She hadn’t seemed to notice just how much time Rachel spent there—or that when her books got too much for her she’d just sort of sidled to one of the computers. Patrons were supposed to pay for fifteen-minute slots, but when the library was quiet…well, Maureen was a librarian with a kind heart and she didn’t seem to notice. Sometimes Rachel had been asleep in a cubicle. Sometimes she’d been at the computer, dreaming of stuff she could never buy.
But she could buy stuff now, and memories of a weird search came back to her at just the right moment.
‘Hey, I have a solution,’ she told Kit. She was almost done. There’d still be tiny slivers in the wound but it would be up to the plastic surgeon in Sydney to retrieve them. The shards that could have done more damage were gone, and if she foraged more she risked making that damage worse.
‘A solution?’ Tom said.
‘A meerkat superhero.’
‘There’s no such thing.’
‘Of course there is. Kit, you tell him.’
‘I haven’t seen…’ Kit said doubtfully.
‘You haven’t? You’re obviously looking in the wrong places.’
Meerkats had been a bit of a thing for her during her teens; they had fascinated her, taken her out of her bleak world for a while. She still had a sneaky affection for them, and even now her internet browser seemed to find them almost by itself.
‘You must know there are online comics,’ she said. ‘I bet there are even online movies and I definitely know there are meerkat superhero T-shirts. I could order you one this very night, if you want. It’ll need to come from overseas so you might need to wait for a few weeks, but something like that would be worth waiting for, don’t you think?’
‘A meerkat superhero…?’
‘Marvel the Meerkat?’ she mused. ‘I’m thinking that’s who I saw. Maybe I have the name wrong. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘But I broke your window,’ Kit quavered, sounding astounded.
‘So you did. So you’ll have to pay.’ She was closing, with steristrips because stitching a hand that needed further surgery was pointless. She glanced at Tom and saw the look of strain on his face. More than strain. She’d seen this reaction before, during her internship in an emergency department in Sydney. It was the reaction of parents whose foundations had been shaken after injury to their kids.
The look set back her prejudices a little. He cared?
So what was with the neglect? If he was a stepdad, where was Mum?
It wasn’t her business. Focus on Kit. She’d just told him he’d have to pay.
‘Can you fish?’ she asked the little boy, guessing what the answer would be. She’d already noticed fishing rods stacked outside the next-door garage.
‘Tom showed us how,’ Kit said, confused.
‘There you are then,’ she said decisively. ‘I can’t catch fish but I love eating them. When your hand’s better I demand three fish for payment. What’s your favourite fish to catch?’
‘Whiting,’ Kit said and then looked doubtfully at Tom. ‘Tom would have to help me.’
‘I don’t mind who helps,’ she said. ‘But I’m charging three fresh fish for my damaged window. Not all at once because I can only eat one at a time and I like them fresh. Then I’ll charge two more for the new meerkat T-shirt I’ll order tonight. Is that a deal?’
‘D-deal,’ Kit said and even managed a watery smile.
‘That’s that, then,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to unpack a few more boxes before I’m needed again.’
And she smiled at Kit, at Roscoe, but not at Tom, and then she headed out of the door.
He caught her just as she reached her car.
Her car… He saw her stop in dismay as she saw the mess, as she realised just what damage had been done. He saw her face go blank, almost as if she’d been slapped.
Back in his office he had a file on this woman. The file was in his possession not because she was a future colleague; he had it because Rachel Tilding was the recipient of the scholarship his grandfather had endowed, and as Roger Lavery’s grandson he was one of the trustees of that endowment. Every two years a scholarship was awarded to a student who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend medical school but had shown determination and rigour to get where they were.
Rachel had won the scholarship eight years ago, when Tom’s father still headed the trustees, but his parents were now living overseas and the file was in Tom’s possession. When it was time for Rachel to take up her appointment, Tom had hauled it out and read it.
It didn’t make pretty reading. Poverty, foster homes, eventual homelessness but, throughout it all, a grinding determination to be a doctor. She hadn’t had the highest marks of the applicants but her sheer grit had made the award a no-brainer.
Now she was looking at her car as if this was a catastrophe. He watched her face crumple, her hand go to her eyes.
‘Rachel?’
She gasped and swivelled, swiping her face fiercely with the back of her hand. Her long-sleeved shirt was still blood-stained where Kit had leaned on her shoulder in the car. Her soft brown curls were tangled back behind her ears, there was a smudge of blood on her cheek and her brown eyes looked too big in her too-pale face. She looked younger than the twenty-eight years she was, he thought. Defenceless? It was a strange adjective to describe her but that was how he saw her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, struggling to find control. ‘Go back to Kit.’
‘We’re not really at the end of the earth,’ he said gently, because something told him what was before her was more important than a messy car. ‘We might not have plastic surgeons but we do have a car dealership. Roy’s talent—aside from selling people cars they haven’t realised they need—is detailing. He can take a farm bomb that’s been lived in by farmers, pigs, dogs, whatever, and turn it into a gleaming bargain of the century. And this…’
He looked at the gorgeous scarlet lacquer, the sheer beauty of the little roadster. ‘This would be his absolute pleasure to clean. The only thing you need to fear is him putting it into his showroom window when he’s done.’
‘Really?’ She sniffed and eyed him with distrust. ‘But it’s blood. Don’t people have rules about contamination?’
‘He might charge more,’ Tom agreed. ‘But this was an accident, Rachel, caused by my stepson. My insurance will more than cover it.’ He wasn’t actually sure that it would, but there was no way he was saying that now. The responsibility was his. He’d pay a king’s ransom to get her a clean car if necessary. ‘Meanwhile, I’m heading to Sydney, thanks to you, so you can use my car.’ He motioned to the car park, to a large serviceable SUV. ‘You might even think about buying such a car for here. It’s much more sensible.’
She had herself under control again now. He saw her regroup, and then gaze at his battered SUV with dislike.
‘I might need to be a country doctor for two years,’ she said. ‘But there is nothing on earth that’d persuade me to swap my Petal for that…that…’
‘Don’t say it,’ he said urgently, and smiled. ‘That’s Moby Dick, christened by the boys, and Moby’s sensitive.’
‘Moby doesn’t look like he has a sensitive nerve in his body.’
‘Looks are deceptive.’ He hesitated. ‘But…you will drive it? Just until I get back? Rachel, I can’t tell you…’
‘I