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He stared out at the lights sparkling in the darkened town beneath him and gave a huff of laughter.
‘That would be ironic laughter,’ he muttered to himself, remembering trying to explain irony to Alex, she pushing the twins on the swings while he’d leaned over the fence. Later, that was, after she’d got used to him being around and had actually asked him for some help with some assignment she was doing.
‘Definitely ironic!’
‘Are you talking to yourself?’
He turned to see her, and all the physical reactions he’d had at the hospital happened again.
‘Never!’ he lied. ‘That would really label me a nut job.’
Alex smiled, intensifying all the stuff going on inside his body.
‘You might think back to when I met you,’ she teased. ‘You were hanging upside down on the side fence, so the nut-job label was firmly in place from the beginning.’
Will gathered the tattered remnants of his dignity.
‘I was being a bat!’ he reminded her. ‘Showing the twins how they hung in their trees.’
She laughed with such frank and open delight his insides melted.
But along with all the physical confusion came the clang of warning bells.
They were both damaged people, besides which she was probably married, or engaged, or partnered—too beautiful to still be single—while he was no catch—single father still hurting from the loss of his wife, shying away from the very thought of love. Not that this was a date …
‘Are you okay?’
‘I guess,’ he answered the still smiling woman, although okay was a long way off.
He was sitting at a table that had a view over the mouth of the river and up along the coast as far as a distant headland.
The view provided the distraction he needed.
‘Can we see your house from here?’ he asked, looking not out to sea but up the river.
Alex looked too, checking the scattering of houses on the far side of the river from the town—reached by ferry during its operating hours or by a long detour back around via the highway when the ferry stopped at midnight.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘You see the ferry down by the wharf and the fishermen’s co-op on it—the shed-looking thing? Beyond that there’s the bit of waste land and the huge old fig tree—well, we’re two houses down from the tree, although you probably can’t see the house because they seem to have built an enormous place beside it.’
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
‘We’re two houses down,’ she repeated. ‘It’s funny talking about “my house” when I haven’t been there for so long. Although I didn’t make it back in time to see Dad before the operation, we’d spoken on the phone a couple of times, and he’d been so upset about what had happened in the past that I promised when I came I’d stay with him, at least until he’s over the op.’
Will smiled, brown eyes twinkling in his tanned face, and Alex immediately regretted this reunion.
It was because he was a familiar face that she was noticing little things about him—like the twinkling eyes.
And she certainly shouldn’t be noticing twinkling eyes when he was wearing a wedding ring.
She touched his finger.
‘You’re married, that’s nice. Kids?’
The twinkle disappeared and Will’s open, friendly face went completely blank.
‘Let’s get you a drink first.’
He was on his feet, waiting for her order.
On his feet too quickly?
Far too quickly!
Get with it, Alex!
‘G and T in a long glass, please.’
That’s better. Or it would have been if she hadn’t watched him walk towards the bar, seeing the breadth of his shoulders and how his back sloped down to slim hips and—
You will not look at his butt! The man is married, he is off limits, he’s nothing more than an old—not exactly friend but someone she had known quite well.
It’s just that he’s the first familiar face you’ve seen that you’re reacting this way.
He brought her drink and a small bowl of cashews for them to share, then settled back down at the table, this time looking out at the stretch of beach.
Do I ask again? Alex wondered, as an uneasy silence hovered around them.
‘I’m a single father,’ he began, still staring out along the beach. ‘My wife died when Charlotte was born—cancer—Charlotte’s three and a half.’
Will turned back to his companion as he spoke, aware of how stiff and remote he must have sounded as he’d blurted out his story.
Lack of practice in telling it—he knew that. Telling it was one of the reasons he’d avoided going out—telling it hurt …
Had she felt that pain—heard it in his voice—that her fingers, cold and slightly damp from the glass, reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze?
‘Oh, Will,’ she said softly. ‘I cannot imagine what pain that must have caused you—and what a loss it must have been. We see awful things every day in our work, yet we somehow think we’re immune to it.’
She hesitated, her fingers tightening on his hand.
‘Do you want to talk about it—to tell me?’
And suddenly he did. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for Alex to return—or someone like Alex to come along—so he could put it all together and let it all out, releasing some of the terrible tension he’d carried inside his body for so long.
‘We met as students, married after graduation then waited a while to have kids—an intern’s life is appalling so we were hardly ever together. Then, when we decided to have a family, Elise, her name was Elise, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was three months pregnant. It was a very aggressive strain and the specialists wanted her to abort the baby and get immediate treatment. She refused, knowing the treatment would leave her sterile.’
He paused but Alex kept quiet, perhaps sensing there was more.
‘We fought about it, Alex,’ he finally added, looking into the blue eyes across the table from him, seeing her understanding and concern. “That’s what hurts so much now, that I fought her over this, said terrible things.’
‘But only out of love,’ Alex said quietly, and he knew she understood.
‘She wouldn’t accept any treatment or even pain relief that would have crossed the placenta and harmed the baby, and by the last month of the pregnancy she was in a coma—treatment was too late.’
Alex sipped her drink, knocked flat by the deep pain behind Will’s simple tale. To her, in that first year at the Armitages’, Will had always seemed like part of the family. And, perhaps because of the family link, he’d been totally unthreatening, unlike the youths and young men she’d see on the street or in the park—males who’d make some casual remark, not really even aimed at her, but enough to make her cringe and scurry back home with the twins.
Will had just been Will, studying medicine because, she suspected, he’d idolised Dave and Isobel.
Now the pain he’d had in his life made her heart ache for him.
No wonder he’d grown up …
‘So, your daughter?’
His smile lit up his face.
It did weird things to her insides too, but she could ignore them.
‘Charlotte,’ he said simply. ‘She’s the greatest—a precious gift—she’s why we came back here to Port. Look, here’s a photo.’
Alex waited while he pulled out his wallet and dug in the folds, and she wondered if he was giving himself time to get over the memories of his wife’s death.
The small, wallet-sized photo, showed a little girl with a mop of brown curls and a smile that could melt stone. Alex’s breathing faltered as she looked at the beautiful child. Mr Spencer had stolen more than her innocence, he’d stolen her ability to get close enough to a man to want a sexual relationship, let alone a child.
But Will was speaking again and she switched off the futile regrets to listen.
‘Mum minds her when I’m at work, although I’ve built a separate flat in Mum’s house so we’re independent a lot of the time.’
The happiness faded from his face.
‘It worries me, though, that I rely so much on Mum. Now she’s retired she should be out doing things, not minding a nearly four-year-old.’
‘I bet she’s fine with that,’ Alex told him, and touched the hand that still held the photo, just gently …
‘She says so and it will be easier when Charlotte goes to kindy next year, then school—’
‘And then, whoosh—they’re gone from your life.’
His smile wasn’t the worst one she’d ever seen, but it was close, yet even the weak effort affected Alex.
Jet-lag—it had to be!
Jet-lag and seeing a familiar face, that’s all that was going on.
She let go of his hand and concentrated on her drink.
‘So, tell me about you,’ he said, and she knew her own smile would be even weaker than his had been.
In so many ways it was a success story, yet—
‘Perhaps we should eat,’ she suggested, hoping a move from this table—any kind of movement—might …
What? Make him forget he’d asked?
Or break the sense of intimacy—it had to be a false intimacy because of the past—that seemed to be enclosing them.
‘We can talk over food,’ she added, because she knew she’d been far too abrupt.
Will stood up with such alacrity she had to believe he’d felt it too. He led her into another part of the room where most of the diners already finishing their meals, lingering over dessert or last drinks.
‘Tell me about Charlotte—favourite games, toys, books,’ she said, when a waiter had ushered them to a table and slid serviettes onto their laps.
Will grinned at her, which kind of undid a lot of what the move had accomplished, in that a different kind of tension had appeared, tightening her skin and skidding along her nerves.
‘You’re supposed to be telling me about you,’ he reminded her.
Alex waved away his objection but he ignored the gesture.
‘No way, you tell first,’ he ordered, waggling his finger at her, like a teacher with a reluctant pupil.
‘Here’s the short version,’ Alex said. ‘You’d gone south to finish your degree before I left the Armitages’, but I got that scholarship Isobel made me work so hard for, went to Brisbane, got my degree, got engaged—church upbringing still strong, so marriage seemed a logical step. I’d wanted to specialise in cardiology, Dave’s influence, I suppose, although I couldn’t handle the surgery. I was offered a terrific training job in London, qualified, got unengaged, moved from London to Glasgow, and now I’m home.’
Given that Will was still smiling at her, she thought she’d done rather well.
‘That’s it?’ he asked. ‘What happened to the fiancé? And you’re a beautiful woman, why only one?’
She’d been pretending to study the menu while she’d talked but now she looked directly at Will.
‘I was so sure I’d recovered from the rape—been to counsellors, talked and talked,’ she said, pleased to hear how calmly she could say the word, even back here where it had happened.
She paused then admitted something she’d never before put into words.
‘But relationships—they just don’t seem to work. Not that I’ve had that many, but I’ve tried, Will, I really have, but when it comes to taking the next step—the intimacy thing—I pull back. It’s unfair to the men, apart from anything else, so in the end I stopped dating and, really, my life is simpler and I’m happy with it. There’s something missing in me, Will, and that’s all I can put it down to.’
Had she sounded depressed that Will reached out and covered her hand with his?
Nothing more than a sympathetic touch, but it fired Alex’s slowly settling nerves again. She removed her hand to close her menu.
‘I think I’ll have the rack of lamb,’ she said, far too brightly.
Will waved the waiter over, gave their order, talked to him about a good red wine to have with the lamb. They would sell it by the glass, which was all he wanted.
The waiter returned with a bottle of red, showed it to Will, offered him a taste, then poured them both a glass.
Will lifted his to toast Alex, who clinked her glass with his and kind of smiled. Maybe it would have worked if sadness hadn’t still been lingering in her eyes …
Not that he’d meant to notice her eyes—
‘So, Glasgow? What on earth were you doing there?’
This time Alex’s smile was better, and he heard an echo of laughter in her voice.
‘It’s actually a very lively city, and I had a dream job. Then Dad got in touch and—well, here I am. As I said, I’m a cardiologist and although I hope I won’t get a lot of intensive-care patients, I imagine we’ll see a bit of each other around the hospital. I’ve joined a practice here.’
‘Brian Lane’s?’
Alex nodded.
‘But that’s great, he’s a good friend of mine,’ Will said, smiling enthusiastically. ‘I have a room in the same building—we’ll be running into each other all the time.’
Before Alex could reply—well, what was there to reply—the smile faded from Will’s face and he asked, rather uncertainly, ‘It is good, isn’t it?’
His sudden uncertainty told Alex that he was as unpractised in the relationship game as she was. Not that this was a relationship. Will was still obviously getting over Elise, while she, Alex, could make an epic disaster of even a casual date.
‘I think it’s good,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve already made my homecoming so much easier, Will, so having you around as I learn my way around the hospital will be fantastic.’
His face lit up as his luminous smile returned, and Alex was swamped by a shivery sensation of …
What?
Happiness?
No, that would be ridiculous.
Fortunately, the waiter returned with their dinners, and operating on her rack of lamb, separating out the cutlets, gave Alex time to recover from whatever it might have been.
Will was talking about Charlotte now, apparently answering the questions Alex had asked earlier in the conversation.
And in every word Alex heard the love this grown-up Will had for his little daughter, while the happiness she’d brought him shone in his eyes.
‘She sounds great,’ Alex said, and to her surprise Will blushed, much as he had as a young man when she’d caught him hanging on the fence.
‘I talk too much about her when I do go out. Mum says I need to do some speed dating to get back into the way of speaking to women. She says Charlotte needs a mother and she’s probably right.’
Serious brown eyes met Alex’s across the table.
‘But I’ve got out of the dating habit,’ he admitted, before adding ruefully, ‘Not that I was ever that good at it. Do you remember Isobel telling me—some time that year—that I should write out a list of things to talk about before going to a party? Questions, she said, ask women questions about themselves and actually listen to their answers—that’s very flattering.’
Alex smiled.
‘I suspected at the time she was talking to me as well. She kept encouraging me to go out and meet young people. As I remember, you were all of a dither because you thought this girl you liked would be there, right?’
She studied Will, whose entire attention now appeared to be on his meal.
‘Did it work for you?’ she asked.
He looked up and smiled, and although the now-familiar reactions to his smile tumbled through her body, they stilled when he answered.
‘It did,’ he said quietly. ‘The girl was Elise.’
Which killed that conversation dead, Will realised as the words landed between them with an almost audible thump.
He had to think, to say something—anything—because talking to Alex was making him feel good inside, while looking at Alex—well, best he didn’t consider how that was making him feel!
But where was his list?
Ask questions, Isobel had told him way back then.
He stopped pretending to be eating and looked up at the woman across the table from him, delicately cutting morsels of lamb from her cutlets.
‘How did you feel about coming back to Port?’
She met his eyes, and smiled.
‘Ask questions, huh?’ she teased, then looked thoughtful, as if actually considering her reply.
‘Hearing from my father—that was a shock. After so many years, it took a while to take it in, but then I reread his letter, saw the bit about his health, and coming back seemed the only possible thing to do—the natural thing. As if it was time …’
How could he not reach out to rest his hand on hers?
How could he not squeeze her slim, warm fingers?
‘It must be hard,’ he said, and her smile brightened.
‘I don’t really know yet,’ she said. ‘In the taxi, coming from the airport, seeing the river and the sea, well, it felt right. In fact, I felt a surge of excitement, as if this was where I should be. But since then I’ve been at the hospital and then here—not really home at all.’
‘But you’ll go home—to your old house—stay there?’
She nodded.
‘I think so—for a while at least, while Dad convalesces, then we’ll see how it works out. It’s been nearly twenty years since I left home, Will, and I don’t really know him any more.’
Her smile this time was less joyous, nothing more than a slight curl of her lips, and her eyes held Will’s as she added, ‘It might sound strange but up to that time I was happy here, you see. I had a wonderful childhood with the river right beside us. I think I’ve let what happened to me affect my life for far too long. I want to start again, back in the place where I belong.’
He wanted to kiss her, in praise of her courage, nothing more—well, almost nothing more.
‘If anyone can do it, you can,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ she said softly, lifting her hand from under his and replacing it on top, where it sat, warm and comforting, although wasn’t he supposed to be comforting her?
She really should stop holding his hand. This was just a dinner between colleagues—old friends—not a date.
But holding Will’s hand felt … nice. Pathetic word but it covered the situation.
Very nice would be even better—
A low ping of a message arriving on Will’s mobile broke into her thoughts, and the gravity on his face as he read the message told her it wasn’t good news.
‘I’m sorry, Alex, but your father’s had a setback—heart attack or stroke. His surgeon is on his way, but I’ll have to go.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Alex said.
Will was on his feet, asking the waiter to put the dinner on his account, shrugging into the jacket he’d hung on the back of his chair.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said to Alex as he walked her to the door, slipping a comforting arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. ‘His surgeon was worried about him undergoing the operation when he’d had a heart attack three years ago but the leaking heart valve was restricting his life and eventually would have killed him. Now this!’
Will insisted on driving her to the hospital.
‘I can drop you back at your car later,’ he said.
‘No car. I got a cab from the airport earlier and walked from the hospital this evening,’ Alex whispered, while all the ‘what ifs’ clamoured in her head. She should have come sooner, tried harder to heal the wound between herself and her parents, at the very least thanked Dad for getting in touch with her in the end.
Now it might be too late. A post-surgical patient was too fragile to have heroic lifesaving measures practiced on him.
‘He’d signed a health directive stating he didn’t want to be resuscitated,’ Will said quietly as he opened the door of his car for her.
Alex found a wan smile.
‘I was just thinking he was hardly a candidate for the more heroic revival techniques.’
Will patted her hand. ‘Let’s wait and see.’ He closed the car door and walked around the hood to get in beside her.
They arrived at the ICU to find a flurry of activity as they prepared to take the patient to Radiography for a CT scan of his brain, a stroke now seeming the most likely cause of his deep unconsciousness.
Alex stood beside her father’s bed, with Will on the other side.
‘If it’s a stroke it would have to be haemorrhagic, rather than a clot—he’d be on blood thinners post-op,’ Alex said, trying to think professionally so she could block out the emotion and nerves.
Will nodded glumly. ‘Any bleed with already thinned blood could be catastrophic.’
Alex watched helplessly as gentle hands stripped away the tubes and monitors before lifting her father onto the scanner’s stretcher and sliding his head into the machine.
In ten minutes they had the answer, a subarachnoid haemorrhage where an unsuspected aneurysm had burst.
Her father was returned to his bed and reattached to monitors and breathing apparatus, but Alex knew it was too late. Such a catastrophic bleed had only one outcome, especially in her father’s weakened post-op state.
And heroics, had any been available, weren’t an option. Within an hour of them returning to the hospital her father was dead. Alex looked down at the man who, in her childhood, had been so good to her. It had been a strict upbringing, but Dad had been patient, and caring, and always kind.
Until the end …
She looked across the bed at Will, who’d stayed quietly there to support her.
‘I suppose I’ll have to organise a funeral in that damn church!’ she muttered, again using practicalities to keep the fear and pain at bay. ‘And face those women who spat at me when I took their precious Mr Spencer to court.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Will said, something in his voice making her look up from the figure on the bed. ‘I get to see the health directives of all patients coming into the ICU, and also any personal requests in the event of a patient’s death. Your father left very specific instructions. There were to be no services at all, from memory.’
‘Poor Dad,’ Alex whispered, then she turned away from the bed, aware that tears were close to falling and not wanting to give in to the mix of rage and grief inside her until she was on her own. ‘I’d better get home and go through his papers and just hope he left some instructions.’
Will could hear the tears thick in her voice, and knew instinctively she wouldn’t want to cry in front of him. The teenager who’d lived next door was all grown up now, and he had to respect her adulthood for all he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her.
He insisted on driving her home, aware that if he missed the last ferry he’d have a long drive out to the highway and back into town, but he knew she’d been tired and jet-lagged before her father’s death had hit her, and he didn’t want her returning to that house of hurt on her own.
He kept the headlights shining on the front of the house, while she dug around under pot plants for a spare key.
‘It’s always here,’ she muttered when he joined the search, and it was he who found the hollow rock among the pebbles on the path.
He unlocked the door for her and pushed it open, wondering just how hard this would be for her. She was standing back, just a little, and he sensed she was gathering the nerve to walk into the place that had once been her home.
He was about to suggest she stay somewhere else—at his mother’s place or a hotel in town—just for tonight when an unnerving voice yelled from the darkness.
‘That you, Bruce?’
To Will’s surprise, Alex laughed and laughed, stepping past him and reaching out to switch on a light, calling, ‘Buddy, where are you? It’s Alex, Buddy.’
The pink and grey galah shot like an arrow down the hall, landing on Alex’s head and dancing a little jig there before settling on her shoulder, turning his head a little to one side as he studied her, then letting loose with a loud ‘Who’s a pretty girl, then?’ as he nuzzled his head against her cheek.
Now the tears she’d held in check spilled from her eyes, although through the dampness she was smiling.
‘Silly bird,’ she said, turning back to Will. ‘We’ve had him since he was a fledgling and we have no idea where he got the name Bruce, but no amount of patience on Dad’s part ever got him to say another name. He talks a lot of other rot, but he always comes back to Bruce.’