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Christmas Where She Belongs
Meredith Webber


A place to finally call home…! Nurse-educator Clancy has always felt like an outsider – until she receives an unexpected inheritance: a house in the country, complete with the rough-and-ready doctor who lives there!Earthy, sexy Dr Mac Warren upends Clancy’s well-planned life, but this Christmas she’ll be unwrapping a much more sparkly, diamond-shaped surprise too…!










Praise forMeredith Webber:

‘Medical Romance™ favourite Meredith Webber

has penned a spellbinding and moving tale

set under the hot desert sun!’

—Cataromance on THE DESERT PRINCE’S CONVENIENT BRIDE

‘Medical Romance™ favourite Meredith Webber has

written an outstanding romantic tale that I devoured

in a single sitting—moving, engrossing, romantic and

absolutely unputdownable! Ms Webber peppers her

story with plenty of drama, emotion and passion, and

she will keep her readers entranced until the final page.’

—Cataromance on A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH

‘Meredith Webber does a beautiful job

as she crafts one of the most unique romances

I’ve read in a while. Reading a tale by

Meredith Webber is always a pleasure

and THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

is no exception!’

—Book Illuminations on THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE


Somehow Clancy was in his arms, dirt and all, and as he held her body close to his the tension drained out of him, to be replaced by a gladness he had no idea how to explain.

So he kissed her instead of trying for words—kissed her lips, her chin, her eyelids, showering kisses on her face, not daring to move lower because there was more heat in him than in the overly hot attic.

And Clancy was kissing him back, her lips finding bits of his skin, pressing against it, murmuring all the time—wordless sounds that were music to his ears.

His hands roamed across her back, feeling the flat planes of her shoulderblades, the fine, sharp bones of her spine, the padding on her backside that had teased him as he’d climbed the stairs.

‘We promised Helen,’ she finally reminded him, ‘and anyway, this is daft. We barely know each other.’

He eased back so he could look into her face.

‘I know you, Willow Clancy. You’re as soft and sheltering as the tree whose name you bear, yet tenacious too, your roots deep in the earth, so you stay upright while floods rage around you. It isn’t time we need in order to know about each other—you know that as well as I do, because we knew each other when we met. As if fate had worked it out. Whether that’s a good thing is another matter altogether.’


Dear Reader

Christmas 2010 to January 2011 was a really tough time for many thousands of people in my home state of Queensland, Australia, as floods and a vicious cyclone devastated eighty percent of the state. Rebuilding property has taken a very long time, and rebuilding the people—especially families who lost loved ones—will take a lot longer.

Having spent a lot of time in the areas devastated by these events, I wanted this book to be a tribute to the way people who have suffered such adversity and loss heave themselves up off the ground—or out of the mud, in this case—and get on with life. Christmas must have been especially hard for many of those people, but the human spirit prevails and celebrations continue.

Mac and Clancy’s story is typical of how the spirit of Christmas can help with healing, and bring joy to people who are or have been suffering. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Best wishes

Meredith




About the Author


MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, ‘Once I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new Medical Romance™ authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

Recent titles by Meredith Webber:

THE SHEIKH AND THE SURROGATE MUM

NEW DOC IN TOWN

ORPHAN UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE

MELTING THE ARGENTINE DOCTOR’S HEART

TAMING DR TEMPEST



These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk




Christmas

Where She Belongs

Meredith Webber





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE


HE SHOULDN’T have brought the dog. This had occurred to him even before he’d approached the front entrance to the ultra-modern block of apartments on Brisbane’s South Bank complex. But young Gracie had needed to get to hospital, and the boy up the road who usually fed the dog when he, Mac, went away, was off on holidays with his family.

In fact, just about the whole town was on holiday—down at the coast, splashing in the sea, trying to put the trauma of last year’s floods behind them as they celebrated the Christmas break with family and friends.

So, he’d had to bring the dog, and it wasn’t actually deliberate that he was encouraging Mike to investigate an interesting new city smell just a couple of yards from the classy-looking entrance to the apartment block.

A couple of yards from the camera he could see winking above the numbers and name plates on a panel beside the door!

Deep breath, press the buzzer, you’re doing this for Hester. You loved Hester and deep down you love Mike, for all his lack of ability to learn even the most basic of dog commands.

‘Heel!’ he said hopefully to Mike, who’d wandered as far as his lead—well, bit of rope, really—would allow.

Mike turned around and smiled goofily at him—smiling was the one thing the dog was good at and anyone who’d seen him smile had to admit it was a smile.

Mac smiled back.

Clancy jumped as the sound of the front-door buzzer blasted through the small apartment.

Well, maybe not blasted, but she’d been sitting on a beanbag—in the beanbag—and gazing blankly at the ceiling, trying to decide if she was bored enough with the long summer break to go down and visit her mother.

‘Come for Christmas,’ her mother kept urging, but, much as Clancy loved her beautiful, warm, zany mother, and was fond of the group of friends who shared her mother’s life in the commune, memories of the nut loaf in the shape of a turkey that had been the centrepiece of last year’s Christmas dinner were still vivid in Clancy’s mind.

That and the lantana flower wine.

So she’d reached the ‘probably not’ stage, and was just considering starting on the ‘to do’ list she’d written at the beginning of the holidays when the noise of the buzzer startled her. It was enough of a shock that getting out of the beanbag became more of a battle than usual—it clutched at her so that tipping it to one side and crawling out became the only option.

The buzzer sounded angry the second time, so she grabbed at the handset, dropped it, picked it up and finally peered at the picture on the small screen.

There was a pirate on her doorstep.

Or maybe he was a buccaneer—she had no idea what constituted the difference between the two. Tousled, over-long dark hair, a couple of days’ beard and dark, deep-set eyes glared into the camera. His lips were moving and she could read the impatient words. ‘Come on, answer the door.’

She responded to the unheard request.

‘Yes?’

Hardly a welcoming ‘yes’, in fact a very cold, detached response, but now she was over the initial shock of having a pirate on the doorstep, her rational brain had put together the tousled hair and beard and told her it was some emissary from her mother—a fellow hippie from over the border, probably carrying a woven reed basket full of inedible cheese, green gooseberries and very hard bread.

‘Miss Clancy? I’m a lawyer and I need to talk to you about an inheritance—’

He didn’t look like any lawyer she’d ever seen. And unless her father had remembered he had a daughter and then died, she couldn’t imagine she’d be getting an inheritance.

Actually, from the little she’d heard of her father, an inheritance was highly unlikely.

Piratical conman?

But why choose her?

Had he buzzed at all the doors and she was the only one who’d answered?

And wouldn’t a conman look presentable, or at the very least clean shaven?

‘Here, I’m holding up my ID from the hospital—I’m a doctor as well as a lawyer and I flew a patient down from Carnock early this morning so needed my ID.’

Clancy barely glanced at the name, seeing first the words ‘Angel Flight’ with the halo over the top of the word ‘Angel’. She’d supported this charity since treating a child from the country, flown down by a volunteer pilot for a follow-up appointment after an operation. The men and women involved in the charity were doing really useful work.

Was it because of the halo that she pressed the button to open the front door—something she never did to strangers without a far more lengthy interrogation?

Or had a certain authority in his voice overcome her usual caution?

It certainly couldn’t have been the voice, for all it had made her think of rich, dark, slowly melting chocolate.

She was still pondering these alternatives—adamantly denying the last—when the front-door buzzer sounded. The man who looked like a pirate had obviously arrived.

Security conscious as she was, Clancy had the door chain in place. She opened the door the mere four inches its reach would allow, and peered through the gap at the man—more piratical than ever close up, although maybe that was the effects of the rather worn red shirt and fraying, cut-off jeans.

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

At least his hands were free of woven baskets.

His answer was a grin, so slight yet so cheeky, so—endearing somehow—it took her breath away.

‘I’ve brought you your inheritance,’ he said, ‘but it won’t fit through that small a gap.’

He turned his head and said, ‘Mike!’ in a very stern voice, and to Clancy’s total astonishment a huge dog bounded into view, its long, thin nose poking inquisitively through the crack in the doorway.

Dumbstruck, Clancy stared at the dog—which seemed to be smiling at her.

Then anger built, slowly at first but rising to heat her entire body.

‘If this is my mother’s idea of a joke then it’s not funny,’ she growled, trying to push the dog’s nose back through the door so she could slam it in the man’s face. ‘I live in a one-bedroom apartment that isn’t big enough to swing a cat, let alone accommodate a dog the size of a small horse. I am perfectly happy living alone, I do not need a dog, or a cat, or a bird, not even a goldfish. I like living alone, and it’s about time my daffy mother recognised and accepted that fact.’

The speech was slightly spoiled by the fact that she’d continued to push at the dog’s muzzle, but rather than budging he seemed to be trying to ease more of his considerable length into her apartment, happily licking her hand as he did so.

‘I don’t actually know your mother.’

She shot upright, staring in horror at the dog, although she now realised it was the man, not the dog, who had spoken.

‘May we come in?’

Still regarding the dog with suspicion and shock, Clancy opened the door.

Once inside the apartment, both the man and the dog grew bigger, taking up most of the space in her minimal living room.

‘Good thing you don’t do furniture or we wouldn’t have fitted,’ the man said, smiling cheerfully at her.

‘Who are you?’ Clancy demanded. Nerves jangled throughout her body, no doubt because she’d been stupid enough to let this stranger into her flat.

Although the jangling didn’t feel like fear …

‘I’m called Mac,’ the man was saying, and he was holding out his hand, very politely.

It was an automatic reaction to take a hand that was held out to you, but no sooner had skin touched skin than Clancy knew she’d made a big mistake.

And confirmed the jangling had nothing to do with fear.

‘I’m Clancy,’ she said, snatching her hand back lest it transmit any of the rioting going on in her body. She’d heard of instant attraction, but this was ridiculous!

Mac let his gaze roam around the tiny apartment, mainly because he didn’t want to keep staring at the woman. It wasn’t that she was so outstandingly beautiful, but she had eyes as green as the lucerne in his back paddock—green with a hint of blue—and skin as smooth as a new baby’s, ivory pale but not white, all set off, well, framed really, by a cap of feathery dark hair.

She was small, but definitely curvy, and although dressed for a relaxing Sunday at home, there was no hint of sloppiness—in fact, she was wearing long shorts with a crease that could cut your hand and a spotless, beautifully ironed T-shirt.

Who ironed T-shirts?

‘You wanted something?’

The voice was good as well, soft, slightly husky, deeper than you’d expect from a smallish woman.

‘Mac?’ she added, when he didn’t reply—couldn’t really, he was lost in surprise that this should be Hester’s niece.

He pulled himself together and looked around for Mike, who, wonder of wonders, was sitting by his side, pretending to be a perfect dog.

‘I …’ Mac began, then realised he had no idea how to go on.

‘Is there somewhere we can sit?’ he asked. ‘I realise you must have just moved in, and don’t have furniture, but I noticed coffee shops up the road with pavement tables. We could take Mike there.’

‘Mike?’ the woman echoed, though she obviously caught on because she was looking at the dog.

‘Hester called all her dogs by people names, which is strange when you consider she regarded dogs as far more intelligent than people.’

The woman, Miss Clancy, frowned and shook her head, then put up one hand and ruffled her neatly cut hair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, but you’re right, let’s go and get a coffee.’

Mac was about to head out the door when she added, rather testily, ‘And not having furniture doesn’t mean I’ve just moved in, I just haven’t found the furniture I want.’

She lifted a handbag off a hook by the door and followed him out, pulling the door shut behind her, but before they reached the elevator, an elderly man emerged from another apartment, obviously heading in the same direction, though he paused to give Mike a disapproving look.

‘Dogs are not allowed in this building. You should know that, Miss Clancy.’

‘He’s just passing through, Mr Bennett,’ Clancy responded politely, though the colour in her cheeks suggested she was embarrassed by the reprimand.

Mac waited until they were outside the complex, walking up the tree-lined street towards the closest pavement café, before bringing up the subject again.

‘So, it’s going to be a problem, you inheriting Mike?’

The only response was a narrow-eyed glare, but even glaring those eyes were special.

They reached the café and Clancy chose a table at the outside edge of the pavement, no doubt assuming it would keep Mike out of other patrons’ way. But she didn’t know Mike.

‘So!’ she said, sitting down with her back to the quiet road. ‘Start at the beginning, who you are, why are you here, who is or was Hester and, probably most important of all, as I can’t keep the dog, what are you going to do with him?’

He smiled at her.

‘Very succinct summation of the main points. No wonder you’ve done so well as a teacher,’ he said.

The smile was Clancy’s undoing. It sneaked through her skin and curdled in her blood, turning it thick and sluggish, but no matter how her body was behaving, she couldn’t let him get away with the jibe.

‘I am a nurse educator, the senior lecturer in surgical nursing and theatre skills at the university,’ she pointed out.

The man’s smile widened.

‘Just as I said—a really good teacher! You must be to have done so well. But tell me, having trained to nurse, what made you go into teaching? Did you not like nursing?’

He was impossible.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, we’re here to talk about the dog, not me.’

‘Ah, Mike!’ the infuriating man drawled, while the dog sniffed the leg of a leggy blonde three tables away and was rewarded with a bit of buttered and very jammy croissant.

Should she call the dog? Clancy wondered. Would it come if she did?

‘Start with who you are,’ she said to the man, deciding it was easier to ignore the dog.

‘My name is McAlister Warren, and—’

‘McAlister Warren? That sounds more like a firm of lawyers than a name.’

Yes, that had been rude, but she was strung so tightly the words had just slipped out. Anyway, the situation was so bizarre, surely a little rudeness wouldn’t count.

Not that rudeness affected the man. He could give as good as he got.

‘It’s the name my parents gave me,’ he said smoothly, ‘and coming from someone called Willow Cloud Clancy, your criticism of my name is a bit rich.’

Clancy cringed. Few people knew her real name, and those who did would never dare to use it. She’d been Clancy from her first day at school—at real school, that was …

‘Everyone calls me Clancy,’ she said, aware that colour had crept into her face. He was right—she should never have mentioned names.

‘Good choice,’ he said, smiling cheerfully at her across the table and causing the little hairs on her arms to stand on end as if his words had brushed her skin. ‘Now, coffee? Something to eat with it?’

Clancy had been so busy trying to work out why the man was affecting her, she hadn’t noticed the waitress, one she didn’t know, approach the table.

‘Long, black and nothing to eat,’ she managed to reply, hoping coffee—black—might get her brain working again while certain that the way she felt, she’d choke on food.

‘So, you’re Mac,’ she prompted. ‘From Carnock, was it?’

As she said the word, a memory stirred and she knew why she’d opened the door. Once, long ago, she’d searched for a town called Carnock on a map in the school library, wondering just how far away it was and whether she could walk there if she started early enough. She was a good walker, and every morning walked a long way uphill to catch the bus to school …

‘You’ve heard of Carnock?’

Mac’s question was casual enough, but Clancy could feel his attention was focussed fully on her, as if the question had some deeper meaning.

‘One of the towns that had to be totally evacuated during the floods last year?’ she responded, realising she hadn’t connected the town to her childhood memory back then. It had to be the talk of an inheritance that had triggered the memory now.

Although, back when she had set out to walk there, and the search parties had returned her to the hippie commune that had been home, her mother had told her that while her father might have lived there once, it was the last place on earth he’d have gone back to—a place he’d hated.

‘And that’s all you know of it?’ Mac persisted.

Clancy frowned at him.

‘It might have been the town my father came from, but as I never really knew him, and as my mother always said he wouldn’t be seen dead in the place ever again, I doubt you’ve come to tell me he is dead. Although …’ she looked across to where Mike was now being offered bacon and egg at a far table ‘… leaving me a dog would be consistent with his complete lack of presence in my life.’

‘You know nothing of him?’ Mac asked.

‘He went away—that’s all I know. All my mother would ever say. I was two, maybe three—’ She broke off suddenly, shrugged, then added, ‘Actually, having escaped the commune and my mother’s hippie lifestyle as soon as I possibly could, I can’t find it in my heart to blame him.’

Mac turned her words over in his head, but found no bitterness in them. How sad that all she knew of her father was that he’d gone away. How hurtful it must have been for her, growing up with that knowledge.

But he was on a mission and couldn’t afford to be distracted by this woman’s unhappy childhood—if it had been unhappy.

‘The thing is, your father did come from Carnock and, no, he didn’t turn up dead there—in fact, as far as Hester was able to ascertain, he’s still alive—but he is, in her opinion, a total waste of space and you probably didn’t miss much not having him around.’

Clancy didn’t look convinced, but at least she was intrigued enough to ask, ‘And exactly who was Hester?’

‘Hester Clancy was your great-aunt, and an utterly wonderful woman. Every small town has someone like Hester, but Carnock was blessed with the best. Hester was the person young girls went to when they discovered they were pregnant, she was the person battered women eventually talked to, she’d find the money to send the clever kids in town to university when their parents couldn’t afford it, and after the floods she had three families living in her house for nearly a year while their homes were rebuilt.

‘She fought insurance companies and the flood-fund people to get the best deal for all of them, and practically forced tradesmen to work in Carnock when they could all be getting better money in the nearby mines.’

‘Wonder Woman, in fact,’ Clancy muttered, and although there was no meanness in the remark, Mac couldn’t let it slide.

‘Not really. Just caring, and giving, and very, very sensible.’ He paused, then had to add, ‘I imagine you’ve got the same sensible gene. Small apartment close to where you work, waiting until you can afford to buy good furniture rather than spending foolishly on rubbish—’

‘I can buy furniture whenever I like,’ Clancy retorted, the flash of fire in the green eyes suggesting she’d been called sensible before and hated it.

‘I’m sure you can,’ he soothed, but he couldn’t resist smiling, and slowly, reluctantly, she smiled back, her whole face lighting up, the radiance doing something to his lungs so his breath lodged in a lump in his trachea.

‘So, Hester the wonder woman left me a dog?’

Had she, too, felt whatever it was that had zapped between them? After a silence that seemed to stretch for ever, she’d thrown him a question to get the conversation back on track.

‘And the house the dog lives in,’ he told her, glad to be back on track himself.

No smile now, just total bewilderment, although she did recover enough to ask, ‘The house with the three flood families living in it?’

‘No, no, they’ve all moved out,’ he assured her. ‘At the moment I’m your only tenant, although I must admit I don’t pay much rent—none, in fact. Hester took me in after the flood as well, but I’ve stayed on. She wasn’t well, you see, and the house is old and needed a lot of maintenance—’

‘Stop right there!’

Clancy actually held up her hand to halt his explanation, and the waitress bringing the coffee stopped obligingly. By the time they’d sorted that out, and had coffee on the table, Mac had forgotten what he’d been saying, mainly because Clancy had smiled again and although it had been at the waitress, not at him, the smile had still caused problems in his chest.

Now Clancy lifted her coffee cup, pursing her lips to sip from it, and Mac felt a judder in his heart. No way. This wasn’t happening. He didn’t do instant attraction. Both his long-term partnerships had been gradual, cautious involvements—and as both of them had failed, how much more disastrous would a relationship based on nothing more than physical attraction be?

Relationship?

Where was his head?

‘Start again with you, McAlister,’ Clancy was saying. ‘At the door you said you were a lawyer, then you show a hospital ID with “Angel Flight” on it, which I know doesn’t make you a doctor because you could just be a pilot with a plane, but none of this explains why were you sponging off this Hester until she died. Were you hoping to get the house and dog yourself?’

‘Heaven forbid!’ he retorted, pleased the woman’s accusation had cleared his head—if not his chest. ‘The place is falling down. I just didn’t want to leave her on her own. Also, it’s a good house, and has historical value, and it deserves to live. But so much needs doing to it. I could only keep things going, getting a tradesperson in when necessary, although I’ve become a dab hand at changing tap washers and cleaning blocked drains.’

‘That’s not making anything clearer,’ Clancy told him as she battled to make sense of the situation. She didn’t know if it was what he was saying or because of her reaction to him as a man, but for whatever reason every time the man spoke she grew more confused. ‘What are you really? A doctor, a lawyer, a carpenter, odd-job man …?’

The man had the hide to laugh and Mike, apparently hearing the sound, came trotting across, grinning his stupid grin, a little bit of bacon dangling from the beard beneath his chin.

The dog nuzzled his head beneath Mac’s hand and as Mac’s long fingers rubbed the dog’s head Clancy had the weirdest sensation that the fingers were touching her—rubbing her head, and ruffling her hair.

‘A doctor first. The lawyer and odd-job man are part-time jobs, like the farming. It probably won’t surprise you to know that although doctors are desperately needed in country areas across Queensland, the only lawyering the locals need is the odd will or a bit of conveyancing when they buy or sell something.’

‘Farming? Did you sneak farming in there as well?’ Clancy asked. ‘Law and medicine are both long degrees, and then there’s articles for a lawyer and internship for a doctor. So that makes you, what—a hundred and ten years old?’

‘I am thirty-six,’ Mac replied, somewhat stiffly, Clancy felt. ‘And for your information I started studying law, then switched to medicine after four years. After I moved to Carnock I finished my law degree as an external student and did the practical legal training course to get my practicing certificate.’

‘Okay, so you’re the town doctor and the town lawyer and you live in my house, which is falling down. Is that it?’

‘More or less.’ The reply this time was grumpy, to say the least. ‘Although it isn’t your house, it’s Mike’s.’

‘Mike’s?’

The word came out as a yelp, which won an answering yelp from the dog himself, who shifted his allegiance from Mac to her.

Clancy stared at the man who had, in less than an hour, turned her neatly ordered life completely upside down.

‘Can a dog inherit a house? Own a house? Are you sure that’s legal?’

She patted Mike’s head to show she had nothing against him personally, and, apparently liking that, he rested his chin on her leg, liberally smearing her clean white cargo shorts with dog slobber.

‘Life tenancy,’ Mac responded, ‘after which it reverts to you, but—’

Up to this point, the man had been looking at her as he explained things—in fact, he’d been looking at her so intently she’d felt uncomfortable, although that could have been the attraction thing. Now, not only had he left an ominous-sounding ‘but’ dangling at the end of his sentence, but McAlister Whoever was gazing over her left shoulder—towards the road behind them, not looking at her at all …

‘But?’

‘Well …’

The man was hedging.

‘Actually,’ he began again, ‘to get the house, you have to take the dog.’

‘Actually,’ Clancy mimicked, ‘having heard about the house, I doubt very much I’d want it, while as for the dog—’

Unfortunately, perhaps understanding he was the dog in question, Mike looked up at her at that moment … and smiled.

No! No way! You do not disrupt your carefully planned life because a dog smiled at you!

‘Couldn’t the dog be mine in name but continue to live in the house with you?’

The man did look at her now, studying her for what seemed an inordinate length of time before answering—only what he said wasn’t an answer at all.

‘I can understand you haven’t much time for your father, but have you no curiosity at all about him, about his family, your forebears? Wouldn’t you at least like to see the town, look at the house?’

The nut roast had looked more like a dinosaur than a turkey, Clancy remembered, an image of the monstrosity flashing through her brain. While as for the wine …

Now here was the perfect excuse not to go to Nimbin for Christmas. The summer break was three months long—she could visit Carnock for a couple of weeks and still have plenty of time to complete her ‘to do’ list.

And though she was reluctant to admit it, the man was right, she did have a good deal of curiosity about her father. She’d just left it packed away in the cellar of her mind since her abortive attempt to find him back when she’d been a child.

‘I don’t have a car. Is there a bus, or a train?’ she asked, and Mac frowned at her.

‘You don’t have a car?’

She frowned right back at him.

‘You make it sound as if it’s a sin against humanity—have you not heard of minimising your personal carbon footprint? And why would I need a car? A pleasant stroll across the pedestrian bridge over the river takes me to work and the city, I have parklands all around me, I have a bicycle if I want to go further afield. So, no, I don’t have a car.’

‘Well, you could fly back out there with me. I’m going this afternoon and I’m almost sure to be coming back down before too long. Otherwise someone in town could give you a lift.’

He paused, again studying her a little too intently.

‘You’ll come?’ he added.

She thought of her eight-year-old self setting out to walk to the place called Carnock, the page she’d torn from the atlas in the school library folded in her pocket, and suddenly the idea of seeing the town she’d been headed for all those years ago filled her with an excitement she hadn’t felt for a long, long time.

‘I’ll come!’ she said, and she scratched Mike’s head, ruffling the rough hair on it.




CHAPTER TWO


ASKING for trouble, that’s what it was, encouraging her to visit Carnock. But who’d have expected Hester’s great-niece to look the way she did? Obviously as sensible and capable as Hester had been, yet somehow vulnerable at the same time.

On the other hand, it was only fair she see the house before she made any decision, Mac reminded himself.

Her attention was focussed on Mike at the moment, so he could study her without making it too obvious. Not that he hadn’t been studying her ever since they’d met, trying to analyse the unexpected physical bond he’d felt from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Maybe there was a look of Hester about her, but if there was he couldn’t see it. And as far as women were concerned, his preference was for blondes, and longhaired blondes at that. This woman with her gamine looks and hair like a pixie’s cap—she just wasn’t his type.

‘You said “fly back” with you. You have a plane?’

She’d looked up and caught him staring at her, embarrassing him enough to launch him into speech.

‘Cessna 172, handy little plane, four seater, has a range of about a thousand k …’ He stopped and smiled at her. ‘You don’t really want to know all that, do you? But, yes, I have a plane.’

‘I’ve never flown,’ she said, the vulnerable part of her looks coming to the fore.

‘Never flown in a small plane?’

Well, a lot of people hadn’t!

‘Not flown at all,’ she said. ‘Early on I didn’t have the money for expensive holidays and now—I don’t know, I guess I just haven’t got around to planning one.’

Instinct told him there was more to that story but he wouldn’t pursue it now.

‘You’ll enjoy it. It’s only a couple of hours’ flight, three at the most. The weather’s great, and we go over pretty country—the Great Dividing Range and the Downs. It will be all green and gold at the moment with either new crops planted or the last of the sunflowers. Now to plans. I want to call in and say hello to my parents while I’m in town. How long will you take to pack? How about I collect you at one?’

She was shaking her head, a stunned look on her face, then her lips tightened and she gave a final head shake.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but how do I even know you’re who you say you are? I mean, I know it’s highly unlikely someone would choose me to abduct because I’m worth nothing as a hostage. But I’ve known you, what, a couple of hours at most? And now you expect me to hop in a small plane with you and fly off to a place I’ve barely heard of.’

‘Ah, but you had heard of it, that’s the point. I suspect that’s why you let me in, when everything about you tells me you’re a very cautious person. I don’t blame you for feeling apprehensive. Look …’ He fished in his pocket for his wallet and, pulling it out, produced a rather squashed card. ‘The hospital number is there—phone the hospital and ask any questions you need to ask. Being Sunday, Annabelle Crane, our—’

‘Annabelle Crane—beautiful blonde with a sexy laugh and a never-ending stream of terrible jokes?’ Clancy spoke in what she hoped was a light-hearted voice, although the mention of Annabelle’s name had started heart palpitations.

Bad heart palpitations!

‘You know Annabelle?’

Fighting an urge to press her hand to her chest, Clancy said carefully, ‘I trained with her, but I lost touch after she married. You said she’s Annabelle Crane? She’s not married now?’

Not married to James?

Forget James. The question she needed to ask herself was could she face Annabelle again as if nothing had ever happened?

The palpitations were so bad she seriously considered telling Mac to keep the inheritance and get out of her life, but the name of that town—Carnock—kept echoing in her head, while memories of a man who’d tossed her in the air as a child …

And James falling out of love with her and into love with Annabelle hadn’t really been Annabelle’s fault, any more than James using the overseas honeymoon bookings he’d made for himself and her—the insensitivity of which had caused Clancy the most pain—could be blamed on Annabelle …

And the pirate wondered why she’d never flown anywhere.

‘Definitely not married.’ Mac’s reply dragged her out of the past. He spoke casually, but Clancy heard a hint of something behind the words. Were he and Annabelle an item? Why did he put so much stress on the word ‘definitely’?

‘They must have split up,’ Clancy said, telling herself it was none of her business if Annabelle and Mac were involved, and that the uneasiness in her stomach was nothing more than to be expected, given how her life had shifted in the last couple of hours.

‘Do you want to phone her?’ he said, offering his mobile. ‘The hospital is on speed dial, just press two.’

Clancy studied the phone—a much better idea than studying the man. But taking it, pressing the number two, would show a level of distrust she no longer felt. Hadn’t really felt at all with this man from the moment she’d seen his picture in the camera by the door.

Which was stupid.

But taking the phone, pressing two, would put her onto Annabelle …

You’re over it! You moved on years ago!

She took the phone and pressed the number two, wondering at the same time who would answer if she pressed one instead.

Annabelle?

‘Carnock Hospital, Annabelle speaking. That you, Mac?’

Clancy pressed the button that cut off the call and handed the phone back to Mac, whose hand closed over it just as it began to ring. He glanced at the number displayed and somehow stopped the noise without answering, instead slipping the phone back into his shirt pocket.

‘You didn’t want to chat with Annabelle? Catch up on what’s happening? Share a few student reminiscences?’ he asked, though it was apparent he hadn’t wanted to speak to Annabelle either, for who else would have been phoning right then?

Now she studied the man, a move aimed at distracting her mind from the reminiscences that lay between her and Annabelle!

Scruffy, that’s what he was, yet it was a very appealing scruffiness, maybe because of the twinkle that was almost always evident in his dark brown eyes.

It was dangerous, that twinkle, something to beware of, so she ignored it, and the teasing note in his voice, and answered as coolly as her overheated and still-jolted body would allow.

‘I imagine we can catch up in Carnock,’ she said, although catching up with Annabelle had never been high on her wish list for the future.

‘You will, at that,’ Mac assured her.

Some assurance!

‘So, one o’clock!’ Clancy said, knowing she had to get away right now, before the clashing chaos of attraction and memories had her disintegrating into a twisted mass of nerves on the footpath. ‘I need to pack,’ she added as she stood up, knocking over her chair in her haste. ‘It’ll be hot, I imagine.’

She bent to pick up the chair but Mac was before her, his hand brushing hers as she grabbed at it, his quiet ‘Let me’ suggesting he’d somehow read the turmoil inside her.

And now they were both bent, heads close together, gazes locked, something shimmering in the air between them, something that definitely wasn’t distrust …

Mike saved the day, leaping over the fallen chair and knocking over the table.

Clancy had to laugh. The dog was sitting in the middle of the shambles, grinning his idiotic grin.

‘Well, I’m glad someone’s laughing,’ Mac growled, as he righted the table. ‘You go and pack. I’ll settle up for the damage before I kill your dog.’

‘You brought him here,’ Clancy reminded him, and Mac sighed.

‘Indeed I did,’ he said, and Clancy couldn’t miss the regret in his voice.

She slipped away, thinking not of Annabelle Crane and James but of whether Mac’s regret was for bringing the dog to the city, or was it for getting himself involved with her?

Although they were hardly involved—he was a lawyer who had contacted the beneficiary of a will, and she was the beneficiary. It was purely a business meeting.

Maybe!

Packing took all of fifteen minutes, cleaning out the refrigerator and giving her next-door neighbour the perishables another ten, which left Clancy with two hours and twenty-two minutes to fill before one o’clock.

She considered using the time to contact her mother, a process that could take easily that long as it involved contacting a neighbour who had a phone, who then raised a flag to indicate there was a message for someone in the commune. It could be that the flag wouldn’t be seen for hours. Or days.

And if days, she’d be gone before her mother phoned back, and then she’d worry when she couldn’t get hold of Clancy, so all in all it was better to write.

Two hours and eighteen minutes—decisions didn’t take up much time.

Well, sitting around was no good because then she’d start thinking, and if she started thinking she’d regret making the impulsive decision. She never made impulsive decisions, knowing they invariably led to loss of control, and being in control was the mainstay of her life.

Or had been for some time …

She found some paper and began the letter, telling her mother of the unexpected appearance of Great-Aunt Hester in the family tree, and the strange bequest.

I’m not going because I still hanker for a father, she wrote, although as she put the words on paper, she wondered if they were entirely true, but because this woman left me her house and dog in good faith, so the least I can do is have a look at the situation, sum it up and make a decision.

There, that sounded sensible. No need to mention Annabelle Crane being in Carnock.

Sometimes Clancy thought her mother regretted the break-up with James more than she herself did. But hadn’t it been the shock of James’s visit to the commune, and meeting her mother’s extraordinary friends, that had started the disintegration of their relationship …?

Determined not to dwell on the past, she finished the letter and went into the alcove in her bedroom that she thought of as her office. Once there, she was able to lose herself in the first item on her ‘to do’ list, the preparation of lectures for the following year. She wanted to make them more challenging, particularly for the first-year students, so they would get a feel for the job they were training to do.

So, of course, rather than waiting by the front door at one o’clock, she was lost in Lecture Two when the buzzer buzzed.

Shoving her laptop into its case, she slung it over her shoulder, grabbed the small bag with her belongings, and her handbag, and hit the button to allow Mac and Mike entrance to the lobby. ‘I’ll be right down,’ she said into the intercom, and raced down the stairs, knowing it would be faster than taking the elevator.

Flushed from her downward dash, she arrived in the lobby to find Mike in trouble again, this time from a tenant Clancy didn’t know, a woman who’d emerged from the elevator with a Siamese cat on a lead.

‘He likes cats,’ Mac was saying to the woman, who’d grabbed her pet from beneath Mike’s smiling face and was glowering at Mac.

‘Dogs are not allowed in this building,’ the woman said, and she stalked out the door.

Mike let her go, discovering Clancy instead and rushing up to her to greet her with his front paws on her chest, so with the weight of her baggage she’d have gone flying if Mac hadn’t slung his arm around her to steady her.

The area of skin beneath the clothes that touched that arm prickled with awareness, then the arm dropped away, while Clancy battled an urge to run straight back up the stairs.

Control!

‘Does he cause trouble wherever he goes?’ she asked, determined to ignore her reactions to the man, and looking at Mike, who was now sitting in front of her doing a perfect dog act.

‘Everywhere!’ Mac said in a despairing voice, but Clancy heard the smile behind the words and understood that Mac loved the silly animal, just as Great-Aunt Hester must have.

Great-Aunt Hester—just thinking about the woman gave Clancy a weird sensation in her stomach.

She had family! Real family! Or at least she had done …

Of course, she’d always known her mother had family, somewhere down south, maybe in Victoria, but her mother’s insistence that the fellow members of the commune were the only family she wanted or needed had meant Clancy had never known any of them. Which, by and large, had been okay.

Mac had taken her belongings and she was following him out the front door towards an ancient, battered, rusting four-wheel drive while she considered all of this. But as he stowed her bags in the back and opened the rear door for Mike, Clancy realised there was one question she hadn’t asked and probably should have.

With her hand on the doorhandle, she turned to Mac.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said, with a grin that seemed to light up whatever little corner of the world he was currently inhabiting. ‘Hester found you. I have a feeling she had some kind of agent look into it.’

‘An agent? You mean a private detective? She had someone following me?’

The grin turned into a laugh so the dark eyes sparkled with devilment.

‘I very much doubt you were followed,’ he assured her, taking her hand off the doorhandle and opening it for her. ‘As far as I know, most things can be discovered just sitting in an office using a computer. All births are registered, you’d be on a voting register, there’d be school and university records, and a smart agent could probably even find out which dentist you went to.’

Clancy had ducked past him to get into the car, but turned back to face him, horrified by what he was saying yet knowing it was probably true.

‘You think that’s what happened?’

‘Almost sure of it,’ Mac said, then he touched her cheek. ‘We’re all in the same boat, about as anonymous as a pop star. Every time you go for a job, someone is finding out all this stuff about you.’

Clancy wanted to argue, but she knew everything he’d said was true, no matter how uncomfortable it might make her feel. So now she had to wonder just how much this ‘agent’ Mac spoke of had dug up. And was the information floating around the house where Mac now lived alone—apart from Mike?

Did it matter?

Deciding it didn’t, she finally climbed into the car. She was going out to see the house. Yes, she’d probably see Annabelle, but that was okay, they’d been quite good friends through university, and beyond all that a little flutter of excitement threading along her nerves reminded her she was finally going to see the place called Carnock, and maybe, just maybe, find out a little more about her father.

Unfortunately, as Mac got behind the wheel and the flutter along her nerves grew stronger, she had to wonder if it was the thought of seeing Carnock causing it, or this man she didn’t know.

She’d had flutters aplenty with James in the beginning, although flutters seemed to die natural deaths as a relationship progressed, for which she’d been profoundly grateful. She had to hope, if Mac was causing the flutters, that they would also die away when a relationship didn’t exist.

Mac was driving out through the inner suburbs, explaining that he flew in and out of Archerfield, where he kept this vehicle for his convenience when he was in Brisbane.

‘There are any number of old cars like this around an airfield. A lot of pilots are tinkerers, playing with their planes and doing up old cars—the two go together. It’s fortunate for me as there’s an old man out there who loves this vehicle, so although it looks as if it’s coming apart at the seams, he keeps it in good running order for me.’

‘And are you a tinkering pilot?’ Clancy asked.

‘Definitely not. I have no idea what goes on inside any engine, although I had to learn enough about the plane to be able to see anything that was obviously wrong with it. But we’ve a good mechanic in Carnock and I have it serviced down here every year. I just wanted to be able to get about, and in the bush a small plane’s the answer.’

The conversation lagged, and although the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, Clancy felt obliged to break it.

Or it may have been because she liked Mac’s voice, the rich chocolate of it, that she asked, ‘And your involvement with Angel Flight?’

‘Ah,’ Mac said, ‘that’s one great charity. Very few overheads, most of the work done by volunteers, and it’s one thing that is of real benefit to country people all over Australia. You know about it?’

He turned towards her and Clancy smiled, glad she could answer honestly.

‘I’ve supported it as a charity for years and I’m a registered “earth angel”, but only as a hospital visitor. Having a full-time job and not having a car means I can’t do hospital transfers, but when people have to stay down for any length of time, I’m put in touch with them.’

‘So we have something in common apart from Hester,’ Mac said, and when he smiled she knew the flutters were Mac-generated, although the name Carnock still gave her a thrill when she whispered it in her mind.

Thrills—flutters—what was happening to calm, sensible, in-control Willow Cloud Clancy? The girl who’d fled the drifting, laid-back, disorganised life of the commune to build a normal, stable life for herself—planned and controlled to the last detail …

This time she let the silence linger, her head too busy puzzling over her reactions to Mac to be bothered with small talk.

But no amount of thinking came up with any reason why this particular man, of all the men she’d met in recent years, should affect her with flutters.

Surely it had to be more than a quick, bold grin and twinkling eyes and a piratical beard and tousled black hair …

Was she having second thoughts? Mac wondered. Would she get to Archerfield, take one look at his little plane, and grab a taxi to take her back to the security of her tiny apartment and her ordered life?

He knew enough about her childhood in the hippie commune—Hester’s agent had been far more thorough than he’d let on—to guess she needed order in her life and some measure of control over it, but surely she could find order of a different kind in Carnock.

It was a thought that made him think again—did he want her living in Carnock?

The answer came immediately—a positive response. At least, he amended to himself, until he’d had a chance to get to know her, and maybe understand the attraction he felt towards her.

Once understood it would be easy to counter—

That thought stopped as abruptly as he stopped the car at the lights at Rocklea.

‘Archerfield’s just up the road,’ he said, to break his train of thought more than the silence.

‘I can see planes already,’ his passenger said, and the soft, husky voice feathered up his spine, suggesting the attraction might grow instead of lessening …

Far better if she didn’t stay!

Once airborne it was easier. He could pretend flying the little gem of a plane was a complex procedure. But even pretending, he couldn’t miss the cries of delight from his passenger, who pointed out every dam and paddock and small hill as they flew towards the great range that ran down the east coast of Australia.

Enchantment shone in her face, and her delight was so open and enthusiastic that Mac found himself forgetting his pretence about the complexities of flying and joining in, naming the places they flew over, deviating off route to show her deep, uninhabited valleys in the ranges, and fields of sunflowers—faces up to the sun and so to them—ranging across the downs.

Turning north towards Carnock, he pointed out the small beginnings of the river that had caused much of the flooding the previous year.

‘But it’s barely a creek,’ Clancy protested, and Mac explained how the ground had been waterlogged from previous rain, and the little stream already breaking its banks in places before the deluge that caused the flood had hit the town.

‘Is there still visible damage in the town?’ she asked, and he hesitated.

‘If you’d known the town, then you’d see a difference. Some places that were washed away will never be rebuilt, but it’s the invisible damage that I worry about.’

‘The people?’ she asked quietly, and he nodded.

‘There’s far too much of a “she’ll be right, mate” attitude in the country,’ he said. ‘People—men and women but particularly the men—hide their emotions in case it’s seen as a weakness.’

‘At least that’s never a problem where I come from,’ she responded. ‘The nights I’ve fallen asleep listening to a litany of someone’s revelations of their deep inner angst. But I can understand people would be scarred by the experience of the floods. Even seeing the news coverage had me in tears.’

‘Carnock was lucky in that there was no loss of life, although we all thought Mike was gone. He leapt into the water when a big ball floated past—the dog’s a sucker for a ball. But he arrived back home five days later. Wet and bedraggled and absolutely starving, but still as bold as ever.’

Clancy turned to pat the dog, who was lying behind the two front seats. The image of a wet, bedraggled Mike had slunk into her heart and for all she told herself she couldn’t get too attached to this dog, she had a bad feeling she’d be unable to resist.

Could she get enough rent for her apartment to lease a house in the suburbs—somewhere on the train line so she wouldn’t need a car? With a good yard, of course—

A jangling noise erupted through the small cabin.

‘Is that your mobile?’ she asked Mac, and knew the answer when she saw him fish it out of his pocket.

‘Mac!’ he said, while Clancy marvelled that right up here in the air the man still had mobile coverage.

Although now Mac’s end of the conversation snagged her attention.

‘How long ago? Is it just his ankle? Did he hit his head at all? Land on his back? Can he move his toes and fingers? Jess, Jess, stop crying. I’ll be there in half an hour, maybe less. Your strip’s clear? No cattle in that paddock? Okay, just make him comfortable and come down to the strip to meet me. Yes, I can take you into town. Now stop crying, take deep breaths, think of the baby, make yourself a cup of tea, then drive down to meet us.’

‘Problem?’ Clancy asked.

‘Fellow on a property some distance from town. He’s come off his motorbike, but apparently only injured his ankle. They ride around on those darned things with sandals on, would you believe, and never wear helmets. It’s a wonder more farmers aren’t injured.’

Was that all he was going to tell her?

Not that she needed to know more, but she’d sensed Mac had more to say.

A long sigh confirmed her guess.

‘Rod’s wife, Jess, is eight months pregnant. She’s a city girl and although she’s adapted well to country life, something like this will have thrown her.’

Not knowing what to say, Clancy waited.

‘They live an hour’s drive from town.’

The information was coming in dribs and drabs and although she now knew it was leading somewhere, she had no idea where.

‘I don’t want her driving into town in her condition. She’s upset enough as it is, so …’

Mac turned so Clancy could see his face and read the concern in his eyes, plus what looked like a little uncertainty lurking around his lips.

‘Rod’s a big man and Jess is huge at the moment so I can’t fit you all in the plane. Would you be okay with me dropping you and Mike at the farm? That way you can drive into town, and Jess will have a car available to drive back home—drive Rod back home as well if it’s a simple break and I can set it. Best of all, I can have Jess stay in the hospital with Rod overnight and keep an eye on her in case the stress has affected the pregnancy.’

Clancy barely heard the justifications for the scheme Mac was proposing, having stalled on the first part.

‘You want me to drive these people’s vehicle into town?’ she demanded. ‘From a place I don’t know to a town I don’t know?’

She didn’t add ‘in a car I don’t know’, in case that made her sound altogether too wimpish.

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Mac assured her. ‘You go down their drive to the front gate and turn left. There’s only one road and it leads to Carnock.’

There was a pause, as if something had just occurred to him, and after what seemed like too long a silence he added, ‘You can drive?’

‘Of course I can,’ Clancy replied, not adding that although she had a licence she’d never made much use of it, never having owned a car, not even an old bomb, while she’d been a student. Some of the ethos of her childhood had stuck.

‘That’s good. Now, look out the window and see if you can see a house. There should be a name—Thornside—painted on the roof.’

Clancy spotted it ten minutes later, pointing it out to Mac, who circled it, gradually bringing the plane lower and lower until Clancy could see the cleared strip of a runway ahead of them, then—bump!—they were down. Mac taxied the little plane towards a huge four-wheel-drive vehicle parked beside a small shed.

‘Let it be an automatic,’ she prayed beneath her breath while Mac stopped the engine and yelled at Mike to sit.

Mike was already over on Clancy’s knee, obviously determined to be the first out, but he did sit, all ten stone of him by the feel of things.

‘Can I open the door?’ Clancy asked, and Mac assured her she could. She unlatched it and pushed it open so Mike could leap out, heading straight for the pregnant woman.

Fearing he might jump up on her and knock her over, Clancy yelled his name, and to her surprise he turned around and gave his goofy smile then proceeded to ignore the woman, turning his attention instead to three farm dogs who’d also come to greet the new arrivals.

Mac introduced Clancy to Jess, who repeated the name with surprise.

‘Clancy? It’s your first name, or your surname? Are you related to Hester?’

‘Small town,’ Mac said drily, and Clancy knew exactly what he meant. Everyone would know everyone else’s business.

‘It’s my surname but I’ve been called Clancy for ever. Apparently I’m Hester’s great-niece, although I’ve only now heard of her existence.’

‘Oh, you missed out on a treat! Not that Hester ever thought much of me. She believed country men should marry country women, not city slickers like me—although once she knew I was pregnant she warmed up a bit, greeting me at the shops and always asking how I was.’

Jess patted her bump, then allowed Mac to help her back into the high-set vehicle. He’d opened the back door and as Mike had already leapt in, Clancy followed.

Mac drove the short distance to where lights flickered through the leaves of a well-maintained garden, asking Jess about her husband’s injury, reassuring the woman that all would be well.

‘How about you make us a cuppa?’ he said, as they walked up the steps to the wide front veranda. ‘I could do with one, and I’m sure Clancy could as well.’

He dropped back to murmur to Clancy, ‘Would you go with her and keep an eye on her?’

Clancy followed Jess obediently down a long hallway, hearing Mac’s voice as he greeted his patient, looking around at the rooms that led off the passage, thinking how cool the big house was, although the heat of the day had lingered out at the airstrip.

‘He’ll be all right, I know that,’ Jess said as Clancy entered the huge kitchen with a table big enough to seat a dozen people. ‘It was just the shock of seeing him when he came home. He was white as a ghost and fainted dead away as he tried to get off the bike, then he wouldn’t lean on me to get into the house.’

Jess was still shocked by her husband’s injury, that much was obvious, yet she was efficiently making a big pot of tea, setting out mugs and even producing a large fruit cake from the pantry.

‘I made the Christmas cake early and then decided to make a few more so we could enjoy it before Christmas as well as after it,’ she explained as she cut off slabs and put them onto plates.

‘Good thinking,’ Clancy said, deciding that Hester’s judgement had been right—this city girl was settling well into the country.

Jess set everything on a tray and led the way out a side door and along a back veranda to where Mac was bent over a tall young man, chatting easily as he bound the injured ankle.

‘I’ll X-ray it when we get to town,’ Mac explained to Jess, ‘but I think it might be bad enough to send him somewhere to have it pinned or it could cause problems later. Your family’s in Brisbane? Would you prefer going there or would Toowoomba do?’

Jess turned to Rod.

‘What do you want?’ she said, and when his only reply was a broad smile, she answered Mac.

‘Toowoomba’s closer, he’ll probably see a specialist there more quickly, and we’ll be back home sooner,’ she said, and Rod reached out and took her hand, the connection between the couple so obvious Clancy felt the warm glow of reflected love, and maybe just a twinge of envy.

‘That’s settled, then,’ Mac declared. ‘I’ll take you back to town, X-ray it and start making arrangements. Jess, is there a neighbour you can phone to feed the dogs while you’re away?’

‘I’ll put them on their chains now, and phone from Carnock when we know for certain we have to go to Toowoomba,’ Jess replied, then she smiled at Mac. ‘It’s not that I’m doubting your diagnostic skills, but it just might be a simple break!’

‘Fair enough,’ Mac said, gulping down his tea and picking up the plate that held his cake. ‘Can you pop this into a paper bag so I can take it with me? I seem to remember your fruit cake won first prize in last year’s show, putting several older local noses out of joint.’

Jess went off happily and Mac turned to Clancy.

‘Do you think you could help me get Rod out to the car? You stand on his left side and I’ll take the right and he should be able to hop with our support.’

They hopped the injured man out to the car and helped him in, then Jess returned with overnight bags. She turned off the lights in the house as she walked to the front door, closing it but not, Clancy noticed, locking it.

If she’d needed anything to remind her she was back in the country, it was that one small detail—unlocked doors.

Mac drove to the airport, this time with Mike loping along behind the vehicle. Clancy helped again to get Rod into the plane, hearing the hissing of his breath as he tried to conquer the pain of his injury while struggling into the back seats.

Jess clambered in after him, seemingly unhampered by her pregnancy, then came Mac, and the little plane taxied away.

Clancy turned to Mike.

‘Well, dog, it’s just you and me now. Do you suppose if we head back to the house we’ll be able to tell which is the drive we follow to the gate?’

Mike smiled his silly smile and Clancy ruffled his head. But it was an absent-minded ruffle, for she was looking up at the massive sky that spread above her and sniffing the fresh, eucalyptus-scented air, and trying very hard to ignore the feeling of well-being that was creeping over her.

‘Oh, no, I’ve done my time in the country and I’m a city girl,’ she told Mike. ‘Just you remember that!’




CHAPTER THREE


OF COURSE the car wasn’t an automatic, but making gear changes must have been burnt into her muscle memory because, with the selection clear from a diagram on the gearstick, Clancy managed three changes with barely a hitch, although once she had it in third she decided to stay there, at least until the end of the drive.

The drive! It went on for ever, forcing Clancy to wonder if she’d somehow chosen the wrong track from the many leading away from the homestead. Although this one had seemed most used, and had trees planted either side, so surely …?

But a front drive four miles long? More, for she hadn’t yet reached the gate!

‘You’re no help,’ she said to Mike, who was sitting on the front passenger seat, his head out the window so his long ears streamed back and his lips curled in a kind of grimace.

Clancy drove with her window open as well, so the fresh air rushed through the vehicle.

‘The air off the river is fresh,’ she told Mike, feeling a need to defend her city living. ‘And the South Bank parklands are full of trees.’

But did they diffuse their scent into the air? She had to suppose that if they did, then other city smells—car exhaust and building dust and people perfumes—must mask it.

‘Listen to me, Mike!’ she snorted, although she hadn’t spoken the thoughts out loud. ‘Half an hour in the country and I’m being seduced by the scent of it.’

But the scent out here was different from that of the hills around her mother’s home. Out here the air was dry and a little dusty, so it carried the perfume of the gum trees easily. Back where she’d grown up, the hills were green, the air moist, the vegetation mostly rainforest with its scent of decaying leaves and mulch.

‘Oh, Mike!’ she sighed, for no particular reason, then the gate appeared in front of her—not a gate as such but a cattle grid with white-painted fence posts either side.

Turn left, Mac had said, so she turned left, hoping she’d remembered correctly, wondering how far she’d have to go in the wrong direction before some signpost told her she’d made a mistake.

The sun was sinking behind her, so shadows lay across the land on either side of the road, softening the harshness of the landscape, turning the grass a soft blue-green, the leaves on the gum trees lining the road silver in the dimming sunlight.




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