The House at the Bottom of the Hill (34 page)

Look after Red, Mum
.
Look after my girl until I get to her
. Charlotte encompassed the gentleness he’d been missing since he’d lost his parents. So maybe it was his mother’s turn to tap his resolute shoulder. Maybe he could make Charlotte understand the connection they shared through flowers after all. Along with his own damned foolishness, because the geranium also meant stupidity.

Would Charlotte ever know how sentimental he’d turned? Half of him hoped so, and the other half preferred to retain his masculine and sceptical outlook. It felt like words were being spoken from the heavens, or the afterlife—or whatever the hell went on that wasn’t of this earth. Or maybe Dan was just going crazy, not knowing where his girl was. Not knowing if she was in trouble.

Charlotte had never wanted to know how it might feel to be incarcerated in a submarine, but she was getting a taste of it now. There was hardly room to do much more than shuffle herself into a slightly different position in order to ease the pain of the rocky floor jabbing into her hips and back. Which was more than Ted was able to do, with his heavier weight and throbbing ankle.

Charlotte had slipped the silver first-aid blanket over Ted’s torso. At least his arms and body would be warmed.

‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while I’ve been lying here,’ Ted said. ‘About my space research.’

‘Just lie still.’

‘I am still. Can’t move in this place. Especially with you in it too.’

Charlotte turned her laugh into a cough. ‘Well, I’m not leaving you, so you’ll have to put up with me.’ She unscrewed one of the water bottles and offered some to Ted, holding the plastic bottle to his mouth. ‘Just a sip.’ She didn’t have much first-aid knowledge and regretted not having done a course or something. She’d bet all the townspeople knew first aid. They’d have to, living so remotely from clinics or doctors.

‘How did you get down here?’ Charlotte asked, hoping the conversation would eat into the time it took for the rescue people to find them.

‘Don’t know. Woke up and here I was. Think I might have slipped, although I don’t know how I managed to get in head first. I remember a heavy crashing noise.’

‘That must have been the tree uprooting above us, on top of the hill.’

‘It’s the rain. Makes some parts of Top Field farm more like a creek of shingles.’ Ted paused. ‘Miss Simmons—’

‘It’s Charlotte, Ted. Call me Charlotte.’

‘I’ve been re-evaluating my priorities. My wants and needs.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been concentrating on my space studies too much as a way of ignoring what’s really happening. I’ve been deceiving myself. It’s all down to environmental factors, you see, and times have been a touch hard.’

Charlotte patted his hand. ‘Don’t worry about that now.’ He’d been down here for hours in this cramped quarter and must have had nothing to think about except his troubles.

‘It’s time I came back to earth and gave my attention to the women in my family. And it’s not that I’m discounting the possibility of life outside our universe, but I no longer have a desire to be taken by anything considered alien. I don’t think it’d be pleasant.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to be taken. What would the town do without you? Or the ladies in your family who love you?’

‘That’s a kind observation, Miss Simmons.’

‘We’re stuck in a cave together, Ted, I think it’s okay to use first names.’ She grinned at him.

‘Doesn’t seem right. I haven’t been the friendliest or most hospitable, have I?’

Charlotte patted his large hand. ‘I don’t blame you. I charged in like a shot from a pistol with all my ideas.’

‘Oh, that you did. Stirred us up alright.’

‘Will you accept my apology?’

‘If you’ll accept mine first,’ he said with staunch politeness.

Charlotte squeezed his hand.

‘Best turn the torch off, Miss Simmons. We need to conserve the batteries in case they don’t find us.’

‘They’ll find us.’ Charlotte aimed the torch at the opening and flicked the light on and off rapidly. The night sky lit up in pockets of white light. Then she switched the torch off and took a gulp of the darkness. ‘And they’ll find us before daybreak,’ she told Ted.

He quietened, his breathing slowing as he rested. Charlotte blinked up at the opening above her and into the night, full of stars outside. What was this strange sensation rushing within her? A meeting of fear and peace? An amity with the dark? She was enclosed in an extremely confined space—trapped, because she wouldn’t leave Ted, and she wasn’t scared.

‘There. Look.’ Dan pointed into the dark. ‘There,’ he said again as a flash of white caught his eye.

‘It’s Lucy,’ Josh said.

‘Yeah.’ Lucy’s white-tipped tail bobbed as she raced towards them from the southern end of the trail. ‘Luce!’

The dog barked as she bounded for them.

‘Good girl, good girl, Luce.’ Dan bent and undid the bow on her collar. ‘Shine your torch for me, Josh.’ Dan got rid of the bandage and flung it to the ground. He inhaled deeply. There it was. A note.

He unwound it from the collar and opened it, his fingers tingling at the tips.

Dan’s heart swelled. She’d asked for him.

‘Jesus, sweetheart.’ So damned polite—at a time when she must have been scared, no matter how intelligent and brave her written words were.

Dan scrunched the note, shoved it into his pocket and picked up his torch from the ground. ‘She’s found Ted,’ he told Josh. ‘We’re close. They’re by the snow gum on the granite hillside.’

Josh turned to the trail. ‘We might make it in fifteen minutes.’

‘Let’s go.’ Dan took hold of Lucy’s head and tickled her under her chin, the way he always did when he wanted her to take a note to Charlotte. ‘Where’s Charlotte, Luce?’

Lucy didn’t wait to be asked a second time, she yapped and headed back the way she’d come.

‘Ted—listen … It’s Lucy.’

Charlotte grabbed the torch, aimed it at the opening and into the early morning sky, switching it on and off rapidly.

Lucy’s barking got louder and closer.

‘Charlotte!’

Daniel
. Relief rushed through her at the sound of his strong voice. He’d come. He’d found them.

‘We’re here!’ Charlotte called, surprised to find her throat gravelly. She coughed, swallowed a couple of times to get more moisture in her mouth and called out again.

‘Jesus Christ.’

Charlotte flung the torchlight upwards. ‘Oh, Daniel. Thank God.’ So used to seeing the sunlight at his back as he stood in her doorway, Charlotte’s breath hitched at the sight of his head and shoulders above her, haloed in torchlight.

‘Okay, sweetheart, angle the light away. You’re blinding me.’

‘Sorry.’ She swung the beam downwards.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

‘No. But Ted’s twisted his ankle. It doesn’t look broken but I’m not expert enough to tell. I gave him painkillers about two hours ago.’

‘It still hurts like billy-o,’ Ted said. ‘But it’s not broken.’

‘Alright, Ted. We’ll get you out.’

Daniel moved from the opening. Charlotte heard Josh’s voice, answering something Daniel asked him. She breathed deeply, excitement mounting at the thought of being pulled out of here. Two big strong men had come to their rescue because of one beautiful, smart little dog.

‘You need to get Miss Simmons out first,’ Ted called up.

Daniel’s face appeared at the opening again. He swung his torch into the cave, swinging the light around. The torch gave off enough light for Charlotte to see a frown, and his thinned mouth.

‘What we need to do, Ted,’ Daniel said, ‘is get you turned. Charlotte—move so that you’ve got your back to me.’

Charlotte curled her legs up to her body and turned on her side, using her hands and feet for momentum. She bumped her head on the rock of the roof with every movement, but eventually she had her back to the opening where there was room to sit up straight.

‘You know what I want you to do?’ Daniel asked, but Charlotte had already leaned forwards to Ted.

‘I need you to lift yourself up, Ted,’ she said, taking hold of his arms. ‘There’s enough room for you to swivel around on your side. I’ll help by holding your left leg, but it’ll hurt.’

‘Could take my boot off,’ Ted said, ‘and bind my ankle.’

‘No,’ Charlotte told him. ‘We don’t know what damage you’ve done; it’s best to keep your boot on.’

Charlotte didn’t know how many minutes it took but enough wetted dust and sandy particles kicked up with each hampered move Ted made to have her choking and coughing. His groans of obvious agony shuddered through her but she kept his left foot and calf lifted in her hands as he moved. When space became a premium, she had to let go of Ted’s leg while he turned himself further. She gritted her teeth and tried not to think of the pain he was enduring. No complaints from him though. Not one.

‘Okay, sweetheart,’ Daniel said when at last Ted was turned enough to have his back and shoulders in front of Charlotte.

Charlotte looked up. She wished he’d stop calling her sweetheart. She wasn’t his sweetheart. And she’d told him she wasn’t talking to him. After they’d got Ted out, she wouldn’t be talking to him any more than she’d been talking to him before. No matter how glorious it was to see him.

‘That’s you out, Charlotte. Put your arms up and I’ll pull you up.’

She lifted her arms above her head and jolted when Daniel took hold of her wrists. She used her hips and legs to kick herself up and winced as her bottom scraped sharp rock. She bit her bottom lip. If Ted could do what he’d done without moaning about it, so could she.

‘I’ve got you, Charlotte.’

She’d feel more comfortable if he called her Red.

He had his hands under her arms now. He lifted her easily, and she was out and on her feet, fighting the urge to throw her arms around his neck and thank him. To kiss him over and over and tell him how amazingly wonderful and strong he was. But she couldn’t do that because she wasn’t talking to him.

‘What the hell were you doing down there?’ he asked.

‘He was hurt. He needed water and painkillers and the blanket. I couldn’t leave him.’

‘Sit down,’ he told her, and turned for Ted.

There was enough room for Dan and Josh to put one arm each through the aperture and haul Ted out. He did groan this time as his bad foot trailed on the floor of the cave.

When they got him out, they laid him on the ground. Daniel took his jacket off and used it as a makeshift pillow for Ted’s head as Josh got water out of his backpack. They washed the dust off Ted’s face, and then gave him sips of the water and another two painkillers. He murmured his thanks and lay back.

‘I called the rescue guys after I found Lucy,’ Daniel told Ted. ‘They’re on their way. They’ll have a stretcher. We’ll carry you to the end of the track and then you’ll be driven into town in the back of the rescue ute.’

Ted lifted his hand and gestured behind him at where Charlotte sat. ‘She was marvellous. Just marvellous.’

Daniel nodded. ‘You take it easy. Not long and you’ll be home enjoying one of Grace’s fattening lamb casseroles and a pint of my finest ale.’

‘Sounds just the ticket.’

Dan glanced up at Charlotte, stood and walked over to her.

She scrambled to her feet. ‘He’ll be alright, won’t he?’ she asked as a means of stalling whatever it was he was about to do or say.

He nodded, then put his arms out and pulled her into his body, cupping the back of her head, holding her face against his shoulder.

‘Jesus, Charlotte,’ he said, his voice low and rushed. ‘You feel wonderful.’

‘I’m stressed and tired.’

‘I know you must be emotional and all that, but you feel terrific.’

‘Could you let me go, Daniel?’ Not only was he squashing her bones in his hug, he’d forgotten that she wasn’t talking to him. Had he also forgotten about buying her house from under her feet? He wasn’t getting hold of the key to the front door until she’d had a shower and a damned good cry beneath the hot water.

‘I’m so proud of you, Charlotte.’

He was? Bugger. That almost melted her resolve. ‘Don’t forget I’m not talking to you.’

‘Looks like we’re even on that bet,’ he said, ignoring her warning and running his hands down her back until they landed on her bottom. ‘Tight,’ he said. ‘I figure you could run five K easily now. Probably more.’ He grinned at her, looking boyish and relieved and too bloody gorgeous for her torn emotions.

‘Get your hands off my bum,’ she said, struggling to loosen herself from his hold. ‘And I have no intention of running all the way back to town.’

He squashed her even more, his arms like a vice. ‘I’d carry you if I had to.’

‘No need. I’m fine.’

‘You scared the life out of me.’

‘You can let me go now.’

‘Got so worried, I hit a bloke.’

‘What? Daniel—let me go.’

‘He deserved it, mind you.’

‘Daniel!’

He let her go. ‘What is it? Where are you hurt?’

Charlotte pushed him in the chest. ‘I’m not hurt. You were squishing me too hard.’

He stepped back, mouth open in some sort of bewilderment. ‘I’m trying to take your mind off your experience.’ He pointed at the cave. ‘I know what it must have felt like for you after your … after what you went through as a kid. I’ve never been more proud of anyone in my life.’

Charlotte halted the words of remonstration on the tip of her tongue. She hadn’t been frightened in the cave. Not a jot. It wasn’t Daniel’s fault he thought she might have been scared. He knew about the little girl hiding in the darkened wardrobe, but he didn’t know the whole story. He didn’t know how she’d fought all her grown-up years to hide her fear. And how could she explain to him what she’d felt, or how her terrors had faded in the dark of a cave, lying next to Ted and tending him?