BEDTIME.
Every night since he’d been home from hospital Bryn had sat on Alice’s bed and read her a story. That was what the psychologists had recommended. They’d given him a list of bland, non-threatening tales they said were designed to hold the traumatised Alice’s interest just enough for her to drift into sleep, without the nightmares that trauma had burdened her with.
He never knew whether it worked with Alice. He suspected not. Every night she’d lain unmoving, politely waiting for him to finish, and when the last page was done, she’d turned her face against the wall and pulled the covers high. Hunching her shoulders. No hug required.
But tonight, after discussion that had itself amazed him, Kiara had set Bunji’s bed beside Alice’s. ‘Your uncle and I will sneak in late and change her dressing,’ Kiara had told her. ‘Then I’ll get up in the night and take her outside. And even if an accident happens—I guess it might as it’s her first night in her new home—I’m your new housekeeper, right? I can cope with puddles.’
‘You’d mop up wee?’ Alice had asked, sounding awed.
‘I’m a vet. I’ve mopped up a lot worse than that in my time.’ Then Kiara had looked at the book Bryn had ready. ‘This? Really? I like a book with a bit of action myself. Alice, how about if I tell you and your uncle about the time me and my friend Hazel rescued a whole bunch of poddy calves from drowning in a flood? With kayaks. Though my friend Hazel ended up swimming. You want to hear?’
Of course Alice did. And of course Bryn did. So he sat and listened and watched Alice’s face.
She was entranced, and so was Bryn, and when the story ended and it was Kiara who tugged the covers up—did Alice really not flinch as Kiara gave her a kiss goodnight?—he was aware of a stab of loss that the story had ended.
‘Right,’ Kiara said briskly, the moment the door closed behind them, leaving child and dog to sleep. ‘I have bookwork to do, and I need to ring Two Tails to find out how things are, so how about we convene in the laundry in an hour?’
‘We can’t do the dressing now?’
‘The wound’s still looking messy,’ Kiara told him. ‘It was the worst of her wounds. It’s healing now but she’s still on antibiotics and I thought it’d be best if Alice didn’t see under the pad for a few more days. So I thought it’d be best if we waited until Alice is asleep.’
‘Why is it so bad?’
‘Clostridial myositis,’ she told him. ‘I suspect that’s the reason she was finally dumped—there’s nothing like a smelly wound to make low lifers get rid of a problem the easiest way they know how. In this case dumping her near an animal shelter. You know clostridial myositis? It occurs in horses, pigs, dogs—bears, too, I hear—but it’s as rare as hen’s teeth. It’s pretty much the same as clostridial myonecrosis—you may have heard of that as gas gangrene?—in humans. It was touch and go for the first few days, but I think I have it nailed now. I’d have liked to keep her at the shelter for another week for daily cleaning and dressing, but I only had this one chance to leave. So... See you in an hour, Dr Dalton?’
And without waiting for a response, she headed off, back to her part of the house. Brisk. Businesslike. Getting on with her life.
Which was what he needed to do.
He gazed after her for a moment, and then went back to his study.
But there was no way he could focus on the finer points of checking the thesis he’d moved on to—‘Cognitive Disturbances in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus’. Instead he found himself reading everything he didn’t know about clostridial myositis.
An animal disease. An infection that left untreated meant certain death. Where treatment involved firstly skill to diagnose, including specific and expensive blood tests and scans. Then surgery. Then weeks of broad-spectrum antibiotics.
No wonder she was broke, he thought, stunned. To do this for a stray...?
Finally the hour was up. He emerged from his study to find Kiara bringing folded towels through the front door. ‘What the...?’
‘I brought my own,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘I had ’em in the car. I know, the gorgeous monogrammed pink things you’ve provided in my private bathroom would be marginally more comfortable for Bunji to lie on, but she’s not all that fussy. Neither am I, come to think of it, but hey, I’m enjoying them and I’m not as likely to ooze as Bunji is.’
‘Ugh,’ he said faintly, and she grinned.
‘Second thoughts, Dr Dalton? Do I need to keep smelling salts at hand?’
‘Um...no,’ he managed. ‘But just how bad is it?’
‘It’s actually no longer likely to ooze,’ she admitted. ‘But the wound needs checking and it’s not pretty. I could do it myself but it’s easier with someone to hold her.’
He followed her as she headed for the laundry. Obviously she’d already sussed out her operating theatre—she’d cleared the massive granite bench and now she set the towels on its surface, her bag at the side. She spread a small sheet that had been wrapped in plastic, then set out businesslike tools. Surgeon preparing to operate?
‘I wouldn’t have brought her to you if I didn’t think you’d have a fit, healthy Bunji by the time I left,’ she told him, surveying her preparations with satisfaction. ‘And I knew you were medical. There’s still a chance that edges need debriding, which is why I have the gear. Your job is to hold and reassure. Not a lot of neurological skill involved, Dr Dalton, but maybe you can show off your skills some other time. Hang on while I fetch her.’
‘I’ll fetch her.’
‘Yeah?’ Her gaze moved from his face to the sticks he was still forced to use, and her brows raised in mild enquiry. Amusement? ‘Will she leave a nice comfy bed to follow you? I don’t think so. So you’ll carry her?’
‘I can.’ He couldn’t. He knew it but, dammit, he was disgusted with himself. He felt humiliated, and to add insult to injury she had the temerity to pat his shoulder.
‘It’s okay,’ she told him kindly. ‘You and Bunji will both be better soon. You can spread out the towels while I carry her.’
‘Kiara...’
‘Yes?’ She gazed up at him and her eyes were twinkling. Teasing? The way she’d said ‘You can spread out the towels...’ It was as if she were offering a treat to a three-year-old.
‘I am competent,’ he growled.
‘I’m sure you are.’ There was that smile again. ‘Or you will be. You and Alice and Bunji... It seems I have a week to fix you all.’
And for some reason that silenced him.
She was just talking of his leg. Of course she was. She had no idea that ever since Skye’s death he’d been feeling almost as vulnerable as the little girl who’d been hurled into his care. Which was stupid.
His world was carefully constructed to keep him in control, to block out the need for personal connection. His cold and solitary childhood had left him with a lifelong aversion to any kind of attachment. Now he had great friends, an awesome career, a magnificent home...
It was only the advent into his life of one small child that had tossed him into a sea of uncharted emotions.
The answer of course was for Alice to learn self-reliance. As he had. Then they could both move on.
So...self-reliance. Emotional safety.
Why did the arrival of this bouncy, impertinent vet seem to threaten it?
And then she was back, Bunji cradled in her arms, legs up. The dog’s eyes were wide, but she was looking up at Kiara with complete trust.
Which meant a heart lurch—which was stupid.
He did not need to get personally involved. Or at least...okay, he did need to stay involved with Alice. Maybe even with this dog. But not with this woman.
His towels were laid out—at least he was that competent. Kiara laid the dog gently down.
‘There you go, girl. Dr Dalton’s assisting tonight and I’ve checked his medical credentials. Awesome. I bet he charges a mint, but add it to his account, not mine. Now, Dr Dalton is going to hold you steady and chat to you while I check out your leg.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better the other way around?’ he asked. Kiara was surely the best placed to reassure, while checking a healing wound seemed simple.
But the look she gave him put him right back in his place. ‘Hey, I might have checked your credentials online, but I’d need personal references to let you treat.’
‘You’re doubting...’
‘Would you let me operate in your theatre without checking every facet of my qualifications? No? There you go, then. I’m very sure you’re supremely qualified at what you do but this isn’t something simple like brain surgery.’ And she grinned, lifted his hand and placed it on Bunji’s head. ‘So accept your role, please,’ she said. ‘Words of reassurance, Dr Dalton. After all, you’re Bunji’s family from now on. It’s time you two got acquainted.’
The man looked stunned. What was it with this guy? Kiara thought as she worked. He was acting almost as if he was afraid. But he did what he was asked. He stroked Bunji gently behind the ears, he spoke softly, and Bunji accepted him as someone who cared.
Did he care? This was such a strange situation—a brilliant surgeon with injuries, with a lonely, traumatised little girl. The two of them seemed as if they needed therapy. What they had was a vet and an already traumatised dog.
But something seemed to be happening. Maybe Beatrice had been right, she thought as she removed the dog’s dressing. Alice’s reaction to Bunji had seemed almost miraculous. And this guy... He’d been cold, aloof, but the way he was speaking to the dog...
‘Tell me her medical history?’ he said softly, in the same voice he’d been using to calm Bunji. She was carefully cleaning and checking the edges of the almost healed wound. It still took caution—the last thing Bunji needed was further infection.
‘What you see is pretty much what we got,’ she said, concentrating on what she was doing. ‘You’re looking at massive trauma—only that trauma’s occurred since puppyhood. She’s about a year old now. She’s been severely malnourished and mistreated. The worst thing was the clostridium, but in a way it probably saved her life—the smell probably made whoever owned her get rid of her.’
‘So...treatment?’
‘First we had to figure what the problem was—I suspected, but there were so many other things going on and confirmation took time. The infection was well into deep tissue, and she was severely ill. The surgery on such a malnourished dog was tricky. After that...broad spectrum antibiotics, debridement, debridement, debridement. She may be left with a limp, but we’re hopeful she won’t. She’s young. All she needs to do now is forget how much it hurt when she tried to use it.’
She finished what she was doing and reached for the antiseptic ointment. ‘I guess...that’s what you hope for Alice as well,’ she said cautiously, without looking up. ‘All she needs to do is forget past hurts. But how possible is that? Her trauma must be bone deep.’
‘As you say,’ he said curtly, and she did glance up then.
‘And you, too,’ she said, much more gently. ‘There are hurts worse than physical pain. You lost your sister. I’m so sorry.’
‘I hardly knew her.’
‘But she was still your sister. I gather Beatrice hardly knows you, either, but she cared enough to leave her horses and her dogs to do what she could. That seemed quite some sacrifice. She must love you.’
‘No one in my family loves anyone.’
‘Really?’
There was a moment’s silence at that, while she focused on what she was doing, and he regrouped. She’d pushed into places she had no right to push.
‘So what about you?’ he asked at last, and he knew he sounded defensive. Even a bit combative. Well, maybe he had the right.
‘My grandma loved me,’ she said, and she sounded defiant.
‘Not your parents?’
She cast him another quick glance, as if she acknowledged that this was none of his business. Then, almost to his surprise, she responded. She spoke absently while she worked, as if it were a story about someone else.
‘My dad’s an egoist and a bully,’ she said bluntly. ‘He runs a big cattle property inland, but he treats cattle like objects, not creatures who need compassion. It seems he treated my mum the same way. She was good-looking and attracted him at a time when he’d decided he needed a wife. But he didn’t want a partner. He needed a housekeeper and he needed sex. He also needed a son. I arrived after three miscarriages, and from them on I can only imagine how Mum was treated. She walked out when I was six—or maybe she ran. Heaven knows how broken she was. We don’t know where she went but a couple of years later the police told us she’d died. Dad got himself another wife, and then another, but still no sons. However, I was a possession. His. Grandma wanted me, but she wasn’t allowed to have me. When Dad was away I got to stay with her, though. Grandma’s home was my refuge and now it’s an animal refuge. Two Tails. I love it.’
‘So parents...’
‘I decided I didn’t need ’em,’ she said curtly. ‘But I do need someone. Grandma was my someone. As I guess—I hope—you’ll be Alice’s someone. Maybe she’ll be yours.’
‘I don’t need...someone.’
‘Everyone does,’ she said simply, and went back to applying a new dressing. ‘That’s it, then. I reckon a week and this pup will be right as rain, ready to start her new life. A life where someone cares. You will care, won’t you, Dr Dalton?’
‘Bryn,’ he said, sounding goaded. ‘And yes, I’ll care.’
‘For Bunji and for Alice.’
‘Butt out,’ he growled, and she did, but she ventured one last smile.
‘I think it’s wonderful,’ she said simply. ‘Your sister says you’re a loner, Dr Dalton. Well, not any more you’re not. You have Alice, and now you have Bunji, and I have every hope in the world that you’ll end up like Grandma and me. A family.’
A family.
With the dog safely treated and seemingly settled beside Alice’s bed again—Alice’s bedroom was right next to his and with both the doors open he could hear if there was trouble—he was free to sleep.
He couldn’t.
Of course he couldn’t. He’d hardly slept since the accident.
His leg ached—no, make that hurt. The surgery had been extensive. It’d hurt for months. He could use drugs—they’d make him sleep as well as ease the pain—but since Beatrice had left, he was the only one in the house with Alice. And she had nightmares.
He had to be there for her.
Family.
Kiara’s words kept playing over and over in his head. ‘I have every hope in the world that you’ll end up...a family.’
It had already happened, he thought savagely. He had no choice.
When Skye had brought her daughter here, demanding he take care of her, he’d reacted with incredulity. He’d had no intention of being a hands-on uncle, much less a father figure. He wasn’t the least sure he had the emotional depth for anyone to depend on him.
But this woman—Kiara—seemed to have emotional depth in spades. She seemed to know how to talk to Alice, how to draw a solitary, damaged child out of her shell. She was warm, kind—loving?
That was who Alice needed, not someone who’d never figured out what loving was.
He could learn?
But it wasn’t something learned—he had the intelligence to figure that out. It was something instilled from childhood, the ability to give and receive affection.
Kiara’s grandmother must have been quite some woman, he thought. Somehow she’d figured it out.
Could he?
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. For some reason the phrase came into his mind and stuck.
Hell, he was only thirty-seven.
Yeah, but how did you learn to love?
By feeling for Alice? The child’s plight had gutted him. He was prepared to do whatever it took to make her happy—even taking on a dog. Even maybe keeping her here in this house, not sending her to boarding school. The plan to send her to boarding school had now been complicated by letting Kiara load her with the dog. Maybe he could send her to the local school, pay other parents to involve her in after-school activities, pay a nanny.
As his parents had done? Yeah, as if that had worked.
But the alternative? One of the shrinks he’d talked to had suggested—tentatively—that he might cut back on work, be a sort of part-time parent.
And do what? Be there at the school gate, walk her home every night?
His work was his life.
This was doing his head in. He had not a single clue what the future held. The only thing he could focus on was getting his leg healed, getting back to work, getting back to some kind of normal.
Which right now meant figuring out how to get to sleep.
Which meant not lying staring at the ceiling thinking of a slip of a kid, a vet, looking at him and saying...
‘I have every hope in the world that you’ll end up...a family.’
And at the other end of the house—in what the housekeeper had brusquely described as the guest wing—Kiara was also wide awake.
Thinking of a wounded kid. A wounded dog.
A wounded man?
What was it about him that had got under her skin?
The first time she’d met him she’d actively disliked him. Oh, sure, she’d felt sorry for his situation, but he’d been arrogant, wanting to throw money at a problem that any idiot could see money couldn’t cure.
But watching him tonight... While she’d related the story of rescuing the poddy calves, while she’d embellished the story to entrance a sleepy child, while she’d tried to make Alice smile...she’d glanced up at him and seen...what could almost be imagined as hunger.
As if he was as desperate for a world he could escape into as Alice was.
Well, she was only going to be telling stories for a week, she told herself briskly. He’d have to figure a way to tell them himself.
Why did that make her feel suddenly desolate?
Stop it, she told herself harshly. She had enough to feel desolate about without adding Dr Bryn Dalton and his niece to her list.
Go to sleep.
But sleep was evasive. Finally she flicked on her bedside light and propped herself on pillows. A bit of Internet drifting, she thought. Puppies. Reruns of silly bits from movies. Something to turn her mind from where it kept heading.
To the man sleeping at the other end of the house.
And almost unconsciously she found herself typing his name into a search engine, looking not for professional qualifications but for media reporting of Skye’s death.
And here it was.
Heroic Doctor Saves Child from Local Cliffs!
At three this morning a woman’s body was retrieved from the rocks directly under the notorious cliffs near Clovelly. The woman was thought to have fallen from above. A child, believed to be the woman’s daughter, appears to have tried to climb down after her, but fell herself. It seems she was trapped on a ledge almost at water level, with bad weather, heavy seas and a rising tide.
This set the scene for what police say was an extraordinary rescue.
A Clovelly resident, reportedly Dr Bryn Dalton, an eminent neurosurgeon at nearby Sydney Central hospital, was first on the scene. With the child in danger of being washed off the ledge, he managed to crawl down the cliffs to reach her.
Police say he had almost made it before the cliff face crumbled. He somehow still reached the child, and managed to cling to her until emergency services were able to retrieve them—a process that took almost an hour while waves constantly washed over the pair.
The child was lifted by rescue services, seemingly unhurt, and has been taken to Sydney Central for observation. Dr Bryn Dalton has been admitted to Sydney Central with serious leg injuries but is expected to make a full recovery.
Early reports say the woman’s body was found wedged between rocks under water.
It is not known at this time what relationship, if any, exists between Dr Dalton and the pair he attempted to rescue, but police are recommending he be referred for consideration for Australian’s highest award for acts of conspicuous courage, the Cross of Valour.
This broadsheet can only agree.
Me, too, Kiara thought as she read and reread the article. She definitely agreed. The cliffs around here were notorious. To climb down them was impossibly dangerous and, living here, he must know the risks.
But then her attention was drawn back to the screen. The next Internet feed had followed automatically. Instead of a written report, it was a video, obviously filmed by a media channel chasing the rescue chopper.
Kiara never looked at these sorts of scenes. They mostly seemed a voyeuristic intrusion on what must be an appalling enough trauma for those involved, without seeing endless replays in full technicolour.
This time she couldn’t look away.
The rescue was filmed in darkness—of course—but the scene was lit by the massive floodlights beaming from the rescue chopper. She could see the maelstrom of breaking waves, flattened a little by the massive whirring of the chopper blades.
It had been pouring with rain, and the wind looked fierce. It must have been dangerous for the chopper, much less for the people on the cliff.
She watched, caught, seeing the initial sweep of the chopper, the storm-tossed seas, the bottom of the cliffs.
A hesitation, a shift of the chopper from its sweep path.
Then figures huddled on a ledge, not even clear of the breaking waves. A man, lying on the ledge, his back to the water. The waves crashing over him.
The chopper rising, obviously to try and get a better view.
A glimpse of the child spooned against the man’s chest, his arms fiercely wrapped, holding her, using his body to protect her against the force of the sea.
She watched in sickening fascination as the chopper steadied or tried to steady against the wind. Waited, obviously hoping against hope for the wind to die.
Then a lone figure—another hero, Kiara thought—was being lowered down, a stretcher with him. He was using the stretcher as armour against the cliff face.
She saw Bryn turning, holding the child up. Another wave crashing over them. How did he keep his hold?
She saw the stretcher man waiting, watching the sea. Then a break... Steady, sure hands, fastening Alice. Bryn, his body wedged between rocks to hold him as safe as such a tenuous hold could make him, helping secure his niece.
Alice clinging. And Bryn... At the last minute, there was a fierce hug, then he released his hold on the rocks so that momentarily his hands held her face. Words, unheard and yet obvious, the care was unmistakeable.
The love?
And then the rising of the stretcher and Alice was safe.
What followed was an interminable wait while Alice was pulled into the chopper and the camera abandoned Bryn. Then the return to retrieve him.
She saw the moment stretcher man realised the extent of the damage to Bryn’s leg. As he pulled out from his crammed position, even with the grainy image she could see its grotesque break.
There was no time for bracing it, though. With the rising tide there was no time for anything. He was almost roughly hauled onto the stretcher. It’s a wonder he didn’t pass out from the pain, she thought, but at least he was safe.
At least the little niece he’d saved was safe.
He must love her.
Yeah, but he doesn’t know it, she thought. Or maybe he does but he’s not admitting it.
She thought back to Beatrice’s words at that first meeting. ‘A stupid act of bravado caused by his failure to wait for the proper emergency services.’
She had no doubt what the outcome would have been if Bryn hadn’t performed that ‘stupid act of bravado’.
Dear heaven...
She flicked off the light, but the images from the news reports were too vivid, too awful. A little girl, whose mother was lost.
Okay, she couldn’t help herself. She’d just check on Bunji, she told herself, and she slipped out of bed, poked her toes into her shabby slippers—she really should have supplied herself with new ones to fit into this fancy house—and padded through the darkened house to Alice’s room.
And stopped short at the open door.
Alice was in bed, curled under the blankets, the night light showing a child fast asleep. Her fine blonde hair was splayed around her on the pillow. Her face was still far too pale.
One of her skinny arms was hanging down. Her hand was resting on Bunji’s coat.
Bunji was in the cocoon of a dog bed, and beside the cocoon...
Bryn.
He was sitting on the floor, his bad leg stiffly out before him. He, too, had his hand on Bunji’s coat, as if to say, okay, girl, I might have woken you, but I mean you no harm.
He was watching both girl and dog.
Kiara stood in the doorway, and suddenly another memory came, unbidden.
She’d been ten years old. Midsummer on her father’s farm, she’d been an unsupervised child playing in a field of uncut hay. Then, she’d come across a tiger snake—one of Australia’s most venomous. It had taken her twenty minutes to get back to the house, and by the time she did the venom had taken hold.
Her father hadn’t wanted the bother of nursing a child, so three days later her grandma had picked her up from hospital. Home she’d gone with Grandma. That night... In the small hours she’d stirred and found her grandmother sitting beside her bed. Just sitting, which seemed astounding all by itself. She could never remember her grandma’s knitting needles being still, but that night they had been.
‘I’m just watching,’ the elderly lady had said as she’d stirred. She’d put her hand on Kiara’s face and then leant over and kissed her. ‘I’m just watching you breathe, Kiara, my love. You go back to sleep. Your breathing’s safe with me.’
And she had. She’d remembered the fear and pain of the snake bite, her father’s disgust that she’d been so stupid, and he’d had to lose half a day’s work. She remembered the loneliness of hospital where she’d understood little.
But mostly she remembered her grandma’s hand and the kiss. ‘Your breathing’s safe with me.’
And now, without warning, her eyes started swimming with tears.
She backed away—there was no way she would interrupt such a scene—but she must have made some faint noise because Bryn saw her.
‘Don’t get up,’ she whispered, but he already had, pushing himself to his feet—and that was pretty impressive for someone as injured as he was.
‘Just checking,’ he muttered. He was dressed in boxers and T-shirt—designer, she’d bet—but then who was looking at pyjamas? He’d caught the sticks beside the bed and limped out to the passage. ‘I don’t like the idea of the dog being with her. A strange dog...’
Liar, she thought. There’s no way you’re worried about Alice’s safety with Bunji.
You were watching them both breathe.
‘There’s no risk,’ she told him. They were outside the door now and could speak. Though he was a bit close.
Actually he was very close. She thought suddenly—she wouldn’t mind another layer or two of clothing. She was wearing a skimpy nightgown and worn slippers.
It was crazy to be conscious of it—as if a guy like this would even look twice at someone like her—but even so, she wished she’d brought her nice thick woolly dressing gown.
It’d be crazy in this season, in this climate-controlled house, but she wanted it all the same.
Professional, she reminded herself. She was here in a professional capacity, so she had to act like it.
He was saying he was here because he was worrying about risk?
‘I’ve had Bunji in care for days now,’ she told him, still speaking softly, but having—stupidly—to focus on preventing the ridiculous way her voice wobbled. ‘In that time she’s been stressed, hurt, ill. I’ve had to give her injection after injection. I’ve had her on a drip, and I’ve had to keep sedation to a minimum because she was so weak. In all that time, no matter what I’ve had to do to her, she’s never offered so much as a tiny growl. She’s bombproof, Dr Dalton. Do you really think I’d expose Alice to risk?’
‘And yet you came to check.’
‘I’m here to do a medical check on my patient.’ She assumed a tone of virtue. Thankfully she almost had her voice back to normal. ‘You’re paying for a veterinarian to stay here for a week. Nightly checks are part of my job.’
‘So you’re playing Florence Nightingale—the lady with the lamp.’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm.’
‘Believe it or not, I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.’
‘No? Well, thank you.’ She glanced up at him and found he was looking at her strangely. Creature from Mars? Creature in flimsy nightie and shabby, fluffy slippers.
‘If all’s well here, then I’ll go back to bed,’ she told him.
‘Kiara?’
‘Yes?’ Unconsciously she lifted her chin. Braced?
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘I...there’s no need,’ she managed at last. ‘You’re paying me, and this is my job.’
‘Bunji’s not just another dog, though, is she?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘She’s not.’
‘Beatrice says you specialise in finding homes for dogs who are sometimes...less than desirable. Elderly dogs who’ll cost heaps as they near the end of their lives. Dogs with problems. But thanks to you, Bunji is recovering to have no problems at all. A dog less than a year old? Bombproof, as you say? In another few weeks you could have sold her...
‘Not for as much as you’re paying.’
‘Is that the only criteria for giving her to us?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I thought... Alice needs her.’
‘And me?’
‘I’m not going there.’ She hesitated. ‘But okay, I’ll be honest. Bunji’s got to me in a way few other dogs have. I’ve seen maltreated dogs, treated them, seen them successfully rehoused. But something about Bunji...’ She took a deep breath.
‘She’s touched my heart,’ she said, feeling self-conscious for saying such a thing, but she could think of no other way to put it. ‘And in a way, Alice has done the same thing. And you. Your situation... So I thought... I hoped that you could all heal together. Yes, the money Beatrice is offering will help keep Two Tails going for another few months, but maybe the end of my refuge is inevitable. If Bunji doesn’t fit here, if she doesn’t get the love she deserves, and give the love she’s capable of in return, then I’m taking her right back.’
‘And why did you come to the other end of the house in the middle of the night?’ he asked, and his voice sounded a bit strange. As if he was in uncharted territory?
‘Because I like a happy ending,’ she retorted. ‘Or the prospect of the same. Because I suspect how much both Alice and Bunji need it and I’m aching for it to happen.’
‘Because you care.’
‘Is there anything wrong with that?’
‘No,’ he said, still in that curious voice. He was watching her, his dark eyes expressionless. Giving nothing away of what he was feeling.
Did he think she was stupid?
Well, maybe she was, she thought, and once more she was acutely aware of her faded nightie and her shabby slippers. And her bare legs and the fact that this was the middle of the night, and she was in this man’s house and...and...
‘I need to go back to bed,’ she said, a bit too brusquely, and maybe he got her unease because he stood aside fast. Assuring her he meant no threat?
Which was crazy. No threat had been implied. But there was...something.
Some pull.
A man and a woman in not enough clothing, in the middle of the night? A guy who looked like Bryn Dalton?
Get over it, she told herself, and turned to leave.
‘Kiara?’
‘Yes?’ But there was silence and finally she turned back to face him. ‘Is there...is there something else?’
‘Just...’ The silence hung. Everything hung. She was waiting but she didn’t know for what.
And finally he propped one of his sticks against the wall and lifted his hand, tentatively. If she wanted to—if her body was capable of moving—she could have stepped away, but she did no such thing. She simply stood and waited for what was to happen.
Which was little enough. His fingers reached her face. One long finger ran the length of her cheek. Lightly. A feather touch, that was all. And still those eyes remained...expressionless?
Or maybe not. Maybe there was a touch of tenderness...
And why she should suddenly think back to the moment Bunji had raised a paw... A connection?
Ridiculous. As he withdrew his hand and she took a step back, the thought disappeared.
‘Goodnight, Kiara,’ he said softly, and she managed a brusque nod.
‘Goodnight, Dr Dalton.’
And she turned and fled.
Bryn should go to bed, too. Instead, he stood in the darkened passage and wondered what on earth had just happened.
He’d reached out and touched her.
Why? She was an employee, here to do a job. It was the middle of the night. Hell, she could just about have him up on an assault charge for what had just happened.
He hadn’t held her.
He hadn’t kissed her.
He’d wanted to.
What was it about her?
It was just the situation, he told himself. He was a man, she was a woman, there was chemistry.
She was beautiful.
But not in the way most of the women he knew were.
Not one of those women would be seen dead in what she was wearing tonight. And it wasn’t just her nightwear. Her normal clothes were plain, serviceable, well worn. She wore her hair scraped back. No make-up.
The research he’d done on Two Tails had led to its website, where Kiara had included a brief summary of its proprietor’s life. She’d been raised on a farm, somewhere in rural New South Wales, and she’d spent many of her holidays at her grandmother’s home. She’d lived in central Sydney during her training, but the city wasn’t her thing.
That was what she looked like—a woman who spent as much time as she could outdoors. And by the look of her hands, she spent much of that time working. Hard.
So what was making him stand in the dark and feel as if...he’d just touched something precious? Something quite, quite lovely?
He needed to get a grip, to refocus. He needed to get Alice sorted...
Get Alice and Bunji sorted.
There was an issue. Boarding school had seemed the best option but now... He wouldn’t send Alice even if he could, he realised. He was becoming as emotional about this whole issue as Kiara.
And there he was, thinking of Kiara again. What was it about the woman that had him so unsettled?
Was it just that he’d been too alone for too long? He liked his solitude, but since his accident that solitude had been multiplied to the point where he saw Alice, he saw rehab staff and hardly anyone else. And now here was a woman he didn’t know, but someone who cared, someone who’d come through a strange, darkened house to check on his niece and her dog.
Someone who had, in some small way, already eased his weight of responsibility.
So that was why he must be feeling like this, he told himself harshly. This was gratitude and relief. Nothing else was appropriate, so he needed to stop thinking about Dr Brail...as he was thinking. She was here for a week. She’d be working with Alice and Bunji and that was a great opportunity for him to get some work done.
Right. Go back to bed.
He went, but as he limped back to his room the thought of a woman stayed with him. A woman in a shabby nightgown, a woman who was nothing to do with his world, a woman who’d be gone in a week.
He’d get over it. He had enough academic work to last him for months. He could use this week to clear the backlog.
He could use this week to gather his independence once more—and in the process he could keep as far from Dr Kiara Brail as he could.