Page 77 of Prognosis Bad Timing

Charlie smiled. Nice to know he was in one of the Douglas women’s good books. ‘Is Carrie in?’

‘’Fraid not. She and Dana are spending a few days at her mum’s place.’

‘Oh, right. Okay. If you hear from her, tell her I called.’

Charlie replaced the phone in the cradle. Damn it! What now? He had to see her. It had been two days and he was going mad without her. He sat at his desk and navigated to the online white pages, imputing Douglas and the suburb Carrie had mentioned last weekend where her parents lived.

He found four. Hopefully one of them belonged to Carrie’s parents.

Grabbing his stuff, he marched the kids playing pool and hanging out, off the premises, ignoring their protests. It was only an hour before its official closing time but he never shut the clinic early.

Guess there was a first time for everything.

He was on a mission. He would find Carrie. He just hoped to hell her parents didn’t have an unlisted number.

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Carrie was grateful, as she sat beside her mother, that her father had volunteered to bath Dana tonight. Her heart had been so heavy the last few days that any help getting through the day was appreciated. Coming to her parents had been a good idea. It was a distraction for Dana, whose incessant chatter about Charlie was heartbreaking.

And a distraction for her, too.

Someone to talk with to take her mind off being in love with someone who didn’t love her back.

Her mother put her arm around Carrie’s shoulders and the brave demeanour Carrie had been putting on since she’d arrived cracked into a thousand pieces. ‘Why, Mum? Why? I should never have got involved.’

‘Oh, darling.’ Meryl Douglas stroked her daughter’s fringe. ‘We don’t get to choose who we fall in love with.’

‘Dana’s going to hate me,’ Carrie wailed, dissolving into tears. ‘She adores him.’

Carrie despised herself for this weakness. After Rupert she’d vowed she’d never cry over another man and here she was, five years older but obviously not any wiser.

Damn Charlie. Damn him to hell.

It wasn’t fair to worm his way into her life, wake her from her sleep, show her a better existence and then deny her the right to claim it.

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Charlie pulled up atthe fourth residence not at all confident that he’d have any luck here, either. The house was a typical Brisbane champher-board, high-set house. It was plain, nondescript, the paint a little worn in places. But it was neat, the grass clipped short, garden beds decorating the fence borders.

An ancient-looking, floppy-eared Irish setter adorning the bottom, step hobbled towards him as he pushed open the gate. It sniffed the hand that Charlie offered and licked it.

‘Hello, there, boy,’ Charlie crooned, scratching the sweet spot behind the dog’s ear. ‘Is Carrie here?’

The dog looked at him myopically and Charlie chuckled.

Then he took a deep breath, climbed the steps two at a time and knocked on the door. His blood pounded through his ears as footsteps drew close.

The door opened. ‘Charlie!’

Charlie looked down to see Dana’s adorable face staring up at him. She’d obviously not long had a bath as her hair was damp and she was in her tie-dye pyjamas. She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his leg and he felt his heart would burst it burgeoned with so much love for this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub.

He reached down and picked her up, settling her on his hip as she said, ‘I missed you, Charlie.’

‘I missed you, too, Sleeping Beauty.’

‘Dana?’

A woman who must have been Carrie’s mother approached. They had the same hair and the same whiskey-coloured eyes.

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