The Bridesmaid's Wedding

by Margaret Way

  “Hey, mister, it’s the truth!” Harper straightened his handsome head, his expression proud. “It just so happens I care about Ally. She’s the only one who has ever

  acted like a friend to me.”

  A Rafe nodded grimly. “Then it’s a terrible way to repay her. You’re as guilty as sin, Harper. I can see it in your face. I can smell the guilty sweat off your body. Anyway, for your information, I’m making a citizen’s arrest. Ally has called the police. You can give your cock-and-bull story ito them.”

  Harper’s black eyes flickered. “You won’t come out of it too well, either, Mr. Cameron. There are laws against assault.”

  “What’s the betting you won’t find anyone to look into it? I wanted to nail you, Harper, and I did. So now we walk. We’re going back up the stairwell. and you’re going to wait quietly until the police arrive.”

  “Oooh, you are a big strong man!” Harper said, sliding into a simpering camp voice.

  “Forget that!” Rafe muttered in disgust. “That was just a smokescreen.” He got hold of Matt Harper’s arm and held it tightly behind his back. “Now start walking. I haven’t hurt you but I’d like to. Remember that.”

  They were almost at the first landing when Ally appeared at the top of the stairs. Her first reaction when she saw Harper was to cower against the wall. “Oh, God, Rafe,” she moaned. “You were right, after all.”

  At that Matt Harper’s chiselled features contorted.

  “Right about what, Ally?” the shouted, sobbing a little in peirverse shame when he saw her beautiful stricken face. “I’ve done nuthin’, I swear. Your big muscled boyfriend here. has been belting into me. For what? For lookin’ out for you. I’ve been doin’ that since all that harassment stuff started.”

  “Go back upstairs, Ally,” Rafe ordered, unimpressed with Harper’s explanation, but Ally, being Ally, pressed forward unexpectedly, no longer fearful but violently outraged. Matt was lying. Of course he was lying, the miserable little rat. Why hadn’t she recognised it? This was the person who had given her months of hell. Him with his black jeans, his black sweatshirt and that silly damned cloak.

  “You bastard!” There were tears in her almond eyes. “And to think I stuck up for you. What a fool!’

  “Go back, Ally,” Rafe warned, knowiing how impetuous Ally could be.

  But she was focused on Harper. “You’re going to pay for all you’ve done, Matt. I’ve rung the police.”

  “This is a set-up,” Harper yelled, trying to stare her down, but Allywas flying down the stairs, badly shaken inside, but wanting to confront her tormentor. Those letters, those phone calls! She felt they had violated her. This repulsive creature needed as little time in jail.

  “Ally!” Rafe yelled, rapid-fire as though she was about to step.out into a mine field.

  The tone of his voice checked her at the very moment her high heel caught in that damnable black cloak. She had a moment of pure panic, the realisation this was

  going to turn out badly, then she was pitching forward, throwing out her arms in desperation to break her certain fall.

  This can’t be happening! It was her last conscious thought.

  Both men moved. Both cried out her name. Rafe felt he could have reached her, cushioned her fall, with his body, only Harper, remorseful now, got in his way. Ally came down hard, her slender body at a sickening angle.

  It chilled him to the bone. He literally had to heave Harper, who was howling like a pained animal, out of the way. “Move, you fool!”

  “God, God, I’m sorry!” Useless words that made Rafe furious. He flung out at hand, crashed it down on Harper’s shoulder, forcing him down on the step. Immediately his handsome features distorted. Harper began, of all things, whispering to himself, his head buried in his hands.

  As Rafe bent over Ally, his mind slotting through all he knew about first aid, the door opening onto the stairwell burst open. Two men appeared, Mead and a uniformed police officer.

  Rafe lifted his head, something dangerouszin his face. “Get an ambulance quick. We have to get her to the hospital. She’ s had a fall.”

  The police officer acted on the instant, pulling out his mobile and punching in the emergency numbers.

  “You got him?” Mead cried, this eyes on Harper who was screaming, to Mead’s amazement, he hadn’t done anything. They were trying to fix him with something

  he hadn’t done.

  “I got him,” Rafe responded bleakly, working not to turn around and shut Harper up. Forcibly. Maybe for good. He kept hold of Ally’s slender hand, his eyes glued to her white unconscious face. If anything bad happened to Ally, life as he knew it was over.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FEE entered the ward with great urgency, her face white and tense. She was followed closely by David Westbury, concern lines etched deeply into his forehead.

  “Rafe, my dear!”

  Rafe stood up as Ally’s aunt went tearfully into his arms. “I’ve never been so shocked in my life. This is terrible, terrible. My beautiful Ally! Where is she? Where have they taken her?”

  “They’re running tests, Fee.” Rafe tried to speak reassuringly, nodding over Fee’s head to David who responded with his eyes. “She’s broken her wrist. I don’t know exactly how, bad the break is. It’s the crack on the head that’s the greatest worry.”

  “My God, not head injuries.” Fee’s voice was frightened. “This could be very serious.”

  “I pray God not, Fee,” Rafe responded, his hazel eyes grave. “Ally came to fairly quickly. She responded to my voice. She knew me though she was having a problem remembering what had happened. The paramedics were there almost immediately. She’s having the best of care.”

  “We’ll have to let Brod know.” Fee looked terribly dejected. “On their honeymoon but they have to know.”

  “Yes, Fee,” Rafe agreed. “I feel responsible for this somehow. My turning up seemed to have triggered Harper off.”

  “It certainly brought him out into the open,” David said supportively. The young man had nothing to reproach himself for. Rather the reverse.

  “Rafe, dear, you can’t blame yourself for anything.” Fee shook her head. “We both know Ally. She wouldn’t stand by idly if she thought you were in any danger. It’s that psycho Harper we have to blame. Is he still denying he’s had anything to do with it?”

  Rafe nodded grimly. “His claim is he’s been looking out for Ally, but the police aren’t having that. He’s been taken into custody and he’ll be charged with being on private premises unlawfully, sending offensive material through the post, stalking, and there’s the little matter of his violating privacy laws, ex-directory numbers and so forth. I expect he’ll be released on bail with an order to appear in court a month or so on.”

  “Will Ally have to appear? She’ll hate that.” Fee shuddered.

  “Not if he pleads guilty. If he doesn’t she’ll have to appear as a witness and be cross-examined by defence counsel. I don’t think it will come to that, Fee. He’ll be convicted and put on a good behaviour bond with a hefty fine. He’ll also be ordered to stay away from Ally. I think it’s something like a kilometre, so there goes his TV role.”

  “Who could care about that?” Fee’s eyes shone with anger.

  “Please,” Rafe extended his arm, “why don’t we all sit down. The doctors won’t be back for some time?”

  A nurse with a kind capable face approached to ask them if they wanted tea or coffee, but all three declined.

  Finally the doctor Rafe had spoken to earlier, a consultant neurologist, came down the corridor, his clever face expressionless in the manner of doctors, yet it turned the blood in Rafe’s veins icy. He stood up to take the news while Fee, equally strained, clutched David’s arm. “Oh, Davey, I’m so afraid. I keep, remembering Ally when she was a little thing and her mother had gone away.” David forced a smile, fighting down his own anxieties. “Ally’s a strong girl, Fee. A fighter. She’ll come through.”

  Rafe introduced
Fee and David, and the doctor began to fill them in. The scaphoid bone in Ally’s left wrist had been broken but he didn’t foresee a problem with that. She, was young, she was healthy. No reason to believe she wouldn’t knit Well. The head trauma? Well…. The doctor went on to explain Ally had a good strong bony skull which protected the tissues of the brain. Also she was fortunate in her abundant hair which unquestionably had cushioned her Nevertheless, she had a split to the scalp that had required urgent attention.

  He was awaiting the results of the MRI, the magnetic resonance imaging, which would provide him with all the information he wanted. He needed to know what was going on inside the cerebrum though he told them pools of cerebrospinal fluid acted as an internal shock absorber. The patient was badly concussed, but there was no significant impairment of physical function apart from the broken wrist. She, had a very bad headache, as could be expected, but so far, and this was crucial, no visual deficits.

  Her short-term, memory however was at this stage poor. She would have to be held for observation. Perhaps for several days. The implications of any head injury had to be regarded seriously. He was at this stage reasonably predicting a quick recovery. There was no coma. The paramedics had reported the patient had recovered consciousness by the time they arrived, a matter of minutes.

  “Can we see her?” Fee asked, standing up suddenly as though she wouldn’t brook any other answer.

  The doctor hesitated a moment, taking in her distress. “For a very short time.”

  “I only want to kiss her.” Fee stared back into the doctor’s eyes.

  Immediately he turned, beckoning to a nursing sister who was standing at a station nearby. “Sister Richards will take you.”

  “Thank you so much, Doctor.” Fee looked at David, who had no thoughts of intruding.

  Feeling a shade dizzy with relief, the two men sat down as Fee and the nurse moved off. The doctor looked downs at Rafe with a sympathetic eye. “Of course you may see your friend for a moment, Mr. Cameron.” Obviously, they were romantically involved. The young man was deeply troubled.

  “Actually I’d like to stay through the rest of the night,” Rafe said, hoping the doctor wouldn’t argue.

  “You don’t have to.” He was assured. “The hospital will call if there’s anything worrying to report.”

  “I’ll stay all the same.”

  The doctor nodded. “Very well. I’ll have my pictures then. If you’re still around I can give you a first-hand report.” He began to excuse himself. “Now I have another patient I must see to. When your aunt comes back, Sister will escort you to Miss Kinross’s room.”

  “Rather better than we thought?” David said after the doctor had gone, looking at Rafe with kindly eyes.

  “I can’t relax until she’s been given the all clear,” Rafe answered, unconsciously twisting his strong hands. “This has been a nightmare.”

  “But a major breakthrough, Rafe. Ally’s very fortunate you were around. They should really lock Harper up and throw away the key. One tries to make allowances for his deprived background but he sounds a piece of goods.”

  Rafe nodded. “He’s got at lot of psychological baggage. I’m putting my hopes on the DNA. Mead tells me he’s got himself a good lawyer already. That doesn’t make any of us particularly happy. The police or me.”

  “Ah, here comes Fee,” David murmured, looking down the silent corridor. “Is it my imagination or does she look twice as fragile.”

  “Shock,” Rafe said. “She and Ally are very close.”

  Closer in a way than Fee and Francesca, David thought, but didn’t have the heart to mention.

  Fee was deeply upset by it all, so both men encouraged her to return home.

  “I’m staying for the rest of the night, Fee,” Rafe told her. “With any luck they might allow me to sit quietly in her room.”

  “This has been a horrible shock,” Fee said. “She knew me but she couldn’t really talk to me.” Fee went to Rafe, hugged him. “Thank you, Rafe, dear. The break is in the same arm she broke as a child, you know.”

  “When she was ten.” Rafe easily cast his mind back to the day. Ally the tomboy had followed them, him and Brod, out to their new secret swimming hole about three miles northwest of Kimbara homestead. It was a wonderful spot, as fair-sized lagoon with sparkling volumes of water pouring over giant boulders and swirling down a narrow gorge of multicoloured rocks with stripes of desert red, pink, yellow and black.

  They were having. a wonderful time in the water, surprisingly deep and cold, but both of them were fine divers and swimmers when suddenly the ten-year-old Ally appeared out of nowhere. Even as at kid she’d been a great tracker. She’d waved to them from the top of the rocks, for her age, in her T-shirt and jeans, her wildly unruly dark hair decorated with a garland of white daisies.

  “Hey, you two! As soon as I get my clothes off, I’m coming in.”

  Both he and Brod had reacted with alacrity. That was all right when they were small and she was hardly more than a baby but not now. He and Brod were fifteen years

  old, nearly men, and both of them held Ally very dear to their hearts.

  Immediately Brod had turned for the bank, starting to protest when Ally took off like a bird, her small feet flying among the stones. She probably would have made it to the creek only a sulphur-crested cockatoo chose that very moment to fly shrieking into the branches of white-boled limewood that flanked the stream. He fancied he could still shear. her sweet piercing cry, a cry resembling the cry she had made tonight.

  They’d fixed her up with a stout stick along her arm, tied with his bandanna, carrying her all the way home on a makeshift stretcher they’d rigged up, leaving the horses, including Ally’s, to find their own way home. Nearly fainting with the pain, Ally had been very brave. Even when all three of them had had to face Stewart Kinross.

  No mother like his own to fly out onto the verandah filled with loving concem for her child, Kinross had given them all a tongue-slashing, Ally included. Rafe always thought Kinross would have liked to give his son a hiding but at fifteen both he and Brod had stood a boyish but extremely fit six feet. Brod and Ally had found little comfort in their father whereas he and Grant had had immense love and respect for theirs.

  Now, when he was shown into Ally’s hospital room, his heart literally sank in his breast. She was lying back in the bed, her left forearm in as cast, her normally vivid face robbed of every vestige of colour, hers beautiful green eyes dull and heavily lidded. She didn’t look remotely like a young woman in her mid-twenties. She looked little more than the child he had known and loved. A felled child after one of her famous escapades, Her wild was scraped back from her face and she. had a surgical dressing over the left side to the back of her head.

  Yet she tried to smile at him her voice barely above a whisper. “Could have been worse!”

  A standard joke between them when things had gone wrong.

  “Ally?” He approached the bed, “bending to touch his lips to her temple. “My poor little Ally.”

  “You used to love me, didn’t you?” she said, glancing down at her injured wrist. “Would you believe it, it’s the same arm I broke all thoses years ago when you and Brod had to carry me home on a stretcher.”

  “I remember.” He turned a tender, twisted smile on her.

  She stared back at him almost dreamily. “I remember how you stood up to Dad when he started to yell at us. He really wanted to knock Brod flat, you know.”

  “He was under a strain,” Rafe said for the Sister’s benefit.

  “No he wasn’t.” Ally protested.

  “Don’t let’s worry about it now, Ally.” He tried to soothe her agitation.

  “I’ve got a lovely big gash on my head,” she told him hoarsely. “They had to put a dozen stitches in. And they cut out at patch of my hair.”

  “No one’s going to notice, Ally. You’ve got lots of it.” The old sweetness hovered around his sculptured mouth.

  “Rafe.” She trie
d to swallow down her panic. “I’ve no real idea what’s happened. You’ve got to tell me. Fee didn’t get an opportunity. They hurried her out so quickly.”

  “She was told she could only stay a minute, Ally.”

  She looked very haughty, eyes flashing. “Lovely to see you, too.”

  “Here, now.” He took hold of her free hand. “We can talk all about it in the morning. By then you’ll remember for yourself.”

  “That’s right, dear,” Sister intervened. “You’ve had an unpleasant experience. Doctor wants you to rest quietly.”

  Ally lifted her head, winced. “Rafe, here, will take full responsibility,” she said. “He’s used to lots of responsibility. He’s Cameron from Opal. The Chosen One.”

  “Now there’s a vital piece of information.” Rafe bit back a laugh. “Do you remember we had dinner?” he asked. He drew up a chair to the bedside.

  Ally frowned, concentrating hard. A movement of the brows that appeared to give her pain. “I remember we had dinner. I remember the two of us in the lift, then it starts to get hairy.”

  “The very reason why I think we should wait to talk about it in the morning. I’ll stick around. The doctor said I could.”

  “Stay here.” Ally began to grumble as he started to get up. “They couldn’t give me much. in the way of pain-killers. Not with concussion. I want you here.”

  “I think not, dear.” Sister sailed in, an authority figure.

  “I’m the patient,” Ally pointed out, for all the world like Fee in one of her imperious moods. “And I say I want him here.” She appeared to grow angry.

  “Right you are,” Sister agreed cheerfully, nodding her head at Rafe. “If you can sit down a little way from the bed, sir.”

  “I want him right here.” Ally waved Rafe back. “I’m a must-go-where-he-goes sort of person.”

  Rafe had no idea why she said it. This was Ally, who had left him.

  It was Rafe’s first experience of a night in hospital. How the patients were supposed to sleep with all the light and noise he couldn’t imagine. Nurses made regular checks on Ally, lifting her eyelids, checking her pupils, noting things on her chart, smiled kindly on him. In the dawn light before she was even stirring he was told to leave. Someone, he found out later a woman doctor, gave him coffee and a couple of muffins she’d been