Christmas Where She Belongs

Although, back when she had set out to walk there, and the search parties had returned her to the hippie commune that had been home, her mother had told her that while her father might have lived there once, it was the last place on earth he’d have gone back to—a place he’d hated.

‘And that’s all you know of it?’ Mac persisted.

Clancy frowned at him.

‘It might have been the town my father came from, but as I never really knew him, and as my mother always said he wouldn’t be seen dead in the place ever again, I doubt you’ve come to tell me he is dead. Although …’ she looked across to where Mike was now being offered bacon and egg at a far table ‘… leaving me a dog would be consistent with his complete lack of presence in my life.’

‘You know nothing of him?’ Mac asked.

‘He went away—that’s all I know. All my mother would ever say. I was two, maybe three—’ She broke off suddenly, shrugged, then added, ‘Actually, having escaped the commune and my mother’s hippie lifestyle as soon as I possibly could, I can’t find it in my heart to blame him.’

Mac turned her words over in his head, but found no bitterness in them. How sad that all she knew of her father was that he’d gone away. How hurtful it must have been for her, growing up with that knowledge.

But he was on a mission and couldn’t afford to be distracted by this woman’s unhappy childhood—if it had been unhappy.

‘The thing is, your father did come from Carnock and, no, he didn’t turn up dead there—in fact, as far as Hester was able to ascertain, he’s still alive—but he is, in her opinion, a total waste of space and you probably didn’t miss much not having him around.’

Clancy didn’t look convinced, but at least she was intrigued enough to ask, ‘And exactly who was Hester?’

‘Hester Clancy was your great-aunt, and an utterly wonderful woman. Every small town has someone like Hester, but Carnock was blessed with the best. Hester was the person young girls went to when they discovered they were pregnant, she was the person battered women eventually talked to, she’d find the money to send the clever kids in town to university when their parents couldn’t afford it, and after the floods she had three families living in her house for nearly a year while their homes were rebuilt.

‘She fought insurance companies and the flood-fund people to get the best deal for all of them, and practically forced tradesmen to work in Carnock when they could all be getting better money in the nearby mines.’

‘Wonder Woman, in fact,’ Clancy muttered, and although there was no meanness in the remark, Mac couldn’t let it slide.

‘Not really. Just caring, and giving, and very, very sensible.’ He paused, then had to add, ‘I imagine you’ve got the same sensible gene. Small apartment close to where you work, waiting until you can afford to buy good furniture rather than spending foolishly on rubbish—’

‘I can buy furniture whenever I like,’ Clancy retorted, the flash of fire in the green eyes suggesting she’d been called sensible before and hated it.

‘I’m sure you can,’ he soothed, but he couldn’t resist smiling, and slowly, reluctantly, she smiled back, her whole face lighting up, the radiance doing something to his lungs so his breath lodged in a lump in his trachea.

‘So, Hester the wonder woman left me a dog?’

Had she, too, felt whatever it was that had zapped between them? After a silence that seemed to stretch for ever, she’d thrown him a question to get the conversation back on track.

‘And the house the dog lives in,’ he told her, glad to be back on track himself.

No smile now, just total bewilderment, although she did recover enough to ask, ‘The house with the three flood families living in it?’

‘No, no, they’ve all moved out,’ he assured her. ‘At the moment I’m your only tenant, although I must admit I don’t pay much rent—none, in fact. Hester took me in after the flood as well, but I’ve stayed on. She wasn’t well, you see, and the house is old and needed a lot of maintenance—’

‘Stop right there!’

Clancy actually held up her hand to halt his explanation, and the waitress bringing the coffee stopped obligingly. By the time they’d sorted that out, and had coffee on the table, Mac had forgotten what he’d been saying, mainly because Clancy had smiled again and although it had been at the waitress, not at him, the smile had still caused problems in his chest.

Now Clancy lifted her coffee cup, pursing her lips to sip from it, and Mac felt a judder in his heart. No way. This wasn’t happening. He didn’t do instant attraction. Both his long-term partnerships had been gradual, cautious involvements—and as both of them had failed, how much more disastrous would a relationship based on nothing more than physical attraction be?

Relationship?

Where was his head?

‘Start again with you, McAlister,’ Clancy was saying. ‘At the door you said you were a lawyer, then you show a hospital ID with “Angel Flight” on it, which I know doesn’t make you a doctor because you could just be a pilot with a plane, but none of this explains why were you sponging off this Hester until she died. Were you hoping to get the house and dog yourself?’

‘Heaven forbid!’ he retorted, pleased the woman’s accusation had cleared his head—if not his chest. ‘The place is falling down. I just didn’t want to leave her on her own. Also, it’s a good house, and has historical value, and it deserves to live. But so much needs doing to it. I could only keep things going, getting a tradesperson in when necessary, although I’ve become a dab hand at changing tap washers and cleaning blocked drains.’

‘That’s not making anything clearer,’ Clancy told him as she battled to make sense of the situation. She didn’t know if it was what he was saying or because of her reaction to him as a man, but for whatever reason every time the man spoke she grew more confused. ‘What are you really? A doctor, a lawyer, a carpenter, odd-job man …?’

The man had the hide to laugh and Mike, apparently hearing the sound, came trotting across, grinning his stupid grin, a little bit of bacon dangling from the beard beneath his chin.

The dog nuzzled his head beneath Mac’s hand and as Mac’s long fingers rubbed the dog’s head Clancy had the weirdest sensation that the fingers were touching her—rubbing her head, and ruffling her hair.

‘A doctor first. The lawyer and odd-job man are part-time jobs, like the farming. It probably won’t surprise you to know that although doctors are desperately needed in country areas across Queensland, the only lawyering the locals need is the odd will or a bit of conveyancing when they buy or sell something.’

‘Farming? Did you sneak farming in there as well?’ Clancy asked. ‘Law and medicine are both long degrees, and then there’s articles for a lawyer and internship for a doctor. So that makes you, what—a hundred and ten years old?’

‘I am thirty-six,’ Mac replied, somewhat stiffly, Clancy felt. ‘And for your information I started studying law, then switched to medicine after four years. After I moved to Carnock I finished my law degree as an external student and did the practical legal training course to get my practicing certificate.’

‘Okay, so you’re the town doctor and the town lawyer and you live in my house, which is falling down. Is that it?’

‘More or less.’ The reply this time was grumpy, to say the least. ‘Although it isn’t your house, it’s Mike’s.’

‘Mike’s?’

The word came out as a yelp, which won an answering yelp from the dog himself, who shifted his allegiance from Mac to her.

Clancy stared at the man who had, in less than an hour, turned her neatly ordered life completely upside down.

‘Can a dog inherit a house? Own a house? Are you sure that’s legal?’

She patted Mike’s head to show she had nothing against him personally, and, apparently liking that, he rested his chin on her leg, liberally smearing her clean white cargo shorts with dog slobber.

‘Life tenancy,’ Mac responded, ‘after which it reverts to you, but—’

Up to this point, the man had been looking at her as he explained things—in fact, he’d been looking at her so intently she’d felt uncomfortable, although that could have been the attraction thing. Now, not only had he left an ominous-sounding ‘but’ dangling at the end of his sentence, but McAlister Whoever was gazing over her left shoulder—towards the road behind them, not looking at her at all …

‘But?’

‘Well …’

The man was hedging.

‘Actually,’ he began again, ‘to get the house, you have to take the dog.’

‘Actually,’ Clancy mimicked, ‘having heard about the house, I doubt very much I’d want it, while as for the dog—’

Unfortunately, perhaps understanding he was the dog in question, Mike looked up at her at that moment … and smiled.

No! No way! You do not disrupt your carefully planned life because a dog smiled at you!