‘We’ll give you a few biscuits and cheese to keep the wolf from the door while I wash your knee first,’ he told her. ‘I need a medico with two good legs-not with one infected. Then we find Toby. Toby’s down at the town hall, and that’s where the food is. There’s a fire effort happening in town and the locals are either out on the front or working to support them. Even at this late hour there’ll be food. So we’ll collect Toby and feed you. Two birds with one stone.’
She blinked back the last of her emotion and managed a grin.
‘Lead on, then,’ she told him. ‘Two birds, did you say? I’ll eat them both.’
That he’d noticed the embedded gravel in her knee amazed her. The Crimplene was flapping around her calves and her knees were hardly exposed. Maybe one of the firefighters had told him.
Or maybe he’d just…noticed? He was that sort of a doctor, she decided as he carefully scrubbed the surface and then checked that each particle of gravel had been removed.
It’d be hard to do it herself. But it was also hard to sit still and watch his bent head as he concentrated on what he was doing. His fingers were the fingers of a surgeon, she decided. He was skilled and careful and…kind?
He unnerved her. She didn’t understand the emotions he engendered and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to.
‘Th-thank you,’ she murmured as he put a dressing in place over the damaged skin.
He smiled up at her. ‘Think nothing of it, ma’am. I owe you one.’
‘Why?’
‘I disparaged your dog.’
‘Penelope’s Michael’s dog,’ she said before she could help herself, and he gave a rueful little smile.
‘So she is. But isn’t there something in the wedding vows that says with all your worldly goods? Doesn’t that include Afghan hounds?’
Hugo still thought she was married to Michael. She stared down at the band of gold on her left hand and gave a twisted smile. Married. To Michael. Ha!
But it wasn’t the time or the place to disillusion him. What was the point?
Besides, biscuits and cheese weren’t nearly enough.
‘We need to move on,’ she murmured, and he cast her a look that was curiously questioning. And curiously understanding.
‘Fine,’ he said, and he let his fingers stay on the dressing on her knee for just a fraction of a moment longer than he had to. Long enough to impart…what? Comfort? Understanding? She didn’t know.
‘Fine,’ he told her. ‘Let’s move on.’
They checked on Kim first. Rachel’s stomach couldn’t get any louder than it already was, and when Hugo suggested it she agreed. There were some things still more important than food, and seeing Kim safely asleep was one of them.
‘She woke a couple of hours back,’ Hugo told her. ‘But she went back to sleep almost immediately.’
Her body would be so shocked that she’d sleep for days, Rachel thought, and she was sleeping soundly now. Kim’s mother was by her side, sitting holding her hand. Doing nothing. She was simply watching.
It was enough.
‘Kim shows every sign that she’ll be fine,’ Hugo told the woman as Rachel watched from the doorway. He lifted the base of Kim’s bedsheet to reveal two sets of very pink toes. ‘Her circulation’s almost back to normal. She’s on maximum intravenous antibiotics. Her obs are great. She looks as if she’s going to have very little permanent damage. We’ll do more nerve tests in the morning but she wiggled everything when she woke and had full sensation. Your husband was watching. Did he tell you?’
‘He did.’ Mrs Sanderson’s face creased in fierce concentration. Concentrating on control. ‘I was home getting some things for her when she woke.’ Her fragile control broke and her voice choked on a sob. ‘I shouldn’t have left…’
‘Kim needed her things.’
‘I mean… I shouldn’t have left her at the showgrounds. She wanted to show Knickers. If I’d thought the Jeffreys could be stupid enough to let their dog off the lead… I just didn’t realise…how easy it is to lose someone. We came so close.’
‘But not close enough,’ Hugo said gently, his hand on the woman’s shoulder. ‘She’ll be fine.’ He smiled down into her tearful face. ‘Tell me how Knickers is.’
It was the right thing to ask. It made the terror recede. The woman gulped and gave him a watery smile. ‘Knickers is good.’ She took a big breath and searched for calm. She’d been to the brink, Rachel realised. This day would live with her for ever. ‘The vet says he’ll be OK, though my husband is saying it’ll cost more to have Knickers fixed than Kim. We can’t claim a cocker spaniel’s expenses through medical insurance.’
Hugo grinned. ‘See? I’m cheap at half the price.’ He smiled, a comfort smile Rachel was starting to recognise. ‘Now, what about you going home and getting some rest? We’ve sedated Kim fairly heavily so I’d be surprised if she woke before morning.’
‘I might just watch for a little more,’ the woman whispered. ‘If it’s OK. I just want to watch…’
She just wanted to watch her breathing, Rachel thought. She knew. To sit there and watch a chest rise and fall…
She bit her lip and Hugo turned and saw.
He thought it was the hunger, though. He must do. There was surely no other reason for it. She could see she had him confused and she fought to remove her expression. The stillness of her face…
‘I need to take our Dr Harper for a feed,’ he told Mrs Sanderson. ‘We’ll leave you to your vigil. But don’t exhaust yourself. Kim will need you in the morning, if only to prevent all her friends from visiting in the first five minutes. Keep up your strength.’
‘I will.’ The woman smiled through tears. ‘Thank you both. We were so lucky…’
‘We
Rachel said nothing at all.
The local hall was where the action was. It was set a block back from the main street, but even so Rachel wondered how she could have missed it when she and Penelope had walked into town. Hugo turned the corner and bright lights shone out through open doors. Even at midnight there were dozens of cars parked outside and people were spilling out onto the pavement.
‘So this is Cowral Bay’s night life,’ she said faintly, and Hugo grinned.
‘It doesn’t get any better than this. Come and meet Cowral. Oh, and I’d take a deep breath if I were you. I suspect you’ve been voted an honorary local now, like it or not.’
She had. From the moment she walked in the door she was welcomed as a friend. A lifesaver. She’d treated the firemen and she’d treated Kim.
Now she could tell why the pavilion had been locked and darkened-why the town itself had seemed abandoned. Everyone was here. Doris Keen was busy making sandwiches but when she saw Rachel she dropped what she was doing and came forward, her arms outstretched.
‘Oh, my dear, we were that worried. We didn’t know where you’d got to. We assumed you’d gone home but then Charlie found your husband’s car and it was still locked. We searched, but then the fire brigade boys came in and they said you’d gone back to the hospital and you’ve been working so hard…’
Everyone was assuming Michael was her husband, Rachel thought. She’d been with him. She wore a wedding ring.
It didn’t matter. Let them.
She tried to think of Michael with some degree of caring. Had he managed to save Hubert Witherspoon? She didn’t know and she didn’t much mind. For a moment she almost felt it in her to be sorry for him. He’d left and he’d missed out on…this. This hubbub of caring.
Penelope.
