Читать книгу Christmas Where She Belongs - Meredith Webber, Meredith Webber - Страница 8

ASKING for trouble, that’s what it was, encouraging her to visit Carnock. But who’d have expected Hester’s great-niece to look the way she did? Obviously as sensible and capable as Hester had been, yet somehow vulnerable at the same time.

On the other hand, it was only fair she see the house before she made any decision, Mac reminded himself.

Her attention was focussed on Mike at the moment, so he could study her without making it too obvious. Not that he hadn’t been studying her ever since they’d met, trying to analyse the unexpected physical bond he’d felt from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Maybe there was a look of Hester about her, but if there was he couldn’t see it. And as far as women were concerned, his preference was for blondes, and longhaired blondes at that. This woman with her gamine looks and hair like a pixie’s cap—she just wasn’t his type.

‘You said “fly back” with you. You have a plane?’

She’d looked up and caught him staring at her, embarrassing him enough to launch him into speech.

‘Cessna 172, handy little plane, four seater, has a range of about a thousand k …’ He stopped and smiled at her. ‘You don’t really want to know all that, do you? But, yes, I have a plane.’

‘I’ve never flown,’ she said, the vulnerable part of her looks coming to the fore.

‘Never flown in a small plane?’

Well, a lot of people hadn’t!

‘Not flown at all,’ she said. ‘Early on I didn’t have the money for expensive holidays and now—I don’t know, I guess I just haven’t got around to planning one.’

Instinct told him there was more to that story but he wouldn’t pursue it now.

‘You’ll enjoy it. It’s only a couple of hours’ flight, three at the most. The weather’s great, and we go over pretty country—the Great Dividing Range and the Downs. It will be all green and gold at the moment with either new crops planted or the last of the sunflowers. Now to plans. I want to call in and say hello to my parents while I’m in town. How long will you take to pack? How about I collect you at one?’

She was shaking her head, a stunned look on her face, then her lips tightened and she gave a final head shake.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but how do I even know you’re who you say you are? I mean, I know it’s highly unlikely someone would choose me to abduct because I’m worth nothing as a hostage. But I’ve known you, what, a couple of hours at most? And now you expect me to hop in a small plane with you and fly off to a place I’ve barely heard of.’

‘Ah, but you had heard of it, that’s the point. I suspect that’s why you let me in, when everything about you tells me you’re a very cautious person. I don’t blame you for feeling apprehensive. Look …’ He fished in his pocket for his wallet and, pulling it out, produced a rather squashed card. ‘The hospital number is there—phone the hospital and ask any questions you need to ask. Being Sunday, Annabelle Crane, our—’

‘Annabelle Crane—beautiful blonde with a sexy laugh and a never-ending stream of terrible jokes?’ Clancy spoke in what she hoped was a light-hearted voice, although the mention of Annabelle’s name had started heart palpitations.

Bad heart palpitations!

‘You know Annabelle?’

Fighting an urge to press her hand to her chest, Clancy said carefully, ‘I trained with her, but I lost touch after she married. You said she’s Annabelle Crane? She’s not married now?’

Not married to James?

Forget James. The question she needed to ask herself was could she face Annabelle again as if nothing had ever happened?

The palpitations were so bad she seriously considered telling Mac to keep the inheritance and get out of her life, but the name of that town—Carnock—kept echoing in her head, while memories of a man who’d tossed her in the air as a child …

And James falling out of love with her and into love with Annabelle hadn’t really been Annabelle’s fault, any more than James using the overseas honeymoon bookings he’d made for himself and her—the insensitivity of which had caused Clancy the most pain—could be blamed on Annabelle …

And the pirate wondered why she’d never flown anywhere.

‘Definitely not married.’ Mac’s reply dragged her out of the past. He spoke casually, but Clancy heard a hint of something behind the words. Were he and Annabelle an item? Why did he put so much stress on the word ‘definitely’?

‘They must have split up,’ Clancy said, telling herself it was none of her business if Annabelle and Mac were involved, and that the uneasiness in her stomach was nothing more than to be expected, given how her life had shifted in the last couple of hours.

‘Do you want to phone her?’ he said, offering his mobile. ‘The hospital is on speed dial, just press two.’

Clancy studied the phone—a much better idea than studying the man. But taking it, pressing the number two, would show a level of distrust she no longer felt. Hadn’t really felt at all with this man from the moment she’d seen his picture in the camera by the door.

Which was stupid.

But taking the phone, pressing two, would put her onto Annabelle …

You’re over it! You moved on years ago!

She took the phone and pressed the number two, wondering at the same time who would answer if she pressed one instead.

Annabelle?

‘Carnock Hospital, Annabelle speaking. That you, Mac?’

Clancy pressed the button that cut off the call and handed the phone back to Mac, whose hand closed over it just as it began to ring. He glanced at the number displayed and somehow stopped the noise without answering, instead slipping the phone back into his shirt pocket.

‘You didn’t want to chat with Annabelle? Catch up on what’s happening? Share a few student reminiscences?’ he asked, though it was apparent he hadn’t wanted to speak to Annabelle either, for who else would have been phoning right then?

Now she studied the man, a move aimed at distracting her mind from the reminiscences that lay between her and Annabelle!

Scruffy, that’s what he was, yet it was a very appealing scruffiness, maybe because of the twinkle that was almost always evident in his dark brown eyes.

It was dangerous, that twinkle, something to beware of, so she ignored it, and the teasing note in his voice, and answered as coolly as her overheated and still-jolted body would allow.

‘I imagine we can catch up in Carnock,’ she said, although catching up with Annabelle had never been high on her wish list for the future.

‘You will, at that,’ Mac assured her.

Some assurance!

‘So, one o’clock!’ Clancy said, knowing she had to get away right now, before the clashing chaos of attraction and memories had her disintegrating into a twisted mass of nerves on the footpath. ‘I need to pack,’ she added as she stood up, knocking over her chair in her haste. ‘It’ll be hot, I imagine.’

She bent to pick up the chair but Mac was before her, his hand brushing hers as she grabbed at it, his quiet ‘Let me’ suggesting he’d somehow read the turmoil inside her.

And now they were both bent, heads close together, gazes locked, something shimmering in the air between them, something that definitely wasn’t distrust …

Mike saved the day, leaping over the fallen chair and knocking over the table.

Clancy had to laugh. The dog was sitting in the middle of the shambles, grinning his idiotic grin.

‘Well, I’m glad someone’s laughing,’ Mac growled, as he righted the table. ‘You go and pack. I’ll settle up for the damage before I kill your dog.’

‘You brought him here,’ Clancy reminded him, and Mac sighed.

‘Indeed I did,’ he said, and Clancy couldn’t miss the regret in his voice.

She slipped away, thinking not of Annabelle Crane and James but of whether Mac’s regret was for bringing the dog to the city, or was it for getting himself involved with her?

Although they were hardly involved—he was a lawyer who had contacted the beneficiary of a will, and she was the beneficiary. It was purely a business meeting.

Maybe!

Packing took all of fifteen minutes, cleaning out the refrigerator and giving her next-door neighbour the perishables another ten, which left Clancy with two hours and twenty-two minutes to fill before one o’clock.

She considered using the time to contact her mother, a process that could take easily that long as it involved contacting a neighbour who had a phone, who then raised a flag to indicate there was a message for someone in the commune. It could be that the flag wouldn’t be seen for hours. Or days.

And if days, she’d be gone before her mother phoned back, and then she’d worry when she couldn’t get hold of Clancy, so all in all it was better to write.

Two hours and eighteen minutes—decisions didn’t take up much time.

Well, sitting around was no good because then she’d start thinking, and if she started thinking she’d regret making the impulsive decision. She never made impulsive decisions, knowing they invariably led to loss of control, and being in control was the mainstay of her life.

Or had been for some time …

She found some paper and began the letter, telling her mother of the unexpected appearance of Great-Aunt Hester in the family tree, and the strange bequest.

I’m not going because I still hanker for a father, she wrote, although as she put the words on paper, she wondered if they were entirely true, but because this woman left me her house and dog in good faith, so the least I can do is have a look at the situation, sum it up and make a decision.

There, that sounded sensible. No need to mention Annabelle Crane being in Carnock.

Sometimes Clancy thought her mother regretted the break-up with James more than she herself did. But hadn’t it been the shock of James’s visit to the commune, and meeting her mother’s extraordinary friends, that had started the disintegration of their relationship …?

Determined not to dwell on the past, she finished the letter and went into the alcove in her bedroom that she thought of as her office. Once there, she was able to lose herself in the first item on her ‘to do’ list, the preparation of lectures for the following year. She wanted to make them more challenging, particularly for the first-year students, so they would get a feel for the job they were training to do.

So, of course, rather than waiting by the front door at one o’clock, she was lost in Lecture Two when the buzzer buzzed.

Shoving her laptop into its case, she slung it over her shoulder, grabbed the small bag with her belongings, and her handbag, and hit the button to allow Mac and Mike entrance to the lobby. ‘I’ll be right down,’ she said into the intercom, and raced down the stairs, knowing it would be faster than taking the elevator.

Flushed from her downward dash, she arrived in the lobby to find Mike in trouble again, this time from a tenant Clancy didn’t know, a woman who’d emerged from the elevator with a Siamese cat on a lead.

‘He likes cats,’ Mac was saying to the woman, who’d grabbed her pet from beneath Mike’s smiling face and was glowering at Mac.

‘Dogs are not allowed in this building,’ the woman said, and she stalked out the door.

Mike let her go, discovering Clancy instead and rushing up to her to greet her with his front paws on her chest, so with the weight of her baggage she’d have gone flying if Mac hadn’t slung his arm around her to steady her.

The area of skin beneath the clothes that touched that arm prickled with awareness, then the arm dropped away, while Clancy battled an urge to run straight back up the stairs.

Control!

‘Does he cause trouble wherever he goes?’ she asked, determined to ignore her reactions to the man, and looking at Mike, who was now sitting in front of her doing a perfect dog act.

‘Everywhere!’ Mac said in a despairing voice, but Clancy heard the smile behind the words and understood that Mac loved the silly animal, just as Great-Aunt Hester must have.

Great-Aunt Hester—just thinking about the woman gave Clancy a weird sensation in her stomach.

She had family! Real family! Or at least she had done …

Of course, she’d always known her mother had family, somewhere down south, maybe in Victoria, but her mother’s insistence that the fellow members of the commune were the only family she wanted or needed had meant Clancy had never known any of them. Which, by and large, had been okay.

Mac had taken her belongings and she was following him out the front door towards an ancient, battered, rusting four-wheel drive while she considered all of this. But as he stowed her bags in the back and opened the rear door for Mike, Clancy realised there was one question she hadn’t asked and probably should have.

With her hand on the doorhandle, she turned to Mac.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said, with a grin that seemed to light up whatever little corner of the world he was currently inhabiting. ‘Hester found you. I have a feeling she had some kind of agent look into it.’

‘An agent? You mean a private detective? She had someone following me?’

The grin turned into a laugh so the dark eyes sparkled with devilment.

‘I very much doubt you were followed,’ he assured her, taking her hand off the doorhandle and opening it for her. ‘As far as I know, most things can be discovered just sitting in an office using a computer. All births are registered, you’d be on a voting register, there’d be school and university records, and a smart agent could probably even find out which dentist you went to.’

Clancy had ducked past him to get into the car, but turned back to face him, horrified by what he was saying yet knowing it was probably true.

‘You think that’s what happened?’

‘Almost sure of it,’ Mac said, then he touched her cheek. ‘We’re all in the same boat, about as anonymous as a pop star. Every time you go for a job, someone is finding out all this stuff about you.’

Clancy wanted to argue, but she knew everything he’d said was true, no matter how uncomfortable it might make her feel. So now she had to wonder just how much this ‘agent’ Mac spoke of had dug up. And was the information floating around the house where Mac now lived alone—apart from Mike?

Did it matter?

Deciding it didn’t, she finally climbed into the car. She was going out to see the house. Yes, she’d probably see Annabelle, but that was okay, they’d been quite good friends through university, and beyond all that a little flutter of excitement threading along her nerves reminded her she was finally going to see the place called Carnock, and maybe, just maybe, find out a little more about her father.

Unfortunately, as Mac got behind the wheel and the flutter along her nerves grew stronger, she had to wonder if it was the thought of seeing Carnock causing it, or this man she didn’t know.

She’d had flutters aplenty with James in the beginning, although flutters seemed to die natural deaths as a relationship progressed, for which she’d been profoundly grateful. She had to hope, if Mac was causing the flutters, that they would also die away when a relationship didn’t exist.

Mac was driving out through the inner suburbs, explaining that he flew in and out of Archerfield, where he kept this vehicle for his convenience when he was in Brisbane.

‘There are any number of old cars like this around an airfield. A lot of pilots are tinkerers, playing with their planes and doing up old cars—the two go together. It’s fortunate for me as there’s an old man out there who loves this vehicle, so although it looks as if it’s coming apart at the seams, he keeps it in good running order for me.’

‘And are you a tinkering pilot?’ Clancy asked.

‘Definitely not. I have no idea what goes on inside any engine, although I had to learn enough about the plane to be able to see anything that was obviously wrong with it. But we’ve a good mechanic in Carnock and I have it serviced down here every year. I just wanted to be able to get about, and in the bush a small plane’s the answer.’

The conversation lagged, and although the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, Clancy felt obliged to break it.

Or it may have been because she liked Mac’s voice, the rich chocolate of it, that she asked, ‘And your involvement with Angel Flight?’

‘Ah,’ Mac said, ‘that’s one great charity. Very few overheads, most of the work done by volunteers, and it’s one thing that is of real benefit to country people all over Australia. You know about it?’

He turned towards her and Clancy smiled, glad she could answer honestly.

‘I’ve supported it as a charity for years and I’m a registered “earth angel”, but only as a hospital visitor. Having a full-time job and not having a car means I can’t do hospital transfers, but when people have to stay down for any length of time, I’m put in touch with them.’

‘So we have something in common apart from Hester,’ Mac said, and when he smiled she knew the flutters were Mac-generated, although the name Carnock still gave her a thrill when she whispered it in her mind.

Thrills—flutters—what was happening to calm, sensible, in-control Willow Cloud Clancy? The girl who’d fled the drifting, laid-back, disorganised life of the commune to build a normal, stable life for herself—planned and controlled to the last detail …

This time she let the silence linger, her head too busy puzzling over her reactions to Mac to be bothered with small talk.

But no amount of thinking came up with any reason why this particular man, of all the men she’d met in recent years, should affect her with flutters.

Surely it had to be more than a quick, bold grin and twinkling eyes and a piratical beard and tousled black hair …

Was she having second thoughts? Mac wondered. Would she get to Archerfield, take one look at his little plane, and grab a taxi to take her back to the security of her tiny apartment and her ordered life?

He knew enough about her childhood in the hippie commune—Hester’s agent had been far more thorough than he’d let on—to guess she needed order in her life and some measure of control over it, but surely she could find order of a different kind in Carnock.

It was a thought that made him think again—did he want her living in Carnock?

The answer came immediately—a positive response. At least, he amended to himself, until he’d had a chance to get to know her, and maybe understand the attraction he felt towards her.

Once understood it would be easy to counter—

That thought stopped as abruptly as he stopped the car at the lights at Rocklea.

‘Archerfield’s just up the road,’ he said, to break his train of thought more than the silence.

‘I can see planes already,’ his passenger said, and the soft, husky voice feathered up his spine, suggesting the attraction might grow instead of lessening …

Far better if she didn’t stay!

Once airborne it was easier. He could pretend flying the little gem of a plane was a complex procedure. But even pretending, he couldn’t miss the cries of delight from his passenger, who pointed out every dam and paddock and small hill as they flew towards the great range that ran down the east coast of Australia.

Enchantment shone in her face, and her delight was so open and enthusiastic that Mac found himself forgetting his pretence about the complexities of flying and joining in, naming the places they flew over, deviating off route to show her deep, uninhabited valleys in the ranges, and fields of sunflowers—faces up to the sun and so to them—ranging across the downs.

Turning north towards Carnock, he pointed out the small beginnings of the river that had caused much of the flooding the previous year.

‘But it’s barely a creek,’ Clancy protested, and Mac explained how the ground had been waterlogged from previous rain, and the little stream already breaking its banks in places before the deluge that caused the flood had hit the town.

‘Is there still visible damage in the town?’ she asked, and he hesitated.

‘If you’d known the town, then you’d see a difference. Some places that were washed away will never be rebuilt, but it’s the invisible damage that I worry about.’

‘The people?’ she asked quietly, and he nodded.

‘There’s far too much of a “she’ll be right, mate” attitude in the country,’ he said. ‘People—men and women but particularly the men—hide their emotions in case it’s seen as a weakness.’

‘At least that’s never a problem where I come from,’ she responded. ‘The nights I’ve fallen asleep listening to a litany of someone’s revelations of their deep inner angst. But I can understand people would be scarred by the experience of the floods. Even seeing the news coverage had me in tears.’

‘Carnock was lucky in that there was no loss of life, although we all thought Mike was gone. He leapt into the water when a big ball floated past—the dog’s a sucker for a ball. But he arrived back home five days later. Wet and bedraggled and absolutely starving, but still as bold as ever.’

Clancy turned to pat the dog, who was lying behind the two front seats. The image of a wet, bedraggled Mike had slunk into her heart and for all she told herself she couldn’t get too attached to this dog, she had a bad feeling she’d be unable to resist.

Could she get enough rent for her apartment to lease a house in the suburbs—somewhere on the train line so she wouldn’t need a car? With a good yard, of course—

A jangling noise erupted through the small cabin.

‘Is that your mobile?’ she asked Mac, and knew the answer when she saw him fish it out of his pocket.

‘Mac!’ he said, while Clancy marvelled that right up here in the air the man still had mobile coverage.

Although now Mac’s end of the conversation snagged her attention.

‘How long ago? Is it just his ankle? Did he hit his head at all? Land on his back? Can he move his toes and fingers? Jess, Jess, stop crying. I’ll be there in half an hour, maybe less. Your strip’s clear? No cattle in that paddock? Okay, just make him comfortable and come down to the strip to meet me. Yes, I can take you into town. Now stop crying, take deep breaths, think of the baby, make yourself a cup of tea, then drive down to meet us.’

‘Problem?’ Clancy asked.

‘Fellow on a property some distance from town. He’s come off his motorbike, but apparently only injured his ankle. They ride around on those darned things with sandals on, would you believe, and never wear helmets. It’s a wonder more farmers aren’t injured.’

Was that all he was going to tell her?

Not that she needed to know more, but she’d sensed Mac had more to say.

A long sigh confirmed her guess.

‘Rod’s wife, Jess, is eight months pregnant. She’s a city girl and although she’s adapted well to country life, something like this will have thrown her.’

Not knowing what to say, Clancy waited.

‘They live an hour’s drive from town.’

The information was coming in dribs and drabs and although she now knew it was leading somewhere, she had no idea where.

‘I don’t want her driving into town in her condition. She’s upset enough as it is, so …’

Mac turned so Clancy could see his face and read the concern in his eyes, plus what looked like a little uncertainty lurking around his lips.

‘Rod’s a big man and Jess is huge at the moment so I can’t fit you all in the plane. Would you be okay with me dropping you and Mike at the farm? That way you can drive into town, and Jess will have a car available to drive back home—drive Rod back home as well if it’s a simple break and I can set it. Best of all, I can have Jess stay in the hospital with Rod overnight and keep an eye on her in case the stress has affected the pregnancy.’

Clancy barely heard the justifications for the scheme Mac was proposing, having stalled on the first part.

‘You want me to drive these people’s vehicle into town?’ she demanded. ‘From a place I don’t know to a town I don’t know?’

She didn’t add ‘in a car I don’t know’, in case that made her sound altogether too wimpish.

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Mac assured her. ‘You go down their drive to the front gate and turn left. There’s only one road and it leads to Carnock.’

There was a pause, as if something had just occurred to him, and after what seemed like too long a silence he added, ‘You can drive?’

‘Of course I can,’ Clancy replied, not adding that although she had a licence she’d never made much use of it, never having owned a car, not even an old bomb, while she’d been a student. Some of the ethos of her childhood had stuck.

‘That’s good. Now, look out the window and see if you can see a house. There should be a name—Thornside—painted on the roof.’

Clancy spotted it ten minutes later, pointing it out to Mac, who circled it, gradually bringing the plane lower and lower until Clancy could see the cleared strip of a runway ahead of them, then—bump!—they were down. Mac taxied the little plane towards a huge four-wheel-drive vehicle parked beside a small shed.

‘Let it be an automatic,’ she prayed beneath her breath while Mac stopped the engine and yelled at Mike to sit.

Mike was already over on Clancy’s knee, obviously determined to be the first out, but he did sit, all ten stone of him by the feel of things.

‘Can I open the door?’ Clancy asked, and Mac assured her she could. She unlatched it and pushed it open so Mike could leap out, heading straight for the pregnant woman.

Fearing he might jump up on her and knock her over, Clancy yelled his name, and to her surprise he turned around and gave his goofy smile then proceeded to ignore the woman, turning his attention instead to three farm dogs who’d also come to greet the new arrivals.

Mac introduced Clancy to Jess, who repeated the name with surprise.

‘Clancy? It’s your first name, or your surname? Are you related to Hester?’

‘Small town,’ Mac said drily, and Clancy knew exactly what he meant. Everyone would know everyone else’s business.

‘It’s my surname but I’ve been called Clancy for ever. Apparently I’m Hester’s great-niece, although I’ve only now heard of her existence.’

‘Oh, you missed out on a treat! Not that Hester ever thought much of me. She believed country men should marry country women, not city slickers like me—although once she knew I was pregnant she warmed up a bit, greeting me at the shops and always asking how I was.’

Jess patted her bump, then allowed Mac to help her back into the high-set vehicle. He’d opened the back door and as Mike had already leapt in, Clancy followed.

Mac drove the short distance to where lights flickered through the leaves of a well-maintained garden, asking Jess about her husband’s injury, reassuring the woman that all would be well.

‘How about you make us a cuppa?’ he said, as they walked up the steps to the wide front veranda. ‘I could do with one, and I’m sure Clancy could as well.’

He dropped back to murmur to Clancy, ‘Would you go with her and keep an eye on her?’

Clancy followed Jess obediently down a long hallway, hearing Mac’s voice as he greeted his patient, looking around at the rooms that led off the passage, thinking how cool the big house was, although the heat of the day had lingered out at the airstrip.

‘He’ll be all right, I know that,’ Jess said as Clancy entered the huge kitchen with a table big enough to seat a dozen people. ‘It was just the shock of seeing him when he came home. He was white as a ghost and fainted dead away as he tried to get off the bike, then he wouldn’t lean on me to get into the house.’

Jess was still shocked by her husband’s injury, that much was obvious, yet she was efficiently making a big pot of tea, setting out mugs and even producing a large fruit cake from the pantry.

‘I made the Christmas cake early and then decided to make a few more so we could enjoy it before Christmas as well as after it,’ she explained as she cut off slabs and put them onto plates.

‘Good thinking,’ Clancy said, deciding that Hester’s judgement had been right—this city girl was settling well into the country.

Jess set everything on a tray and led the way out a side door and along a back veranda to where Mac was bent over a tall young man, chatting easily as he bound the injured ankle.

‘I’ll X-ray it when we get to town,’ Mac explained to Jess, ‘but I think it might be bad enough to send him somewhere to have it pinned or it could cause problems later. Your family’s in Brisbane? Would you prefer going there or would Toowoomba do?’

Jess turned to Rod.

‘What do you want?’ she said, and when his only reply was a broad smile, she answered Mac.

‘Toowoomba’s closer, he’ll probably see a specialist there more quickly, and we’ll be back home sooner,’ she said, and Rod reached out and took her hand, the connection between the couple so obvious Clancy felt the warm glow of reflected love, and maybe just a twinge of envy.

‘That’s settled, then,’ Mac declared. ‘I’ll take you back to town, X-ray it and start making arrangements. Jess, is there a neighbour you can phone to feed the dogs while you’re away?’

‘I’ll put them on their chains now, and phone from Carnock when we know for certain we have to go to Toowoomba,’ Jess replied, then she smiled at Mac. ‘It’s not that I’m doubting your diagnostic skills, but it just might be a simple break!’

‘Fair enough,’ Mac said, gulping down his tea and picking up the plate that held his cake. ‘Can you pop this into a paper bag so I can take it with me? I seem to remember your fruit cake won first prize in last year’s show, putting several older local noses out of joint.’

Jess went off happily and Mac turned to Clancy.

‘Do you think you could help me get Rod out to the car? You stand on his left side and I’ll take the right and he should be able to hop with our support.’

They hopped the injured man out to the car and helped him in, then Jess returned with overnight bags. She turned off the lights in the house as she walked to the front door, closing it but not, Clancy noticed, locking it.

If she’d needed anything to remind her she was back in the country, it was that one small detail—unlocked doors.

Mac drove to the airport, this time with Mike loping along behind the vehicle. Clancy helped again to get Rod into the plane, hearing the hissing of his breath as he tried to conquer the pain of his injury while struggling into the back seats.

Jess clambered in after him, seemingly unhampered by her pregnancy, then came Mac, and the little plane taxied away.

Clancy turned to Mike.

‘Well, dog, it’s just you and me now. Do you suppose if we head back to the house we’ll be able to tell which is the drive we follow to the gate?’

Mike smiled his silly smile and Clancy ruffled his head. But it was an absent-minded ruffle, for she was looking up at the massive sky that spread above her and sniffing the fresh, eucalyptus-scented air, and trying very hard to ignore the feeling of well-being that was creeping over her.

‘Oh, no, I’ve done my time in the country and I’m a city girl,’ she told Mike. ‘Just you remember that!’