From Waif To His Wife

‘The same team who put it together will dismantle it. Off you go.’

She bit her lip and went. Obviously, there was going to be more than the obvious to get used to in her new life.

She shed her green silk suit, her pale stockings and changed into loose long trousers and a shirt. Her clothes had been brought from the leased apartment and her bag for the trip out west was packed and ready. Then she stared at the suit hanging up in the closet.

Rafe hadn’t commented on her appearance but his eyes had softened for a moment as they’d rested on her, and he’d handed her a beautiful posy of white violets.

That had been a tricky moment, she reflected. It had brought a lump to her throat.

She looked around and reregistered the fact that she’d been given what was obviously the master bedroom in his apartment on the river, with great views, a huge bed and a decor of taupe on raspberry.

It was a beautiful room but why had he moved out? She’d have been perfectly happy with a guest bedroom… Why did this room, this whole apartment make her feel uneasy?

‘Ready, Maisie?’ Rafe called through the door.

She took a deep breath. ‘Coming!’ And she positioned the broad-brimmed khaki felt hat, a hat Sonia had insisted was de rigueur for a sheep-farmer’s wife, on her head at a jaunty angle.

CHAPTER NINE

SHE should have expected it but had not-that Rafe would pilot his own helicopter.

She’d never flown in a helicopter before but she found the experience fascinating and she was even more fascinated to discover that he had actually flown round Australia by helicopter.

‘This one?’

‘Yep! I made some modifications to it for the trip. I put in some long-range fuel tanks, somewhat to the detriment of seating accommodation. It’s basically only a two-seater bird now but she has plenty of range.’

And he told her a bit about his trip, which made her green with envy.

Then they intercepted a mayday call on the VHF radio.

They were west of the Darling Downs, where the country was drier, although there was still some feed, dusty, crisscrossed by stock trails and sparsely populated and they were heading into the setting sun.

She had her own headphones, principally so she and Rafe could converse above the noise, but she was also tuned into the three-way conversation that ensued.

It was an accident at a cattle-muster camp with a man requiring urgent medical attention or evacuation to the nearest hospital.

The Flying Doctor responded immediately from their base in Charleville while Maisie stared down at the desolate terrain they were flying over, her heart in her mouth as the man from the muster camp reported the injured man’s condition.

‘Poor bloke,’ Rafe murmured. ‘Sounds like spinal injuries, which may mean he shouldn’t be moved without a doctor present.’

Then Maisie heard the man reporting the accident say tinnily, ‘…won’t get a fixed-wing aircraft in, country’s too rough, we need a chopper…’

That was when Rafe transmitted to report his position, not that far as the crow flew from the muster camp.

‘Hotel Zulu 459,’ the Flying Doctor base came back, ‘we don’t feel the patient should be moved without medical supervision but would you be able to render any assistance in the meantime?’

‘Hotel Zulu 459 back to Base,’ Rafe responded, ‘I do have a comprehensive medical kit on board and some first-aid training. Muster Camp, Muster Camp, this is 459, can you give me a more accurate idea of your location?’

‘Muster Camp back to 459,’ came the tinny voice, ‘I’ve got a GPS here in the ute; I’ll get the reading off it. Hang on, mate.’

‘Thank heavens for that,’ Rafe murmured, twisting his microphone away from his mouth for a moment. ‘I’m sorry about this, Maisie, it may not be pleasant but-’

‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ she said immediately.

He gave her a quick pat on the knee and twisted his mike back into place.

As the latitude and longitude co-ordinates came through, she watched him punch them into his GPS, set a target then read off the distance and time to target. ‘OK, Base,’ he said into the mike, ‘we’re about twenty minutes away. Let us know what you want us to do.’

‘Stand by 459,’ Base responded. ‘I have a doctor coming on air to talk to you.’

It turned out, as Rafe discussed the situation with the doctor, that he had sufficient training and the right medication on board to be able to stabilise the patient until a bigger State Emergency Services helicopter with a doctor on board could be flown to the site to supervise the patient’s removal, hopefully within a couple of hours at the most.

‘There!’ Maisie breathed and pointed to a pall of dust rising into the air above the rocky, uneven ground below away to her left. ‘It looks as if they’ve got some cattle in a pen of some kind and-and I can see a ute, two of them, some horses and a makeshift kind of camp.’

‘That’s it. Looks like they’ve spread a sheet on the ground where it’s most level.’ He spoke into his mike again. ‘Muster Camp from 459, make sure those cattle can’t break out, mate, I need to know that before we come in, in case we spook them.’

He said it quite casually but Maisie closed her eyes in fright.

‘459, it’s a permanent yard-they can’t go nowhere. See the sheet we laid out?’

‘Affirmative. OK, I’m coming in.’

‘You can open your eyes now, Maisie. We’re safe and sound on the ground and there are no stampeding cattle to deal with.’

Her lashes flew up and she heaved a sigh of relief, to see Rafe looking at her with a little glint of devilry in his eyes before he turned his attention back to shutting the helicopter down.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I don’t have great faith in you-’

‘It’s OK. You’ve been terrific. Many a girl I know would have had the screaming heebie-jeebies. Right. Let’s see what I can do.’

Three hours later Rafe was still in charge of the patient because the SES helicopter had developed engine problems and had had to return to its base.

Maisie had sat around the camp fire, the muster crew had gone out of their way to make her as comfortable possible, and they’d cooked dinner on the fire and produced plenty of strong coffee.

But it was a tense time. Even the cattle in the yard were restless under a paper-thin wedge of new moon and bright starlight as they shuffled and lowed. And the dust caked everything.

It had been a freak accident. The ringer involved had been thrown from his horse when a snake had wriggled across its path, right next to the camp. Fortunately that meant they hadn’t had to move him-they’d moved part of the camp instead so there was cover to protect him from the sun earlier and now the dew.

But it was obvious from his grey, sweat-streaked face that he was in considerable pain despite Rafe’s ministrations and the splint he’d put on his broken arm. And it was plain that he couldn’t move his legs, which was terrifying him.

‘Al,’ Rafe said abruptly to the camp foreman, when they got the news the SES helicopter had had to turn back, ‘could you rig up some kind of shelter for my wife and maybe lend her a swag?’

‘Sure thing, Rafe.’

‘I’m fine,’ Maisie protested. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘Little lady, you do what your husband suggests,’ Al recommended. ‘We’d all be happier if you didn’t have to go through much more.’

She hesitated but there wasn’t anything she could do.