So she concentrated on now. On the present.

‘I love your oldies,’ she told him. ‘I now know not only their medical histories but also the history of everyone in Cowral.’

He managed a smile at that. ‘Including mine?’

‘Of course, including yours.’ She settled into the passenger seat of his comfortable old family sedan and smiled across at him. She wanted him to smile. She wanted to take that look of strain away from around his eyes. ‘How can you doubt it?’

‘So…’ He grimaced. ‘Have they worked out your love life yet?’

‘Mine?’ She raised her eyebrows at that. ‘I don’t have a love life.’

‘You have a husband.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, and somehow kept her voice steady as he looked across at her.

‘A husband. A love life. They’re not the same thing?’

Were they? Once they were. A long time ago…

‘Where are we going now?’ she asked. He wasn’t the only one who could change the subject. It was high time to move on from what was suddenly dangerous ground.

‘I’ll drop you at home for lunch and a rest while I-’

‘While you keep working.’

‘That’s the plan.’

She shook her head. ‘Nope. As plans go, it sucks.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I slept this morning while you worked. I’ve done a whole three hours’ work while you, I suspect, have done about six. So why is it that now I get to be bored while you play doctor?’

He thought about it. ‘You don’t have to be bored. You could take Penelope for a walk.’

‘I walked my feet off last night. I don’t intend to walk anywhere for six months.’

‘Then what do you want to do?’

‘Have lunch now and then do something useful,’ she said promptly. ‘If I’m trapped in your house for the whole afternoon I might be forced to do something dire-like strip the brocade wallpaper from the living room.’

It had been the wrong thing to say. His face sort of set.

‘Whoops,’ Rachel said, not sounding in the least contrite. ‘Don’t tell me you like brocade.’

‘I’m very grateful to Christine,’ he said stiffly, which was a strange answer to a question that had hardly been asked.

‘I’m grateful to Christine, too,’ she told him, refusing to be dismayed into a guilty conscience ‘But I’m not wearing brocade because of it. Or even the clothes she chose.’

‘You’ll hurt her feelings.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him in disbelief. ‘Is that why you stick with the brocade? You really think that she’d be devastated if you said, ‘‘Thank you, Christine, you’re very thoughtful but I don’t like red and gold brocade. I like yellow.’’’

He frowned. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t like yellow.’

‘Toby says you like yellow.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You don’t like Mr Addington’s yellow car?’

The corners of his mouth twitched. The look of strain eased a bit and Rachel found herself smiling inside. Good. ‘Who told you about Mr Addington’s car?’ he demanded.

‘Toby. You do like it?’

‘Of course I like it. It’s a Ferrari.’

‘Is that all you like about it? You’d like it better in red and gold?’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Michael’s Aston Martin is red. I hate that car.’

He raised his brows at that. Seemingly intrigued. ‘So what is it with you and Michael? You hate his dog. You hate his car. You fight with the man in public and he abandons you in a town with a bushfire threatening.’

How did she answer that? She couldn’t. She managed a shrug. ‘So?’

The coldness of her tone didn’t deflect him. He was still being nosy. ‘I don’t see that you have much of a marriage, Dr Harper.’

Should she tell him? No, she decided. His reaction to such a story was a complication she could do without. She hated telling people. She hated the way their faces shuttered down with shock and disbelief.

It was so much better to use Michael as a scapegoat. A pseudo-husband to hide the reality of pain. It was none of Hugo’s business after all.

‘I don’t hate Penelope,’ she told him, concentrating on the least of her issues with Michael. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘You don’t love her!’

‘She’s sort of…goofy.’ She grinned, moving right on. Steering fast from very dangerous personal relationships. ‘Come on, Dr McInnes. Share your work with me. Don’t sentence me to an afternoon with my goofy dog and your brocade walls.’

‘I was planning to go out to the fire front,’ Hugo told her. ‘There’s a command post out there. The teams are starting to show effects of smoke inhalation, heat exhaustion, burns. And the adrenaline isn’t letting them stop.’

‘Can I come with you?’

Those mobile eyebrows rose right up again. ‘In those clothes?’

She looked down at herself. ‘Maybe not,’ she agreed cautiously. ‘Maybe Mrs Sanderson could find me something a wee bit more suitable.’

‘Maybe we’ll grab a sandwich and then drop by the fire station,’ he told her, the smile she was beginning to know and to love resurfacing from behind his eyes. ‘I don’t think even Mrs Sanderson does a couturier line in yellow firefighting apparel.’


The fire front was closer than they had expected.

Cowral Bay was on a spit about five miles from The Narrows, the mile-wide strip of land connecting Cowral to the mainland.

The Narrows were covered in mountainous bushland and all of it was burning. Hugo had expected to drive through to the far side of the first ridge, but there were roadblocks just as the land started to rise, and he was waved to a command post that had been brought further south.

‘Hell.’ Hugo pulled off the road and they stared together up at the ridge. The wind had died a little, which meant the billowing smoke was spiralling skyward and they could see flames bursting up over the mountains.

And for the first time, Rachel got nervous.

Up until now the fire had been a sort of backdrop to her real worries. It was the reason she was stuck here and nothing else. Australians were accustomed to bushfires and this was a bushfire. In bush.

But maybe it could turn to something worse?

She stared down at herself. The officer manning the fire station had equipped her with heavy-duty overalls and big leather boots, and she carried a hard hat. She’d looked at herself in the mirror and had hooted with laughter. But now…now she wasn’t laughing.

‘This is big,’ she whispered, and Hugo looked over at her and nodded.

‘We lost a firefighter this morning.’

‘You lost…’

‘The wind changed,’ he told her. ‘He was trying to back-burn and he’d gone too far from his team. He was cut off and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. They brought his body down just before I came to find you.’

She swallowed. No wonder he’d looked strained.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I just did.’

There’d been no need, Rachel thought. Or there had been a need-a desperate need-but Hugo had been on his own for too long to realise it. Sharing trauma, talking about it, was the only way to cope in emergency medicine. But Hugo coped alone. Somehow.

‘What can I do?’ she asked in a small voice, and he looked across at her, assessing.

‘If you really want to help…’

‘I said I did, didn’t I?’ she snapped, suddenly angry. ‘I’m a member of your medical team, Dr McInnes. A team. You’re not on your own. Get used to it.’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘Just use me,’ she said wearily. ‘Use me.’

He cast her another strange look. But the situation was dire. It was true. He did need her.

‘The team who were with Barry when he died…they’re still out there. They’re due to come in at two. I’d like to see them all. There’ll be real trauma. None of them would come off duty until their shift changed but I said I’d be available.’

‘And you want teams to be briefed?’

‘Last year in bushfire season I had a volunteer go home after suffering smoke inhalation. He didn’t tell anyone he was having trouble breathing, then started coughing uncontrollably. By the time I saw him it was almost too late. I want the dangers spelled out to everyone, whether they’ve heard it five times or not. I want them to know to keep fluids on board. The professionals-even the well-trained volunteers-have been augmented now by helpers who mean well but haven’t got two clues as to personal safety. They’re working in teams but they get good ideas and go off by themselves. The guy this morning… He’s in his sixties and he runs-ran-the local hardware store. He thought he knew it all. The fire chief has taken it hard. He’s taken the volunteers through the safety drill but I want the medical bits spelled out in words of one syllable. I don’t want any more deaths.’

‘I can do that.’

‘Make it sound dire,’ Hugo told her. ‘There’s no second chances out there.’

‘I can do dire.’ She nodded. There was no laughter between them now. There was only medical need.


Which was how, half an hour later, overalled and booted and wearing her hard hat for heaven’s sake- ‘We wear them all the time when we’re on duty,’ she’d been told. ‘It’s a habit that makes sense not to break.’ -Rachel found herself lecturing to a group of people who looked as out of place as she was.

Hugo was with the team of firefighters who’d lost their friend. She was with everyone else. Trying to sound knowledgeable. And authoritative.

She did. It was amazing what you could do when needs must.

‘You stay hydrated,’ she ordered. ‘You carry water all the time. You never remove your hard hat. Ever. You keep your protective clothing on no matter how hot you get. You feel unwell for any reason, you get back here. For any reason. You start to cough, I want you back at base. You get any chest pain, a sore throat, your legs start aching-anything at all-you get back here fast. There’s no medals for heroics. If you put your life at risk you’ll put your whole team at risk. Now, before you go I want you to run past me individually and tell me a really brief medical history, and if there’s anything at all you’re vaguely worried about, you tell me now. You hear? Now!’