Dreaming Of... Australia. Annie West

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       CHAPTER FIVE

       Eleven months later

       WOW. Where had the year gone?

      Sam caught the sideways glance of the woman next to him and pressed a damp palm onto his right thigh to still its irritating bounce. He straightened, then shifted, then loosened and re-fixed his tie one more time. What he wouldn’t give to be hanging off the side of a mountain somewhere, rather than sitting here today … waiting. To either side of him was a mix of old and young, male and female, trained professionals and passers-by. All nervous—like him. All lined up—like him—to get their handshake from the Governor General and a commendation for bravery.

      A commendation for doing what he was paid to do.

      He shook his head.

      He’d participated in six other rescues in the eleven months since he’d hauled Aimee Leigh’s battered car up that cliff-face. Since the ambulance doors had slammed shut on that rescue and raced off down the winding A10. No sirens. The best news in an otherwise crappy day. No sirens meant no critical emergency. No sirens meant his assessment of her injuries and his handling of them as they’d carefully winched Aimee up the rock-face had been correct. Busted leg, dislocated shoulder, chest bruising.

      No sirens meant the tree had come off worse than she did.

      Thank God.

      Her little car had been a write-off. She’d been fond of it, judging by the gloss in its paint work and the careful condition of its interior before nature tore it to pieces, and he’d become pretty fond of it, too, by the time they’d finished examining the towed up wreck. How something that small had managed to preserve the precious life in it against an impact like that …

      Pretty miraculous.

      ‘Gregory?’ a voice called down from the top of a small set of temporary steps. ‘Sam Gregory?’

      Damn. His turn.

      For lack of any other kind of moral support here today he turned to the stranger next to him and lifted his eyebrows in question. The older woman gave him a quick visual once over and a reassuring nod, then wished him luck as he pushed to his feet, tugging at the suit that felt so foreign on him.

      But Mel had nagged him into wearing it.

      Not that she’d know if he’d switched out of it halfway to the ceremony today, as he’d used to when he ditched school. Maybe he could have skipped the whole thing—gone sightseeing in Canberra instead. She’d have no idea.

      She wasn’t here.

      She’d said she would come, but she’d been gnawing her lip at the time, and he knew she had a lot going on at work. Knew she’d be here under sufferance. And that was worse than having no one here.

      Or so he’d thought at the time.

      ‘This way Mr Gregory,’ the assistant stage manager murmured, walking with him to the edge of the enormous drapes which framed the simple setting on stage. The recipient before him was standing awkwardly in the centre of the stage as the master of ceremonies segued into amateur mobile phone video of a man—the awkward man—dangling by braced legs off the edge of a bridge in the north of their country, snatching survivors from torrential flood waters as they tumbled under it. He’d caught and saved three people that day. No one was talking about those that his numb fingers hadn’t been able to hold on to.

      That’s heroic. A man who’d been servicing a farm truck one minute and was risking his life for strangers the next. No training. No equipment. No crew backing him up. No time to change his mind. The only man left standing as an inland tsunami careened through his town.

      Sam flexed his shoulders. Why anyone thought he was worthy of even standing on the same stage as a guy like that …

      He’d wanted to knock it back when his supervisor had first told him of the nomination. But his boss had guilted him into coming, warning him that not accepting it with grace was an insult to the men and women he worked with who’d missed out on being nominated.

      ‘Do it for the Unit,’ Brian had urged.

      So here he was, dressed up in a monkey suit, taking one—quite literally—for the team, walking onstage right after a bona-fide hero to accept an award for just doing his job.

      The man by his side signalled to his equivalent on the opposite corner of the stage as the video finished and the lights rose, and Sam’s eyes followed across the open space. There were two people over there, the second one mostly in shadow because of the bright stage lights between them, but Sam knew instantly who it would be. His chest tightened.

      Aimee.