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She looked out to sea, regret written clearly on her face.
‘It was as if I’d been given a reprieve. I might not have been able to help one woman, but surely I could help others. My friend Lauren, a psychologist, had just returned home to work at the Cove and together we got stuck into it, finding out all we could, bringing in people who could help, getting funding for staff.’
She offered him a rueful smile before adding, ‘Getting the house turned out to be the easy part.’ Then she sighed and the green eyes met his, studying him as if checking him out before telling him any more.
Had he passed some test that she continued, her voice low and slightly husky, as she admitted, ‘My sister had just died so, in a way, setting up the refuge helped me, too.’
She smiled but the smile could certainly not be classified as perky, as she admitted, ‘It became a passion.’
‘And?’ he prompted, for he was sure there was more.
One word but it won a real smile—one that lit her eyes with what could only be pride in what she and her friend had achieved, although there were still shadows in them as well. Of course there would be shadows—the memory of the woman who died, then the connection with her sister’s death.
A sister who’d loved roses?
He brought his mind back from the roses and shadows in eyes as Jo was talking again.
‘Isn’t there a saying—build it and they will come? Well, that’s what happened with the refuge. It’s sad it happened—that places like it are needed—but on the up side, at least now women at risk anywhere within a couple of hundred miles’ radius have somewhere to go. I’m connected to it in that I’m on the committee that runs it, and also we, by which I mean the practice, are the medical clinic the women staying there use. Problem is, to keep the refuge open we need ongoing funding from the government to pay the residential workers and that’s a bit up in the air at the moment. The powers that be keep changing the rules, requiring more and more measurable ‘objectives’ in order to attract funding, but … ‘
She nodded towards his plate. ‘This is spoiling your breakfast. Some time soon we’ll visit the house and you can talk to Lauren, who runs it, and you can see for yourself.’
Cam returned to his breakfast but his mind was considering all he’d heard. He could understand how personal the refuge must be to Jo, connected to the woman who’d died, as well as to her sister. In a way it was a memorial—almost sacred—so she’d be willing to do anything to keep it going. Even before she’d admitted that the refuge had become a passion he’d heard her passion for it in her voice and seen it in her gleaming eyes as she’d talked about it.
Passion! Hadn’t it once been his driving force? Where, along the way, had he lost his?
In the battlefields, of course, treating young men so badly damaged many of them wished to die. Dealing with their minds as well as their bodies. No wonder he’d lost his passion.
Except for surfing. That passion still burned …
He brought his mind back to the conversation, rerunning it in his head. He found the thing that puzzled him, intrigued in spite of his determination not to get too involved.
‘How would employing a middle-aged female doctor in the practice help save the refuge?’
He won another smile. He liked her smiles and was beginning to classify them. This one was slightly shamefaced.
‘It wouldn’t do much in measurable objectives,’ she admitted, ‘but it does bother me, personally, that some of the older women who use the house—women in their forties and fifties—might look at Lauren and me and wonder what on earth we could know about their lives or their problems, or even about life in general. I’m twenty-nine so it’s not as if I’m fresh out of uni, but I look younger and sometimes I get the impression that the older women might think that though I’ve got all the theory—’
‘Theory isn’t reality?’
He couldn’t help it. He reached out and touched her hand where it rested on the table.
‘Look, I don’t know you at all, but having spent just a couple of hours in your company I’m sure you’re empathetic enough to be able to see those women’s situations through their eyes. The army’s the same—a fifty-year-old colonel having to come and talk to some young whippersnapper straight out of med school about his erection problems.’
He paused, then asked, ‘I take it you have staff at the refuge?’
The tantalising green eyes studied him for a moment, puzzling over the question.
‘We have a number of trained residential support staff, who work with the women all the time.’
‘Then surely at least one of them could be an older woman, maybe more than one. These are the people spending most time there.’
Jo nodded.
‘You’re right, of course. And a couple of them are older women, it’s just that … ‘
‘Just that you want to be all things to all people? No matter how much you do, you always want to do more, give more?’
His new boss stared at him across the table. He could almost see the denial forming on her lips then getting lost on the way out.
‘Are you analysing me?’ she demanded instead. ‘Showing off your psychology skills? Anyway, I don’t think that’s the case at all.’
He grinned at her.
‘You just want the best for everyone,’ he offered helpfully, finding pleasure in this gentle teasing—finding an unexpected warmth from it inside his body.
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she asked, but the words lacked heat and Cam smiled because he knew he’d hit home. She did want the best for everyone, she would give more and more, but would that be at the expense of her own life? Her own pleasure?
And if so, why?
Intriguing …
Not that he’d ever find out—or needed to. He wasn’t looking to stay in Crystal Cove, unexpected warmth or no.
Although …
‘Hospital next,’ Jo announced, mainly to break the silence that had followed their conversation, though the man mountain had been demolishing the rest of his breakfast so he probably hadn’t found the silence as awkward as she had. She replayed the conversation in her head, realising how much of herself she’d revealed to a virtual stranger.
She’d forced herself to sound bright and cheery as she’d made the ‘hospital next’ suggestion, but the conversation about the refuge had unsettled her so badly that what she really needed was to get away from Fraser Cameron and do some serious thinking.
Did she really think she could be all things to all people?
Surely she knew that wasn’t possible.
So why … ?
She concentrated on sounding positive.
‘Tom Fletcher, the doctor in charge, lives in a house beside the hospital so if he’s not on the wards, I can show you through then take you across to his place to introduce you.’
‘Tom Fletcher? Tall, thin guy, dark hair, has women falling over themselves to go out with him?’
Jo frowned at the man who was pushing his plate away with a sigh of satisfaction. No need to keep worrying about sounding positive when she had a challenge like this to respond to.
‘Women falling over themselves to go out with him? What is it with you men that you consider something like that as part of a physical description?’
Her crankiness—and she’d shown plenty—had absolutely no effect on the man who was grinning at her as he replied.
‘I knew a bloke of that name at uni—went through medicine with him—and to answer your question, when you’re a young, insecure, very single male student you remember the guys who seem able to attract women with effortless ease. I bet you ask another ten fellows out of our year and you’d get the same description.’
Jo shook her head.
‘The male mind always was and still remains a total mystery to me,’ she said, ‘but, yes, Tom is tall and thin—well, he’d probably prefer lean—and has dark hair.’
‘Great!’
Cam’s enthusiasm was so wholehearted Jo found herself asking if they’d been good friends. Although if they had, surely Cam would have known his mate was living at the Cove.
‘Not close friends, but he was someone I knew well enough. It will be good to catch up with him.’
Would it? Even as he’d spoken, Cam had wondered about ‘catching up’ with anyone he’d known from his past. Could he play the person he’d been before his war experiences? Could he pretend well enough for people not to see the cracks beneath the surface?
PTSD they called it—post-traumatic stress disorder. He had seen enough of it in patients to be reasonably sure he didn’t have it, not the full-blown version of it anyway. All he had was the baggage from his time in the war zone, baggage he was reasonably certain he could rid himself of in time.
Perhaps.
His family had seen the difference in him and understood enough to treat him not like an invalid but with gentleness, letting him know without words that they were all there for him if ever he wanted to talk about the baggage in his head.
Not that he could—not yet—maybe not ever …
Fortunately, before he could let too many of the doors in his head slide open, his boss was talking to him.
‘Come on, then,’ she said, standing up and heading across the footpath towards the road. ‘It’s time to do some catching up.’
‘We haven’t paid,’ he reminded her, and she threw him a look over her shoulder. He considered running the look through his mental data base of women’s looks then decided it didn’t really matter what her look had said. Best he just followed along, took orders like a good soldier, and hoped he’d prove indispensable so he could stay on in Crystal Cove for longer than a couple of months.
The thought startled him so much he found the word why forming in his head.
He tried to answer it.
The surf was good, but there was good surf to be had along thousands of miles of coastline.
Surely not because of the feisty boss—a woman he’d barely met and certainly didn’t know, and quite possibly wouldn’t like if he did know, although those eyes, the creamy skin …
He reached her as she was about to step out to cross the esplanade, just in time to grab her arm and haul her back as a teenager on a moped swerved towards her.
‘Idiot!’ Jo stormed, glaring full tilt at the departing rider’s back. ‘They rent those things out to people with no more brains than a—’
‘An aardvark?’ Cam offered helpfully, trying not to smile at the woman who was so cross she hadn’t realised he was still holding her arm.
He wasn’t going to think about why he was still holding her arm—he’d just enjoy the sensation.
‘I was going to say flea,’ she muttered as she turned towards him, ‘then I thought maybe I’d said that earlier.’ She frowned up at him. ‘Why would you think I’d say aardvark?’
He had to laugh.
‘Don’t you remember telling me I probably had the counselling skills of an aardvark earlier today?’
Her frown disappeared and her cheeks turned a delicate pink.
‘How rude of me! Did I really?’
She was so obviously flustered—again—he had to let her off the hook.
‘I didn’t mind,’ he told her. ‘In fact, I was too astonished to take offence. I mean, it’s not ever day one’s compared to such an unlikely animal.’
Jo knew she had to move.
For a start, she should shake the man’s hand off her arm, but she was mesmerised, not so much by the quirky smile and sparkling blue eyes and the tanned skin and the massive chest but by the fact that she was having such a—What kind of conversation was it?
Light-hearted chit-chat?
It seemed so long since she’d done light-hearted chit-chat, if that’s what it was, with a man she didn’t know, but whatever it was, she’d been enjoying it …
‘Are we going to cross the road or will we stay on this side, discussing aardvarks and fleas?’
Far too late, Jo moved her arm so the man’s hand fell off it, then she checked both ways—she didn’t want him saving her again—and hurried across, beeping open the car as she approached it, so she could escape inside it as quickly as possible.
Except he’d be getting in as well—no escape.
Until they heard the loud crash, and the sounds of splintering glass.
Cam reacted first, pushing her behind him, looking around, apparently finding the scene of the accident before she’d fully comprehended what had happened.
‘It’s the moped driver,’ he said, as he hurried back across the street to where people were already gathering on the footpath.
Jo followed, seeing the splintered glass of the shopfront and the fallen moped, its wheels still turning, the young driver lying motionless beside it.
‘Let’s all step back,’ Cam said, his voice so full of authority the onlookers obeyed automatically, and when he added, ‘And anyone without shoes on, walk away carefully. The glass could have spread in all directions.’
That got rid of a few more onlookers and made Jo aware she had to tread carefully. Sandals were fine in summer, but as protection against broken glass not sensible at all.
Cam was kneeling by the young man, who wasn’t moving or responding to Cam’s questions.
‘Unconscious?’ she asked, as she squatted on the other side of him, their hands touching as they both felt for injuries.
‘Yes, but he’s wearing a helmet and the bike barely hit the window before he came off.’
Jo lifted the youth’s wrist automatically and though she was looking for a pulse she had to push aside a metal bracelet. Remembering the rider’s swerve earlier, she checked it.
‘He’s a diabetic,’ she said to Cam. ‘Maybe he was feeling light-headed when he nearly ran into me. He might have been pulling over to take in some carbs when he passed out.’
‘His pulse is racing, and he’s pale and very sweaty—I’d say you’ve got it in one, Dr Harris,’ Cam agreed. ‘I don’t suppose you have a syringe of glucogen on you?’
‘I’d have tablets in my bag in the car, but he should have something on him.’ She began to search the patient’s pockets, pulling out a sleeve of glucose tablets.
Perhaps because she’d been poking at him, their patient stirred.
‘That’s a bit of luck! I’ve seen before how blood glucose can rise back to pre-unconsciousness levels,’ Cam said, as he helped the young man into a sitting position and asked him if he was able to take the tablets, but Jo had already sent one of the audience to the closest café for some orange juice.
Their patient nodded, muttering to himself about stupidity and not stopping earlier.
The juice arrived and Cam supported him, holding the bottle for the shaky young patient.
‘This will be easier to get into you than the tablets,’ he said, ‘but even though you’re conscious you should take a trip up to the hospital and get checked out.’ He nodded towards the ambulance that had just pulled up. ‘Here’s your lift.’
‘But the moped?’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ Jo told him. ‘I can put it in the back of my vehicle and take it back to the hire people and explain.’
Cam stood back to let the ambulance attendants ready their patient for transport, and looked at Jo, eyebrows raised.
‘You’ll put it in the car?’
He was smiling as he said it, and all kinds of physical symptoms started up again—ripples, flickers, flutters, her skin feeling as if a million tiny sparks were going off inside it.
‘Someone would help!’ she retorted, trying really hard not to sound defensive but losing the battle.
His smile broadened and now her reactions were all internal—a squeezing in her chest, accelerated heartbeat while her lungs suddenly needed all of her attention to make them work.
How could this be happening to her?
And why?
Wasn’t she perfectly happy with her life?
Well, she was worried about the refuge, but apart from that …
CHAPTER THREE
JO WATCHED the patient being loaded into the ambulance, then turned and spoke to the young policeman who’d arrived, introducing him to Cam, who explained what he’d seen of the incident. While some of the onlookers who’d been closer to the scene gave their versions of what had happened and the shopkeeper began cleaning up the glass, Cam had set the moped upright, and was looking at it, obviously checking for damage.
‘I’ll handle that, mate,’ a voice said, and Jo turned to see that the man who hired out the little motor scooters had arrived with his ute, having heard of the accident on whatever grapevine was in operation this Sunday.
‘So, hospital?’ Cam asked, once again taking Jo’s arm, and although she knew full well it was only to guide her across the street—a street she’d crossed without guidance for a couple of decades—the stirrings in her body magnified and all she wanted to do was get away from him for a short time, give her body a good talking to and move on without all this physical disturbance before it drove her mad.
‘I guess so,’ she muttered, with so much reluctance Cam halted on the kerb to look at her.
‘You’ve changed your mind about visiting the hospital?’
Was her expression such a giveaway that he added a second question?
‘Or changed your mind about employing me?’
Cam watched the woman as he spoke. He was teasing her—well, he was almost certain he was teasing her. It was just that for a moment he thought he’d read regret in her expression.
But he hadn’t started work so surely she couldn’t be regretting hiring him already.
As if he could read the face of a woman he barely knew! Yes, he could guess at his sisters’ emotions, but he’d never really been able to tell what his ex-fiancée was thinking just from looking at her face.
‘Why would you think that!’ the woman he’d questioned demanded, stepping off the kerb so he was forced to move if he wanted to keep hold of her arm. ‘I was thinking of the kid—the diabetic. It’s one of the worries when the schoolies are here, that any kid who is a diabetic can drink too much, or play too hard, and not take in enough fluids. I haven’t had an instance here, but that lad made me think.’
That was a very obvious evasion, Cam guessed, but he didn’t say so. Whatever Jo had been thinking about was her business, not his, although he did hope she wasn’t regretting hiring him before he’d even started work.
And it was probably best not to consider that hope too closely—could it be more than the surf that made him want to stay on here?
It couldn’t be the woman—they’d barely met …
And it certainly wasn’t the accommodation!
Although thinking about waking in the rose bower did make him smile: waking up in the flat would certainly be a far cry from a desert camouflage tent.
But even as he smiled he wondered if he shouldn’t leave right now, before he got as entangled as the roses in the bower. It wouldn’t be fair to any woman to be lumbered with him the way his mind was—the nightmares, the flashbacks, the doubts that racked him.
Jo beeped the car unlocked, then looked at Cam in vague surprise as opened her door and held it.
‘Not used to gentlemen in Crystal Cove?’ he asked, discovering that teasing her was fun, particularly as a delicate rose colour seeped into her cheeks when he did it.
Jo refused to answer him. Okay, so he was a tease. She could handle that. She just had to get used to it and to take everything he said with the proverbial grain of salt. And she had to learn not to react.
Not to react to anything to do with the man.
Already she was regretting suggesting she show him around.
She pulled into the hospital car park, enjoying, as she always did, the old building with its wide, sheltered verandas and its view over the beach and the water beyond.
Today must have been ‘putting up the decorations’ day for the veranda railing was garlanded with greenery while red and green wreaths hung in all the windows.
‘Great hospital!’ Cam said.
‘It’s a triumph of local support over bureaucracy,’ she told him. ‘The government wanted to close it some years ago and the local people fought to keep it. We’ve even got a maternity ward, if you can call one birthing suite and a couple of other rooms a ward. It’s so good for the local women to be able to have their babies here, and although we don’t have a specialist obstetrician we’ve got a wonderful head midwife, and Tom’s passionate about his obstetrics work.’
‘I vaguely remember him being keen on it during our training,’ Cam said, while Jo hurried out of the car before he could open her door and stand near her again.
She really needed to get away—needed some time and space to sort out all the strange stirrings going on in her body, not to mention the fact that her mind kept enjoying conversations with her new employee. It was almost as if it had been starved of stimulation and was now being refreshed.
Impossible.
Was she away with the fairies that she was even thinking this way?
She was saved from further mental muddle by Tom, who was not only at the hospital, checking on the moped driver, but was delighted to meet up with a friend from bygone times.
‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than hang around listening to us play “Remember this”,’ Tom told Jo. ‘How about you leave Cam here and I’ll drop him back up at your place later?’
Jo’s relief was out of all proportion to the offer Tom had made, but she hoped she hid it as she checked that this was okay with her new tenant and made her escape.
He was just a man—Cam, not Tom, although Tom was also a man, though not a man she thought of as a man.
This particular dither was so ridiculous it told her just how far out of control her mind had become. She drove home, made herself a cup of tea—very soothing, tea—and sat on the deck to try to sort out what was happening to her.
Was it because it was a long time since she’d been in a relationship that her new employee was causing her problems?
Three years, that’s how long it had been.
There’d been the odd date in that time—very odd, some of them—but nothing serious. Nothing serious since Harry had declared that no power on earth would persuade him to live in a one-horse, seaside town for the rest of his life, and if she wanted to leave Sydney and go back home, that was fine by him.
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