Bushfire Bride. Marion Lennox

Penelope was right where Rachel had left her, sitting in the now empty dog pavilion, gazing out with the air of a dog who’d been deserted by the world.

      ‘Oh, you poor baby.’ She hugged the big dog and hauled herself up into the stall to think about her options. ‘I haven’t deserted you, even if your master has.’

      Penelope licked her face, then nosed her Crimplene in evident confusion.

      ‘You don’t like my fashion sense either?’ She gave a halfhearted smile. ‘We’re stuck with it. But meanwhile …’

      Meanwhile, she was hungry. No. Make that starving! She’d had one bite of a very soggy hamburger some hours ago. The remains had long gone.

      Penelope didn’t look hungry at all.

      ‘You ate the rest of my hamburger?

      Penelope licked her again.

      ‘Fine. It was disgusting anyway, but what am I supposed to eat?’ She gazed about her. The pavilion was deserted.

      Michael hadn’t left his keys.

      Her bag was over at the caretaker’s residence where she’d showered. She could walk over there and fetch it, but why? The contents of the bag were foul. She had her purse with her—she’d tucked it into a pocket of the capacious Crimplene. She needed nothing else.

      Wrong. She needed lots of things.

      She had nothing else.

      So … She had her purse, a dog and a really rumbling stomach.

      ‘I guess we walk into town,’ she told Penelope. The only problem was that the hospital and the showgrounds were on one side of the river and the tiny township of Cowral was on the other.

      ‘We don’t have a choice,’ she told the dog. ‘Walking is good for us. Let’s get used to it. The key to our wheels has just taken himself back to Sydney and we’re glad he has. Compared to your master … I hate to tell you, Penelope, but walking looks good in comparison.’

      Cowral was closed.

      It was a tiny seaside town. It was Sunday night. All the tourists had left when the roads had started to be threatened. Rachel trudged over the bridge and into town to find the place was shut down as if it was dead winter and midnight. Not a shop was open. By the time she reached the main street the pall of smoke was completely covering the moon and only a couple of streetlights were casting an eerie, foggy glow through the haze.

      ‘It looks like something out of Sherlock Holmes,’ Rachel told her canine companion. ‘Murderer appears stage left …’ She stood in the middle of the deserted street and listened to her stomach rumble and thought not very nice thoughts about a whole range of people. A whole range of circumstances.

      Murder was definitely an option.

      Her phone was in her purse. She hauled it out and looked at it. Who could she ring?

      No one. She didn’t know anyone.

      She stared at it some more and, as if she’d willed it, it rang all by itself. She was so relieved she answered before it had finished the first ring.

      ‘Rachel?’ It was Dottie’s bright chirpiness sounding down the line. Her mother-in-law who’d so wanted this weekend to work. ‘Rachel, I hope I’m not intruding but I so wanted to know how it was going. Where are you, dear?’

      Rachel thought about it. ‘I’m standing in the main street of Cowral,’ she said. ‘Thinking about dinner.’

      ‘Oh …’ She could hear Dottie’s beam down the line. ‘Are you going somewhere romantic?’

      ‘Maybe outdoors,’ Rachel said, cautiously looking around at her options. ‘Under the stars.’ She looked through the smoke toward the sea. ‘On the beach?’

      ‘How wonderful. Is the weather gorgeous?’

      Rachel tried not to cough from smoke inhalation. ‘Gorgeous!’

      ‘And you have such gorgeous company.’

      Rachel looked dubiously down at Penelope. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

      ‘You know we so wanted you to have a good time, Lewis and I. There’s no chance of extending your time there, I suppose?’

      ‘Actually, there may be,’ Rachel told her. She explained about the fires and the road being cut. ‘There’s nothing to worry about but … we may be held up here for a few more days.’ There was no reason to explain that ‘we’ meant Rachel and an Afghan hound. Not Rachel and a gorgeous hunk of eligible cardiologist.

      But her words were just what Dottie wanted to hear. ‘Oh, my dear, that’s lovely.’ She could hear Dottie’s beam widen. ‘Unless the fires are a real problem?’

      ‘They don’t seem to be.’ Australians understood about bushfires. Most national parks burned every few years or so—they needed to burn to regenerate—and as long as they didn’t threaten townships they weren’t a worry. Dottie clearly thought this time they’d been sent from heaven.

      ‘Dottie,’ she said cautiously. ‘Craig …’

      ‘You’re not to worry. We told you and we meant it. His father and I have taken right over as we should have long ago. As you should have let us.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘You concentrate on yourself,’ Dorothy told her. ‘You concentrate on your future. On your romantic dinner under the stars. That’s an order.’

      And the phone went dead.

      Great.

      She stared at it. Her link with home.

      She should be back in the hospital right now. Why wasn’t she? Craig …

      Don’t think about it. Think about now.

      Now what?

      If there was no dinner to be had in Cowral then she needed to think about her next need. Sleep. Accommodation.

      Cowral Bay’s only motel—the place where Michael-the-rat had slept last night—was on the other side of the river.

      She’d walk back over the bridge, she decided. She’d leave Penelope in her dog box in the pavilion and book herself into the motel. Hey, maybe the motel even had room service.

      By the time she reached the motel her feet, in her borrowed sandals, were screaming that she had blisters. She’d bother with taking Penelope back to the pavilion later, she decided, so she tied the dog to a tree and walked into Motel Reception. To find no room at the inn.

      ‘Sorry, love,’ the motel owner told her, casting a nervous glance at Rachel’s dubious apparel. ‘There’s fire crews from the other side of the peninsula trapped here now and they’ve booked us out.’

      ‘Do you have a restaurant?’ Rachel asked with more hope than optimism, and was rewarded by another dubious look and another shake of the head.

      ‘Everyone’s closed. The Country Women’s Association are putting on food twenty-four hours a day for the firefighters in the hall over the bridge but you don’t look like a firefighter.’

      Rachel swallowed. ‘No. No, I don’t.’

      ‘Are you OK, love?’ the woman asked. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t need one of them women’s refuge places, do you? I could call the police for you if you like.’

      Great. That was all she needed. A girl had some pride but Rachel was really struggling to find it here. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together.

      Maybe women’s refuges had food?

      Good grief. What was she thinking?

      ‘Um, no. Thank you.’ She fished in her purse and found a couple of coins. There was a candy dispensing machine by the counter and the sweets looked really inviting. ‘I’ll ring