Page 40 of His Own Heaven

Leaves crunched under Charlie’s feet as he marched towards them at the bottom of the garden, and whatever Toby saw in his brother pulled his eyebrows together sharply in a deep frown. “Up you get,” he said, helping her to her feet and unbinding her wrists, the rope falling away just as Charlie reached them.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said, resting his hands on his hips, his breath heaving in and out of him like he’d just run the hundred-metre dash. “We have to go.”

Toby pulled Lucy in front of him, pressed his chest against her back, and rested his chin on her head. She shouldn’t have felt as happy as she did, considering the sombre mood Charlie had brought with him, but the emotion bloomed inside her anyway, filling her up to overflowing as she leaned into her lover and sighed quietly, content.

“What’s up?”

“We have to go. Now,” Charlie said, his gaze darting from Toby to Lucy and back again. His tone was urgent, his voice sharp, panicked. Over the course of the weekend Lucy had interacted with Charlie often and she’d only ever seen him relaxed and jovial. It felt strange to see him this way. He was agitated, almost… angry.

But then she’d seen people behave this way before. When she was a firefighter and attended to people on what was often the worst day of their lives, she’d seen them collapse under the weight of their despair, saw families ripped apart, and watched in awe as others straightened their spines and simply got on with it. Charlie’s change in behaviour told her something had happened. Possibly something life-changing.

“Charlie, what’s wrong?”

His gaze darted to hers again, and she saw his pain. “I’m sorry, beautiful, but Toby and I are needed elsewhere.” His gaze drifted over her head and presumably met his brother’s. “Ollie rang. There’s been an accident.”

His senses suddenly on high alert, Toby tightened his grip on Lucy. “An accident? Where? The Forge?”

Charlie shook his head. “No. Just outside of town.” He shoved his hands through his hair and began to pace, so Toby let go of Lucy and moved to comfort his twin, rested his hands on his shoulders and held him firmly. Made his brother look at him. “It’s Rafe,” he said, the name stuttering out of him before he swallowed hard and added, “And Janie. Someone ran them off the road.”

“No.” Shock, swift and cold, swept through every vein in his body, freezing him from the inside out. His family was in trouble, and what was he doing? He was standing in his garden completely naked with his dick still wet from the best sex he’d ever had. Shame tightened his gut. “The baby?”

“I don’t know. Ollie just said to meet them at Nambour Hospital.”

“Fuck.” Anger chased away his shock, the heat of it melting the ice and forcing his brain to react. But before he could take action, Lucy was shoving a stack of cushions into his arms and the folded-up quilt into Charlie’s.

“Let’s go,” she said, the commanding tone of her voice cutting through the plethora of questions hanging in the air unasked. Unanswered. When neither he nor Charlie moved, Lucy stared at them like they were the crazy ones. “What? You want a written invitation? Move it.” Then she spun on her heel and strode towards the house, breaking into a jog about halfway up the garden path.

Toby stared after her, his mouth hanging open and his anguish momentarily forgotten, then looked at his twin. “What the…?”

Charlie looked as bewildered as Toby felt. “Don’t look at me, little brother. She’s your woman.” Then he did as Lucy had told him to and followed her to the house, Toby close on his heels.

By the time he got inside and dumped the cushions back on the daybed, Lucy was jogging down the stairs with her panties on and a bundle of clothes and shoes in her arms.

She shoved a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at him. “Get dressed, then lock up the house,” she ordered before turning to his brother. “Charlie?” But Charlie just stared at her, his face blank and the quilt still clutched to his chest. Lucy took the quilt and placed it on the dining table. “Do you have everything you need?” she asked, her voice gentler than before.

Charlie blinked. “What?”

“You’ll need your keys, wallet, phone, and a jacket,” she said carefully. “Hospital waiting rooms aren’t exactly the warmest places on Earth. Why don’t you grab what you need while Toby and I get dressed, okay?”

“Yeah. Yes. I can do that.” He disappeared into the conservatory, and Toby heard the door slam at the other end of the space.

“You’re good at that,” he said, fastening his jeans. “Calming him down. Thank you.”

“I guess you never really forget your training. Keeping people calm so they didn’t do something stupid and make the situation worse was a part of the job.”

Toby frowned. “Isn’t that what the cops are for?”

Lucy dragged on her jeans. “Not if the fieries got there first. Mostly people get to safety and stay there, but sometimes people get out of a fire only to turn around and try to go back in. And often it’s because they forgot to grab their waffle iron or their footy trophy from when they were twelve or something equally insignificant that in their panic their brain has told them they just have to have, and the fieries have to stop them.” She dropped her gaze. “And they don’t always succeed.”

The misery in Lucy’s voice had Toby itching to pull her back into his embrace, to comfort her and draw the details out of her and ask if that’s how she got burned, but they didn’t have time. Not now. And that was something he was beginning to regret.

He’d wanted to earn her trust, to ease her into telling him about herself naturally instead of playing twenty questions, so over the course of the weekend, they’d avoided talking about anything deeply personal, preferring instead to stick to favourite foods and books and sexual positions.

Or not talking at all.

In fact, Toby had discovered the silent moments they’d shared had been surprisingly comfortable. And she’d not pushed him for information either, or forced him to participate in meaningless small talk, for which he’d be eternally grateful.

But as a result of that lack of conversation, he knew nothing of her family life and she knew nothing of his, and yet when Charlie had come barging in and intruded on their burgeoning moment of true intimacy, she’d not complained nor interrupted, not even to ask who they were talking about.

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