that perhaps he’d imagined the sound, a trick of the wind. But then he heard it again. Louder.
‘Help, someone, please!’
Definitely a woman. She had to be the passenger, surely.
He grabbed his sat phone and punched in numbers for the district’s one and only cop, praying there’d be an answer. To his relief the response was instant and he’d never been more pleased to hear the sergeant’s gravel-rough voice.
‘Mick, Reece Weston here. There’s been an accident out near the turn off to my place—Warringa. A small sedan’s hit a kangaroo and gone off the road. I’ve been trying CPR on the driver, but I’m not having much luck, I’m afraid. No signs of life. And now there’s someone else calling for help. I’m going to check it out.’
‘OK, Reece. I’ll alert the ambulance at Dirranbilla, and come straight out. But you know it’ll take me a couple of hours. And the ambos could be even longer. Actually, with all this rain, they might have trouble getting through. The creeks are rising.’
Reece let out a soft curse as he disconnected. Times like this, he had to ask why his forebears had settled in one of the remotest parts of Australia. He flashed his torch up and down the gully again, then scrambled onto the road and cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Where are you?’ he called.
‘On a track off the road. Please … help!’
The only track around here led into his homestead. The woman must have scrambled from the car in a bid to reach help for the driver. She sounded both scared and in pain.
Rain needled his face as he started to run, the beam of his torch bouncing ahead down the track, lighting muddy puddles and drenched grass and the slim trunks of gum trees. Rounding a bend, he found the woman huddled in the rain, sagged against a timber fencepost.
He flashed the torch over her and caught her pale, frightened face in its beam. Her hair was long and hanging in wet strings to her shoulders. Her arms were slender and as pale as her face, and she was holding something …
A step or two closer, he realised she was supporting the huge bulge of her heavily pregnant belly.
He was shocked to a standstill.
The man arrived just as the pain came again, huge and cruel, gripping Jess with a vice-like force. She tried to breathe with it, the way she’d been taught at antenatal classes, but no amount of breathing could bring her relief. She was too horrified and too scared. She wasn’t supposed to be in labour now. Not three weeks early, not on the edge of a bush track in the rain and in the middle of nowhere. Not with Alan scarily unconscious and unable to help her.
The man stepped closer. She couldn’t see him very well, but he seemed to be tall and dark-haired. Not old.
‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head, but had to wait till the contraction eased before she could answer. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said at last. ‘But I’m afraid my labour’s started.’
He made a despairing sound. No doubt he wondered what the hell she was doing out here in an advanced state of pregnancy. She felt obliged to justify her predicament. ‘My husband needs help. I was trying to find a homestead.’
By now his hand was at her elbow supporting her. Despite the rain, his skin was warm and she could feel the roughness of his work-toughened palm. She sensed she could trust him. She had no choice really.
‘Alan’s unconscious,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t revive him, and then the pains started when I had to climb up the rocks to the road.’ She gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I couldn’t use my mobile. There’s no network. But he needs an ambulance.’
‘I saw him,’ her rescuer said gently. He had brown eyes, as dark as black coffee, and he was watching her now with a worried frown. ‘I’ve rung the local police and help is on the way. But, for the moment, I think you need to look after yourself and your little one.’
Jess’s response was swallowed by a gasp as another contraction gripped her, then consumed her, driving every other thought from her head.
‘Here, lean on me.’ The stranger slipped his arm around her shoulders, steadying her against his solid chest.
Just having him there seemed to help.
‘Thanks,’ she said shyly when the pain was over.
‘Look, you can’t stay here.’ Her good Samaritan slipped off his canvas coat and put it around her shoulders. ‘This will at least keep the rain off you until I get you into the truck.’ His voice was deep and kind. ‘Can you wait here while I fetch it? I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She remembered to add, ‘Thank you.’
He was gone then, but he was as good as his word, and in no time the truck’s headlights lit up the track. The door creaked a little as he opened it and swung down, his long legs seeming to stretch for ever. Before Jess knew quite what was happening, he’d scooped her up into his arms.
At first she was too overawed by his strength to protest, but she quickly came to her senses. ‘For heaven’s sake. I’m the size of a whale. I’ll break your back.’
‘Don’t fuss. I’m not letting you climb up into this truck. There you go.’ With a grunt he deposited her carefully on the front seat. ‘We won’t worry about the seat belt. I’ll be careful and it’s not far.’
‘But we’re not leaving, are we? What about Alan?’
‘The ambulance and the police are on their way.’ His voice was quiet, but commanding.
Jess gaped at him. Was he suggesting she should just abandon her husband? ‘We can’t leave him,’ she protested. ‘The poor man’s unconscious. He’s all alone.’
She began to tremble as she remembered how still and pale Alan had looked.
Watching her, Reece drew a sharp breath. Her eyes filled with tears and he had to turn away as he wrestled with this new dilemma. It would be too cruel to tell her bluntly that her husband was beyond help. Somehow, he had to keep her focused on her own needs.
‘Seems you’re about to have a baby,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘I’m guessing you wouldn’t want to have it in a dirty truck’s cabin.’
‘Well … no.’
‘I can give you a bed at the homestead. It’s not much of a choice, I know, but, under the circumstances, I’m sure it’s what your husband would want for you.’
Jess felt too confused and uncomfortable to argue. Now, sitting upright in the truck, she could feel her baby’s head pushing down.
She felt terrible about leaving Alan, but she guessed she didn’t really have a choice. Her priority now was their baby’s safety, and almost as soon as the truck started up another contraction began. She dragged in a deep breath as the pain cut harder, deeper, lower, and she began to pant, staring out into the dark, rainy night, trying frantically not to moan and to concentrate instead on her breathing and the skinny trunks of gum trees flashing past.
No one had warned her that the pain would get this bad.
When it finally eased, her rescuer asked, ‘Is this your first baby?’
Jess nodded. ‘’Fraid so. What about you? Has your wife been through this?’
‘I don’t have a wife,’ he said quietly.
‘Is there a woman at the homestead?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
Somehow, she managed to suppress a groan of disappointment. She’d been hoping to find a woman who’d been through this. Someone who could, at the very least, reassure her.
‘By the way, my name’s Reece.’ He flashed a shy smile and for a moment his rather stern face looked incredibly appealing. ‘Reece