The Doctor's Rebel Knight

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He lifted his hand and brushed a wispy strand of her hair back from her face where it had come loose from its makeshift ponytail. He watched as her pupils dilated and how the tip of her tongue sneaked out to moisten her lips. He felt that familiar punch in his gut of raw attraction, his lower body pulsing with the need to bury himself in her again. She was at her most beautiful like this, barefoot on the beach, hair all over the place, her cheeks slightly flushed and that cute flicker of uncertainty in her eyes every time they came in contact with his.

  He closed the distance between their bodies and tilted her face upwards to receive his mouth. She tasted of sea spray and strawberry lipgloss and he felt as if he could never have enough of her. His tongue found hers and a lightning zap of red-hot desire shot right through him. He instantly hardened, the throb of blood a tight ache that made him want to push her to the sand at their feet and plunge into her silky warmth.

  She pressed herself against him, her slim form fitting perfectly along the hard ridges and planes of his body. His hands went to the small of her back and brought her that little bit closer. He felt her slim pelvis quiver at the contact and heard her soft breathless gasp as he moved his mouth to the sensitive skin of her neck. ‘Do you have any idea how much I want you?’ he asked as he moved his way down to the delicate scaffold of her collarbones.

  ‘Um…pretty much,’ she said in a soft voice just shy of a whisper.

  He cupped her face in his hands, looking into her eyes as the sea raged and pounded at the shore behind him, while his blood raged and pounded inside him. ‘I don’t think I have ever wanted someone like I want you,’ he said. ‘I know you probably think that’s a line or something, but it’s true. I haven’t felt like this before.’

  She smiled a smile that lit up her grey-blue eyes. ‘Wow.’

  He gave her a mock frown. ‘Is that all you can say?’

  She let out a dreamy sigh. ‘Oh, wow…’

  He smiled and, leaning down again, brushed her mouth with his. ‘I promised you dinner last night and reneged on the deal. This time I promise I’m not going to make love to you until I have fed you first.’

  ‘I hope you haven’t gone to any trouble,’ Fran said as they walked back the way she had come.

  ‘I had a bit of help from Beryl,’ he said with a sheepish smile.

  She raised her brows at him. ‘Does Beryl know who you have invited to dinner?’

  ‘I think she’s made a fairly accurate guess.’ He stopped, bent down and, picking up a piece of driftwood, threw it well ahead for Rufus.

  Fran chewed at her lip for a few more steps before she asked, ‘I think more people than you realise already know about us.’ She stopped and looked up at him. ‘Tara, for instance, saw us at Tony’s. And Tony himself hinted at it after you left.’

  He shrugged and, capturing her hand, pressed a kiss to her fingertips. ‘It’s one of the down sides of living in a small community. You only have to look at someone and the gossip starts like wildfire. I try to ignore most of it but now and again it gets to me.’

  Fran hoped it wouldn’t affect them. As new as their relationship was, she knew she would be gutted if it ended before it had a chance to grow. Her whole being responded to him, she could even feel the pulse of her blood in her fingertips where his lips had so briefly rested.

  They were almost at the path to Fran’s sister’s house when Jacob’s mobile phone rang. He grimaced as he checked the screen. ‘This looks like trouble,’ he said to her before he answered it.

  Fran couldn’t help but hear snatches of the conversation. Her heart began to pound with dread as Nathan Jeffrey reported an incident out at the Bellbird Gully quarry, just called in by a neighbour.

  ‘Right, I’ll head out there now,’ Jacob told him. ‘I’ll take Dr Nin with me in case there is any delay with the ambulance.’

  He ended the call and gave Fran a grim look. ‘Looks like Beth Judd’s been hurt. It sounds serious. She was found unconscious near the clothesline.’

  ‘Where’s Kane?’ Fran asked, her stomach churning with cold hard stones of dread.

  Jacob’s expression made the stones roll in her stomach all the more. ‘There’s no sign of the child or the boyfriend.’

  Fran swallowed tightly as she hurried to get her doctor’s bag. She came back out after locking Rufus in the house and joined Jacob who already had the engine running of the police vehicle he had parked behind her car before he had met her down on the beach.

  It was a harrowing few minutes as they drove to the cottage near the deserted quarry where Beth Judd and Dave Calder lived. Fran berated herself all the way, furious that she hadn’t done something about the situation from the get-go.

  She ran her tongue over her panic-dry lips. ‘Does anyone have any idea if Dave might have taken Kane?’

  Jacob glanced at her as he took the turn to Bellbird Gully, his expression dark. ‘No one knows.’

  She pressed her lips together, only releasing them to say, ‘This is my fault. If something happens to one of them, it will be my fault.’

  He put his foot down even harder on the accelerator as he steered the car up the rough driveway to the cottage. ‘No, it’s not, Fran. We’ll make sure we do everything we can.’

  Fran took a steadying breath, trying to find some comfort in his words, but there was none.

  Chapter Eleven

  WHEN they finally got to the rundown cottage perched on a steep hill next to the old quarry site, the neighbour was standing helplessly near the clothesline where Beth was lying on her back next to a basket of wet laundry, unconscious.

  Beth was breathing normally, but her pulse was racing at over 100. There were no obvious cuts and abrasions other than an ugly bruise on one side of her face that looked as if it was a day or so old. Fran checked Beth’s pupils—the right was larger than the left, suggestive of a head injury. She examined Beth’s head, particularly the back of the skull, but there was no sign of any injury—no swelling, no blood and no bleeding from the ears or nose.

  ‘How is she?’ Jacob asked as he came over once he’d taken a quick statement from the neighbour.

  ‘She’s breathing normally,’ she said, reaching for her stethoscope. ‘I can’t find any external sign of head injury but that’s not to say she hasn’t got one—one of her pupils is dilated.’

  ‘The ambulance is about twenty minutes away,’ he said, looking at the clothes basket and the scattered bucket of pegs on the ground, a frown of concentration bringing his brows together. ‘Apparently there was a mix-up with the volunteer roster.’

  Fran mentally rolled her eyes as she listened to Beth’s strong and steady heartbeat. She pulled the earpieces of the stethoscope out of her ears and looked across at Jacob, who was crouched under the clothesline, looking at the dusty ground.

  ‘Any news on Dave and Kane’s whereabouts?’ she asked.

  ‘Nathan Jeffrey is working on finding him as we speak,’ he said, straightening. ‘Apparently he had today off work. One of his workmates said he’d mentioned something about going fishing.’

  Jacob swept his narrowed gaze across the sun-scorched area surrounding the old cottage. ‘I’m going to take a look around. Call me if you need me.’

  Fran murmured something in response as she smoothed Beth’s clothing back over her.

  Beth opened her eyes. ‘W-what’s going on?’

  ‘Beth, you were found unconscious by your neighbour out here,’ Fran explained.

  Beth blinked her eyes a couple of times, her expression confused. ‘Where’s Kane? I…I had him with me when I was hanging out the clothes.’

  ‘Doesn’t Dave have Kane with him?’ Fran asked.

  Beth blinked again, as if trying to remember. ‘No…why should he? I told you: he was with me while I was hanging out the washing.’ She struggled to get up but her face went chalk-white. ‘Oh, God, where’s my baby?’

  Fran felt her heart start to knock like a swinging hammer in her chest. ‘Beth, are you absolutely sure Kane w
as with you all the time?’

  Beth’s mouth was trembling uncontrollably as she grasped at Fran’s hand. ‘Help me…Oh, God, help me…’

  Fran squeezed Beth’s hand. ‘We’re doing all we can, Beth. The ambulance is on its way. You’ll need to go to hospital to—’

  Beth struggled to get up. ‘I’m not going to hospital. I’m not sick. You can’t make me. I have to find Kane. Don’t you understand?’ Her eyes were wild with panic. ‘I have to find my baby!’

  ‘Beth, what happened? Is this anything to do with Dave? There’s help and support available. You don’t have to go through this any more.’

  Beth screwed up her face in a frown. ‘What are you talking about? Dave didn’t hit me. You think Dave hurt Kane? How dare you spread such untruths?’

  ‘Beth, I’m not suggesting anything. We’re just trying to find out what happened. What about little Kane’s arm?’ Fran asked.

  Beth flopped back down as if in defeat. ‘He didn’t hit me or Kane…’

  Fran glanced at the area beneath the clothesline Jacob had been studying so intently earlier. There were the tiny footprints of Kane and the narrow prints of what appeared to be Beth’s shoes, as well as the tiny tyre marks of a toy truck. There was no sign of a scuffle.

  Fran’s thoughts began to run through various scenarios.

  She turned back to Beth. ‘Beth, what’s the last thing you can recall before you woke up just now?’

  Beth blinked again as if to clear her dazed mind. ‘I was carrying out the washing…Kane had his tip truck with him. He stopped to look down at a beetle on the ground. I told him it was a Christmas beetle and then…’ She swallowed and gave Fran a hollow-eyed look. ‘And then I blacked out.’

  Fran stroked the sweaty hair back from Beth’s brow. ‘Has that ever happened before?’

  Beth bit her bottom lip until it went white. ‘Yes…’ She began to cry. ‘I dropped Kane the first time…you know when his arm got injured? I was so scared someone would take him off me. My mother threatened to do it when she heard I was involved with Dave. Somehow she heard how he’d been in youth detention in the past.’

  ‘It’s all right, Beth,’ Fran said gently. ‘No one’s going to take Kane away from you. Tell me about what happened to your face. You have a nasty bruise that looks about a day or so old. Do you remember anything about how you got that?’

  ‘I had another blackout. It happened when Dave was out in the back garden with Kane. I hit my face on the edge of the kitchen table as I went down. Dave found me just as I was coming to…’

  Fran leaned closer to Beth. ‘Beth, I think we’ll have to take you to hospital to do a CAT scan. Something must be causing these blackouts—we need to find out what it is.’

  Beth’s eyes went wide with shock. ‘Brain cancer?’

  ‘That’s very unlikely—brain tumours are rare. It’s most likely we’ll find something that’s fixable. But we have to do the tests.’

  ‘But what will happen to Kane if I go to hospital?’

  ‘Social services will do all they can to make sure he is well looked after if you feel Dave would not be able to cope.’

  Beth’s eyes streamed with tears again. ‘I don’t want to put too much stress on Dave. He’s been so good to me and Kane. He’s still finding his feet with handling a little kid. It’s a lot to ask of him.’

  ‘Do you know where he is right now?’ Jacob asked as he came back. ‘We need to tell him what’s happened to you and to find out where Kane is.’

  Beth screwed up her eyes as if the sunlight hurt her.

  ‘He had the day off today. He wanted to take Kane and me fishing but I always get seasick.’ She bit her lip again. ‘We’re short of money…I guess you can sort of tell by the look of this place. It’s all we can afford. He goes fishing at least twice a week so we have something to eat—meat is so expensive.’

  Fran stroked Beth’s thin hand. ‘Times are tough on a lot of young people starting out,’ she said. ‘We’ll make sure he’s found as soon as possible and brought to the hospital to see you.’

  The ambulance struggled up the drive, closely followed by a police vehicle containing two officers, the young freshfaced Constable Jeffrey and the other a senior constable. Jacob quickly filled his colleagues in while Fran helped as Beth was loaded into the ambulance.

  ‘Hold that ambulance,’ Jacob commanded as he began to follow some track marks in the dust leading to the quarry. ‘Don’t let it leave until we have conducted a thorough search.’

  Fran joined in the search under Jacob’s direction, taking measured steps, her gaze covering the small area he had allotted her. The bush was scraggly and the air was hot with a breeze that carried particles of dust from the abandoned quarry a few hundred metres from where she was searching. The ground was much less rocky in her area, and she wondered if Jacob had done that deliberately, to keep her leg from being stretched beyond its current capacity. She could see he had taken the most dangerous section to search, the deep quarry with its rocky broken jaws gaping like a grotesque mouth waiting for something to devour.

  Fran paused for a moment to listen, as Jacob had instructed her earlier, but this time she heard a faint whimper. She walked towards the noise, cocking her head, wondering if she was imagining it. She was about to call out to Jacob to tell him she thought she had heard something when she saw the black hole of a mineshaft partially covered by scrub. She quickly stepped backwards but her weak leg couldn’t hold her. It folded beneath her and, landing awkwardly and heavily, she felt the ground fall away as if in slow motion.

  ‘Fran!’ Jacob’s voice sounded like a muffled canon as she went down. She was falling, falling, falling, and by some miracle she opened her eyes in time to see a tree root, like a gnarled ghostly finger reaching out for her to grasp. She reached for it almost blindly, dust and debris clouding her vision. She hung there, like a rag doll, her head spinning, her body aching, adrenalin surging through her.

  It was then she heard the same tiny whimper she had heard before. She tightened her hold on the root and looked below to where there was a ledge about an arm’s length away. Kane’s little body was lying in a crumpled heap, dust-covered, bloodstreaked but thankfully alive. He opened his little mouth and wailed, ‘Mummy!’

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ Fran said, desperately trying not to cry in case it traumatised him further. ‘Mummy sent me to get you.’

  ‘I felled down,’ he wailed, and began to scramble to his feet.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Jacob’s voice rang out, echoing eerily off the mineshaft walls. ‘For God’s sake, don’t either of you move.’

  Fran felt her blood run cold as she finally realised the danger she and Kane were in. She had never felt so frightened. If Scott Draper and his drug-induced rage faced her now, she would have brushed him off like a fly.

  This was life and death.

  She would never forgive herself if she let Kane fall to his death, as he most certainly would if he fell further. She had no idea how deep the shaft was, but even with the light coming down from the scrub Jacob had pulled back it seemed bottomless. The ledge Kane was on would not tolerate any further weight, and Fran had already felt the tree root she was clinging to tremble as if it was going to give way.

  ‘I’m going to send down a rope.’ Jacob spoke with calm authority from above. ‘I want you to double it around your waist and then carefully reach out to Kane. Don’t make any sudden moves.’

  Fran felt her bottom lip quiver as the rope snaked down to swing before her. ‘I’m s-scared,’ she said, just loud enough for Jacob to hear.

  ‘You’re doing great, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘You’re doing just great, baby. Now, if you can wind the rope around your waist, yeah, that’s my girl. Now…slowly reach down for Kane.’

  Fran did as he directed, even though her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Kane looked up at her, his dust-streaked face so endearing and hopeful she felt tears well up in her eyes. ‘I’m coming, baby,’ s
he said. ‘I’m coming.’

  She leaned down to reach him, her body supported by the rope, her fingers brushing the child’s but not quite connecting. ‘Reach up for me, Kane,’ she said. ‘We’re going to see Mummy, OK?’

  ‘My twuck’s falled down,’ he said, pointing to the black unblinking eye of the mineshaft below him.

  Fran felt her heart lurch at the same time her body swung out against the rockface as the tree root broke off, banging her against the side of the narrow shaft, making her feel every bump and ridge against her flesh. ‘I’ll buy you a new one, darling,’ she promised as she reached for him again. ‘I’ll buy you a hundred new ones. Come on, sweetie, take my hand. Come on!’

  ‘I want my twuck!’ the little boy wailed again.

  There was the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching and a young man’s voice called out. ‘Kane? It’s Dave.’

  Fran glanced up to the column of sunlight to see the ashen face of a man not much older than Beth looking down at her and Kane, the senior police officer holding him back from the edge.

  ‘Careful, mate,’ the officer said. ‘We don’t want three of you down there.’

  ‘You gotta get him up,’ Dave said, looking at Jacob in desperation.

  ‘We’ll get him up, don’t worry,’ Jacob said, although Fran could hear the strain in his voice.

  Dave knelt down so he could speak to Kane. ‘Kane, listen to me, mate. You reach up for the pretty lady’s hand, OK? We gonna go shopping for the biggest tip truck you ever did see once you’re out of there, I promise.’

  Kane slowly raised his little hand towards Fran’s. The feel of those tiny chubby fingers encased in her slim ones was something she knew she would never forget, not if she lived for a hundred years. She felt like laughing out loud as she and Kane were drawn up to safety.

  She was bruised, she was battered, she had dust in places she didn’t want to think about, but they were safe. Kane was being hugged by Dave, who was crying unashamedly, saying repeatedly, ‘It’s all right, Daddy Dave’s here now.’ And Fran was crying, for the simple joy of being alive. What did it matter that she had a permanent limp? She’d still been able to rescue an infant from a mineshaft ledge no one else present would have been able to reach, given their broad-shouldered builds.