Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

‘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.

Hugo drove home an hour later, his thoughts overwhelmed with what lay ahead.

The fire was worse. The forecast was for a strong northeast wind, which would bring the fire down from the ridge. Already the town was shrouded by a pall of smoke so heavy Hugo had to put on his headlights.

There’d be heat exhaustion as well as fire-related injuries, he thought grimly. It was already scorchingly hot. If the fire grew worse… If there were emergencies…

He needed back-up.

He was set up here as a single doctor. Usually-well, sometimes-one doctor was enough. In a sleepy fishing village there was no need for a huge medical presence. Few doctors wanted to practise in such a remote area and the swell of campers during summer wasn’t enough to tempt medics wanting a high income.

Normally Hugo didn’t mind working alone-he even liked it-but his radio was telling him a quarter of the state was under threat from fire. That meant relief medical teams wouldn’t be forthcoming even in an emergency. There was only him-but now at least there was Rachel as well.

But if the road cleared just for a few hours…

She’d be out of here, he thought grimly. She had a husband and the world’s stupidest dog and a city career. She was a fine doctor-hell, she had the skills he desperately needed in a partner-but she’d be out of here.

The road was still cut, though, he thought, and as far he could see that was the only bright spot on his horizon. He had a captive worker and she’d said she’d work.

A captive worker…

He thought of Rachel as he’d last seen her. In those crazy pyjamas. His mouth twitched and his bleakness lifted a little. She was here. She had said she’d work. Now, as long as Christine had fitted her out in some sensible clothes…

He pulled into the driveway, looked down at the list of things he still had to do this morning and went to find his colleague.

He walked through the screen door and stopped dead.

Good grief!

Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table, helping Myra pod peas. She’d obviously reclaimed Penelope. Penelope and Digger were lying side by side under the table looking extraordinarily pleased with each other, but that wasn’t where Hugo’s attention was caught and held.

Rachel was only five-four or so-a good eight inches shorter than he was-but what she lacked in height she made up for in impact. This morning in his pyjamas she’d looked amazing. But now…

She was wearing bright yellow leggings that stopped at mid-calf, and a white overshirt that looked as if it had been splashed by daubs of yellow paint. Her shirt was rolled up, businesslike, but there was nothing businesslike in the way it was unbuttoned to show enough cleavage to be interesting. Very interesting! So interesting he could hardly take his eyes away.

What else? He could scarcely take her in. Apart from the cleavage… Her riot of shining brown curls was caught back with a wide yellow ribbon and her feet were ensconced in gold and white trainers.

‘Christine never gave you those clothes,’ he said faintly, and she chuckled.

‘Good guess. Mrs Sanderson’s a darling and she has such taste. I returned the clothes Christine brought me. I’m very grateful but they just weren’t me.’ She held up a shoe and admired it. ‘And gold and white trainers…how practical are these?’

‘Very practical,’ he said weakly, and she grinned. She rose and looked expectantly out to the car.

‘Are we heading out to the nursing home now?’

‘You’re not wearing that outfit to the nursing home?’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I’m thinking of their hearts. I don’t think I’m carrying enough anginine,’ he said, and she chuckled again. She had the nicest chuckle…

‘You’re telling me the oldies won’t like my clothes?’

‘I have no idea,’ he managed. ‘I do know they’ll never have seen anything like it in their lives.’ He looked down at her amazing shoes. ‘You don’t think gold and white in this ash might be just a little impractical?’

‘They’ll wash. I’m not putting Doris’s sandals back on for quids. They may be sensible but I don’t do sensible.’

‘So I see.’

The oldies not only loved Rachel’s clothes-they loved Rachel.

In this heat and smoke-filled atmosphere, the ills of a group of sixty frail retirees could be depended on to keep Hugo busy for half a day, but only a couple of problems were serious. Hugo expected to do the tricky stuff himself while Rachel took a routine clinic, but Rachel had no sooner been introduced to the sitting room in general, and the nurse in charge in particular, than she balked.

‘Tell me why you’re staying?’

‘I have a couple of bed-bound patients I’ll check before I go.’

‘You’re telling me that I can’t check them? That you don’t think I’m competent?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then you’re not needed anywhere else?’

‘Of course he is.’ Don, the nursing-home charge nurse, a beefy, bearded giant, was clearly amused by the strange tension between the two. And the way Hugo kept glancing at his colleague as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘I’ve had a call from the hospital already saying there’s another couple of firefighters need looking at, and they’ve just admitted Harry Peters’s kid, who fell off the back of the fire truck and broke his arm. They want you back there, Hugo.’

‘I can’t just leave you here,’ Hugo said, frowning at the jonquil-yellow apparition in front of him.

‘Why not?’ The jonquil-yellow apparition raised herself up on her jonquil-yellow toes and glared. ‘Are you saying you’re a better doctor than I am?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then take me to the patients you’re worried about, talk me through what needs to be done and then get out of here. No more buts. You’re wasting time, Dr McInnes.’

Wasting time?

No one had ever accused Hugo McInnes of wasting time. Ever. It was all he could do not to gasp.

‘Go on, then.’ Don was clearly intrigued and enjoying himself. ‘What are you waiting for, Hugo?’

He hardly knew.

IT WAS harder work than she’d thought it would be.

Rachel had been working in an emergency department for the last four years, coping with emergencies. These weren’t emergencies. She had to scour her brain for the things she’d learned in basic training-how to dress and treat leg ulcers, how to look after a man who was suffering long-term effects of the cortisone he’d taken after suffering rheumatoid arthritis for forty years, how to ease the passing of an old lady-ninety-eight, her bed card said, but she was still able to smile and grasp Rachel’s hand in greeting-a lady who might only have days left to live.