wasn’t responsible for herself. You should have locked her up and taken total control. But you said she was a person capable of her own decisions.’
‘Yes, but-’
‘But nothing.’ Rachel’s voice was urgent now. She could see the self-loathing in Hugo’s eyes and she wasn’t having any of it. He was hurt, this man. She could put bandages on his hands but it wasn’t enough. What hurt more than a heart?
‘Sue-Ellen knew the dangers. Sam and Gary both said she’d been warned. She chose to stay.’
‘She was ill.’
‘Would you have locked her in a mental institution?’
‘No, but-’
‘But nothing. Sue-Ellen lived independently and she was hurt, making that life for herself. I won’t have you blaming yourself, Dr McInnes.’
He looked up at her, and the beginning of an exhausted smile crossed his face. Just a trace.
‘Bossy, aren’t we?’
‘It’s what I do best,’ she said softly, and smiled back at him.
Hugo gazed up at her. Really looked. His burned hand came up and brushed the curls from her face. They were tumbling every which way from under her hard hat.
She’d be smoke-grimed, she thought-black with soot and sand and smoke. But Hugo’s eyes were holding her and his fingers traced her cheekbone gently-a feather touch.
‘You’re so beautiful.’
‘Beautiful and bossy?’ she asked in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.
‘That’s the one. Rachel…’
‘What?’
‘I need to kiss you,’ he told her.
And what was a girl to say to a request like that?
She kissed him.
More than that, she gave her heart. Right there and then.
Or maybe it had been given in those awful moments on the beach, under the sodden blanket with the fire roaring overhead, thinking that somewhere out here was Hugo. Her love…
Her love.
There was another love. Craig. That hadn’t disappeared-it never could. There was still commitment, still pain, but it didn’t stop this flowering that was happening within her right now.
Dottie had said it was time she moved on. Put Craig behind her. But it wasn’t like that. She hadn’t been able to put Craig behind her for eight long years.
And she couldn’t now. She didn’t need to.
Because Craig was still with her. Craig was a part of who she was, a part of her loving. She held Hugo’s dear, scorched face in her hands and she kissed him with all the love in her heart and she knew that this was no betrayal.
This was an extension of loving. A wealth of love. Broadening, expanding her heart, to take in Toby and Cowral and Penelope and Digger and Sue-Ellen and maybe a few crazy goats clustered around and a confused pup called Pudge.
And Hugo.
She kissed him and found herself melting. Not just her lips. Her whole life, melting away and reforming. Regrouping. Stronger, richer, deeper.
Love…
He tasted of fire. He tasted of heat and want and aching need.
He tasted of… Hugo.
Her fingers held him, curled into his hair, clinging, letting his mouth devour her, knowing that for him this kiss was as affirmation of life as well as love.
Knowing for him this was the only way to move forward.
Through love.
Love was…here. Love was now.
Love was Hugo.
There was no time for each other. Not now.
They held each other for as long as they could, desperately taking what they most needed from this precious contact. But, of course, there was more needed of them this day than the care of Sue-Ellen.
The fire chief stood behind them and coughed and waited. He’d given them space. He was a wise man and he’d seen their need. He’d directed his team away from them as the chopper left and had given them as much time as he could, but needs were breaking through.
‘Doc…’ He coughed a couple of times and tried again. ‘Doc…’
They broke apart. Sort of. Battered and filthy, they sat in the mud and looked up at him, and the fire chief gave them a grin which said the incongruous picture they made was hardly lost on him.
‘Geez, whatever turns you on, Doc,’ he said to Hugo. ‘Me, I like my missus in a sexy negligee but if you like ’em covered with soot-well, each to his own. But kinky is what I call it.’
Rachel blushed. She blushed from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes and she tried to haul away, but Hugo was having none of it. His hand tightened around her waist and he grinned.
‘Sexiest lady I know.’
‘Isn’t she just.’ The fire-chief’s grin broadened. ‘We’ll have her up on our calendar next year, hard hat included. Look, I’m sorry to disturb you…’
‘You’d think we could have a bit of privacy,’ Hugo complained. He seemed suddenly almost jovial. ‘We’ve searched so hard to find it. And here we are with only thirty goats, one dog and twenty odd firefighters as an audience.’ His smile faded, just a bit, but it didn’t leave his eyes completely. ‘Don’t tell me. Problems?’
‘No major ones.’ The chief wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and something suspiciously like moisture smeared his cheek. ‘We’ve been so bloody lucky. It’s amazing. But…’
‘But?’
‘One of the teams down at the river are saying some of the guys are suffering from smoke inhalation. And the publican’s wife…she tried to hook up the hose as the first of the heavy smoke hit the town but she was working blind and she fell over the tap. She sounds like she’s broken her toe.’
A broken toe…
‘Is that all?’ Hugo asked in voice that was none too steady.
‘That’s all, Doc,’ the chief told him. ‘For now. You guys might have time to continue this…discussion later if you need to. But for now I’m afraid Cowral wants you both to be doctors.’
Hugo smiled and turned back to Rachel. To his love. ‘Can we be doctors for a bit?’ Hugo asked her. He held Rachel close and the expression in his eyes told her all she ever needed to know about this man. There was no need for anything else. Just Hugo. His feel. His touch. His eyes.
And the way he looked at her.
‘What do you think, my love?’ he whispered. ‘Can we be doctors for a bit?’
‘As long as we stay being more than just doctors underneath,’ she answered, her eyes smiling and holding and loving. ‘As long as we stay just as we are.’ And then her smile broke into a chuckle of love and laughter and joy. ‘Only maybe a little bit cleaner.’
They worked then, through the rest of that long, long day. Because, of course, it wasn’t just firefighters with smoke inhalation and Maddie Forsyth’s broken toe. The town was in firefighting mode. There were minor burns everywhere. Exhaustion. Dehydration. Stress.
Hugo and Rachel worked together and separately. They saw an endless stream of patients, one after another. The little hospital was a clearing-house through which most of the town’s population passed at some time during the day.
