giving herself too much time to think, she headed straight for the stairs.
There were five doors on the first floor, if she didn’t count the door to the linen closet. Four of them stood wide open—a bathroom and three bedrooms. Mind you, all the curtains in each of those rooms were drawn, so it was dark as Hades up here. The fourth door stood resolutely closed. Do Not Disturb vibes radiated from it in powerful waves.
‘Guess which one the prize is behind?’ she murmured under her breath, striding up to it.
She lifted her hand and knocked. Rat-tat-tat! The noise bounced up and down the hallway. No answer. Nothing.
She knocked again, even louder. ‘Mac, are you in there?’
To hell with calling him Mr MacCallum. Every Tuesday night for the last five years she’d sat with Russ, watching Mac on the television. For eight years she’d listened to Russ talk about his brother. He would be Mac to her forever.
She suddenly stiffened. What if he was hurt or sick?
‘Go away!’
She rolled her eyes. ‘“There was movement at the station.”’
‘Can’t you follow instructions?’
Ooh, that was a veritable growl. ‘I’m afraid not. I’m coming in.’
She pushed the door open.
‘What the hell?’ The single light at the desk was immediately clicked off. ‘Get out! I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘Correction. An anonymous note informed me that someone didn’t want to be disturbed.’ It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She focussed on that rather than the snarl in his voice. ‘Anyone could’ve left that note. For all I knew you could’ve been slain while you slept.’
He threw his arms out. ‘Not slain. See? Now, get out.’
‘I’d like nothing better,’ she said, strolling across the room.
‘What the hell do you think you’re—?’
He broke off when she flung the curtains back. She pulled in a breath, staring at the newly revealed balcony and the magnificent view beyond. ‘Getting a good look at you,’ she said, before turning around.
The sight that met her shocked her to the core. She had no hope of hiding it. She reached out a hand to steady herself against the glass doors.
‘Happy?’
His lips twisted in a snarl that made her want to flee. She swallowed and shook her head. ‘No.’ How could she be happy? He was going to break his brother’s heart.
‘Shocked?’ he mocked with an ugly twist of his lips.
The left side of his face and neck were red, tight and raw with the post-burn scarring from his accident. His too-long blond hair had clumped in greasy unbrushed strands. Dark circles rimmed red eyes. The grey pallor of his skin made her stomach churn.
‘To the marrow,’ she choked out.
And in her mind the first lines of that Banjo Paterson poem went round and round in her head.
There was movement at the station,
for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away
Regret. Got away. She suddenly wished with everything inside her that she could get away. Leave.
And go where? What would she tell Russ?
She swallowed and straightened. ‘It smells dreadful in here.’
Too close and sour and hot. She slid the door open, letting the sea breeze dance over her. She filled her lungs with it even though his scowl deepened.
‘I promised Russ I’d clap eyes on you, as no one else seems to have done so in months.’
‘He sent you here as a spy?’
‘He sent me here as a favour.’
‘I don’t need any favours!’
Not a favour for you. But she didn’t say that out loud. ‘No. I suspect what you really need is a psychiatrist.’
His jaw dropped.
She pulled herself up to her full height of six feet and folded her arms. ‘Is that what you really want me to report back to Russ? That you’re in a deep depression and possibly suicidal?’
His lips drew together tightly over his teeth. ‘I am neither suicidal nor depressed.’
‘Right.’ She drew the word out, injecting as much disbelief into her voice as she could. ‘For the last four months you’ve sat shut up in this dark house, refusing to see a soul. I suspect you barely sleep and barely eat.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And when was the last time you had a shower?’
His head rocked back.
‘These are not the actions of a reasonable or rational adult. What interpretation would you put on them if you were coming in from the outside? What conclusion do you think Russ would come to?’
For a moment she thought he might have paled at her words—except he was already so pale it was impossible to tell. She rubbed a hand across her chest. She understood that one had to guard against sunburn on burn scars, but avoiding the light completely was ludicrous.
He said nothing. He just stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Which just went to show how preoccupied he must have been. When most people saw her for the first time they usually performed a comical kind of double-take at her sheer size. Not that she’d ever found anything remotely humorous about it. So what? She was tall. And, no, she wasn’t dainty. It didn’t make her a circus freak.
‘Damn you, Mac!’ She found herself shouting at him, and she didn’t know where it came from but it refused to be suppressed. ‘How can you be so selfish? Russell is recovering from a heart attack. He needs bypass surgery. He needs calm and peace and...’ Her heart dropped with a sickening thud. ‘And now I’m going to have to tell him...’ She faltered, not wanting to put into words Mac’s pitiable condition. She didn’t have the heart for it.
Mac still didn’t speak, even though the ferocity and outrage had drained from his face. She shook her head and made for the door.
‘At least I didn’t waste any time unpacking.’
* * *
It wasn’t until the woman— What was her name again? Jo Anderson? It wasn’t until she’d disappeared through his bedroom door that he realised what she meant to do.
She meant to leave.
She meant to leave and tell Russ that Mac needed to be sectioned or something daft. Hell, the press would have a field-day
