Praise for Marion Lennox

‘Marion Lennox’s Rescue at Cradle Lake is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Best of 2010: a very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.’

—Dear Author on Christmas with Her Boss

She really was fragile, Hugo thought, bending down to give his niece a hug. Last year had been a tragedy for Ruby, and it still showed. She expected calamity.

‘This isn’t ruin,’ he said gently. ‘It’s just flour.’

‘It’s snow. To make Polly feel better when we’re not here.’

‘And Polly loves it,’ Polly said, and then sneezed as if she needed to accentuate the point. ‘Ruby, it’s still great. Look what we’ve done, Dr Denver. All we need you to do is chop down a tree, so I suggest you stop dripping and start helping while I clean up your mess …’

‘My mess?’

‘Your mess,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Walking in on artists at work … you should know better.’

‘I’m glad I didn’t,’ he said faintly, and he looked around at the mess and thought for the first time in … how long? … that this place looked like home.

What was better than this? he thought. What was better than Polly?

Dear Reader,

I was raised in a farming community, where everyone knew everyone and where our doctor seemed the linchpin of our lives. Doc—he needed no other name—was known to walk fifteen miles between clinics during wartime petrol rationing. By the time he delivered me he was in his eighties, and he worked on until I was in my teens. We never called him unless we truly needed him, but when we did he gave his all. I remember his grandson telling me what it was like at Doc’s house at Christmas. You couldn’t move for whisky, he said, and grateful gifts of home-baked goodies and produce were almost an embarrassment. When he died, the entire district mourned.

In a way, this book is a testament to Doc and to the caring community I was raised in. My husband and I have recently—joyously—moved back to a small town. As I write this I’m looking forward to Christmas in our new/old home, in our new/old community, and I’m wishing you the magic of belonging. I’m also wishing you the love shown by Doc, and by so many medical staff who follow his tradition of care, and I’m wishing you a very happy Christmas.

Marion Lennox

MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on, because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, she has also written under the name Trisha David. She’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, teaching statistics. Finally she’s figured out what’s important, and has discovered the joys of baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time! Marion is an international award-winning author.

From Christmas to Forever?
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the many people who’ve already made us welcome in our new home. To Jacky, to Gail, to Colleen, to Alison, and to all on Fisherman’s Flat, to all who welcome us as we walk our dog, paddle our kayaks, or simply yak over the front fence. You’re stuck with us for life, and we love it.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Marion Lennox

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHRISTMAS IN THE middle of nowhere. Wombat Valley. Hooray!

Dr Pollyanna Hargreaves—Polly to everyone but her mother—beefed up the radio as she turned off the main road. Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ wasn’t exactly appropriate for Christmas deep in the Australian bush, but it didn’t stop her singing along. She might be a long way from snow, but she was happy.

The country around her was wild and mountainous. The twisting road meant this last section of the journey could take a while, but the further she went, the further she got from the whole over-the-top celebration that was her parents’ idea of Christmas.

‘You can’t be serious!’ She could still hear her mother’s appalled words when she’d broken the news that she wouldn’t be spending Christmas with them. ‘We’ve planned one of the most wonderful Christmases ever. We’ve hired the most prestigious restaurant on Sydney Harbour. All our closest friends are coming, and the head chef himself has promised to oversee a diabetic menu. Pollyanna, everyone expects you.’

Expectation was the whole problem, Polly thought, as she turned through the next curve with care. This road was little more than a logging route, and recent rain had gouged gutters along the unsealed verge. The whole of New South Wales had been inundated with weeks of subtropical downpours, and it looked as if Wombat Valley had borne the brunt of them. She was down to a snail’s pace.

But she wasn’t worried. She wasn’t in Sydney. Or in Monaco, where she’d been last Christmas. Or in Aspen, where she’d been the Christmas before that.

Cute little Pollyanna had finally cut and run.

‘And I’m not going back,’ she told the road ahead. Enough. She felt as if she’d been her parents’ plaything since birth, saddled with a preposterous name, with nannies to take care of every whim and loaded with the expectation that she be the perfect daughter.

For Polly was the only child of Olivia and Charles Hargreaves. Heiress to the Hargreaves millions. She was courted and fussed over, wrapped in cotton wool and expected to be …

‘Perfect.’ She abandoned Bing and said the word aloud, thinking of the tears, the recriminations, the gentle but incessant blackmail.

‘Polly, you’ll break your mother’s heart.’ That was what her father had said when Polly had decided, aged seven, that she liked chocolate ice cream, eating a family tub behind her nanny’s back and putting her blood sugars through the roof. And ever since … ‘You know we worry. Don’t you care?’

And then, when she’d decided she wanted to be a doctor …

‘Pollyanna, how can you stress your body with a demanding career like medicine? Plus you have your inheritance to consider. If you need to work—which you don’t—then at least take a position in the family company. You could be our PR assistant; that’s safe. Medicine! Polly, you’ll break our hearts.’

And now this. Breaking up with the boy they wanted her to marry, followed by Not Coming Home For Christmas. Not being there to be fussed over, prettied, shown off to their friends. This was heartbreak upon heartbreak upon heartbreak.

‘But I’m over it,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m over families—over, over, over. I’m an independent career woman so it’s time I started acting like one. This is a good start. I’m five hours’ drive from Sydney, in the middle of nowhere. I’m contracted to act as locum for two weeks. I can’t get further away than this.’

And it was exciting. She’d trained and worked in city hospitals. She didn’t have a clue about bush medicine, but the doctor she was relieving—Dr Hugo Denver—had told her things would be straightforward.

‘We’re usually busy,’ he’d said in their phone interview. ‘The valley could use two doctors or more, but over Christmas half the population seems to depart for Sydney or the coast. We run a ten-bed hospital but anything major gets helicoptered out. Mostly we deal with minor stuff where it’s not worth the expense of sending for the Air Ambulance, or long-termers, or locals who choose to die in the Valley rather than in acute city hospitals.’

‘You provide palliative care?’ she’d asked, astonished.

‘Via home visits, mostly,’ he’d told her. ‘Most of our oldies only go to the city under duress, and it’s an honour to look after them at home. I also deal with trauma, but the logging industry closes down for three weeks over Christmas and the place is quiet. I doubt if you’ll have much excitement.’

‘But I wouldn’t mind a bit of excitement,’ she said aloud as she manoeuvred her little sports car around the next bend. ‘Just enough to keep me occupied.’

And then, as if in answer to her prayers, she rounded the next bend—and got more excitement than she’d bargained for.

Dr Hugo Denver was well over excitement. Hugo was cramped inside a truck balanced almost vertically over the side of a cliff. He was trying to stop Horace Fry from bleeding out. He was also trying not to think that Ruby was totally dependent on him, and his life seemed to be balanced on one very unstable, very young tree.

The call had come in twenty minutes ago. Margaret Fry, wife of the said Horace, had managed to crawl out of the crashed truck and ring him.

‘Doc, you gotta come fast.’ She’d sobbed into the phone. ‘Horace’s bleeding like a stuck pig and there’s no one here but me.’

‘He’s still in the truck?’

‘Steering wheel jabbed him. Blood’s making him feel faint.’

‘Bleeding from where?’

‘Shoulder, I think.’

‘Can you put pressure on it?’

‘Doc, I can’t.’ It was a wail. ‘You know blood makes me throw up and I’m not getting back in that truck. Doc, come, fast!’

What choice did he have? What choice did he ever have? If there was trauma in Wombat Valley, Hugo was it.

‘Ring the police,’ he snapped. ‘I’m on my way.’

Lois, his housekeeper, had been preparing lunch. She’d been humming Christmas carols, almost vibrating with excitement. As was Ruby. As soon as the locum arrived they were off, Lois to her son’s place in Melbourne, Hugo and Ruby to their long-awaited two-week holiday.

Christmas at the beach … This was what his sister had promised Ruby last year, but last year’s Christmas had become a blur of shock and sorrow. A car crash the week before. A single car accident. Suicide?

Hugo’s life had changed immeasurably in that moment, as had Ruby’s.

Twelve months on, they were doing their best. He was doing his best. He’d moved back to Wombat Valley so Ruby could stay in her home, and he fully intended to give her the longed-for beach Christmas.

But commitment meant committing not only to Ruby but to the community he lived in. The locals cared for Ruby. He cared for the locals. That was the deal.

Lois had been putting cold meat and salad on the table. She’d looked at him as he disconnected, and sighed and put his lunch in the fridge.

‘Ring Donald,’ he’d told her. Donald was a retired farmer who also owned a tow truck. It was a very small tow truck but the logging company with all its equipment was officially on holidays since yesterday. Donald’s truck would be all the valley had. ‘Tell him Horace Fry’s truck’s crashed at Blinder’s Bend. Ring Joe at the hospital and tell him to expect casualties. Tell him I’ll ring him as soon as I know details, and ask him to check that the police know. I need to go.’

‘Aren’t you expecting the new doctor?’ Lois had practically glowered. She wanted to get away, too.

‘If she arrives before I get back, you can give her my lunch,’ he’d said dryly. ‘I’ll eat at the hospital.’

‘Should I send her out to Blinder’s? She could start straight away.’

‘I can hardly throw her in at the deep end,’ he’d told her. ‘Hopefully, this will be the last casualty, though, and she’ll have a nice quiet Christmas.’ He’d dropped a kiss on his small niece’s head. ‘See you later, Ruby. Back soon.’

But now …

A quiet Christmas was just what he wanted, he thought grimly as he pushed hard on the gaping wound on Horace’s shoulder. The steering wheel seemed to have snapped right off, and the steering column had jabbed into Horace’s chest.

And he’d bled. Hugo had stared in dismay into the truck’s cab, he’d looked at the angle the truck was leaning over the cliff, he’d looked at the amount of blood in the cabin and he’d made a call.

The truck was balanced on the edge of the cliff. The ground was sodden from recent rain but it had still looked stable enough to hold. He’d hoped …

He shouldn’t have hoped. He should have waited for Donald with his tow truck, and for the police.

It didn’t matter what he should have done. Margaret had been having hysterics, useless for help. Hopefully, Donald and his tow truck were on their way but he’d take a while. The police had to come from Willaura on the coast, and he hadn’t been able to wait.

And then, as he’d bent into the cab, Horace had grasped his wrist with his good arm and tried to heave himself over to the passenger seat. He was a big man and he’d jerked with fear, shifting his weight to the middle of the cabin …

Hugo had felt the truck lurch and lurch again. He’d heard Margaret scream as the whole verge gave way and they were falling …

And then, blessedly, the truck seemed to catch on something. From this angle, all he could see holding them up was one twiggy sapling. His life depended on that sapling. There was still a drop under them that was long enough to give him nightmares.

But he didn’t have time for nightmares. He’d been thrown around but somehow he was still applying pressure to Horace’s arm. Somehow he’d pushed Horace back into the driver’s seat, even if it was at a crazy angle.

‘You move again and we’ll both fall to the bottom of the cliff,’ he told Horace and Horace subsided.

To say his life was flashing before his eyes would be an understatement.

Ruby. Seven years old.

He was all she had.

But he couldn’t think of Ruby now. He needed to get back up to the road. Horace had lost too much blood. He needed fluids. He needed electrolytes. He needed the equipment to set up a drip …

Hugo moved a smidgen and the truck swayed again. He glanced out of the back window and saw they were ten feet down the cliff.

Trapped.

‘Margaret?’ he yelled. ‘Margaret!’

There was no reply except sobbing.

His phone … Where the hell was his phone?

And then he remembered. He’d done a cursory check on Margaret. She’d been sobbing and shaking when he’d arrived. She was suffering from shock, he’d decided. It had been an instant diagnosis but it was all he’d had time for, so he’d put his jacket across her shoulders and run to the truck.

His phone was still in his jacket pocket.

‘Margaret!’ he yelled again, and the truck rocked again, and from up on the cliff Margaret’s sobs grew louder.

Was she blocking her husband’s need with her cries? Maybe she was. People had different ways of protecting themselves, and coming near a truck ten feet down a cliff, when the truck was threatening to fall another thirty, was possibly a bad idea.

Probably.

Definitely?

‘That hurt!’ Horace was groaning in pain.

‘Sorry, mate, I need to push hard.’

‘Not my shoulder, Doc—my eardrum.’

Great. All this and he’d be sued for perforating Horace’s eardrum?

‘Can you yell for Margaret? We need her help.’

‘She won’t answer,’ Horace muttered. ‘If she’s having hysterics the only thing that’ll stop her is ice water.’

Right.

‘Then we need to sit really still until help arrives,’ he told him, trying not to notice Horace’s pallor, deciding not to check his blood pressure because there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. ‘The truck’s unstable. We need to sit still until Donald arrives with his tow truck.’

‘Then we’ll be waiting a while,’ Horace said without humour. ‘Donald and his missus have gone to their daughter’s for Christmas. Dunno who’s got a tow truck round here. It’ll have to be a tractor.’

‘Can you get Margaret to ring someone?’

‘Like I said, Doc, she’s useless.’

There was an SUV parked right where she wanted to drive.

It was serviceable, dirty white, a four-wheel drive wagon with a neat red sign across the side. The sign said: ‘Wombat Valley Medical Service’.

It blocked the road completely.

She put her foot on the brake and her car came to a well-behaved standstill.

The road curved behind the SUV, and as her car stopped she saw the collapse of the verge. And as she saw more, she gasped in horror.

There was a truck below the collapse. Over the cliff!

A few hundred yards back she’d passed a sign declaring this area to be Wombat Valley Gap. The Gap looked to be a magnificent wilderness area, stretching beneath the road as far as the eye could see.

The road was hewn into the side of the mountain. The edge was a steep drop. Very steep. Straight down.

The truck looked as if it had rounded the curve too fast. The skid marks suggested it had hit the cliff and spun across to the edge. The roadside looked as if it had given way.

The truck had slipped right over and was now balanced precariously about ten feet down the cliff, pointing downward. There were a couple of saplings holding it. Just.

A woman was crouched on the verge, weeping, and Polly herself almost wept in relief at the sight of her. She’d escaped from the truck then?

But then she thought … SUV blocking the road. Wombat Valley Medical Service … Two vehicles.

Where was the paramedic?

Was someone else in the truck? Was this dramas, plural?

Help!

She was a city doctor, she thought frantically. She’d never been near the bush in her life. She’d never had to cope with a road accident. Yes, she’d cared for accident victims, but that had been in the organised efficiency of a city hospital Emergency Room.

All of a sudden she wanted to be back in Sydney. Preferably off-duty.

‘You wanted to be a doctor,’ she told herself, still taking time to assess the whole scene. Her lecturers in Emergency Medicine had drilled that into her, and somehow her training was coming back now. ‘Don’t jump in before you’ve checked the whole situation. Check fast but always check. You don’t want to become work for another doctor. Work out priorities and keep yourself safe.’

Keeping herself safe had never been a problem in the ER.

‘You wanted to see medicine at its most basic,’ she reminded herself as she figured out what must have happened. ‘Here’s your chance. Get out of the car and help.’

My, that truck looked unstable.

Keep yourself safe.

The woman was wailing.

Who was in the truck?

Deep breath.

She climbed out of her car, thinking a flouncy dress covered in red and white polka dots wasn’t what she should be wearing right now. She was also wearing crimson sandals with kitten heels.

She hardly had time to change. She was a doctor and she was needed. Disregarding her entirely inappropriate wardrobe, she headed across to the crying woman. She was big-boned, buxom, wearing a crinoline frock and an electric-blue perm. She had a man’s jacket over her shoulders. Her face was swollen from weeping and she had a scratch above one eye.

‘Can you tell me what’s happened?’ Polly knelt beside her, and the woman stared at her and wailed louder. A lot louder.

But hysterics was something Pollyanna Hargreaves could deal with. Hysterics was Polly’s mother’s weapon of last resort and Polly had stopped responding to it from the age of six.

She knelt so her face was six inches from the woman’s. She was forcing her to look at her and, as soon as she did, she got serious.

‘Stop the noise or I’ll slap you,’ she said, loud and firm and cold as ice. Doctor threatening patient with physical violence … Good one, Polly thought. That’s the way to endear you to the locals. But it couldn’t matter. Were there people in that upside down truck?

‘Who’s in the truck?’ she demanded. ‘Take two deep breaths and talk.’

‘I … my husband. And Doc …’

‘Doc?’

‘Doc Denver.’

‘The doctor’s in the truck?’

‘He was trying to help Horace.’ Somehow she was managing to speak. ‘Horace was bleeding. But then the ground gave way and the truck slid and it’s still wobbling and it’s going to fall all the way down.’

The woman subsided as Polly once again took a moment to assess. The truck was definitely … wobbling. The saplings seemed to be the only thing holding it up. If even one of them gave way …

‘Have you called for help?’ she asked. The woman was clutching her phone.

‘I called Doc …’

‘The doctor who’s here now?’

‘Doc Denver, yes.’

‘Good for you. How about the police? A tow truck?’

The woman shook her head, put her hands to her face and started loud, rapid breathing. Holly took a fast pulse check and diagnosed panic. There were other things she should exclude before a definitive diagnosis but, for now, triage said she needed to focus on the truck.

‘I need you to concentrate on breathing,’ she told the woman. ‘Count. One, two, three, four—in. One, two, three, four—out. Slow your breathing down. Will you do that?’

‘I … yes …’

‘Good woman.’ But Polly had moved on. Truck. Cliff. Fall.

She edged forward, trying to see down the cliff, wary of the crumbling edge.

What was wrong with Christmas in Sydney? All at once she would have given her very best shoes to be there.

CHAPTER TWO

TRIAGE. ACTION. SOMEHOW POLLY made herself a plan.

First things first. She phoned the universal emergency number and the response came blessedly fast.

‘Emergency services. Fire, ambulance, police—which service do you require?’

‘How about all three?’ She gave details but as she talked she stared down at the truck.

There was a coil of rope in the back of the truck. A big one. A girl could do lots with that rope, she thought. If she could clamber down …

A police sergeant came onto the phone, bluff but apologetic.

‘We need to come from Willaura—we’ll probably be half an hour. I’ll get an ambulance there as soon as I can, but sorry, Doc, you’re on your own for at least twenty minutes.’

He disconnected.

Twenty minutes. Half an hour.

The ground was soggy. If the saplings gave way …

She could still see the rope, ten feet down in the back of the truck tray. It wasn’t a sheer drop but the angle was impossibly steep.

There were saplings beside the truck she could hold onto, if they were strong enough.

‘Who’s up there?’

The voice from the truck made her start. It was a voice she recognised from the calls she’d made organising this job. Dr Hugo Denver. Her employer.

‘It’s Dr Hargreaves, your new locum, and you promised me no excitement,’ she called back. She couldn’t see him. ‘Hello to you, too. I don’t suppose there’s any way you can jump from the cab and let it roll?’

‘I have the driver in here. Multiple lacerations and a crush injury to the chest. I’m applying pressure to stop the bleeding.’

‘You didn’t think to pull him out first?’

There was a moment’s pause, then a reply that sounded as if it came through gritted teeth. ‘No.’

‘That was hardly wise.’

‘Are you in a position to judge?’

‘I guess not.’ She was assessing the saplings, seeing if she could figure out safe holds on the way down. ‘But it does—in retrospect—seem to have been worth considering.’

She heard a choke that might even have been laughter. It helped, she thought. People thought medics had a black sense of humour but, in the worst kind of situations, humour was often the only way to alleviate tension.

‘I’ll ask for your advice when I need it,’ he retorted and she tested a sapling for strength and thought maybe not.

‘Advice is free,’ she offered helpfully.

‘Am I or am I not paying you?’

She almost managed a grin at that, except she couldn’t get her sandals to grip in the mud and she was kind of distracted. ‘I believe you are,’ she said at last, and gave up on the shoes and tossed her kitten heels up onto the verge. Bare feet was bad but kitten heels were worse. She started inching down the slope, moving from sapling to sapling. If she could just reach that rope …

‘I’d like a bit of respect,’ Hugo Denver called and she held like a limpet to a particularly shaky sapling and tried to think about respect.

‘It seems you’re not in any position to ask for anything right now,’ she managed. She was nearing the back of the truck but she was being super-cautious. If she slipped she could hardly grab the truck for support. It looked like one push and it’d fall …

Do not think of falling.

‘I need my bag,’ Hugo said. ‘It’s on the verge where the truck …’

‘Yeah, I saw it.’ It was above her. Quite a bit above her now.

‘Can you lower it somehow?’

‘In a minute. I’m getting a rope.’

‘A rope?’

‘There’s one in the back of the truck. It looks really long and sturdy. Just what the doctor ordered.’

‘You’re climbing down?’

‘I’m trying to.’

‘Hell, Polly …’

‘Don’t worry. I have really grippy toenails and if I can reach it I might be able to make the truck more secure.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then … ‘Grippy toenails?’

‘They’re painted crimson.’

He didn’t seem to hear the crimson bit. ‘Polly, don’t. It’s too dangerous. There’s a cord in my truck …’

‘How long a cord?’ Maybe she should have checked his truck.

‘Twelve feet or so. You could use it to lower my bag. Horace needs a drip and fast.’

There was no way she could use a twelve-foot cord to secure the truck—and what use was a drip if the truck fell?

‘Sorry,’ Polly managed. ‘In every single situation I’ve ever trained in, triage is sorting priorities, so that’s what I’ve done. If I lower your bag and add a smidgen of weight to the truck, you may well be setting up a drip as you plummet to the valley floor. So it’s rope first, secure the truck next and then I’ll work on getting your bag. You get to be boss again when you get out of the truck.’

‘You’ve got a mouth,’ he said, sounding cautious—and also stunned.

‘I’m bad at respect,’ she admitted. If she could just get a firmer hold … ‘That’s the younger generation for you. You want to override me, Grandpa?’

‘How old do you think I am?’

‘You must be old if you think a ride to the bottom of the valley’s an option.’ And then she shut up because she had to let go of a sapling with one hand and hope the other held, and lean out and stretch and hope that her fingers could snag the rope …

And they did and she could have wept in relief but she didn’t because she was concentrating on sliding the rope from the tray, an inch at a time, thinking that any sudden movements could mean …

Don’t think what it could mean.

‘You have red hair!’

He could see her. She’d been so intent she hadn’t even looked at the window in the back of the truck. She braved a glance downward, and she saw him.

Okay, she conceded, this was no grandpa. The face looking out at her was lean and tanned and … worried. His face looked sort of chiselled, his eyes were deep set and his brow looked furrowed in concern …

All that she saw in the nanosecond she allowed herself before she went back to concentrating on freeing the rope. But weirdly it sort of … changed things.

Two seconds ago she’d been concentrating on saving two guys in a truck. Now one of them had a face. One of them looked worried. One of them looked …

Strong?

Immensely masculine?

How crazy was that? Her sight of him had been fleeting, a momentary impression, but there’d been something about the way he’d looked back at her …

Get on with the job, she told herself sharply. It was all very well getting the rope out of the truck. What was she going to do with it now she had it?

She had to concentrate on the rope. Not some male face. Not on the unknown Dr Denver.

The tray of the truck had a rail around it, with an upright at each corner. If she could loop the rope …

‘Polly, wait for the cavalry,’ Hugo demanded, and once again she had that impression of strength. And that he feared for her.

‘The cavalry’s arriving in half an hour,’ she called back. ‘Does Horace have half an hour?’

Silence.

‘He’s nicked a vein,’ he said at last, and Polly thought: That’s that, then. Horace needed help or he’d die.

She wedged herself against another sapling, hoping it could take her weight. Then she unwound her rope coil.

‘What are you doing?’ It was a sharp demand.

‘Imagine I’m in Theatre,’ she told him. ‘Neurosurgeon fighting the odds. You’re unscrubbed and useless. Would you ask for a commentary?’

‘Is that another way of saying you don’t have a plan?’

‘Shut up and concentrate on Horace.’ It was unnerving, to say the least, that he could see her, but then Horace groaned and Hugo’s face disappeared from the back window and she could get on with … what …? Concentrating not on Hugo.

On one rope.

Somehow she got the middle of the rope looped and knotted around each side of the tray. Yay! Now she had to get back to the road. She clutched the cliff as if she were glued to it, scrambling up until her feet were on solid ground. Finally she was up. All she had to do now was figure out something to tie it to.

She had the shakes.

‘Are you safe?’ Hugo called and she realised he couldn’t see her any more. The truck was too far over the lip. ‘Dr Hargreaves?’ There was no disguising his fear.

‘I’m safe,’ she called back and her voice wobbled and she tried again. This time her voice was pleasingly smug. ‘Feet on terra firma. Moving to stage two of the action plan.’

‘I thought you didn’t have a plan.’

‘It’s more exciting without one, but I’m trying. Indeed, I’m very trying.’

Plans took brains. Plans required the mush in her brain to turn useful. To stop thinking about Hugo plunging downward …

It wasn’t Hugo. It was two guys in a truck. Take the personal out of it, she told herself.

Plan!

She needed a solid tree, or at least a good-sized stump. She had neither.

Attach the rope to her car? Not in a million years. Her little yellow sports car would sail over the cliff after the truck.

Margaret looked kind of buxom. How would she go as an anchor?

She gave a wry grin, wishing she could share the thought with Bossy In The Truck. Maybe not.

Bossy’s truck?

The thought was no sooner in her mind than she was running up the road to Hugo’s car. Blessedly, his keys were in the ignition. Yes! A minute later, his vehicle was parked as close as she could manage to the point where the truck had gone over.

It was an SUV. She’d once gone skiing in an upmarket version of one of these—her boyfriend’s. Well, her ex-boyfriend, she conceded. They’d been snowed in and the tow truck had had to winch them out.

Polly had been interested in the process, or more interested than in listening to Marcus whinging, so she’d watched. There’d been an anchor point …

She ducked underneath. Yes! She had the ends of the rope fastened in a moment.

Maybe she could pull the truck up.

Maybe not. This wasn’t a huge SUV.

‘Polly …’ From below Hugo’s voice sounded desperate. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Being a Girl Guide,’ she yelled back. ‘Prepare to be stabilised.’

‘How …?’

‘Pure skill,’ she yelled back. ‘How’s Horace?’

‘Slipping.’

‘Two minutes,’ she yelled back, twisting the rope and racking her brain for a knot that could be used.

Reef Knot? Round Turn and Two Half Hitches? What about a Buntline Hitch? Yes! She almost beamed. Brown Owl would be proud.

She knotted and then cautiously shifted the SUV, reversing sideways against the cliff, taking up the last slack in the rope. Finally she cut the engine. She closed her eyes for a nanosecond and she allowed herself to breathe.

‘Why don’t you do something?’ It was Margaret—of course it was Margaret—still crouched on the verge and screaming. ‘My Horace’s dying and all you do is …’

‘Margaret, if you don’t shut up I’ll personally climb the cliff and slap you for Polly,’ Hugo called up, and Polly thought: Uh oh. He must have heard her previous threat. Some introduction to his new employee. Medicine by force.

But at least he was backing her and the idea was strangely comforting—there were two doctors working instead of one.

‘Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable,’ she told the woman. She had a jacket draped over her shoulders. ‘Is this Doc Denver’s jacket?’

‘I … yes. His phone’s in the pocket. It keeps ringing.’

You didn’t think to answer it? she thought, but she didn’t say it. What was the point now? But if Emergency Services were trying to verify their location …

‘I want you to sit in Doc Denver’s truck,’ she told Margaret. ‘If the phone rings, can you answer it and tell people where we are?’

‘I don’t …’

‘We’re depending on you, Margaret. All you have to do is sit in the car and answer the phone. Nothing else. Can you do that?’

‘If you save Horace.’

‘Deal.’ She propelled her into the passenger seat of the SUV and there was a bonus. More ballast. With Margaret’s extra, not insubstantial, weight, this vehicle was going nowhere.

‘I think you’re stable,’ she yelled down the cliff, while she headed back to the verge for Hugo’s bag. She flicked it open. Saline, adrenaline, painkilling drugs, all the paraphernalia she’d expect a country GP would carry. He must have put it down while he’d leaned into the truck, and then the road had given way.

How to get it to him?

‘What do you mean, stable?’ he called.

‘I have nice strong ties attaching the truck tray to your SUV,’ she called. ‘The SUV’s parked at right angles to you, with Margaret sitting in the passenger seat. It’s going nowhere.’

‘How did you tie …?’

‘Girl Guiding 101,’ she called back. ‘You want to give me a raise on the strength of it?’

‘Half my kingdom.’

‘Half a country practice in Wombat Valley? Ha!’

‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s a trap,’ he called back. ‘You know you’ll never get away, but you walked in of your own accord, and I’m more than willing to share. I’ll even include Priscilla Carlisle’s bunions. They’re a medical practice on their own.’

Astonishingly, she giggled.

This felt okay. She could hear undercurrents to his attempt at humour that she had no hope of understanding, but she was working hard, and in the truck Hugo would be working hard, too. The medical imperatives were still there, but the flavour of black humour was a comfort all on its own.

Medical imperatives. The bag was the next thing. Horace had suffered major blood loss. Everything Hugo needed was in that bag.

How to get the bag down?

Lower it? It’d catch on the undergrowth. Take it down herself? Maybe. The cab, though, was much lower than the tray. There were no solid saplings past the back of the tray.

She had Hugo’s nylon cord. It was useless for abseiling—the nylon would slice her hands—but she didn’t have to pull herself up. She could stay down there until the cavalry arrived.

Abseiling … A harness? Nope. The nylon would cut.

A seat? She’d learned to make a rope seat in Abseil Rescue.

Hmm.

‘Tie the cord to the bag and toss it as close as you can,’ Hugo called, and humour had given way to desperation. ‘I can try and retrieve it.’

‘What, lean out of the cabin? Have you seen the drop?’

‘I’m trying not to see the drop but there’s no choice.’

His voice cracked. It’d be killing him, she thought, watching Horace inch towards death with no way to help.

‘Did you mention you have a kid? You’re taking your kid to the beach for Christmas? Isn’t that what this locum position is all about?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Then you’re going nowhere. Sit. Stay.’

There was a moment’s silence, followed by a very strained response.

‘Woof?’

She grinned. Nice one.

But she was no longer concentrating on the conversation. Her hands were fashioning a seat, three lines of cord, hooked together at the sides, with a triangle of cord at both sides to make it steady.

She could make a knot and she could let it out as she went …

Wow, she was dredging through the grey matter now. But it was possible, she conceded. She could tie the bag underneath her, find toeholds in the cliff, hopefully swing from sapling to sapling to steady her …

‘Polly, if you’re thinking of climbing … you can’t.’ Hugo’s voice was deep and gravelly. There was strength there, she thought, but she also heard fear.

He was scared for her.

He didn’t even know her.

He was concerned for a colleague, she thought, but, strangely, it felt more than that. It felt … warm. Strong.

Good.

Which was ridiculous. She knew nothing about this man, other than he wanted to take his kid to the beach for Christmas.

‘Never say can’t to a Hargreaves,’ she managed to call back. ‘You’ll have my father to answer to.’

‘I don’t want to answer to your father if you’re dead.’

‘I’ll write a note excusing you. Now shut up. I need to concentrate.’

‘Polly …’

‘Hold tight. I’m on my way.’

CHAPTER THREE

IT NEARLY KILLED HIM.

He could do nothing except apply pressure to Horace’s shoulder and wait for rescue.

From a woman in a polka dot dress.

The sight of her from the truck’s rear-view window had astounded him. Actually, the sight of anyone from the truck’s rear-view mirror would have astounded him—this was an impossible place to reach—but that a woman …

No, that was sexist … That anyone, wearing a bare-shouldered dress with a halter neck tie, with flouncy auburn curls to her shoulders, with freckles …

Yeah, he’d even noticed the freckles.

And yes, he thought, he was being sexist or fashionist or whatever else he could think of being accused of right now, but he excused himself because what he wanted was a team of State Emergency Personnel with safety jackets and big boots organising a smooth transition to safety.

He was stuck with polka dots and freckles.

He should have asked for a photo when he’d organised the locum. He should never have …

Employed polka dots? Who was he kidding? If an applicant had a medical degree and was breathing he would have employed them. No one wanted to work in Wombat Valley.

No one but him and he was stuck here. Lured here for love of his little niece. Stuck here for ever.

Beside him, Horace was drifting in and out of consciousness. His blood pressure was dropping, his breathing was becoming laboured and there was nothing he could do.

He’d never felt so helpless.

Maybe he had. The night they’d rung and told him Grace had driven her car off the Gap.

Changing his life in an instant.

Why was he thinking about that now? Because there was nothing else to think about? Nothing to do?

The enforced idleness was killing him. He couldn’t see up to the road unless he leaned out of the window. What was she doing?

What sort of a dumb name was Polly anyway? he thought tangentially. Whoever called a kid Pollyanna?

She’d sent a copy of her qualifications to him, with references. They’d been glowing, even if they’d been city based.

The name had put him off. Was that nameist?

Regardless, he’d had reservations about employing a city doctor in this place that required definite country skills, but Ruby deserved Christmas.

He deserved Christmas. Bondi Beach. Sydney. He’d had a life back there.

And now … his whole Christmas depended on a doctor in polka dots. More, his life depended on her. If her knots didn’t hold …

‘Hey!’

And she was just there, right by the driver’s seat window. At least, her feet were there—bare!—and then her waist, and then there was a slither and a curse and her head appeared at the open window. She was carefully not touching the truck, using her feet on the cliff to push herself back.

‘Hey,’ she said again, breathlessly. ‘How’re you guys doing? Would you like a bag?’

And, amazingly, she hauled up his canvas holdall from under her.

Horace was slumped forward, semi-conscious, not reacting to her presence. Polly gave Horace a long, assessing look and then turned her attention to him. He got the same glance. Until her assessment told her otherwise, it seemed he was the patient.

‘Okay?’ she asked.

‘Bruises. Nothing more. I’m okay to work.’

He got a brisk nod, accepting his word, moving on. ‘If you’re planning on coping with childbirth or constipation, forget it,’ she told him, lifting the bag through the open window towards him. ‘I took stuff out to lighten the load. But this should have what you need.’

To say he was gobsmacked would be an understatement. She was acting like a doctor in a ward—calm, concise, using humour to deflect tension. She was hanging by some sort of harness—no, some sort of seat—at the end of a nylon cord. She was red-headed and freckled and polka-dotted, and she was cute …

She was a doctor, offering assistance.

He grabbed the bag so she could use her hands to steady herself and, as soon as he had it, her smile went to high beam. But her smile still encompassed a watchful eye on Horace. She was an emergency physician, he thought. ER work was a skill—communicating and reassuring terrified patients while assessing injuries at the same time. That was what she was doing. She knew the pressure he was under but her manner said this was just another day in the office.

‘Those bruises,’ she said. ‘Any on the head? No concussion?’

So he was still a patient. ‘No.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Then it’s probably better if you work from inside the truck. If I work on Horace from outside I might put more pressure …’

‘You’ve done enough.’

‘I haven’t but I don’t want to bump the truck more than necessary. Yell if you need help but if you’re fine to put in the drip then I’ll tie myself to a sapling and watch. Margaret is up top, manning the phones, so it’s my turn for a spot of R and R. It’s time to strut your stuff, Dr Denver. Go.’

She pushed herself back from the truck and cocked a quizzical eyebrow—and he couldn’t speak.

Time to strut his stuff? She was right, of course. He needed to stop staring at polka dots.

He needed to try and save Horace.

Polly was now just as stuck as the guys in the truck.

There was no way she could pull herself up the cliff again. She couldn’t get purchase on the nylon without cutting herself. The cord had cut her hands while she’d lowered herself, but to get the bag to Hugo, to try and save Horace’s life, she’d decided a bit of hand damage was worthwhile.

Getting up, though … Not so much. The cavalry was on its way. She’d done everything she could.

Now all she had to do was secure herself and watch Hugo work.

He couldn’t do it.

He had all the equipment he needed. All he had to do was find a vein and insert a drip.

But Horace was a big man, his arms were fleshy and flaccid, and his blood pressure had dropped to dangerous levels. Even in normal circumstances it’d be tricky to find a vein.

Horace was bleeding from the arm nearest him. He had that pressure bound. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but he needed to use Horace’s other arm for the drip.

It should be easy. All he needed to do was tug Horace’s arm forward, locate the vein at the elbow and insert the drip.

But he was at the wrong angle and his hands shook. Something about crashing down a cliff, thinking he was going to hit the bottom? The vein he was trying for slid away under the needle.

‘Want me to try?’ Polly had tugged back from the truck, cautious that she might inadvertently put weight on it, but she’d been watching.

‘You can hardly operate while hanging on a rope,’ he told her and she gave him a look of indignation.

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve rigged this up with a neat seat. So I’m not exactly hanging. If you’re having trouble … I don’t want to bump the truck but for Horace … maybe it’s worth the risk.’

And she was right. Priority had to be that vein, but if he couldn’t find it, how could she?

‘I’ve done my first part of anaesthetic training,’ she said, diffidently now. ‘Finding veins is what I’m good at.’

‘You’re an anaesthetist?’

‘Nearly. You didn’t know that, did you, Dr Denver?’ To his further astonishment, she sounded smug. ‘Emergency physician with anaesthetist skills. You have two medics for the price of one. So … can I help?’

And he looked again at Horace’s arm and he thought of the consequences of not trusting. She was an anaesthetist. They were both in impossible positions but she had the training.

‘Yes, please.’

Her hands hurt. Lowering herself using only the thin cord had been rough.

Her backside also hurt. Three thin nylon cords weren’t anyone’s idea of good seat padding. She was using her feet to swing herself as close to the truck as she dared, trying to balance next to the window.

There was nothing to tie herself to.

And then Hugo reached over and caught the halter-tie of her dress, so her shoulder was caught at the rear of the window.

‘No weight,’ he told her. ‘I’ll just hold you steady.’

‘What a good thing I didn’t wear a strapless number,’ she said approvingly, trying to ignore the feel of his hand against her bare skin. Truly, this was the most extraordinary position …

It was the most extraordinary feeling. His hold made her feel … safe?

Was she out of her mind? Safe? But he held fast and it settled her.

Hugo had swabbed but she swabbed again, holding Horace’s arm steady as she worked. She had his arm out of the window, resting on the window ledge. The light here was good.

She pressed lightly and pressed again …

The cannula was suddenly in her hand. Hugo was holding her with one hand, acting as theatre assistant with the other.

Once again that word played into her mind. Safe … But she had eyes only for the faint contour that said she might have a viable vein …

She took the cannula and took a moment to steady herself. Hugo’s hold on her tightened.

She inserted the point—and the needle slipped seamlessly into the vein.

‘Yay, us,’ she breathed, but Hugo was already handing her some sticking plaster to tape the cannula. She was checking the track, but it was looking good. A minute later she had the bag attached and fluid was flowing. She just might have done the thing.

Hugo let her go. She swung out a little, clear of the truck. It was the sensible thing to do, but still …

She hadn’t wanted to be … let go.

‘Heart rate?’ Her voice wasn’t quite steady. She took a deep breath and tried again. ‘How is it?’

‘Holding.’ Hugo had his stethoscope out. ‘I think we might have made it.’ He glanced into the bag. ‘And we have adrenaline—and a defibrillator. How did you carry all this?’

‘I tied it under my seat.’

‘Where did you learn your knots?’

‘I was a star Girl Guide.’ She was, too, she thought, deciding maybe she needed to focus on anything but the way his hold had made her feel.

A star Girl Guide … She’d been a star at so many things—at anything, really, that would get her away from her parents’ overriding concern. Riding lessons, piano lessons, judo, elocution, Girl Guides, holiday camps … She’d been taken to each of them by a continuous stream of nannies. Nannies who were chosen because they spoke French, had famous relatives or in some other way could be boasted about by her parents …

‘The current girl’s a Churchill. She’s au-pairing for six months, and she knows all the right people …’

Yeah. Nannies, nannies and nannies. Knowing the right people or speaking five languages was never a sign of job permanence. Polly had mostly been glad to be delivered to piano or elocution or whatever. She’d done okay, too. She’d had to.

Her parents loved her, but oh, they loved to boast.

‘ER Physician, anaesthetist and Girl Guide to boot.’ Hugo sounded stunned. ‘I don’t suppose you brought a stretcher as well? Plus a qualification in mountain rescue.’

‘A full examination table, complete with lights, sinks, sterilisers? Plus rope ladders and mountain goats? Damn, I knew I’d forgotten something.’

He chuckled but she didn’t have time for further banter. She was swinging in a way that was making her a little dizzy. She had to catch the sapling.

Her feet were hitting the cliff. Ouch. Where was nice soft grass when you needed it?

Where was Hugo’s hold when she needed it?

He was busy. It made sense that he take over Horace’s care now, but …

She missed that hold.

‘It’s flowing well.’ There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Hugo’s voice and Polly, too, breathed again. If Horace’s heart hadn’t given way yet, there was every chance the fluids would make a difference.

In the truck, Hugo had the IV line set up and secure. He’d hung the saline bags from an umbrella he’d wedged behind the back seat. He’d injected morphine.

He’d like oxygen but Polly’s culling of his bag had excluded it. Fair enough, he thought. Oxygen or a defibrillator? With massive blood loss, the defibrillator was likely to be the most important, and the oxygen cylinder was dead weight.

Even so … How had she managed to get all this down here? What she’d achieved was amazing, and finding a vein in these circumstances was nothing short of miraculous.

She was his locum, temporary relief.

How would it be if there was a doctor like Polly working beside him in the Valley all year round?

Right. As if that was going to happen. His new locum was swinging on her seat, as if flying free, and he thought that was exactly what she was. Free.

Not trapped, like he was.

And suddenly he wasn’t thinking trapped in a truck down a cliff. He was thinking trapped in Wombat Valley, giving up his career, giving up … his life.

Once upon a time, if he’d met someone like Dr Polly Hargreaves he could have asked her out, had fun, tried friendship and maybe it could have led to …

No! It was no use even letting himself think down that road.

He was trapped in Wombat Valley. The skilful, intriguing Polly Hargreaves was rescuing him from one trap.

No one could rescue him from the bigger one.

Fifteen minutes later, help arrived. About time too, Polly thought. Mountains were for mountain goats. When the first yellow-jacketed figure appeared at the cliff top it was all she could do not to weep with relief.

She didn’t. She was a doctor and doctors didn’t weep.

Or not when yellow coats and big boots and serious equipment were on their way to save them.

‘We have company,’ she announced to Hugo, who couldn’t see the cliff top from where he was stuck.

‘More polka dots?’

She grinned and looked up at the man staring down at her. ‘Hi,’ she yelled. ‘Dr Denver wants to know what you’re wearing.’

The guy was on his stomach, looking down. ‘A business suit,’ he managed. ‘With matching tie. How’d you get down there?’

‘They fell,’ she said. ‘I came down all by myself. You wouldn’t, by any chance, have a cushion?’

He chuckled and then got serious. The situation was assessed with reassuring efficiency. There was more than one yellow jacket up there, it seemed, but only one was venturing near the edge.

‘We’ll get you up, miss,’ the guy called.

‘Stabilise the truck first.’

‘Will do.’

The Australian State Emergency Service was a truly awesome organisation, Polly decided. Manned mostly by volunteers, their skill set was amazing. The police sergeant had arrived, too, as well as two farmers with a tractor apiece. Someone had done some fast organising.

Two yellow-jacketed officers abseiled down, with much more efficiency and speed than Polly could have managed. They had the truck roped in minutes, anchoring it to the tractors above.

They disappeared again.

‘You think they’ve knocked off for a cuppa?’ Polly asked Hugo and he smiled, but absently. His smile was strained.

He had a kid, Polly thought. What was he about, putting himself in harm’s way?

Did his wife know where he was? If she did, she’d be having kittens.

Just lucky no one gave a toss about her.

Ooh, there was a bitter thought, and it wasn’t true. Her parents would be gutted. But then … If she died they could organise a truly grand funeral, she decided. If there was one thing her mother was good at, it was event management. There’d be a cathedral, massed choirs, requests to wear ‘Polly’s favourite colour’ which would be pink because her mother always told her pink was her favourite colour even though it wasn’t. And she’d arrange a release of white doves and pink and white balloons and the balloons would contain a packet of seeds—zinnias, she thought because ‘they’re Polly’s favourite flower’ and …

And there was the roar of tractors from above, the sound of sharp commands, and then a slow taking up of the slack of the attached ropes.

The truck moved, just a little—and settled again—and the man appeared over the edge and shouted, ‘You okay down there?’

‘Excellent,’ Hugo called, but Polly didn’t say anything at all.

‘Truck’s now secure,’ the guy called. ‘The paramedics want to know if Horace is okay to move. We can abseil down and bring Horace up on a cradle stretcher. How does that fit with you, Doc?’

‘Is it safe for you guys?’

‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ the guy retorted. ‘But med report, Doc—the paramedics want to know.’

‘He’s safe to move as long as we can keep pressure off his chest,’ Hugo called. ‘I want a neck brace. There’s no sign of spinal injury but let’s not take any chances. Then Polly.’

‘Then you, Doc.’

‘Polly second,’ Hugo said in a voice that brooked no argument.

And, for once, Polly wasn’t arguing.

It must have been under the truck.

She’d been balancing in the harness, using her feet to stop herself from swinging.

The truck had done its jerk upward and she’d jerked backwards herself, maybe as an automatic reaction to tension. She’d pushed her feet hard against the cliff to steady herself.

The snake must have been caught under the truck in the initial fall. With the pressure off, it lurched forward to get away.

Polly’s foot landed right on its spine.

It landed one fierce bite to her ankle—and then slithered away down the cliff.

She didn’t move. She didn’t cry out.

Two guys in bright yellow overalls were abseiling down towards the driver’s side of the truck, holding an end of a cradle stretcher apiece. They looked competent, sure of themselves … fast?

Horace was still the priority. He was elderly, he’d suffered massive blood loss and he needed to be where he could be worked on if he went into cardiac arrest.

She was suffering a snake bite.

Tiger snake? She wasn’t sure. She’d only ever seen one in the zoo and she hadn’t looked all that closely then.

It had had stripes.

Tiger snakes were deadly.

But not immediately. Wombat Valley was a bush hospital and one thing bush hospitals were bound to have was antivenin, she told herself. She thought back to her training. No one ever died in screaming agony two minutes after they were bitten by a snake. They died hours later. If they didn’t get antivenin.

Therefore, she just needed to stay still and the nice guys in the yellow suits would come and get her and they’d all live happily ever after.

‘Polly?’ It was Hugo, his voice suddenly sharp.

‘I … what?’ She let go her toehold—she was only using one foot now—and her rope swung.

She felt … a bit sick.

That must be her imagination. She shouldn’t feel sick so fast.

‘Polly, what’s happening?’

The guys—no, on closer inspection, it was a guy and a woman—had reached Horace. Had Hugo fitted the neck brace to Horace, or had the abseilers? She hadn’t noticed. They were steadying the stretcher against the cliff, then sliding it into the cab of the truck, but leaving its weight to be taken by the anchor point on the road. In another world she’d be fascinated.

Things were a bit … fuzzy.

‘Polly?’

‘Mmm?’ She was having trouble getting her tongue to work. Her mouth felt thick and dry.

‘What the hell …? I can’t get out. Someone up there … priority’s changed. We need a harness on Dr Hargreaves—fast.’

Did he think she was going to faint? She thought about that and decided he might be right.

So do something.

She had a seat—sort of. She looped her arms around the side cords and linked her hands, then put her head down as far as she could.

She could use some glucose.

‘Get someone down here.’ It was a roar. ‘Fast. Move!’

‘I’m not going to faint,’ she managed but it sounded feeble, even to her.

‘Damn right, you’re not going to faint,’ Hugo snapped. ‘You faint and you’re out of my employ. Pull yourself together, Dr Hargreaves. Put that head further down, take deep breaths and count between breathing. You know what to do. Do it.’

‘I need … juice …’ she managed but her voice trailed off. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t …

She mustn’t.

Breathe, two, three. Out, two, three. Breathe …

‘Hold on, sweetheart—they’re coming.’

What had he called her? Sweetheart? No one called Polly Hargreaves sweetheart unless they wanted her to do something. Or not do something. Not to cut her hair. Not to do medicine. To play socialite daughter for their friends.

To come home for Christmas …

She wasn’t going home for Christmas. She was staying in Wombat Valley. The thought was enough to steady her.

If she fainted then she’d fall and they’d send her back to Sydney in a body bag and her mother would have her fabulous funeral …

Not. Not, not, not.

‘I’ve been bitten by a snake,’ she muttered, with as much strength and dignity as she could muster. Which wasn’t actually very much at all. She still had her head between her knees and she daren’t move. ‘It was brown with stripes and it bit my ankle. And I know it’s a hell of a time to tell you, but I need to say … I’m also a Type One diabetic. So I’m not sure whether this is a hypo or snake bite but, if I fall, don’t let my mother bury me in pink. Promise.’

‘I promise,’ Hugo said and then a yellow-suited figure was beside her, and her only objection was that he was blocking her view of Hugo.

It sort of seemed important that she see Hugo.

‘She has a snake bite on her ankle,’ Hugo was saying urgently. ‘And she needs glucose. Probable hypo. Get the cradle back down here as fast as you can, and bring glucagon. While we wait, I have a pressure bandage here in the cabin. If you can swing her closer we’ll get her leg immobilised.’

‘You’re supposed to be on holiday,’ Polly managed while Yellow Suit figured out how to manoeuvre her closer to Hugo.

‘Like that’s going to happen now,’ Hugo said grimly. ‘Let’s get the hired help safe and worry about holidays later.’

CHAPTER FOUR

FROM THERE THINGS moved fast. The team on the road was reassuringly professional. Polly was strapped into the cradle, her leg firmly wrapped, then she was lifted up the cliff with an abseiler at either end of the cradle.

She was hardly bumped, but she felt shaky and sick. If she was in an emergency situation she’d be no help at all.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she managed, for Hugo had climbed up after her and he was leaning over the stretcher, his lean, strong face creased in concern. ‘What a wuss. I didn’t mean …’

‘To be confronted by two guys about to fall down a cliff. To need to climb down and secure the truck and save them. To bring them lifesaving equipment and get bitten by a snake doing it. I don’t blame you for apologising, Dr Hargreaves. Wuss doesn’t begin to describe it.’

‘I should …’

‘Shut up,’ he said, quite kindly. ‘Polly, the snake … you said it had stripes.’

‘Brown with faint stripes.’

‘Great for noticing.’

‘It bit me,’ she said with dignity. ‘I always take notice of things that bite me.’

‘Excellent. Okay, sweetheart, we have a plan …’

‘I’m not your sweetheart!’ She said it with vehemence and she saw his brows rise in surprise—and also humour.

‘No. Inappropriate. Sexist. Apologies. Okay, Dr Hargreaves, we have a plan. We’re taking you to the Wombat Valley Hospital—it’s only a mile down the road. There we’ll fill you up with antivenin. The snake you describe is either a tiger or a brown …’

‘Tiger’s worse.’

‘We have antivenin for both. You’re reacting well with glucose. I think the faintness was a combination—the adrenaline went out of the situation just as the snake hit and the shock was enough to send you over the edge.’

‘I did not go over the edge!’

‘I do need to get my language right,’ he said and grinned. ‘No, Dr Hargreaves, you did not go over the edge, for which I’m profoundly grateful. And now we’ll get the antivenin in …’

‘Which one?’

‘I have a test kit at the hospital and I’ve already taken a swab.’

‘And if it’s a rare … I don’t know … zebra python with no known antivenin …?’

‘Then I’ll eat my hat.’ And then he took her hand and held, and he smiled down at her and his smile …

It sort of did funny things to her. She’d been feeling woozy before. Now she was feeling even woozier.

‘We need to move,’ he said, still holding her hand strongly. ‘We’ll take you to the hospital now, but once we have the antivenin on board we’ll transfer you to Sydney. We’ve already called in the medical transfer chopper. Horace has cracked ribs. Marg’s demanding specialists. I’m more than happy that he be transferred, and I’m imagining that you’ll be better in Sydney as well. You have cuts and bruises all over you, plus a load of snake venom. You can recover in Sydney and then spend Christmas with your family.’

Silence.

He was still holding her hand. She should let it go, she thought absently. She should push herself up to standing, put her hands on her hips and let him have it.

She was no more capable of doing such a thing than flying, but she gripped his hand so tightly her cuts screamed in protest. She’d bleed on him, she thought absently, but what was a little gore when what she had to say was so important?

‘I am not going back to Sydney,’ she hissed and she saw his brow snap down in surprise.

‘Polly …’

‘Don’t Polly me. If you think I’ve come all this way … if you think I’ve crawled down cliffs and ruined a perfectly good dress and scratched my hands and hurt my bum and then been bitten by a vicious, lethal snake you don’t even know the name of yet … if you think I’m going to go through all that and still get to spend Christmas in Sydney …’

‘You don’t want to?’ he asked cautiously and she stared at him as if he had a kangaroo loose in his top paddock.

‘In your dreams. I accepted a job in Wombat Valley and that’s where I’m staying. You do have antivenin?’

‘I … yes.’

‘And competent staff to watch my vital signs for the next twenty-four hours?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘But nothing,’ she snapped. ‘You employed me, Dr Denver, and now you’re stuck with me. Send Horace wherever you like, but I’m staying here.’

The transfer to the hospital was swift and efficient. Joe, his nurse administrator, was pre-warned and had the test kit and antivenin ready. Joe was more than capable of setting up an IV line. Wishing he was two doctors and not one, Hugo left Polly in Joe’s care while he organised an X-ray of Horace’s chest. He needed to make sure a rib wasn’t about to pierce a lung.

The X-ray showed three cracked ribs, one that looked unstable. It hadn’t punctured his lung, though, and Horace’s breathing seemed secure. If he was kept immobile, he could be taken to Sydney.

‘You’re not sending Dr Hargreaves with him?’ Mary, his second-in-command nurse, demanded as he left Horace with the paramedics and headed for Polly.

He’d been torn … Polly, Horace, Polly, Horace …

Joe would have called him if there was a change. Still, his strides were lengthening.

‘She won’t go,’ he told Mary. ‘She wants to stay.’

‘Oh, Hugo.’ Mary was in her sixties, a grandma, and a bit weepy at the best of times. Now her kindly eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ll be looking after her instead of going to the beach. Of all the unfair things …’

‘It’s not unfair. It’s just unfortunate. She can hardly take over my duties now. She’ll need to be watched for twenty-four hours for reaction to the bite as well as reaction to the antivenin. The last thing we need is anaphylactic shock and it’ll take days for the venom to clear her system completely. Meanwhile, have you seen her hands? Mary, she slid down a nylon cord to bring me equipment. She was scratched climbing to secure the truck. She was bitten because …’

‘Because she didn’t have sensible shoes on,’ Mary said with asperity. The nurse was struggling to keep up but speed wasn’t interfering with indignation. ‘Did you see her shoes? Sergeant Myer picked them up on the roadside and brought them in. A more ridiculous pair of shoes for a country doctor to be wearing …’

‘You think we should yell at her about her shoes?’

‘I’m just saying …’

‘She was driving here in her sports car. You don’t need sensible clothes while driving.’

‘Well, that’s another thing,’ Mary said darkly. ‘Of all the silly cars for a country GP …’

‘But she’s not a country GP.’ He turned and took a moment to focus on Mary’s distress. Mary was genuinely upset on his behalf—heck, the whole of Wombat Valley would be upset on his behalf—but Polly wasn’t to blame and suddenly it was important that the whole of Wombat Valley knew it.

He thought of Polly sitting on her makeshift swing, trying to steady herself with her bare feet. He thought of her polka dot dress, the flounces, the determined smile … She must have been hurting more than he could imagine—those cords had really cut—but she’d still managed to give him cheek.

He thought of her sorting the medical equipment in his bag, expertly discarding what wasn’t needed, determined to bring him what was. Courage didn’t begin to describe what she’d done, he thought, so no, he wasn’t about to lecture her for inappropriate footwear.

‘Polly saved us,’ he told Mary, gently but firmly. ‘What happened was an accident and she did more than anyone could expect. She put her life on the line to save us and she even managed her own medical drama with skill. I owe her everything.’

‘So you’ll miss your Christmas at the beach.’

‘There’s no choice. We need to move on.’

Mary sniffed, sounding unconvinced, but Hugo swung open the door of the treatment room and Joe was chuckling and Polly was smiling up and he thought …

Who could possibly judge this woman and find her wanting? Who could criticise her?

This woman was amazing—and it seemed that she, also, was moving on.

‘Doctor, we may have to rethink the hospital menu for Christmas if Dr Hargreaves is admitted,’ Joe told him as he entered. ‘She’s telling me turkey, three veggies, commercial Christmas pudding and canned custard won’t cut it. Not even if we add a bonbon on the side.’

He blinked.

Snake bite. Lacerations. Shock.

They were talking turkey?

Okay. He needed to focus on medical imperatives, even if his patient wasn’t. Even if Polly didn’t seem like his patient.

‘The swab?’ he asked and Joe nodded and held up the test kit.

‘The brown snake showed up in seconds. The tiger segment showed positive about two minutes later but the kit says that’s often the way—they’re similar. It seems the brown snake venom’s enough to eventually discolour the tiger snake pocket, so brown it is. And I reckon she’s got a fair dose on board. Polly has a headache and nausea already. I’m betting she’s been solidly bitten.’

Hugo checked the kit for himself and nodded. He’d seen the ankle—it’d be a miracle if the venom hadn’t gone in. ‘Brown’s good,’ he told Polly. ‘You’ll recover faster than from a tiger.’

‘I’m feeling better already,’ she told him and gave him another smile, albeit a wobbly one. ‘But not my dress. It’s ripped to pieces. That snake owes me …’

He had to smile. She even managed to sound indignant.

‘But you’re nauseous?’

‘Don’t you care about my dress?’

‘I care about you more. Nausea?’

‘A little. And,’ she went on, as if she was making an enormous concession, ‘I might be a little bit headachy.’

A little …

The venom would hardly be taking effect yet, he thought. She’d still be in the window period where victims ran for help, tried to pretend they hadn’t been bitten, tried to search and identify the snake that had bitten them—and in the process spread the venom through their system and courted death.

Polly had been sensible, though. She’d stayed still. She’d told him straight away. She’d allowed the paramedics to bring her up on the rigid stretcher.

Okay, clambering down cliffs in bare feet in the Australian summer was hardly sensible but he couldn’t argue with her reasons.

‘Then let’s keep it like that,’ he told her. ‘I want you to stay still while we get this antivenin on board.’

‘I’ve been practically rigid since I got bit,’ she said virtuously. ‘Textbook patient. By the way, it’s a textbook immobilisation bandage too. Excellent work, Dr Denver.’

He grinned at that, and she smiled back at him, and then he sort of paused.

That smile …

It was a magic smile. As sick and battered as she was, her smile twinkled. Her face was pallid and wan, but it was still alight with laughter.

This was a woman who would have played in the orchestra as the Titanic sank, he thought, and then he thought: Nope, she’d be too busy fashioning lifelines out of spare trombones.

But her smile was fading. Their gazes still held but all of a sudden she looked … doubtful?

Maybe unsure.

Maybe his smile was having the same effect on her as hers was on his?

That would be wishful thinking. Plus it would be unprofessional.

Move on.

Joe had already set up the drip. Hugo prepared the serum, double-checked everything with Joe, then carefully injected it. It’d start working almost immediately, he thought; hopefully, before Polly started feeling the full effects of the bite.

‘How are you feeling everywhere else?’ he asked, and she gave a wry smile that told him more than anything else that the humour was an act. Her freckles stood out from her pallid face, and her red hair seemed overbright.

‘I’m … sore,’ she admitted.

‘I’ve started cleaning the worst of the grazes,’ Joe told him. ‘She could do with a full bed bath but you said immobile so immobile it is. There’s a cut on her palm, though, that might need a stitch or two.’

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