by Helene Young
He nodded and got to his feet. Before he could open the door, Daniel burst in.
‘The fire, it’s coming from over there!’ He waved a frantic arm to the south-west.
Ryan grabbed him by both arms and looked into his face. ‘Stay with your mum. She needs help. Don’t go outside again, okay?’
Dan nodded at him, his face serious. ‘Okay.’
Cautiously, Ryan opened the door enough to squeeze through. The buckets sat where they’d dropped them, and he gathered them up. Feeling the intense heat sap his energy, he piled the equipment by the door. They’d need them inside. The fire was roaring at the shed now. Angry, leaping tongues of flame attacked it through its veil of water.
In the tops of the nearby eucalypts, as the oil in their leaves vaporised, the first hints of fireballs were emerging. Bullets of fire leapt from tree to tree, spreading the frenzy in seconds.
Ryan felt despair flood through him. The only consolation, and he could hardly bear to think of it, was that he was here with Kaitlyn and her family. If dying while trying to protect them was the last thing on earth he did, then he had at last done something he was proud of.
Peering at the devastation around him, through aching and tortured eyes, he wasn’t sure whether the sting was the smoke or tears. To have come so far and lose it all was heartbreaking. He couldn’t face watching it happen. She deserved to win. How much longer could this rage before it ran out of fuel and exhausted itself?
As he turned, heavy-hearted, to retreat inside, a thundering roar from the front of the house made him spin in the direction of the noise. An Ag Cat burst over the roofline, dropping a load of fire retardant in a giant pink swathe.
All he could do was stand there as it poured down on the yard. Finally. The aircraft pulled up vertical, just short of the fire, and turned in for another run. He could just make out the pilot at the controls as another precious load fell on the house.
Less than a minute after the first one had vanished, a second one came hurtling through. As the wind kept veering further around, the fire was being forced back on itself. Maybe they could win this after all.
Maybe.
Chapter 49
‘JULIA. Can you hear me? Mum?’ Kaitlyn dabbed at the stain on her mother’s cheek and neck. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing, but her mother’s pulse barely fluttered.
‘It’s okay.’ Julia’s words were barely a whisper. Over the noise of the fire, Kaitlyn had to bend low to catch them. ‘I’m sorry, Kaitlyn. I’m sorry.’
‘Shh, Mum. It’s all right. You did the right thing. He would have killed us all.’
‘Martin …’ Julia swallowed, clearly struggling to talk.
‘Shh, shh. You’ll be fine, you can tell me later.’
‘No,’ Julia said, clutching at her daughter’s hand. Kaitlyn couldn’t believe how weak her grip was, the strength in her long, elegant pianist’s fingers all but gone. ‘Martin found the truth. Chris had a half-brother. Speedy. He was the one who started the fire, killed Chris, Stephen, then took his brother’s identity. He must have planned it all.’ She eased back against the cushion and her eyes opened wide. ‘I will never believe Chris did anything but defend your father. He was a good man, just damaged, not his fault …’ Her eyes fluttered closed again. ‘I love you, my darling.’
‘I love you too, Mum.’ Kaitlyn was making soothing circles on the back of her mother’s hand, her thumb running over the paper-thin skin. Her mind was reeling, trying to absorb her mother’s words. Could Martin be right about Chris? Was he Speedy’s half-brother? The adrenalin load in her body was huge and her limbs trembled, her eyelids closed. She so desperately wanted Martin to be right, so desperately wanted an answer, wanted to be able to believe in Chris again. The gaping hole in her heart she refused to acknowledge would be so much easier to bear if Chris was an innocent victim.
A drumming sound thundered across the roof. Alarmed, Kaitlyn looked to the ceiling before she identified the roar of a radial engine. The water bombers had arrived. She let out a sob of relief. Maybe they could survive. She leant against her mother’s hand, her tears falling. Nero pressed close against her knee, licking at her hand. She wiped her cheeks, striving for control, as Daniel held out a glass of water.
‘Does Julia need a drink?’
Kaitlyn managed to summon a smile and pulled him close. Her baby was being so strong. ‘Leave it on the side table, she can reach it when she wakes up.’
He put the glass down and stood beside them. ‘Will Nana be all right?’
She could see the fear in his face. He’d been brave, confronting first Speedy and then the fire. But this? Seeing Julia so obviously unwell?
‘I hope so.’ She wrapped her arms around her precious Dan and poured her strength into the hug. If Martin was right, then this boy’s father was not an arsonist, but the victim of a vicious murderer. A harsh truth, but better than the alternative.
The door opened, letting in another wave of smoke and heat.
Ryan was backlit by the glow from outside, but there was no mistaking the squared shoulders or the determined tilt of his chin. They were going to make it.
In two strides he was beside them, his arms gathering Kaitlyn and Dan against him. She felt his shuddering relief with each rise of his chest. How had she ever doubted this man, doubted his integrity, his concern for them?
His lips were hard against her temple and for the first time in so many hours, too many hours, she dared to hope. She was home, safe. The smoky, sweaty scent of him was like a familiar cloak of safety. Heat from his body seeped through the heavy woollen clothes, warming the chill of fear from her bones.
She opened her eyes. ‘Thank you.’
His fatigued smile was the only answer she needed.
Daniel wriggled free and perched next to his grandmother. ‘Is she really sleeping?’ he asked. Dan picked up her limp hand. ‘Nana?’
Kaitlyn broke free from Ryan, realising in horror that her mother’s mouth was slack and open. Frantically, she searched for a pulse. ‘Julia? Oh God, Ryan!’
Ryan moved to Julia’s head and pressed his fingers against her throat, but Kaitlyn could see from the movement that he wasn’t finding anything.
‘CPR. We’ve got to try,’ he said. He scooped Julia up and laid her on the rug, positioning her limp body flat.
Kaitlyn nodded. Her head said it was too late, but her heart refused to give up on her mother. To surrender would mean Speedy had taken one more thing she loved. Anger was the only way she knew to control the pain that had started as a tiny bubble five years ago and was now threatening to drown her. She gathered that thought to her, pushing down so hard on her sorrow she felt her stomach muscles clench. Ryan was talking to her as he scrambled to his feet.
‘You start. We need an ambulance.’ He shot out the front door.
Dan’s wide eyes sheened with tears as Kait started CPR. ‘Nana!’
She needed to keep him busy. This was too overwhelming for him. ‘Dan, it’s okay. Go get me a wet tea towel, with cold water. Go.’
He came back several minutes later with the tray of ice cubes and a tea towel. ‘Here.’
She looked up at him, deliberately meeting his gaze, hoping she could reassure with words. ‘Wrap six up in the tea towel and then you need to hold it to Nana’s forehead.’ She knew it wasn’t going to do much, but it would give her son a purpose. He was still crying, hiccuping sobs. ‘It’s okay, we’ll fix Julia. It’s okay, baby.’
Her need to gather him up against her and shield him from this was powerful, but she couldn’t stop. She had to choose between them. Dan was young and resilient; Julia was not.
All she could do was talk to Dan as she pushed down, feeling her mother’s petite ribs compress and expand, compress and expand. She wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop until there was no hope left.
‘I remember when Nana saw you in hospital for the first time. Her baby carrot, she called you.’
Dan almost smiled. Kaitlyn was panting fro
m the exertion of CPR, her arms starting to tire as she talked.
Ryan came through the front door, his face grim. ‘They’re on their way. My turn.’ He took her place and Kait knelt beside Dan, touching his shoulder with hers.
‘And Grandad reckoned he’d just been replaced as Nana’s favourite boy. But he said that was okay, because you were such a good-looking rooster. And do you remember when Nana caught you playing the piano?’ She jerked her head at the white-shrouded grand. Dan managed a tiny crooked smile this time.
‘I had chocolate cake on my fingers.’
‘You did, and what did she say?’
‘That cake and pianos don’t mix so I’d have to choose.’
‘And what did you choose?’
‘The piano.’ The story had been told and retold so many times, Kait was sure the scene had been rewritten, but she was determined to keep dredging up wonderful memories of her mother and her son. Dan’s face had relaxed a touch. He kept the tea towel on Julia’s forehead, the water from the melting ice soaking into the rug. Kait kept talking.
Ten minutes later, the front door burst open. It became surreal. Kaitlyn saw only fragments of the scene. The look between the two paramedics that said more than words; the rattle of the stretcher as they rushed it out the door, Julia jolting with every bump; flashing emergency lights, eerie in the smoke and bathing her world in red; two policeman with a roll of blue tape sealing up her laundry.
Finally they were all gone. Dan clung to her side, pressing against her for comfort. Her heart felt bruised. Inside she was crying, howling for their loss. Outwardly she functioned. No time to grieve. She managed to talk, to make decisions, to answer questions. She had to. She was a mother and her boy was going to need all her strength in the days to come.
Her pounding headache had reached migraine status. When Ryan raised the shutters, the light pierced her brain.
‘You did it,’ he said, his voice raw and hoarse. The view was one of devastation. ‘You saved your home. And the wind shift’s taken the fire north.’
Silent, she came and stood beside him. Across the scorched escarpment, she could make out Jerry’s house. It looked unscathed. Dan stood between them and she looked down at him, squeezing his hand tight. ‘We did it. The three of us.’
Dan looked up at her, tear tracks streaking the ash on his cheeks, his skin so pale against the bright rose-gold of his hair. ‘But Nana?’
The question in his eyes was Kait’s undoing, and this time there was no stopping the flood of tears. She could only shake her head as her words dried up. There were only two of them now.
Ryan hauled Dan into one arm and crushed Kait in the middle of the embrace. ‘Don’t go there yet. We’ll face this together.’
‘Don’t, Ryan. Don’t do this to us.’ She was suddenly furious, angry with herself for her foolish pride that had put them in the path of a fire, angry with Julia for dying and leaving her alone. But mostly she was angry with herself for falling in love with a man who changed, chameleon-like, as the job dictated. ‘I know you can’t stay.’
‘But I can stay. I will stay.’ His hand tipped her face up, yet she stayed stiff, resisting the comfort he offered. Dan burrowed deeper into his arms, his body shaking with tears.
She tried to pull away, but her heart wasn’t in it. The scent of Ryan, the familiar earthy smell, wasn’t even masked by the smoke. His touch was light but persistent, just enough to keep her anchored to him.
‘Don’t,’ she protested between sobs, torn between what she wanted and what she knew she couldn’t risk. ‘Don’t offer something we can never have, Ryan. I don’t know you, the real you.’
‘You do. You may be the only person who does. I’m Ryan O’Donnell, Jerry O’Donnell’s great-nephew. I will not let you face this alone.’
Through her tears, she saw the truth in his eyes, the sorrow in his smile and his uncertainty. Ryan was finally standing in front of her, shorn of all his defences. The real Ryan.
He looked at her, waiting, as though he knew the battle that was raging inside her. Dan dropped his head on Ryan’s shoulder, hiccuping into silence, the action profound. Kaitlyn thought her heart would break. Ryan rested his chin on top of the boy’s head and for an instant his eyes closed. It hurt like a kick to the guts but warmed her at the same time. She saw beneath the tough exterior a wounded man who was hanging on just as tightly as she was. Those eyes that looked both young and old were bright with unshed tears when he opened them and she couldn’t miss his arm tightening around Dan.
Her fears, her guilt, her reserve, were misplaced. She loved this man in a way she’d never experienced before. She finally understood what Julia meant when she said she’d recognised Stephen by his eyes. The connection, the love, was there in Ryan’s eyes, in his unwavering belief in her, in the care with which he cradled her son.
Could they find a common path?
A knock at the front door broke the moment. Police, again. The circus was just about to begin.
Chapter 50
KAITLYN opened the wide doors to the front deck. The grass outside was hazed in green as new life burst from the blackened ground. A zephyr stirred the budding khaki leaves on the rose gum’s highest branches. A month was a long time in fire country.
The house was silent. She’d just dropped Dan and Nero off at his friend Wolfie’s house. They were heading to Granite Gorge for a swim to escape the stifling heat. Her first thought had been to go with them, but Courtney, Wolfie’s mother, had gently shooed her out the door. ‘Relax,’ she’d said. ‘He needs to chill out with his mates. I won’t let them out of my sight. Not even Nero.’
Kait knew Courtney was right, but it took a great deal of effort to drive away and leave him. Now, alone in the house, she felt restless, edgy. She turned back to the lounge and picked up Jerry’s war diary, flicking through the now familiar pages.
To never know when you might be discovered and killed is a terrible waking nightmare. No one can sustain it without damage. Some will snap, some will warp beyond repair, a few will become stronger for the burden. I pray Ryan has my strength.
She’d found comfort in the old man’s sparse words. Had Ryan understood that when he gave them to her?
Perhaps.
Jerry had taken her inside the life of a spy, an undercover operative. The half-truths, the isolation and the alienation from the people they loved the most. She now had a strong sense of how anyone working undercover lived on the edge, lived by their wits, and died if they made the wrong choice. It helped put Ryan into perspective.
She put the book down again and sat on the edge of the new couch. The last month had been long, the sadness a daily shadow. The anniversary of the Canberra fires had come and gone in the latest tragedy. She and Dan had only been back in their house just over a week. Being on leave from work was good, as Dan was on school holidays, but she needed to keep busy to stop thinking, analysing.
Logistically, life was going to be a whole lot more difficult. She either had to find work here on the Tablelands, or they would have to move to Cairns. That option didn’t sit comfortably right now. Dan wasn’t sleeping well. Last night she’d woken to find him pressed into her back, his hands in tight fists. To uproot him from his school and his friends wouldn’t help, but even part-time work with Border Watch would be difficult to manage. She’d applied for leave until the end of January, but she couldn’t wait that long to make the decision. She was putting it off until after Christmas, which was three days away. They’d get through that first, then she’d have to find her courage again.
Without Julia …
Julia’s funeral had been a simple service at the Tolga Community Church. Its pretty stone facade looked like an old-fashioned theatre. It seemed appropriate. Kaitlyn was shocked at the huge crowd of people who came. It seemed her mother had made more friends on the Tablelands than Kait realised.
Martin made the journey north. It had never occurred to Kait that the elderly man may have loved Julia too, until she saw hi
s grief at the funeral. Her relief that his report had provided enough evidence to prove Speedy had murdered Stephen and Chris was swamped by the pain of ripping open all those old wounds. Martin had painstakingly trawled through Speedy’s computer until he found Speedy’s own words describing the fierce joy he’d derived from killing his brother. Along with the surveillance tapes of the Canberra fires, Martin had built a compelling argument that laid the blame at Speedy’s feet.
The police investigation into Speedy’s recent activities was ongoing. The arson wasn’t at issue – the Dash 8 footage proved that. Speedy’s own records were also meticulous. He’d detailed everything in his logs, from using a bump key to break into Kaitlyn’s house, to discarding her clothes in panic when Julia came home early. He was the one who’d ransacked Jerry’s house and almost run Kait off the road. But the authorities were still unravelling the circumstances of Speedy’s death.
So much anger, so much hatred. Speedy was a man so wronged that he thought he could right the injustices he’d suffered by killing. In his distorted logic, Speedy had thought he was protecting Daniel. His madness was beyond Kait’s understanding.
So different to Chris – gentle, damaged Chris. Tears spilled down her cheeks again. Now that she’d finally cried for her husband, five years too late, she found it hard to stop. She understood why he’d shied away from being a father, had never even mentioned he had a half-brother. What sort of a childhood had he endured? Had his father really preyed on Speedy? Had his mother turned a blind eye to it? Or was it just that Speedy had hated Chris from birth and made his life hell?
She blew her nose and dabbed at her cheeks. No wonder Chris had craved the stability of the Scotts, no wonder he’d married her even though he may not have loved her any more than she loved him. It wasn’t about her. It was about Stephen and Julia. But he’d given her Daniel, their accidental son.
And Ryan?