The thought broke through the haze brought on by fatigue, good food, great champagne, the comfort of these cushions, the rug, this man’s smile... Here it was again, washing back as if it was a part of her, as maybe it was. The eternal fear. It made her shudder and Rab’s hand was suddenly touching her arm.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s okay, Mia. Your plan’s worked brilliantly. All is good.’

  Did he realise? Of course he did, she thought. He’d seen her as she’d been all those years ago. He hadn’t remembered her in particular—well, who could? She’d been swathed in bandages, swollen beyond recognition. But even if he didn’t recognise her, he’d worked with other burn patients. He’d know the damage.

  He’d understand the fear.

  ‘Is this river safe for swimming?’ he asked, and she had to jerk herself out of thoughts that were messing with her head and focus on the here and now. River. Safe?

  ‘It is at the moment,’ she managed. ‘Wide, sandy bottom, not too deep. I swim a lot, but further downstream. There’s the occasional fallen branches so you need to be a bit cautious, and after heavy rains it’s treacherous, but we’ve had no storms recently and the current’s slow. It’ll be safe enough. Cold though.’

  ‘It’s just what I need to wake me up,’ he told her, rising. ‘You want to come in too?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ Swimming was one of her principal pleasures, but she hadn’t swum where anyone could see her since burns had scarred the left side of her body as well as her face. She wouldn’t say that, though. ‘I’m too tired to swim,’ she said, and she said it a bit too brusquely.

  But he didn’t appear to mind. ‘Fair enough,’ he said and put his head to one side to look at her. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘But I’m not so tired. Would you be shocked if I stripped to my boxers and dived in? Or could I ask you to close your eyes?’

  That smile was impossible to resist. He was looking down at her almost as if he was daring her to laugh as well, and to her astonishment she found her lips twitching, her mood lightening.

  ‘I’m your wife,’ she said, making her voice prim. ‘I believe there’s a legal prerogative for seeing you...’

  ‘Just in boxers. Not the rest.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, still primly. ‘As per the conditions of our contract. But I’m a nurse. There’s nothing you can show me I haven’t seen a thousand times before. Off you go and have fun.’

  ‘You sound like a parent giving her kid permission.’

  ‘Nope,’ she told him. ‘I have no control over what you do, but I will act as lifesaver.’

  ‘So if a crocodile appears...’

  ‘There aren’t a lot of crocodiles in inland New South Wales,’ she told him. ‘But there may be eels. If any eel wanders by, can you grab it? I hate them—have you ever tried cooking an eel?—but Boris loves them.’

  ‘So I’m heading in looking for dog food.’

  ‘You might as well make yourself useful,’ she told him serenely. ‘Me, I’m going to make myself another pavlova.’

  * * *

  Except she didn’t. She sat and watched Rab.

  He strode into the water with confidence and plunged straight in, but he was obviously aware of the dangers of swimming in inland rivers. Instead of swimming, he floated out, presumably using his legs to check for depth, for underwater snags. What he found seemed to reassure him because he then began to swim. Not fast but strongly, his deep, sure strokes taking him from one end of the river’s curve to the other.

  As promised, he’d stripped to his boxers. He looked superbly fit, lean and muscled, powering through the water with ease. He looked like a man completely at home in his environment.

  At home. The phrase seemed to slam into her head. He was at home and so was she. For a year.

  Another wave of panic swept over her, but she suppressed it with what was starting now to seem accustomed effort. Every time she thought of this marriage the old feelings of fear surfaced again, and every time she managed to damp them down.

  The thing was done. For better or worse...

  Rab rolled over and started to do a lazy backstroke. His body glistened, the light from the sinking sun glinting on his wet chest. He glanced over at her and grinned.

  ‘It’s magic. You sure you don’t want to come in?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ There was that flutter of panic again, the thought of stripping—to what, bra and knickers? The thought of being in the water with him. The thought of being close, of not being in charge...

  She had to keep control. Whatever happened over the next twelve months, she had to stay apart.

  There’d been a moment during those awful months as her parents had bullied and cajoled her into marrying Harvey, when she’d looked at Harvey and thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He’d been big, burly, tough, but he had been good-looking. He used to smile at her, and sometimes she’d found herself smiling back. At seventeen she’d even found herself fantasising...

  Yeah, well, she wasn’t fantasising now.

  Except she wanted, quite badly, to swim.

  She knew a swimming hole a couple of kilometres to the north, where the river wound its way into bushland, a place no one seemed to use. She’d found it in those first months after Ewan and Mary had taken her in. She’d often swum there, tentatively at first but getting braver as she’d realised how private the place was. It had helped her head as well as her healing body, to swim where no one could see.

  But here someone—Rab—would see.

  Oh, but to swim... The sun was sinking to the west, its gorgeous tangerine rays shimmering along the river. Rab was doing lazy backstroke, not even watching her.

  Dammit, why not? What sort of coward was she? This man was a doctor. He’d seen her maybe at her worst. What was there to fear?

  ‘Just the way he makes me feel,’ she muttered to herself, but that was dumb. Why shouldn’t she swim?

  Do it.

  And thirty seconds later she’d ditched her shoes, jeans and shirt and she’d dived straight in.

  Fear, after all, was just plain stupid.

  * * *

  He was backstroking steadily along the far side of the riverbank. He saw her dive and he stopped, let his feet fall to the sandy bank, watching as she surfaced.

  She found her feet, glanced at him and he saw her chin tilt, almost as in defiance.

  ‘I can swim even if I’m tired.’

  ‘So you can,’ he said, grinning. ‘Amazing. Wonder Woman Plus!’

  ‘There’s no need to sound patronising.’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘Yes, you did. And it’s unwarranted. I reckon I might even be able to swim faster than you. Four laps, along to the bend and back, repeated. Ready, set, go.’

  And she was off, her body slicing through the water like a dolphin.

  He watched her go, stunned. This wasn’t the Mia he thought he knew. This was a woman of strength, of power. She was sleek, toned...gorgeous.

  He could see scars on her upper shoulder, visible when she lifted her left arm. They didn’t make her one whit less beautiful.

  She reached the bend, did a flip turn, then saw he wasn’t following. She found her feet in the breast-deep water and glowered. ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean, what?’

  ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ she said brusquely and almost instinctively hugged her left arm with her right hand so the worst of the scarring was hidden.

  ‘I wasn’t staring at the scars. I was watching you. Mia, you’re beautiful.

  She glowered. ‘I’m not beautiful. That’s a dumb thing to say. You’re just trying to avoid the question as to whether you’re faster or me. Aren’t you going to race?’

  ‘We are racing,’ he said, because he couldn’t think what else to say. ‘I just missed the gun. Starting now!’ And he dived back under and started swimming.

  He didn’t make the mistake of trying to swim slower than she did. He swam the hardest he could, back and forth, back and forth. He was pushing himself to the limit but, even so, barely keeping up with her.

  And the image of her stayed with him as he swam. It wasn’t just the image, he decided, it was the consciousness of her. The thought that she was in the water beside him. That she was swimming with him, stroke for stroke.

  Her long black hair, coiled for the wedding, had come undone. It was streaming behind her as she swam. He shouldn’t even know that, but of course he did. He could see her every time he lifted his head and looked to the side.

  She was his wife. It was a dumb thought, an extraordinary make-believe concept, but it stayed with him.

  But she wasn’t his. She was in control, she belonged to no one. If he didn’t accept that then he should never have married her.

  Still, he was in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and Mia was swimming beside him. The sense of her presence made him feel... Hell, he didn’t know how it made him feel. Magic?

  He couldn’t examine the feeling. All he could do was keep on swimming.

  * * *

  It was Mia who finished first—of course it was. She did her four laps and she beat him. Then she pulled herself up on the grassy bank, grabbed her gear and headed for the bushes surrounding the clearing.

  When she returned, Rab was just emerging from the river, and even though she was dressed again, even though there’d been nothing in the fact that they’d swum together that had altered their relationship, she felt...exposed. It was a dumb sensation, but she couldn’t help what she was feeling. What lay between them was too raw, too new, too ridiculous! Confused, she headed across to the picnic hamper, knelt and started packing up.

  When she finally looked up, Rab was standing less than a metre away. His wet body was glistening in the last rays of the sun. His hair, naturally wavy, was soaked but still trying to kink. He’d snagged his shirt on one of the bushes and was starting to dry himself with it, but he was smiling right at her.

  ‘That was awesome,’ he said gently. ‘You’re an amazing swimmer, Mia.’

  ‘Nope,’ she said, a bit too abruptly. ‘I’m not. I never swim in public.’

  ‘Because of your scars?’

  ‘I... No.’

  ‘It’d be a shame if that was the reason,’ he told her. ‘If you have the courage to marry me, then maybe you could find the courage to swim wherever you want.’ His smile changed then, subtly, and suddenly he sounded infinitely kind. Like the doctor he was. ‘Mia, you’re beautiful,’ he told her. ‘And you’re beautiful from the inside out. Don’t let that bastard control you any more.’

  She flinched, closed her eyes, felt a wash of grief. But not fear. What was it with this man’s voice? Right from that first time, when he’d read to her, it had settled something deep within. Pushed the fear away.

  ‘I might,’ she managed. ‘Eventually.’

  ‘There’s no reason to wait,’ he said, his voice still gentle. ‘Now’s beautiful. Grab the moment.’

  She rose. He put a hand out to help her but she didn’t take it. She didn’t dare.

  He was too close. Too wet. Too... Rab.

  ‘I’ll take the leftovers up to the house,’ she said, a bit too quickly.

  ‘Of course.’ The moment was over; he was starting to dress. ‘It’s time for this day to end. It’s been momentous.’

  ‘In a way,’ she told him. ‘But...you have to remember the marriage means nothing.’

  ‘It saved this valley,’ he told her. ‘I think it means everything.’

  But not personally, she thought as she folded the picnic rug. I might be married but nothing’s changed for me.

  Was she lying, even to herself?

  And then her thoughts were interrupted as a cry rang out from somewhere around the bend in the river. The cry sounded so terrified that her eyes swung to Rab’s in instinctive alarm.

  ‘Trouble,’ he said.

  Trouble—here in paradise?

  Whatever, Rab tugged on his shoes, grabbed her hand and they started to run.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WAS THE BLACKBERRIES. And kids.

  Wiradjuri had been built on a curve of the river. Although the Finlays owned all the land, most of it was leased. The land around the house had been fenced off—a hectare or so kept for gardens—but outside the boundaries was farmland.

  But just around the bend, before garden became leased land, a massive clump of blackberry briars grew by the river, clumping out around the trees overhanging the water.

  These were the berries Nora had talked of the first time Rab had seen the place. What had she said? A noxious weed, but his grandfather had loved the fruit. He knew them for a problem. The fruit from wild blackberries was delicious, but if left to spread they could envelop the countryside. He’d meant to ask her to get rid of them regardless, but these last weeks had been... Well, there’d been other things on his mind.

  And now he and Mia rounded the bend and saw disaster.

  A group of three kids, ranging from what looked like around thirteen down to about ten, had obviously been collecting berries. They had buckets set up beside the briars. There was a dog with them, and he recognised him—Boris! Dog and kids were all staring out over the river, and the little girl was screaming.

  ‘Get out! Harry, get out! Harry, you’ll hurt yourself...’

  What was happening? They were all staring out over the water.

  The briars had clumped as they’d grown out, extending almost halfway across the river. The berries above the water looked massive, black, shiny and almost untouchable.

  ‘Help me!’ It was another muffled cry, coming from the centre of the briars hanging over the water. It wasn’t nearly as loud as the cry from the child on the bank, but it held more terror. And pain. And, even before they reached them, Rab could guess what had happened.

  The kids looked like they’d been swimming—wet hair, damp clothes, towels dumped on the riverbank. They must have had a swim and then decided to pick blackberries before going home.

  A massive eucalypt grew right near the bank, and one of its branches reached out over the water. Vast, low, the limb hung enticingly above a massive clump of unpicked fruit.

  And it seemed one child hadn’t been able to resist. He—Harry—must have crawled out along the branch. And then slipped?

  The briars were a little more than a metre below the branch, a great clump supported—sort of—by smaller bushes that had grown out over the water. A bucket lay incongruously on its side, resting on the top of the blackberry clump.

  They couldn’t see the child, but they had the picture. If he’d climbed out on the branch and slipped, his weight would have seen him slip into the centre of the briars. If he’d gone right through he would have ended up in the water, but the briars were thick, twined with age, impenetrable. They were strong enough to hold a child fast.

  They were too strong to let a child out of their thorny grasp.

  What the...? How on earth to get a child out of this?

  ‘They’re Robyn’s kids,’ Mia breathed, sounding horrified. ‘They’ll have brought our picnic and stayed.’

  ‘Tell me about Harry,’ he snapped. He needed information fast, and she understood.

  ‘Fifteen. Good kid, responsible. Robyn would be trusting him to take care of the younger ones.’

  Rab stared out over the water, his brain in overdrive, while Mia headed to the group of kids on the bank. The littlest, the only girl, melted into her arms with a shattering sob. Boris attempted to get in on the cuddle, and the two boys melted into the mix as well. It seemed Mia was known, was trusted. The relief of the group at her arrival was obvious.

  ‘It’s okay, we’re here now,’ Mia said, pulling back. The hugs had been necessary, but they had to move past it. ‘That’s Harry stuck in the bushes? Yes? Is it only Harry?’

  ‘Yes,’ one of the boys answered, turning to stare at the point where Harry had obviously disappeared. ‘Mum... Mum and Dad are at the wedding and they said we could swim after bringing the picnic for you guys. Harry’s got his lifesaving medallion, and all of us can swim. But we all love blackberries and Mum loves making jam, so we thought we’d bring buckets and surprise her. Will he fall out into the water? It’s okay, he can swim really well.’

  A child falling into the water was the least of their problems, Rab thought. A child trapped in those thorny briars was far more serious. If he struggled, these thorns were sharp enough to cut him so severely he’d...

  Don’t go there.

  ‘Harry!’ He raised his voice to pretty much sonic boom level. ‘This is Dr Finlay. I’m here with Mia, and we’re coming to get you out. But for now we need you to stay absolutely still. You’re safe as long as you don’t move.’

  ‘They’re sticking into me,’ a terrified voice wailed. ‘I’m bleeding. It hurts. I can’t... I can’t get out.’

  ‘I know that,’ Rab called. ‘But if you move it’ll be worse.’

  ‘Harry, we’re here,’ Mia called out, adding her voice to Rab’s. ‘We’re going to get you out, but you need to do what Dr Finlay says. It might take a little time to get to you though, so you have to stay still.’

  ‘We need the fire brigade,’ Rab snapped. ‘Big ladders.’

  ‘We don’t have a fire brigade here,’ she told him. ‘Nearest is Colambool, an hour away.’

  ‘Okay, then.’ He moved on. ‘Plan. You stay here and watch like a hawk. Talk to him all the time. Keep telling him he mustn’t move. Can you contact his parents? Tell them where we are? Then contact anyone else with ladders, domestic ones—we can put ’em together if we must. Ropes too.’

  ‘It’ll take too long,’ she said faintly. ‘And I don’t have my phone. Do you...?’

  ‘You can use my phone, but I won’t have stored numbers for anyone local.’ He hauled it out of his pocket and tossed it to her. ‘Security pin’s seven-six-nine-six. Got that?’

 

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