What was happening here?

Sure, Tessa was one different woman, and sure, the valley needed another doctor, but Tessa lived in the States, for heaven’s sake! She had nothing to do with him. She was here for maybe a week.

Which was all very sensible, Mike thought. But logic didn’t account for the way his heart lurched when he saw her.

Marion Lennox has had a variety of careers—medical receptionist, computer programmer and teacher. Married, with two young children, she now lives in rural Victoria, Australia. Her wish for an occupation that would allow her to remain at home with her children, her dogs, the cat and the budgie led her to attempt writing a novel.

Bachelor Cure
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

PROLOGUE

MIKE LLEWELLYN pushed the dark curls out of his eyes and looked wildly around him. The mountains where he lived had always seemed his friends and, heaven knew, he stood in need of friends now. His bony shoulders trembled, and his hands clenched into fists of helplessness.

Sixteen years old was too young an age to face this. The doctor was here now, but Mike knew in his heart that it was too late.

Over and over, the doctor’s words played in his mind.

‘You should have called me sooner, you stupid boy. Don’t you realize your mother’s dying?’

Yes, he did know, and the accusation was unfair. He’d phoned over and over again, but the doctor’s wife hadn’t helped a bit.

‘He’s out. That’s all I know. Don’t ask me where he is. He’s just out.’

After scores of frantic phone calls, the whole district had started searching, but the locals knew what the doctor would be doing. He’d be somewhere with a woman who wasn’t his wife, and he’d probably be drunk. The valley’s only doctor would have no intention of being found.

In the end the doctor had arrived back at the surgery full of drunken bluster, saying he’d had his radio on all the time and no one had called him.

Liar!

‘The man’s a liar,’ Mike said to the mountains, and tears of frustration and rage welled behind his eyes. He blinked them back but others came fast to replace them.

And at that moment he made himself a silent vow. It was a promise he made to nothing but the mountains, but it was a vow he intended to keep for the rest of his life.

‘I’ll be a doctor myself,’ he swore. ‘I’ll be the best doctor I can make myself and I’ll come back here and work. And that’s all I’m going to do. No woman’s ever going to interfere with my work. There’s no way anyone else in this place will die like this—not if I can help it. No matter what happens now…’

And then he turned to face what was happening inside. He turned to face the emptiness of his future.

CHAPTER ONE

THERE was a girl in red stilettos lying in Henry Westcott’s barn. Or rather, she was lying under Henry Westcott’s pig.

Mike had met the police car at the gate. ‘There’s someone mucking around at Henry’s place,’ the sergeant had told him curtly. ‘Jacob saw the light from his place. Want to back us up—give us a bit more manpower?’

He didn’t. Jacob Jeffries was a rifle-toting bone-head, and the thought of making a posse with him was enough to make Mike queasy. Still, Sergeant Morris was the only policeman in the district and he’d helped Mike out of tight spots in the past. Checking deserted farmhouses for thieves was risky, and Jacob might look tough but, given any real danger, he’d run a mile.

So he’d come, leaving Strop guarding his precious Aston Martin. But now…

Mike stopped dead as the police sergeant threw open the barn door and flooded the place with light. They’d been expecting petty thieves, or maybe even Henry himself, but they certainly hadn’t been expecting this.

The girl was lying flat in the straw, her arm immersed to the elbow in pig. She was young—in her twenties, from the look of her—slightly built and fiery.

Fiery?

Yes. Definitely fiery. She was practically all scarlet. The girl was wearing a tiny, tight-fitting, crimson skirt. The slim legs stretched out behind her on the straw were clad in clear stockings with a crimson seam, and her feet were clad in red stilettos. She was wearing a white blouse, but her flaming curls were tumbling about her shoulders and hiding most of it so he could mostly see just legs and redness.

Mike couldn’t see her face. Her face was pressed into the straw and the rest of her was hidden by pig. What on earth…?

‘OK. You’re covered. Stand up slow, then raise your hands over your shoulders.’ Unlike Mike and Sergeant Morris, Jacob knew exactly what to do. He’d seen it on the telly. He’d been expecting criminals and Jacob didn’t change his mind fast. ‘Be careful,’ the sergeant had told him before he’d flung open the door. ‘Whoever’s inside could be armed.’ So Jacob was in threat mode.

‘Don’t even think about producing a gun,’ he barked, waving his rifle in the direction of the pig and the wonderful red stilettos. ‘Throw down any weapons.’

‘Jacob,’ Mike said faintly. ‘Shut up.’

He was the first to move. The girl had been using a kerosene lamp to see by, but Sergeant Morris had a heavy searchlight which was now flooding the barn with light. The sergeant stood, shocked into stillness. Jacob waved his gun while he tried to figure things out, and Mike walked forward to see what was happening.

The girl’s face was turned away from him on the straw. He stepped over her and crouched so he could see more.

She had a great face. She had gorgeous clear skin, and big green eyes, and a slash of crimson lipstick the exact shade of those ridiculous shoes…

Her face was contorted in agony.

The girl had a bucket of soapy water beside her which told its own story. He winced in sympathy. Ouch! He knew what that was for.

Mike had come out here tonight because Henry Westcott was missing, believed dead. He knew how fond Henry Westcott was of his pig, and checking on Doris was something he could do for an old man he was fond of. He’d visited Doris the day before, and he knew her time was near.

So the piglets were on their way—sort of. He winced again. Lifting the bucket, he poured soapy water gently over the girl’s elbow as she penetrated the birth canal.

The girl gave a grunt of what might have been called gratitude. Her arm came out an inch or so to get some more lubrication and she went straight back in. The pig’s body heaved and the girl gave a sob of pain.

Hell!

He didn’t need to be told what was happening here. The pig’s belly was so swollen, there had to be more than half a dozen piglets trying to get out. But now… Something was clearly obstructing the birth canal. The girl was trying to clear it and it was no wonder she looked like she was in pain. Every time the sow had a contraction, massive muscles would be squeezing this girl’s arm with power beyond endurance.

‘I said stand up,’ Jacob barked behind them, but he was ignored. The police sergeant sighed and lifted Jacob’s rifle so it wasn’t pointing downwards, but the girl didn’t care. She was only intent on one thing. The pig.

Mike could only admire her singlemindedness.

Once, when he’d been a junior resident in a large teaching hospital, he’d been watching open heart surgery when the fire alarm had sounded and the smell of smoke had wafted through Theatre. The hospital staff had reacted in well-ordered panic, but the surgeon had kept right on operating.

‘Forget the alarm,’ he’d growled. ‘You can have any fire you like, but not until I have this closed!’

That determination was what he saw again in this girl’s face. She was in pain and Jacob’s threats must have got through to her, but she was concentrating on one thing and one thing only—clearing the birth canal.

There was nothing he could do to help. There certainly wasn’t room in the birth canal for two of them.

‘Talk me through it,’ he said urgently, his face almost touching the girl’s. ‘What’s going wrong?’

‘There’s a piglet stuck…’

She had a voice to match her face. It was exhausted and pain-filled, but it was soft and lilting and…gorgeous!

‘You can feel it?’

A contraction hit. Doris’s body strained in a massive movement of muscle and the girl’s body jerked sideways.

‘You can’t do this,’ he said savagely, and he put his hands on her shoulders to try and draw her out. Hell, she’d break every bone in her arm.

‘No. No! I can feel a hoof. Leave me!’

She shoved herself further forward. ‘More water,’ she gasped. He splashed a bit more water over her arm and then took the bar of soap and ran it around the vaginal entrance. If he had time… He had lubricants in the car…

‘I have it,’ she whispered. ‘One. Two. Three… Don’t muck me up now. I have four hooves. Please, Doris, hold the contractions… I have to push…’

‘What the…?’

‘There’re four hooves coming down at once and the head’s right back,’ she muttered into the pig, and he didn’t know if she was talking to him or to herself. ‘It’s stuck like a cork. I need to get it up. I need to push…’

Another contraction. It jerked Tessa’s arm, hauling her body with it.

She was so slight!

She had to be slight to succeed. No man could get his arm into that canal. Cows maybe, but not pigs.

‘Bring the light over,’ Mike ordered, his eyes not leaving the girl’s face. There was agony written there, but also sheer, bloody-minded determination. ‘Jacob, go and get my bag from the car.’

‘But what’s happening?’ It was taking Jacob a long time to work out he was in on a birth, rather than taking part in a criminal raid. He sounded totally bewildered.

‘We’re having piglets,’ Mike said into the stillness. ‘At least I hope we are.’

His hands came down and held the girl’s shoulders, gripping hard, letting her move as she willed but giving her support when she needed it so the pig’s contractions stopped jerking her sideways.

He was trying to let her feel she wasn’t alone. It was all he could do, and it wasn’t enough. He felt utterly helpless in the face of her pain.

Who on earth was she?

He could feel the effort she was making. Once each contraction had passed, she put everything she had into shoving the piglet forward, upward and higher. During the contraction she concentrated on holding it back and not letting her efforts be wasted. He could feel her whole body straining.

She must know some obstetrics. The only way to get the piglet out if it was firmly wedged was to push it back and turn it.

Was she a vet—in those stilettos?

And then he felt the piglet give—a minuscule amount but he felt the girl’s body jerk forward and she gave a gasp of sheer relief.

‘Turn, damn you. Turn,’ she muttered, as her own body changed position. ‘Please…’

Her shoulder twisted and her face screwed up. The crimson lipstick looked almost surrealistic.

And then her shoulder twisted still more. She gave a grunt of surprise and pain. The sow’s body contracted in one huge mass of muscle and the girl’s arm came sliding out.

Her hand was grasping one dead piglet.

The piglet slid limply onto the straw. The girl shoved it away as if it was of no importance—as indeed it wasn’t—and then she shoved her hand into the soapy water and moved again to reinsert it.

It wasn’t needed.

The contraction didn’t ease. It became a rolling crescendo of muscle power, and another piglet slid out onto the straw. This one was alive.

It was followed by another.

It was as if a cork had been pulled from a champagne bottle. Doris’s exhausted body heaved with every ounce of energy she had left, and minutes later the girl was in the middle of a squirming, bloody mass of living piglets.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight live piglets.

Mike was so stunned he could hardly count, but Doris knew. As the last of the piglets was expelled from her body, the massive sow moved her head around to see what she’d finally produced.

The girl looked up into the sow’s face and grinned—heavens, what a grin! She tried to lift one of the piglets around to its mother.

Her arm didn’t work. She gave a whimper of pain and the piglet fell back onto the straw.

Mike gave her a long, searching look and then he took over. At least he could help with this. He lifted each of the piglets in turn to lie under its mother’s eye.

After three piglets, the police sergeant finally came to his senses. He’d been watching in stunned silence, playing the floodlight over the birth. Now he set his searchlight down on a bale of hay and started ferrying piglets.

Which left Mike to concentrate on the girl.

She was exhausted.

No longer needed, she wilted. She lay back on the hay and clutched her arm as if it might fall off. Her face was dead white, her lipstick was smeared and there was the glimmer of tears in those gorgeous eyes.

Jacob came pelting back into the barn with Mike’s bag and the crazy gun still waving.

‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it,’ he told them, and skidded to a halt inches from Mike. Mike put a hand up and took the gun—followed by the bag.

‘That’s great, Jacob,’ he said calmly. He lifted the dead piglet and put it into the big farmer’s hands. ‘Now, go and bury this before Doris figures it’s alive and starts protecting it.’

‘Why the hell…?’ Jacob stared down at the battered little body lying in his hands. ‘We still don’t know what she’s doing here and you want me to bury this? Why?’

‘Because it’s dead, Jacob.’

‘Oh. Yeah.’ Jacob stared down at the body in his hands. ‘Right.’ He looked over at the policeman. ‘You don’t need me any more? For her, I mean?’

‘I think we can handle this,’ the sergeant told him dryly. Then, as Jacob moved to take his rifle back from Mike, the policeman shook his head. ‘No, Jacob. Leave the gun here. It’s not needed.’

‘But…’ Jacob was clearly uneasy about giving up his crook-chasing role. He cast an uncertain glance at the girl. ‘We don’t know who she is. She could be anyone. We dunno.’

‘No,’ the sergeant said. ‘But I think we can assume she’s not here to steal anything. And if she runs…’ He grinned. ‘I reckon we can catch her in those heels.’

The sergeant was right. The girl wasn’t going anywhere.

As Jacob carted the unfortunate piglet towards the door, the girl pushed herself up to a sitting position and gazed about her. She put a bloodied hand up to push back her curls, and left a gory streak down the side of her face.

She looked young and crazily vulnerable.

She looked hurt.

She’d only used one arm to push herself up. Now she brought her good arm over and cradled the other arm against her breast.

‘Let me see,’ Mike said gently, crouching before her and putting a tentative hand on her arm. She winced and pulled back, and the look of pain in her face deepened.

‘No. I need… I need…’

‘She must be on drugs,’ Jacob interrupted knowledgeably, pausing before he walked out the door with the dead piglet. He still wanted the criminal element here. He’d come expecting crooks and he was determined to find some. ‘I’ll bet that’s what she’s up to here, Sarge. You can’t tell me normal women wear shoes like this. She’ll be on drugs.’

‘Drugs!’ The pain from her shoulder jabbed again like a hot poker. Mike could see it in her face. The girl was bloodied, filthy and hurting, and she was so exhausted she could hardly speak. She looked exposed and humiliated. And now…

Now, suddenly, her overwhelming emotion was anger. Mike watched it running through her, supplanting the pain. She hauled herself to her feet. With her good arm, she shoved her skirt down in a futile attempt at dignity, and she glared at Mike and the policeman for all she was worth. Five feet six of flaming virago facing two unknown males! She wasn’t scared, though, Mike saw. She was too plain angry to be scared, and…she really was beautiful!

‘Who are you?’ he asked mildly, and that was the last straw.

‘Who am I? Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Who the hell are you? You’re on my grandfather’s property. What gives you the right to demand to know who I am? To talk about drugs? What gives you the right to come here with guns?’

And then, suddenly, it was all too much. The girl’s shoulder had jerked as she’d pulled herself upright. He could see in her eyes that the pain was indescribably fierce. So fierce she couldn’t bear it.

She gasped and staggered, and she would have fallen, but Mike was right there, holding her tightly by her good arm, stopping her from falling and propelling her down onto one of the tumbled bales of hay.

‘It’s OK.’ His voice, when he spoke, was as gentle as the laughter lines around his eyes. It was deep, resonant and sure, and, as always, it was inexplicably reassuring. The locals said his forte was small children and dogs, and they had reason. Mike’s was a voice that imbued trust. ‘Don’t fight it,’ he said softly. ‘It’s OK.’

The girl didn’t lack courage. She did resist—she pulled back for all of two seconds—but if she didn’t sit she’d fall, and there was no choice. She sat, and looked helplessly up again at him as she tried to clear the mists of pain. You could see what she was thinking.

Who the hell was this?

‘It’s OK,’ he repeated again, and there was such gentleness in his tone that it made the girl catch her breath. ‘We’re not here to hurt you.’

‘Where…where’s my grandfather?’

‘We’ve been searching for him.’ He knelt before her, and his fingers gripped hers, blood and all. His hands were big and strong and warm, and they clasped hers as if he knew how scared she was underneath the bravado. It was a gesture of warmth and strength and reassurance he’d used many times before, and the girl’s body relaxed just a smidgen. Nothing more, but he could feel it, and he smiled his reassuring smile—a smile that could charm a rattlesnake.

‘I’m the local doctor,’ he told her. ‘Let me see your arm. Let me help.’

‘It’s nothing.’

He ignored her protest. The girl was in no condition to talk coherently, much less think. He watched her face—his eyes asked permission and his hands moved to the top button of her blouse. ‘Can I see?’ Then, as she didn’t object, he undid her soft cotton collar and pulled the cloth away from her shoulder. He whistled soundlessly. No wonder she looked as if she was in pain.

‘You’ve dislocated your shoulder.’

‘Just leave it.’

The girl’s words were a pain-filled whisper. Courage was oozing out of her as reaction set in.

‘You’re not to be frightened,’ he told her, taking her hands again but so gently he didn’t jar her injured arm. ‘We’re here to help, and there’s nothing to be frightened of. I’m Mike Llewellyn, Bellanor’s only doctor. Behind me is Sergeant Ted Morris and Jacob—the chap who’s burying the pig—is your grandfather’s neighbour. He owns the farm next door. We’ve been searching for your grandfather since he went missing four days ago.’

‘But…’ The girl looked as if she was desperately trying to make some sense of what he was saying. She wasn’t succeeding. All she could think of was the pain.

‘Explanations can wait,’ Mike said firmly. He took the wrist of her injured arm and carefully lifted it so her arm was in a sling position. ‘I can take you back to the surgery and manipulate this with anaesthetic, but if you trust me then I can probably get your shoulder back into position now. It will hurt, but so will travelling over rough roads to get you to town. I can give you some morphine, but I think the best thing to do is just manipulate it back in fast. Will you try to relax and see what I can do?’

‘You…you really are a doctor?’

‘I really am a doctor.’ He smiled down at her, his blue eyes gentle and reassuring. He was hauling on his best bedside manner and then some. ‘The sergeant here will tell you. I even have a certificate somewhere to prove it.’

‘And…you know how to get this back?’

‘I’ve put back dislocated shoulders before.’

The girl looked up, her eyes doubtful. This wasn’t the normal person’s idea of a doctor. He wasn’t wearing white coat and stethoscope. He wore blue jeans and a rough wool sweater. He had deep black hair that curled in an unruly tangle and needed a cut, and his face was tanned and his eyes were crinkled, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors.

He wasn’t the least bit doctor-like.

But he had piercing blue eyes, and a smile on his broad, tanned face that told her she could put herself safely in his hands. It was his very best bedside manner, turned on in force, and it usually worked a treat.

Now was no exception. The girl sighed and nodded, closed her eyes and forced herself to go limp. She waited, waited for the pain…

He looked down at her in surprise. Had this happened to her before, then? She looked like she knew what to expect.

There was no point dragging it out.

He lifted her wrist, bent her elbow to slightly higher than ninety degrees, then slowly, firmly, rotated her arm down and back—so firmly that the girl gave a sob of agony.

And then, miraculously, it was over. The shoulder clicked right back into place.

Silence.

The girl took two deep breaths. Three. Four. And then she opened her eyes to a pain-free world.

Her green eyes crinkled into a smile of absolute relief. ‘Thank you.’

The girl’s words said it all. There was no need for him to check his handiwork. The girl’s breathed words of gratitude and the easing of the agony behind her eyes told him all he needed to know. He smiled down at her, and she smiled right back—and it was some smile!

‘Well done.’ He put a hand on her good shoulder. Tessa’s courage was amazing. ‘Brave girl. Don’t move yet. Take your time. There’s no rush.’

No rush…

Her smile faded and the girl looked about her in bewilderment, as if seeing where she was for the first time. Doris lay exhausted on the straw. Around the sow, the piglets were starting their first, tentative movements toward her teats.

Someone had to break the silence, and it was finally the police sergeant who did.

‘Now, young lady, suppose you tell us just who—’

The policeman’s voice was gruff, but Mike put a hand on his arm, shook his head at him and silenced him with a hard look.

‘Nope. Questions can wait, Ted. She’s done in. She’s Henry’s granddaughter. That’s all we need to know.’

‘You’re the girl who phoned from the US earlier this week?’ the policeman asked.

‘Yes. I…I’m Tessa Westcott. I flew in this afternoon, hired a car and came straight here.’

‘We don’t need to know any more,’ Mike said firmly, and Tessa’s eyes flew to his face.

What she saw there seemed to reassure her. Mike’s was a face of strength—strongly boned, with wide mouth, firm chin and lean, sculpted lines. There were traces of fatigue around his deep blue eyes, but his eyes sent strong messages of kindness and caring. He ran a hand up through his dark tousled hair, his eyes smiled at her and the impression of reassurance deepened.

‘If Henry Westcott’s your grandfather, how come we’ve never heard of you?’ The barking demand came from behind, and Mike wheeled in sudden anger. It was Jacob, who’d come back into the barn to find a shovel.

‘Jacob, lay off. Can’t you see we’ve scared the girl stupid? She’s hurt and she’s frightened and now’s not the time to start a full-scale interrogation.’

The radio on the police sergeant’s belt crackled into life. The sergeant lifted it and talked briefly and then he sighed.

‘I have to go,’ he told them as he replaced it. ‘The Murchisons’ cows have got out again and they’re all over the road near the river bend. If I don’t get down there soon, someone’s going to hit one.’ He looked closely at Tess. ‘I knew that Henry had a grandkid in the US, though, and you sure have his hair. We need to talk, but maybe…’

‘Not now,’ Mike told him. ‘Tessa, you’re past talking.’ He stared down at the girl before him, his quick mind figuring out what to do for the best here. ‘Sergeant, could you use the radio to ask the vet to come out here and see Doris? She’ll need antibiotics straight away and I don’t have a clue as to dosage. If Jacob stays here to help, he should be able to treat her. If Tessa doesn’t mind sharing my passenger seat with Strop, I’ll take her into town.’

Strop… Tess shook her head, confused. ‘I’m staying here,’ she said.

‘I don’t blame you.’ The policeman grinned. ‘You wait till you meet Strop. Sharing a passenger seat, indeed…’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Strop that a good vacuum cleaner can’t fix,’ Mike said with dignity. ‘Strop is my dog, Tess, and he’ll be very pleased to meet you.’ He hesitated as her look of confusion increased. This girl was in no fit state to be making decisions. She could barely hear him, and she certainly wasn’t fit to spend the night alone in a deserted farmhouse. ‘You’ll spend tonight in hospital and let me have a good look at that arm,’ he said firmly. ‘You can come back tomorrow, if you’re up to it.’

‘Doc, are you saying I have to stay here?’ Jacob demanded incredulously. ‘Are you saying you expect me to stay with the pig and wait for the vet?’

‘After scaring Miss Westcott stupid, it’s the least you can do,’ he said blandly. ‘And I know you, Jacob. You always do the least you can do. Besides, in the last year I’ve made five house calls to your place in the middle of the night for your sick kids, and every one of them could have waited until morning. Call this payment of a debt.’

Jacob shook his head, confused, and to her amazement Tess felt herself start to smile. She’d blinked at Mike’s curt orders, but she needn’t have worried. Jacob wasn’t the least bit offended. He thought Mike’s words through and then nodded, acknowledging their fairness.

‘We need to go now,’ Mike told Tess, only the faintest trace of humour behind his deep eyes telling Tess that he was also laughing gently. ‘I have a patient in labour myself. She was in the early stages when I left and she isn’t likely to deliver until morning, but she needs me all the same. OK, Tess?’

She looked as if she was operating in a daze. Nothing seemed to make sense. ‘I…’ She was forcing herself to focus. ‘I guess.’

‘That’s fine, then.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I’m sure Jacob and the vet will take the greatest care of Doris. Bill Rodick, the vet, is very competent, and Jacob’s a fine farmer. So… You can visit Doris tomorrow if she’s up to receiving callers. Now, though… Strop makes a great chaperon. That’s his principal mission in life—to obstruct as many things as possible. So do you trust Strop and me enough to let us drive you to town?’

Trust him?

Tess looked up, and she gave Mike a shaky smile—and then, before she could realise what he intended, she was swept up into a pair of strong, muscled arms and held close against his rough sweater. She gasped.

‘No. Please… I can walk..’

‘I dare say you can,’ he told her firmly. This girl had enough courage for anything. ‘But it’s dark outside. I know where my car is. I’m sure-footed as a cat and I don’t want you stumbling with that arm, especially if Strop’s abandoned his leather armchair and is back at his old trick of obstructing things. He’s the type of dog burglars fear most because they’re at risk of tripping over him in the dark. So shut up and be carried, Miss Westcott.’

Shut up and be carried…

It seemed there was nothing else to be done—so Tess shut up and was carried.

Mike carried the girl out to his car and tried to figure just what it was about her that made him feel strange.

Like he was on the edge of a precipice.

CHAPTER TWO

THE girl was quite lovely.

The clock on the wall said three o’clock, and Tessa’s hospital bed was bathed in afternoon sunlight. Mike had stuck his head around the door three or four times during the morning but each time Tess was still sleeping soundly. Now she opened her eyes as he entered, blinked twice and tried to smile.

Tess was in a single hospital ward, small and comfortably furnished, with windows looking out over a garden to rolling pasture beyond. It was cattle country, if she had the energy to look.

She didn’t. She stared across at Mike as if she was trying to work out just who he was.

This was a different Mike to the one she’d seen the night before. He’d told her he was a doctor and, after his treatment of her shoulder, Tess had had no grounds for disbelief. But now… In clean clothes, his black curls brushed until they were almost ordered, a white coat over his tailored trousers and a stethoscope swinging from his pocket, he was every inch the medico.

He still had the bedside manner she remembered from the night before. He stood at the door and smiled, and Tess was forced to smile back.

And then her gaze dropped in astonishment. A vast liver and white basset-hound was sauntering into her room beside him.

‘Awake at last?’ Mike’s lazy smile deepened as he strolled over to her bed, trying not to appreciate her loveliness too much as he did. The fact that the look of her almost took his breath away didn’t make for a placid doctor-patient relationship at all. ‘Welcome to the land of the living, Miss Westcott.’ His eyes were warm and twinkling. ‘How’s the shoulder?’

‘It seems fine.’ She kept on staring at Strop. ‘So there really was a dog,’ she said. ‘I thought he was part of my nightmare.’

‘What, Strop?’ Mike grinned. ‘He’s no nightmare. He’s solidly grounded in reality. So well grounded, in fact, that if he gets any closer to the ground we’ll have to fit him with wheels.’

‘You keep a dog in the hospital?’

‘He’s a hospital dog. He has qualifications in toilet training, symptom sharing and sympathy. Just try him.’

Strop looked up toward the bed. His vast, mournful eyes met Tessa’s, limpid in their melancholy. He gave a faint wag of his tail, but went straight back to being mournful.

‘Oh, I can see that.’ Tess chuckled. ‘He’d make any patient feel better immediately. Like they’re not the only ones feeling awful, and they couldn’t possibly be feeling as awful as that!’

Strop flopped himself wearily down on the bedside mat. Mike shoved him gently aside with his foot—the dog slid under the bed without a protest as if this was what happened all the time—and then Mike turned his attention back to his patient.

That wasn’t hard to do.

‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Strop steals my limelight all the time. Your arm, Miss Westcott. How is it?’

Tess wriggled it experimentally and winced. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s bruised but it’s fine. You must have put the humerus right back in or it’d hurt a lot more than this.’

‘The humerus…’ Mike’s face stilled. Last night he’d suspected she had obstetric knowledge, and now… ‘You’re a nurse, then?’

‘Nope.’ She smiled and it was like a blaze of sunshine. ‘Guess again.’

‘A physio? An osteopath?’

‘Try doctor.’

‘A doctor!’ He stared.

‘Females can be,’ she said, still smiling. Her voice was gently teasing. ‘In the States, medicine’s about fifty-fifty. Don’t tell me you still keep women in their place down under.’

‘No. But…’ Mike thought back to the crazy red stilettos. He stared down, and there they were, parked neatly side by side under the bed beside Strop. Crimson stilettos. And… A doctor?

‘And doctors are allowed to wear whatever they like,’ she told him, following his gaze and knowing what he was thinking in a flash. ‘There’s no need for us to put on black lace-ups when we graduate—so you can take that slapped-by-a-wet-fish look off your face, Dr Llewellyn. Right now.’

‘No. Right.’ He took a deep breath and managed a smile. ‘You’re a practising doctor, then?’

‘That’s right. I work in Emergency in LA.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, that’s put me on my mettle.’ He had himself back in hand now. Almost. ‘Doctors are the worst patients,’ he said, and tried a grin. ‘They’re almost as scary to treat as lawyers.’ He sat on the bed beside her and tried to ignore the weird feel of intimacy his action created. Hell, he sat on all his patients beds! ‘Your shoulder’s really OK?’

Tess moved it cautiously against the pillows and winced again.

‘It’s sore,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s definitely back in position. It’s just bruised.’

‘Can I see?’

‘Sure.’ There was no reason why he shouldn’t. There was no reason why she should blush either as he loosened her hospital gown and gently examined the shoulder and the bruising of her arm. He was just a doctor, after all…

His fingers were gentle and sure, and his eyes watched her face as he carefully tested the injured arm. ‘Do you have full movement?’

‘I can wiggle everything,’ she told him. ‘But I don’t want to.’

He smiled. ‘I don’t blame you. In a day or two it’ll look really spectacular.’ He ran his hands over the bruised arm, trying to block out his thoughts of Tessa the woman and turn them back to Tessa the patient. Usually he had no problem with differentiating work from personalities, but Tessa was something else! And her blush didn’t help at all.

‘You may not want to wiggle, but you’ll live,’ he pronounced finally. He pulled the sheet back to cover her and tucked her in.

It was a caring gesture that he made every day of his working life but suddenly the gesture was far, far different. Intimate. He stood looking down at the girl in the bed, struggling to maintain his lazy smile.

‘You might even feel like living after your sleep,’ he said finally, shoving away the strange sensations he was feeling and striving hard to sound normal. His smile deepened. ‘Fifteen hours’ straight sleep isn’t bad.’

‘I don’t think I’ve slept since I knew Grandpa was missing,’ she admitted. She grimaced. ‘And to sleep fifteen hours now, when I should be out searching for Grandpa…’

‘There’s no need for you to be out searching, Tess. The police and the locals are all looking as hard as they can, and they’re being thorough.’

‘I know the farm, though. I know the places he loved to go.’

‘But—’

‘But what?’ She glared up at him. ‘What? Why do you sound like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’re trying to scotch any ideas I might have of where he might be.’

He sighed. This was hard. Bloody hard. But, then, telling families the worst was something he’d had to face many times.

‘Tess, your grandfather has mitral valve disease and atrial fibrillation,’ he said softly. ‘He’s been missing for over four days now. It’s my guess… Well, that farm of his is as rugged as any around here. There’re plenty of places a body could lie for months and not be found. Your grandfather is eighty-three years old. If he went out and had a heart attack…well, my guess is that’s exactly what’s happened. His truck’s still at the house. He had his goats tethered and Doris due to deliver. If he was going away, he’d have organised people to care for them.’

‘I know that,’ Tess said. She stared up, and any trace of her gorgeous smile had completely disappeared. Her distress was obvious. ‘But… I didn’t know he had heart disease.’

‘Have you been in contact with him recently?’ he asked. ‘I was under the impression he had no contact with his family.’

‘He and my dad didn’t get along,’ she said bleakly. She was obviously still taking the heart disease bit on board and was thinking it through as she talked. She turned and stared out the window, fighting to get her face back in order, and it was as if she was talking to herself. ‘Dad and Grandpa fought. Dad went to the States when he was twenty. He met my mom there and he stayed. He died when I was sixteen, without ever coming back here.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No. Don’t be. My family history has nothing to do with you.’ She sighed again and shrugged, turning back to face him. ‘Dad was always against me coming back, but he was pig-headed and…well, he was stubborn enough to make me wonder whether the disagreement had all been one way. So when Dad died…Mom said I should know my background so she sent me out to stay. I spent a summer vacation here with Grandpa. I stayed here for three months, just after high school.’

Three months. When Tess was sixteen…

He must have been away at medical school then, he thought. Otherwise he’d surely remember this girl.

‘Since then we’ve kept in touch,’ Tess said. ‘I write often, so does he, and now I ring him every Saturday. We seem to be getting closer the older he’s getting. It’s like he’s finally acknowledging he needs family. Anyway, when I didn’t get an answer this week, no matter how many times I rang, I contacted the police and was told he was missing. So I came.’

So she came. She came halfway across the world to check on her grandfather. That was some commitment.

‘But…I didn’t know he had heart disease,’ she said slowly. ‘You would have thought he’d tell me. How bad is it?’

‘I guess he hasn’t wanted to worry you. He’s been taking digoxin and is fairly much under control, but if he was over-exerting himself with no tablets, and if he got too far away from the house…’ He hesitated but there was no way to gloss over the truth or make it any easier. ‘His pulse rate’s been up around a hundred and twenty or so, and without digoxin or even aspirin…’

He didn’t continue. He didn’t need to.

Tessa’s heart wrenched within her, and he saw the pain. His hand came up to touch her lightly on her cheek.

‘Don’t, Tess,’ he said softly. ‘I’m hoping that your grandfather’s heart just quietly gave out and the end was fast. That’s what he would have wanted, to die in the bush he loved.’

‘Yes, but…’

But… But they didn’t know. They didn’t know he had died quickly. The alternative was unspoken between them—the thought of the old man lying helpless in the bush and dying a slow and lingering death.

‘Sergeant Morris and a heap of the locals have scoured the farm,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been out there, too. We’ve been everywhere we can think of and we’ve found nothing. We’ve called, Tess. If your grandfather was alive then he could have called back. He could be somewhere we’ve overlooked, but surely he’d be within earshot.’

‘Not if he’s had a stroke. Not if he can’t make his voice work.’ Her voice broke off and she choked in distress. ‘Mike, I need to look. I need to search myself. There are places… One special place…’

‘Yeah? Is this somewhere the police would have found?’

She shook her head. ‘I thought of it all the way here. Grandpa showed it to me when I was here as a teenager, and he talked as if it was a really special privilege for me to know about it. It was his secret. It’s a cave…’

‘In the hills?’

‘Yes. I remember it as being just past the boundary of the farm, where the hills start turning rugged. I can’t remember much more. In fact, I can’t even remember which direction it was. There was no way I could tell the police about it on the phone. And when I got to the farm last night I thought how stupid it was to come all this way on a hunch. Things have changed and my memory’s playing tricks on me. Maybe…maybe I can never find it or maybe it’s accessible now and someone’s already looked. But that’s why I came. I want to check. Just as my own contribution to the search.’

She sighed and turned to stare sadly out the window. ‘I know my dad and Grandpa disagreed, but Grandpa sort of saw things in the same way I do.’ Then she managed a fleeting grin as she turned back to face him. ‘Me and my dad fought, too.’

‘Don’t tell me. Your dad had red hair as well?’

‘And a temper to match. My dad could say some pretty unforgivable things. And Grandpa was…is…a redhead, too.’

‘I see.’ But he didn’t see at all. He stared down at this amazing woman in confusion. She’d come from the other side of the world to search for a grandfather who was probably dead. She had a good job in the States. Had it been OK—just to walk away?

‘Hey, my mom’s behind me in this,’ Tess said quickly. ‘She always felt bad about my dad never coming home. She’s paid half my airfare.’

‘Bully for your mom.’ He hesitated, thinking things through, and he raked his fingers thought his thick hair in thought. Tess had come so far, and she needed to conduct her own personal search, but he hated the thought of her scouring that bushland alone. The locals reckoned they’d searched every inch of the farm. Tess would be on her own now.

For her to be alone was unthinkable! And even if she found her grandfather alone…well, that was more unthinkable.

Finally he nodded, flicking through his mental diary at speed. OK. He and Strop could do it.

‘Tess, I need to do a couple of hours’ work right now,’ he told her. ‘Have a meal and rest for a bit. Ted’s brought your car in. It’s parked in the hospital car park and your gear’s being brought inside as soon as the orderly has a spare minute. So get yourself into some sensible clothes.’ He eyed the stilettoes with caution. ‘And some sensible shoes. I’ll be back in two hours, and after that I’ll come out to the farm with you.’

‘You don’t have to come with me,’ she started, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.

He had work piled a mountain high in front of him, and he was dead tired—the labour he’d looked after last night had been long and difficult and he’d managed all of two hours’ sleep—but the thought of Tess searching by herself for what he feared she’d find was unbearable.

‘I want to, Tess,’ he told her. ‘So let me.’

He clicked his fingers. Strop heaved one end up after the other and lumbered to his side, and they left.

Which was just as well. If he’d stayed in that room for one minute longer, with that look on her face—half scared, half forlorn and as courageous as hell—he would have gathered her in his arms and hugged her.

And where was the professional detachment in that?

‘I should have refused his offer of help,’ Tess told Bill Fetson two minutes later. The hospital’s charge nurse had come to check on her and had found her pacing in front of the window. ‘Mike was up half the night with me and Doris, and didn’t he say he had a baby to deliver after he brought me in? What’s he doing, offering to spend hours tonight searching for someone he’s sure is dead?’

‘He cares about your grandfather.’

‘I guess…’

Her voice sounded totally confused, Bill thought, as though there was something about Mike she didn’t understand in the least. Well, maybe that was understandable. Mike was a fabulous-looking doctor, with a smile that could turn any girl’s head, a dog that was just plain crazy and a presence that played havoc with Bill’s nursing staff.

But this girl was different. Bill watched the emotion playing over her face and strange ideas started forming in the back of his mind. Well, well, well…

‘Would you like a tour of the hospital?’ he asked mildly—innocently. He was busy, but something told him it might be important to get to know this girl…

Tess showered and dressed, then explored the little hospital. It had fifteen beds, eight of them nursing beds and seven acute. It was a tiny bush nursing hospital, efficient, scrupulously clean and obviously beautifully run. It was almost new, and the man who introduced himself as Charge Nurse showed Tess around with pleasure.

‘It’s all thanks to Dr Mike,’ Bill Fetson said with obvious pride, as he showed Tess though a tiny operating theatre with facilities that her made blink. These facilities would be more in place in a big city teaching hospital. ‘Mike fought the politicians every legal way—and a few illegal too, I’ll bet—to get this place, and he practically bullied the community into fundraising. Now we have this hospital, though, well, there’s no way we’re losing it. The valley’s never had a medical service like this.’

‘How long’s he been here?’ Tess asked.

‘Three years, but in a sense he’s been here much longer. Mike’s a valley kid and he started fighting for this before he even finished his medical training.’

‘And…’ There were so many things she didn’t understand here. ‘He’s always had Strop?’

Bill grinned. ‘Strop was an accident. Mike drives an Aston Martin—the sleekest car in the valley. The salesman brought it up here for a test drive and drove it too fast, putting it through its paces. Strop was lumbering across a road on a blind bend and the salesman couldn’t stop. Mike felt dreadful, and then the woman who owned him said he was a stupid dog anyway and seeing Mike had hit him then Mike could put him down. As you know, the Aston Martin only has two seats. The salesman drove to the vet’s with Mike carrying Strop, and by the time they reached the vet’s there was no way he was being put down. So in one afternoon Mike got the sleekest car and the dopiest dog in Christendom.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No way. And, believe it or not, he is a great dog.’ Bill’s grin deepened. ‘The patients love him and all the valley knows now that if Mike pays a house call then so does Strop.’ He paused, and his smile faded. ‘But what about you? I gather you’re practically a valley girl yourself. I’m not local myself, but Mike says you’re Henry Westcott’s granddaughter. And he also says you’re a doctor…’

His eyes asked all sorts of questions, but he didn’t voice them. Not yet.

Finally, his tour at an end, Bill showed her into a gleaming little kitchen, introduced her to Mrs Thompson, the hospital cook, and left her to be fed. A meal was no trouble, Tess was assured. No trouble at all.

She certainly needed it. Tess ate Mrs Thompson’s meat pie with potato chips and lashings of salad. She washed everything down with two huge tumblers of milk and she hardly felt the meal touch sides. Thinking back, she couldn’t remember when she’d last had a meal. Maybe she’d fiddled with something on the plane, but how long ago was that? Too long, her stomach said.

Replete for the moment, Tess tentatively broached the idea of she and Mike taking food out to the farm with them. With the size of this hospital, a sole doctor must be run off his legs, and she was starting to feel really guilty about dragging him away.

She needn’t have worried about the reaction of the cook. Mrs Thompson practically beamed.

‘That’s a really good idea,’ the middle-aged lady told her, hauling a picnic basket out of a top cupboard. ‘Doc Llewellyn hardly stops to eat, and he’ll miss dinner entirely if you don’t bully him into it. Either that or he’ll eat six pieces of toast and three eggs at midnight, which is his usual way. No, dear. I’ll pack you a meal fit to feed six of you, including dog food for that misbegotten hound of his, if you promise to see he eats it.’

‘He works too hard?’ Tess asked cautiously, and the woman nodded with vigour.

‘Driven—that’s what our Dr Mike is,’ she said. ‘There’s demons driving him, that one. He’ll end up in an early grave, mark my words.’ Then her look softened. ‘But you’ve more to be worrying over than our Dr Mike. Oh, child, I’m so sorry about your grandfather. I just hope…’ She sniffed vigorously. ‘I just hope the end was quick!’

‘Thank you,’ Tess said weakly. She didn’t know what else to say.

While her picnic was being prepared, she retreated to her bedroom. She needed the privacy. The hospital was abuzz with who she was, and every nurse and patient in the place was burning with the need to know more. Like…did she have any ideas where her grandpa was?

And there was so little she could tell them.

Mike collected her an hour later.

He walked into her room and stopped in stunned amazement at the transformation. He’d seen Tessa bloody and exhausted and in pain. He hadn’t see her like this.

Tess was certainly a beauty in anyone’s book. He’d thought so last night and he’d thought it when he’d seen her asleep in her hospital gown. In fact, he thought it every time he looked at her.

She wasn’t a classical beauty, but she was a beauty none the less. She was slim and neat and her legs stretched on for ever. In her figure-hugging jeans, she seemed all legs.

Or all eyes, depending on which end you looked at, he thought. Tessa’s face had the pale, creamy complexion of a redhead and she’d come straight from the end of a United States winter. There was a faint spread of faded freckles over her nose—echoes of last summer. Tessa’s mouth was rosebud-shaped, her nose pertly snub and her face almost all eyes, the greenness framed by her red-gold hair.

She was thin. Well, maybe not too thin, he thought to himself. She was just…just well packaged. She was thin where it counted and not thin where it counted more! In her figure-hugging jeans and close-cut T-shirt, her figure was revealed to perfection. She had an old windcheater draped around her waist, and the trainers on her feet were nearly as old as the clothes he’d changed into, but the age and the casualness of her clothes didn’t detract from her beauty one bit.

It was all he could do not to whistle.

He didn’t, though. He paused for one millisecond—and then caught himself, smiled and picked up the picnic basket.

‘Provisions, Dr Westcott? Hasn’t the hospital fed you?’

‘Mrs Thompson has personally insisted I eat enough to feed a small army,’ she assured him. ‘But I wouldn’t be the least surprised if I feel the need to eat again quite soon. Even my toes seem hollow.’

He grinned. ‘No anorexia, then? Excellent. I like a girl with a healthy appetite.’

‘Do you want a cure for anorexia?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve just invented it. Put a girl on a plane for thirty-six hours with airline food for company and fear in her stomach, and then toss her among pregnant pigs and dislocate her shoulder. Then put her to sleep for fifteen hours and—hey, presto—you’ve a girl with a healthy appetite. Magic, Dr Llewellyn! I think I’ll write it up as a new wonder treatment for one of our prestigious medical journals.’

‘You’ll make your name as a medical whizkid,’ he told her.

‘I know,’ she agreed, and fluttered her eyelids in assumed modesty.

Whew! Good grief! He smiled at her, and Tess chuckled—and when Tess Westcott smiled, his body started to heat from his trainers up.

‘OK, then, Tess,’ he told her finally, and only a faint hesitation under his words hinted at what he was feeling. ‘You’re fed and rested. Are you ready to face the farm?’

Tess nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

‘OK. Strop’s waiting in the car. Let’s go.’

She set her face, and Mike saw grimness replace the laughter behind her eyes. Hell, she had courage. She knew what could lie ahead of them.

This was some woman!

And suddenly he wasn’t the least sure he was ready to spend any time with her. There was something deep inside that was telling him he should run a mile.

But there was something else that was telling him to stay.

The farm was dreadful. Even Strop, having made the first half of the trip straddling the gearstick and the second half where he really wanted to be—sitting high on Tessa’s lap with his ears flapping out the window—seemed depressed by the place. His mournful ears flopped lower and his eyes welled with moisture. Good grief, you just had to look at the dog and you’d burst into tears! He lumbered off to sniff in the bracken and Tess was pleased to see him go. She was depressed enough without him.

They made a courtesy call on Doris first. She was too preoccupied with her eight babies to notice human visitors. Jacob had done his job well. Mike had rung him early this morning and asked him to make sure the sow was fed and watered, and there was nothing more she needed. Now she had everything she could want, except maybe a spare set of teats.

After paying their social call on Doris, they tackled the house.

There was nothing here to help them—no clues as to where Henry could be. The place was deserted, but it still held the signs of an occupant who hadn’t intended to leave. There was milk curdling in the refrigerator. Someone had taken a heap of sausages from the freezer and left them by the stove to defrost. That had been four or five days ago and they were starting to stink.

They cleared up in silence and Mike thought he was glad he hadn’t let Tess face this alone. It was only bad sausages, but there were so many dreadful thoughts crowding in, and the smell of rotting meat didn’t help one bit.

‘Where do we search?’ he asked, as they came outside again, and she shook her head.

‘I don’t know. I can’t think. I’m trying to remember. It was ten years ago. I… It’s like going back in time. I’ve lost my bearings.’

‘Let’s eat, then,’ he told her gently, watching her distress with concern. It was early for dinner but they needed to get some fresh air into their lungs after the dreary house, and Tess needed time to get her emotions under control before they tackled the walk, even if she remembered where to go…

Afterwards—after they’d searched—they might not feel like eating at all.

They spread their picnic under a massive gum tree beside the shed. Tess was so depressed she was close to tears. Even Mike’s comforting presence, and the way Strop cheered up at the sight of sandwiches, couldn’t help this deadening misery.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky and she didn’t know where to start, what to do. She was aware that Mike was letting her decide, carefully holding back from what he saw as her domain, and she was grateful that at least she didn’t have to concentrate on small talk. It made for a cheerless silence, though.

But it also made for thinking. She was hardly hungry after her meal two hours before. She lay on the picnic rug and watched Mike demolish the picnic—and thought back to when she was sixteen years old and she and her Grandpa had roamed this farm together.

And then…

He was watching her and Mike saw the instant when remembrance hit. The feeling that this place was familiar.

‘I remember we walked down by the creek,’ she said softly. ‘I know… So that’s east. If I can start…’ She pushed herself up to stand and gaze out to the distant hills.

‘Mike, this is probably useless,’ she said slowly. ‘But… I think I might remember the way. It’s a long hike.’

‘A hike?’ He poured coffee from a Thermos and handed her a mug. ‘That’s fine by me. This picnic idea was great, but we need a hike now to walk it off, and Strop definitely needs exercise. That’s four sandwiches you fed him. Do you remember the way entirely?’

‘No.’ She shook her head and took a couple of sips of coffee while her eyes still roamed the hills. Her mind was working at a thousand miles an hour, dredging up memories of the past. ‘I shouldn’t ask you…’

‘Ask anything. I want to help—remember?’ he told her. ‘I don’t like not knowing your grandfather’s fate almost as much as you don’t.’ He placed his coffee-mug aside and stood up beside her. ‘I’ve just been hoping if I shut up long enough you might think of something useful to do.’

‘I don’t know whether I have.’

‘But?’

She finished her coffee before she replied. Mike didn’t push. ‘There’s all the time in the world,’ he told her.

‘That’s not true.’

‘This is important, Tess,’ he said softly. ‘There might be things that need doing, but it’s your grandpa’s life at stake here. Take all the time you need.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said softly. ‘Of all the doctors I know, you’re not like…’ She shook her head, confused, but Mike didn’t say more. He knelt and stroked Strop and waited—and finally remembrance came.

‘It’s coming back,’ she whispered. She stared out at the surrounding countryside. It had always been a tussle to keep this land cleared. The little farm had been neglected for the last few years and the bushland was reclaiming its own. There were only Henry’s six goats to keep it down.

‘It was definitely east of here,’ she said surely. ‘I’m sure I remember. But the country’s rough.’

‘I’ve bought a backpack,’ he told her, bending to throw the picnic things back in the basket. ‘It’s in the car.’

‘But… We don’t need provisions. It should only take an hour.’

‘I’m taking medical equipment,’ he said curtly. ‘Just in case…’

‘But…you still think he’s dead?’

‘If he was somewhere safe and dry and then collapsed…’ He shook his head. ‘Who knows? But if there is such a place then I guess there might be a chance. I just wish to hell I’d been able to contact you when this whole mess happened. If I’d known…’

Tess looked curiously up at him. ‘You really care,’ she said softly—wondering. ‘Mike, Grandpa’s your patient but he’s an old man with nothing whatever to do with you except in a professional capacity. You must have two or three thousand patients on your books, yet you care enough to come out and untether Grandpa’s goats and check on his pig at midnight. You care enough to rescue a weird and ridiculous dog from death—and you care enough to come with me now.’

‘Yeah, well…’ He gave a shrug, feeling embarrassed, and Tess stared some more.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

‘No. If I’d contacted you, you might have been able to tell me…’

‘I couldn’t have described where the cave was, even if I’d thought of it,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know for sure that I can find it now. But I hope…’

She paused and he stood and took her hand strongly in his, pulling her over to stand beside him. His arm came around her waist in a gesture of reassurance and comfort.

‘Then let’s do that, Tess,’ he said gravely. ‘Let’s hope.’

The cave was further away than she remembered, and by the time they found it the last of the light was fading behind the hills. The sunset had been spectacular, and there was still a fading glow around the sky.

It was instinct rather than knowledge that led her to the cave. She couldn’t have described the route if she’d tried. Instead, Mike watched as she simply let her mind drift back to her last summer’s afternoon with her grandfather, set her eyes on the hills and let her feet rewalk the route they’d taken. He didn’t say a word, sensing her need to let her instincts take over.

And her instincts didn’t fail her.

Resting high in the hills in dense bushland, where a small creek trickled down over vast boulders, two massive rocks stood sentinel to a third. The rear rock looked as if it had been almost blasted into the cliff face—a part of a rock wall which was sheer and impregnable. It was only when you slipped behind the front two rocks, then walked around a small outcrop to the side, that a small opening behind the rear rock could be seen. It was just big enough for a man to fit.

Tess found it wordlessly, her face reflecting hope and dread. What if her grandfather wasn’t here?

And what if he was?

Strop was sniffing the entrance, his floppy ears pricked as much as it was possible for basset ears ever to prick. Mike looked down at his dog and his face tightened. He placed a hand on Tessa’s shoulder and gently propelled her forward. ‘It won’t get better for the waiting,’ he told her softly. ‘Come on, Tess. I think your grandfather might be here—and I’m right beside you.’

And thank God he was. There was no way he wanted Tess to face this on her own. He badly wanted to tell her to stay back now—let him find whatever was inside—but he knew she’d have none of that, so he took her hand and Tess let hers lie in his as he led her forward. She had brought Mike here, but now she was clearly grateful to let him be in charge. She squeezed through the gap as his hand pulled her on, and he could feel the tension in her fingers.

Inside, the cave was so big it might almost have been the vaulting roof of a cathedral. There was a crevice above that, open to the evening sky, and the rosy hue of sunset shimmered around the smooth rock walls and lit the cavern in a dim and misty haze.

Tess didn’t waste time admiring the beauty. At the rear of the cave there was a chamber, dry and filled with sand, closed to the weather but just open enough to the light so as not to be frightening. It was a comfortable place for a wounded thing to lie and tend its wounds.

Courage was no longer an issue. She dropped Mike’s hand and stumbled quickly across the rough cave floor to reach the inner entrance, with Strop and Mike left to follow.

And inside she found her grandfather.

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