Some Girls Don't (Outback Heat Book 2) (12 page)

Jarrod looked at her. “I’ll see you there,” he said, giving her arm a squeeze before heading to his vehicle.

“Just in case what?” Selena asked as she climbed into the ambulance.

Marcus started the rig and slammed it into gear. “Just in case there’s someone alive inside.”

‡

J
arrod pulled the
fire engine up ten minutes later, the badly burned car sitting in the middle of the dirt road just ahead.

Crap
. It didn’t look good.

It was some kind of four-wheel drive vehicle, but there were no recognisable markings left on the car. The paintwork had blistered and bubbled until it was indiscernible, the number plate was unreadable, the tyres were blown and still smoking, the windscreen had shattered and the side mirrors were a melted mess down the doors.

The bush either side of the road was completely burned out and smouldering. The driver must have been trying to evacuate too late and got caught when thick smoke made navigation impossible.

Dread sat like a cold, slimy stone in his stomach.
Goddamn it!
Who would do something so insane?

But the bigger question was, was he/she/they still in the car. If they were, had they survived the blistering radiant heat and noxious fume build up? If they weren’t, where were they? Had they tried to flee the fire on foot? He looked around at the blackened land—they wouldn’t have been able to outrun it.

He shut his eyes at the thought.
Christ.
Bushfires were terrifying, roaring juggernauts. They sounded like a jet engine heading directly for you. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the horror of being trapped …

His crew was already disembarking, not needing any direction as they jumped down from the engine to attend to the hotspots still burning in the bush. Jarrod jumped down too. Marcus and Selena were already out of the ambulance. Brett was bringing the gurney out of the back just in case, but Jarrod had a very bad feeling.

A guy with a large television camera on his shoulder was already filming the scene.

“Holy shit,” Marcus said as he and Selena pulled up beside Jarrod. He had his emergency pack over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“Is it safe to check it out?” he asked.

Jarrod nodded. “Yeah. It’ll be hot though.” He pulled his thick gloves made from fire retardant material out of his pocket.

He looked at Selena. When she’d run toward him earlier his breath had seized in his lungs—she’d been a sight for very sore eyes. But he wished like hell she wasn’t here for this. There were some things a person was just better off not seeing.

“Stay here,” he said to her.

He expected her to argue, but she just said, “Okay.”

He and Marcus walked the ten metres to the car, Brett following behind with the gurney bumping along the dirt surface. There was no-one in the front but Jarrod’s worst suspicions were confirmed when they found two people, a man and a woman, lying huddled over each other on the back seat. They weren’t burned but that wasn’t necessarily what killed you in a fire of such magnitude.

They should have been in the foot wells below window level, they should have wet woollen blankets over their heads. It was possible to survive in a vehicle if all the necessary precautions were taken.

“Shit,” he grimaced, glancing at Marcus as he reached for the doorhandle with his gloved hands. He didn’t even want to think about who it could be. “You ready for this?”

Odds were whoever was in that vehicle they were going to know them.

Marcus nodded, as he snapped on a pair of gloves. “Let’s get it over with.”

Jarrod didn’t need to be a paramedic to know that they were dead, but it wasn’t his job to call it. He opened the door, noticing every internal surface had suffered some kind of scorching, as he stood aside for Marcus to do his thing. Check for pulse etc. A gruesome, shitty job he was pleased wasn’t his.

He glanced at Selena, her face scrunched in concentration as she chewed on her bottom lip.

“Christ,” Marcus swore suddenly, “there’s a kid in here too.”

“
What?
” Jarrod stepped forward. Marcus was blocking most of the view but he could just make out another set of legs now. The couple had obviously huddled over top of their child trying to protect him or her from the shit storm that must have howled all around them.

“Oh,
Jesus
. No.” Marcus recoiled, stumbling backwards, running into Jarrod before spinning around and bending at the waist, his hands on his knees. “No, no, no.”

Jarrod put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and crouched beside him, his sense of dread tripling. “What?”

Marcus was white. His hands were shaking. “It’s Reggie Wyndham.”

No.
Jarrod shut his eyes and bowed his head.
The Wyndhams?
“Christ,” he muttered, squeezing Marcus’s shoulder, a wellspring of sorrow and rage at the absolute futile waste of life twisting his gut.

Marcus stood abruptly. “I’m so sorry, man,” Jarrod said as he followed him up.

Not that Marcus seemed to hear. He just stared at the open door of the vehicle for long moments, his eyes bleak, his mouth a grim line. It was chilling to see Marcus the joker so gutted.

Marcus wiped the back of his gloved hand over his chin. “Bring the gurney,” he said to Brett and stalked to the vehicle.

“Marcus.” Jarrod held up a hand to Brett as he followed his brother. “You can’t move him.”

Marcus ignored him as he reached for Reggie. “I need to get him out.”

Jarrod placed a stilling hand on his brother’s arm. “We can’t. It’s a crime scene now.”

“What are they going to do?” Marcus demanded, turning his head until he was right up in Jarrod’s face. “Arrest the fucking bushfire?”

He leaned in again to haul Reggie out and Jarrod grabbed him around the shoulders to stop him. Marcus struggled against him, his breathing harsh. Jarrod had to use all his strength to contain him, his heart beating with exertion and breaking for the Wyndhams and Marcus.

Jarrod’s gaze fell on the still, silent kid who’d been so full of life four weeks ago, his eyes blazing with excitement after running in the winning try. His individual grand finalist medal, all the team had been awarded one that day, was around his neck, hanging by a bright green ribbon.

“C’mon man,” he said low in his brother’s ear, “you know we can’t.”

Marcus roared in frustration and shook him off, pushing Jarrod hard in the chest as he backed off. “God-
fucking
-damn it,” he yelled, kicking the front passenger side door over and over.

Jarrod let him go. He glanced at his crew who were avoiding the scene playing out, going about their work, looking anywhere but at Marcus. Normally they’d be trash talking each other but they went about their job without a word—pity, empathy and solidarity in their silence.

Selena had one hand on her belly, the other over her mouth as she watched with anxious eyes. She looked like she was caught between wanting to run to him and running away. Her cameraman had stopped filming, the camera held at his side. Had she asked him to stop?

The sound of boot on metal came to an abrupt halt as Marcus ran out of steam. He turned away, storming up the road a little way, his back to the vehicle, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“I’ll take the gurney back to the ambulance,” Brett said quietly.

Jarrod nodded, his eyes firmly on Marcus’s back. He wished he knew what to do or say to make it easier for his brother. The image of Reggie in the fire-ravaged car with his footy medal around his neck was going to stay with Jarrod forever. He couldn’t begin to imagine how deeply it was going to affect Marcus, who was like a second father to all the boys on his under-twelve team.

He felt useless. Just like when their mother had died. All he’d wanted then was to feel Selena’s arms around him. And it was all he wanted now.

But first things first. He pulled his radio off his belt and called it in.

*     *     *

Selena was sitting
on the Weston’s front steps at five that afternoon, watching the clouds gather overhead and wondering how long it would take for the smell of smoke to disappear, when Jarrod’s dual cab pulled into the yard. He’d texted her ten minutes ago.

Leaving station now. Need to shower, eat & crash for a couple of hours. Do you want 2 drink beer with me on the veranda l8r?

Selena had tapped back a quick reply.

I’ll be waiting for u when u get home. See you in 10.

She should have stayed away. Let him get some sleep first, but she’d been dying to wrap her arms around him since she’d witnessed the gut-wrenching scene with Marcus and she didn’t want to wait any longer.

There’d been no chance to get close to him after he’d called in the gruesome discovery. He’d spent his time with Marcus while they waited for the cavalry to arrive, led by Ethan in his police vehicle. Then he was in the thick of it as the scene grew bigger and bigger.

It was an hour before Jarrod even spoke to her again, although Brett, who had waited with her and John, had confirmed that there had been a child in the car. Jarrod broke the news about the deceased child’s identity and Selena felt like he’d hit her in the chest with an axe. It was hard to wrap her head around the fact that the kid who had streaked up the field like he had wings on his feet, the day she’d watched the football with Jarrod, was dead.

In the most horrific way imaginable.

When Jarrod suggested that Brett take them back to the command centre, Selena had agreed. She’d wanted to stay near him, but it was clear he was going to be busy for a while and needed to concentrate on what had happened here on this road.

“What about Marcus?” she’d asked.

“No-one’s going to get him out of here until the bodies are removed,” Brett had said.

So they’d left and she’d spent the day at the command centre filing stories and going over more footage, preparing a montage of images they’d filmed over the last couple of days to splice together into a segment for tomorrow night.

Until she’d received the text from Jarrod.

He shot her a weary smile as he got out of the car. His movements were just as weary as he headed in her direction. He was still in his blackened uniform. His face had been hurriedly washed, but soot still delineated the lines of his forehead and around his eyes, clinging to his whiskers, neck and ears as well as his hairline. He had the world’s worst case of helmet hair, the red-gold strands sticking up haphazardly all over his head.

“You are a sight for sore eyes,” he said as he climbed the stairs like it was an extraordinary effort just to raise his feet. When he reached the one below hers he slid his hands onto her waist and pulled her close, shutting his eyes as he rested his grubby forehead on her collarbone.

Selena’s arms went around his shoulders as her heart expanded to fill the entire capacity of her chest cavity. He smelled like smoke, but then what didn’t?

They stood there silently for long moments, Selena letting Jarrod take whatever he needed from her.

“How’s Marcus?” she asked eventually.

He lifted his head and looked at her with his tired green gaze. “Joking around again. Telling everyone he’s okay. He’s at the pub. Ethan’s going to pick him up later, but JJ’s keeping an eye on him for now.”

Jemima Jane Ericson owned The Stockman, one of two pubs in Jumbuck Springs. She and Ethan had been best mates since they were kids. “You don’t think he’s okay?”

He shook his head. “Not by a long shot.”

“What do they think happened?”

“I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his prickly jaw, a move that seemed both anguished and defeated. “Reggie’s family have been here for less than a year, and there’s not exactly a lot of bushfires in the UK. People round here grow up with the constant threat, they know the dangers, they’re well prepared. The Wyndhams probably underestimated the hazards.”

Selena nodded. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the panic that must have descended on Reggie’s parents.

“And how are you?” Selena asked. Marcus hadn’t been the only one to witness the horror of the day. She didn’t suppose having to look at a dead child was easy, regardless of whether you knew them or not.