The Australian's Proposal (Mills & Boon By Request): The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For (40 page)

There was a momentary darkness, which caused the kids to scream with pretend fear, then the generators kicked in and the lights flickered back to life, but
that instant of darkness had reminded Harry of the blackout earlier.

Had reminded him of kissing Grace …

‘Boy, this food is good! It’s the roast lamb from the wedding. Apparently, after we left, Mrs P. set the remaining guests to making sandwiches with the leftover food. Some was delivered to the hospital and the rest here.’

Grace was munching on a sandwich as she came up behind Harry. Everything had been OK between them—maybe a trifle strained but still OK—while they’d been caught up in rescuing Troy and getting off the mountain. Then, apart from a slight altercation over sleep, while they’d organised the evacuations. But now, in this lull before the storm—literally—she wasn’t sure just where she stood with Harry.

Knew where she should stand—far, far away.

‘We’ve got about ten of the less injured people from the bus here,’ she said, taking another bite of sandwich and chewing it before getting back to the conversation. ‘Apparently all the belongings we gathered up at the accident site were taken to Reception at the hospital. By now most of the stuff belonging to the hospitalised people will have been matched up to them, so I wondered if we could go over and collect the rest—it must belong to those who are here and I’m sure they’ll all feel better if they have their own belongings with them.’

Harry shook his head, unable to believe he’d forgotten about the stuff he’d packed into the back of his vehicle.

‘It’s not at the hospital, it’s here. I’ll grab an able-bodied male and go get it from the car.’

‘Get two able-bodied men and let them do it. Take a break,’ Grace suggested, but Harry wasn’t listening, already talking to one of the locals who then followed him out of the hall.

Grace followed him to the door, waiting until the two men brought in the luggage and handbags, then she spread it out so people could identify their belongings. The bus passengers, recognising what was going on, moved through the crowded room, then one by one they swooped on personal possessions, every one of them clutching the piece of luggage to their chests, as if they’d found lost treasure.

‘It’s a security thing,’ Grace murmured, thinking how she’d clutched Harry’s dinner jacket—remembering she’d left it in a sodden heap on her living-room floor.

Slowly the pile diminished until all that remained was a new-looking backpack.

‘I wonder if the shoe belongs to that one,’ Harry said, and knelt beside it, opening the fastening at the top and spilling out the contents.

‘Damn it to hell!’ Grace heard him whisper, as he pushed small shorts and T-shirts into one pile and some women’s clothing into another. ‘There
is
another child!’

‘That’s my dog!’

Max knew he should be pleased he’d finally found Scruffy, but the kid from the bus was clutching the dog against his chest and looked as if he’d never let him go.

All eyes, the kid. Huge eyes Max could see even though it was as dark as dark could be.

The kid was crouched under a tree fern—stupid place to shelter ‘cos the water came straight through the leaves of tree ferns.

‘Come on,’ he told the kid. ‘We’ve got to find the road. Or get back to the bus so we can get out of the rain.’

The kid shook his head and must have squeezed Scruffy tighter because Scruffy gave a yelp.

‘You can hold the dog,’ Max offered, and watched while the kid considered this. Then he stood up and Max saw his feet. One foot—bare—the other in a sneaker, the bare one cut and scratched and probably bleeding, although it was too dark to see the red of blood.

Everything was black.

‘Hang on,’ he told the kid and he sat down and took off his sneakers, then his socks, then he pulled his sneakers back on over his bare feet. Hard ‘cos they were wet.

‘You have the socks,’ he told the kid. ‘Put both on your foot that’s lost its shoe. I’d give you my shoe but it’d be too big. Go on, sit down and do it. I’ll hold the dog.’

The kid sat and reluctantly gave up his hold on Scruffy, though when Max hugged his pup against his chest Scruffy gave a different yelp.

‘He’s hurt,’ Max whispered, holding the dog more carefully now.

The kid nodded, but he was doing as he was told, pulling on one sock then the other over it.

The dog was shivering so Max tucked him inside his T-shirt, then he reached out and took the kid’s hand.

He’d walked downhill from the bus, so it and the road must be uphill.

‘Let’s go, kid,’ he said, hoping he sounded brave and sensible. Sensible was good, he knew, because Mum always kissed him when she said he’d been sensible.

And brave was good. All the knights he read about were brave.

He didn’t feel brave. What he felt was wet and cold and scared …

G
RACE
watched as Harry reached for his cellphone and dialled a number, then shook his head in disgust and slammed the offending machine back into his pocket.

Whoever he was phoning must be out of range.

Now he pulled his radio out and began speaking into it, calling to someone, waiting for a reply, calling someone to come in.

Urgently!

Harry put the radio away and began repacking the clothing into the backpack, folding small T-shirts with extraordinary care. Grace watched him work, but as he pulled the cord tight and did up the catch on the top, she could no longer ignore the anguish on his face.

She knelt beside him and took the capable hands, which had trembled as he’d folded clothes, into hers.

‘Are there kids out there? Do you know that for sure?’

He nodded.

‘Georgie’s Max we know for sure, and now this.’

He pulled the little sneaker from his pocket, poking the tip of his finger in and out of the hole that made up the eye of the fish painted on it.

‘Two kids.’

Despair broke both the words.

‘We can go back,’ Grace suggested, urgency heating her voice. ‘Go and look for them.’

‘I
can’t
go, and logically nor can you. You’re a team captain—this cyclone will pass and we’ll both be flat out sorting the damage and running rescue missions.’

He took a deep breath, then eased his captured hand away from hers.

‘Georgie’s gone to look—she and Alistair. We’ll just have to hope they’re in time.’

In time—what a dreadful phrase.

But the second child?

‘If there’s a second child unaccounted for, why has no one mentioned it? Why has no one said my child’s missing?’

One possible answer struck her with the force of a blow.

‘The woman who died? Oh, Harry, what if it’s her child?’

‘That’s what I’ve been thinking,’ Harry said bleakly, ‘although there’s a woman at the hospital who’s in an induced coma at the moment, so maybe the child belongs to her. And the woman who died had a boyfriend—surely he’d have mentioned a child.’

Grace tried to replay the rescue scene in her mind—a badly injured woman
had
been rescued early in the proceedings. Susie’s sister, who’d acted as a bridesmaid at the wedding, had been looking after her.

‘Let’s hope it’s her and that she lives and that Georgie finds both kids,’ Grace said, although this seemed to be asking an awful lot.

Worry niggled at her mind—two children lost in the bush in a cyclone?

Worry was pointless, especially now with Willie so close. There were things she had to do. She looked around at the people settling down to sleep, at the two paramedics and four SES volunteers, not sleeping, watchful.

‘Everything’s under control here. If you wouldn’t mind giving me a lift, I’ll go back to Mrs Aldrich’s place and sit out the blow with her.’

‘Sit out the blow?’ Harry echoed. ‘It’s obvious you’ve never been in a cyclone. The whole house could go, Grace.’

‘So I can give her a hand to get under the bed. I had a look at that bed. It’s an old-fashioned one, with solid timber posts on the corners and solid beams joining them. Safe as houses—safer, in fact, than some of the houses in this town.’

‘And you talk about me taking risks?’ Harry muttered, but as he, too, had been worried about Daisy Aldrich—in between worrying about two children—maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Only …

‘You stay here, I’ll go and sit with her,’ he said and knew it was a mistake the moment the words were out of his mouth.

‘We’ve already been through the hero thing a couple of times tonight! But not this time, Harry. Mrs Aldrich is my responsibility—’

The ringing was barely audible in the general hubbub of the room. Harry pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and checked the screen.

‘Your number,’ he said to Grace as he lifted the little phone to his ear and said a tentative hello.

‘Harry, Daisy Aldrich. Karen from next door is here and she’s having her baby and it’s early and she can’t get hold of Georgie who’s not at the hospital or at home so can Grace come?’

‘We’ll be right there,’ Harry promised, closing his phone and motioning to Grace.

‘You win,’ he said. ‘We need a nurse. Daisy’s next-door neighbour is having a baby.’

‘Karen? I saw her last week when she came for a check-up. She’s not due for three or four weeks.’

‘Tell the baby that,’ Harry said, leading the way out of the hall.

Daisy was in her kitchen, boiling water on a small gas burner when Grace and Harry arrived.

‘I don’t know why people boil water,’ she said, waving her hand towards the simmering liquid. ‘No one ever did anything with boiling water when I was having my babies.’

A cry from the back of the house reminded them of why they were there.

‘We dragged a mattress into the bathroom and she’s lying on that. She’d never have got under the bed, the size she is.’

Grace was already hurrying in the direction of the cry. Another battery lantern was barely bright enough to light the room, but Grace could see the shadowy shape that was Karen, hunched up on the mattress which had been placed between the wall and an old-fashioned, claw-footed bath.

Fluid made dark smears across the mattress, but before Grace could check if it was water from the birth
sac or blood, Karen cried out again, helplessly clutching the edge of the bath, her body contorting with pain.

‘It hurts too much,’ she said. ‘Make it stop. Please, make it stop.’

Grace knelt beside her, sliding her hand around to rest on Karen’s stomach, feeling the rigidity there.

‘How long have you been having contractions?’ she asked Karen as the stomach muscles relaxed.

‘This morning,’ the girl sobbed, ‘but I thought they were those pretend ones with the silly name. The baby’s not due for three weeks. And everyone was telling me first babies are always late so they had to be the pretend contractions.’

‘Have you timed them at all?’ Grace asked, trying to unlock Karen’s death grip on the bath so she could lay the young woman down to examine her.

‘No!’ Karen roared, crunching over in pain again. ‘You time them!’

She puffed and panted, occasionally throwing out combinations of swear words Grace had never heard before.

Grace pulled a towel off the towel rail, then looked around to see Harry and Mrs Aldrich peering in through the door.

‘Could you find something soft to wrap the baby in? And some spare towels would be good. And scissors, if you have them,’ she said, then looked at Harry.

‘How long do we have before Willie arrives?’

‘Three quarters of an hour, according to the latest alert. He’s also been upgraded—definitely a category five now.’

He looked around at the walls and ceiling of the bathroom.

‘This room’s too big for safety—the load-bearing walls are too far apart—although the bath looks solid enough.’

But Grace’s attention was back on Karen, who with a final shriek of pain had delivered a tiny baby boy.

He was blue, but as Grace cleared mucous from his mouth and nose, he gave a cry and soon the bluish skin turned a beautiful rosy pink.

‘You little beauty,’ Grace whispered to him, holding him gently in the towel.

Mrs Aldrich returned with the scissors, more towels and a soft, well-worn but spotlessly clean teatowel.

‘That’s the softest I’ve got,’ she said, peering into the room then giving a cry of surprise when she saw the baby. ‘It’s the way of the world—one dies and another takes his place,’ she said quietly, then she padded away, no doubt to sit beside her Bill.

‘I’ll call him William Harry,’ Karen said, as Grace wrapped the baby in the teatowel and handed him to Karen, suggesting she hold him to her breast. But Karen didn’t hear, her eyes feasting on the little mortal in her arms, her attention so focussed on his tiny form Grace had to blink away a tear. ‘William after Bill, who was always kind to me, and Harry after Harry because he was here.’

Grace looked up at Harry who was pale and tense, shaking his head as if he didn’t want a baby named after him. But even as Grace wondered about this reaction she became aware of the roaring noise outside the house and understood his lack of emotion. Another William—Willie—was nearly on them.

She turned her attention back to Karen, massaging
her stomach to help her through the final stage of labour, then cutting and knotting the cord and cleaning both mother and child.

Harry returned as she tucked a towel around the pair of them. He was carrying one of the bedcovers he’d found earlier, a pillow and a couple of blankets.

‘I’m going to put these in the bath, Karen, then I want you and the baby to get in there. We’ll put the mattress over the top to keep you both safe from falling debris. You’ll still be able to breathe and it’s not heavy, so if you feel claustrophobic you can lift it up a bit.’

Karen and Grace both stared at him, Karen finding her voice first.

‘In the bath?’

Harry, who was making a nest of the blankets and bedcover, nodded.

‘It’s an old cast-iron bath—far too heavy to move even in a cyclone. Its high sides will protect you both and support the mattress. I wouldn’t do it but the house has already lost a bit of roof and the walls are moving.’

Karen stopped arguing, handing the baby to Harry to hold while she stood up and clambered into the bath. Grace helped her, leaning over to make sure she was comfortable. She turned to Harry to take the baby and the look of pain and despair on his face made her breath catch in her lungs.

‘I’ll give him to Karen,’ Grace said gently, moving closer so she could take the little bundle. Harry’s eyes lifted from the baby to settle on Grace’s face, but she knew he wasn’t seeing her—wasn’t seeing anything in the present.

Had there been a baby? she wondered as he stepped
forward and leant over, very gently settling the baby in his mother’s arms.

Then he straightened up and strode out of the room, returning seconds later with a light blanket, which he tucked around the pair of them.

Karen smiled at him then tucked the baby against her breast, murmuring reassuringly to the little boy, although Grace knew the young woman must be terrified herself.

‘Here,’ Grace said, fishing in her pocket for the bottle of water and a couple of health bars. ‘Something to eat and drink while Willie blows over.’

Karen smiled and took the offerings, setting them down on her stomach, but her attention was all on the baby at her breast.

With Grace’s help Harry lifted the mattress onto the top of the bath, leaving a little space where Karen’s head was so she could see out.

‘Put your hand up and move the mattress so I know you can,’ he said, and Karen moved the mattress first further back then up again so only the tiny space was visible.

‘You OK?’ Grace asked, sliding her fingers into the space and touching Karen’s fingers.

‘I think so,’ the young woman whispered, her voice choked with fear.

‘We’ll just be next door, under Daisy’s bed,’ Harry told her, then he put his arm around Grace’s shoulders and drew her out of the room.

‘I hate leaving her like that. Surely we should all be together,’ Grace said, looking back over her shoulder at the mattress-covered bath.

‘Better not to be,’ Harry said, and Grace shivered as she worked out the implications of that statement.

Daisy met them as they entered her bedroom, and handed Grace the cellphone.

‘Give it to Karen. And this torch. Tell her about pressing 8 to talk to Harry. It might make her feel less lonely.’

Grace turned, but Harry stopped her, taking both the cellphone and the torch.

‘You help Daisy down onto the floor. If she lies on the mat I can pull her under the bed if we need the extra protection. And turn off your radio. I’m turning mine off as well. There’s nothing anyone can do out there, so we might as well save batteries.’

He walked away, leaving Grace to put a pillow on the mat, then help the frail old woman down onto the floor.

‘Cover Bill so things don’t fall on him,’ she whispered to Grace, and Grace did as she asked, drawing the bedcover over the peaceful face of the man on the bed. Then she sat on the floor and held Mrs Aldrich’s hand while outside the house the world went mad.

‘We’re going under the bed,’ Harry announced, returning with the second mattress from the spare bedroom. ‘I’m putting this on top as extra padding.’

He arranged the mattress so it rested from the bed to the floor, making a makeshift tent, then pulled the mat to slide Mrs Aldrich under the big bed.

‘Your turn,’ he said to Grace, who slid beneath the bed, leaving room for Harry between herself and the older woman.

Harry eased himself into the small space, wondering
what on earth he was doing there when he could be in a nice safe police station or civic centre hall.

That it had to do with Grace he had no doubt, but he couldn’t think about it right now. Right now he had to get these women—and the baby—through the cyclone.

He put his arm protectively around Daisy, but she shrugged him off.

‘For shame, Harry Blake, and with Bill in the room. If you want to cuddle someone, cuddle Grace. She looks as if she could do with an arm around her, and you certainly need a bit of loving.’

Mrs Aldrich’s voice was loud enough for Harry to hear above the roar of the approaching force, but would Grace have heard?

And if she had and he didn’t put his arm around her, would she think—?

He had no idea what she’d think. Somehow this wild, erratic force of nature had blown the two of them into totally new territory.

Territory where he
did
need a bit of loving?

Surely not.

But just in case Grace had heard—or maybe just in case he did need loving—he turned so he could put his arm around Grace, and when she didn’t object he drew her closer, tucking her body against his and once again feeling her curls feathering the skin beneath his chin.

‘Cuddling me, Harry?’ she said, her light, teasing voice defeating the noise outside because her lips were so close to his ear. ‘Aren’t you afraid? I mean, if a shuffling dance provoked the deadly physical attraction, what might a cyclone cuddle do?’