Ruby was sitting on the opposite side of the fire. She had Martin on her knees, rocking him like a baby. ‘It’s okay,’ she was crooning. ‘He’s gone. You saw the police take him away. We’ll find Nathan.’
Dom was standing with his back to the door, barking orders into his phone. As Erin entered he wheeled to face her. ‘Erin,’ he said blankly and then, as he saw Graham behind her, he said, ‘Graham, thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you.’
‘I dropped the phone on the road back at the crash,’ Graham said briskly. ‘Smashed. What’s up?’
‘I need help.’ He stared blankly at both of them and she couldn’t help it. Erin crossed the few steps separating them, she put her hands in his and held.
Her Dom. He was, she thought. This man’s trouble was her trouble, whether he willed it or not.
‘What’s happened?’
‘He came here,’ he said. ‘Nathan’s dad. Off his head with drugs. He’d heard about the fire-hell, there’s been no news over Easter so the local radio station played it as a major event. He must have crashed but he still came. He said his son wasn’t safe and he was taking him away. When Nathan said he didn’t want to go, he hit him. Tansy intervened and got hit herself.’
‘Oh, Tansy…’
‘But Charles helped,’ Tansy whispered. ‘Nathan broke free. He headed across the road into bushland. Charles managed to stop Michael going after him. A couple of cops on the way to the accident stopped and lent a hand. They’ve arrested Michael and taken him away, but Nathan’s disappeared. He just ran straight into the bush.’
‘I’ve been into the bush as far as I dare,’ Dom said grimly. ‘I’ve yelled my lungs out.’ He turned to Graham, his face set and hard. ‘I need you mate,’ he told him. ‘I need everyone. I want him found.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THIS town was amazing. These people were amazing. The more Erin saw of them the more she wanted to be a part of this community.
Last night half the town had been up to a fire. Now they were turning out to search for one little boy.
She wasn’t allowed to help.
‘Your feet…you shouldn’t be walking on them at all, much less traipsing round the countryside looking for Nathan,’ Dom growled.
Search parties seemed to be organising themselves, men and women dividing the district into grids, acting methodically and fast. Dom was desperate to be gone as well-he organised himself to lead the first search party but Graham wanted him close. He had to physically hold him back while he made him see sense.
‘So we find him,’ Graham told him. ‘Or we think we know where he is. The kid’s terrified. You need to be on call to go wherever we need, to stop him running.’
‘I can do that,’ Tansy ventured.
‘You can’t.’ It was Charles, and once again Erin had that flash of something she hadn’t seen from Charles.
Charles had known Tansy for, what, four hours? Was there something in the water?
‘He knocked you out,’ Charles was saying. ‘You’re not doing anything until we get that head X-rayed.’
‘I can do the calling,’ Ruby said diffidently, but Dom shook his head. Grim but accepting.
‘No. Graham’s right,’ Dom said. ‘And so’s Charles. I’ll stay. Tansy needs an X-ray-if there’s a fracture and we miss it I’d never forgive myself and I want it done by someone more capable of reading results than me. Cracked ribs are one thing-neurology’s another. Can you take her to Campbelltown, Charles?’
‘Sure.’
‘And Martin and I will keep the home fires burning,’ Ruby said. It was a platitude, said so serenely that it sounded right, and Erin saw in that moment why Dom was so grateful for Ruby’s care that he’d taken on fostering himself. She saw Dom nod and knew that somehow he’d been unaccountably comforted by this elderly little woman with her prosaic attitude to life.
Strangely, inexplicably it hurt. She wanted to do the comforting. If he’d only let her.
But…‘Can you get one of the guys to drop Erin at her place?’ Dom asked Graham.
‘No!’ she said, startled.
‘Yes,’ he said, and suddenly Dom’s voice was steely. ‘You’re injured and I will not drag you into our lives even further.’
‘I don’t think she needs to be dragged,’ Ruby said placidly.
‘No matter,’ Dom said, still harsh. He met her gaze full on. ‘Erin, I can’t afford to be distracted. It causes…It’s caused…No. Just go. Please.’
It was hard to get her voice to work. They were all looking at her. She knew her distress was showing but she didn’t care. Dom’s expression was implacable. He really didn’t want her.
‘You’ll…you’ll let me know when you find him?’ she whispered.
‘Of course we will,’ Ruby said warmly but Dom had already turned away to talk to Graham.
So she went home. One of the searchers drove her-they were starting their search in the town and working their way back through the bush.
She was dropped off at her new home. It was growing dark. And cold. Or maybe that was just her.
She let herself into the house and Marilyn greeted her with joy. She knelt, she hugged her dog-and she burst into tears.
‘What will I do, Marilyn?’ she sobbed. ‘I love him to distraction. I love them all to distraction.’
In response the dog gave her a huge dog-kiss, from chin to nose. Erin hiccuped on a sob, it turned into a sort of laugh and she tried to haul herself together.
‘We’ll be okay,’ she whispered. ‘You and me. We’ll be fine. Oh, but Nathan…and Dom…’
Dom would be going out of his mind, pacing, waiting for news.
She ought to be there.
He wouldn’t let her.
‘How he expects me to calmly go to bed,’ she said savagely to Marilyn. ‘I can’t. Okay, my feet hurt, but they’re getting better. Socks and trainers would support them so they don’t hurt. I could search.
‘But you don’t know the area,’ she admitted to herself. She didn’t feel like she had any common sense left, but what there was surfaced for a moment. ‘You don’t know where to look. Your feet are sore and you’d hold searchers back. Or you’d get yourself lost.’
Lost. The word itself was frightening. The area around the town was thick bushland. If Nathan was hiding…
It was wild.
‘I wouldn’t go into the bush if I was Nathan,’ she told Marilyn, and Marilyn wagged her butt in agreement.
‘Neither would you,’ Erin said, hugging her tight for she had to hug someone. ‘Where would I go if I was Nathan?’
That was easy. ‘I’d go find Dom. Me and Nathan both,’ she said to Marilyn, giving her a shame-faced grin. ‘I have it bad.’
So if Nathan was looking for Dom…
‘He’d go out to the car crash,’ she decided. Really, this was quite a sensible conversation. Erin v. Erin.
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘He’d think Dom was here.’ She was thinking it through and relaying her thoughts to Marilyn. ‘This afternoon Dom left home to bring me here. As far as Nathan knows, Dom is still here. I bet he knows where this place is. And it’s…’
She paused. Lightbulb moment. ‘It’s about three miles from Dom’s place, just around the headland,’ she breathed. ‘Nathan thinks his father is looking for him. Would he go by road?
‘I wouldn’t,’ she told Marilyn, answering herself. ‘I’d go by the beach. I couldn’t get lost that way. I’d get out of sight of the house and then I’d sneak back over to the beach. I could hide under the cliffs and I’d think no one would look for me there.’
So, ring Dom and tell him.
She lifted her phone from her pocket and paused.
They’d already have thought of it, she decided. And the way Dom had looked at her…like she’d distracted him
