soothing. If there hadn’t been the possibility that it might threaten the town when the wind came up, he could almost enjoy it.
Or maybe he could enjoy it anyway. How long since he’d hauled off his shoes and spent the evening on the beach?
He wouldn’t have thought to do it.
Rachel had thought of it. Rachel…
‘Maybe we won’t light fires to warm our sausages,’ Rachel was suggesting, as the dogs went careering like mad things along the shore, and Hugo could only agree.
‘Wise idea. One spark and we’d have every hose in town pointed straight at us. There are people on the lookout right now. Sparks drift for miles and are a threat all by themselves.’
‘The town won’t burn, will it, Daddy?’ Toby asked, and Hugo hauled himself together. He’d been sounding too solemn.
Maybe he’d been sounding too solemn for far, far too long.
‘No. The town won’t burn. There’s no wind at all tonight so the backburners can really get things under control.’ He took a deep breath. For now-for this small fragment of time-he could forget about fires. He could even- amazingly-forget about medicine. He could concentrate on what was important. ‘Let’s eat,’ he suggested, and he could feel the tension easing out of him still more.
Rachel was smiling again, as if she knew that some invisible barrier had been broached. But it seemed she wasn’t pushing.
‘I’m swimming first,’ she told him. ‘Toby and I snacked while we waited for you. You have a sausage or two and join us-but don’t eat too much. It’d be a shame to have to wait your requisite half an hour because you were scared of cramps.’
‘That’s an old wives’ tale,’ he said, and she raised mocking eyebrows.
‘It’s the medicine my granny taught me. Are you saying my Granny’s medicine-and therefore my medicine-is wrong?’
He thought about that. He thought about the way he was feeling. Free. Almost light-headed. There was an anticipation in his heart that had nothing to do with common sense and everything to do with the way this lady smiled. Dr Rachel Harper’s medicine.
‘No, but-’
‘Good,’ she told him, her smile showing him she was aware of the fact that he was confused and she intended enjoying it. ‘Mind your sausages, Dr McInnes. Toby and I are going for a swim.’
So Hugo sat and ate and watched his small son and this strange city doctor cavort in the shallows.
Rachel was the strangest creature, he decided. She was part girl, part woman. Part professional doctor, part kid who was searching for fun and laughter.
There was so much about her he didn’t understand.
The hardest thing of all was to reconcile her marriage to Michael. To a doctor who’d risked a girl’s life…
Hugo was under no illusion that Michael couldn’t have redirected the helicopter. He would have heard the impassioned plea to return. He’d have heard how desperately ill Kim was. Hugo himself had talked to the pilot and he’d heard the pilot turn and talk to Michael. It had been Michael the helicopter had come to collect: to have forced him to stay in the air would have been nothing short of abduction.
Michael therefore must have been complicit in the decision not to bring the helicopter back to take Kim to safety.
And Michael was married to Rachel.
Rachel, who was gorgeous.
‘Hey, Toby, spin,’ Rachel was calling. Waist deep in the shallows, she had Toby high in her arms and was spinning him like the sails of a small windmill. She spun and spun while the dogs barked and barked and Hugo couldn’t stop himself from grinning in delight.
Enough. He’d eaten enough.
‘One more sausage and I’ll cramp,’ he told himself, and strolled into the water to join them. At the water’s edge he paused, laughing at the expression of joy on Toby’s face as he whirled faster and faster. Hugo chuckled out loud-and then his chuckle died.
Rachel and Toby had shed their outer clothes at the water’s edge. From where Hugo had sat thirty yards up the beach, Rachel had looked beautiful. In her crimson, one-piece bathing suit, cut to reveal every gorgeous curve, she’d been glowingly lovely.
But closer…
Closer there were scars.
He stared, caught by the incongruity of it. By the questions. The fine white lines were the marks of a skilled plastic surgeon. Hugo could see that. But no skill could entirely cover the trauma Rachel’s body must have once endured.
When? A long time ago, he thought, looking at the way the scarring had faded-fine lines blending into her near-perfect skin.
She was laughing and whirling and she and Toby turned to face him, glowing with happiness.
He didn’t get his face in order fast enough.
She stopped whirling and set Toby down on his feet. Carefully. ‘What?’ she said.
‘You’ve been hurt.’ He spoke without thinking and then could have kicked himself. He could have said nothing. He should have. He could have pretended he hadn’t noticed.
A non-medical person might not have noticed.
No. She was so lovely that any man would look at Rachel long and hard. The fine lines of scarring didn’t detract from her loveliness but they were unmistakable.
‘Car accident,’ she said shortly, answering his question before he’d voiced it. ‘Eight years ago.’
A car accident. Of course. He gave himself another mental kick. Why had his thoughts gone straight to this Michael character he was starting so stupidly to dislike?
These weren’t the type of scars that were the result of battering from an aggressive husband-and anyone could see that Rachel wasn’t a battered wife. She was probably a hugely contented wife who occasionally threw car keys at her husband. Wives did that.
Beth had thrown more than car keys at him!
But what was he thinking of? He was still staring at Rachel as if he were stupid.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t mean to stare. It must have been some accident.’
‘It was.’ She looked as if she was about to say more and then closed her lips together, tight.
‘Internal injuries? Fractures?’
‘You name it, I had it.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. Bodies heal. Mostly.’
There was a depth of bitterness in her words that he couldn’t help but hear. Maybe someone had died in the accident? Someone she loved? But the blank look on her face was a shield all by itself. Keep off, the look said. Don’t go there.
So he didn’t. Even though he badly wanted to.
It was none of his business.
‘It looks like you’ve had some great corrective surgery,’ he managed, and her smile came flooding back. There was relief there and the beginnings of laughter.
‘I have, haven’t I?’ For heaven’s sake, was she laughing at his discomfort? ‘There’s a wonderful plastic surgeon in Sydney who calls me his masterpiece. I sometimes get the feeling he’d like to hang me on his wall for show and tell!’
Rachel was so damned courageous. He just had to look at that scarring to know the trauma that lay behind it. And that brief look of pain had told him there was even more…
‘You are a masterpiece,’ he said softly, and she flushed. She wasn’t giving in to her discomposure, though. She moved right on to discomfit him further.
‘You know, you’re not too bad yourself.’ She scooped Toby up into her arms and twinkled. ‘What do you reckon, Toby? Don’t you think your dad has the greatest six-pack you’ve ever seen?’
‘Six-pack?’ Toby was giggling, entranced.
