Bachelor Cure

While her picnic was being prepared, she retreated to her bedroom. She needed the privacy. The hospital was abuzz with who she was, and every nurse and patient in the place was burning with the need to know more. Like…did she have any ideas where her grandpa was?

And there was so little she could tell them.

Mike collected her an hour later.

He walked into her room and stopped in stunned amazement at the transformation. He’d seen Tessa bloody and exhausted and in pain. He hadn’t see her like this.

Tess was certainly a beauty in anyone’s book. He’d thought so last night and he’d thought it when he’d seen her asleep in her hospital gown. In fact, he thought it every time he looked at her.

She wasn’t a classical beauty, but she was a beauty none the less. She was slim and neat and her legs stretched on for ever. In her figure-hugging jeans, she seemed all legs.

Or all eyes, depending on which end you looked at, he thought. Tessa’s face had the pale, creamy complexion of a redhead and she’d come straight from the end of a United States winter. There was a faint spread of faded freckles over her nose—echoes of last summer. Tessa’s mouth was rosebud-shaped, her nose pertly snub and her face almost all eyes, the greenness framed by her red-gold hair.

She was thin. Well, maybe not too thin, he thought to himself. She was just…just well packaged. She was thin where it counted and not thin where it counted more! In her figure-hugging jeans and close-cut T-shirt, her figure was revealed to perfection. She had an old windcheater draped around her waist, and the trainers on her feet were nearly as old as the clothes he’d changed into, but the age and the casualness of her clothes didn’t detract from her beauty one bit.

It was all he could do not to whistle.

He didn’t, though. He paused for one millisecond—and then caught himself, smiled and picked up the picnic basket.

‘Provisions, Dr Westcott? Hasn’t the hospital fed you?’

‘Mrs Thompson has personally insisted I eat enough to feed a small army,’ she assured him. ‘But I wouldn’t be the least surprised if I feel the need to eat again quite soon. Even my toes seem hollow.’

He grinned. ‘No anorexia, then? Excellent. I like a girl with a healthy appetite.’

‘Do you want a cure for anorexia?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve just invented it. Put a girl on a plane for thirty-six hours with airline food for company and fear in her stomach, and then toss her among pregnant pigs and dislocate her shoulder. Then put her to sleep for fifteen hours and—hey, presto—you’ve a girl with a healthy appetite. Magic, Dr Llewellyn! I think I’ll write it up as a new wonder treatment for one of our prestigious medical journals.’

‘You’ll make your name as a medical whizkid,’ he told her.

‘I know,’ she agreed, and fluttered her eyelids in assumed modesty.

Whew! Good grief! He smiled at her, and Tess chuckled—and when Tess Westcott smiled, his body started to heat from his trainers up.

‘OK, then, Tess,’ he told her finally, and only a faint hesitation under his words hinted at what he was feeling. ‘You’re fed and rested. Are you ready to face the farm?’

Tess nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

‘OK. Strop’s waiting in the car. Let’s go.’

She set her face, and Mike saw grimness replace the laughter behind her eyes. Hell, she had courage. She knew what could lie ahead of them.

This was some woman!

And suddenly he wasn’t the least sure he was ready to spend any time with her. There was something deep inside that was telling him he should run a mile.

But there was something else that was telling him to stay.

The farm was dreadful. Even Strop, having made the first half of the trip straddling the gearstick and the second half where he really wanted to be—sitting high on Tessa’s lap with his ears flapping out the window—seemed depressed by the place. His mournful ears flopped lower and his eyes welled with moisture. Good grief, you just had to look at the dog and you’d burst into tears! He lumbered off to sniff in the bracken and Tess was pleased to see him go. She was depressed enough without him.

They made a courtesy call on Doris first. She was too preoccupied with her eight babies to notice human visitors. Jacob had done his job well. Mike had rung him early this morning and asked him to make sure the sow was fed and watered, and there was nothing more she needed. Now she had everything she could want, except maybe a spare set of teats.

After paying their social call on Doris, they tackled the house.

There was nothing here to help them—no clues as to where Henry could be. The place was deserted, but it still held the signs of an occupant who hadn’t intended to leave. There was milk curdling in the refrigerator. Someone had taken a heap of sausages from the freezer and left them by the stove to defrost. That had been four or five days ago and they were starting to stink.

They cleared up in silence and Mike thought he was glad he hadn’t let Tess face this alone. It was only bad sausages, but there were so many dreadful thoughts crowding in, and the smell of rotting meat didn’t help one bit.

‘Where do we search?’ he asked, as they came outside again, and she shook her head.

‘I don’t know. I can’t think. I’m trying to remember. It was ten years ago. I… It’s like going back in time. I’ve lost my bearings.’

‘Let’s eat, then,’ he told her gently, watching her distress with concern. It was early for dinner but they needed to get some fresh air into their lungs after the dreary house, and Tess needed time to get her emotions under control before they tackled the walk, even if she remembered where to go…

Afterwards—after they’d searched—they might not feel like eating at all.

They spread their picnic under a massive gum tree beside the shed. Tess was so depressed she was close to tears. Even Mike’s comforting presence, and the way Strop cheered up at the sight of sandwiches, couldn’t help this deadening misery.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky and she didn’t know where to start, what to do. She was aware that Mike was letting her decide, carefully holding back from what he saw as her domain, and she was grateful that at least she didn’t have to concentrate on small talk. It made for a cheerless silence, though.

But it also made for thinking. She was hardly hungry after her meal two hours before. She lay on the picnic rug and watched Mike demolish the picnic—and thought back to when she was sixteen years old and she and her Grandpa had roamed this farm together.

And then…

He was watching her and Mike saw the instant when remembrance hit. The feeling that this place was familiar.

‘I remember we walked down by the creek,’ she said softly. ‘I know… So that’s east. If I can start…’ She pushed herself up to stand and gaze out to the distant hills.

‘Mike, this is probably useless,’ she said slowly. ‘But… I think I might remember the way. It’s a long hike.’

‘A hike?’ He poured coffee from a Thermos and handed her a mug. ‘That’s fine by me. This picnic idea was great, but we need a hike now to walk it off, and Strop definitely needs exercise. That’s four sandwiches you fed him. Do you remember the way entirely?’

‘No.’ She shook her head and took a couple of sips of coffee while her eyes still roamed the hills. Her mind was working at a thousand miles an hour, dredging up memories of the past. ‘I shouldn’t ask you…’

‘Ask anything. I want to help—remember?’ he told her. ‘I don’t like not knowing your grandfather’s fate almost as much as you don’t.’ He placed his coffee-mug aside and stood up beside her. ‘I’ve just been hoping if I shut up long enough you might think of something useful to do.’

‘I don’t know whether I have.’

‘But?’

She finished her coffee before she replied. Mike didn’t push. ‘There’s all the time in the world,’ he told her.

‘That’s not true.’

‘This is important, Tess,’ he said softly. ‘There might be things that need doing, but it’s your grandpa’s life at stake here. Take all the time you need.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said softly. ‘Of all the doctors I know, you’re not like…’ She shook her head, confused, but Mike didn’t say more. He knelt and stroked Strop and waited—and finally remembrance came.

‘It’s coming back,’ she whispered. She stared out at the surrounding countryside. It had always been a tussle to keep this land cleared. The little farm had been neglected for the last few years and the bushland was reclaiming its own. There were only Henry’s six goats to keep it down.

‘It was definitely east of here,’ she said surely. ‘I’m sure I remember. But the country’s rough.’

‘I’ve bought a backpack,’ he told her, bending to throw the picnic things back in the basket. ‘It’s in the car.’

‘But… We don’t need provisions. It should only take an hour.’

‘I’m taking medical equipment,’ he said curtly. ‘Just in case…’

‘But…you still think he’s dead?’

‘If he was somewhere safe and dry and then collapsed…’ He shook his head. ‘Who knows? But if there is such a place then I guess there might be a chance. I just wish to hell I’d been able to contact you when this whole mess happened. If I’d known…’

Tess looked curiously up at him. ‘You really care,’ she said softly—wondering. ‘Mike, Grandpa’s your patient but he’s an old man with nothing whatever to do with you except in a professional capacity. You must have two or three thousand patients on your books, yet you care enough to come out and untether Grandpa’s goats and check on his pig at midnight. You care enough to rescue a weird and ridiculous dog from death—and you care enough to come with me now.’

‘Yeah, well…’ He gave a shrug, feeling embarrassed, and Tess stared some more.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

‘No. If I’d contacted you, you might have been able to tell me…’

‘I couldn’t have described where the cave was, even if I’d thought of it,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know for sure that I can find it now. But I hope…’

She paused and he stood and took her hand strongly in his, pulling her over to stand beside him. His arm came around her waist in a gesture of reassurance and comfort.

‘Then let’s do that, Tess,’ he said gravely. ‘Let’s hope.’

The cave was further away than she remembered, and by the time they found it the last of the light was fading behind the hills. The sunset had been spectacular, and there was still a fading glow around the sky.

It was instinct rather than knowledge that led her to the cave. She couldn’t have described the route if she’d tried. Instead, Mike watched as she simply let her mind drift back to her last summer’s afternoon with her grandfather, set her eyes on the hills and let her feet rewalk the route they’d taken. He didn’t say a word, sensing her need to let her instincts take over.

And her instincts didn’t fail her.

Resting high in the hills in dense bushland, where a small creek trickled down over vast boulders, two massive rocks stood sentinel to a third. The rear rock looked as if it had been almost blasted into the cliff face—a part of a rock wall which was sheer and impregnable. It was only when you slipped behind the front two rocks, then walked around a small outcrop to the side, that a small opening behind the rear rock could be seen. It was just big enough for a man to fit.

Tess found it wordlessly, her face reflecting hope and dread. What if her grandfather wasn’t here?

And what if he was?

Strop was sniffing the entrance, his floppy ears pricked as much as it was possible for basset ears ever to prick. Mike looked down at his dog and his face tightened. He placed a hand on Tessa’s shoulder and gently propelled her forward. ‘It won’t get better for the waiting,’ he told her softly. ‘Come on, Tess. I think your grandfather might be here—and I’m right beside you.’

And thank God he was. There was no way he wanted Tess to face this on her own. He badly wanted to tell her to stay back now—let him find whatever was inside—but he knew she’d have none of that, so he took her hand and Tess let hers lie in his as he led her forward. She had brought Mike here, but now she was clearly grateful to let him be in charge. She squeezed through the gap as his hand pulled her on, and he could feel the tension in her fingers.

Inside, the cave was so big it might almost have been the vaulting roof of a cathedral. There was a crevice above that, open to the evening sky, and the rosy hue of sunset shimmered around the smooth rock walls and lit the cavern in a dim and misty haze.

Tess didn’t waste time admiring the beauty. At the rear of the cave there was a chamber, dry and filled with sand, closed to the weather but just open enough to the light so as not to be frightening. It was a comfortable place for a wounded thing to lie and tend its wounds.

Courage was no longer an issue. She dropped Mike’s hand and stumbled quickly across the rough cave floor to reach the inner entrance, with Strop and Mike left to follow.

And inside she found her grandfather.

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