig. That hadn’t disappeared-it never could. There was still commitment, still pain, but it didn’t stop this flowering that was happening within her right now.

Dottie had said it was time she moved on. Put Craig behind her. But it wasn’t like that. She hadn’t been able to put Craig behind her for eight long years.

And she couldn’t now. She didn’t need to.

Because Craig was still with her. Craig was a part of who she was, a part of her loving. She held Hugo’s dear, scorched face in her hands and she kissed him with all the love in her heart and she knew that this was no betrayal.

This was an extension of loving. A wealth of love. Broadening, expanding her heart, to take in Toby and Cowral and Penelope and Digger and Sue-Ellen and maybe a few crazy goats clustered around and a confused pup called Pudge.

And Hugo.

She kissed him and found herself melting. Not just her lips. Her whole life, melting away and reforming. Regrouping. Stronger, richer, deeper.

Love…

He tasted of fire. He tasted of heat and want and aching need.

He tasted of… Hugo.

Her fingers held him, curled into his hair, clinging, letting his mouth devour her, knowing that for him this kiss was as affirmation of life as well as love.

Knowing for him this was the only way to move forward.

Through love.

Love was…here. Love was now.