Kellie listened as his footsteps echoed down the hall. She heard the screen door squeak open and close and then the creak of the weathered timber of the verandah as he stepped on it before going down the three steps leading to the pathway to the gate. She heard his car start then the grab of the wheels on the gravel as he backed out of the driveway and the growl of the diesel engine as he drove back the way they had come, turning right, away from town at the corner.
And then all Kellie could hear was the sound of her own breathing. It seemed faster than normal and her heart felt like it was skipping every now and again just to keep up.
She turned from the window and looked at the space where moments before Matt had been standing, frowning at her, those incredibly blue eyes searing and yet shadowed at the same time …
A sudden knock on the front door made her nearly jump out of her skin but when she heard Ruth Williams’s friendly voice calling out, her panic quickly subsided. ‘Dr Thorne? I managed to get some milk and bread for you. I rang Cheryl Yates who runs the general store and she made up a survival pack for you. You can pay her later.’
Kellie pushed open the screen door. ‘That was very thoughtful of you both.’
‘Not at all,’ Ruth said, handing over the basket of groceries.
‘Please come in,’ Kellie said. ‘I’m still finding my way around but I can rustle us up a cup of tea if you’d like one.’
‘I would love one,’ Ruth said, puffing slightly. ‘I think Cheryl’s even put some of those fancy teabags in here somewhere and some chocolate biscuits. You’d better put them in the fridge, though, as this heat would melt stone.’
‘Yes, it is rather hot, isn’t it?’ Kellie answered as she led the way to the kitchen. ‘But I’m sure I’ll get used to it in a day or two.’
‘You know when you first stepped off the plane with Dr McNaught I thought I was seeing a ghost,’ Ruth said as she started to help unpack the groceries.
Kellie turned and looked at her. ‘A ghost?’
Ruth’s smile had a hint of sadness about it. ‘Yes. Although your hair is a different colour, you reminded me a bit of Madeleine,’ she said, ‘Dr McNaught’s fiancée.’
Kellie felt her eyes widen in surprise. No wonder he’d said he wasn’t looking for a wife, although she couldn’t imagine who would be brave enough to take him on. ‘Dr McNaught is engaged?’ she asked.
‘Was engaged,’ Ruth corrected. ‘She was killed in an accident two days before their wedding.’
‘Oh, dear …’ Kellie said, a wave of sympathy washing over her, followed by a rising tide of insight into why Matt was so standoffish and formal. She mentally cringed at his dislike of her prying into the photograph in his wallet.
‘He doesn’t talk about it much, of course,’ Ruth went on. ‘But that’s the male way, isn’t it?’
Kellie nibbled at her lip. ‘Yes … yes, it certainly is …’
Ruth handed her a carton of milk. ‘It was her birthday on Saturday,’ she said. ‘That’s why he went to Brisbane—to visit her parents.’
‘That was nice of him,’ Kellie offered, still feeling utterly wretched about her rapid judgement of him.
Ruth gave her another sad smile. ‘Yes, he does it every year.’
Kellie put the milk in the fridge and filled the kettle before she sat down opposite the older lady. ‘Dr McNaught told me about your daughter,’ she said. ‘It must be very hard for you … you know, not knowing where Tegan is or what happened to her.’
Ruth let out a little sigh. ‘It is hard,’ she said. ‘The hardest thing after all this time is that no one is actively searching for her any more. I feel that I’ll go to my grave without knowing what happened to her.’
‘The police keep most missing-person files open, though, don’t they?’ Kellie said. ‘I’ve seen a few news stories about old cases that have been solved, using DNA to match perpetrators to crimes.’
‘That’s true,’ Ruth said, ‘but out here there isn’t the manpower to do any more than maintain law and order. Doctors aren’t the only people who resist remote country appointments—police are pretty thin on the ground out here, too.’
Kellie met the older woman’s brown eyes. ‘You don’t believe she’s dead, do you?’ she asked.
Ruth held her gaze for several moments. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I feel it in here.’ She placed a hand over her heart. ‘She’s out there somewhere, I just know it.’
Kellie felt deeply for the poor woman. She had a pretty clear idea of the process of denial—she had witnessed it in her father for the last six years. He still acted as if her mother was going to walk in the door. He even occasionally spoke of her in the present tense, which made the job of getting on with his life so much harder for him and his family, not to mention Aunty Kate.
‘Well, I must let you settle in,’ Ruth said a few minutes later after they had finished the tea. ‘It’s an isolated place out here—but it’s not an unfriendly one.’
‘I’m very glad to hear that,’ Kellie said with genuine feeling. ‘This is a leap into the unknown for me. I’m right out of my comfort zone but I need the challenge right now.’
‘Well, it will certainly be challenging, it always is when the unexpected happens in places as far out as this,’ Ruth said as she gathered up her bag. ‘But Matthew McNaught is a very capable doctor. He’s experienced and caring. I am sure you’ll enjoy working with him, especially once you get to know him. This last weekend was a tough one for him. It’ll take him a few days to get back to normal.’
‘I think we’ll get along just fine,’ she said to the older woman with a smile. ‘In any case, I’ve got a week up my sleeve to get a feel for the place. I kind of figured it would be wise not to rush headlong into a close community like this.’ ‘You might not have any choice, my dear,’ Ruth said with a sombre look. ‘Things can happen out here in a blink of an eye.’
Soon after Ruth left Kellie decided to walk the short distance to the pub. She had always enjoyed male company and while the pub looked nothing like the family-friendly bistros she was used to, she didn’t see any harm in getting to know some of the locals in a relaxed and casual atmosphere.
She was barely in the door before Bluey, the man with the broken arm, came ambling over. ‘What would you like to drink, Doc?’
Kellie smiled so as not to offend him. ‘It’s fine, really. I’ll get my own.’
‘Nah,’ he drawled as he winked at his two mates. ‘It’s been a long time since I bought a pretty lady a drink. Don’t spoil it for me. What’ll you have?’
Kellie agreed to have a lemonade, lime and bitters and sat at the table with Bluey and his cronies, who turned out to be two other farmers looking as though they had spent many a long day in the sun.
‘So what brings a nice girl like you out to a place like this?’ Jeff, the oldest of the three, asked.
‘I
