A Child In Need

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THEY searched for the rest of that day, and then for one of the longest nights Nick had ever known. Every able-bodied person in town and for miles around the district turned out to scour the mountainside, and Nick searched with them.

Shanni was asked to stay at base camp in case he returned, as Wendy couldn’t leave her other charges, but the look on her face told Nick it was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. To stay still and wait…

At least he could search, and Nick searched like a man possessed, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. One tiny crippled boy in rugged national park bushland, some of it so thickly forested that it took machetes and raw strength to hack a man’s way through.

Why had he ever said it? Nick demanded of himself over and over again as he bashed through the bush. Why had he ever told Harry he lived in such a dreadful place?

Shanni must hate him. But she couldn’t hate him for it as much as he hated himself, he thought bleakly. He was hating himself enough for the both of them.

All through that long night, as he joined the line of searchers bashing their way in lines through the forest, Nick was calling himself every type of fool he could think of. Why had he told the child he lived in one of the most inaccessible places in the state?

Because he’d wanted to be inaccessible, he acknowledged, and that need for solitude was now exacting such a cost he couldn’t bear it.

And…for what? A solitude he no longer craved. He was no longer independent, he acknowledged. His very self now depended on the welfare of one small boy.

And one woman.

When he’d turned up at search headquarters-a mobile police caravan set up in a clearing at the base of the mountain-he’d looked at Shanni’s face and he’d seen a terror matching his own reflected in her eyes. For some reason Harry had spun his little self around her heart, becoming as much a part of her as he was part of him. If they couldn’t find him…

Please… Please…

The same pain in Shanni’s eyes was reflected in others… The policemen organising search teams. Team members. All Shanni’s family. The older children from the children’s homes associated with Bay Beach orphanage. Shopkeepers, mill workers, teachers, boy scouts, even the women’s lawn bowls association, for heaven’s sake.

The lady bowlers were making cups of tea as if their lives depended on it and the fitter ladies were donning protective clothing instead of bowling whites and bashing through the bush with the best of them.

Every last person in the district was desperate to help, and Nick’s distress was reflected in their faces. One little boy’s pain, taken on by so many…

‘Any man’s death diminishes me…’

These people knew what it was to care, but that care came at a cost. A cost Nick was prepared to pay, and more. He’d pay anything it took. Harry…

But, in the enforced breaks the search coordinators forced him to take, it was Shanni’s face he kept coming back to. There was raw agony in her eyes and he felt such a twisting knot of helplessness and rage and fear that he didn’t know how to hold it in. How could he face her after such stupidity?

Dear God, how could he bear it? He had to have someone to hold-and he was alone.

Because that was the way he wanted it?

No! At two in the morning his group was called in after the moon went behind clouds, and he felt so sick he wanted to retch. He lifted his hand and smashed it down on a tree stump, and then gazed helplessly at the graze he’d made on his skin.

These people…they knew how to care and he didn’t. He’d told a baby that he lived on Borrowah Mountain…

He closed his eyes in despair-and then opened them at the feel of someone touching him gently on his injured hand. Shanni…

‘Nick?’ It was a tentative whisper and the look he gave her was bleaker than death.

What could he say to her? He’d caused this hurt.

‘You don’t need to speak to me,’ he told her.

‘That’s nonsense. We need each other.’

‘Shanni, how could I have done it?’ he demanded, his voice raw with despair. ‘How could I have done something so criminally stupid? I must have been mad.’

‘You weren’t to know it could ever come to this,’ she said softly, and then, before he could say anything more, she wrapped her arms around him and held him. And held him and held him, as if her life depended on it.

And for one long moment he kept himself ramrod-stiff. It needed only this. He didn’t deserve comfort! That she should try and comfort him when he was so dreadfully at fault…

‘We’ll find him,’ she said softly. ‘I know we will. Nick, he’s here somewhere. You’re not to blame yourself. You’re here now for him, and together…we’ll find him. Please…’

And she held him close, kissing him softly on the hair, holding him like a child and pouring her love into him. She was willing into him a strength that, alone, he could never have.

And when they moved away-inches, but enough-there was a new, steely determination between them that was an affirmation that the whole was far greater than the parts. Together they could face this, feeding each other strength.

‘We can find him,’ Shanni said. ‘We must. Together we must.’

‘He won’t come out.’ Heaven knew what made him see it, but suddenly he knew. This thing that he felt-that Shanni had given him. Trust. Love. Completeness. It gave him knowledge.

Harry was his child as surely now as Shanni was his woman. And Harry trusted Nick.

Things were suddenly blindingly clear. There was no chance of these searchers finding Harry-not if one small boy didn’t want to be found-because Harry was heading for Nick with the same single-minded purpose that Nick would feel if Shanni or Harry was in danger. He was heading for the one person in the world he trusted and he loved.

Wendy had told him new people were coming to see him-people he didn’t know but who wanted to be his parents. So Harry had run, and he’d keep running. He wouldn’t want to be found by anyone but Nick.

All night Harry must have been trying to find Nick, but if he’d come to this point, where the road ended and the wilderness of mountain started, he would have gone nowhere but up.

His leg was so weak-so damaged. He couldn’t climb strongly. In the dark he must have stumbled and fallen over and over. He’d be terrified.

But if he heard people searching-calling, as each group had been-would he answer? No, Nick thought, seeing things with a clarity that he hadn’t seen before. Harry was terrified of more than the dark. People hadn’t treated him with love. They were things to be feared.

But not Nick. Whether he deserved it or not, Harry loved Nick.

The thought made Nick’s heart wrench so hard it must surely break.

‘Let’s try this another way,’ he said strongly, turning to the men who were coordinating the search parties. When the moon had gone behind clouds they’d called in all but the most experienced searchers until dawn. Now Nick looked again at Shanni, seeking confirmation in her eyes, but he knew he was right. ‘At dawn…let me go up. With Shanni. No one else.’

‘You’d be lost in minutes up there, sir,’ a coordinator told him, shaking his head. The head of the emergency services was hard and efficient, and the last thing he wanted was an extended search if the town’s magistrate got himself lost.

Nick thought this through. Of course they were right. He was city born and bred and, no matter how much he wanted it otherwise, he didn’t know the bush.

‘Then stay with us, but behind,’ Nick said. ‘Stay silent and let me call, without anyone else making a noise. It’s my guess he’ll be hiding. I should have thought this through before, but if he’ll come for anyone, he’ll come for me.’

The search coordinator looked at Shanni. He knew her. She was a local. One of them. ‘Is that right, ma’am?’

And Shanni was looking at Nick with eyes that were clear and steady. The terror had receded. Her mind was back in gear.

As Nick had thought-the parts were stronger than the whole. She’d gained strength with their love.

‘If Harry wants to be found by anyone, he wants to be found by Nick,’ she said, her own thoughts crystallising. ‘I think…I think Nick’s right. He’s Harry’s only chance. And, because Nick doesn’t know the bush, he’ll also be able to see the path Harry might take-not looking at the overall picture, like you and me, but at the logical way for a three-year-old. And, please, God, he just might do it.’

So, at dawn, the mass of searchers were held back-‘We’ll give you ’til noon, sir’-and one small group of experienced bushwalkers were equipped to the hilt to accompany them. But they let Nick decide the course.

‘I’m going straight up,’ Nick told them. ‘Bear with me. I’m a dope in the climbing department, but then so’s Harry. So every time there’s a decision I’m going to ask myself what Harry would have done. And I’m going to yell myself hoarse.’

He took Shanni’s hand in his hand and held it. Hard.

‘Ready, my love?’ The endearment slipped out unnoticed, but it was between them, anyway. Acknowledged for ever, whatever this day held. They were no longer two. They were a man and a woman made one, in need and in love.

‘I’m ready,’ she said. She gripped him as if she couldn’t bear to let go, and then she turned back to the searchers who had to stay behind but who were breaking their hearts to help.

‘We’ll bring him back.’

‘Please…’

‘Nick will do it.’ She looked at him, her eyes calm and clear and determined. ‘I know it. He loves Harry.’

And three hours and twenty minutes later, hoarse from calling and over five hundred yards, as the crow flies, straight up the mountain, Nick called for the thousandth time and thought he heard a faint response.

He stopped dead. The tension in Shanni’s hand was tangible-dear God, please…

The group behind them also stopped. They’d heard it, then. It wasn’t just him.

‘Harry!’ Nick’s voice echoed out around the mountainside and he and Shanni moved in the direction he thought the sound had come from. The rest of the group surged behind them, two of the searchers cutting a path but dropping back as soon as it was clear.

‘Harry, it’s Nick. Harry…’ He didn’t let Shanni go-not for a moment. ‘Harry, I’m here. Harry…’

And thirty seconds later they rounded an outcrop and stopped.

Harry was crouched motionless in the midst of a massive prickly grevillea that was three times as big as he was. The bush had been in the way of up. He’d tried to crawl over it, the thorns had stuck from all sides and he’d slipped through and was wedged fast.

‘Harry!’ With a great shout of joy, Nick released Shanni’s hand and clambered up, ignoring thorns, ignoring pain, reaching the tiny, battered and scratched little boy and gathering him to his heart as if he’d never let him go again.

As he never would.

And somehow Shanni reached them, too, and they were sitting in the middle of the dreadful thorns and clinging together-three and yet one-and Shanni was weeping and so was Nick, but they were together and Nick knew this was how it was going to be.

For ever.

‘I thought you lived here.’

The team had got them down from their mound of thorns but were standing back in joyous silence, savouring success and letting them be. Harry was so exhausted he was limp in Nick’s hold, but his arms still somehow clung. His eyes devoured him. ‘I thought you lived up here all by yourself. So I came.’

‘I don’t live here, Harry.’ Nick’s voice was a hoarse whisper-he could still hardly believe he had the child in his arms.

‘Not any more?’

‘No.’ Nick had his face in Harry’s hair, but his eyes, over Harry’s head, were watching Shanni. Watching the love on her face. The tears. The joy.

The destiny.

‘Then, where do you live?’ It was an exhausted whisper, but he was still desperate to know. And Nick knew why he was desperate. It was because Harry didn’t believe in happy endings. He needed to know in case he was torn away again and had to find his Nick.

So this time Nick knew what the answer had to be. The only answer.

‘I live with you,’ he said strongly, hugging him close. ‘From today, Harry. From today, I live with you. And with Shanni, if she’ll have me.’

‘Shanni…’ Harry twisted his face around to see and she was right there, all the love in the world shining from her eyes.

‘Wendy told you you needed a mummy and a daddy-right?’ Nick asked, and he looked at Shanni again and saw her watching Harry-with such a look-and his heart twisted with such love that he didn’t think he could bear it.

‘Mmm.’

‘How would you feel if that was Shanni and me? If we were your mummy and daddy.’

Harry stiffened in Nick’s hold. He pushed his head back and gazed into Nick’s face, searching. This little one had been told lies before.

‘You’d be my daddy?’

Heck, all he wanted was to burst into tears. Instead he made his voice gruff and deep and magistrate-like. Definite.

‘If you want me. That’s what I want. More than anything in the world.’

‘Why?’

There it was. The simple question-with the simple answer.

‘Because I love you,’ Nick said strongly, and his spare arm came out and held Shanni to him as well. She hugged him back-hugged both of them-her eyes glistening with tears and all the love she possessed shining in her face.

‘Because I love you and I love Shanni,’ he said. ‘I love you both with all my heart. And I figure…if I’m to come down from my mountain, what better reason could a man have than that-to come down for love?’

It was mid-afternoon.

Harry had been checked over medically, had been pronounced one very lucky young man; his scratches and bruises had been anointed; he’d been fed, cuddled, put to bed and cuddled some more until he’d fallen fast asleep from sheer exhaustion.

It was his last sleep in this bed, Nick had told him. When he woke they’d move his belongings to where he belonged. With Nick.

And now Wendy was watching over him one last time, her joy tinged with sadness. ‘I’m getting too old for this,’ she said as she watched Nick and Shanni cluck over their little one. ‘It’s time I moved on. Maybe took a chance at permanent fostering.’

‘Loving and letting go isn’t something you can do for ever,’ Shanni said softly, watching her friend’s face, and Nick could only agree.

Loving and letting go? No! He’d only just learned to love, and he intended to hold.

Somehow he forced himself to focus on Wendy. ‘Can you do that? Move to permanent fostering?’ he asked, and Wendy nodded.

‘Soon.’ She smiled as one of her charges peeped in, holding up a scratched finger for inspection and sympathy. She beckoned her in, lifted the little girl and hugged her hard, then turned back to gaze down at Harry. ‘Some children have the capacity to break you up. But now and then there’s a happy ending that makes it fine. Like you and Shanni and Harry… Go on, you two. Go and sort out your future while I watch over your baby.’

And she stayed with Harry and watched as Nick led Shanni outside.

They didn’t speak. As if of one accord they made their way to Nick’s car and Nick drove the short way to the beach. He stopped the motor and for a long moment sat looking out to sea.

Shanni sat silent. She knew exactly what was happening. Nick was saying goodbye to something he’d never wanted in the past but he’d learned to guard as if it was the most important thing in the world. And now…he was saying farewell to solitude for ever.

And then he turned to Shanni. His love.

His face was tense, she thought. Unsure of what was to come.

‘Shanni, when I said back there…to Harry…that we…’ he faltered.

Her heart lurched. No! Maybe she was wrong. Maybe, even now, he wanted to back away.

‘I know, Nick,’ she said heavily. ‘You didn’t mean it. Or if you did…’ She fingered her hands. ‘Being Harry’s parents…Nick, I’m not staying with you just for Harry.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you to do that.’

She turned to him then, tilting her chin, a trace of the redoubtable Shanni returning.

‘What would you be asking, then, Nick Daniels?’

And the answer was there, already written. Clear as day, only he’d been too blind to see it. Until this day.

‘I’m asking you to marry me because I love you more than life itself,’ he said. ‘You’ve given yourself to me with all the love in your heart and I was too blind, too stupid and too cowardly to return it. But I need it, Shanni. I need your love like I’ve never needed anything so much in my life. You’re part of me. You and Harry…

‘Me-and Harry?’

‘Could you bear to be a part of a family?’ he said simply. ‘My family?’

‘You and me and Harry?’ There was a glimmer of laughter in her lovely eyes and she held out her hands and took his between them. ‘Oh, Nick…Nick, that’s all I want in the whole wide world. You and me and Harry… Oh, my love…’

And then, as he took her into his arms and kissed her and the afternoon sunshine exploded in a mist of joy and love and desire, Nick thought that life could hold no more than it possibly did at this very moment.

He was loved, and he loved in return. He’d reached the pinnacle…

But his love was pulling out of his arms, and the laughter was still there.

‘Me and you and Harry?’

‘Mmm.’

‘It’s not enough.’

What was she talking about? Love?

‘I think we should get this straight,’ she said, trying for sternness but her voice was husky with love. ‘Before we commit.’

‘Aren’t we committed?’

‘I want this legal.’

‘As legal as you want. I’ll sign anything.’ He paused, his legal training screaming all sorts of warnings. Drat his legal training! For this moment he was a lover-not a magistrate. ‘What do you want me to sign?’

She chuckled, a lovely carefree sound that echoed around them as an affirmation of their love. Of their passing from dark to light…

‘I want two dogs and a horse written into the contract.’

‘Two dogs and a horse…’

‘And four more children. At least.’

‘Four…’

‘And Wendy and her foster-kids must be welcome whenever they want to stay with us.’

‘Is this a marriage we’re arranging-or a menagerie?’

‘Both.’ She laughed into his eyes, he smiled back, and she knew she needed no legal agreement. She knew she had him in the palm of her hand.

‘Okay, Your Worship, that about sums it up,’ she said sweetly. ‘Do you still want to be a high court judge, by the way?’

‘I can’t see two dogs, one horse, five kids, plus assorted hangers-on in my city apartment. How long did you say your last judge stayed in this town?’

‘Thirty years,’ she said serenely.

‘Thirty years…’ He took her into his arms and they might well have been married right at that moment. No vows could ever be more permanent than this. ‘Thirty years, eh? It seems to me…’

‘What does it seem, my lovely Nicholas?’

‘It seems to me like thirty years is not nearly long enough.’