by Kilby, Joan
Then something flipped in her brain. She could do this. She just had to have faith in herself, tap into abilities she didn’t know she possessed. Unclenching her white knuckles, she released the brakes and started pedaling. Soon she was flying down the hill, standing on the pedals, bouncing and jolting over the rough ground, scared out of her wits but excited beyond anything.
Whoo-hoo! She felt like a kid again, with a top-of-the-roller-coaster giddiness she hadn’t experienced for years, maybe decades. Like a kid, she was living from second to second. The sky seemed a brighter blue. Every blade of grass stood out. The faint scents of wildflowers mingled with cowpats on the breeze blowing through her hair.
She threw back her head and let out an exultant laugh.
Thunk. Her bike hit a rock, stopping dead. Her cry of delight turned to a wail as she flew over the handlebars. The ground rushed up to meet her. Her shoulder hit first, a glancing blow before she came down hard on her foot. Her ankle twisted beneath her. Pain lanced through her leg as she rolled to a halt.
Winded and nauseous, she lay in the grass and mud, her cheek pressed to the sloping earth, struggling to regain her breath. In her peripheral vision she could see the back wheel of her overturned bike spinning uselessly against the blue sky.
She tried to move her leg. Spots danced before her eyes as another jolt of pain sliced through her ankle. Taking a deep breath, she slowly pushed herself to a seated position. Her foot was twisted at a weird angle. With her hands she turned it back to normal. The throbbing began. Gingerly she felt the bones but it was already starting to swell. Whether it was broken or not, clearly she wasn’t going to be able to ride out of here.
She felt in her vest pocket for her phone then paused. Lizzy wouldn’t call for help. Lizzy would limp along with Monkey making cheeky comments as he swung from branch to branch above her head, alternately teasing and encouraging.
Monkey wasn’t here. She was on her own.
The grassy paddock stretched out before her. She wasn’t a character in a book. Nor was she stupid. The distance was impossible with her ankle so painful. With a groan for the ribbing she would get from Riley and the scolding from John, she punched in her brother’s speed dial number.
* * *
PAULA STRODE OUT of the bushes surrounding the house to where John paced beside his vehicle.
“Moresco isn’t in there.” She was perspiring beneath her heavy gear and breathing hard, her voice tight with frustration. “But I’ve arrested two male suspects on charges of illegal drug manufacturing.”
“Arrested,” John repeated. “You mean…”
“They were cooking. The whole house has been turned into a meth kitchen and packaging facility.” Now her satisfaction came through. “There are bags of the stuff, stockpiled, ready to be distributed. This is a large scale, sophisticated operation, not backyard hoodlums trying to make a few bucks.”
“I’ll call the divisional van to take those clowns away,” John said, reaching for the radio phone. “And I’ll get someone to take a sample into the lab ASAP. We need to match the crystals with the ice sold in Summerside.” His role, even in the field, was administrative. “What’s happening now?”
“Riley’s cordoning off the site to keep out neighborhood busybodies. Then we’re going to search the house for something tangible to link Moresco to this.”
“The house is in his grandmother’s name. You’re bound to find other links. Don’t worry. We’ll put his ass behind bars.”
“Damn straight, we will. Boss.”
From the pile of jackets in the backseat came the sound of a phone ringing. “Sounds like Riley’s ring tone,” Paula said. “Do you mind seeing who it is? He’s expecting Katie to check in when she finished her bike ride.”
John fumbled through jacket pockets until he found the phone. “Hello?”
“John? I called Riley.” Katie’s voice was tight, laced with pain.
“He’s in the middle of something. Are you all right?”
“I took a tumble, twisted my ankle. It’s no big deal—”
“Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”
“Red Hill. The bike trail that runs past Koo Wee Creek.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t move.” He hung up and turned to Paula. “She’s hurt her ankle. Tell Riley not to worry. I’ll go pick her up.”
Before he left, John organized the support crew, calling the lab and the divisional van to take away the prisoners. He pulled in Jackson from off duty to take his place as external coordinator, even though there was little left to do. As soon as Jackson rocked up, John took off for Red Hill, driving like a bat out of hell.
This was his fault. He’d teased her about not having adventures and running out of story ideas. He’d more or less forced her to try to prove something. He should have insisted she wait until he could go with her. If anything happened, if her ankle was worse than she was saying, he would never forgive himself.
This time he would be there for her when she needed him. Whether she liked it or not.
* * *
KATIE ENDED THE call. Damn. Why couldn’t Riley have answered his phone? Why did John have to be the one to come riding to her rescue? Could her humiliation be more complete? She’d wanted to show him—and herself, of course—she could be strong and adventurous. Instead, she’d made a fool of herself. I told you so, he would say. Then he’d quote police statistics about how many idiots broke their necks on mountain bikes every year.
She hobbled to a large rock at the side of the track. Her running shoe was cutting into her swollen left foot. She loosened the laces and winced at the angry purple bruise.
The sun had sunk below the trees and the air was getting chilly. All she wore was a T-shirt beneath a fleece vest. She rubbed the goose bumps on her bare arms. The cows were coming out of the trees and plodding up the hill to their barn. She was sorry to see them leave.
Dusk was rapidly falling. A couple of kangaroos hopped out of the bushes to graze. She checked her watch—nearly half an hour since she’d spoken to John—and strained her eyes to the distant gate. Her ankle throbbed and was hot to the touch. She propped it up on the rock to take the pressure off.
Then she heard a car stop. A door opened and closed. A flashlight bounced across the field. John called, “Katie!”
She scrabbled to her feet, leaning on her good leg, and waved. “Over here!”
The flashlight beam bobbed across the grass. Below the light strode a pair of long legs.
She’d never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. “Thanks for coming.”
John held the flashlight in his mouth and crouched in front of her to gently probe her ankle. She winced at his touch but his fingers were cool against her hot, swollen skin. “You need to ice that as soon as possible.”
“First I need to get out of here,” Katie said. “How are we going to do this? I was thinking I could sit on the bicycle seat and you could push me—”
“Too slow. Hold this.” He handed her the flashlight. Then he put an arm around her waist, another below her legs, and stood, swinging her off the rock and into his arms.
Startled, she yelped. “Hey, put me down! What about my bike?”
“I’ll send Riley for it later. Shine the light on the path.” He adjusted his grip on her, fingers tight against her thigh. “Put your arm around my neck so you don’t bounce so much. And relax. You’re not going to fall.”
She didn’t want to
put her arms around his neck, or relax into his embrace. It was too tempting. His arms were strong and warm, his chest a solid wall for her weary head. But she could feel his anger even though he wasn’t saying anything. Clearly he thought she’d brought this on herself.
And being carried made her feel helpless. She hated feeling unable to control her own destiny. It brought back the days when she was sick from chemotherapy and couldn’t do anything for herself.
It brought back the days when John sat beside her hospital bed.
Until the day when he didn’t.
A three-quarter moon rose above the trees, shedding silvery light across the path. Up in the barn, cows lowed during milking. John hadn’t yet said, I told you so. His reticence made her tense. She waited for the scolding she was sure he was just dying to issue. His breath next to her ear, the swish of his boots through the grass, sounded overloud.
“Accidents happen all the time,” she said defensively. “I could have tripped over a tree root in the backyard. I could have fallen off my bike riding into the village.”
“True. You could have been hit by a bus crossing the street. Or killed by a meteor chunk falling from outer space.” John adjusted his grip again. His fingers splayed across her ribs; his other hand held her thigh.
She was being childish about not touching him. Giving up, she reached her arms around his neck. Her fingertips missed his collar and landed on warm, bare skin with the beat of his pulse. She moved her fingers back to the cloth. “Exactly my point.”
“No, you’ve missed the point completely. Those things are out of your control. This wasn’t.”
“The universe is random.”
“You chose to go it alone. You didn’t need to do that. I should have been with you,” he said. “I should have insisted.”
Now she understood. He was angry at himself, not her. If anything, that was worse. “You’re not responsible for my well-being. It was my choice to make. I’m an independent person.”
“When others care about you, when others rely on you to be there, it’s not fair to make unilateral decisions.”
She was silent, not wanting to go there. He wasn’t talking about her ankle. They’d had this conversation before, when she had cancer. There was no resolution to it. Should the situation arise again, she would make the same choices.
Finally they came to the gate. It was only a few more steps to John’s vehicle. He deposited her gently on the ground, keeping his arm around her. “Don’t put any weight on that foot. Lean on me.”
Katie held his arm lightly, but only to keep her balance. She’d learned long ago not to lean on John. She wasn’t going to start now.
* * *
“HOW ARE YOU doing back there?” John glanced at Katie in the rearview mirror.
Vineyards were silhouetted against the red glow of the setting sun as he drove down the winding road out of Red Hill to the flat coastal plain.
“I’m fine.” Katie was slumped in a corner, her injured leg stretched out along the backseat, a chemical ice pack from his first-aid kit on her ankle.
In the glare of oncoming headlights he glimpsed Katie’s face in flashes, her mouth tight, eyes closed. She wasn’t fine.
Frustrated by the slow-moving traffic of day-trippers returning to Melbourne, John slapped a flashing blue light on the roof and put his foot on the accelerator. With the siren wailing he bullied his way through traffic. What good was being in charge if you couldn’t take care of your friends?
Ten minutes later he pulled into the circular driveway at Emergency. He jogged for a wheelchair parked outside the big sliding doors. When he got back Katie had the car door open. He helped her into the chair and tucked his jacket around her.
“Just drop me off,” Katie said. “I could be here for hours and you probably have to get back to Tuti.”
“My mother’s looking after her. I called and told her not to expect me for a while.” John grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed toward the entrance. “I’m not going to leave you alone in the hospital.”
“Why not?” she muttered. “You did once before.”
His fists tightened on the rubber grips but he pretended not to hear. That was her pain talking. “I know the head nurse in Triage. You’ll be given five-star treatment.”
“Is she one of your ex-girlfriends?”
“Yeah, that’s right. One of my many ex-girlfriends who still adores me and would do anything for me. Even give priority to a brat like you.”
In actual fact, the head Triage nurse was a friend of his mother’s who’d known him since he was a small boy. He just hoped she was on duty tonight.
In Emergency a young man of about twenty clutched a bloody bandage around his forearm. Stab wound, most likely. On a gurney next to the wall an inebriated teenage girl waited to have her stomach pumped. John had spent many a Friday and Saturday night here as a beat cop, years ago. He’d seen it all.
But his worst memories involved Katie receiving chemotherapy to shrink the tumor. She must hate this place even worse than he did.
Eileen West was on duty behind the glass cage in Admitting. Her frizzy black hair was threaded with gray but her smile lit when she saw John. “Hey, handsome. Long time, no see.” She looked over her half-glasses at Katie. “What have we got here?”
“Suspected broken ankle. Definite pain in the ass.”
“Hey!” Katie twisted in the chair to glare up at him.
“How long is the wait?” John asked Eileen. “And can we get a fresh ice pack in the meantime?”
Eileen consulted her book. “Triage will see her in about ten minutes. She should be able to go straight into X-ray. I’ll get you an ice pack. Have a seat.”
John pushed Katie’s wheelchair to the end of a row of chairs and adjusted the leg rest so her foot was elevated. He took a seat next to her. Across the aisle a mother cradled a feverish toddler in her arms.
“You take me to the nicest places,” Katie murmured.
“I know you hate hospitals. Which is why I’m putting up with your bad behavior. Tuti didn’t whine this much when she fell and skinned her knee.”
Eileen arrived with an ice pack. John took it from her, removed the old one and carefully wrapped the new one over Katie’s swollen ankle.
She watched him with a scowl. “Come on, say it. Say, I told you so.”
He figured she was angry with herself so she was taking it out on him. She would push and prod until he said it, just so she could be right. Too bad. He felt like being perverse. “I don’t need to say it. You’re not stupid. You know the score.”
“You’re thinking it, though, admit it.”
With her ice pack securely in place he took the chair opposite. Smiling blandly, he slowly shook his head.
“Now you’re teasing me.” She stabbed a finger at him. “You promised not to do that.”
“You’re in a contrary mood,” he said mildly. “No matter what I do, I can’t win so I’m not even going to try. But now that you mention it—”
“I knew it.” Triumph flashed across her face. “Knew you couldn’t resist.”
“Next time you do something risky, take a friend along.”
“I was fine on my own. I just need to get better at mountain biking.”
“I would have come with you if you’d waited a day. Why are you so determined not to need anyone?”
“I’ve learned through experience to rely on myself.”
His smile faded. Even
though they’d become friends again she still didn’t trust him. That hurt. “You know I care about you. Even when you piss me off.”
“If you cared so much—” She glanced away.
He wouldn’t have left her when she was critically ill.
Nope, he wasn’t going to go there. Not now. Not when she was tired, injured and in pain. That was no basis for a rational discussion. They’d never seen eye to eye on the issue of her health. And right now, she just wanted a reason to be mad at him. She wanted to push him away. Well, it was working.
“I’m going to get a coffee. Do you want one?”
“No, thank you.”
John went over to the vending machines and pushed coins into the slot for a hot drink he didn’t want. Yes, he’d left her behind. But not because he didn’t care, or because he was a coward, as she seemed to think. He wished they’d had it out back then even if it meant saying things they regretted. Better than regretting words left unsaid.
He’d never told her, or anyone, his reason for leaving. In hindsight it seemed dumb, even egotistical. He’d thought if he took himself out of the equation, if she wasn’t trying to keep herself whole for him, then she would have the mastectomy. He’d loved her so much he was willing to risk their relationship to save her life. He’d gambled and lost.
He hadn’t even told Riley his rationale, because Riley couldn’t have kept it a secret from his sister. And he definitely couldn’t have told Katie. His ill-fated scheme wouldn’t have had a chance of working if she’d known why he was leaving. But she hadn’t reacted the way he’d hoped. Even after he’d left she’d stubbornly refused to have the operation. Later, when he’d come home, she’d banished him from her life. He’d tried to explain then but she refused to even talk to him, much less listen.
He sipped his coffee by the machine, keeping his eye on her. Seated in the wheelchair with her leg up, fighting fatigue and pain, she looked vulnerable but defiant. He’d always admired her spirit. She saw herself as a scaredy-cat but she was stronger than she knew. She’d proved that by staring cancer down without flinching. That was the annoying and endearing thing about her—she did the wrong thing for the right reasons. Or was it the right thing for the wrong reasons? Whatever. Deep inside she was at odds with herself. But she couldn’t see it.