Although hadn’t the child—Maddie—said something...?
The thought of her encounter with the man at the head of the gully reminded her that she hadn’t downloaded her drone’s latest pictures. She’d sent the drone home, grabbed her backpack, and then raced off to find whoever it was she’d seen crash.
Glad to have something to do, she went to her office and detached the SIM card from the small machine’s belly, pushed it into her computer, and sat down to study what it had picked up.
Nothing much, she decided, when she reached the point where her neighbour had crashed. But as the drone had obeyed her instructions and flown back home before she’d headed out on her rescue mission, it had crossed a new area.
And what was that she could see?
A lump in a burnt-out tree—exactly what she’d been looking for. The lumpy shape of a koala.
She checked the co-ordinates but really didn’t need them, for she could see the back fence of the wildlife sanctuary.
She zoomed in.
Could it have come from the sanctuary?
She shook her head.
She’d been there yesterday evening, and knew none of the recovering koalas had been released for over a week. Even those that had been released had gone into suitable forests far removed from the fire grounds.
No, this little fellow—and he or she was little—had somehow escaped the worst of the fires and was trying to find a new home.
In a burnt, and therefore leafless tree...
She grabbed a rope and her spiked climbing shoes and hurried towards the sanctuary, wondering who was on duty tonight, hoping it would be someone who could help her.
‘Oh, Beth!’ she groaned as she let herself in through the security gate in the outer yard. ‘Are you on your own here tonight?’
Petite and seven months pregnant, Beth smiled at her. ‘Just me, and I’m shutting up soon. The animals that need night feeds have gone home with Helen. There are only two of them, and she says they’re pretty good, so she can feed them both at once. The new vet came in to look around early this afternoon, though.’
The new vet with a dislocated shoulder...although his shoulder wouldn’t have been dislocated then...
Henry’s great-nephew, with a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.
But was he here to take over the practice, or sell it and move on?
Enough.
She needed to concentrate on the animal in danger. Night was falling fast, and to try a rescue in the dark would be foolhardy, to say the least.
But on the other hand...
She headed for the inner door—the one that led into the veterinary surgery.
His shoulder had been X-rayed and expertly strapped to his chest, and he’d been walking—albeit with a stick...
She knocked on the connecting door, loudly, because it was more likely he was in the house itself and wouldn’t hear a gentle tap.
The door opened immediately!
‘Yes?’ he said, sounding abrupt.
But when she saw the glass beaker in one hand and the pipette in the other, she realised she’d interrupted something he’d been doing.
Following her gaze, he said, ‘Sorry. I’ve just been testing some of the old supplies at the back of the cupboard. I’ll be right back.’
She’d have liked to tell him again that he shouldn’t be moving about on his ankle, but as she was about to ask his help in an operation more complicated than beakers and pipettes, she kept her lips firmly closed.
And shut her mind firmly to the man himself who—as a man, for heaven’s sake—was causing her more problems than her concern for his welfare.
Internal problems.
Physical problems.
Things she hadn’t felt in years.
The shivery spine and tingling fingers had only been the start...
Get with the program!
‘There’s a small koala, not far from here. My drone picked it up,’ she said, as she confronted her grumpy neighbour for the second time—no, third—today. ‘The problem is, he’s up a burnt tree, and will have realised there’s no food, so as soon as it’s fully dark he’ll climb down and head further into the burnt area and we might not find him again.’
She paused, hoping the look on her new neighbour’s face was incomprehension, not disbelief.
She tried again. ‘I can climb up and get him. I just need someone to hold the rope and the bag and take him from me so I can climb down.’
He frowned at her, a quick glance taking in her coiled rope and spiked boots, and the bag she’d grabbed as she’d walked through the sanctuary to his door.
‘I know you’re not one hundred percent, but I can’t ask Beth to help me, and it would take too long to get one of the other volunteers here, so do you think you could? Please?’
The silence seemed to echo through the room, and then he smiled in a way that made her wonder if this was a good idea. Plenty of men smiled at her—but none of those smiles sent warmth bubbling through her veins.
Really, this was getting out of hand!
How could she possibly be attracted to a total stranger?
She was tired—exhausted, in fact—after two treks up the gully today, so it was probably just her imagination anyway.
‘I suppose one good turn deserves another,’ he said, and smiled again. ‘I’ll get my walking stick and you can lead the way.’
She threw him her grateful thanks and moved back into the sanctuary, where small wombats poked their noses from old hollow tree trunks and sleepy koalas barely noticed her.
She breathed deeply, smelling the so-familiar scent of eucalyptus leaves, and told herself he probably smiled at everyone that way.
Breathing certainly calmed her nerves, so when he reappeared she was able to say, ‘It’s just out here—not far,’ and lead him out through the side gate of the sanctuary.
She pointed into the second row of the burnt-out plantation. ‘Don’t look at the tree. Look for the lump in it.’
‘Got it,’ he said. ‘But how do we go about this?’
He lifted the coiled rope off her shoulder, his fingers brushing the bare skin on her upper arm.
‘This one’s easy,’ she said, resolutely ignoring the accidental touch, for all it had shaken her. ‘See that branch just below the animal? We throw the rope over that, then I swing on it to make sure the branch will take my weight, rope myself up, and climb. You just have to play out the rope. You’re really here just in case I slip, so you can stop me crashing to the ground.’
She took the weighted end of the rope from him and swung it around before flinging it into the tree.
‘Okay, the branch looks strong enough. Just let out the rope so the end falls back to the ground, then we’ll detach the weight and attach me.’
He played out the rope, but his silence was a little unnerving.
‘Sometimes you have to climb up to attach the rope,’ she said—nervous chatter, she knew, but it was better than silence. ‘Or attach it in stages as you climb, so if you do fall, you don’t fall far.’
She tied the rope around her waist, grabbed the bag, and handed it to him.
‘Make sure you hold him by the scruff of his neck when I pass him to you, and the sooner you get him into the bag the better. They’re fighters, and their claws are sharp and can really rip into you.’
She headed for the tree.
‘And keep one foot on the rope!’ she reminded him as she began to clamber up the trunk.
* * *
Struck dumb by the rapid sequence of events, Cam could only shake his head. Keep one foot on the rope—he understood that part. She didn’t want him struggling to put a panicked animal into a bag and forget he was also the brake on her rope.
Stars were beginning to appear in the sky, and his neighbour was already halfway up th
e tree.
Did she do this often?
He wanted to ask, but also didn’t want to distract her—particularly now, as she was persuading the recalcitrant and possible wounded koala to let go of his perch.
Then she started back down, with the animal making grunting noises—protesting strongly at this treatment.
Cam wound in the rope, secured the coil beneath his feet, and lifted the bag so she could slip the captive into it.
‘There!’ she said. There was satisfaction in the word, but keeping the animal in the bag—one-handed—was easier said than done.
‘You can lift your foot and let me jump down now,’ said his neighbour—Lauren—and he realised she was still several feet above the ground.
He lifted his foot and held out his spare hand to steady her as she landed lightly beside him.
‘Thanks,’ she said, with a smile that made him wonder if this had all been a dream: the beautiful smiling woman, sooty again from the tree, the animal still complaining in the bag, the fading sunset behind the burnt-out forest where they stood and the glimmer of a silvery lake in front of them.
She was not at all the kind of woman who usually sent his body into a perfectly natural male response. Not that this could be compared with anything usual!
The timing couldn’t be worse—just settling into a new life, Maddie to think of, a practice to learn and run, a divorce to be settled—yet still she turned him on.
It had to be an enchantment of some kind.
He checked her out again—a quick, sidelong glance—wondering...
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We have to check him out.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHY DO YOU do this?’ he asked, as they walked the short distance back to his house and the wildlife sanctuary.
She turned towards him and even in the near darkness he saw the flash of white teeth as she smiled.
‘I suppose because I can,’ she answered, adding, ‘And I’m good at it.’
He wished he could see her more clearly, read her expression—not that he’d learn much, he guessed.
So he asked. ‘How come?’
‘I grew up doing it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how much you know about koalas, but about twenty-five years ago koala numbers were being decimated by the chlamydia pecorum infection. In an attempt to wipe it out large numbers of animals were caught, treated—cured, really—tagged, and rehomed back in the bush. My father and Henry were at the forefront of the effort in this district around the lake.’
‘I heard about it and assumed that was possibly why Henry started the wildlife hospital and sanctuary at the back of his house.’
‘Your house now, isn’t it?’
They were approaching the house, and he looked at it and nodded his head. ‘Such as it is,’ he said.
She chuckled—such a soft, musical sound he had to smile.
‘Mine’s worse,’ she told him, pausing to drop her climbing shoes and the rope at the edge of the path where it divided to go east and west. They were going west.
‘I get builders in,’ she said, ‘to fix one thing, and they discover a dozen worse problems.’
‘You might give me some names,’ he said, ‘but first—is it too much to ask that you give me a hand with our friend here? I am a vet, and I have treated the odd unusual animal back home, but although I’ve read up on them I’ve no practical knowledge of koalas.’
He held up the bag, in which a very disgruntled koala was still complaining loudly.
* * *
Lauren felt a moment’s hesitation, even though she’d fully intended to get the koala sorted before she left.
So, was the hesitation because talking to this man was so easy?
Or because it was so long since she’d had a man to talk to—just talk...?
Stupid!
For a start, he was probably still married—there was the child, Maddie, even if her mother was off ‘finding herself...’
And secondly... Well, she’d prefer not to think about the secondly—which was, to put it bluntly, her physical reaction to this man. It had to be the result of prolonged celibacy that had her blood warming when he spoke and her skin tingling if they accidentally brushed against each other.
But she could hardly walk away and leave him with an injured animal and no idea where to begin his treatment of it.
‘Of course I’ll help,’ she heard herself say, hoping she sounded brisk and efficient, and not as dubious as she felt. ‘You need time to learn what you can and can’t do with wildlife. Just don’t lose your heart to any of them—or, worse, let Maddie get too attached. They all go back into the bush eventually.’
He opened the gate into the mesh cage, and in the low light within she saw the grey pallor of his face.
‘You’ve done too much!’ she said, cursing herself for her stupidity. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to help. We should have let him go—take his chances.’
He shook his head, but she’d already found a stool for him to sit on, and as she guided him towards it, her arm around his back, she took the bag from him.
‘Did the hospital check you for concussion or mention you could have it?’
‘They asked if I had anyone at home to keep an eye on me, and I assured them I did.’
Not that his mother wouldn’t be perfectly capable of caring for him, but she had Maddie to think of as well, and probably wouldn’t want to be up and down all night checking on him.
‘Well, you just sit for now, but tell me if you start to feel woozy.’
She checked him out as unobtrusively as she could. His colour had certainly returned, and his eyes seemed bright and focussed.
‘I won’t fall off the stool, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s get this animal sorted. I’m following the locum around, and beginning to learn what’s where in the vet surgery, but I haven’t spent more than a few minutes out here.’
Lauren hesitated. There was something about this man—Cam—that made her feel...not uncomfortable, exactly, but disturbed. As if the normally reliable nerves and tissues inside her were sending messages through her body...messages she couldn’t understand—or didn’t want to.
Nonsense. Get on with it.
‘I’ve done this often enough,’ she said, hoping she sounded more casual than she felt. ‘And it will give you a chance to see how to go about things.’
She hesitated again, now more worried about his health than the effect he was having on her.
‘Do you need something to drink—or some food? I don’t want you fainting. I’d never get you upright again!’
He smiled at her, sending that strange warmth through her veins again.
Bloody hell.
She knew what she must look like—tall, skinny, slightly sooty...well, very sooty, if she was honest...
And obviously he was just smiling because she’d been kind. Right?
‘I had soup and toast with Maddie earlier,’ he said, ‘so no food—though I am glad to get my weight off my ankle.’
Relieved, Lauren turned her attention to the animal.
‘You probably know all this just from your general practice, but it’ll be quicker and easier if I do it this time.’
He smiled again.
‘I’d never met a koala until I came here a week ago,’ he said, waving his hand towards the resident population of eight recovering animals. ‘While as for wombats—I’m not entirely sure I’d even dreamt of meeting one.’
‘Not covered in your general course at uni?’
He shook his head, the smile still hovering.
Get on with the job in hand, Lauren told herself.
At least that should counter the weird reactions she was having to this man.
Be professional. Big breath!
‘Okay, I’m going to have to anaestheti
se him to check him out, and it will be easier to do that while he’s still in the bag. Would you mind holding it a bit longer while I get what I need?’
She handed him the bag and hit the code to get into the locked storeroom, where medication and equipment were kept. There, she grabbed a syringe and an ampoule of the anaesthetic they used, a mask, and a small cylinder of oxygen, just in case.
‘Will you inject into an upper limb?’ Cam asked, and she saw he had the animal on his knee.
He had managed to uncover its furry face, and one shoulder, while keeping the claws tucked away in the bag.
‘Yes, that’s easiest,’ she said, and slid the injection into the animal.
‘I do know all about cleaning the site before injecting, and all those rules,’ she explained as she disposed of the sharps and other rubbish, ‘but you have to weigh that up with the stress we’re putting on him.’
‘Or her,’ Cam said, smiling again as he lifted the now comatose koala from the sack.
‘What next?’ he asked.
Her mind went blank. She had to get out more, if a man’s smile was turning her into a turnip-head!
‘Now we look at him,’ she said, adding quickly, ‘Or her.’
She settled the little bear on a clean paper towel on the bench in front of them and checked the body. ‘Her,’ she said, with confidence this time.
‘And start fluids, I would think?’ he said. ‘Do you give them in a drip or intramuscularly?’
‘IM,’ Lauren said. ‘And regularly—until she’s well enough to take water from a dish. If she’s been wandering through the fire grounds we can expect burns to her feet, and maybe her face—see here?’
She showed him a small patch of reddened, blistered skin near the snout, then lifted each foot, again red and blistered. But the belly fur, although dark with soot and debris, seemed uninjured.
‘If the burns are too extensive, surely you’ll have to euthanise?’ he said.
Lauren nodded, probing at one of the hind pads that seemed to have a deeper burn.
‘These look first-degree, I’d say,’ Cam said, and again Lauren nodded, amazed at how quickly she’d relaxed now they were both in a more professional mode.
A Wedding for the Single Dad Page 3