Someone Like You (32 page)

Lizzie shook her head. No, no, no. What had she done for any of them that had made a difference? Cancer had taken her grandmother, claimed her mother too. The same emotion had driven Joe away from his family when Lizzie was still so young. She hadn’t been able to help herself in London, nor in the years after. And she hadn’t been able to stop Dan from almost losing his life. That’s why she hadn’t wanted to get roped into Operation Dan in the first place. Despite her better judgment, she’d allowed herself to be pushed into it. Ry and Julia had believed she was the only one who could help him. And what had she done?

Accidentally shagged him. Fallen in love with him.

What use had she been to anybody?

‘I…I’ve got to go,’ Lizzie stammered. She stood on shaky legs, grabbed her bodyboard and held it in front of her like a big red shield, guarding herself from him, and turned to run up the soft sand to the stairs.

‘Lizzie, where are you going?’ Dan called. As he watched her jog up the sand, over the dunes and away, he planted his hands on his head, hoping the move would stop the top of it blowing off.

All the stress relief the surf had provided was gone. As Lizzie pounded the hot bitumen road back to her house, the sound of her thongs slapping against her heels echoing around her, she swore good and proper. The tension was back in her shoulders, she felt herself grinding her teeth, and the beginnings of a headache were pounding at her temples. And most embarrassingly, her eyes were swimming with tears.

Why did Dan want to probe so much? What did it matter why she didn’t visit him in hospital? From what she’d heard, it had been like Grand Central Station in there, anyway. What possible difference could she have made?

The pink flamingos beckoned her home and as she got closer something seemed strange to her. There was a noise in the distance which raised the hairs on the back of her neck, sent a skitter of panic right through her. It was a faint cry, and a voice, calling out weakly. Lizzie’s footsteps quickened and when she made it to her driveway she gasped in shock at the sight of Harri, flat on her back in her own front yard, moaning and distressed.

‘Harri!’ Her bodyboard dropped with a dull thud on the garden bed and Lizzie scrambled to Harri’s side.

‘Harri, what’s happened?’

Lizzie hovered over Harri, her own heart pounding like a drum in her ears. The older woman lay crumpled, her mouth twisted in distress and her face already pink from sunburn. She held an arm over her eyes in a feeble attempt to block out the blazing sun and the heat, and her bun had come loose, a grey curtain of hair on the footpath around her head.

‘Bugger, Lizzie,’ Harri moaned. ‘I tripped on the hose. I think it’s my hip. It hurts like the devil.’

Lizzie’s pulse throbbed in her head. She took a quick look up and down the street so see if anyone was outside, anyone who might hear her shouts for help. She found no one. She grabbed her board and propped it against Harri’s elbow, creating some shade on her face.

‘Hold that, Harri. I’ll get help.’ Lizzie dashed past Joe’s four-wheel drive in her driveway and shoved the back door open. She’d left her mobile on the kitchen bench and raced for it, pressing Joe’s name. She hoped like hell he was at Ry and Julia’s.

‘Hey—’

‘Your car keys,’ she demanded. ‘Where are they?’

‘In my pocket.’

‘Shit, Joe. Harri’s had a fall. Looks like she might have broken her hip. I don’t—’

‘Stop right there,’ Joe ordered. ‘I’m hanging up now and calling an ambulance. And I’m on my way.’

Lizzie raced back out to Harri with a wet flannel, knowing enough about first aid not to move her or give her anything to drink, in case she needed surgery later.

She knelt down on the cement footpath, taking care to mop the older woman’s brow gently. From somewhere, she summoned a calm, low voice. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Harri any more than she already was. ‘How long do you think you’ve been out here?’

Harri’s eyes flickered. ‘I’d just had a cuppa during the five o’clock news on the ABC and then I came out here to water the garden.’

Lizzie glanced at the face of her mobile, still gripped tight in her fingers, and noticed it was past six o’clock. ‘That’s more than an hour, you poor thing.’

‘I figured someone would eventually hear me.’ Harri began to tear up and she reached for Lizzie’s hand, clutching at her with weak fingers. ‘I knew you’d be back soon enough. Thank goodness for you, Lizzie.’

A screech of tires announced the arrival of Joe. In Dan’s car. With Dan driving. Car doors slammed and the two men were at Harri’s side in a few long strides.

Joe immediately knelt on the other side of Harri’s prone body, shooting a quick glance at his sister before speaking.

‘What the fuck, Harri? Don’t you know old women like you should be more careful?’ The affection and concern in his voice was evident. When Lizzie lifted her eyes from Harri’s face, she could see the worry in Joe’s eyes. He held Harri’s hand in his, gentle and caring. They’d obviously become closer than she’d realised over their morning crosswords.

And then she looked up to Dan. He was standing back from the huddle, a wrinkled black T-shirt on inside out. His hair was still wet and his feet were bare. What was he doing here with Joe?

He must have sensed her question because he answered it. ‘I was about to head out, saw Joe and he jumped in the car. I drove so he could call the ambulance. We figured it would be quicker that way.’

Lizzie couldn’t find any words, just nodded her thanks. Then they heard the sirens, becoming reassuringly louder as the ambulance approached. When it pulled up on the side of the street, two women wearing green uniforms climbed out calmly, one moving to the back of the van to retrieve a kit.

Lizzie and Joe moved out of the way while the paramedics checked Harri’s pulse and blood pressure and administered some pain relief. They spoke calmly to Harri, asked her a few questions and then gently loaded her up onto a stretcher for a trip to hospital.

‘Anyone coming?’ The taller of the two paramedics looked from Lizzie to Joe to Dan.

‘I’ll go with her,’ Lizzie said quickly. With a downwards glance and then an embarrassing realisation, she saw she was half-dressed in her wetsuit, her bikini top all that was covering the top half of her body. ‘Just give me a minute.’

But before she could turn to race back inside, a strong hand shot out to grip her forearm.

‘Mosquito,’ Joe said firmly. ‘You’re staying here. I’ll go.’

She tried to shake him off. ‘No, I can go. She’ll need someone with her.’

‘Which is why I’ll go with Harri.’ Joe dropped his hand, turned to the paramedic.

Lizzie followed the rolling stretcher to the rear of the ambulance. It slid in to the back of the vehicle and one of the paramedics hopped in the back alongside her.

‘You’re in good hands, Harri,’ Lizzie called. Seeing the inside of the ambulance sent a chill down Lizzie’s spine and she tried to control her breathing. She hated ambulances and hospitals. And Joe knew it. He’d remembered. She swallowed the tears at how wonderful her big brother was. She’d forgotten that about him since he’d been home.

Before he hopped into the back of the ambulance, she reached for him. Although hesitant at first, he finally hugged her right back with a comforting pat on her bare back.

‘Thanks, Stinkface,’ she murmured into his shirt. ‘Call me when you know something. Anything.’

‘It’s the least I could do, Mosquito.’

He stepped up into the back of the ambulance and the doors swung closed.

Lizzie and Dan stood side by side, watched it manoeuvre back out the driveway and drive off down the road. Lizzie had to remind herself that Harri was safely strapped in the back, the best care at her side, and that Joe was right there with her. She had to remember to breathe. She let out a slow exhale, hoping the tension she felt in every synapse in her body would disappear with it. It didn’t work. Rubbing her hands over her arms, she felt tense, distracted, slightly dizzy.

Two magpies, perched on the electricity wires above, called an evening song to the wind.

‘Mosquito?’ Dan asked, finally, the humour in his voice hard to hide.

She stole a quick glance at him, all she could bear to do. ‘I was always buzzing around him when I was a kid, desperate for the attention of my big brother. He, of course, wanted nothing to do with me.’

‘And he still gets away with it, all these years later?’

‘Yeah, well.’ Lizzie shrugged. ‘Nicknames seem to stick in my family.’

Just saying the word
family
took her to the precipice of panic all over again. The adrenalin rush was still buzzing through her veins and she felt hyper-aware of everything and half-sick with it. The rush of cool breeze on her hair. The still warm sun making her squint in its glare. The goosebumps still prickled on her bare arms. The taste of salt on her lips.

And Dan. The sexy smell of salt on his skin.

And then she couldn’t hold it in any longer, needed to get it out, to dissect it, to understand it. ‘What if she’d knocked her head? What if I hadn’t come home when I did?’ Lizzie’s throat clenched and her bottom lip quivered. She turned to look at Dan, wanting answers from somebody, anybody.

‘You’ve had a big scare,’ he said, and reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

It was enough contact for her to feel the jolt of heat from him, and when she watched his eyes taking a slow tour of her lips, her neck, her breasts and the exposed skin on her stomach, a tremble of awareness rocked her.

‘Yeah. What a day.’ She propped her hands at her bare waist, just above the rolled down wetsuit, and tried to breathe. Poor Harri. She covered her eyes with her hands and her shoulders shook.

‘Elizabeth?’ And then he was right there, reaching to her, his hands on hers, the tips of his fingers singeing her bare skin. ‘She’s exactly where she should be. In the best hands. She’ll get the best medical care where she’s going and believe me, I know what I’m talking about on that score.’

His words skimmed over Lizzie. ‘I should have come home earlier. She was right here, lying in the sun in agony, when I was having the time of my life…’ She shuddered, pulled her hands from his, wrapped her arms around herself. ‘…when I should have been here. Did you see how sunburnt she was? I should have gone with her to hospital.’

Dan was still looking into her eyes, too closely. ‘Joe is with her.’

‘But I’m not. She’s my neighbour and the closest thing to a mother I’ve got. And I let Stinkface go with her. What sort of a person am I?’

Before she realised what was happening, Dan was kissing her. His hands had found their natural place on the bare skin of her back, moving, caressing her where the string of her bikini formed a line. His kiss was passionate, insistent and his warm lips lingered on her mouth, longer than a peck, but not long enough to deepen it, which was still the right amount for Lizzie to feel knocked off her feet.

When he slowly pulled back, his eyes were dark and serious, his breathing heavy on her cheek.

‘What was that for?’ she gasped.

‘I thought that might snap you out of it.’ He pulled her into his arms and wrapped his big body around her. It had been so long since she’d leaned on someone, had someone to lean on, that she almost surrendered. The temptation to lose herself in him at that moment, to forget about her failures, to just be honest about what she felt for him, was powerful and potent. Dan’s fingers teased through her hair, so soothing she wanted to sink into him and never let go.

‘You. Are. Driving. Me. Bat-shit. Crazy. You know that?’ he whispered.

‘I don’t understand why
I’m
driving
you
crazy.’ She snuggled into his chest, her breasts crushed up against him, her arms around his waist, holding on with everything she had.

‘Elizabeth, I want you to listen to me.’ His voice was rough and deep. ‘I know you love Middle Point and the people in it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and I get it.’ His tone wavered between irritated and sympathetic and Lizzie wondered which one he’d finally go with.

‘But you’re not on guardian angel duty here 24/7, okay?’

Guardian angel?
Is that who he thought she was trying to be? Someone who thought she could run around and make people’s lives better, make them better? Hadn’t the events of that day, what had just happened with Harri, proved that she could never be? When she stiffened, he didn’t let her go, but held on tighter, his hands moving sensual circles on her bare back, still gritty with sand.

‘You’re wrong, Dan, I—’

‘Elizabeth,’ he said, and just held her. ‘Things will happen to people that you can’t do anything about. They will have their hearts broken. They will run away to Melbourne and Sydney. They will trip on a hose, or get cheated on or…’

Lizzie heard the catch in his voice, the hesitation, and held her breath.

‘Or even get in a car wreck. And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it. That’s life in the world on an ordinary day. Welcome to it.’

‘It’s too hard,’ she said softly into his chest, feeling fragile and overwhelmed. ‘It’s too hard when things happen to the people you love.’

He understood it. Better than she knew. He felt it, right there, at that moment. He got it.

When he felt her strength start to drain away, her body almost limp in his arms, he shared his own with her, held her up, pressed his lips to the silky hair on top of her head, hoping his wildly beating heart would help hers regain its rhythm.

‘You take on their pain too, don’t you? And then it feels like it hurts you more because there’s nothing you can do to help them.’

He felt her nod, and he pulled back from her slightly. He had to see her eyes. Had to judge what was in them.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you told me, months ago, down on the beach that night. You said that shit happens because it happens. That life’s too short to drive yourself crazy asking why.’

She let out a deep breath, shuddered with it. ‘I’m clearly full of crap, aren’t I?’

‘No, you’re not. It helped me, you know that?’