SOPHIE buckled a sleeping Max into his car seat and shut the door. She looked up at the leaden sky and thought, How appropriate! Still, at least the inclement weather had held off until now.

Getting away had been just what she had needed. The stress of the last few days had taken its toll. Watching John slip in and out of consciousness had been very worrying.

Worse was witnessing his frustration at being unable to communicate properly during his waking moments. For such an articulate man, being robbed of his speech had been the worst insult.

She had gratefully accepted her mother-in-law's invitation to get away to the holiday house for a couple of days. John's condition had stabilised and now they were back from Europe she had been relieved from her bedside vigil.

Max had needed this time away, too. He had been clingy and upset since his great-grandfather had been taken ill, and dividing herself between her son and John had been exhausting. He had needed reassurance and she had been able to give him that these last two days when it had been just the two of them.

And then there was Daniel. His plane had touched down yesterday and Sophie had felt too wrung out and emotionally shot to deal with all their personal baggage as well. She was going to have to face him soon but the lingering memory of the last time they'd seen each other and the shame and loathing it always aroused didn't make her in any hurry.

She threw her small bag into the boot of her car and let her hand linger on the bright yellow paintwork as she shut it. She loved her Beetle. Michael had bought it for her for their first anniversary.

Michael. Sophie felt the familiar rush of mixed feelings rise like a tidal wave inside. The acute sense of loss and grief had started to dissipate but it occasionally still threatened to overwhelm her. She made a conscious effort to concentrate on the pink flower on her dashboard as she buckled up. She felt the wave ebb and sighed gratefully.

Not for the first time, she wondered how different her life would be now if Michael hadn't become a paraplegic and she had been emotionally free to marry the man she had truly loved, instead of settling for his brother. Guilt and pity and platonic love and long-standing friendship had been a strong catalyst and she'd been...happy.

But with Daniel back on the scene, he would be a constant reminder of a tumultuous part of her life. There was bound to be a resurfacing of all the hurt and guilt and anger that had made their previously carefree relationship a minefield of recriminations.

She reversed out of the garage into the steadily falling rain and thanked the gods for the divine weather of the last two days. Max loved visiting the holiday home. But, then, so did she. Set high on a hill overlooking the beckoning Pacific, a short drive from Noosa, who wouldn't?

They'd had a ball, building sandcastles on the beach and swimming in the luxurious pool. She had seen the worry in her son's eyes ease and the incessant questions about John slow to a trickle as he'd realised that his world hadn't changed too much.

Of course, visiting his great-grandfather briefly at St Jude's on their way to the coast had been very beneficial in this process. Max had been able to see for himself that John wasn't dead, that they hadn't been lying to him.

Sophie's eyes had welled with tears as Max had planted a kiss on John's cheek and said, "I wuv you, G.G." She'd noticed tears shining in the old man's eyes, too and she had swallowed hard and looked away, battling to regain her composure. John didn't need his support structures falling apart. That's why this break had been so important. To regroup. But now it was time to go home.

She looked down at the sleeveless white vest she had thrown on after whipping off her bikini top down on the secluded beach. Her denim cut-off shorts were damp from having climbed into them while she'd still been wet from the ocean. There wouldn't be much call for her to wear this outfit for a while.

It was amazing that in just two days the sun had coaxed her slender arms and long legs to turn a lovely shade of caramel brown. It emphasised her dark blue eyes and the natural caramel streaks in her blonde hair.

The car crawled down the winding dirt driveway as the rain and the encroaching dusk reduced visibility. The surface was a little slippery too and Sophie was grateful when the road flattened out. She rounded the last bend before the gate and slammed her brakes on hard, sliding to a halt.

A ute blocked the road at a crazy angle, the driver's door wide open. Sophie recognised the vehicle immediately as belonging to Charlie, Sally's husband. The couple had kept house for the Mondays for two decades and Charlie had been responsible for the magnificence of the gardens, both here and at Arabella, the Monday family mansion in Brisbane.

Sophie was momentarily puzzled. The car didn't appear to be damaged so an accident seemed unlikely despite the atrocious driving conditions. A breakdown maybe? But...where was Charlie?

And then she saw him through the gloom. A figure lying on the ground, face up, near a rear wheel.

"Oh, my God," she whispered as her nursing instincts urged her body to action. She glanced at Max, who was still sleeping soundly. She grabbed her mobile, praying for decent coverage, and flung her door open. She went directly to her boot, pulled out the first-aid kit and bolted to Charlie's side.

The rain drenched her in seconds. It didn't matter. Only Charlie mattered.

"Charlie! Charlie!" she called, as she knelt in the mud and shook him. She ignored the tiny hard rocks that dug into her knees like needles. She grabbed the torch from the first-aid kit and shone it in his face.

"Damn," she swore, as the gravity of the situation became apparent.

It was obvious Charlie had had a massive allergic reaction to something. He'd seemed perfectly fine ten minutes ago when she had waved him good bye, so it had to be anaphylactic shock. Bees. She remembered he was allergic to bees.

His face had swollen dramatically, his eyes puffed to the point of being shut. His face looked grotesque. Ogre-like. The skin was shiny, stretched beyond its normal elasticity. He was flushed and had huge red welts covering his body.

"Charlie!" she called again as she ground her fist into his sternum, hoping to gain some response. He was unconscious. She felt his carotid pulse and was relieved to find he had one but unsurprised by its weak, erratic beat. He was fading. Fast.

Sophie heard the distinctive raspy noise of obstructed breathing. She prised his mouth open and inspected his large swollen tongue. Soon it would totally occlude his airway.

She dialled triple zero. "Yes, I need an ambulance," she said, raising her voice to be heard above the rain which was bucketing down, plastering her caramel blonde hair to her head and her clothes to her body.

Sophie gave the details to the ambulance call-taker while monitoring Charlie's pulse and breathing. As she talked she was thinking. Adrenaline. Didn't Charlie usually carry the lifesaving drug?

She looked around and noticed for the first time the contents of a small toiletry bag strewn on the ground around Charlie. Had he been trying to get to his vital injection when he'd lost consciousness?

She nearly cheered out loud as she shone the torch on the Adrenipen, which had rolled out of Charlie's reach just under the car. It was aptly named. Looking like an ordinary pen, inside the barrel a cartridge of adrenaline replaced ink. The nib was a fine needle. It was a simple single-use unit that anyone could be taught to use, even a child.

She reached over him, extracting it and checking it was ready to go. Still talking to the ambulance call-taker, Sophie plunged the pen into his upper arm muscle and depressed the button on the end to deliver the entire contents into his system.

Sophie was relieved to feel Charlie's pulse strengthen but dismayed to hear that the inclement weather had stretched the ambulance service to its limit. Paramedics were being despatched but due to their relative isolation the ETA was twenty minutes. Charlie didn't have twenty minutes.

Just then a car engine and a set of headlights intruded into her frantic thoughts. Sophie could have cried she was that grateful. She watched the man get out of his car, the heavy rain obscuring his face, and waved him over.

"What happened?" he asked, kneeling beside her. Sophie turned to explain and stopped, the words dying on her lips. "Daniel?" she shouted above the rain, drips of water hanging off her sodden fringe.

"Sophie?"

They stared at each other. Years of love, hate, anger, friendship, guilt, bitterness and...yearning filled the space between them.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought you were with John? He's OK, isn't he?'Alarm raised her voice even further. He should be with John.

"He's fine. I came to talk to you. But," he said, looking down at Charlie, "it can wait." They clearly had an emergency on their hands. He had to concentrate on that. "What's happened to Charlie?"

Sophie made room for Daniel to assess their patient. Relief to have an intensive care paramedic by her side flooded through her. She could put all the other issues aside if he could. Charlie would die unless they did something.

"Allergic reaction?" 'I'm assuming it was a bee," she confirmed. "How long ago?" 'Not sure. He was ten minutes ahead of me and I've been here close to ten minutes. Depends when he was bitten. Twenty minutes tops."

"He's lucky you came along." 'He's had a hit of adrenaline but he needs more." 'And some hydrocortisone and an antihistamine," he agreed, switching to clinical mode.

"Oxygen would be handy, too." 'He's barely breathing and cyanosed,'Daniel observed as Sophie noticed the blue tinge starting to stain Charlie's lips.

"Ambulance is still fifteen minutes away,'she said, using the torchlight to consult her watch.

Daniel had never wanted his trauma kit more. Here, on the roadside in the pouring rain with no equipment, no drugs and no shelter, there didn't seem much hope. But he did have a fully qualified emergency nurse by his side, which was an asset he knew you couldn't put a value on.

He had to think of her like that. As a nurse. An asset. A card he held to help save Charlie's life. Because if he thought of her as Sophie, his Sophie — the girl he'd taught to climb trees, to ride a bike and where to kick a guy who wouldn't take no for an answer — he would be of no use to Charlie.

He shook his head, flinging water droplets into the air that joined the others belting down from the sky. Damn the rain! Damn the bad visibility. And damn Sophie. Damn her for still being as beautiful as she was in his dreams.

Daniel put his head right down to Charlie's mouth, concerned that the laboured breathing they were both so attuned to, despite the noise of the rain, had stopped. It had!

"He's stopped breathing." 'Damn it, Charlie! Don't do this to us.'Sophie gave their patient a shake. She pulled a resus mask out of her first-aid kit and fitted it over Charlie's nose and mouth.

"I don't think you're going to be able to oxygenate him that way," said Daniel, adjusting Charlie's neck for her so she could hold the mask in place properly. "His airway is totally obstructed."

"I know," she admitted, "but maybe we can get some through. You watch his chest."

Sophie blew into the port at the top of the rubber mask that formed a mouthpiece. She repeated the exercise a few times.

"No chest movement," said Daniel. "It's no good, we'll have to trachy him."

"What?" Sophie stared at him like he'd just suggested they put a gun to Charlie's head and shoot him. "Are you crazy? How? What with? We can hardly see each other, let alone perform an operation on his neck!"

"It's the only way, Sophie, trust me," he said, running to his car.