Читать книгу Nanny Makes Three - Joan Kilby - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

MELISSA CUMMINGS BUZZED down Balderdash Road in her apple-green Volkswagen Beetle, flipping between stations in search of country music. A little Keith Urban would be nice, or Missy Higgins. All she could find were ads and news.

…fine and warm this autumn afternoon in Melbourne…

…woman and two children missing from their Ballarat home…

…two for one at Carpet Emporium…

Dappled light filtered through the towering gum trees that crowded the narrow road. Melissa rounded a bend and shrieked as a figure darted in front of the car. She swerved, barely missing a boy of about eight years old. She had a fleeting glimpse of carrot-red hair and a blue T-shirt before the kid, his small limbs churning, dived into the thick undergrowth.

Melissa brought the car to a skidding halt, her heart racing.

Where had the boy gone? Was he hurt?

In the rearview mirror she saw a toy fire engine lying on its side across the center line.

Slowly she reversed, winding down the window. “Hello, little boy? Are you all right?”

The hot afternoon was heavy with the throb of cicadas and the resinous scent of eucalyptus. A magpie lifted his black-and-white head and sent forth a liquid warble. Melissa gripped the wheel with one hand and worried at a hangnail on the other with her teeth. Had she actually hit the boy? She couldn’t remember feeling any impact. But if he wasn’t hurt, why hadn’t he come out of the bushes? He could be lying in there, unable to move. What if he needed a doctor?

She turned off the engine and climbed out of the car.

Picking up the fire engine, she wobbled into the bush in her high heels. “Helloo,” she sang out. “I’m coming.”

Dear God, please don’t let him be dead.

The dry grass brushed against her bare legs and left tiny seeds caught on the lace hem of her skirt. She forced herself to move steadily through the thick undergrowth. A trickle of perspiration dripped down her back beneath the sleeveless top. She crept to one side of a shrub and pulled back the leafy branches. A small boy, dirty and disheveled, peered up at her, clearly terrified.

“Thank goodness you’re alive.” Melissa held out his toy. “Are you hurt?”

The child snatched it from her hand and ran, only to stumble on a fallen limb hidden in the grass. He fell with a cry and rolled to one side, clutching his leg. Blood streamed from a gash on his shin.

At the sight of the blood, spots swam in front of Melissa’s eyes. She was going to faint. Deep breath in, deep breath out. First—stop the bleeding. She couldn’t even think until the boy’s leg was bandaged.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as much to reassure herself as him. “I’ve got a first-aid kit in my car.”

“Mum! Where are you?” The boy struggled to his feet, ignoring the blood still running down his leg. His ankle buckled under him.

“Josh!” A petite blond woman popped out from behind a bush a few yards away and pushed through the tall grass. She had a leather purse slung over her shoulder, and in her other hand she carried a plastic grocery bag. Her taupe linen top and khaki capri pants were smudged with dirt, and the scratches on her tanned calves were beaded with blood. When she reached the boy she threw her arms around him.

“Mummy!” A little girl of about six, with strawberry-blond hair, emerged from behind a large brushbox tree and waded through the grass to clutch at her mother’s legs. Her bare arm below the sleeve of her pink T-shirt sported a cluster of dark purple bruises, and there was another dark bruise across her cheekbone and eye.

“Did you fall and hurt yourself, too?” Melissa started to reach out, but the girl shrank back. “There’s a petrol station a few kilometers back. I could get some ice for that eye.”

“Callie’s fine.” The woman curled a hand protectively around her daughter’s shoulder as she urged the children back the way she’d come. “Josh’ll be fine, too.” The boy limped on his sprained ankle and the girl struggled to keep up, but neither made a peep.

Melissa frowned, confused by their reluctance to accept help. “His wound could get worse if you leave it,” she insisted, picking her way among fallen logs and scrubby weeds after them. “Infection, tetanus, gangrene…you can’t be too careful. You really should go to the hospital. I’d be happy to take you.”

“Mum?” The boy stopped and leaned on his mother. His voice quavered and his chin wobbled as he fought back tears. “I could use a Band-Aid.”

“Oh, Josh, darling.” She hugged him tightly. “Of course you can have a Band-Aid.” She turned to Melissa with a well-bred graciousness that not even soiled clothing could diminish. “Thank you for your kind offer of first aid, but no hospital, please.”

“Okay,” Melissa said carefully. What the heck was going on here? “I’m Melissa, by the way. What’s your name?”

The woman hesitated, her hazel eyes searching Melissa’s face. Finally she said, “I’m Diane. We’ll come back out to the road.”

At the car, Melissa grasped her large metal first-aid kit by its handles and heaved it out of her trunk. Then she carried it to Josh, who was sitting on a log in the shade of a gum tree.

Diane helped her lower the box to the ground. “This is the biggest first-aid kit I’ve ever seen.”

“I like to be prepared.” Melissa knelt before it and handed out gauze, butterfly adhesives, a tensor bandage, antiseptic ointment, scissors and tape. Her family thought she was a hypochondriac, but in her opinion one couldn’t do too much when it came to health and safety.

“Are you a nurse, too?” Josh asked. Tears had dried into tracks down his freckled cheeks.

“Me? No way! I’m petrified at the sight of blood.” Melissa glanced at Diane. “Are you a nurse?”

“I haven’t practiced since before Josh was born, but, yes, I’m a registered nurse.”

“Thank goodness! You can dress his wound.” Melissa’s stomach was still churning at the sight of Josh’s torn flesh. Bits of grass and dirt were caught in the sticky blood oozing from the deep gash.

“Mummy, I’m hurt, too.” Callie whimpered and thrust out her arm. In addition to the bruises, she had a fresh scrape on her elbow. “I want you to nurse me!”

“In a minute, darling,” Diane said. “As soon as I get Josh patched up.”

“I can manage your elbow,” Melissa said to Callie, who reluctantly came forward in response to her mother’s encouraging nod. “I’ve got Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids. Do you want Pooh Bear or Tigger?”

Melissa took care of Callie’s scrape, then pulled the girl onto her lap while Diane swabbed the debris out of Josh’s wound, dabbed on the antiseptic and pulled the gaping edges together with butterfly adhesives. Melissa didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help admiring the capable, efficient way she worked, covering the cleaned wound and taping a gauze pad into place. Finally Diane wound a tensor bandage around Josh’s sprained ankle in a precise herringbone pattern and clamped the end with a metal clip. Brushing the tears from her son’s eyes, she said, “You’re a brave boy.”

Melissa helped Callie to her feet and started repacking the first-aid kit. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you walking way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Diane gathered up the scraps of wrapping from the bandages, not meeting her gaze. “We…we walked into Tipperary Springs and now we’re on our way back to…the farm where we’re staying.”

“Oh, so you’re here on holiday,” Melissa said. “My sister, Ally, manages a cottage-rental agency in Tipperary Springs. Maybe you met her—brown hair, colorful cardigans, quirky brooches?” Diane looked baffled and Melissa decided she must have gone to another agency. “You’ll love this area. There’s hiking, fishing, hot-air ballooning, the mineral springs….”

She trailed off, frowning, as the oddness of their situation sunk in. The town was five kilometers away, a long distance on a road with no footpath. “Did your car break down? Do you want to use my mobile phone?”

“We came by bus.” Once again Diane slung her purse over her arm, hefted her bag of groceries, then took a child by each hand. Looking cautiously both ways, she started walking off.

Melissa followed. “Buses don’t run along this road.”

“I told you, we walked from Tipperary Springs.”

The woman looked well-off; it didn’t make sense that they’d taken a bus to town and walked from there. And now Josh’s ankle was sprained and Callie was drooping like a wilted flower.

“Hop in the car. I’ll give you a lift to where you’re staying.” Diane hesitated and Melissa added, “Your son’s leg could start bleeding again. And you know he shouldn’t walk on a sprain.”

“I don’t mind if my leg bleeds,” Josh said bravely.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Diane squeezed his shoulder. “All right,” she said to Melissa. “Thank you.”

When they’d loaded the kids in the rear and Diane had taken the passenger seat, Melissa pulled back onto the road. Soon the thick stands of gum trees gave way to small farms nestled among rolling green hills. Diane stared out her window, absently fingering a single strand of cultured pearls.

“Where are you from?” Melissa asked, trying to make conversation.

“Ballarat.” Callie piped up from the backseat.

“Shut up, stupid!” Josh elbowed his sister.

“Mummy!” Callie howled.

“Stop, you two,” Diane said tensely.

“You haven’t come far for your holiday,” Melissa observed. Ballarat was barely a half-hour drive away.

“I-It was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” Diane replied.

Why would a well-dressed woman with two young children travel a short distance by bus to a small town, then walk out into the country? “This is none of my business, but—”

“Slow down! Please,” Diane added, as they passed a single-story cream brick house set back from the road. “Do you know Constance Derwent?” She craned her neck to look back at the property.

“No, I don’t,” Melissa said, slowing to a crawl. An apple orchard ran along the boundary with the pig farm next door. A sign out front advertised free-range eggs for sale. “Is that her house?”

“Yes, although she wasn’t home last time we checked. Stop here, please.” Diane pointed, not to Constance’s driveway, but to a rutted dirt track belonging to the next farm. “We’ll get out here.”

Melissa stopped, scanning the cluster of farm buildings on top of the hill. There was a barn, a water tank, a machine shed and an old bluestone cottage. A newer farmhouse on the far side of the yard was reached by a long gravel driveway that wound around a pond shaded by a weeping willow.

Black pigs with pink bands across their shoulders grazed in the sloping green field, some clustered next to small corrugated-iron shelters. Isolated in a small paddock of his own, a boar stood on top of a dirt mound. Melissa suppressed a shudder.

“I think this lane is for tractors,” she said. “The driveway is farther along. See, there’s the mailbox and a sign, Finch Farm.”

“This is the lane I want,” Diane insisted as she gathered up the handles of the grocery bag. “Don’t bother driving in. We can walk from here.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Ignoring her protests, Melissa turned off the paved road and into the lane, dropping down a gear to climb the hill. Her long feather-and-bead earrings swayed against her bare shoulders as the Volkswagen jolted along the rutted track. “Have they renovated the cottage for holiday makers? If you don’t have a hot tub, make sure you go to the mineral baths in Tipperary Springs. You can take it from me, the mud bath is wonderful.”

This enthusiastic recommendation was met with silence. Melissa glanced in the rearview mirror and noted Josh and Callie’s solemn faces streaked with grime across the foreheads and around the chins, as if they’d already had a mud bath.

Diane was nervously scanning the paddocks and the farmyard. A utility truck was parked next to the barn, and now that they were closer, a Volvo sedan was visible at the side of the house. “The farmer’s back,” she muttered.

Melissa parked in front of the cottage of rough-hewn, blue-gray stones. The curtains were tightly closed even though it was broad daylight. Weeds flourished around the foundations and the building had an air of neglect. “You’d think they’d fix the place up better if they’re renting it out.”

“It’s fine,” Diane said. “Quick, children, get inside.” She climbed from the car, clutching her bag of groceries, as the kids scrambled out of the backseat. Josh led the way, liweekoldmping, and tugging on his sister’s hand as he hurried her toward the cottage.

“I’m sure it looks better on the inside,” Melissa said dubiously, getting out of the car.

At the sound of voices inside the barn, Diane quickened her pace to catch up to the children. She put her shoulder to the heavy door, gave a shove and pushed the children inside.

“Thank you so much,” she said to Melissa from the doorstep, in a rush of polished vowels. “You’ve been extremely kind.”

Melissa put a hand on the door before Diane could close it. The air inside smelled dank and musty. Chilly. “Wait a minute. Who are you? Why are you so nervous?”

“You have to go.” Perspiration beaded Diane’s top lip and the posh accent sounded strained. “Please, don’t tell anyone we’re here. I mean, no one.”

Melissa’s jaw dropped. Before she could recover, Diane shut the door.

“Hey!” a man called. “What are you doing?”

Melissa whirled around to see the farmer striding toward her. He was only about ten yards away, startlingly close. He was tall and tanned, with a lean muscular build and wide shoulders. His black hair gleamed in the sun and his red plaid shirt and rough black work pants accentuated both his size and striking coloring. A black-and-white dog trotted at his heels.

Melissa pressed her palms against the rough wood of the door at her back as she tried to process what was happening. Why would Diane and her children be hiding from this man? Wasn’t she a paying guest?

The farmer seemed to be sizing Melissa up with his dark brown eyes, taking her apart and putting her back together. Her hands were damp. She pushed off from the door and hurried forward to prevent him from getting too close to the cottage. She suspected this man wouldn’t appreciate being lied to.

And yet she was going to. With luck, he would never find out.