‘And…and after that?’

‘You can be brought back here to recuperate if you wish,’ Darcy told him. ‘We’ll put your residence down as care of this place, and take it from there. Our social worker will talk to you tomorrow about appropriate housing, and whether you want to stay with the others or not.’ Then, as Robert’s eyes grew confused, he put his hands on his shoulders and pressed him back on the pillows.

‘Enough,’ he told him. ‘Too much has happened too fast. But will you allow me to give you an injection? Something that will have you pain-free and let you sleep for the rest of the night?’

‘Pain-free? All night?’

‘Magic,’ Darcy said with a wry grin. He gave a sideways wink at Ally. ‘You know, even though massage therapists can solve most of the problems of the world, there’s still a use for us doctors. Can I give you the injection, mate?’

Robert looked from Ally to Darcy and back again. His face said he was confused beyond belief. But the terror had faded.

He’d been given hope. It had been worth waking him up, Darcy thought. He’d have woken in the small hours to pain and to the knowledge that the cancer was spreading. He must have been doing so for months. Waiting for the cancer to reach his eyes, and then…

That was the way of madness.

But instead of madness, now there was hope. He gazed at the two of them and then his weary face broke into the ghost of what might once have been a smile.

‘Maybe you’re crazy, the pair of you,’ he muttered. ‘And why don’t I care? Go ahead, Doc. Give me the injection. Work your magic.’

CHAPTER FIVE

ALLY felt like she was floating. Not in a good way, though, she decided as Darcy ushered her once more into his luxurious car. Too much had happened to her this day for her to take it all on board.

Her hatred of Jerome Hatfield had built over the years to a point where she hadn’t been able to handle it. She’d taken drastic steps in her life and moved on. She’d thought. Then today the memories had slammed back with such force that she felt as if everything had been sucked out of her. Her feet were no longer grounded. She felt…ill.

‘How’s your foot?’

‘It’s fine,’ she whispered. ‘Just fine.’

‘You can’t take this all in,’ Darcy said gently, and she stared across at him as if she didn’t recognise him.

‘It doesn’t change anything,’ she murmured. ‘To be given the opportunity to stop Jerry doing more damage… That’s fine but he’s done so much damage already.’

‘To your family?’

‘To everyone.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank you, though, for taking me up there this afternoon. Of all the lucky breaks.’

‘If the police have been looking for him for so long, I can’t believe they didn’t look here.’

‘He went overseas years and years ago,’ she said. ‘The trail was cold. The police couldn’t check every one of his father’s properties all the time on the off chance that he’d come back.’

‘But when Social Services checked…’

‘If he was using another name, there’d be no connection. If you didn’t contact the police…’

‘There was no reason to,’ he said grimly. ‘He wasn’t breaking the law. The children, though… If there’s been abuse that we missed…’

‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Jerry didn’t want me-that way-until I reached puberty, and all these kids are younger.’ She stared ahead into the dark. ‘I suspect he’s infertile. None of the kids is ever his. He picks up dysfunctional families like mine, or single mums who have babies. Then he acts as if he’s the kids’ father. Until they reach their teens.’

‘I should have-’

‘You shouldn’t have done anything,’ she said gently. ‘You contacted Social Services when Sam died. You checked the kids every month. And you took me up there this afternoon. So stop beating yourself up. I’m doing enough of that for both of us.’

‘You…’

‘You know, when I was twelve, I was standing above him up on a cliff when he was having a bush shower. There was a huge rock lying just at my feet and I thought, What if it moved?’ She managed a smile. ‘But I didn’t move the rock and he went on to destroy more lives.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, let’s not talk about him. Let’s concentrate on my steak.’

‘The important things in life.’

‘Right.’


Darcy lived in a weatherboard cottage set to the side of the Tambrine Creek hospital. He locked the car and turned to find Ally already opening the gate leading to the back door. The catch was tricky. How…?

‘I lived here for years,’ she told him, seeing his confusion. ‘This is the doctor’s house, right? I’m the doctor’s grandkid.’

The thought was disorientating. She’d lived here before?

‘And I hope you’ve been looking after it.’

‘I have.’

‘Let’s see.’ Then the back door burst open, swung wide from within by the force of two dogs. Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll was an ancient black and white but mostly grey cocker spaniel and Hyde was his younger compatriot, a sprightly eight-year-old golden version of the same breed. They bounded down the path with joy.

‘Hey, guys.’ Darcy squatted to hug them. They submitted and then wheeled to investigate Ally.

She promptly sat on the path and hugged back. Enveloped in a mass of wriggling canine joy, she smiled up at him with delight.

‘This is your family. Where are the chooks?’

‘Roosting,’ he told her. ‘And, no, I’m not waking them up for hugs.’

She giggled and hugged the dogs again, struggling to her feet. They were gorgeous. Dogs and girl…

Particularly girl.


For Ally, the sensation that she was coming home was almost overwhelming. Apart from the dogs. Her grandpa had always refused to have a dog. ‘Pets interfere with your life,’ he’d snapped, and that had been that.

But Darcy had dogs. Gorgeous dogs. She glanced up at him and he was smiling and she thought…

Well, she thought she ought to concentrate on dogs.

Maybe now she could get a dog. Maybe.

There wasn’t room in her little apartment above her shop.

Maybe a very small dog?

He was holding the back door wide and she hesitated. She hadn’t been here for seventeen years. Despite her grandfather’s coldness, she’d loved this place. If it had changed…

It hadn’t. She walked into the kitchen and it had hardly changed at all.

Oh, everything was fresh. The room was freshly painted. Shabby gingham curtains had been replaced by new ones. There was a gleaming modern refrigerator and a microwave. But the vast wooden table was the one she’d sat at all those years ago, and her grandmother’s old rocker was still in the corner. Her grandpa hadn’t liked anyone using it but Ally had snuggled into it when he hadn’t been around. In it her mother had seemed closer. She was sure her mother had used the rocker.

And the stove. ‘You kept the stove. You make toast on my stove.’ She darted across and hauled open the fire-door. Darcy had stoked the stove before he’d left that morning and now it contained a bed of glowing embers. ‘I so wanted the stove to be the same. Yum.’ She opened the oven door and peered into its black depths. ‘I used to put my feet in here every morning all through winter. I had leather slippers and I’d rest my feet in here while I toasted my toast.’

‘I still do,’ Darcy told her. ‘All my toast tastes of ancient footwear.’

And suddenly they were grinning at each other like fools. The tensions and heartache of the day dissipated in this one crazy moment-when he was looking at her with a delight that matched hers. With a grin that…

Whoa.

She forced herself to break eye contact, and she was aware that he did the same, breaking away at the same moment. They could be mature adults and ignore this, she thought frantically.

Ignore what?

Darcy had turned to the fridge and was delving into the freezer.

‘Do you need help?’ she managed, thrown suddenly right off balance.

‘I cook steak and salad just fine. It’s my staple diet.’

‘You want me to feed the dogs, then?’ she asked, and her voice was still stupidly breathless. Damn, how had he done that to her?

‘If you would,’ he said brusquely. Maybe he was as disconcerted as she was. ‘Their food’s in the container on the back porch and their bowls are there, too. A cup and a half each and don’t let them con you into more.’

‘I’m a rigid disciplinarian,’ she told him, but she still hadn’t got her voice under control. And when she made her way out to the back porch, she couldn’t stop the sensation that she felt like she was escaping.

From what? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she intended staying out there for a while, ostensibly watching as the dogs enjoyed their dinner but in reality staring out at the night sky, listening to the sea in the background, smelling the night scent of the gums and trying to adjust to the crazy feeling of unreality that was all about her.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come back here. The way she was feeling. The way she was feeling about Darcy?

This was nonsense, she told herself crossly. Just because the man had the most romantic name and he looked like a Hollywood hero…

No. It wasn’t that. It was the way he smiled at her. The way he made her feel.

She sat on the back step and hugged her knees. Men didn’t make her feel like this. Relationships weren’t her scene. The way to survive was to keep herself independent. Heart-whole and fancy-free.

Jekyll finished his dinner and came and nuzzled her hand. She fondled his silky ears and he gazed up with adoration.

‘Maybe a very small dog,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s all, Ally Westruther. Anything more would be a disaster and you know it. You have a plan. You stick to it.’


The steak was wonderful. When Darcy called her for dinner she found steaks that almost covered the dinner plate and the first mouthful had her in heaven.