Marion Lennox: From Christmas To Forever?

Don’t think what it could mean.

‘You have red hair!’

He could see her. She’d been so intent she hadn’t even looked at the window in the back of the truck. She braved a glance downward, and she saw him.

Okay, she conceded, this was no grandpa. The face looking out at her was lean and tanned and … worried. His face looked sort of chiselled, his eyes were deep set and his brow looked furrowed in concern …

All that she saw in the nanosecond she allowed herself before she went back to concentrating on freeing the rope. But weirdly it sort of … changed things.

Two seconds ago she’d been concentrating on saving two guys in a truck. Now one of them had a face. One of them looked worried. One of them looked …

Strong?

Immensely masculine?

How crazy was that? Her sight of him had been fleeting, a momentary impression, but there’d been something about the way he’d looked back at her …

Get on with the job, she told herself sharply. It was all very well getting the rope out of the truck. What was she going to do with it now she had it?

She had to concentrate on the rope. Not some male face. Not on the unknown Dr Denver.

The tray of the truck had a rail around it, with an upright at each corner. If she could loop the rope …

‘Polly, wait for the cavalry,’ Hugo demanded, and once again she had that impression of strength. And that he feared for her.

‘The cavalry’s arriving in half an hour,’ she called back. ‘Does Horace have half an hour?’

Silence.

‘He’s nicked a vein,’ he said at last, and Polly thought: That’s that, then. Horace needed help or he’d die.

She wedged herself against another sapling, hoping it could take her weight. Then she unwound her rope coil.

‘What are you doing?’ It was a sharp demand.

‘Imagine I’m in Theatre,’ she told him. ‘Neurosurgeon fighting the odds. You’re unscrubbed and useless. Would you ask for a commentary?’

‘Is that another way of saying you don’t have a plan?’

‘Shut up and concentrate on Horace.’ It was unnerving, to say the least, that he could see her, but then Horace groaned and Hugo’s face disappeared from the back window and she could get on with … what …? Concentrating not on Hugo.

On one rope.

Somehow she got the middle of the rope looped and knotted around each side of the tray. Yay! Now she had to get back to the road. She clutched the cliff as if she were glued to it, scrambling up until her feet were on solid ground. Finally she was up. All she had to do now was figure out something to tie it to.

She had the shakes.

‘Are you safe?’ Hugo called and she realised he couldn’t see her any more. The truck was too far over the lip. ‘Dr Hargreaves?’ There was no disguising his fear.

‘I’m safe,’ she called back and her voice wobbled and she tried again. This time her voice was pleasingly smug. ‘Feet on terra firma. Moving to stage two of the action plan.’

‘I thought you didn’t have a plan.’

‘It’s more exciting without one, but I’m trying. Indeed, I’m very trying.’

Plans took brains. Plans required the mush in her brain to turn useful. To stop thinking about Hugo plunging downward …

It wasn’t Hugo. It was two guys in a truck. Take the personal out of it, she told herself.

Plan!

She needed a solid tree, or at least a good-sized stump. She had neither.

Attach the rope to her car? Not in a million years. Her little yellow sports car would sail over the cliff after the truck.

Margaret looked kind of buxom. How would she go as an anchor?

She gave a wry grin, wishing she could share the thought with Bossy In The Truck. Maybe not.

Bossy’s truck?

The thought was no sooner in her mind than she was running up the road to Hugo’s car. Blessedly, his keys were in the ignition. Yes! A minute later, his vehicle was parked as close as she could manage to the point where the truck had gone over.

It was an SUV. She’d once gone skiing in an upmarket version of one of these—her boyfriend’s. Well, her ex-boyfriend, she conceded. They’d been snowed in and the tow truck had had to winch them out.

Polly had been interested in the process, or more interested than in listening to Marcus whinging, so she’d watched. There’d been an anchor point …

She ducked underneath. Yes! She had the ends of the rope fastened in a moment.

Maybe she could pull the truck up.

Maybe not. This wasn’t a huge SUV.

‘Polly …’ From below Hugo’s voice sounded desperate. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Being a Girl Guide,’ she yelled back. ‘Prepare to be stabilised.’

‘How …?’

‘Pure skill,’ she yelled back. ‘How’s Horace?’

‘Slipping.’

‘Two minutes,’ she yelled back, twisting the rope and racking her brain for a knot that could be used.

Reef Knot? Round Turn and Two Half Hitches? What about a Buntline Hitch? Yes! She almost beamed. Brown Owl would be proud.

She knotted and then cautiously shifted the SUV, reversing sideways against the cliff, taking up the last slack in the rope. Finally she cut the engine. She closed her eyes for a nanosecond and she allowed herself to breathe.

‘Why don’t you do something?’ It was Margaret—of course it was Margaret—still crouched on the verge and screaming. ‘My Horace’s dying and all you do is …’

‘Margaret, if you don’t shut up I’ll personally climb the cliff and slap you for Polly,’ Hugo called up, and Polly thought: Uh oh. He must have heard her previous threat. Some introduction to his new employee. Medicine by force.

But at least he was backing her and the idea was strangely comforting—there were two doctors working instead of one.

‘Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable,’ she told the woman. She had a jacket draped over her shoulders. ‘Is this Doc Denver’s jacket?’

‘I … yes. His phone’s in the pocket. It keeps ringing.’

You didn’t think to answer it? she thought, but she didn’t say it. What was the point now? But if Emergency Services were trying to verify their location …

‘I want you to sit in Doc Denver’s truck,’ she told Margaret. ‘If the phone rings, can you answer it and tell people where we are?’

‘I don’t …’

‘We’re depending on you, Margaret. All you have to do is sit in the car and answer the phone. Nothing else. Can you do that?’

‘If you save Horace.’

‘Deal.’ She propelled her into the passenger seat of the SUV and there was a bonus. More ballast. With Margaret’s extra, not insubstantial, weight, this vehicle was going nowhere.

‘I think you’re stable,’ she yelled down the cliff, while she headed back to the verge for Hugo’s bag. She flicked it open. Saline, adrenaline, painkilling drugs, all the paraphernalia she’d expect a country GP would carry. He must have put it down while he’d leaned into the truck, and then the road had given way.

How to get it to him?

‘What do you mean, stable?’ he called.

‘I have nice strong ties attaching the truck tray to your SUV,’ she called. ‘The SUV’s parked at right angles to you, with Margaret sitting in the passenger seat. It’s going nowhere.’

‘How did you tie …?’

‘Girl Guiding 101,’ she called back. ‘You want to give me a raise on the strength of it?’

‘Half my kingdom.’

‘Half a country practice in Wombat Valley? Ha!’

‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s a trap,’ he called back. ‘You know you’ll never get away, but you walked in of your own accord, and I’m more than willing to share. I’ll even include Priscilla Carlisle’s bunions. They’re a medical practice on their own.’