“Okay,” Melissa said carefully. What the heck was going on here? “I’m Melissa, by the way. What’s your name?”
The woman hesitated, her hazel eyes searching Melissa’s face. Finally she said, “I’m Diane. We’ll come back out to the road.”
At the car, Melissa grasped her large metal first-aid kit by its handles and heaved it out of her trunk. Then she carried it to Josh, who was sitting on a log in the shade of a gum tree.
Diane helped her lower the box to the ground. “This is the biggest first-aid kit I’ve ever seen.”
“I like to be prepared.” Melissa knelt before it and handed out gauze, butterfly adhesives, a tensor bandage, antiseptic ointment, scissors and tape. Her family thought she was a hypochondriac, but in her opinion one couldn’t do too much when it came to health and safety.
“Are you a nurse, too?” Josh asked. Tears had dried into tracks down his freckled cheeks.
“Me? No way! I’m petrified at the sight of blood.” Melissa glanced at Diane. “Are you a nurse?”
“I haven’t practiced since before Josh was born, but, yes, I’m a registered nurse.”
“Thank goodness! You can dress his wound.” Melissa’s stomach was still churning at the sight of Josh’s torn flesh. Bits of grass and dirt were caught in the sticky blood oozing from the deep gash.
“Mummy, I’m hurt, too.” Callie whimpered and thrust out her arm. In addition to the bruises, she had a fresh scrape on her elbow. “I want you to nurse me!”
“In a minute, darling,” Diane said. “As soon as I get Josh patched up.”
“I can manage your elbow,” Melissa said to Callie, who reluctantly came forward in response to her mother’s encouraging nod. “I’ve got Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids. Do you want Pooh Bear or Tigger?”
Melissa took care of Callie’s scrape, then pulled the girl onto her lap while Diane swabbed the debris out of Josh’s wound, dabbed on the antiseptic and pulled the gaping edges together with butterfly adhesives. Melissa didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help admiring the capable, efficient way she worked, covering the cleaned wound and taping a gauze pad into place. Finally Diane wound a tensor bandage around Josh’s sprained ankle in a precise herringbone pattern and clamped the end with a metal clip. Brushing the tears from her son’s eyes, she said, “You’re a brave boy.”
Melissa helped Callie to her feet and started repacking the first-aid kit. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you walking way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Diane gathered up the scraps of wrapping from the bandages, not meeting her gaze. “We…we walked into Tipperary Springs and now we’re on our way back to…the farm where we’re staying.”
“Oh, so you’re here on holiday,” Melissa said. “My sister, Ally, manages a cottage-rental agency in Tipperary Springs. Maybe you met her—brown hair, colorful cardigans, quirky brooches?” Diane looked baffled and Melissa decided she must have gone to another agency. “You’ll love this area. There’s hiking, fishing, hot-air ballooning, the mineral springs….”
She trailed off, frowning, as the oddness of their situation sunk in. The town was five kilometers away, a long distance on a road with no footpath. “Did your car break down? Do you want to use my mobile phone?”
“We came by bus.” Once again Diane slung her purse over her arm, hefted her bag of groceries, then took a child by each hand. Looking cautiously both ways, she started walking off.
Melissa followed. “Buses don’t run along this road.”
“I told you, we walked from Tipperary Springs.”
The woman looked well-off; it didn’t make sense that they’d taken a bus to town and walked from there. And now Josh’s ankle was sprained and Callie was drooping like a wilted flower.
“Hop in the car. I’ll give you a lift to where you’re staying.” Diane hesitated and Melissa added, “Your son’s leg could start bleeding again. And you know he shouldn’t walk on a sprain.”
“I don’t mind if my leg bleeds,” Josh said bravely.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Diane squeezed his shoulder. “All right,” she said to Melissa. “Thank you.”
When they’d loaded the kids in the rear and Diane had taken the passenger seat, Melissa pulled back onto the road. Soon the thick stands of gum trees gave way to small farms nestled among rolling green hills. Diane stared out her window, absently fingering a single strand of cultured pearls.
“Where are you from?” Melissa asked, trying to make conversation.
“Ballarat.” Callie piped up from the backseat.
“Shut up, stupid!” Josh elbowed his sister.
“Mummy!” Callie howled.
“Stop, you two,” Diane said tensely.
“You haven’t come far for your holiday,” Melissa observed. Ballarat was barely a half-hour drive away.
“I-It was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” Diane replied.
Why would a well-dressed woman with two young children travel a short distance by bus to a small town, then walk out into the country? “This is none of my business, but—”
“Slow down! Please,” Diane added, as they passed a single-story cream brick house set back from the road. “Do you know Constance Derwent?” She craned her neck to look back at the property.
“No, I don’t,” Melissa said, slowing to a crawl. An apple orchard ran along the boundary with the pig farm next door. A sign out front advertised free-range eggs for sale. “Is that her house?”
“Yes, although she wasn’t home last time we checked. Stop here, please.” Diane pointed, not to Constance’s driveway, but to a rutted dirt track belonging to the next farm. “We’ll get out here.”
Melissa stopped, scanning the cluster of farm buildings on top of the hill. There was a barn, a water tank, a machine shed and an old bluestone cottage. A newer farmhouse on the far side of the yard was reached by a long gravel driveway that wound around a pond shaded by a weeping willow.
Black pigs with pink bands across their shoulders grazed in the sloping green field, some clustered next to small corrugated-iron shelters. Isolated in a small paddock of his own, a boar stood on top of a dirt mound. Melissa suppressed a shudder.
“I think this lane is for tractors,” she said. “The driveway is farther along. See, there’s the mailbox and a sign, Finch Farm.”
“This is the lane I want,” Diane insisted as she gathered up the handles of the grocery bag. “Don’t bother driving in. We can walk from here.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Ignoring her protests, Melissa turned off the paved road and into the lane, dropping down a gear to climb the hill. Her long feather-and-bead earrings swayed against her bare shoulders as the Volkswagen jolted along the rutted track. “Have they renovated the cottage for holiday makers? If you don’t have a hot tub, make sure you go to the mineral baths in Tipperary Springs. You can take it from me, the mud bath is wonderful.”
This enthusiastic recommendation was met with silence. Melissa glanced in the rearview mirror and noted Josh and Callie’s solemn faces streaked with grime across the foreheads and around the chins, as if they’d already had a mud bath.
Diane was nervously scanning the paddocks and the farmyard. A utility truck was parked next to the barn, and now that they were closer, a Volvo sedan