Bushfire Bride. Marion Lennox

      ‘You’re not only rude,’ she told him, her gaze speculative. ‘You’re also racist.’

      He raised his brows and his brown eyes creased into laughing disbelief. ‘You’re saying she’s smart?’

      ‘She’s a sweetheart.’ Rachel gave the great white hound a hug and then winced as a smear of ketchup soiled the dog’s immaculate coat. Whoops. Michael would be out with his pistols.

      Where was Michael?

      ‘You don’t need to take my word for it,’ the man was saying. A small crowd was gathering now. The judging heats were over; final judging wasn’t for another two hours and things were slow in the dog shed. Rachel wasn’t the only one who was bored. ‘There’s tests for dog intelligence.’

      ‘You’re going to implement the MENSA quiz?’

      ‘Nothing so complicated. Lend me a piece of your hamburger.’

      ‘Lend … Hey, get your own hamburger.’

      ‘It’s in the interest of scientific research,’ he told her.

      ‘My daddy’s a doctor,’ the little boy said, as if that explained everything.

      ‘Yeah? Doctor of what?’ Rachel grinned down at the kid, beginning to enjoy herself for the first time all weekend. ‘It sounds a sneaky way to get some of my hamburger.’

      ‘It’s a simple experiment,’ the man told her, refusing to be sidetracked. ‘See my dog?’

      The stalls and their associated sleeping quarters were raised almost three feet above the ground. Rachel peered over the edge. A lean, brown dog of indeterminate parentage gazed back at her. As big as a collie, the mutt was all legs, tail and eyes. As Rachel gazed down at him, he raised his back leg for a weary scratch.

      ‘Charming,’ Rachel said. ‘Great party trick.’

      ‘Digger doesn’t do party tricks.’

      She nodded in sympathetic understanding. ‘I guess you need to be house-trained to be let into parties.’

      The man’s grin matched hers. War hadn’t just been declared—the first shots had been fired. ‘Are you implying Digger’s not house-trained?’

      ‘Seeing is believing.’ This was OK, she decided. For the first time since she’d been conned into coming to this last bastion of civilisation, she was having fun. Guilt could be forgotten—for the moment. Penelope against Digger. It was a crazy conversation. She wasn’t sure how it had started but she didn’t intend to stop. ‘Breeding will out,’ she declared.

      ‘There’s been more gone into Digger’s breeding than your mutt’s.’

      ‘My mutt’s name is Penelope,’ she said haughtily. ‘And she’s no mutt. She comes from long line of Australian champions. Whereas your mutt …’

      ‘Digger also comes from a long line of champions,’ the stranger told her. He smiled again, and it was a heart-stopper of a smile. A real killer. ‘We’re sure there’s a piece of champion Border collie in there somewhere, and a champion kelpie …’

      ‘And a champion dachshund?’ Rachel watched as Digger’s tiny pointy tail stuck straight up. ‘Definitely dachshund.’

      ‘That’s silly,’ the little boy said. ‘Dachshunds are long and flat and Digger’s high and bouncy.’

      ‘Right.’ She was trying not to laugh. Both the man and the boy were entrancing. Two gorgeous smiles. Two sets of deep, dark eyes ready to spring into laughter. She was bored out of her brain and this pair were a diversion sent from heaven.

      ‘So what do we do with my hamburger?’ she asked, and the man’s smile deepened. Honestly, it was a smile to die for.

      ‘We put it under a feed dish.’

      Rachel raised her eyebrows, then shrugged and handed over her burger. A fair amount of ketchup came, too.

      The man looked down at his hand—ketchup with hamburger attached. Ugh. In truth it had been a very soggy hamburger and Rachel wasn’t all that sorry to lose it. ‘You like your burgers well sauced?’

      ‘Yes,’ she told him, and went back to glowering.

      ‘My Dad says tomato sauce has too much salt and salt’s bad for blood pressure,’ the little boy ventured.

      ‘People who say rude things about dogs are bad for blood pressure,’ Rachel retorted, and there was a general chuckle from their growing audience. ‘So what are you intending to do with my hamburger?’

      ‘Watch.’ The man stooped and placed a piece of hamburger underneath an upturned dog dish. Then he stood back and let Digger’s lead go slack.

      ‘Dinner,’ he said.

      Digger looked up at him. Adoring. Then the skinny, brown dog gazed around the crowd as if ensuring each and every eye was on him. He sniffed, placed a paw on top of the dish, crouched down, pushed with the other paw … The dish toppled sideways to reveal the piece of hamburger.

      Digger looked around again as if awaiting applause. It came. He received his due and then delicately ate the hamburger.

      Uh-oh.

      ‘Now it’s Penelope’s turn.’

      ‘She’ll get dirty,’ Rachel said, and there was a trace of worry in her voice. Penelope might be lovely, but her opposition was seriously smart.

      ‘We’ll put it up on her platform.’ The stranger’s smile was growing broader. ‘I’ll even wipe the ketchup off. Or maybe you could do it on your T-shirt.’

      Ouch! ‘Watch your mouth.’

      Another grin, but the entire pavilion was watching now and he didn’t stop. He placed the dish in front of Penelope’s nose. He broke a second piece of hamburger, showed it to Penelope and popped it underneath.

      He backed away and left her to it.

      Penelope sniffed. She sniffed again.

      She whined.

      She lay down in front of the dish. She stood up and barked. She shoved the dish sideways with her nose and barked again.

      Nothing happened. She lay down and whined, pathos personified.

      ‘So your dog’s hungrier than mine,’ Rachel told him with a touch of desperation, and there was general laughter. ‘You must starve Digger.’

      ‘Do I look like a man who’d starve a dog?’

      No. He didn’t. He looked really nice, Rachel decided, and she wished all of a sudden that she wasn’t in soiled jeans and sauce-stained T-shirt, that her mass of deep brown curls were untangled and not full of the straw that the organisers had put down as bedding, and that she looked …

      Oh, heck, what was she thinking of? This guy had a kid. She was here with Michael and …

      ‘Rachel, are you feeding Penelope?’

      Unthinkingly, she’d raised the feed bowl, and Penelope was launching herself into the hamburger as if there was no tomorrow.

      ‘Um … Michael.’

      Michael, silver-haired, suave and in charge of his world, was elbowing through the crowd and his face was incredulous. No one messed with Michael’s instructions. Pedigree dog food only. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

      ‘I’m proving Penelope’s intelligence,’ she told him, chin jutting. Enough was enough and she’d had more than enough of Dr Michael Levering.

      Back at Sydney Central, Michael had seemed witty and charming and, as one of Sydney’s top cardiologists, he was extremely eligible. His invitation to go away with him for the weekend had half the staff in Casualty green with envy, and her friends and her family had finally pushed