Lacey, p.13
Lacey, page 13
He brushed his lips down her cheeks and kissed her hair as they both struggled for breath while Cameron struggled for control.
‘There are gentle ways to show you how much I love you.’
‘I’d like to try them,’ she whispered, and he picked her up and carried her through to the bed.
The bedroom curtains too were closed against the weather and a small lamp glowed in the corner to welcome them. The room lay dim and warm and the noise of the rain outside made it even more private. ‘I love you,’ she mouthed silently over his shoulder into the darkness so that he couldn’t hear.
Cameron stood her gently beside the huge colonial bed and they both smiled at the mirrors on the ceiling.
He shucked his shirt off. ‘You still have way too many clothes on.’ His voice fanned in her ear as he slid her dress the rest of the way down her body. Lacey shivered at the feathery sensation. She remembered that other time.
When she lifted her hands to lay them above his heart she could feel the pounding beneath his skin. She buried her nose in his chest. The tang of the distinctive aftershave she would always associate with him teased her memory. Tiny whorls of springy hair tickled her nose and she couldn’t resist a tiny taste with the tip of her tongue. He shuddered.
Delighted, Lacey slid her tongue across his chest from one side to the other, nibbling and sucking until he held her head still and firm against his chest as he shuddered to control himself.
‘You drive me crazy. Did I say that?’ His voice was gravelly with desire and she lifted her head to meet his lips.
‘Yes, and I’m glad.’ She opened her mouth and merged with his warm breath, lips gliding and meeting and duelling with his tongue in erotic mindlessness for long intimate tastings.
When they moved apart, their breathing rattled even over the noise of the rain outside and they both laughed gently. It was as if they were suspended in time.
Suddenly, Cameron moved to cup her buttocks again and he pulled her hard against his naked lower body once as if to reassure himself she was still there. His strong hands slid up to massage her shoulders in slow strokes that made her arch her back toward him.
‘Your skin’s so beautiful,’ he murmured, and bent his head to capture one aching nipple in his mouth.
She moaned at the pleasurable pain and he soothed her with gentleness before reaching behind himself to flip back the frilly quilt so that he could sit her on his lap, facing him. With infinite care he caressed her other breast before returning to her lips.
From that point on their joining flowed like mercury, a ball of silver longings, rolling together and seamless in forming one molten entity that swept them away until even their murmuring stopped, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
*
When Cameron woke after midnight, Lacey was gone.
His stomach dropped and he tightened his hand on the bedhead. He couldn’t believe she would do it again. He slid from beneath the sheets and checked the bathroom and lounge room. Both rooms were empty.
Where could she go?
In the distance he heard a baby cry and he realised she would be with Grace.
He sighed. Today he would find out about the shortest length of time it took to get legally married and start leaning on her for a decision. He couldn’t take the strain of wondering if she would disappear again.
He sat back on the bed and looked at the indent on her pillow. He smiled. He’d wait for her to come back.
*
In the morning, the rain had cleared and they shared their first sunrise together. Cameron filled the spa with hot water and bubbles and carried her, laughing and kicking, into the water. Lacey found that washing him was a delightful occupation.
‘There’s something special about a bath big enough for two people,’ Cameron murmured afterward, and Lacey grinned.
She slid from the water and wrapped herself in a towel. ‘I have to see how Grace is doing.’ She wanted to linger, but they needed to get on with the day and she wanted to get to Ethan as fast as she could. ‘I’m starving. Why do you think that is, Sergeant James?’
Cameron rolled over in the water. ‘Come here and I’ll frisk you to find out?’
‘Is that what you’re going to do every time I don’t instantly agree to your plans? Drag me off to bed?’
‘Give me a break.’ He reached over and tried to grab her ankle. ‘I’ve been almost celibate since you left.’ Lacey narrowed her eyes. Almost? That reminded her. There was something else she’d have to clear up. ‘What about the delectable Sammy? I hear you went out with her a few times?’
Cameron grinned, rolled back onto his back and put his arms behind his head. ‘Jealous?’
‘Should I be?’ She watched him in the bathroom mirror and felt ridiculously sick as she waited for the answer.
‘No. I only dated Sammy a few times. She’s a good friend now.’ The conviction in his voice made her shoulders sag in relief.
She leaned over and kissed him. ‘Thank you for a wonderful night and morning.’
He ran his finger down her leg. ‘Let’s go home. I can’t wait to see our son and I need an answer from you.’
*
Later that morning the heavy-duty bush ambulance arrived to take Grace down the mountain. It meant the road was open.
‘Her husband will meet her in town. He’s a FIFO engineer and was coming home today.’
‘He should be in the sin bin,’ Cameron remarked as they heard that Grace promised to make him never miss another birth.
Lacey smiled at the term for football discipline. ‘So he should be. But she’ll be worn down with some spoiling. They do love each other. She’ll make sure he gets the point.’
‘And if you say yes, do you think you’ll train me, too, Lacey Jerome?’ Cameron’s arm was strong around her shoulders and she stored another memory.
He was pushing and she was finding it harder to resist the urge to throw caution to the winds and say yes right now. He wasn’t playing fair. Her voice was quiet. ‘No matter what we decide, I’m sure we’ve both got some learning to do.’
As the ambulance disappeared and they said goodbye to Mrs. P, Cameron turned her to face him. ‘Drive carefully. I nearly had a heart attack, following you up the mountain. You drove like a maniac.’
Lacey planted her hands on her hips. ‘How can I drive like a maniac in a four-wheel drive? We plod along.’
‘Well, if that’s plodding, stick to a crawl. I’m going first so I know where you are.’ His voice was dry.
‘You’re not earning yourself any brownie points by being dictatorial, you know!’ She still had her hands on her hips.
He stepped forward and slid her hands down her waist with his fingers over hers. ‘Sorry. It’s only when I’m scared I might lose you.’
She nearly said, You be careful, too, but she didn’t want to jinx him.
*
Fifteen minutes later, as they started down the treacherous mountain, she wished she had.
The road had been open for an hour and freshly bulldozed landslides were heaped at the cliff side of the road. The bitumen hid under slush and mud and Cameron’s car wasn’t as happy wallowing in it as Lacey’s heavy vehicle was.
Water cascaded off the banks and every few feet small rocks bounced off the mountain. Lacey had never seen it so wet or unstable.
The Range Rover ground down the hill steadily but Cameron’s car ahead slithered and slipped.
His driving showed a skill far greater than Lacey’s, but there was nothing he could do to avoid the sudden giving way of the cutting to his right. His red taillights flashed on as he braked and Lacey’s heart thumped in her chest as she did the same.
For a moment she thought he might have stopped in time to avoid being sucked across the road by the rubble. But more bank gave way behind the first and a wave of mud and sticks and great tree trunks all came tumbling across the road in an inexorable wave that plucked up Cameron’s car like a toy and rolled it over the left bank, toward the cliff edge.
Lacey screamed and hit the brakes. When the car stopped she pulled on her hand brake.
She didn’t dare blink as she followed the flashes of Cameron’s car as it was rolled in the mud and huge branches until finally the mud monster sighed in one final heave and settled.
The rear of Cameron’s car poked into the air about six feet from the edge of the cliff. The front half was submerged, and she tried to remember if the windows were up on his car. Apart from the risk of him suffocating she could see that any shift of the earth again and his car would shoot over the edge.
Hands shaking on the wheel, she took off the brake and inched her big car as close as she could get to the edge of the soil from the slide and stopped. She jumped from the car only to end up ankle deep in thick mud and rubble, but she didn’t feel the cuts to her feet as it scratched and tore off her thin sandals.
She heard another car pull up behind her but ignored it as she fought to unhook her winch from the front of her bull bar. It was stiff and dry and needed maintenance she hadn’t thought it needed.
She tore at it with her nails almost weeping with frustration.
The slosh and slurp of mud announced the arrival of someone else. She didn’t turn around. ‘There’s a man buried in that car. We have to pull his car out before he dies.’
‘Let me help, lady.’ The big man behind her slid burly arms past her shoulder, worked the hook free and gave it to her.
She ducked under his arm as he started to uncoil the winch line to give her slack. Lacey slipped and slid with the line in her hand as she dragged it toward Cameron’s car.
She had shut down all thought except that if she hooked Cameron’s car to hers at least he couldn’t go over the cliff without her. When she reached the car she wanted to drop the line and claw at the windows, but there was sanity in securing the line around the strongest point she could find. With that done, she turned to find the burly man at her shoulder.
‘We’ll try the rear door but gently goes, missus.’
Lacey wiped a distracted hand muddily across her cheek and nodded. The car was sticking out of the mud like a thrown javelin; evidence of it having been rolled in the mud obscured any view inside.
The burly man heaved on the rear door and it creaked open a little until it jammed on a mound of wet debris. Lacey fell to her knees beside the obstruction and clawed to make a dent deep enough to allow the door to open. Finally they could open it enough to see in.
All the windows were shut and no water or mud was in the car. Cameron flopped against the restraining seat belt as he hung forward, unconscious. Blood dripped slowly down his face. But he was breathing!
Sirens wailed in the distance and the man pulled her back gently but firmly as Lacey went to climb in.
‘Just wait, lady.’ She tugged against him but he wouldn’t budge. ‘They know how to move people without doing more damage.’
She sagged back, suddenly weary and frightened of doing more harm than good. ‘You’re right.’ She could hear more people squelch closer through the mud and she stepped back out of the way.
She retreated to the edge of the mound and leaned her back against a wet tree. Rivulets of water trickled down her back but she didn’t feel them.
She felt locked in a solitary nightmare as a group of yellow-coated emergency workers converged on Cameron’s car. They talked amongst themselves and discussed the best way to get Cameron out, and she felt as if she were listening to a news broadcast. Except that it was about someone she was terrified of losing.
‘Good idea, the winch. But it could’ve pulled both cars over, I reckon,’ one said.
‘He’s lucky it didn’t fill up with water,’ said another. ‘Where’s the ambulance guys?’
‘Just pulling up now. I don’t want to move the car until they’ve been in for a look.’
‘We’ll start digging that out and maybe it will sink back this way.’
Lacey’s teeth started to chatter again and she wrapped her arms around her stomach to stop the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her.
The burly man came up to her with an army blanket and pulled her away from the tree to throw it around her shoulders.
‘You might be better in your car now. It’s getting busy around here.’
She gazed up at him as if to gain some idea of whether Cameron would survive but, of course, he couldn’t know. She looked down and allowed herself to be led back to her car.
‘Thank you for your help.’
He squeezed her shoulder. ‘You know him, don’t you?’
She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘He asked me to marry him last night.’
The burly man opened her car door for her. ‘Well, I hope you said yes.’
Her eyes filled with tears.
*
The next hour dragged past and Lacey felt a hundred years old by the time the ambulance pulled slowly away from the scene. They would transport Cameron to the mountaintop and a helicopter would fly him to Melbourne. He hadn’t regained consciousness and his face was the colour of white marble and he lay just as still.
The burly man had vouched for her and she’d been allowed to squeeze Cameron’s hand once and kiss him on a part of his face not covered by the oxygen mask. But the concern of his attendants hadn’t encouraged her to hold them up long and soon he was gone.
It was then that a sense of urgency set in.
She had to get home to Ethan and they needed to be at Cameron’s side. She had this awful fear that if she wasn’t there to encourage him, he might never wake up.
The road to the valley below would be blocked for days, and that meant she’d have to go back up the mountain and further north to get down by a different pass. She swung herself back into her car and reversed out of the quagmire and back onto the wet road.
Eight hours later she pulled into the Brierly’s driveway, tears streaming, unchecked, down her cheeks. Holly was standing beside the car by the time she opened her door.
‘Thank goodness, you’re safe. They said one person critically injured on the mountain and I rang the motel. They said you’d left hours ago.’
Lacey stepped wearily from the car into Holly’s arms. ‘It’s Cameron. His car was caught in a landslide and he’s unconscious. I thought he was dead.’ She looked about wildly. ‘Where’s Ethan?’
‘Come inside and sit down.’ Holly looked her up and down. ‘On second thoughts, come in and have a shower. You’re saturated and covered in mud.’
She frowned at the streaks of blood on Lacey’s feet and the wild look in her eyes. ‘I want to see your feet after your shower, too.’
‘I can’t stay long. I’ve come to get Ethan. We’ll drive to Melbourne and I’m going to sit with Cameron until he wakes up.’
Holly’s voice was firm. ‘You’ll be no use to Cameron if you’re a physical wreck. I’ll ring to check he’s there safely and Miranda might want to come with you and help with Ethan. Jump in the shower and I’ll get some things together and we’ll drive over to your place to pack you a bag.’
By the time Lacey came downstairs from her shower, Holly had packed a basket of food and Miranda had packed an overnight case for herself. A plate of scrambled eggs sat on the table and Holly was sipping tea as she jiggled a solemn Ethan on her knee.
When he saw his mother his tiny face screwed up and he let out a loud wail as if to ask why she’d left him.
Lacey scooped him up and buried his face against her neck and dragged in a long inhalation of his sweet baby smell. ‘Poor baby. Mummy’s here.’ She unbuttoned her shirt as she sat down and whistled at the bittersweet agony of overfilled breasts and Ethan’s eagerness.
When she had her breath back, her eyes searched Holly’s face. ‘Is Cameron all right? What did they say?’
‘Not much. That he’s in intensive care and still critical but stable at the moment. Eat your eggs and we’ll go as soon as you finish Ethan’s feed.’
Lacey looked across at Holly and Miranda. ‘I love him. He asked me to marry him.’
Holly squeezed her hand. ‘I hope you said yes.’
Lacey shook her head and her heart ached for all the things she hadn’t said. Having seen Cameron lying there, so still and white as they’d taken him away from her, she wished she could block out the idea that she might never have a chance to tell Cameron all the things she wanted to. She needed to concentrate on normal things until they could leave.
‘How did you go with Ethan, Miranda?’
‘He was an angel.’ Miranda patted Ethan’s foot. ‘A little sad at times but took his bottles once he realised his favourite way of drinking wasn’t going to happen. We’ve just run out. How did you cope with your poor breasts?’
‘I managed. Which reminds me, the cold bag is in the car and I have to freeze the milk in there.’ Her thoughts returned to Cameron.
His father! ‘Does the Colonel know about Cameron?’
Miranda nodded sadly. ‘Yes. Poor Frank. Cameron is all he’s got.’ Miranda stood up as if she had to do something. ‘I’ll text him now and say we’re leaving. He’s already there.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
When they arrived at the hospital Lacey felt like an intruder in an alien world. The corridors were unfamiliar and the faces unknown, and she felt invisible in her fear that Cameron wouldn’t recover. It smelled like a hospital, which was something she’d never noticed when she went to work as a midwife.
Miranda pushed the pram while Lacey scanned the corridor for signs to the intensive care unit. Her rubber soles squeaked on the linoleum. When they finally found the right ward, the thick frosted-glass doors were shut.
She pressed the bell for entry and it seemed hours before anyone came.
‘Can I help you?’ The tall blonde sister looked strained.
‘I want to see Cameron James, a patient.’
‘Are you immediate family?’
Lacey felt like screaming he’s the father of my child, but she couldn’t let the Colonel find out like that.
‘We’re very good friends.’ But she knew that wouldn’t be good enough.
