A Secret Shared...

Praise for Marion Lennox:

‘Marion Lennox’s RESCUE AT CRADLE LAKE is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Best of 2010: a very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.’

—Dear Author on CHRISTMAS WITH HER BOSS

MARION LENNOX was a country kid, a tomboy and a maths nerd, but whenever she went missing her family guessed she’d be up a gum tree reading romance novels. Climbing trees and dreaming of romance—what’s not to love? But it wasn’t until she was on maternity leave from her ‘sensible’ career, teaching statistics to undergraduates, that she finally tried to write one.

Marion’s now had over one hundred romances accepted for publication. She’s given up climbing trees—they got too high! She dreams her stories while she walks her dog or paddles her kayak or pokes around rock pools at low tide. It’s a tough life, but she’s more than ready for the challenge.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader

Right now my family is in the midst of restoring a fisherman’s cottage that’s protected by so many heritage restrictions it makes my eyes water. But when bureaucracy gets the better of me I head to our local ferry, which takes me over the treacherous Rip to the entrance to Port Phillip Bay and Melbourne beyond. Why? Well, my favourite cake shop is on the other side of the Rip—though the trip does make for expensive cake! But as well as cake I get to see dolphins. If I’m lucky they’ll surf in the ferry’s wake, leaping in and out of the water, joyously celebrating the fact that they can beat the boat twice over. They’re smart, they’re funny, and I defy anyone to watch them and not forget red tape and rotting roofing iron.

So it was with interest that I read of a dolphin sanctuary in the US where traumatised kids are offered time out, swimming with these gorgeous creatures as a type of therapy. So what if …? I thought as I watched the dolphins surfing alongside the boat. What if …? are my two favourite words. They send me off on another book almost as soon as I think them. What if my heroine finds a way to reach wounded kids with the same dolphins that make me smile? But what if she’s hiding secrets? What if she’s wounded too?

My hero is truly heroic—isn’t he always? But in A SECRET SHARED … Jack needs all the help he can get to win his lady and to share the secrets that guard her heart.

The dolphins are just the guys to help him!

Marion

Dedication

To Ray and Deb, with thanks for making our dream a reality.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Marion Lennox:

About the Author

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU WANT TO save your kid with mantra-chanting and dolphins that eat our fish, go ahead and waste your money. Dolphin Sanctuary plays you for a sucker, and you’re walking right in.’

This was exactly what Dr Jack Kincaid didn’t want to hear. He glanced at the white-faced child in his passenger seat and hoped Harry wasn’t listening.

The little boy’s face was blank and unresponsive, but then, it always was. Harry had hardly spoken since the car crash that had killed his parents.

‘The sanctuary seems to be building a good reputation,’ he said, which was all he could think of to say. He didn’t want to be here but he needed petrol. The pump attendant, fat, grubby and obviously bored, had wandered out to have a word.

It was no wonder he looked bored. There’d be few cars along this road. Jack was three hundred miles from Perth, heading for one of the most remote parts of Australia. Dolphin Bay.

Dolphins. Healing. He thought of the hundreds of schmaltzy, New Age healing-type posters he’d seen in his lifetime and he felt ill.

What was he doing here?

‘So your kid’s crook?’ the attendant asked, and Jack flicked the remote. The car windows slid up soundlessly, ensuring Harry couldn’t hear.

Harry didn’t react. He didn’t seem to notice he was being cut out of the conversation. He never seemed to notice.

‘He was injured in a road accident a while back,’ he said. The pump was snail slow and this guy was intent on an inquisition. He might as well accept it.

‘You’re his dad?’

‘His uncle. His parents were killed.’

‘Poor little tacker,’ the man said. ‘But why bring him to Dolphin Bay? What’s the point? You’re being conned, mate. Fishing used to be good round here, but not any more. New Age hippies have even got permission to feed them, encouraging them in from the wild.’

‘How long have they been using them for healing?’

‘Since that Doc Kate came. Before that it was just dolphin saving. The place’s full of animal do-gooders and weirdos who think meditation’s more useful than facing life straight on. If you want to know what I think, the only good dolphin’s a dead dolphin. If they’d only let us shoot …’

But, praise be, the fuel tank was full. Jack produced his wallet with relief. ‘Keep the change.’ He wanted to be out of here, fast. ‘Use it for fish bait.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ the man said. ‘But if I were you I’d book into the motel and take the kid fishing. Much better than messing with hippies.’

That was so much what Jack was thinking that he had to agree. ‘I’d go fishing in a heartbeat,’ he admitted. ‘But I don’t have a choice.’

‘You look like a man who knows his own mind. What’s stopping you?’

‘Women,’ Jack said, before he could help himself. ‘Isn’t that what stops us all?’

Four-year-old Toby Linkler’s death was sudden, heartbreaking—and a deep and abiding blessing.

One minute Kate was watching as Toby’s mother, Amy, stood in the shallows, holding her little son close. Together they’d watched Hobble, the youngest of the trained dolphins, swim around them in circles. The little boy’s face, gaunt from illness, racked from months of chemotherapy, was lit from within. He’d even chuckled.

And then, as Hobble ducked underneath and almost propelled Toby out of the water with a nudge under his backside, Toby’s gaze suddenly turned inward.

Kate was four feet away and she moved fast, but by the time she reached him, the little boy was gone.

Toby’s mother sobbed with shock and horror, but she didn’t move. The dolphin’s circles grew wider, as if standing guard. How much did the creature know? Kate wondered. This moment couldn’t be intruded on and it wasn’t, even by the dolphins.

‘He’s … he’s gone,’ Amy sobbed at last. ‘Oh, Toby. The doctors said … They said he might …’

They had. More than one doctor had predicted seizures with the possibility of sudden death. Kate had studied Toby’s notes as thoroughly as she read every patient’s history. Four years old. Brain tumour. Incomplete excision twelve months ago. Chemotherapy had shown some shrinkage but eventually the growth had outstripped treatment. The last note on the history said: ‘If tumour maintains its present growth rate, prognosis is weeks, not months. We suggest palliative care as required. Referral back to family doctor.’

But Amy hadn’t taken Toby back to her family doctor. One of the other mums in the city hospital kids’ cancer ward had told her about Dolphin Bay Sanctuary’s therapy programme. Kate had had to squeeze to get them in.

Thank heaven she had, she thought now, and her thoughts were indeed a prayer. Toby had spent most of the last few days ensconced in a tiny wetsuit, floating with the dolphins that had entranced him. Kate had four dolphins she’d trusted with this frail little boy and in the end all four had been allowed to play with him. They had played too, making him laugh, nudging his failing little body as he’d floated on water-wings, tossing balls high in the air so they’d landed near him, retrieving them themselves if he hadn’t been able to.

He’d still needed painkillers, of course, and anti-seizure medication and drugs to try and stop the massive buildup of calcium leeching from the growing tumour, but for six glorious days he’d been a little boy again. He’d experienced fun and laughter, things that had had nothing to do with the illness and surgery he’d endured and endured and endured. At night he’d slept curled up with Maisie, Kate’s therapy dog. With his mum by his side, he’d seemed almost joyous.

Today he’d woken quieter, pale, and his breathing had been shallow. Kate had known time was running out. In a normal hospital she might have ordered blood tests, checked the cancer wasn’t sending his calcium levels through the roof, maybe even sent him for another MRI to check how large the tumour had grown, but given his history there was little point. Toby’s mother had made her choice and, weak as he’d been, Toby had been clear on the one thing he’d wanted.

‘I want to swim with Hobble.’

He had, and as his mother had cradled him Toby had felt the rush of the dolphin’s sleek, shining skin as he’d circled.

‘He’s my friend,’ he’d whispered.

And now he was gone.

There was nothing to be done. There was no call for heroics here, no desperate attempt at resuscitation. There was just the searing agony of a mother losing her child.

It was gut-wrenching. Unbearable. A void never to be filled.

But: ‘I’m so glad,’ Amy managed to whisper, as her racking sobs finally eased, as Kate stood waist deep in the water and gave her all the time she needed, and as Toby’s body settled deeper into death. ‘I’m so glad I brought him here. Oh, Kate, thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me,’ Kate said, hugging her close and drawing her gently out of the water. ‘Thank my dolphins.’

‘Dr Kate’s running late.’ The pleasant-faced woman in Reception was welcoming, but apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ she said, and Jack felt a jolt of surprise. The woman was addressing his nephew instead of him. ‘This is Maisie,’ she told Harry, gesturing to a great bear of a golden-haired retriever snoozing under her desk. ‘Maisie, this is Harry.’ She prodded Maisie with her toe and Maisie looked up in polite enquiry. Me? You mean me?

‘Maisie,’ the receptionist said sternly, as one might chide a recalcitrant employee. ‘Say hello to Harry.’

The dog rolled onto her back, stretched, sighed, then lumbered up, strode across the room, sat in front of Harry—and raised a paw.

Harry stared. The dog sat patiently, paw outstretched, until finally, tentatively, Harry took it. Jack noticed, with quiet surprise, that his nephew almost managed a smile. It wasn’t quite, but it was close.

‘Dr Kate is in the water, doing therapy,’ the receptionist told Jack as dog and boy shook hand and paw for the second time. ‘She should be finishing now. Would you like to pop down to the beach? Please don’t disturb them but if you stay beyond the high-water mark you’re welcome to watch.’

Jack would very much like to watch. Despite Harry’s instant relaxation—he was now solemnly shaking the big dog’s paw for the third time—Jack’s guard was still sky high.

Why was he here? His home was in Sydney. Harry’s home was in Sydney. What Harry needed was continued therapy for healing leg fractures and a decent child psychiatrist who’d finally crack his wall of traumatised silence.

But he’d found Harry some very good child psychiatrists, and none of them had made a dent in his misery. This was desperation. It had been his Aunt Helen’s idea, not his, but she had been prepared to relinquish Harry into Jack’s care if he agreed to bring him.

Was it worth the risk?

‘Would you like to go to the beach or stay here with Maisie?’ the receptionist was asking Harry, and Harry looked at Maisie and nodded. This was a miracle all on its own. He’d been limp since the car crash, simply doing what the adults around him ordered. Three months ago he’d been a normal seven-year-old, maybe a little cosseted, maybe a little intense, but secure and loved and happy. Now, without his parents, he was simply … lost.

‘You’re sure?’ Jack asked, and of course there was no response. But Harry was kneeling on the floor with the dog and the dog was edging sideways. Jack could see what she was doing. There was a ball, three feet away, and Maisie was looking at it with more than a canine hint.

Jack nudged it close and Maisie grabbed it and dropped it at Harry’s feet. Then she backed two feet away, crouching, quivering and staring straight at Harry with all the concentration a golden retriever could summon.

Harry stared at Maisie. Maisie stared at Harry. The whole room held its breath.

And then Harry very tentatively picked up the well-chewed ball—and tossed it about four feet.

Maisie pounced with dramatic flourish, reaching it before it hit the floor, but she wasn’t content with a simple retrieval. She whirled three times, tossed the ball upwards herself and caught it again—and then came back and dropped it at Harry’s feet again.

And, unbelievably, Harry giggled.

‘I’ll buy the dog,’ Jack muttered, and the receptionist grinned.

‘She’s not for sale. Kate values her above diamonds. Go and watch her if you like. Harry and Maisie are safe with me.’

They were. Jack watched the little boy a moment longer and felt himself relax, which was something he didn’t think he’d done once, not since his brother had died. The dog was taking care of Harry and the relief was immeasurable.

‘Go,’ the receptionist said gently, and her message was unmistakeable. It’s better if you’re not here. Let these two bond.

She was right. Harry didn’t need him; since the accident he hadn’t seemed to need anyone.

If one dog could make a difference …

He’d tried a puppy; he’d tried almost everything. But now … Whatever this crazy dolphin-mantra place was, this dog was breaking through.

Dr Jack Kincaid didn’t need to be told again.

He went.

It was time to leave the water; time for the reality of death to hit home. As wonderful as this place was, it was simply time out. Toby was dead. His mother now had to start facing a world without him.

Kate’s arm was around Amy’s waist as they made their way from the shallows. The world was waiting. Officialdom would move in and there was nothing Kate could do to protect Amy from it.

But at least she’d had this time. At least the week before Toby’s death hadn’t been filled with hospitals, drips, rush. Her dolphins had helped.

She turned for a moment as she reached the beach; they both did. Far out in the deep water, Hobble still seemed to be watching them. He was doing sweeping curves at the outer limits of the pool. At the far reaches of each curve he leaped from the water towards them, and then dived deep, again and again.

‘Thank you,’ Amy whispered toward him, and who knew if the dolphin could understand. But no matter what their level of understanding, the dolphins had helped ease one little boy’s passing.

Kate had more patients waiting. She needed to move on, but what had just happened had eased the pain around her own heart a little as well.

Jack walked over the ridge of sandbank just as the two women turned to walk up the beach. Two women and a child. The women were dressed in plain blue stinger suits. The child was in a wetsuit.

The child was dead.

Jack Kincaid had been a doctor long enough to sense it even as he saw it. The child was cradled in the shorter woman’s arms, the woman was sobbing, and every step they took spelled defeat.

What the …?

He broke into a run. If the child had gone underwater, it might not be too late. Why wasn’t anyone doing CPR? Had they tried and failed? In children there was sometimes success when all hope was lost. He had his phone out, hitting the emergency quick-dial, thinking paramedics, oxygen, help …

‘Don’t phone.’ The taller woman’s voice was a curt command, urgent enough to make him pause. The other woman was sinking to her knees, still cradling the child. ‘What the hell …?’

‘It’s okay.’

What sort of crazy was this? He reached them and he would have knelt by the child but the woman held him back.

‘I’m Dr Kate,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry you had to see this but, believe me, it’s okay.’

‘How can it be okay?’

‘Toby’s had cancer,’ she said, softly so as not to break into the other woman’s grief. She took his arm, drawing him away a little, giving woman and child space. ‘He’s had brain metastases. He was terminally ill. This afternoon he’s been playing with the dolphins, he had a seizure and he died. There was nothing we could do.’

‘Did you try?’ Jack demanded, incredulous. A seizure … He thought of all the things that could be done in a major city hospital, the drugs that could stop a seizure, the resuscitation equipment. ‘Surely …’

‘Amy wanted it this way,’ Kate said. ‘She has the right to make a choice on behalf of her son and I think it was a good one.’ She hesitated and then glanced at her watch. ‘You’ll be Harry’s guardian,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’m running late but you understand …’ She gestured to woman and child. ‘Some things have to take precedence. Has Maisie settled your Harry?’

Maisie … the dog. She was depending on her dog to settle a new patient?

But, then, Maisie had settled Harry, better than ever he could have.

‘Yes,’ he conceded, dragging his eyes away from the distraught mother and child.

‘I’m glad,’ she said, and she smiled.

And in that moment time stood still. What the …?

He knew this woman! He knew her very well indeed.

Dr Catherine Heineman. They’d been students together. Tutorial partners. Friends.

He hadn’t seen her since … since …

‘You’re … Doctor Kate?’ His tone was incredulous.

‘I’m Kate Martin,’ the woman said simply. ‘Dr Kate Martin.’

‘You’re Cathy.’

Her face lost its colour. She stared up at him and took an instinctive step backward.

‘What nonsense is this?’ He’d read the blurb for the dolphin sanctuary. The healing part of it was run by one Dr Kate Martin, this woman. According to the blurb she had qualifications in physiotherapy and counselling. Deeply suspicious, he’d checked, but the qualifications had been conferred by one of the most prestigious universities in New Zealand.

That didn’t fit at all with what he was seeing here now, with what he knew. This woman was in her early thirties maybe. He’d last seen Cathy in her early twenties but it didn’t stop him knowing her.

‘You’re Cathy,’ he said again, and he saw her flinch.

‘I can explain.’

She’d better. Counsellor with training in psychology? Physiotherapist? Had she abandoned her medical degree and retrained in another country? Under another name? Why? Had she been struck off the medical register?

He stared at her and saw shadows. She was five feet eight or so, and a bit too thin. At university he’d thought her attractive. Very attractive. Now she looked … gaunt? Her chestnut hair was tugged into a practical knot. Her blue all-in-one stinger suit was deeply unflattering. Her green eyes, which had flashed with laughter when he’d messed up a lab trial or someone had made a joke, didn’t look like they did much laughing now.

Unregistered? Hiding? Why?

Drugs? Drug-taking was the most common reason for doctors being deregistered and instinctively his gaze fell to her arms, looking for track marks. The sleeves of her stinger suit were pulled up. Her forearms were clean, but she saw where his gaze went and stepped back as if he’d struck her.

‘It’s not what you think. I can explain.’

‘You’d better.’ If he’d dragged Harry all the way across the country to have him treated by an unregistered doctor …

‘I can’t now.’ She closed her eyes for a millisecond, that was all, but when she opened them she seemed to have recovered. The look she gave him was direct and firm. ‘I need to stay with Amy and Toby. Yes, I’m Cathy but I’m also Kate. I’d ask that you keep that to yourself until you hear my explanation.’ She ran her fingers wearily through her hair and the formal knot gave a little, letting a couple of chestnut tendrils escape. It made her look younger, and somehow more vulnerable. ‘Could you bring your nephew and Maisie down to the beach? Build a sandcastle. Give me some time. Please?’

And then she was gone, heading back to the woman and her child, stooping to help the mother lift the lifeless body of her son. Together they carried him up the beach and away.

Jack was left staring after her.

CHAPTER TWO

HE COULDN’T BELIEVE it. Kate Martin, physiotherapist and counsellor, medical director of Dolphin Bay Healing Resort, had transformed into Cathy Heineman who’d shared his undergraduate student life.

Cathy had been his friend, and in truth he wouldn’t have minded if she’d been more than that. She’d been vibrant, fun and beautiful. But she’d also been a little aloof. She hadn’t talked about her private life and she’d laughed off any advances. Friendship only, she’d decreed, though sometimes he’d wondered … When they’d stayed back late, working together, he’d thought there had been this attraction. Surely it had been mutual.

But it obviously hadn’t been. In fourth year she’d turned up after the summer holidays sporting a wedding ring.

‘Simon and I have been planning to wed since childhood,’ she’d told him, and that was pretty much all she’d said. He’d never met her husband—no one had. Neither had the student cohort seen much of Cathy after that. She’d attended lectures but the old camaraderie had gone.

She hadn’t even attended graduation. ‘She requested her degrees be posted to her,’ he’d heard. Someone had said she’d moved to Melbourne to do her internship and that was the last he’d heard of her.

And now … His head was spinning with questions, but overriding everything else was the knowledge that he would not expose his nephew to treatment by anyone who was dishonest.

The Cathy he’d known had been brilliant.

The Cathy he’d just seen had been helping a dead child from the water. She was in a suspect place doing suspect things, and his nephew’s welfare was at stake.

Get out of here now.

His phone rang. It’d be Helen, he thought. The road here had been almost completely lacking phone reception. There was only the faintest of signals now. Helen wouldn’t have been able to ring him for hours. She’d be frantic.

‘Where are you?’ Her tone was accusatory.

‘I’m at the dolphin sanctuary, of course.’

Helen’s breath exhaled in a rush. ‘You made it? Is it good? Oh, Jack, will it make a difference?’

‘So far I’ve seen a dead child and a doctor who’s not who she says she is,’ he said bluntly. ‘Helen, do you remember Cathy Heineman? She was a med student with Don and me. She faded from the social scene after fourth year. Remember?’