‘I had right of way. You were the one who should have slowed down.’ She quickly glanced at the side road, looking for a stop sign to add weight to her argument, but there was none.
The man must have seen her glance as he said, ‘The give-way sign was knocked down a couple of months ago by a drunk driver. It hasn’t been replaced yet.’
Fran elevated her chin. ‘So you should have at least paused to check if anyone was coming. This is a main road and it has right of way over T-intersections.’
Those startling blue eyes held hers in a challenging duel. ‘I did pause and check and there was no one coming when I came out,’ he said. He waited a beat before adding, ‘What speed were you travelling at?’
Fran put her hands on her hips, inwardly grimacing at how wet her cotton sundress was. ‘I was driving to the conditions, not the limit,’ she said, practically repeating verbatim a road-safety campaign orchestrated by the police force across Australia to reduce the number of fatalities on the roads.
Although she couldn’t see his mouth, she suspected he was smiling. Not a friendly, nice-to-meet-you smile, more a mocking you’re-a-lady-driver-and-don’t-know-what-you’re-doing sort of smile. Maybe it wasn’t a smile at all, she decided. It was probably more of a smirk. The sardonic glint in his eyes made her blood go from simmering to a blistering boil. She had met so many like him during her time in A and E. Men who think they are bullet-proof, hogging the road, taking unnecessary risks and endangering innocent, rule-abiding citizens.
It was hard to guess his age, although Fran suspected he was a year or two over thirty. His voice was deep and what she could see of his skin was tanned and it had been at least eighteen hours since it had last seen a razor. His eyes had fine lines around them, but whether they were from frequent laughter or frowning she couldn’t quite tell. He carried himself with arrogant authority, which was another thing that annoyed her. The way he was standing towering over her with his feet slightly apart, his arms folded across his broad chest and his eyes trained on her, made her feel as if she was in the wrong.
‘I noticed you limping,’ he said, glancing at her left leg, a measure of concern entering his tone. ‘Did you sustain that injury just then in avoiding a collision?’
Fran tightened her mouth. ‘I am not injured, no thanks to you. My leg is…’ She paused over the choice of word. ‘Was broken a few months ago.’
‘Are you new in town?’ he asked, bringing his eyes back to hers, his gaze intent and steady and probing.
Too steady.
Too intent.
Far too probing.
Fran blinked the rain out of her eyes and frowned at him. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I haven’t seen you around before. Are you passing through or staying at the bay?’
Fran licked the droplets of moisture off her lips, deciding she wasn’t going to give him any personal information about herself. Instead, what she was going to do was report him to the local police for dangerous driving. The town was currently without a doctor. If there had been a collision between them it could have been disastrous. As it was, they had been standing here for the last few minutes without another car passing by. Who knew how long it might have been before someone came along to help if one or both of them had been seriously injured?
‘I’m…er…passing through,’ she said, which was almost true, she decided. She was staying three months, two before Caro travelled to Wollongong Hospital to have the babies and the month after to help her get into a routine. After that Fran had to decide what to do with the rest of her life. As far as she was concerned, the longer she could put off that decision the better.
The man flipped his visor back down. ‘I’m sorry if I caused you a bit of a scare but, as I said, I didn’t see you.’
Fran didn’t think much of his apology. It certainly hadn’t sounded all that sincere. In fact, his whole demeanour seemed to communicate he couldn’t wait to get on his way again. She straightened her shoulders, wincing as droplets of rain ran down the back of her neck. ‘You think an offhand apology is enough?’ she asked. ‘Do you realise some people—the ones who don’t get killed, that is—have to live for the rest of their lives with serious injuries or disabilities after accidents like you very nearly caused?’
‘If you’re a stranger to these roads you need to take extra care,’ he said, ‘especially during a sudden storm like this.’
‘Did you even hear what I said?’ Fran asked, still glaring at him.
He strode over to his bike and, throwing one leg over, kicked down the stand, before starting the engine with a throaty roar. ‘Sorry I can’t hang about and discuss the weather with you but I need to be somewhere. See you around.’
Fran narrowed her eyes as she tried to memorise his registration number through the pouring rain, still fuming as he drove off towards town without so much as a wave. She stomped or rather limped back to her car, dripping wet and steaming with anger. She sat behind the wheel for a minute or two as she waited for the downpour to ease. She thought about calling Caro on her mobile but decided against it. There was no point worrying her sister when it would only take a few extra minutes to drive back to town and file a dangerous driving complaint. In any case Caro thought she was going to stop for a coffee, which would have taken much the same amount of time.
The police station was just down from the general store and like many country stations it had previously been a weather-board cottage built by one of the early pioneers. The front entrance led to a small reception area currently attended by a young constable who looked to Fran as if he should have still been at school. She suddenly felt every one of her twenty-nine years as she approached the desk.
‘Can I help you?’ the young ginger-haired and freckled constable asked with a helpful smile.
Fran tucked a wet tendril of hair behind her right ear. ‘I would like to make a complaint about a dangerous driver,’ she said. ‘He almost caused a serious accident just out of town.’
The constable reached for an official-looking form. ‘Right,’ he said, unclicking his pen. ‘Can you describe the vehicle?’
‘Yes, it was a motorbike,’ she answered.
‘Would you happen to know the make?’
Fran rolled her lips together. ‘Um…no, but it was black and silver…I mean…er…chrome.’
The young man stopped scribbling to look up at her. ‘What about the registration number? Did you happen to see that?’
Fran frowned as she tried to remember. ‘I should have written it down. I’ll remember it in a moment…Let me see…there was a V in it, I think, or it might have been a W. It was raining so hard I couldn’t really see the numbers but there was a six in there somewhere…’ Her frown deepened. ‘Actually, it could have been a nine.’
‘What about the driver?’ the constable asked with a deadpan face. ‘Did he stop?’
‘Yes, he did,’ she said with a huffy look as she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘He made a paltry apology and got back on his bike and drove off towards town.’
‘So you weren’t hurt or your car damaged or anything?’ he asked with the same
