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‘The clever one you did your lab work with,’ Helen said. Helen had five children under ten. She was still mourning her brother’s death, but her mind was like a steel trap. She’d done dentistry while her brother, Arthur, had done medicine with Jack. Arthur and Jack had been mates, and in turn Helen had become best friends with Jack’s sister, Beth. Arthur and Beth had married, bringing them even closer. They’d all been at university together and they knew each other’s friends.
So she knew Cathy. Kate.
‘The whisper was that the guy she married was possessive,’ she said, turning obligingly thoughtful. ‘He wouldn’t let her out of his sight. No one saw much of her after her wedding and not at all after we graduated.’
‘She’s here. She’s practising as a physiotherapist and counsellor. The whole place smells fishy.’
‘Well, it is a dolphin sanctuary.’
‘Helen …’
‘Look, you promised to give it a go,’ Helen said bluntly. ‘Kate, Cathy, who gives a toss what she calls herself if it has a chance of working? You know I’d be there with him myself but I’d have had to bring the babies with me.’
She would. That was what this whole disaster was about. Helen was an earth mother, parent of five noisy, exuberant children, generous to a fault. She and her amiable husband had been more than ready to take their newly orphaned nephew into their expanding brood.
It had seemed the perfect solution. Helen was Harry’s aunt, she loved him to bits, she was married and stable and able to take care of him.
Jack was Harry’s uncle but he was single. He was a rising star in his chosen field of oncology, he had little intention of settling down, and there was no reason that he should take on his seven-year-old nephew.
Except …
Except that one wounded little boy had been failing to thrive within Helen’s noisy throng. Harry had always been quiet and a little introspective, and the loss of his parents, plus the shocking injuries to his leg, had seen him withdraw into himself.
The last time Jack had gone to see him he’d refused to come out of the bedroom he’d been sharing with one of his cousins. Helen had shown him literature on this place. ‘It can’t do any harm,’ she’d told him. ‘I’ll farm the three eldest out and the babies can come with us. Doug won’t mind, will you, darling?’ She’d smiled fondly at her long-suffering husband. ‘We do what we must for each of our children and Harry’s the same.’
Only Harry wasn’t the same. Jack had watched him that night, pushing his food from side to side on his plate, mentally absent from the noise and jostling about him, and he’d made a decision.
‘Let me take care of him for a while. I’ll take a few weeks off work. Maybe he’ll be happier with me.’
Afterwards he hadn’t been able to believe he’d said it. He knew nothing about children—zip. His current girlfriend, Annalise, had been appalled.’
‘Well, don’t expect me to help. Children and me … Darling, I’m a radiologist, not a childminder.
He was an oncologist, not a childminder either, but for the last two weeks he’d been doing his best.
But not getting through.
‘But you will take him to this place,’ Helen had decreed, flourishing the literature at him. ‘I swear, Jack, it sounds just what he needs.’
‘He needs time, not quackery.’
‘If you don’t take him, I will. Jack, I’ll fight you for this. I should make the decisions. You’re not capable of caring for him and I am.’
And there it was, out in the open. They were joint guardians. On the surface they had equal claims to guardianship, but Helen had the home, the experience, the love.
He should stand aside and leave her to it. Only Harry’s desolation prevented it.
Taking him to the dolphin sanctuary had been a test, he thought. Helen—and others—wanted proof he was serious about this parenting role.
The problem was that he wasn’t sure that he was serious about parenting himself, especially as he’d been sole carer for two weeks now and made not one dint in the little boy’s misery.
Until this afternoon, when one bear of a dog had made Harry giggle.
‘I’ll find out about Cathy,’ Helen offered, speaking urgently now. ‘I’ll make enquiries. But unless it’s really awful, you should still give the place a chance.’
‘I told you, Helen, I’ve been here half an hour and already there’s a child dead.’
‘There must be a reason.’
‘A brain tumour,’ he conceded.
‘They do palliative care work as well. You’d expect—’
‘I’d expect resuscitation efforts on a four-year-old.’
‘Give it more than half an hour,’ Helen said urgently. ‘It’s taken me all the contacts we have and then some to get him into the place. Believe it or not, there’s a queue months long. Don’t you dare walk away.’
‘And if it’s dangerous?’
‘You stay with him all the time. Bond. This is what you wanted, Jack. Now’s the time to step up to the mark.’
And he knew it was.
Kate did what she could for Amy and for her little son. Amy’s mother and sister had spent the last week here as well. Other arms enfolded the distraught mother, freeing Kate to leave her in their care. In the end she backed out unnoticed, as grandmother, mother and aunt collectively said goodbye to their little boy.
She put herself on autopilot for a while, filling in forms, phoning the coroner, clearing the way for funeral directors to fly Toby and his family directly back to Queensland, where they’d lived. She headed back to her bungalow and showered. Then she stood on her veranda and stared out to sea for a while, trying to get Toby’s death in perspective. Impossible, but she had to try, just like she always did. Other children needed her. Somehow she’d learned to move on.
She’d learned to move on from a lot, she conceded, and part of that was her history. And her history included Jack Kincaid.
It had been such a shock to see him.
Jack. His name echoed over and over in Kate’s head and she felt ill.
She couldn’t be ill. Jack’s nephew was her next client. Jack Kincaid was waiting for her to finish the formalities with Toby and his mother. Jack Kincaid had to be faced.
But maybe he wouldn’t wait. She’d seen his horror when he’d realised Toby was dead; when he’d seen that she wasn’t fighting to prolong his life.
She might have got Toby back, she conceded. If she’d tried CPR, had had oxygen on the beach, had fought with every medical skill she had, Toby might still be alive. He’d be unconscious, though. They all knew the tumour was massive and unresponsive to any more chemotherapy or radiation. If she’d fought he could have had maybe a week, maybe even longer, on oxygen, on life support, but his mother hadn’t wanted that. No one had wanted it.
She hadn’t had to flinch at the condemnation in Jack Kincaid’s eyes. She had not one single regret over her care of Toby.
But what would she tell him? Jack had been a friend at medical school. If he was still here she needed to give him an explanation. What?
The truth? Did she trust him enough for that?
She might have no choice. It seemed Harry was Jack’s nephew, Jack’s sister’s child. If she’d recognised the name she would never have accepted him as a client, but the booking had been done by a woman with a name as unfamiliar as all the names she so carefully vetted. Harry had been supposed to be coming with someone called Helen.
No matter. Chinks of her old life were bound to intrude sooner or later. She’d known that. It was just … she’d hoped it would be later.
She thought back to the Jack she’d known over ten years ago. He’d been acutely intelligent, intuitive and skilled. On top of that he’d been drop-dead gorgeous. Tall with dark hair and strong bone structure, always tanned, almost too good looking for his own good, and his dark eyes had always gleamed with mischief. Maturity had only added to his looks, she conceded, but it was the Jack of years ago she was thinking of now. If there had been pranks to be played, Jack had always been at the centre. If there had been a beautiful woman to be dated, Jack had been right there, too.
Early on they were allocated as partners in the science component of their course. They suited each other as study mates. Her seriousness didn’t distract him, and his intelligence and humour pleased her. But his dating habits were legend. ‘You should have a harem,’ she told him. ‘That way you wouldn’t have to date one by one. You could have them all together.’
‘I’d rather that than be stuck with one person for ever from sixteen,’ he retorted. She finally told him of Simon’s existence when he … When they … Well, late one night things got a little out of hand and she had to tell him the truth. That she had a boyfriend. That she’d had a boyfriend for years so she couldn’t be attracted to Jack.
‘Monogamy for life from sixteen?’ he mocked. ‘You must be out of your mind.’
Later, when his words proved true—for it seemed that she had indeed been out of her mind—she’d lie awake in the small hours and think about how different life could have been if she hadn’t been a good girl. How it could have been if she’d been able to forget family obligations. If she’d given in to the attraction she’d surely felt.
Move on, she told herself harshly. The time for regrets was well and truly past. What she needed to focus on now was calming Jack down, persuading him to either let her treat his little nephew or tear up the contract and leave.
But whatever way he went, she had to gain his silence.
On impulse she headed indoors and hit the internet. Jack Kincaid.
Professor Jack Kincaid. Head of Oncology at Sydney Central. Research qualifications to make an academic’s eyes water. Medical practice extraordinary. His early promise had been met and more; this man was seriously skilled, seriously qualified. More, as she flicked through the site she found links to patients’ opinions of the man who’d treated them.
Seriously good. Seriously kind. Empathic. A workaholic by the look of it.
But he’d booked in here for two weeks. Two weeks of this man’s time looked to be an incredible commitment.
Okay, she was impressed, but she was also scared. This wasn’t a man to be deflected with weak excuses. It’d be the truth or nothing, if he decided to stay.
She headed back to work, and found herself almost hoping he’d decide to leave. That’d make her life a whole lot less complicated.
They had to wait for over an hour, and every minute brought fresh doubts.
He took Harry for a walk around the resort. There were a dozen bungalows built on the beachfront, with dolphins painted on their front doors. Wind chimes hung from their verandas and brightly coloured hammocks hung from the veranda rails.
Sand spits covered with stunted eucalypts reached out from both sides of the resort, the spits forming a secluded bay. A great sweep of netting enclosed half the cove. That’d be a pool for what the information sheet told him were the captive dolphins. These, according to his sheet, were either dolphins who’d been injured in some way or who’d been raised in some form of captivity and brought here in an attempt to rehabilitate them to the wild.
Some dolphins could never be rehabilitated, the sheet said, and these were the dolphins trained to interact with the resort’s clients. Their injuries were so bad or they’d learned to be too dependent on humans to ever survive in the wild.
Jack and Harry wandered down to the beach again, hand in hand. Harry had fallen back into silence as he always did. For the last three months he’d simply done what he was told.
He still walked with a heavy limp—his left leg still needed to be braced. He stumped along and Jack’s heart twisted for him.
One stupid moment of speed and carelessness. Metal on metal. Lives changed for ever.
There was a scattering of people on the beach, well away from the netted area where Toby had died. These must be more of the resort’s clients, he thought, as this place was too far for tourists to come. There were gay little beach shelters scattered about for whoever wanted or needed shade. A couple of kids were in beach-tyred wheelchairs. A few kids were playing in the shallows. Parents were playing with them, talking among themselves.
He had no wish to join them. Did he have any intention of staying?
‘Maisie,’ Harry said, dragging his thoughts back from introspection, and he glanced back to where the little boy was looking and saw the big golden retriever bounding down the beach towards them. Carrying a ball. She raced straight up to them, dropped the ball at Harry’s feet, then bounced backwards and beamed with a full-on canine beam.
‘Toss it,’ Jack suggested. Harry hesitated but Maisie was practically turning herself inside out with ball-need.
Finally Harry picked the ball up and threw it all of three feet.
The big dog pounced, but before bringing it back she raced towards the shore, dropped it into the shallows, quivered and then brought it back to them. Her message couldn’t be clearer. Throw it further. Throw it into the sea.
‘You throw it,’ Harry whispered, and such a command was almost unheard of from Harry.
So Jack threw it, to the water’s edge. The dog retrieved it with joy but this time she took it further into the shallows before bringing it back.
Once again her message was clear. ‘Throw it even further.’
‘She wants you to throw it deep,’ Harry whispered, so Jack did. He hurled the ball out to where the waves were just breaking.
Maisie was on it like a bullet, streaking through the water, diving through the waves, reaching the ball …
But then not stopping.
The reason the waves were so shallow here, why the beach was so safe, was that the outer spits curved around, protecting the inner bay. At low tide the spits would be connected to the land but now, at high tide, the sand spits formed long, narrow islands. The island looked beautiful, sand washed and untouched, apart from a host of sandpipers searching for pippies or crabs or sand fleas—whatever sandpipers ate.
And now Maisie was headed for the spit island as well. She swam strongly until she reached it, then raced onto the sand, sending sandpipers scattering in alarm.
But then she turned and looked back at the beach. She looked at the water between herself and the shore.
She looked at Jack and Harry. She dropped her ball at her feet—and she shivered.
She was maybe fifty yards from them, through breast-deep water. She’d swum out with ease but her demeanour now was unmistakeable. How have I got here? Uh-oh.
‘She’s stuck,’ Harry gasped, appalled.
‘She can swim back.’
‘She’s scared.’
She couldn’t be. Jack stared at the dog in exasperation. She’d swum through the shallow waves with ease. Of course she could get back.
He glanced along the beach, hoping someone official might appear, but it must be time to pack up. The few people left on the beach were two or three hundred yards away, gathering belongings, packing up the beach shelters, heading up through the sand tracks to the resort.
What was he supposed to do? Stand and yell, ‘Help, the dog is stuck, save her’?
‘Maisie,’ he yelled, in what he hoped was his most authoritative voice. ‘Come.’
The big dog quivered some more—and then as the last of the beachgoers disappeared over the sand dunes, she started to howl.
‘Help her,’ Harry said in horror. ‘Jack, help her.’
And there was another first. Not once in three months had Harry called Jack by name. Not once had he asked for anything.
Jack, help her.
‘She can swim back herself.’
‘She’s frightened,’ Harry whispered. ‘What if a big wave comes and washes her off?’
‘Then she’ll have to swim.’
‘But she’s scared.’ And as if confirmation was necessary, Maisie’s howls grew louder. She squatted on the sand and shivered, every inch of her proclaiming she was one terrified mutt, stranded on a desert island for ever, doomed to starve to death or drown on an incoming tide.
‘Jack …’ Harry whispered. ‘Jack!’
And a man had to do what a man had to do.
‘If I swim out and fetch her, promise you won’t move from here,’ Jack told his nephew, and Harry nodded.
‘Hurry.’
Maisie was now crouching low, as if the sand was about to give way beneath her. Her howls had given way to whimpers. Loud whimpers.
‘Promise out loud,’ Jack demanded of Harry.
‘I promise.’
The kid had talked. Even if he took him home now, the barrier of silence had been broken. Great, he thought grimly. Now all I have to do is rescue one stupid dog.
He hauled off his shoes, shirt and pants, thanking fate that he was wearing decent boxers. He hesitated for a moment, thinking he really didn’t want to leave Harry on the beach, but Harry met his gaze head on.
‘I promise,’ he said again, and it was enough. The two words were a joy all by themselves. They were almost enough to make him turn to the water with enthusiasm, to plough into the shallows, to dive through the waves, to swim the twenty or so strokes it took him to reach the island spit.
Finally he hauled himself out of the water and headed for Maisie … who waited until he was less than six feet from her and then bounded to her feet, grabbed her ball, launched herself back into the water and headed for shore.
Jack was left standing on his island in his boxers, staring helplessly after her.
Maisie made it back with no effort at all. She bounded up the beach to Harry, dropped the ball at his feet and turned to stare out at Jack.
Her tail was whirring like a helicopter. Even from where he was Jack could sense the grin. This was a great dog con.
She walked over the sand hill and saw Jack in the water.
She could see at a glance what had happened. Maisie the jokester dog. This trick almost always worked. Occasionally a parent reacted with anger but usually it was laughter, and Kate could see Jack’s laughter from where she stood. He watched the dog paddle effortlessly through the shallows to the beach and she saw his shoulders shake.
She was smiling as well. So the humour remained.
She’d liked this man.
She’d also thought he was gorgeous—and he still was. He’d stripped to his boxers. He stood in the sunlight, the late afternoon rays glinting on his wet body. Even from here she could see the power of the man. He must work out at some time in his seriously impressive schedule, she thought. He looked ripped.
She watched as he headed back into the water, diving into the shallows, diving under, taking a few long, strong strokes before he caught a wave that took him all the way to shore.
Harry and Maisie were waiting, Maisie tail-wagging as if she’d pulled off the world’s best joke, Harry looking worried.
Jack strode out of the water, lifted his small nephew and swung him in a big, wet circle.
‘She fooled us,’ he told Harry. ‘Don’t look so worried. The doggy fooled us both. Isn’t she clever?’
Harry gave a tight little smile. His rigid body didn’t unbend, however, and after a moment Jack put him down.
‘This is a very strange place,’ he told Harry. ‘Do you know, I think it might even be fun. I’m not sure yet, but maybe we should give it a try.’
To be fooled by a dog was one thing. To be fooled by a woman you didn’t trust was another. He set Harry down, looked up, and Cathy was there. Or Kate. Whichever, both of them were laughing.
‘I’m sorry. Donna should have warned you. Maisie always tries that on.’
‘Donna?’ he said dangerously.
‘Our receptionist. She’s supposed to warn everyone. This is Maisie’s favourite party trick to get adults into the water. Strangely, she never tries it on kids. Only adults. She’s so clever.’
‘Right,’ Jack growled. To say he was feeling at a disadvantage was an understatement. He was dripping. He was in his boxers. On the other hand, Kate had obviously cleaned up after her time with Toby. She was wearing a soft blue skirt and white blouse. Her hair was neatly curled on top of her head. She looked fresh, professional … and deeply amused, but …
‘Maisie saved herself,’ Harry pronounced, and he was talking again. That was almost enough to make Jack forget about Kate. Almost. Her chuckle had him entranced.
Kate wasn’t his type. She’d never really been his type, he conceded. Yes, there had been that initial attraction but he liked his women cool, sophisticated.
Kate was cute rather than classically beautiful, he thought. She had freckles. Lots of freckles.
She looked like the girl next door, he thought. So why was he looking at a pair of laughing eyes and thinking … thinking …
He didn’t need to think in that direction. She’d always had secrets and he didn’t like it. This woman had some hidden agenda and Harry’s welfare was at stake. He needed to find out what was going on.
But Kate was no longer looking at him. She’d stooped to crouch before Harry.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Kate, Maisie’s mother. I hear your uncle has brought you here to stay for a few days so you can meet Maisie and my friends, the dolphins.’
Harry was back to saying nothing. Kate, however, didn’t appear in the least bit disconcerted. She rose, headed over the sandhill and came back carrying a bucket. Of fish.
‘I dumped these when I saw your uncle saving Maisie,’ she said, returning to them. ‘Wasn’t he brave? But isn’t Maisie clever to trick him? Jack, would you like to go and get dry while Harry and I feed the dolphins? Would you like a little time out?’
It was exactly what he’d like. He was feeling … exposed. He was bare chested, bare legged and a bit chilly now the sun was sinking low, but he still had reservations about this woman. He wasn’t about to leave her alone with his nephew until he knew more.
Harry was still not speaking, but he was peering into the bucket. Fish!
‘These are a snack for the wild dolphins,’ Kate said, talking exclusively to Harry. ‘We feed the dolphins in the healing pool, but every now and then we give our wild dolphins a treat. Some of the wild dolphins are ones we’ve treated here for injuries and let go, but most are just free dolphins who come to say hello. If we encourage them to stick around, when we have an injured dolphin who’s better we can release him into a group of friends. Do you think that’s a good idea?’
Harry nodded.
Jack had resolved not to trust this woman, but every ounce of Kate’s attention was focussed on Harry. He thought, It doesn’t matter if I trust or not, but if Harry trusts …
He had to stick with him. He wasn’t going as far as letting this woman take over but something seemed to be working. He hauled his shirt over his still-damp torso and took Harry’s hand.
Harry didn’t respond. There was never a moment when those small fingers curled around his. He trusted no one.
‘Where do you feed them?’ he asked, and she motioned to where the net divided the free bay from the pool.
‘At the boundary. I feed those in the pool and out so they see each other.’
‘But the pool ones can’t get out?’ Harry asked, and once more Jack held his breath.
‘The ones in the pool all have something wrong with them,’ Kate said, starting to walk down to the water, leaving them to follow if they willed. And, of course, they willed. Harry was moving even before Jack led. ‘If we let them out into the ocean they’ll die. But we’ve made the pool enormous and we try and make them feel as free as we can.’
They reached the netted boundary. She walked into the water—she might look professional from the knees up but she had bare feet—and she lifted a fish out of the bucket. She slapped the surface a few times with the fish and she yelled.
‘Grub’s up. Come and get it.’
He was as fascinated as Harry. They stood on the shoreline and watched as far out a fin appeared and then another and another. And then there was a line of eight dolphins, surfing in on a wave to reach the shallows. They paused as a group in about two feet of water, and a couple reared back as if standing on tiptoe, watching.