‘You do enough, already, Mum. You and Dad. I’d never manage without you.’

  It was Linda’s turn to sigh. ‘You shouldn’t have to manage. Not at your age. Not by yourself.’

  ‘It’s probably just as well I didn’t marry young and have my own family. There’s not many marriages that could have taken the strain of four extra kids landing on the doorstep.’

  ‘You could always hire a nanny. The trust fund for the children must be looking pretty good now that Jane and Graeme’s house has been sold.’

  ‘Money isn’t the issue.’ Matt waited until his mother’s attention was focused on scraping the mixing bowl and stole another raw cookie. ‘The kids have had the bottom fall out of their world. I’m providing the only real continuity and I don’t want them to lose any of that before the dust has really settled. That’s why I’m not sure about going away. I have a suspicion that mentioning it was enough to cause Hayley’s bad behaviour at school yesterday.’

  ‘I can’t believe she swore at her teacher!’ Linda shook her head sadly. ‘It’s only for a weekend. It’ll do you good. Your dad and I aren’t going to crack under the strain, you know. And the children seem to enjoy being here.’

  Shrieks of glee could be heard from beneath the basketball hoop now, but the drain on energy levels seemed to be centred on Bob who was having to make frequent trips into the neighbour’s front yard to retrieve large orange balls. Linda paused to watch them again before opening a drawer.

  ‘We’d hardly know these children if they were still living in London. A visit once a year or so and that would have been it. In some ways, all this has been a real blessing for us.’ Picking up a fork, she began flattening the biscuits. ‘Now, tell me again. Who’s getting married?’

  ‘Sarah. She’s a nurse I met last year when she came to a USAR course they talked me into running. It’s her sister I know better, though. Tori was one of the first people I met when I started work in Auckland. She’s a nurse in Emergency but she’s been out on the road a few times with me recently. I think I’ve almost persuaded her to join the ambulance service.’

  ‘Tori’s an unusual name.’

  ‘It’s short for Victoria.’ Matt found himself smiling. ‘Which wouldn’t suit her at all. There’s nothing straitlaced about Tori. She’s great fun.’

  ‘Oh?’ Linda’s quick glance made Matt shake his head.

  ‘We’re just good friends, Mum. There’s no chance of anything more than that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The disappointment in his mother’s tone struck a familiar chord and Matt pretended to watch the twins’ goal-shooting efforts to avoid an explanation. His mother was already concerned about the effect his instant family was having on his life, and he knew that she was quite capable of worrying to the point of making herself unwell. He couldn’t let her know that he had, more than once, been far more disappointed than she was.

  If Linda was waiting to hear more, she gave no sign of it. The tray of biscuits slid into the oven and she turned her attention to preparing vegetables for dinner. Matt picked up a potato peeler.

  ‘Why don’t I do that? You should go and put your feet up.’

  ‘I’ll need to get those biscuits out of the oven in a few minutes.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘The meat needs to go in the oven when the biscuits come out.’

  ‘I can do that, too. Go on, shoo!’ Matt’s smile took any bossiness out of his tone. ‘Charles is dying to tell you about his skeleton and you never know—Hayley might even feel like talking.’

  * * *

  The mechanical task of peeling vegetables did nothing to dispel the echoes of regret left from that single syllable his mother had uttered. And that flash of interest in her glance had been just as familiar. Matt had experienced it, with bells on, the first time he had laid eyes on Victoria Preston—nearly a year ago now, when she had been in animated conversation with colleagues in the staffroom at the Royal’s emergency department.

  Even with her leg in a walking brace and a pair of crutches propped up in a corner of the room, Tori had exuded energy and sheer joie de vivre. Blonde curls bounced when she laughed, and clear blue eyes shone with mirth and mischief.

  Charles sounded like he was glowing with a similar enthusiasm as he showed his grandmother his latest junior anatomy publication.

  ‘There’s heaps of different sorts of joints, Nanna. Ball and socket, like in your hip, and a hinge, like in your elbow. And you’ve got a pivot joint in your neck so your head can go round.’

  ‘Yeah…’ His older sister’s tone suggested resentment at Linda’s focus of attention. ‘Your head can go right round. Three hundred and sixty degrees—like in The Exorcist.’

  ‘That’s just special effects,’ Charles said loftily. ‘Nobody’s head can go right round.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Linda agreed.

  ‘Duh!’ Hayley shook her head in disgust and dropped her magazine. The look she threw in Matt’s direction let him know that he was failing to make life even remotely interesting and that, in fact, he was probably contributing to it being less than satisfactory.

  Matt ignored the look and smiled at his niece. ‘I can find a job for you if you’re bored, Hayley.’

  ‘Nah. I’m good.’ Hayley fished her cellphone from the pocket of very low-slung jeans and began texting furiously.

  Matt hid a smile as he picked up another potato. At least Hayley had made some friends now. She’d had difficulty hiding how thrilled she had been with the gift of a cellphone last Christmas. While she covered up her lack of self-esteem and rather painful shyness with a ‘couldn’t give a damn’ bravado, Matt knew perfectly well how desperate she had been for friendship with her peers, and being able to stay in virtually constant communication was a key to belonging these days.

  His thoughts drifted almost automatically back to Tori and that first meeting. Matt doubted she had ever had any issues with shyness as a teenager, or, if she had, they had been long since conquered. Maybe it had been that total lack of reticence on her part that had drawn him out so quickly when they had found themselves alone in the staffroom only minutes after their introduction.

  Or was it more that easy familiarity that made him feel like he’d known Tori for ever? That he could talk to her about anything at all. He had, hadn’t he? Right from the start. He’d kept it light, but making jokes didn’t cover the reality that he’d practically cried on her shoulder about the difficulty of starting a new life with the unexpected responsibility of four children, and that his fiancée had dumped him when he had refused to give them up.

  She had been very sympathetic, but the fact that her sympathies had been with Sandra had been a little harder for Matt to laugh about. When she had widened those blue eyes and shaken her curls, declaring that four unexpected children would be her worst nightmare as well, the shaft of disappointment had speared something deep inside Matt. The fact that his adopted family made it impossible to follow up the extraordinary attraction this woman held for him had also allowed the first seeds of resentment to bloom.

  He’d stamped on them, though. He’d made his choice and it had been the right one. The presence of Tori and her sister at that USAR course may have fed the attraction but, in the position of instructor, Matt had found it easy enough to maintain his distance. Tori had made it quite clear she wasn’t interested and when he’d given in to the strong impulse to be near her and had joined her in the first coffee-break, she had all but pushed him into the arms of her sister and left them to ‘get to know each other’. Sarah had been perfectly lovely but there had been no spark there—on either side.

  And he couldn’t afford sparks at this point in his life. Or, rather, he couldn’t allow sparks to kindle anything. As he’d said to Linda, these children needed stability. A time for the dust to settle and for them to come to terms with the tragedy that had marred their childhoods. Hayley was the most vulnerable right now. The twins would accept anyone who came into their lives offering love. Charles would keep his distance and weigh things up carefully, but his loyalty would be won by the right person. Hayley was a completely different kettle of fish.

  A terrifying one.

  Matt’s hands stilled for a moment as he watched his father come into the house. Hayley pulled away from his touch but her gaze clung jealously to her grandfather as he ruffled her brother’s hair and crouched to admire the skeleton.

  Matt could feel the emotional tightrope Hayley walked. She pushed people away in an attempt to find independence and self-reliance, but she craved the safety of childhood and the love that was freely offered around her. His heart ached for his niece and Matt vowed not to let her attitude annoy or baffle him so much. She might be the hardest of the children to love, but she needed him more than the others right now. The last thing Matt could afford to do would be to dilute his available attention by including a lover in his life.

  And that thought spiralled neatly back to Tori and almost instantly from Tori to the job they had recently shared. To that dimly lit garage and the ongoing tragedy of the lives of those teenagers. How much balance would have to be lost before Hayley fell off that tightrope and found herself on a path similar to Charlene’s? Matt wasn’t going to let that happen. No way!

  ‘Something’s burning, Matt!’ Linda was scrambling to her feet. ‘Did you take those biscuits out of the oven?’

  ‘Oh…no!’ Matt dropped the peeler and grabbed an oven mitt, but it was too late. The chocolate chip cookies were blackened around the edges and starting to smoke.

  Removing them from the oven set off the smoke alarm in the kitchen. Linda opened windows and Bob flapped a teatowel to try and silence the strident siren of the alarm. Charles came to peer through the serving hatch, his mouth open at the spectacle, and Hayley scooped her magazine off the floor and prised herself off the sofa. A door slammed after her.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, darling.’

  ‘Uncle Matt! Uncle Matt!’

  The cry came loudly through the opened window and it was followed by a howl of pain. Matt dropped the mitt on top of the still smoking biscuits and stepped to the window. It was Bonnie yelling for him. Jack lay in a small crumpled heap beside an overturned stepladder.

  Matt was outside in seconds with Charles and Linda on his heels.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Jack got the ladder so he could get the ball through the hoop easier, but he fell off!’

  ‘Jack?’ Matt crouched beside the boy. ‘What hurts, buddy?’

  ‘My arm! Ow!’

  Bob, the teatowel still clutched in his hand, arrived and Hayley turned up in his wake to add to the audience.

  ‘It’s OK, mate.’ Matt held the child as he struggled to sit up. ‘Did you hit your head?’

  ‘No-o!’

  ‘Let me just have a feel of your neck. Does this hurt?’

  ‘No. Ow-w! My arm!’

  They could all see that it was broken. A Colles’ fracture of the wrist had Jack’s left hand angled down like the end of a dinner fork. Having established that no other injuries had been suffered, Matt took charge of the treatment.

  ‘Hayley, can I borrow your magazine?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’ll show you. Dad, can I have that teatowel? And Charles, can you go to the first aid kit in the car and find me a bandage, please?’

  They all watched as Matt rolled the teatowel into a sausage that fitted under Jack’s hand and supported the distorted shape of his forearm. The magazine rolled around the arm from elbow to fingertips and made a perfect, firm splint once bandaged into place. Matt felt for a pulse and pressed one of Jack’s nails to check capillary refill, then he smiled at his nephew.

  ‘Is that feeling a bit better?’

  ‘It still hurts.’

  ‘I know, buddy. We’ll have to take you into hospital now so it can be fixed up properly.’

  Bonnie burst into tears but Charles tugged at Matt’s elbow. ‘Can I come, Uncle Matt? Please?’

  ‘Sure.’ Matt noticed how anxious Charles was looking. ‘What do you reckon, mate?’ he asked softly. ‘Has Jack broken his radius or his ulna?’

  ‘Maybe both.’ Charles chewed his lip to help him think. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  ‘He’ll be fine.’ Matt scooped Jack up into his arms. Very pale, the child was uncharacteristically quiet and still.

  Bonnie clung to her grandmother, sobbing. ‘Don’t take him away, Uncle Matt. Don’t!’

  Matt caught his mother’s gaze and they both nodded. Bonnie needed to come as well. To leave her wondering if her twin would return from a hospital after having an accident would be too cruel.

  ‘I’ll turn the oven off,’ Bob decided. ‘I think we’d better all come for the ride.’

  ‘What for?’ Hayley was glaring at Jack. ‘It’s only a broken arm.’

  ‘We’re family,’ Matt reminded her gently. ‘You’d want us to look after you if you got hurt, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’m not stupid enough to fall off a ladder,’ Hayley mumbled, but she climbed into the back of Matt’s roomy car with no further objections. ‘I suppose I’ll have to come if I want my magazine back.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Auckland Central be closer?’ Linda was looking over her shoulder as Matt eased into the lane that would take them over the harbour bridge.

  ‘Yes, but I’ve got friends at the Royal,’ Matt told her. ‘Having five extra family members accompanying a patient might make us a bit unpopular anywhere else.’ He indicated another lane change. ‘Besides, it’s Saturday. The traffic won’t be too bad.’

  It had been a perfectly valid desire to keep the family together as much as possible that had prompted Matt’s decision to head for the Royal. He wasn’t going to admit to anyone, including himself, the even stronger desire to see Tori. She probably wasn’t even on duty, but if she was, her smile could provide a ray of light at the end of the tunnel he was currently negotiating.

  Jack’s broken arm was the culmination of a hideous week. Work had been tough but the hassles of his home life had been a lot tougher. Chores had been neglected and homework had been lost. Charles had had toothache, which had resulted in him having to miss his classical guitar lesson. As passionate about his music as he was about anatomy, the upset hadn’t been helped by a long wait and then painful treatment at a dentist’s rooms. The wet, cold weather had given the twins cabin fever, which had led to incessant and surprisingly contagious squabbling. The trouble Hayley had got herself into at school and the lack of sleep for Matt after a hard night shift had seemingly been the worst of it.

  Until now. Matt glanced over his shoulder to where Linda was cradling Jack as best she could, with the safety belts they both wore. The small boy looked as miserable as Matt had ever seen him. And Bonnie looked terrified. Pretty much the way they had both looked on the day of their parents’ funerals.

  Boy, did he need a friend right now. Not just any friend. He wanted to tell Tori all about his nightmare week and be able to make a joke about it and hear her laugh, knowing that there was genuine sympathy beneath the humour. He couldn’t let on to his parents how hard this all was. He was thirty-two years old, for heaven’s sake, he didn’t need to run to his parents for comfort. But if he didn’t laugh about it, he might cry. And that wouldn’t help any of them, would it?

  It wasn’t until he saw who was standing beside the triage nurse as he led the whole Buchanan tribe into the Royal’s emergency department that Matt realised just how much he had been longing for Tori’s company. He had to swallow a lump in his throat, and Tori wasn’t smiling either. Her eyes widened dramatically and her jaw dropped.

  ‘Matt! What on earth’s happened?’

  ‘Jack, here, has hurt his arm. He fell off a ladder.’

  ‘Oh…no!’ Tori reached out and brushed a blond curl back from Jack’s forehead as he lay in Matt’s arms. ‘Does it hurt, sweetheart?’

  ‘Ye—e—es.’

  ‘You’re being very brave, then.’ Tori smiled at Jack, her fingers still resting lightly on his hair.

  ‘This is Tori, Jack.’ Matt ignored the sudden attention of Linda, who was standing to one side, holding Bonnie’s hand. ‘She’s a friend of mine. She might be able to look after you, if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Uncle Matt’s looking after me,’ Jack told Tori.

  ‘Of course he is.’ Tori nodded. ‘But I can help, can’t I?’ Matt considered her smile more than enough to win someone over. Tori turned to the triage nurse. ‘Erin, I’ll take this lot, OK?’ Her gaze shifted direction again swiftly. ‘You must be Mrs Buchanan. Jack’s grandma.’

  ‘Nanna.’ Linda certainly seemed to have been won over by the welcoming smile. ‘I’m Linda.’

  ‘It’s lovely that you could all come in with Jack. Could I get you or Mr Buchanan to talk to the clerk over here? Once we’ve got the paperwork started, we can get things moving quickly.’

  Bob went to answer questions and Hayley hung back, clutching her phone and staring around the department as though she’d landed on an alien planet.

  ‘We’ll get you straight through to Orthopaedics,’ Tori told Matt. ‘We just need to book Jack in and get a doctor to eyeball him.’ Her attention was on the whiteboard behind the triage desk now. ‘Erin, is it OK if I put us in a resus area for now? There’s more room for the family that way.’

  ‘Sure. You might need to vacate in a hurry if we get an emergency in, though.’

  Tori nodded. ‘I’ll find some chairs.’ Her glance towards Hayley was casual but her tone firm. ‘Can you turn your cellphone off, please, love? They can interfere with some of the equipment in here.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ll show you where you’re allowed to use it later.’ Tori was leading the group towards Resus 3, seemingly unaware of the black look being directed at her. ‘But turn it off for the moment, thanks.’

  Several pillows were propped up against the sloping end of the bed in Resus 3. Matt gently deposited Jack who squeaked in discomfort as his uncle eased a pillow under the splinted arm.

  ‘Does he need IV pain relief?’ Tori queried.