Bella's Run Read Online Free Page B

appeared to be no response from Wendy, but then she heard a thin voice murmuring back.
    They seemed to be communicating at least. Bella wondered why it took a disaster like this to get a couple talking, touching, loving. Things couldn’t ever get that bad, could they? Would the Andersons be able to get through this, a couple who’d weathered fifteen years and borne four sons? Surely?
    Surely.
    There was movement in the dust, as Knackers picked Wendy up and turned her around. He lifted his wife’s chin and stared into her eyes. And it was then that Bella saw it. She’d been looking in all the wrong places for evidence of the love Knackers had for his woman.
    It was in his eyes.
    They blazed down on his wife with such love and compassion, it moved Bella to tears. With sudden clarity she realised there was another language in life far beyond what she’d ever known. And she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever be lucky enough to experience it; to be looked upon as if she were the epicentre of the universe, to have all that love from a man, so pure and devout.
    Bella heard the roar of double exhaust stacks and quickly wiped away the tears. Will and Macca pulled in behind her and came from their vehicle at a run.
    ‘What’s going on, Isabella?’ Will asked, grabbing her elbow to catch her attention. His touch seemed to blast an electrical shock through her veins. Bella jerked her arm away, stung. Will looked discomforted, annoyed even.
    Her skin tingled and her elbow burned where Will’s fingers had touched. She looked up past the brim of her hat to where he was looking down at her and she suddenly forgot how to breathe.
    He was totally gorgeous.
    A loud curse came from the girls on the back of the ute.
    Bella forced her mind back to Will’s question. ‘There was an accident. Motorbike went into a drain with two little boys on it. One’s not too good. The girls are working on him. Those two are the parents. I don’t think there’s much we can do. The ambulance is coming. I didn’t want to get in the way.’
    A distant whisper of sound from a screaming siren made them all look in the direction of the station gateway, still miles off to the south.
    ‘There it is,’ said Will, eyes far-seeing, laughter lines creased with concentration. Dust clouds billowed as the back end of a white-and-red vehicle bumped through a creek wash-out, a flicker of red, blue and a glinting sunlit flash. The muted wail of the siren came again, carried by the slight afternoon breeze.
    Bella moved.
    Sliding around the ute door, she strode over to Knackers and Wendy slouched in the dirt. Wendy was once again burrowed into the bulldust, her back the only thing Bella could see. She reminded Bella of an echidna trying to dig its way from harm, or maybe a freshwater tortoise seeking refuge inside its shell. Knackers was looking across at the ute where Sheila and Patty were still working over Max. He was trying to force Wendy to get up.
    Crouching down beside him, Bella murmured, ‘Knackers, mate, I’ll help you with Wends. You need to get to Max. The ambo’s here. It’s going to be okay.’ She nodded towards the ambulance still in the distance, crossing her toes in her boots for the second time that day.
    Knackers grunted and jumped to his feet. Together they lifted his wife. Wendy had lost use of her lower limbs and was keening to herself. Staggering under the woman’s weight, Bella heaved her into her husband’s embrace and Wendy buried her face into Knackers’ wide chest. Holding his wife under one arm, Knackers turned and half-carried her towards their son.
    He leaned over the ute’s tailgate, tears pouring from his eyes as he grasped hold of Max’s grubby little hand and squeezed it murmuring, ‘Hang on, you little bastard, hang on, me boy . . . Christ, I love you, you little villain.’ He snorted back tears and phlegm.
    The big man’s arms around his wife were shaking. Bella put her hand on Knackers’ shoulder and gave