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He thought of her blank refusal to practise medicine. He thought of the unknown husband’s death. He thought of her accepting the responsibility for a child not hers, and he knew that fragmentation hadn’t happened today. It was the result of past history he knew little about.
He’d hardly talked to her for years. He knew nothing of what had happened to her in the interim except the bare bones she’d told his mother when she’d returned to the island, but now she was kneeling beside the tomatoes, holding Barbara, looking bereft, and he felt his heart twist as…as Ginny had made his heart twist all those years before.
But now wasn’t the time for emotion. He flipped open the child’s suitcase and searched, fast. If the medical and legal stuff wasn’t there he could still stop the lawyer from leaving the island.
But it was all there, a neat file detailing medical history, family history, lawyer’s contacts, even contacts for the pre-school she’d been going to.
She might not have been loved but she’d been cared for, Ben thought grimly.
How could a family simply desert her?
‘She has Mosaic Down’s,’ he said out loud, skimming through the medical history, and Ginny closed her eyes. She’d know what that meant, though. Mosaic Downs meant the faulty division of chromosomes had happened after fertilisation, meaning every cell wasn’t necessarily affected.
But it was still bad. Barbara had the distinct look of Down’s. Who knew what organs were affected?
Taking on a child was huge, Ben thought. Taking on a Down’s child…
Barbara had gone back to watering. She was totally occupied in directing the hose. They could talk.
They needed to talk.
‘Ginny, are you serious?’ he said urgently. ‘I can still stop him.’
‘And then what’ll happen?’ She shook herself. ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well. I did know this was coming. I did agree to this, even if it’s happened sooner than I thought. I will look after her.’
‘No one can ask that of you,’ Ben said, and Ginny met his gaze head on. There was a long silence and then she gave a decisive nod, a gesture he remembered.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They can’t, but I will. Veronica and James did exactly what they wanted. Their selfishness was boundless but there’s no way this little one should suffer. James’s death set me free, and Barbara should be free as well, not stuck in some institution for the disabled.’ She managed to smile at the little girl—but then she felt silent again.
She was overwhelmed, Ben thought, and rightly so. Her world had just been turned on its head.
And Barbara? She was totally silent. She didn’t look upset, though. She simply stood patiently watering, waiting for what came next.
Down’s syndrome…
A man could mount arguments, Ben thought, for giving the whole human race Down’s. Yes, it took Down’s kids longer to learn things. Down’s kids seldom reached average intellectual milestones, but, on the other hand, the Down’s patients he had were friendly, selfless and desired little more than for those around them to be happy.
He walked forward and crouched beside Barbara. Ginny seemed almost incapable of speech. Maybe she’d said what she needed to say, and it was as if she didn’t know where to go from here.
‘Hi,’ Ben said to the little girl. ‘I’m Dr Ben.’
If he was right about this little one being well cared for, physically at least, then she’d be accustomed to doctors, he thought. Strange places would be associated with medical tests. Using the term ‘doctor’ might make this situation less strange.
And he was right. The little girl turned her gaze to him, but not to him personally. To his top pocket.
The arc of water went wild and no one cared.
‘Jelly bean?’ she said hopefully, and he grinned because some things were universal. Doctors’ bribes.
‘Jelly baby,’ he said, and fished a yellow jelly baby from a packet in his shirt pocket. She took it gravely and then continued gazing at him—assessing him for more?
‘Do you like jelly babies, Barbara?’ he asked, and she frowned.
‘Not…not Barbara,’ she whispered.
‘You’re not Barbara?’
‘Not Barbara,’ she said, suddenly distressed. She looked down at her pink dress, dropped the hose and grabbed a button and pulled, as if trying to see it, as if trying to reassure herself it was still there. ‘Button.’
‘Button?’ Ben repeated, and the little girl’s face reacted as if a light had been turned on.
‘Button,’ she said in huge satisfaction, and Ben thought someone, somewhere—a nanny perhaps—had decided that Barbara was far too formal for this little girl, and Button it was.
‘Your name is Button,’ Ginny whispered, and Ben saw a wash of anger pass over her face. Real anger. Anger at her late husband and the unknown Veronica? He watched as she fought it down and tried for calm. ‘Button, your mum’s sent you to me so I can look after you. Maybe watering these tomatoes can wait. Would you like to come inside and have a glass of lemonade?’
‘Yes,’ Button said, and Ginny smiled. And then she looked uncertain.
‘I have nothing,’ she faltered. ‘I really wasn’t expecting her until next month. I don’t know…’
‘Tell you what,’ Ben said, rising and dusting dirt from his knees. What was happening here was dramatic but he still had imperatives. Those imperatives had seen him take time out to try and persuade Ginny to be a doctor. That was a no go, especially now, but he still had at least twenty patients to see before he called it a day.
‘You take Button inside and give her lemonade, then go through her suitcase and see what she has. When you have it sorted, bring her down to the clinic. I can give Button a good once-over—make sure everything’s okay…’
‘I can do that.’
‘So you can,’ he said. ‘You’re a doctor. Okay, forget the once-over. But our clinic nurse, Abby, has a five-year-old and she’s a mum. If you don’t need a doctor, you might need a mum to tell you all the things you’re likely to need, to lend you any equipment you don’t have. I have a child seat in the back of my Jeep—I use the Jeep for occasional patient transport. I’ll leave it with you so you can bring Button down. I’ll have Abby organise you another—the hire car place has seats they loan out.’
‘I…Thank you.’
He hesitated, and once again he felt the surge of emotion he thought he’d long forgotten. Which was crazy. One long-ago love affair should make no difference to how he reacted to this woman now. ‘Ginny, is this okay?’ he demanded, trying to sound professionally caring—instead of personally caring. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to ring Bob—he’s the local cop—and have him drag the lawyer from the ferry?’
She looked at him then, really looked at him, and it was as if somehow what she saw gave her strength.
‘No. I’m okay,’ she said. ‘I need to be. I don’t have a choice and neither does Button. Thank you for your help, but we’ll be fine.’
‘You will bring her to the clinic?’
She hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she conceded at last.
‘Big of you.’
She gave a faint smile. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m not up for awards for good manners right now. But I am grateful. I’ll come to the clinic when I need to. Thank you, Ben, and goodbye.’
She watched him go and she felt…desolate.
Desolate was how she’d been feeling for six months now. Or more.
Once upon a time her life had been under control. She was the indulged only daughter of wealthy, influential people. She was clever and she was sure of herself.
There’d been a tiny hiccup in her life when as a teenager she’d thought she’d fallen in love with Ben Mc-Mahon, but even then she’d been enough in control to figure it out, to bow to her parents’ dictates.
Sure, she’d thought Ben was gorgeous, but he was one of twelve kids, the son of the nanny her parents had hired to take care of her whenever they had been on the island. At seventeen she’d long outgrown the need for a nanny but she and Ben had stayed friends.
He had been her holiday romance, welcoming her with joy whenever her parents had come to the island, being her friend, sharing her first kiss, but he had been an escape from the real world, not a part of it.
His proposal that last year when they’d both finished school had been a shock, questioning whether her worlds could merge, and she’d known they couldn’t. Her father had spelled that out in no uncertain terms.
Real life was the ambition her parents had instilled in her. Real life had been the circle she’d moved in in her prestigious girls’ school.
Real life had become medicine, study, still the elite social life she’d shared with her parents’ circle, then James, marriage, moving up the professional scale…
But even before James had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma she’d known something had been dreadfully wrong. Or maybe she’d always known something had been wrong, she conceded. It was just that it had taken more courage than she’d had to admit it.
Then her father had died, dramatically, of a heart attack. She’d watched her mother, dry eyed at the funeral, already gathering the trappings of rich widow about her.
The night of the funeral James had had to go out. ‘Work,’ he’d said, and had kissed her perfunctorily. ‘Go to bed, babe, and have a good cry. Cry and get over it.’
Like her mother, she hadn’t cried either.
She’d thought that night…She’d known but she hadn’t wanted to face it. If she worked hard enough, she didn’t have to face it.
‘Lemonade or raspberry cordial?’ she asked Button. She sat her at the kitchen table and put lemonade in front of her and also the red cordial. Button looked at them both gravely and finally decided on red. Huge decision. Her relief at having made it almost made Ginny smile.
Almost.
She found herself remembering the day of James’s funeral. It had been the end of a truly appalling time, when she’d fought with every ounce of her medical knowledge to keep him and yet nothing could hold him. He’d been angry for his entire illness, angry at his body for betraying him, at the medical profession that couldn’t save him, but mostly at Ginny, who was healthy when he wasn’t.
‘—you, Florence Nightingale.’ The crude swearing was the last thing he’d said to her, and she’d stood at his graveside and felt sick and cold and empty.
And then she’d grown aware of Veronica. Veronica was the wife of James’s boss. She’d walked up to Ginny, ostensibly to hug her, but as she’d hugged, she’d whispered.
‘You didn’t lose him. You never had him in the first place. You and my husband were just the stage props for our life. What we had was fun, fantasy, everything life should be.’
And then Veronica’s assumed face was back on, her wife-of-James’s-boss mantle, and Ginny thought maybe she’d imagined it.
But then she’d read James’s will.
‘To my daughter, Barbara, to be held in trust by my wife, Guinevere, to be used at her discretion if Barbara’s true parentage is ever discovered.’
She remembered a late-night conversation the week before James had died. She’d thought he was rambling.
‘The kid. He thinks it’s his. If he finds out…I’ll do the right thing. Bloody kid should be in a home anyway. Do the right thing for me, babe. I know you will—you always do the right thing. Stupid cow.’
Was this just more? she thought, pouring a second glass for the obviously thirsty little girl. Guinevere doing the right thing. Guinevere being a stupid cow?
‘I’m not Guinevere, I’m Ginny,’ she said aloud, and her voice startled her, but she knew she was right.
Taking Button wasn’t doing something for James or for Veronica or for anyone, she told herself. This was purely between her and Button.
They’d move on, together.
‘Ginny,’ Button said now, trying the name out for size, and Ginny sat at the table beside this tiny girl and tried to figure it out.
Ginny and Button.
Two of a kind? Two people thrown out of their worlds?
Only she hadn’t been thrown. She’d walked away from medicine and she’d walked away from Sydney.
Her father had left her the vineyard. It had been a no-brainer to come here.
And Ben…
Was Ben the reason she’d come back here?
So many thoughts…
Ben’s huge family. Twelve kids. She remembered the day her mother had dropped her off, aged all of eight. ‘This woman’s looking after you today, Guinevere,’ she’d told her. ‘Your father and I are playing golf. Be good.’
She’d got a hug from Ben’s mother, a huge welcoming beam. ‘Come on in, sweetheart, welcome to our muddle.’
She’d walked into the crowded jumble that had been their home and Ben had been at the stove, lifting the lid on popcorn just as it popped.
Kernels were going everywhere, there were shouts of laughter and derision, the dogs were going nuts, the place was chaos. And eight-year-old Ben was smiling at her.
‘Ever made popcorn? Want to give it a go? Reckon the dog’s got this lot. And then I’ll take you taddying.’
‘Taddying?’
‘Looking for tadpoles,’ he’d said, and his eight-year-old eyes had gleamed with mischief. ‘You’re a real city slicker, aren’t you?’
And despite what happened next—or maybe because of it—they’d been pretty much best friends from that moment.
She hadn’t come back for Ben; she knew she hadn’t, but maybe that was part of the pull that had brought her back to the island. Uncomplicated acceptance. Here she could lick her wounds in private. Figure out where she’d go from here.
Grow grapes?
With Button.
‘We need to make you a bedroom,’ she told Button, and the little girl’s face grew suddenly grave.
‘I want Monkey in my bedroom,’ she said.
Monkey? Uh-oh.
She flipped open the little girl’s suitcase. It was neatly packed—dresses, pyjamas, knickers, socks, shoes, coats. There was a file containing medical records and a small box labelled ‘Medications’. She flipped this open and was relieved to find nothing more sinister than asthma medication.
But no monkey.
She remembered her mother’s scorn from years ago as she’d belligerently packed her beloved Barny Bear to bring to the island.
‘Leave that grubby thing at home, Guinevere. You have far nicer toys.’
‘I want Monkey,’ Button whispered again, and Ginny looked at her desolate little face and thought Button couldn’t have fought as she had. Despite her mother’s disgust, Ginny had brought Barny, and she’d loved him until he’d finally, tragically been chewed to bits by one of Ben’s family’s puppies.
But fighting for a soft toy wouldn’t be in Button’s skill range, she thought, and then she realised that’s what she’d taken on from this moment. Fighting on Button’s behalf.
She tried to remember now the sensations she’d felt when she’d received the lawyer’s initial documents laying out why Button was being deserted by the people who’d cared for her. Rage? Disgust? Empathy?
This was a child no one wanted.
Taking her in had seemed like a good idea, even noble. Veronica and James had acted without morality. She’d make up for it, somehow.
Alone?
She was glad Ben had been here when Button had arrived. She sort of wanted him here now. He’d know how to cope with a missing Monkey.
Or not. Don’t be a wimp, she told herself. You can do this. And then she thought, You don’t have a choice.
But…he had offered to help.
‘I guess you left Monkey at home,’ she told Button, because there was no other explanation but the truth. ‘I might be able to find someone who’ll send him to us, but for now…let’s have lunch and then we’ll go down to Dr Ben’s clinic. I don’t have any monkeys here, but Dr Ben might know someone who does.’
Ben had told her the clinic would be busy but she’d had no concept of just how busy. There were people queued up through the waiting room and into the corridor beyond.
Plague? Ginny thought, but none of the people here looked really ill. There were a few people looking wan amongst them but most looked in rude health.
She’d led Button into the reception area, but she took one look and tugged Button backwards. But as she did, an inner door swung open. Ben appeared, followed by a harassed-looking nurse.
Ben-the-doctor.
She’d seen him a couple of times since she’d returned to the island. She’d met him once in the main street where he’d greeted her with pleasure and she’d been calmly, deliberately pleasant. But dismissive. She’d returned to the island to get some peace, to learn about vineyards, but to treat the place as her parents had treated it—an escape. She’d had no intention of being sucked into island life.
Then this afternoon he’d asked her to help him—and then he’d helped her. She’d been incredibly grateful that he’d been there to face down the lawyer on her behalf.
But now he was facing, what, twenty patients, with one harried-looking nurse helping.
He looked competent, though, she thought, and then she thought, no, he looked more than competent.
At seventeen they’d shared their first kiss after a day’s truly excellent surfing, and there had been a reason she’d thought she’d fallen in love with him. He’d been her best friend but he had been an awesome surfer, he’d been kind and…cute?
There was no way she’d describe Ben as cute now. Twelve years had filled out that lanky frame, had turned boy into man, and the man he’d become…
He was tall, lean, ripped. He had sun-bleached brown hair and sea-blue eyes. Did he still surf? He looked a bit weathered, so maybe he did. He was wearing chinos, a shirt and a tie, but the shirtsleeves were rolled up and the tie was a bit askew, as if he’d been working hard and was expecting more work to come.
He’d taken time out today to visit her. That was why the queue had built up, she thought, and then she thought taking time out must have been an act of desperation. He’d made himself later still in an attempt to get the help he desperately needed.
He was surrounded by need. He looked harassed to the point of exhaustion.
‘Ginny,’ he said flatly as he saw her, and then managed a smile. ‘Hi, Button.’ He sighed. ‘Ginny, I need to spend some time with you and Button—I reckon she does need that check-up—but as you can see, I’m under pressure. Do you think you could come back in an hour or so? I hadn’t expected you so soon.’
An hour or so. She looked around the waiting room and thought…an hour or so?
She knew this island. There was a solid fishing community, and there were always tourists, but there was also a fair proportion of retirees, escapees from the rat race of the mainland, so there were thus many elderly residents.
What was the bet that Ben would have half a dozen house calls lined up after clinic? she thought, and glanced at his face, saw the tension and knew she was right.
‘Can I help?’ she said, almost before she knew she intended to say it.
His face stilled. ‘You said…’
‘For this afternoon only,’ she said flatly. ‘But you helped me with Button.’ As if that explained everything—which it didn’t. ‘If there’s someone who could care for Button…’
‘You’re sure?’ Ben’s face stilled with surprise, but before she could speak he shook his head. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid. The lady’s made the offer in front of witnesses.’ And before she could speak again he’d knelt by Button. ‘Button, do you like making chocolate cake?’
‘Yes,’ Button said, a response he was starting to expect. She was puzzled but game.
‘This is Nurse Abby,’ Ben said, motioning to the nurse beside him. ‘Abby’s little boy is making chocolate cupcakes with my sister, Hannah, right now. We have a kitchen right next door. When they’re finished they’ll decorate them with chocolate buttons and then walk down to the beach to have fish and chips for tea. Would you like to do that?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, and Ginny thought, God bless Down’s kids, with their friendly, unquestioning outlook on the world. If Button had been a normal four-year-old, she’d no doubt be a ball of tension right now, and who’d blame her? But Down’s kids tended to accept the world as they found it.
She would get her Monkey back for her, she thought fiercely, and she picked Button up and gave her a hug.
‘You’re such a good girl,’ she said, and Button gave a pleased smile.
‘I’m a good girl,’ she said, and beamed, and Abby took her hand and led her out to where chocolate cupcakes were waiting and Ginny was left looking at Ben, while twenty-odd islanders looked on.
‘Everyone, this is…’ Ben hesitated. ‘Dr Ginny Koestrel?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and turned to the room at large. She had no doubt what the islanders thought of her parents but she’d never changed her name and she had no intention of starting now.
‘Many of you know my parents owned Red Fire Winery. You’ll know Henry Stubbs—he’s been looking after it for us, but he hasn’t been well so I’ve come home to run it. But Ben’s right, I’m a doctor. I’m an Australian and for this afternoon I’m here to help.’ She took a deep breath, seeing myriad questions building.
Okay, she thought, if she was going to be a source of gossip, why not use it to advantage?
‘Ben says many of you are just here for prescriptions,’ she said. ‘If you’re happy to have an Aussie doctor, I can see you—we can get you all home earlier that way. I’ll need to get scripts signed by Dr Ben because I don’t have New Zealand accreditation yet, but I can check your records, make sure there are no problems, write the scripts and then Dr Ben can sign them in between seeing patients who need to see him for other reasons. Is that okay with everyone?’
It was. First, Ben’s face cleared with relief and she knew she was right in thinking he had house calls lined up afterwards. Second, every face in the waiting room was looking at her with avid interest. Guinevere Koestrel, daughter of the millionaires who’d swanned around the island, splashing money around, but now not looking like a millionaire at all. She’d been on the island for months but she’d kept herself to herself. Now suddenly she was in the clinic with a little girl.
She knew there’d have been gossip circulating about her since her arrival. Here was a chance for that gossip to be confirmed in person. She could practically see patients who’d come with minor ailments swapping to the prescription-only side of the queue. She glanced at Ben and saw him grin and knew he was thinking exactly the same.
‘Excellent plan, Dr Koestrel,’ he said. He motioned to the door beside the one he’d just come out of. ‘That’s our second consulting suite. I’m sorry we don’t have time for a tour. You want to go in there and make yourself comfortable? There’s software on the computer that’ll show pharmacy lists. I’ll have Abby come in and show you around. She can do your patient histories, guide you through. Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘And you don’t need to explain about Henry. Henry’s here.’
He turned to an elderly man in the corner, and she realised with a shock that it was her farm manager.
Henry had been caretaker for her parents’ vineyard for ever. It had been Henry’s phone call—‘Sorry, miss, but my arthritis is getting bad and you need to think about replacing me’—that had fed the impulse to return, but when she’d come he hadn’t let her help. He’d simply wanted to be gone.
‘I’m right, miss,’ he’d said, clearing out the caretaker’s residence and ignoring her protests that she’d like him to stay. ‘I’ve got me own place. I’m done with Koestrels.’
Her parents had a lot to answer for, she thought savagely, realising how shabby the caretaker’s residence had become, how badly the old man had been treated, and then she thought maybe she had a lot to answer for, too. At seventeen she’d been as sure of her place in the world as her parents—and just as oblivious of Henry’s.
‘This means I can see you next, Henry,’ Ben said gently. ‘We have Dr Ginny here now and suddenly life is a lot easier for all of us.’
She’d said that her help was for this afternoon only, but she had to stay.
Ben had no doubt she’d come to the clinic under pressure, but the fact that she’d seen the workload he was facing and had reacted was a good sign. Wasn’t it?