What Rosie Found Next by Helen J. Rolfe Page B

another photograph of a woman manning a desk, a phone in her hand. ‘Do you recognise her?’
    She peered closely. ‘Bella?’
    ‘She’s a volunteer in the non-operational team and organises us all.’
    ‘Wow, it’s a real community isn’t it?’
    He nodded. ‘She arranges training schedules, makes sure Facebook and Twitter are updated with any bushfire dangers and organises open days for the Magnolia Creek fire station.
    ‘That’s me and Dad.’ Owen pointed at a picture where they stood, side by side, helmets tucked under their arms and posing for the camera. ‘And this one is a training session. The heat of the day was unbearable, but we trained using hoses, got soaked and it was the best fun we’d had in ages.’
    ‘Who’s this?’ Rosie pointed to the black-and-white photograph on the opposite wall.
    ‘My grandad. He was the one who started us off in the world of the CFA. He was in a brigade further north, but Dad always wanted to follow in his footsteps, and I guess I wanted the same.’ He was close enough to smell the chlorine on her skin and see a lone drip run across her collarbone before it dived into the towel beneath.
    ‘You’re all tall,’ Rosie observed.
    ‘It’s not genetic.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Michael is the only dad I’ve ever known, but he’s not my biological father.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Now don’t start feeling sorry for me, Stevens.’ Her eyes held a watery sheen. Owen hoped it wasn’t pity. ‘My biological father died when I was really small. I never knew him anyway, so it wasn’t a huge loss for me when I found out.’
    She seemed shocked and he let her digest what he’d told her.
    ‘It must’ve been hard on your mum,’ she said eventually.
    ‘It probably was.’ Not that she’d talked about it with him. It seemed another area of her life she’d closed off to him.
    ‘Thanks for telling me,’ said Rosie.
    ‘I couldn’t tease you any longer.’
    She smiled, her cheeks colouring. ‘I’d better get dressed.’
    He pulled the study door shut behind them, and without turning to watch her walk up the stairs, said, ‘Nice tattoo, by the way.’
     
                 

Chapter Nine
     
     
    Rosie’s skin was dry from the swim that morning. She showered and rubbed a light layer of moisturiser all over her body. She thought about Owen’s revelations earlier, embarrassed at the conclusions she’d jumped to about the pager.
    In those first few days at the house, she’d thought Owen spoiled, using this place as a base while he made his money in property. But she could no longer think that when he was giving his time and risking his life for his town, voluntarily. His job was so different to Adam’s, whose work was safe in both the financial and the physical sense. Those were amongst the reasons she’d been drawn to him.
    Downstairs Rosie rinsed out her bikini in the laundry sink. She flushed at the memory of Owen seeing her in so little and spotting her tattoo. Unwittingly, she’d revealed a lot more of herself to him just as he had to her.
    She hung the bikini over the drying rack when a tapping sound coming from outside caught her attention. Back in the kitchen she watched as Owen hammered a nail into the fence at the foot of the garden. She’d mentioned that a couple of panels were loose, but she hadn’t expected him to get to the task quite so quickly.
    ‘Hey,’ he called when he looked up towards the house and noticed her watching. He looked hot from yanking those fence panels back into place and holding them there.
    As he made his way up to the house, wiping his brow on his forearm, Rosie opened up her iPad and checked the FireReady app, but Magnolia Creek was still as safe as it had been since she’d arrived.
    Owen filled a glass with ice-cold water from the dispenser in the fridge-freezer door.
    ‘What do you do with the CFA when there are no incidents in Magnolia Creek?’ she asked watching him gulp the liquid down