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Leaving Tori with Jake.
‘I…Thank you,’ she managed. He looked pretty much like he had the night before. Slightly more casual. Faded jeans and a white, open-necked shirt. Elastic-sided boots. He looked like a local, she thought, which was at odds with his American accent.
‘My pleasure,’ he said, and sounded like he meant it. ‘I didn’t realise last night that you were a vet.’
‘I didn’t know you were.’
‘I’m not.’
‘So inserting endotracheal tubes in koalas is just a splinter skill for, say, a television repairman?’
‘I’m an anaesthetist. Jake Hunter.’
‘An anaesthetist,’ Tori said blankly. ‘In Combadeen? You have to be kidding.’
‘I’m not kidding. I’m staying at Manwillinbah Lodge.’
‘Rob Winston’s place?’ She was struggling now with the connection. What had Jake said last night? ‘I own properties here, in the valley and up on the ridge.’ And Rob. Distracted, she thought of the pleasant young man who’d flirted outrageously last night. She remembered him arriving with this man. With Jake. ‘Was Rob Winston the ninth date last night?’ she demanded.
‘That was Rob.’
‘He was nice. Fun.’
‘Meaning, I wasn’t?’
‘I didn’t say that. But I wish I’d known who he was,’ she said ruefully. ‘He should have told me. I need to thank him, and not only for letting us use this place. I had a friend who went to Manwillinbah Lodge when she was released from hospital two months ago. It wasn’t right for her. She needed ongoing medical treatment, but that wasn’t Rob’s fault, and she said he tried so hard to give her time out. So many people around here need that.’ She frowned, figuring more things out. ‘So is this…is this your farm?’
‘It is.’
‘Oh, my…’
Uh-oh.
Last night she’d walked out on her landlord. On the guy who’d made this whole hospital possible. ‘You’ve been giving this place to us rent free and I didn’t even know who you were.’ It was practically a wail and he grinned.
‘This is a whole new conversation topic. If we’d known last night we could have used our whole five minutes.’
She managed a smile—just. How embarrassing. And how to retrieve the situation?
She should shake his hand. Or, um, not. She glanced down at her gloves and decided gratitude needed to wait. Plus she needed to catch her breath. Breath seemed in remarkably short supply.
‘Could you excuse me for a moment?’ she muttered. ‘I need to wash.’ And she disappeared—she almost ran—leaving him alone with Koala Number Thirty-seven.
He was in the front room of what seemed to have been a grand old farmhouse. It still was, somewhere under the litter of what looked to be an animal hospital.
When the fires had ripped through here, almost fifty percent of properties on the ridge had been destroyed. The loss of life and property had been so massive there’d been international television coverage. Horrified, he’d contacted Rob to see how he could help.
‘The lodge and the winery are okay,’ Rob told him. ‘We’re almost ten miles from where the fire front turned back on itself, so apart from smoke on the grapes there’s little damage. I’ve been asked if we can provide emergency accommodation, if it’s okay with you. And the farmhouse on the ridge…There’s an animal-welfare place wanting headquarters. When the wind shifted, pushing the fire back on itself, your place was spared. Just. There’s still feed around it, and the house itself is basically okay, but your tenants are moving off the mountain. They can’t cope with the mess and the smell, and they’re going to her mother’s. Can the animal-welfare people use it for six months or so?’
‘Of course,’ he’d said, so it was now a hospital—of sorts.
But as he looked around he thought he wouldn’t have minded seeing it as it once was—a gracious family home. And he wouldn’t have minded seeing the bushland around here as it was either. The fire had burned to within fifty yards of the house and then turned. Beyond that demarcation, the bush was black and skeletal. Green tinges were showing through the ash now, alleviating the blackness, but six months ago it must have been a nightmare.
He stared out the window until Tori bustled back into the room, carrying a bucket of steaming, soapy water. She looked like a woman who didn’t stay still for long, he thought. Busy. Clinically efficient. Cute?
Definitely still cute. She was in ancient jeans, an even more ancient T-shirt and a white clinical coat with a torn pocket. Her curls were again scraped back into a ponytail. Last night she’d pulled them back with a ribbon. Today they were tied with an elastic band. She looked…workmanlike.
But workmanlike or not, he thought, nothing could hide her inherent sexiness. Why had he wasted time last night thinking she was dowdy?
When she left the room she’d looked confused. Now, however, she looked relieved, as if she’d spent her bucketfilling time figuring things out as well.
‘I know now why you’re here,’ she told him. ‘You’re Old Doc’s son. Jake. I loved your father.’ She hesitated as if she wanted to say something else, but then thought better of it.
‘So you’re here to put this farm on the market,’ she continued briskly. ‘That’s fine, but first I need to thank you.’ She abandoned her bucket, put her hands out and grasped his, holding them in the same strong grip of the night before, a grip that made him wonder how he’d ever thought her a mouse. The connection felt strangely…right.
But Tori wasn’t noticing connections. She was moving right on.
‘I can’t tell you how grateful we’ve been,’ she said. ‘It’s been fabulous—and Barb said you won’t take any rent. It’s been truly lifesaving.’ She looked across at the little koala in her cage, and her business-like tone faltered a little. ‘And now you’ll sell. That’s fine. We don’t need it any more. As soon as this one goes…’
‘She’s the only one here now?’
‘We release as soon as we can,’ she said, efficient again. ‘Wild animals respond to captivity with stress. There’s a few that are too damaged to survive on their own, but we’ve relocated them all now to bigger animal shelters. Places where they can have as close to a normal life as possible. So yes, there’s only this little one here now. And me.’
He frowned. ‘You’re living here?’
‘I…Yes. I hope you don’t mind. It’s easier.’
‘You’re on twenty–four-hour call?’
‘Not many of my patients buzz me. It’s not as hard as it sounds.’ She was opening the door onto the verandah and ushering him out, almost before he was aware of what she was doing.
There was a small dog lying on an ancient settee by the door. He’d seen him as he arrived. He was some sort of terrier, a nondescript brown-and-white mutt who hadn’t bothered checking Jake out when he arrived. Too old to care? He glanced up now, gave a feeble wag of his tail and then went back to what he was doing.
Which wasn’t sleeping, Jake realised. He was staring down the valley, as if he was waiting for someone.
Tori touched the dog’s ears, and the dog nosed her palm and went right back to looking. Waiting to go home?
‘You’ll be looking forwards to going home,’ he ventured, and saw a flash of pain, hidden fast. Uh-oh, he thought. Stupid. If she was staying here…She’d be one of the hundreds burned out.
She hesitated and he knew he was right, but it was too late to retrieve the situation. ‘I guess I must be,’ she said slowly before he could think what else to say, and she shrugged. ‘No, of course I am. It’s time I moved on.’
‘Is that what you were doing last night—moving on?’
‘What I was doing last night was being conned by my friend. I gather you were conned as well. So when do you need me to move out?’
‘I don’t—’
‘It’ll be soon. You’ll need to clean the place up before you put it on the market. There’s a lot of smoke damage. Do you want to look through now?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have a teleconference in five minutes with our local shelter staffers, but you could look around yourself.’
‘I’d be happier if you could show me personally.’
Why had he said that? Surely he could see what he needed from here. What point was there doing a detailed inspection, and why did he need a personal tour from Tori?
She had him fascinated. There was something about the way her hand had shaken his, brisk, efficient, but also…there was something vulnerable about her. Something he couldn’t figure out.
She wasn’t sounding vulnerable, though. She was organising. ‘I can show you,’ she said, ‘but if you want the personal tour it’ll have to be later in the day. But tomorrow would be better.’
‘Is nine in the morning all right?’
‘Sure. When are you going back to the States?’
‘Monday.’ Six days away.
Suddenly six days seemed okay. If he kept the resort there was only this place to organise. He could be here again tomorrow and be shown over the property by Tori. Those jeans…He’d never seen jeans look this good on a woman.
‘I do need to get in to my teleconference,’ she said, a bit sharply, and he pulled himself together. What was he thinking? This woman was a country mouse—a vet who lived on the other side of the world to him. If she hadn’t stood him up on a five-minute date…
Was that what this was? Bruised ego?
‘Thank you very much for saving my koala,’ she said, starting to edge away.
‘What’s she called?’
‘I don’t name them. You get attached if you name them.’
‘You don’t get attached?’
‘I try hard not to. Now if you’ll excuse me…’
‘Of course,’ he said, but he was still surprised when she stepped back inside the house and closed the door sharply behind her.
She wasn’t a time waster, then, Dr. Nicholls. He didn’t waste time either—but he couldn’t help feeling piqued. Most women reacted to him differently to the way this woman had.
What was he thinking?
Nothing. There was nothing to think about. He gave himself a mental swipe to the side of the head and headed back to his rental car. He should get back to the States fast if he thought shabby little country vets were cute. If he thought shabby little country vets were fascinating.
He wasn’t to know that one shabby little country vet watched him until he was out of sight.
Boy, was she hopeless. She twitched the smoke-stained drapes back into place and glowered at nothing in particular. One gorgeous male, and here she was, feeling…weird. Which was dumb. The last thing she needed in her life was another man.
So why had she let Barb talk her into five-minute dating?
Because, with the leaving of the army of volunteers, she’d become so lonely she was starting to talk to walls.
Dad. Micki.
Don’t go there.
There weren’t even enough animals left to talk to. She returned to the makeshift surgery and stooped to check the little koala. She was barely conscious. So small. So battered.
Maybe it had been a mistake to keep on trying.
‘Live,’ she whispered, almost fiercely. ‘You must get better. You must start living again.’
She knew she must, too.
She glanced out the window to the west and flinched like she always did. She could just see the chimney stack which was all that was left of the house she’d lived in forever.
Her dad. Her sister.
‘Move on,’ she whispered. ‘Get yourself a nice little town house in the city. You can be a pet vet. Take care of allergies, dew claws, vaccinations.’
Maybe she would. It was just…she didn’t feel ready yet.
In a couple of weeks this little koala should be ready to move on to a wildlife refuge and this place would be sold to be a home again. But not her home. She’d sheltered here for long enough. It was time to face the world again.
She knew she could. She’d schooled herself to be independent.
So why was the thought of Jake Hunter walking away so disturbing?
‘So what’s the story with Tori?’ he asked Rob.
It was after dark. There were only two guests staying at Manwillinbah Lodge right now, and both had gone to bed early. Rob had organised a theatre night—an old showing of Casablanca. He’d set up a themed dinner, decorated the sitting room with black-and-white posters, even worn a hat—but both his guests were weary and just wanted their own beds.
They were fire victims, too, Jake had discovered. Both were elderly women, living in temporary accommodation, organising to rebuild. They’d come here for time out, because the process was leaving them exhausted, and all they wanted to do was sleep.
It left Rob dissatisfied, though. He loved being the entertainer, but by eight he was left to entertain himself and his boss. They sat on the back porch and watched the stars and drank beer—and Jake pushed.
‘Tori,’ he prodded again. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘I don’t even know her.’
‘But Barb’s told you.’
‘Nope. There’re tragedies everywhere and if you’re not told you don’t ask. Some people need to talk about it, some people can’t. All I know is that she was put in charge of the wildlife rescue effort and she was vet up on the ridge before the fires. I didn’t know she was staying on-site but I did say they could use it for whatever they wanted. I told you that when I phoned.’
He had. There’d been a couple of days when the news coming through from Australia was dreadful. He’d been ready to promise anything.
He still was.
‘I don’t want to kick Tori out,’ he said now, uneasily. ‘If she still wants to live there…’
‘She doesn’t. Barb says as soon as the last animal goes, so will she. It’s fine to put it on the market.’
‘Does she have somewhere to go?’
‘I have no idea,’ Rob said, giving him a curious glance. ‘I’ve never met the lady until last night, and five minutes with her didn’t give me much time for in-depth questions. Yours was worse—how many questions did you manage in your minute and a half?’
