What Rosie Found Next (23 page)

Owen dumped his gear and yellows at the fire station. He phoned Rosie’s mobile but no answer. He phoned Tom, but Tom hadn’t heard from her. He jumped onto the Ducati and made the short journey back to the house, blackness framing the road instead of the lush green beauty of the bush. Smoke hung in the air and clung to every part of him.

When Owen neared the turn-off for Lakeside Lane, that was when he saw it. The Hubba.

He almost lost control of the Ducati in his efforts to stop. Running towards the Hubba he called out her name. He could see Rosie, her hair unmistakable, the air bag deployed in front of her. He pulled at the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. He looked around and found the biggest rock he could at the side of the road and smashed the passenger window. Pulling his leather jacket over his hand he pushed away the glass and reached through to open it from the inside.

‘Rosie, Rosie … can you hear me?’

She couldn’t.

He leant close to her and felt her breath on his face. ‘Oh, Rosie. Please be okay, please.’ He daren’t move her.

George mewed from the backseat, still intact in his carrier. ‘She’ll be okay, George, you’ll see.’

She was breathing, but he didn’t know how bad this was. Her internal injuries could be massive. Blood was trickling down the side of her face, coagulating in her hair. He called the ambulance and held her hand as they waited. He’d never forgive himself for not being there for her. Never.

In the ambulance Rosie slipped in and out of consciousness. Owen coughed and spluttered for most of the journey from the smoke inhalation and the panic he’d felt. Rosie wrapped her fingers around his when he touched her hand, she said his name. But then she also said Adam’s. She was confused, out of it, and he was desperate to talk to her.

He leaned closer when she tried to speak again. ‘Don’t talk, not now,’ he said.

She tried again and he made out the words ‘came back’.

Came back where?

At the hospital the doctors insisted they examine him, but he’d refused to let them until he knew the situation with Rosie. She was stable, they told him, and he’d relented. And when they were giving him the once over, he realised what Rosie had meant in the ambulance. ‘Came back’, she’d said. She must’ve left Magnolia Creek and come back. Had she come back for him?

He looked at her, sleeping now right there in front of him. He desperately wanted her to wake up. He wanted to tell her how he felt, find out if he’d imagined the feelings were reciprocated.

He stroked her copper hair now, dishevelled against the pillow, spattered and tangled with dried blood, as she lay in the middle of the room on a bed that made her look tiny. Her eyelashes caressed the tops of her cheekbones as she slept. She had bruising down one side of her face, white strips of plaster held bloody skin together and she had an oxygen cannula inserted. A needle protruded from her hand with a drip attached, and a funny white clip sat on the tip of her finger. She’d sustained a head injury when her head had smacked against her window, but she’d been lucky. Apart from severe concussion and a hell of a lot of bruising, numerous x-rays confirmed she was in one piece.

He only looked away from her face when the door to her room opened. In walked a woman cradling an enormous bouquet of camellias, roses and lilies.

The woman rushed to Rosie’s side immediately. Owen dropped Rosie’s hand, took the bouquet and laid it on the chair by the door.

‘Who are you?’ The woman asked.

‘I’m Owen. Rosie was house-sitting for my parents in Magnolia Creek.’

‘Right.’ She didn’t take her eyes away from Rosie. ‘I’m Sasha, Rosie’s mum.’

He’d figured, given the remarkable likeness in skin and hair colouring. ‘She’s going to be fine,’ he assured Sasha. He covered his mouth when he coughed.

‘That’s a nasty cough you’ve got there.’ Sasha turned to him now, keeping a hold of her daughter’s hand. ‘Were you with Rosie?’

‘No. I’m a firefighter.’ He coughed again and this time Sasha stood and poured him a glass of water from the jug beside the bed. ‘I found her in the car,’ he explained.

Owen remembered what Rosie had said about her mum never coping with being married to a fireman. He wasn’t sure how this woman was going to react to him.

‘Then you’re a hero,’ she told him, patting his upper arm. ‘And I need to thank you.’ Tears welled at the corners of her eyes, but she turned back to Rosie before they could escape. ‘I must call Adam,’ said Sasha. ‘I couldn’t get an answer when I tried earlier, and he’ll want to be here with her.’

Of course.

‘I’d better go outside to call.’ She seemed reluctant to leave Rosie’s side.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay with her.’

‘Would you?’ She pulled her phone out of her bag. ‘I won’t be long.’

He sat beside the bed gently stroking the back of Rosie’s hand. He willed her to wake up. He wanted to be the first person she saw so she’d know he would be there for her. He’d never wanted to settle down, but spending time with Rosie made him want a change of pace. Somehow being with her just felt right.

‘He’s on his way.’ Sasha smiled when she came back into the room. ‘His flight was cancelled, so he was in a hotel at the airport waiting for another one.’

‘That’s good.’ Not for him though.

‘Adam’s good for her, Owen.’

Oh God, had he made his own feelings that obvious?

‘He’s steady, stable,’ Sasha went on. ‘He’s someone she’ll be able to rely on.’

Yes, but did she really love him the way she should love someone? Or was she playing it too safe?

Owen noticed Rosie’s eyelashes flutter and her eyes opened a fraction before shutting again. She shifted in the bed.

‘Rosie, it’s Mum. I’m here, darling. You’re going to be fine.’

He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

‘Adam’s on his way. He’ll be here for you soon.’ Sasha looked over at Owen and he hated to admit it, but he was intimidated. Was he really about to ruin what Rosie had fought for her entire life? Was he about to take away any part of her happiness?

He stepped towards the bed but her eyes stayed shut. Sasha stroked her daughter’s head.

‘Adam …’ Rosie spoke but she was still disorientated.

‘He’s on his way,’ said Sasha.

‘Mum?’

‘It’s me, yes.’

‘I need to …’ Rosie coughed and Owen backed away towards the door. He needed some air, a few minutes to compose himself.

He hovered in the doorway for a minute and heard Rosie ask for Adam again. ‘I need to see him,’ she said.

And with that he gently shut the door behind him.

Rosie deserved the world, and he’d done his best to make her see she shouldn’t settle for anything less than wonderful. But she’d got everything she’d always wanted – the guy, the home, the security – and hadn’t been able to imagine life any other way. He had to walk away now.

Owen took a taxi back to Magnolia Creek and picked up the Ducati from where he’d left it, near the trees Rosie had crashed side-on into. He’d called Bella, who had come and taken the cat before the ambulance arrived, and the Hubba had been taken away, the roads quiet in the aftermath of the fires.

Bella must’ve let his parents know about the fire because there was a message on the answer machine when he got home. They were taking an earlier flight and would be home within thirty-six hours. Owen took the stairs to his room as the sun set at the close of another day. He paused at Rosie’s bedroom, many of her things still as they’d been before.

In the shower it took two big dollops of shampoo to finally lather the smell out of his hair and what felt like a gallon of soap to clean his body. He stood under the jets until the hot water began to run cold, and when his head hit the pillow that night, he knew it was time to let Rosie go. And it was time for him to move on.

Rosie closed the book she was reading when her mum poked her head around the door to the spare room at her house in Geelong.

‘Cup of tea?’ Her mum handed her a polka-dot mug.

‘Thanks. What time is it?’

‘Nine thirty.’

‘I’m improving.’ Rosie smiled. The wounds on the side of her face had long gone and the bruising had faded, and she hoped in time she’d feel completely back to normal.

She’d thought of Owen a lot since the fires and the accident a month ago. The biggest surprise of all had been finding him and learning through him that she must allow herself to be truly happy.

‘You’re almost back to your normal self.’ Her mum handed her a plate with three cookies on it. ‘I made oatmeal and raisin cookies.’

Rosie grinned. ‘You’ve only got a couple of hours left to fuss over me before the next house-sit, so I’ll humour you.’ Rosie’s name was still on the house-sitting register and they’d contacted her a few days ago to say there was a month-long house-sit in Magnolia Creek that they couldn’t interest anybody with. Rosie presumed it was too far from the city for most people. When she’d called Magnolia House to see if her part-time position had been filled and they’d said ‘of course not’, all the pieces had fitted together perfectly. This was a fresh start for her, and for once, she didn’t mind the thought of not having mapped out plans beyond the next few weeks. And when the agency had given her the address of the house as the cottage in Daisy Lane, she knew it was meant to be.

‘Have you heard from Adam lately?’ her mum asked her now.

Rosie shook her head. ‘We’re still friends, but I think it’s best we’re not in contact for a while.’

‘I guess you both need to move on.’

Adam had come straight to the hospital, and as soon as she was up to a lengthy conversation, Rosie had talked to him. She’d finally told him exactly the way she felt. She told him how she’d longed to feel settled, to feel safe, ever since her mum left when she was little. She told him how she’d thought their relationship was everything she’d ever wanted or needed, but that it wasn’t fair to him anymore. Adam had nodded, said he understood. The sadness in his eyes had said otherwise and Rosie had hated hurting him, but he didn’t deserve someone who didn’t love him properly. Years ago she’d fallen into his arms thinking he could make her life complete, and he had for a while. But it was time now, time to go their separate ways and time for her to take a risk on the unknown.

‘Everything okay?’ Rosie asked as her mum fidgeted as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t.

‘I haven’t told you everything.’

‘About what?’ Rosie put the plate of cookies down beside her bed.

‘About Owen.’

‘Owen?’

‘He was the one who found you, after the accident.’

‘I know. I talked to him in the ambulance.’ Confused she asked, ‘Is there something else?’

‘He was holding your hand when I arrived.’

Rosie looked down at the cookies.

‘I have to ask, Rosie. Was there something between you two? Is that why you finished with Adam?’

Since the split with Adam and the recuperation from her accident, Rosie and her mum had grown closer. They’d talked a lot about Adam and why she’d stayed with him for so long, and it had helped Rosie to know she’d definitely made the right decision. But she hadn’t shared much about Owen. He’d come up in conversation as Rosie talked about the house-sit and Magnolia Creek, but perhaps she hadn’t been as great at disguising her feelings as she’d thought.

‘Meeting Owen helped me see that I was with Adam for all the wrong reasons,’ Rosie explained. ‘Owen’s moved on now, but I’m not sorry I ended things with Adam.’

She looked over at her house-sitting boxes, still filled with her belongings from Magnolia Creek. Her mum had contacted Jane Harrison and driven up there to get all her things when Rosie was first out of hospital. When her mum returned to Geelong, she’d filled Rosie in on the fire damage to Finnegan’s café and the narrow escape for many businesses and all the residents of the town. Rosie had longed for news of Owen, but all she knew was that he’d headed over to the UK to take the property market by storm. It was probably for the best too. It would give Rosie time to get her head together and maybe, when he came back, she’d be able to tell him how she really felt.

With the car packed, Rosie drove the same roads she’d taken three months ago. She drove along sedately – it would take time to relax behind the wheel again – but as the trees formed a canopy overhead and her hired Volkswagen Beetle wound its way through Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges, she began to relax. She thought about the Harrisons as she drove. They were a nice family, and though they had plenty to deal with, she’d like to see them after she settled in again. It was a small town so they were bound to run into one another, and Rosie wanted a chance to clear the air after finding herself unwittingly involved in keeping the family secret.

She followed the road’s twists and turns, the roof down and the wind toying with her hair as the sun dared to peek through the trees in intervals. She was looking forward to catching up with Bella, who was staying with Rodney in one of the cottages at Magnolia House while the café was gutted and rebuilt. They’d spoken on the phone a few days after Rosie came out of hospital and Rosie had told her all about Adam too. She’d bake some scones today or tomorrow and take them to Bella, it was the least she could do.

She drove through Fernybrooke, following the bend round to the right, past the yellow triangle warning sign with the chunky, black wombat silhouette she remembered from the last time she’d driven this way. And when the sign reading ‘Welcome to Magnolia Creek’ in fancy, loopy letters came into view, she couldn’t stop smiling.

Her grin faded when she saw the blackened edges of bush where there had once been nothing but green, and she realised how close she’d come to not being here at all. She passed another wooden sign announcing a new chocolate shop that’d be opening up in late autumn and promised original handmade chocolates, ice-creams of all flavours and a café to relax in and enjoy views of the surrounding Aussie bushland. And as the sun rose into the sky and she pulled up outside the cottage, the smile was back. The property looked better than she could’ve ever imagined. Whoever had bought it had done an admirable job. Her heart sagged a little that it wasn’t hers, but then again, she knew herself better than ever now, and it wouldn’t be long before she could save a deposit, secure a full-time job and find the perfect home, exactly where she wanted it to be.

Rosie hauled her bags out of the boot and walked up the short path to the front veranda, passing through the little white gate in the middle of the white picket fence she’d imagined putting in at the cottage. Hidden on the veranda, behind a terracotta pot filled with cream roses, was a key safe. She put in the code she’d been sent via email and took out the key to let herself in to a small hallway with a stream of sunlight coming from the door in the kitchen at the opposite end of the cottage.

Inside was perfect. She followed the short hallway past two rooms, one set up as a formal lounge and the other as a dining room. She passed the bathroom and sighed at the sight of the most beautiful claw foot bath – exactly the sort she’d have chosen had it been her cottage. At the rear of the house was a large open plan oak-fitted kitchen-diner. A vase of dancing pink roses stood tall and proud in the centre of a round wooden table, and at the other end of the room was a spiral staircase with an ornate wrought-iron bannister.

Rosie leaned in to smell the flowers, closing her eyes and letting her mind drift back to long summer nights in the garden at Lakeside Lane.

‘Oh, hello boy.’ She reached out to stroke the cat winding its way down the spiral staircase. The agency had explained this house-sit would involve pet-sitting duties and Rosie had been more than happy to oblige, if only for the company.

‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said. ‘In fact …’ She didn’t say anything else because her heart skipped a beat when she heard footsteps on the staircase.

She looked up at the man dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt, his hand gliding down the bannister.

‘Owen.’

‘Hi, Rosie.’

He held up a key and smiled, and then she understood. ‘This is your house,’ she said.

‘Do you like it?’

She couldn’t speak.

‘It took a bit of sneaking around to do the place up without you knowing I’d bought it. I dumped all my tools here under the cover of night as soon as the sale went through, and every time I came here I hid the bike in case you wandered past.’

George brushed against her legs as Owen moved closer. He looped her hair behind her ears, delicately moving it behind her shoulders, away from her face, so as not to touch the scars.

She gulped. ‘I don’t believe it.’

He stood facing her now.

‘I thought you were overseas,’ she said.

‘I was. But then I spoke to Bella and she told me what had happened between you and Adam. Out of curiosity I looked up the house-sitting agency and there was your profile. I had to take the chance on you and organised this house to be put on the books, requested you as my sitter.’ He held his hands out in a fait accompli gesture.

She felt his breath in her hair, on her face, as his hands rested on the back on her neck, pulling her closer still.

‘So I was your plan all along?’ she asked. ‘I was your latest challenge?’

He shook his head and then met her gaze. ‘I admit I bought the house because of you. I thought of you when I painted the fence, the veranda, sanded the floors inside and installed the ornate fireplace. But I swear, Stevens, I wasn’t trying to win you. If you’d moved in with Adam, been happy, I would’ve respected that, and this place … well I would’ve had to let it go too.’

She looked around her at the freshly painted walls, the gingham curtains hanging at the kitchen window. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me to wake in hospital?’

‘You seemed to have everything you’d ever wanted. And your mum didn’t look too happy about the possibility of me wrecking that.’

‘She’s fine. She just wants what’s best for me.’

‘Of course she does. But I had to walk away.’

‘Owen Harrison, walk away?’

He grinned. ‘I know.’

She took a deep breath, let it out. ‘I thought I was happy before I met you.’

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her gently. ‘I thought I was too.’

He took her hand and led her into the dining room. Next to a second ornate fireplace was a cello, lying on its side. But as she took a step closer she realised it wasn’t just any cello. She swallowed hard and slowly knelt down beside the walnut instrument. Her fingers traced along the worn fingerboard she’d seen her dad touch a thousand times. Her hand brushed the tiny scratches next to the bridge, her eyes followed the curves of the f-holes on either side of the strings. She still had the voucher for the cello lesson Owen had given her for Christmas, and for the first time since, she actually thought she might use it.

Owen’s hand rested on her shoulder. ‘I went to extraordinary lengths to get the thing here without your knowledge. I think your mum might be warming to me.’

‘She was in on this?’ Rosie stood and looked into his eyes.

‘I contacted her a couple of days ago, and yesterday I drove the pickup to Geelong in the early hours of the morning. There wasn’t much time to chat, but I think she realises I’m not going to hurt you or let you down.’

Rosie reached for his hand, but instead of taking it, Owen crouched down and grabbed her lower legs, hoisting her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. He turned and went through to the lounge and started up the spiral staircase.

‘Don’t you dare drop me!’ She couldn’t stop giggling. ‘I’ve spent enough time in hospital.’

‘Relax, I’m a professional. I could do this in my sleep.’

He set her down at the top of the staircase and kissed her again, his mouth warm and exciting in its unfamiliarity. He pulled her in to the house’s second bedroom.

‘What’s this?’ Before her was a bed draped in delicate white linen and in the middle were rose petals arranged in the shape of a heart.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck. ‘Don’t you dare broadcast this at the fire station, it’s not a side of Owen Harrison I want made public.’

In the corner of her eye, Rosie noticed the tartan seat running along the length of the window.

‘I put that in,’ said Owen. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

Rosie held her breath as he trailed kisses across her collar bone, up her neck.

‘And what’s that?’ In the middle of the bed, in the centre of the roses forming the heart, was a letter.

‘It’s the house-sitting contract.’

She pulled away from him. ‘You’re really going to make me sign one of those?’

He unbuttoned her cotton dress and trailed kisses lower still. ‘You bet I am. I’m not letting you get away from me again.’ And he sealed the deal with a kiss that felt as though it would never end.