Red Sand Sunrise Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Fiona McArthur has worked as a rural midwife for twenty-five years. She is a clinical midwifery educator and teaches emergency obstetric strategies while working with midwives and doctors from remote and isolated areas.

  Fiona has written more than thirty romances, which have sold over two million copies in twelve languages. She has been a RWA Romantic Book of the Year finalist and American Cataromance Readers Choice finalist. She is a midwifery expert for Mother and Baby magazine and the author of the non-fiction work, The Don’t Panic Guide To Birth.

  She has finally had her first parachute experience, sold her motorbike – which pleased her ex-paramedic husband –and booked her next research trip. She lives in northern New South Wales.

  fionamcarthurauthor.com

  To my husband, Ian, my family, and my writing family too.

  PROLOGUE

  Eve

  Sunrise promised a new day, and Eve Wilson hoped it would ease the weight of impossible grief in her shoulders as she followed her feet to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. This was her sanctuary. Among the trees and the wildlife and surrounded by the flowing waters of the Brisbane River. Here she could let some of the anguish wash away with the tide, and find peace when things went bad.

  At moments like this she wished she had her family to lean on. As if aware of her need, the iridescent green coolness soothed her as she backed up against the knobbly bark of the nearest trunk and allowed her tears to well and sting and drip in time with the nearby fountain.

  Just yesterday, in the ward, vibrant and excited, Roslyn had spoken to Eve of her plans. Family dreams mulled over while Eve checked Roslyn’s observations, gave her medications, and encouraged her away from boredom. They spoke about how the blood clot in her groin had made her leave her job earlier than planned. How Jason worried they wouldn’t be able to buy the expensive pram they wanted. Little anxieties, tiny concerns, none of which registered in the scheme of tragedy now that Roslyn was irrevocably gone.

  Words from the midwifery textbook rang in Eve’s head: ‘If the mother’s heartbeat cannot be restarted within four minutes of cardiac arrest dramatic action must occur to save the woman.’

  Well, an emergency caesarean section on the ward had been dramatic, complete with curtains between patients and blood on the floor, but it hadn’t saved the mother. Incredibly it had saved the baby, yet as Eve had walked away from the scene she knew the image of the heartbroken father would be imprinted on her mind forever.

  Why? Why did tragedies have to happen? What good could possibly come of this ghastly event? She just wanted to go home and sleep for a week, but tomorrow she would have to forget today’s shift in high dependency and front up to the birthing centre, go back to being holistic.

  Trust in the body. Trust in the women. Trust in herself.

  The irony was that work was the place she most trusted herself. To her late mother and high-achieving sister she’d always been ‘Poor Eve’, the one who couldn’t get her life in order. No matter that she had her friends, her flat, her love of music and nature – heaven forbid she call that happy. She just wasn’t successful enough, high-flying enough, in their eyes. And now she was almost thirty.

  She patted the gnarled tree at her back with open hands like she would tap the bottom of an unsettled baby. Obviously none of that mattered when you compared it to this, she thought as she lightly knocked the back of her head once against the hard trunk.

  Could she have done anything differently? If there was a next time, would she be able to help save the mother? How?

  If only there was something she could learn from this.

  Callie

  More than 800 kilometres away, sitting in her smart office in Sydney’s Double Bay, Dr Callie Piper glanced from her computer screen to her patient.

  ‘The test came back positive. Congratulations! You’re pregnant.’ Callie smiled at the ecstatic woman and subdued the tiny ache inside her own chest. This was great news for the couple after their traumatic miscarriage last year.

  The young husband patted his wife’s hand as if he didn’t know what to do first. ‘Thank you so much.’

  All Callie had done was read out a result. ‘You two are the clever ones. I’m very happy for you.’

  He leaned towards Callie. A new, serious responsibility rested on his youthful shoulders. ‘We’ve talked about what we’d do if the test was positive. We’d like to come to you for our antenatal care instead of an obstetrician.’

  Crikey, no. What if something went wrong? Like it had for her. ‘I’m so sorry. I leave babies to the specialists who deal with them all the time. But I’ll give you a referral to an obstetrician. Or there is the hospital if you want to go through the midwifery clinic. They have visiting specialists every week if anything crops up.’

  The new mother-to-be chewed her lip, and Callie stifled the guilt. She used to do antenatal clinics, years ago.

  ‘Can’t we just come back here?’

  Callie printed out the referral and smiled apologetically as she handed it over. ‘You can still come for anything that’s not pregnancy related. Make sure you all come visit me as soon as you’re settled at home after the birth. I can’t wait to meet your baby.’ And she did look forward to that. She couldn’t meet enough healthy, bouncing babies.

  The father understood. Saw her concern, probably. ‘We will.’

  Callie stood, and felt propelled around the desk to give her young patient a brief hug, though it wasn’t her usual practice. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’

  As the couple walked out, hands clasped, whispering to each other, Callie waved with a smile on her face – until she saw her husband, a dark shadow of impatience, moving aside to let them past as they made their way to reception.

  ‘Did you want me, Kurt?’

  ‘Why else would I be here?’ Kurt said, striding towards her office.

  Callie felt her stomach drop. She hated it when Kurt had that look on his face. The whole ambience of the room changed with the downward turn of his mouth, like someone had just blown a cold wind right through her body. It hadn’t used to be like this, had it?

  ‘Of course. Come in.’

  Five minutes later, in some deep part of her brain she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t invited him in. The sounds of the busy street outside faded as Kurt’s words stabbed Callie like tiny knives.

  ‘She’s what?’ Callie turned to her husband of almost fifteen years and stared at his patrician profile. He tapped the sole of his Italian leather shoe on the marble tiles. Tap,
tap, tap. Then repeated his bombshell.

  ‘Pregnant. You know Stella. From next door. I’m sorry, Callie, but I want a divorce.’

  Kurt seemed exasperated at her lack of understanding, but then, lately Kurt was often exasperated, at the very least. Because he didn’t enjoy the guilt of adultery, some detached part of her soul whispered.

  He was quite aptly named, really. Kurt. Frequently curt. And it rhymed with hurt.

  Callie felt bile rise in her throat and she glanced helplessly at the door through which her last patient had passed not five minutes earlier. Callie was the patient now. Her symptoms – and apparently the diagnosis – were irrevocable because it seemed her marriage had just miscarried.

  Suddenly she became that plain, bespectacled girl from outback Queensland again. The one with the publican father who’d had the affair. The nerd who’d left the remote township of Red Sand behind to study medicine, and never felt like she belonged at university even though she’d graduated with honours.

  Callie looked back at her husband. Kurt had been the one to suggest firmly that they settle in an exclusive part of Sydney, when she would have so much preferred a country setting. Maybe she should have fought for somewhere halfway. Somewhere away from other women?

  ‘Stella? Pregnant?’ She shook her head. This wasn’t happening. This had not been factored into her settled life, her ticking of boxes that should have added up to an untroubled marriage. She thought she’d done everything possible so this wouldn’t happen to her, as it had to her mother.

  Her eyes were drawn with horrible fascination to the shared wall between her office and the coffee shop next door. Stella could be a few metres away, brewing a latte. Pregnant with the child Callie had always wanted.

  Was it because Callie had had a Down syndrome daughter who had died at birth? Kurt never spoke of it and had made it clear he didn’t wish Callie to either. She blinked and looked away from the wall, wondering bitterly if Stella felt in any way bad that Dr Callie Piper’s world had just imploded.

  There was a knock, then the door from the waiting room opened and her practice manager’s head appeared. Callie focused on her like a lifeline. ‘Yes, June?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, but your mother’s on the phone. She says it’s an emergency.’

  ‘Can’t she ring back?’ Kurt’s dismissive arrogance made Callie frown.

  He really was a prick. She blinked again. She never normally used bad language. Even mentally. As she lifted the receiver Callie nodded at her apologetic secretary to hang up so the call could come through.

  Before she could say, ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ her mother’s distraught words dealt an even worse blow.

  ‘Oh, Callie, I’m so sorry to be calling like this.’

  Callie thought she heard a supressed sob and her belly coiled in sudden dread.

  ‘It’s your dad. He’s had a heart attack, my darling. And I’m afraid . . . your father’s dead.’

  Callie closed her eyes and felt the howl rising in her throat like a wave. No. It couldn’t be true. Who could have known there was greater agony to suffer? But her mother needed her. She fought through a blanket of pain and focused on the receiver in her hand.

  ‘Hold on, Mum. I’m coming.’

  Sienna

  In an operating theatre at the Greater Melbourne Research Hospital, 800 kilometres further south again, Sienna Wilson tied the end of the continuous suture and lifted the knot so her assistant could trim the extra material. She checked the closed wound before she stepped back and waved for the scrub nurse to wipe down the suture line and apply the dressing across the abdomen.

  Stretching her shoulders, Sienna drew off her double-layered sterile gloves and smiled at the radiant mother and her newborn. Breech birth lower-segment caesarean section successfully navigated. She doubted she’d ever have a child, but if she did it would definitely be the caesarean way. Calm, ordered, swift and sure. Not sweating and panting while her body took control. Like those births her sister, Eve, laboured through with her patients. Poor Eve. Sienna couldn’t imagine how exhausting that must be.

  Now where had that come from?

  That phone call last night – that’s where. Sienna remembered where she was and nodded at the proud father. ‘Congratulations. Everything went very well.’

  She’d made sure it had.

  The father shook her hand and she thanked the staff, surveyed her patients one last time, and then pushed open the theatre door while those left behind sorted the recovery.

  Sienna glanced at the clock. 9.15 a.m. This time the next day the funeral would start. She wondered if poor Eve would arrive in time. She rarely did. Sienna hoped that one day her sister would wake up and get her life in order. It wasn’t that hard to do if you were single-minded.

  No way would she travel to a place like Red Sand just for a funeral, even if Eve was going. Eve had told her that Red Sand was so outback that despite being in Queensland it was an almost equal distance from Melbourne and Sydney

  But the distance didn’t matter because Sienna wouldn’t be celebrating the life of a man who had walked away from his daughters without a backwards glance.

  She had a memory flash – ‘Happy birthday’ in his scrawled handwriting – but she evicted the thought. Their family was well rid of the country bumpkin. Her mother had said that time and again, and Sienna believed her.

  She just hoped the other woman’s family were kind to poor Eve, who was such a softie. And a little bit eccentric. Sienna shuddered to imagine what she’d wear to the funeral, or if she’d even think about it before she jumped in the car. Her sister’s rose-coloured view of the world frustrated the life out of Sienna. Well, maybe this trip would fix that.

  She refused to feel guilty. She had her own life, her own plan, and she was almost there.

  She deserved to be the youngest director of obstetrics in Australia, and the position was so close she could taste it. Only Wallace Waters stood in her way. She’d begun to wonder if the delay was because she was sleeping with his son. She didn’t want to marry Mark, for goodness sake, and Mark was just as happy to keep it casual. But she had the feeling Wallace was waiting for grandchildren and a pregnancy would put paid to Sienna’s promotion in a flash. Well, not this little black duck.

  Sienna strode through the automatic doors to the doctors’ car park and sought the flash of her red sports car in the sunlight. She was happy on her own. Happy with her career. If being with Mark was holding up her promotion then he’d have to go.

  ONE

  Red Sand township sat pretty well slap-bang in the middle of Australia. It was outback with a capital O. Hot enough to heat your coffee in the summer and dry enough to make you wish you’d brought your own water to make it with. A little wild on a Friday night, a little quiet through the week, Red Sand was a small, dependable, hardworking hub in the Channel Country of western Queensland.

  I should have stayed here, Callie thought. She would have had more time with her dad and less with Kurt.

  She swallowed the jagged lump in her throat and watched the coffin being adjusted until it was resting on the planks they would soon remove.

  Callie stared at the hovering wooden box as she waited with her mother for the rest of the congregation to arrive, for the minister to start. Dad had never liked religion – or not since he’d committed one of the cardinal sins, anyway.

  People were still drifting in from the car park and across from the dirt airstrip as she watched the sun flicker through the top of the nearest gum tree. A pink and white cockatoo landed with a crackle of foliage and a brown-green gumleaf floated towards the assembly. Callie’s throat closed over and she imagined herself somewhere else – maybe on a high ridge?

  She remembered a relaxation mantra she’d heard once that talked about worries turning into leaves, leaves that rested on her shoulders. A breeze would come up behind her and blow those leaves and all her cares into the wind to be neutralised. She imagined that floating leaf falling on her shoulder and
then blowing away over the endless brown plains.

  It didn’t help.

  Sylvia Wilson shuddered beside her and Callie lifted her arm and hugged her mother close. Her mother seemed thinner than she remembered, and Callie tightened her embrace.

  She had no idea how either of them would survive this. Of course they would, but at this moment the darkness was overwhelming and it wasn’t surprising she could barely think of Kurt or how she could possibly salvage her marriage. Or even whether she wanted to.

  Deja vu. Her mother had survived when her husband thought the pasture greener away from the ochre hills and flat expanses of Red Sand. But four years later he’d come back.

  Mum had even encouraged Dad to send birthday and Christmas gifts to the two daughters he’d left behind when he returned, so Callie knew about the half-sisters she’d never met.

  Remarried to her childhood sweetheart, Sylvia had refused to let anyone ridicule his weakness. In return, Callie’s dad had spent the rest of his life making it up to her mother, to her, and to the town that had grudgingly forgiven him for following a passing political journalist to Brisbane.

  Growing up, Callie had absorbed all this like the red sand soaking up longed-for rain. She’d shied away from her own light-hearted childhood sweetheart, who had wanted to marry young like her parents had. She’d believed a jealous friend who told her that young love would never last, and run to the city. Chosen the steady and cool-headed man from medical school who planned their life together with perfect logic and precision.

  Kurt had been so different to her dad and to the farmer’s son, Bennet, that she’d believed herself . . . safer? Now look where that had ended.

  The cockatoo let out a shrill cry and soared off in search of mates. Callie savoured the familiarity of the sound and mentally returned to the sun-baked surrounds of the graveside.

  When she’d arrived in Red Sand two days before, her mother reminded her of their obligation to those never-seen sisters, and Callie had phoned them both. One was even coming for the funeral. Eve Wilson. So strange that her half-sister had her father’s surname name and Callie didn’t. She glanced around again. Eve couldn’t be here yet; Callie recognised everyone else.