‘Yes. But it’s too hot …’
‘Heavy clothes will protect you. Cotton is less flammable than man-made materials.’ There was no arguing with him, and Sara didn’t particularly want him to elaborate on a situation where she might need heavy cotton clothing to protect her. Hopefully he was just being over-cautious.
He let her down, and she bolted to her bedroom. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking that despite the smoky smell of his clothes the scent of his skin was alluring, or that the sheer power in his arms and shoulders was somehow reassuring.
When she emerged from her room, the hallway was empty of the bundles that she’d left there and her new companion was rummaging in the refrigerator, two large bottles of water under his arm.
‘Ready to go?’
‘Yes.’ She mustn’t hesitate now. Mustn’t go and check the house to make sure everything was secure. If Simon had trusted this stranger, then she had to do so.
‘Good.’ He turned to her, kicking the fridge door closed. His gaze flicked over her with an audacity that made her shiver, and Sara called a mental reality check. He was just making sure that she wasn’t wearing anything that might catch light. ‘Have you got everything?’
‘Yes.’ Her passport and valuables were in the large leather handbag she had slung across her body. That was all she needed.
‘Let’s go, then.’
He hurried her to the SUV and then went back to draw the shutter down over the shattered front door. Sara craned her neck to keep the house in view as the car described a wide arc and bumped back down the dirt track towards the road.
‘Reece Fletcher. Nice to meet you, Sara.’
‘What?’ All her attention was on the house, trying to fix it into her memory as if that would somehow ensure that it would still be standing when she returned. It had been Simon’s dream to build this house, and the thought of it being reduced to ashes was impossibly cruel.
‘Will you keep your eye on the road ahead of us for me?’
‘What for?’ She swung round, scanning the empty road, before she realised that Reece was just giving her something to do so she wouldn’t be staring out of the back window of the car for the next five miles, straining for a last glimpse of the house.
‘Just look.’ His voice was gentler now. ‘And if you could open one of those bottles of water, that would be great. You’ll find a couple of plastic beakers in the glove compartment.’
‘Right.’ Now that they were on the road, the lines of tension in Reece’s face had relaxed and Sara drew her sunglasses out of her bag and put them on, only partly to shade her eyes from the glare. At least when he’d been ordering her around, she’d been able to respond without feeling the need to cry on his shoulder.
Time for another reality check. She’d just been rescued. Wanting to cling to Reece was a perfectly natural reaction. Deal with it.
‘Nice to meet you too, Reece. Thanks for coming.’ She handed him half a cup of water and he downed it in one go, passing the cup back to her for a refill.
‘No worries. I’ll phone Simon when we get into range of a signal, let him know that we’re on our way.’ Although the road was empty, he was still watchful, his gaze flipping constantly from the road to the rear-view mirrors.
‘Thanks.’ Sara supposed that she ought to ask, even if she didn’t much want to know why it had taken so long for Reece to come for her. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s okay, but he’s in the hospital. No burns, but he has a compound break to his leg. That means—’
‘I know.’ Sara struggled to control the panic which rose in her chest. ‘I mean, I know what that means, I’m a paramedic.’
He nodded slowly, as if he’d just remembered. ‘Then you’ll know that he needed an operation to set the leg. That was done last night, and he’s awake now and doing well. He has a crush fracture in his lower back, but that will mend with rest. Some smoke inhalation, but it wasn’t too bad.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘I don’t know the details. He was working on a firebreak when he was injured. They brought him out and airlifted him to hospital. I’m on his list of people to call in case of an accident.’
It was obvious that Simon should choose someone who lived more locally than she did for that, but it still hurt. ‘And he didn’t think to mention that I was out here with Trader?’
Reece shot her a questioning look, the edges of his mouth turned down. ‘He was diverted on his way into the CFA centre, never got the opportunity to tell anyone. And after he was injured he was heavily sedated most of the time. I didn’t know you were here and assumed that Trader was with a neighbour and that the house was empty. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.’
The way he sprang to Simon’s defence so readily warmed Sara. ‘No one knew.’ She puffed out a breath.
He turned in his seat slightly, shooting her a quizzical look. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Three days. We wanted a week to ourselves so we could do some catching up. Next week was going to be for introductions to friends.’
Reece chuckled. ‘If he’d mentioned that, I’d have known what I had to look forward to when I came up at the weekend.’
Light dawned. ‘So you’re the doctor he talks about? Fletch?’
He grinned at her and Sara’s fingertips began to tingle. So he wasn’t just a handsome face, he’d been a good friend to her brother. Simon hadn’t mentioned that Fletch was gorgeous but, then, she supposed he wouldn’t have noticed. She’d noticed, though.
‘What’s he been telling you?’ The engine of the SUV raced up a gear. Simon hadn’t said anything about that easy, intimate grin either.
‘He says … that you’re a doctor. And that you’ve worked in lots of different places, from city hospitals to the outback. It must be interesting.’ That seemed safe enough. ‘What does he say about me?’
‘That you were just a kid when he left home.’ There was a trace of seriousness in his voice. ‘I’ve obviously got some catching up to do.’
He was deliberately not saying everything, but now wasn’t the time to start wondering how much Reece knew about the dysfunctional branch of Simon’s family. ‘So how come you got to drive all the way out here? Surely this is a busy time for you, with the fires and everything.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve been working for a week straight now. When the call came in about Simon, I was just about to go off duty and catch some shut-eye. By the time I got to the hospital, he’d just woken up and was shouting the place down and I came straight here.’
‘So …’ Her brain was working overtime, trying to process all of the new information that had been thrown at her this morning. She decided to concentrate on the most immediate concern. ‘How long since you’ve slept?’
He laughed. ‘Just keep talking.’
CHAPTER TWO
SIMON’S kid sister had taken it almost as a personal affront when he declined her offer to drive. Reece was tired but he wasn’t that far gone. And ever since he’d seen Sara he’d been wide awake. Her dark hair, cut almost boyishly short, emphasised the soft curve at the nape of her neck. Those large, grey eyes managed to be both seductive and intelligent at the same time. She’d buckled down and done what had needed to be done in a crisis.
Clearly she was stubborn too. ‘I’m perfectly capable of driving an automatic. I drive in London every