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The last time he’d seen her had been at the local school fête. One of her kids had painted her face as a butterfly, and her blue eyes were orbs under enormous, colourful wings, the paint reaching right out to her ears.
Good grief, he’d thought, as he and Charlotte had paused for a second, stunned look. No, she definitely wasn’t his type. She wasn’t groomed and elegant as he liked his women. She wasn’t like his mother or like Charlotte.
And now… Well, she certainly wasn’t concentrating on appearances, but she was looking more frazzled than he’d ever seen her. As he reached the veranda, she burst through the screen door and she was carrying a baby. The little one couldn’t have been more than four or five months old.
Erin didn’t say anything more than, ‘Take the baby,’ before thrusting the child into his arms and disappearing again into the house.
What was he supposed to do with it? He stared down at the baby in indecision. He couldn’t just dump it, but there were things that were more urgent here than baby-holding.
A face appeared over the side fence. Well, it would. The explosion must have been heard for blocks, and Valda Cole was into everyone else’s business before it happened. Usually Matt avoided Valda like the plague, but now, burdened with the baby, he was even grateful to see her.
‘Take the baby and phone the fire brigade,’ he snapped, and thrust the infant over the fence into her startled arms before she had a chance to protest. ‘And contact the police and ambulance. Fast.’
And then he dived into the house after Erin.
She’d found Tess and Michael.
The children had woken and stumbled to their doors in the increasingly smoke-filled dark. Calling and feeling her way, she found them and grabbed their hands. Five years old and badly frightened, Tess stumbled in the gloom. Still holding eight-year-old Michael’s hand, Erin lifted Tess and fumbled her way out toward the door.
The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were streaming as she called to the twins.
‘Henry? William?’
There was no answer. Ventilation slits were built in above the bedroom doors and the smoke seemed to be coming from the twins’ room, but she couldn’t investigate. Her first priority must be to get Tess and Michael out.
And then she barrelled right into Matt in the hall.
This time she acknowledged his presence. She needed help—any help!—and she knew enough of Matthew McKay to know he was capable.
‘Matt, there’s these two, but the twins are still inside.’ She propelled her children forward and choked on a lungful of smoke. ‘Take them out.’
He took them all out. Grasping her arm without a word, he pulled her back out of the door before she could argue. There, standing on the porch, she fought to regain her breath so she could speak again.
Her panic was threatening to overwhelm her. The smoke seemed almost impenetrable, and she could see flames shooting from the side window. It was definitely coming from the twins’ room.
‘Dear God, the twins…’ It was hard to make her voice work. The smoke had seared her lungs, so every breath hurt.
‘How many more are inside?’ Matt’s voice was harsh with authority. ‘How many and tell me where they are. Now!’
Somehow she hauled herself under control and made herself heard. She couldn’t have asked for a better assistant than Matt McKay. Sure, he was wealthy and too good-looking for his own good, and he moved in circles she didn’t belong too, but his competence was never in question.
‘Just the twins,’ she told him. ‘Two seven-year-old boys. They’re in there together.’ She choked on another lungful of smoke, but she had enough sense to thrust the children off the porch as she motioned toward the twins’ window. The curtains were billowing out through the smashed glass, flaming outward in the night air. ‘Please look after the kids. I’ll go—’
‘Stay where you are!’ Matt’s brain was in overdrive as he sorted priorities. Helmut Cole was running across the lawn with a garden hose, while Valda watched horrified from a distance. She was holding the baby like she was holding something unclean.
It couldn’t matter. At least the baby could come to no harm where she was, and Helmut was doing the right thing.
‘Have you called emergency services?’ he yelled and, as Valda nodded, he turned back to her husband.
‘Helmut, point the hose in that window and keep it there.’ Then he turned and headed back inside—back in the direction of those shooting flames.
‘Please be careful.’ Erin was close to collapse. ‘The smoke…’
‘We can’t get in through the window,’ he told her. ‘Let’s just hope the whole bedroom isn’t ablaze.’
The house was in pitch darkness, but even if it had been daylight he couldn’t have seen anything. The smoke was so dense it was threatening to choke him. Matt dropped to his knees and crawled, but the smoke was too thick…
Then his brain kicked in. Finally! Damn, he should have thought of this outside. He paused, hauled off his sweater and tied it round his face. It wasn’t much protection, but it was better than nothing.
The twins’ bedroom was the second window from the front. He needed to turn right through the kitchen and head for the second door along the passage to the closed door…
He had to work fast, whatever was behind that door. If he was met with a wall of flame he didn’t have a chance—but then, neither did the twins.
With a silent prayer, he felt the knob, but it wasn’t hot to touch. That was his first good sign. There was therefore only smoke hard against the door. There was nothing to do now but…
He took a deep, smoke-filled breath, opened the door and forced his eyes to see. The curtains across the window were blazing, and the bed against the far wall was well alight. Outside, Helmut raised his hose and he was hit in the face by a jet of water.
Thank God for Helmut. The water wouldn’t put the fire out, but it helped keep him alive. The soggy sweater across his face made breathing possible—just—and he kept his face in that direction until the sweater was completely soaked.
Then he took another breath and somehow managed to make his voice work.
‘Kids, where are you?’
‘H-here…’ The muffled gasp came from the side of the room away from the window—low down. A piece of burning curtain landed in his hair. He thrust it away, unconscious of the pain, and groped under the second bed.
‘Grab hold,’ he managed, and small hands reached out and gripped his arms. As he counted contact hands—four!—he could have sobbed in relief.
There was no time for sobbing. Now what? Somehow he had to get them back through the house, and the smoke was building every minute.
‘T-Tigger,’ one of the children was saying, and the kid was pulling away.
‘What?’
‘Tigger.’
Matt found his hands full of sodden fur as the thing was thrust at him. A toy? Good grief! He shoved it down his shirt and grabbed a blanket.
‘Wait.’ His voice came out as a hoarse croak. More of Helmut’s water hit the blanket, but not enough. He held it up and let it soak, and then threw the cloth over the boys’ heads.
‘We’re crawling out of the room,’ he croaked. He had them cradled against him, but he pushed them towards the door. ‘You crawl first. If I stop, then you keep going. That’s an order. Now!’
And he shoved them forward out of that burning room, along the passage, into the kitchen and the hall beyond.
‘Henry… William…’
Erin met them in the hall. Like Matt, she’d wrapped her sweater over her head. She’d come in as far as she dared and was waiting, crouched at the kitchen door. As they crawled from the passage, she hauled them into her arms and tugged them outside.
Matt followed. He crawled four feet from the front door and collapsed unconscious onto the porch.
The most beautiful pair of blue eyes was gazing down into his.
‘Do you think he’ll live?’
There was something over his mouth and nose—something plastic and hard, and he tried to push it away.
‘Keep it there, Matt.’ He recognised the voice—Rob McDonald, the local police sergeant. ‘You’ve got a lungful of smoke and we’re giving you oxygen. Yes, Erin, if he’s capable of fighting off a mask, then I reckon he’ll live.’
Matt thought that through, and it seemed to make sense. The gorgeous eyes were still looking at him. It was funny how he’d never noticed them before. Erin was grimy and smoke-stained and still looking frazzled, but suddenly he thought she looked the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Just like that butterfly at the fête, he thought dazedly. Gorgeous!
Life was gorgeous!
If she hadn’t come in to find them, he never would have got the boys out, he acknowledged. It had taken all his strength just to crawl those last few yards and he couldn’t have propelled the twins any further.
‘The twins?’ It was a muffled whisper under the mask, but Erin knew what he was saying.
‘They’re scared out of their wits but they’re fine. I need to go back to them. If you’re sure you’re okay…’
‘He’s tough,’ Rob growled. ‘The ambulance boys are just bringing the stretcher across.’
That roused him. Hell, no. He didn’t need a stretcher. He pushed the mask away, coughed and coughed again, and finally managed to sit up. Rob stayed by his side, uneasy.
‘They told me to hold the mask over your face. Do you mind not getting me into trouble?’
‘I don’t need it.’ Matt coughed again, grabbed the mask and took two deep breaths to prove it. The improvement was immediate.
Then he took a look around, and was astounded by what he saw.
People were everywhere. The fire engine was parked almost beside him; there were men running, hoses uncoiling; the police car was there with its blue light flashing…
Half of Bay Beach was here, he thought dazedly, and then he turned to the house.
Helmut’s hose hadn’t been enough. The house was well alight and they’d be lucky to save anything. The bedroom where the twins had come from was now a charred shell, and the rest of the house was roofless and smouldering. There was little for the fire-fighters to do but to play their hoses over the ruin to stop sparks causing trouble elsewhere.
Matt looked at the charred remains of the twins’ bedroom, and a shudder ran though his entire body. He’d been in there. The twins had been in there!
The man beside him saw what he was seeing and guessed his thoughts. ‘You got the kids out,’ Rob said in a voice that was none too steady. His big policeman’s hand came down and grasped Matt’s shoulder. ‘I don’t know how you did it, mate, but you did. You’re a bloody hero.’
‘I don’t know how I did it either,’ Matt said. He gulped in two more takes of oxygen and focussed some more.
There was something heavy and soggy in his shirt and he suddenly remembered the kids’ toy. Or whatever it was. He peered down his shirt in the combined firelight and floodlights, and was relieved to see a pair of grimy glass eyes staring up at him.
It was just a toy, then. Great! For a minute there he’d thought maybe it was an unconscious pet, and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a dog or cat didn’t really appeal.
Back to important stuff.
‘The kids…they really are okay?’
‘They really are okay. Thanks to you.’ Rob looked up as the ambulance officers approached and he gave them an apologetic grin. ‘He’s giving me trouble.’
‘He would.’ The ambulance officers were locals and they were mates of both Rob and Matt. Their smiles were wide as houses.
In truth as they’d rounded the bend and seen the fire their stomachs had tightened in horror. Fire casualties were awful, and kids were the worst. Now, they were having trouble containing their delight that their only patient was a stroppy mate—a mate who looked like he had every intention of making it to old age.
‘Let’s get you loaded up and off to hospital,’ they said cheerfully. ‘Hey, we hear Nick Daniels is in there without his appendix. You can keep him company.’
‘I’m not going to hospital.’
‘Too right you are, even if we have to tie you down.’ Then they glanced up as a young woman came hurrying across the lawn toward them, her doctor’s bag at her side. ‘Doc, he’s saying he won’t come to hospital.’
‘Lie down, Matthew McKay,’ she said firmly.
‘But—’
‘Shut up and let me examine you or I’ll put you out for the count.’ Dr Emily Mainwaring knew her stuff, and she knew her patient. ‘Hurry up, Matt. They say you’re the one worst affected but I have five kids and Erin to examine, so let’s get this over fast.’
He was fine. Excellent, almost.
‘You’ll live,’ she told him, tucking away her stethoscope and casting a brief yet horrified glance at the still-smouldering house. ‘Just don’t push your luck any further. You need antiseptic and a dressing on that burn on your head, but it’s superficial.’ Then she peered closer under his shirt and saw what he’d stuffed there. ‘What on earth is that?’
‘It’s a toy of some kind.’ Matt managed a grin. ‘It’s not a patient—thank Heaven.’ He put a hand down to haul it out but she stopped him.
‘No. If it really is a toy, leave it there and see if you can clean it up when you get home. If you leave it here it’ll get lost in this mess, and it just may be important. These kids have lost everything, and I suspect I’m not looking at long-term physical problems here, but psychological ones.’
He thought that through and it made sense. ‘Okay.’ The toy could stay, soggy or not.
‘Can you dress that burn yourself? It’s not too bad.’ She was flustered, worrying about Erin and the kids and wanting to move on. ‘Good. Okay, you don’t need hospital, but I do want you supervised tonight. No going home to that farm alone. What about going to Charlotte’s? Shall I have someone ring her?’
‘No!’ For some reason that was the last thing he wanted. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You hear what I’m saying?’ she said fiercely. ‘Home with someone with you—or hospital. Choose.’
‘I…’
‘I don’t have time to waste,’ she said firmly. ‘Think about it while I check the rest. Though, thanks to you, I gather I hardly have a patient to contend with.’ She turned to the ambulance officers.
‘Hold him down, boys, and don’t let him go until he can give me a plan for this evening that doesn’t involve going home by himself, forgetting the antiseptic, having three stiff whiskies and passing out without anyone there to watch.’
She meant it.
Matt knew Emily well enough to accept that she was quite capable of trussing him to a stretcher, and he had enough wit—and he was feeling bad enough—to acknowledge that she was talking sense.
So what were his alternatives?
She’d suggested Charlotte’s, but the idea was distinctly unappealing. Sure, she’d put him up for the night, but she’d fuss.
All he wanted was his own bed, he thought, and suddenly he wanted it very, very much. Shock was starting to hit home, and he had to clench his hands into fists to stop Rob seeing the sudden tremor that ran through him.
But Rob wasn’t noticing. His mind had moved on.
