Praise for Meredith Webber:

‘Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ favourite Meredith Webber has penned a spellbinding and moving tale set under the hot desert sun!’

—CataRomance on The Desert Prince’s Convenient Bride

‘Meredith Webber has written an outstanding romantic tale that I devoured in a single sitting—moving, engrossing, romantic and absolutely un-putdownable! Ms Webber peppers her story with plenty of drama, emotion and passion, and she will keep her readers entranced until the final page.’

—CataRomance on A Pregnant Nurse’s Christmas Wish

‘Meredith Webber does a beautiful job as she crafts one of the most unique romances I’ve read in a while. Reading a tale by Meredith Webber is always a pleasure, and The Heart Surgeon’s Baby Surprise is no exception!’

—Book Illuminations on The Heart Surgeon’s Baby Surprise

MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, ‘Once I read an article which suggested that Mills & Boon® were looking for new Medical Romance™ authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

The One Man
to Heal Her
Meredith Webber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

The idea for this book came when I was on a short writing retreat with a group of fellow writers who have been going away—as many as can get together—once a year for about nine years now.

We work in the morning, walk the beach—brave ones swim—usually lunch together, and then have brainstorming sessions or discussions on topics we’ve already decided on over lunch and into mid-afternoon. We break into smaller groups, or go off on our own, until ‘wine o’clock’, when we once again get together. These sessions are usually the most productive in producing ideas. Often they’re wild ideas—but even wild ideas can be tamed and brought together in a book.

Such is the way of some books, and it took nine months’ gestation before this one finally came together in its current form—so I hope this particular baby is as good as the making of it was.

Meredith Webber

For all the Maytoners, who keep me going.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Meredith Webber

About the Author

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

ALEX SAT HUDDLED on a red plastic chair against the wall of the ER room. A woman doctor she vaguely recognised had come towards her earlier but had whisked away when a rush of ambulance cases had been brought in, and now, two hours later, Alex still sat, a little more hunched over, exhaustion having caused her to nod off so several times she’d nearly fallen off the chair.

Twice a male nurse had approached, but, unable to stand the thought of a man touching her, she’d shrunk back and lied, saying she was waiting for someone.

Then the woman doctor she’d seen earlier must have cleared the urgent patients and approached once again.

‘Are you here for treatment?’ she asked gently.

Alex nodded, not sure she would be able to speak, let alone move, so thick was the cloud of despair and unhappiness that enveloped her.

The doctor knelt and reached out to touch Alex’s cheek, brushing at the tears that kept dripping out of her eyes no matter how hard she tried to stop them.

She wondered what the doctor would make of her pathetic behaviour. Probably assume she was a street kid, although would a street kid be wearing clean clothes?

‘Can you tell me what’s wrong?’

The question focussed Alex’s mind.

‘I’m bleeding.’

She whispered the words, and heard the huskiness of fear and shame in them—saw the doctor’s look of shock—wondered what the doctor would think …

‘I’m Dr Isobel Armitage,’ the woman said gently. ‘Come with me and I’ll see what I can do to help you.’

She took Alex’s hand, pressed her fingers reassuringly, and led her to a cubicle, pausing only to draw the curtains around it.

The male nurse who’d offered assistance earlier eased through the gap in the curtains. The doctor must have felt Alex cringe and try to hide behind her because she turned and hugged her tightly, asking the nurse to leave them.

‘She wouldn’t talk to me earlier,’ he complained, but the woman called Isobel just shooed him away.

‘Are you feeling well enough to tell me who you are? Answer a few questions?’

Alex nodded, and somehow managed to supply her name, Alexandra Hudson, and age, sixteen, but when she came to an address the courage that had shored her up to actually get to the hospital deserted her and she burst into tears.

Once again the doctor held her while she cried, then poked her head outside the door to ask some unseen person to bring in tea with plenty of sugar.

‘A hot drink will do you good,’ Isobel said, passing the box of tissues to Alex before wrapping a blood-pressure cuff around her arm. Isobel talked as she worked, making notes on a chart that still had no address on it.

The talking helped so by the time the tea arrived the tears had stopped, although the doctor—Isobel—waited until Alex finished her tea before asking quietly, ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Alex lifted her head, knowing she had to be looking at Isobel as she spoke although cringingly aware of how rough she must look with a tear-streaked face and tangled hair, her clothes thrown on any old how.

Deep breath!

You can do this!

And she did—or she began …

‘It was Mr Spencer—Dad’s friend. He—he …’

‘He raped you?’

Alex nodded.

‘I need to examine you,’ Isobel told her.

The words were gentle but Alex could see the woman’s anger flashing in her eyes. How much of this kind of thing—of men’s violence towards woman—had she seen in her job?

‘Did you tell your parents?’

Alex knew the question was the obvious one and the doctor had to ask it, but—

The pain of their reaction speared through her yet again, but she had to tell—to explain …

The words came tumbling out in a shivery kind of whisper, forced past the hurt—the rejection …

‘They called me a liar and a slut and told me I was no longer their daughter. They’re religious, you see. Mr Spencer, he preaches in the church sometimes and I told Mum weeks ago that he kept touching me and she sent me to my room for talking filth.’

Now she was crying again—tears rolling down her cheeks—like a big sook.

She had no idea what the doctor was thinking until she took both of Alex’s hands in hers, gently squeezed her fingers once again, and said quietly, ‘We should report it to the police.’

Alex nodded. She’d already thought about this and knew the doctor was right, although the woman looked very surprised by her agreement.

‘There’s other kids there, at the church, younger than me,’ she explained, ‘and he touches them too. He shouldn’t be allowed—someone has to stop him.’

‘You’re something special,’ Isobel said, smiling at Alex, ‘but there’s your family to consider as well. There’ll be publicity, a court case—how will they handle it?’

Alex shrugged.

‘They’ve kicked me out, what more can they do to me?’

And something in her determination must have come through in the words—the hint of the growing strength that she knew lay beneath her unhappiness—because Isobel reached around her and gave her another a warm hug.

‘We’ll look after you,’ she promised. ‘And I’ll stand by you all through it. But first …’

She stopped, obviously thinking of the next step.

‘I have to phone someone from the police. A woman called Marcie Clarke. She’s kind and understanding and has done this kind of police business before,’ Isobel told Alex. ‘When she gets here we can examine you and take samples.’

‘Samples?’

The word fluttered from Alex’s lips and Isobel frowned.

‘It hasn’t just happened? You’ve been home?’

‘I had to go home,’ Alex told her, the experience coming back to her in all its horror. ‘I had to clean myself up and scrub away what that man had done to me, but it was two days ago and there’s still blood and I don’t know what to do.’

She broke down completely, crying giving way to desolate sobs, then the doctor’s arms were around her again, comforting and soothing, shushing and promising that everything would be all right.

Three hours later, the rape reported, Alex comforted by the information that a torn hymen could bleed for a couple of days, and Marcie in charge of what little, probably useless, evidence Isobel had managed to retrieve, the kind doctor who’d got her through the ordeal disappeared to take a phone call.

Alex was exhausted, too tired to even care about what would happen next—where she’d find a bed, how she’d live. Did Heritage Port have places for homeless teenagers?

It was all too much, so she curled up on the narrow bed in the cubicle and fell asleep.

At some time someone must have come in and put a light cover over her because when Isobel woke her gently, she was clutching it tightly around her body like the ultimate security blanket.

‘Do you have somewhere to go?’ Isobel asked, handing Alex another cup of tea and a healthy-looking muffin.

Alex shook her head.

‘Would you know of someplace?’ she asked, and heard her voice crack as the reality of the situation nearly overwhelmed her again.

‘Well, I’ve one idea,’ Isobel told her. ‘Do you like kids?’

‘Love them,’ Alex replied, and to her surprise she even found a smile. ‘I’ve done a lot of babysitting. I started when I was fourteen because I’ve been saving money to get a car—a red car! And I volunteer at a pre-school play group at the community centre on Saturday mornings.’

‘I thought you looked familiar!’ said Isobel. ‘I sometimes take my twins to that play group.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I know this sounds daft and it’s a bit sudden, but would you like to come home with me? I’ve got two monsters so I can promise they’ll take your mind off your troubles for a while. I’ll be in the house but I’ll need to sleep at some time, so if you’re there I can. My husband’s also a doctor and he’s due at work any minute and one of the twins has a cold so they can’t go to kindy. Dave, that’s my husband, and I have been talking about getting an au pair for some time, but neither of us has ever had time to do anything about it. You need a home—and ours might not be it—but just for today at least, would you like a job?’

This time it was Alex who hugged her!

CHAPTER ONE

SHE’D COME HOME to Heritage Port with plenty of misgivings, but within hours of her arrival Alex had known she’d done the right thing. Although her childhood had been happy, her best memories of the place were of the three and a half years she’d spent with the Armitage family, minding the rambunctious twins, finishing school and even starting her pre-med studies at university, she and the twins’ parents juggling their timetables so everything ran smoothly.

Well, as smoothly as could be expected with two little mischief-makers in the house!

It wasn’t that the horror of the rape and the humiliation of the trial that had followed it didn’t occasionally still disturb her dreams—her ex-fiancé had blamed it for what he’d termed her inability to respond to his kisses, let alone anything more intimate—but she found herself pleased to be home in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

As the taxi carried her from the airport, bright sun shone on the rolling ocean, white-fringed waves crashed on the rocks at the headland, and shushed up the beach. The river was as green and peaceful as she remembered it, and, best of all, somehow, in the intervening years, the hard knot in her heart had loosened.

Now, sitting beside the hospital bed, she was able to look at her father and remember the man who’d first taught her to bait her fishing hook—the father she’d loved …

‘So, where have you come from?’ one of the nurses in the ICU asked as Alex, her luggage stacked in a corner of the room, held her father’s hand, and talked to the sleeping man about fishing in the dark shadows of the mangroves that arched over the little inlets off the river.

‘Here,’ she told him. ‘I’ve just been away for a while.’

Away when the girls she’d been at school with had been marrying and having babies …

Away when her mother had died without forgiving her for ‘making a fuss’ …

Away, but always waiting for a letter that said two simple words, ‘Come home.’

‘How long’s a while?’ the nurse asked, making conversation, Alex knew, but welcoming it in the sterile room, the silence broken only by her voice and the machines.

‘Sixteen years.’

‘Long time!’

And it had been.

When the Armitage family, with their darling twins, had shifted to Melbourne so Isobel and Dave could continue specialist careers, Alex had chosen to go north to Brisbane to finish her medical training.

From there, on Isobel’s advice, she’d contacted her parents, writing to them to tell them where she was and what she was doing. Although she’d received no response, she’d continued writing—birthdays and Christmas—always somehow hoping …

Then, three weeks ago, in far-off Glasgow, she’d received a letter from her father. Her mother was dead, Rusty, the dog, was dead, Mr Spencer had died, and he, her father, was going into hospital for open-heart surgery to replace a wonky valve.

The letter hadn’t asked her to come home, but here she was, sitting in the intensive care unit in the new modern hospital at Heritage Port, talking quietly to her heavily sedated father, and remembering happy times.

Will Kent, head intensivist, doing a round of the ICU, was surprised to see the woman there, her arms cradling her head on the bottom of the bed, apparently deeply asleep. Mr Hudson might be his patient in this unit, Will’s fiefdom, but the man had been unconscious since he’d arrived.

‘Who’s the woman in with Mr Hudson?’ he asked one of the nurses.

‘His daughter—Alexandra, I think she’s called—just arrived from Scotland. Apparently hasn’t been home for years. Some daughter!’

Alexandra Hudson—Alex!

Of course she hadn’t been home for years—banished as she’d been at sixteen. Ending up with his next-door neighbours, Isobel and Dave Armitage, as a nanny for their twins.

He peered more closely at the patient.

There didn’t seem to be anything familiar about the man—old now, and grey with illness—but he did remember the day Isobel had asked him to accompany her and Alex back to the Hudson home so Alex could get some clothes. Dave had been working, and Will had felt enormously proud that Isobel had chosen him to go along. He’d seen himself as the protector of the two women—a tall, lanky, bespectacled, twenty-two-year-old protector!

Mrs Hudson had thrown Alex’s clothes from an upstairs window, ranting all the time about ‘whores’ and ‘sluts’, while Mr Hudson had barred the door, standing there like an ancient biblical prophet, his only prophecy doom.

Poor Alex had been scarlet with humiliation and hurt, tears leaking from behind the big dark glasses she’d worn even inside in those days. He’d wanted to put his arm around her—to give her a hug—but he’d known she’d shy away, as she had from all but the twins’ hugs and kisses.

Not that he’d have kissed her—she’d been, what? Fifteen? Sixteen?

He couldn’t remember—remembered only the deep pity he’d felt for the so obviously damaged teenager.

Was this patient, here in the ICU, recovering from an operation for a heart valve replacement, that Mr Hudson?

Was the sleeping woman really Alex?

And had his thoughts disturbed her that she stirred and lifted her head?

Huge blue eyes she’d hidden behind darkened glasses for all the years she’d lived next door stared unseeingly at him.

Huge blue eyes framed by golden blonde hair tipped with silver here and there and softly tousled by sleep. The early beauty she’d tried to hide with shorn hair and the glasses had come to fruition. Even sleep-tousled, she was stunning.

‘Alex?’

She straightened up from the bed and frowned at him.

‘I’m Will, Will Kent—from next door to the Armitages, remember?’

The frown deepened and she shook her head, so obviously puzzled he had to smile.

‘You pinched my job,’ he added, remembering how he’d pretended to complain about losing the occasional babysitting he’d done for the Armitages.

‘Superman?’ she whispered, disbelief filling the words.

He flourished a pretend cloak and bowed low.

‘At your service, ma’am! But also head intensivist at the hospital. Your father’s in my care until he’s well enough to be transferred to the coronary care unit.’

He saw her face light up as things fell into place and she shot to her feet and advanced to give him an all-enveloping hug.

‘Oh, Will,’ she murmured, ‘it’s so good to see a familiar face.’

She eased back, looking at him, then laughed.

‘Not so familiar—you’ve grown up!’

‘Not even Superman can stay twenty-two for ever,’ Will said gloomily, and she laughed again, her face lighting up with delight—so gloriously beautiful Will felt his lungs seize.

Breathe, he told himself, and tried to remember how.

Fortunately, as his brain seemed to be similarly paralysed, instinct took over and his lungs filled with air while he tried to catch up with Alex’s conversation.

‘Intensivist? Weren’t you heading towards O and G when you left Port? What made you change your mind? It can’t have been the late night callouts, you’d get more of them in this job.’

‘Whoa!’

Will held up his hand, pleased to see his limb was obeying messages, although other parts of his body were obviously still in shock.

‘I’m on a ward round and really need to check your dad and the other patients.’

‘Can we catch up later?’ Alex asked. ‘I couldn’t get home before the op, but I’ve spoken to the surgeon who did the operation. He gave me the impression he wasn’t too positive about the outcome.’

As Will was still feeling startling and unfamiliar reactions to Alex’s hug, he wondered if this was wise, but she was entitled to ask questions about her father’s health.

But beyond that, he was intrigued. The damaged teenager who, in the beginning, would duck away if she saw him over the fence, and who’d shrunk back from any physical contact—even a simple handshake—had emerged, like a caterpillar from a cocoon, as this beautiful butterfly.

He wanted to know just how she’d managed the transformation—and how deep it went. He knew Isobel in particular had worked hard to restore Alex’s self-esteem, but there’d been a fragility about the teenager that couldn’t be hidden behind dark glasses and a dreadful haircut.

‘As far as your father’s concerned, the operation went well, but he wasn’t in the best of health before it. Other heart problems apparently. I only know this stuff from his chart but I gather that if it hadn’t been a necessity …’

He paused, wondering how to tell this woman he knew but didn’t know just how precarious her father’s health was.

‘Look, I should be through by eight and your father will still be sleeping off the anaesthetic until morning at least, so you might as well get out of here for a while,’ he said. ‘We could eat in the canteen but the food’s appalling. There’s a nice new bar and restaurant at the top of the old Royal Motel. It has a fancier name now—the motel, that is—which I can never remember. And it’s in walking distance. We could have a meal—give us time to catch up.’

She nodded her agreement as a nurse came into the room. Will’s attention, or ninety-five per cent of it, returned to his patient as he discussed Mr Hudson’s progress and checked the results the monitor was revealing by the second.

Alex had slipped away, for which he was truly grateful, although he felt a momentary regret he hadn’t looked at her more closely, if only to confirm his impression she’d blossomed into a startlingly beautiful woman.

Will Kent!

Alex stood in the little bathroom off the family waiting room of the ICU and smiled as she ran the name through her head.

But had the Will Kent she’d known had laughing brown eyes that crinkled with smile lines at the corners, and lips that seemed to be on the verge of a smile all the time? Of course, eighteen years ago, when he’d left Port to finish his studies, his eyes probably hadn’t been crinkled, and they’d been hidden behind the dark-framed glasses, and, anyway, in the state she’d been in back then she wouldn’t have noticed anything about any man. Certainly not his lips …

And she’d better not notice them now, she reminded herself. As she’d pointed out, Will was all grown up now, and undoubtedly married with children. In fact, throwing herself at him, hugging him, had undoubtedly embarrassed him no end, rendering him practically speechless.

Back then he’d been the Armitages’ next-door neighbour christened Superman by the twins—or probably their parents, given his surname. Self-effacing—that was how she’d have described him—but somehow he’d always been around in that first year she’d been with the Armitages. In and out of the house, borrowing textbooks from Dave or Isobel, seemingly always there if she’d needed him. She tried to remember.

He’d certainly helped her rescue Riain out of the tree one day, and had carried Rosi down to the doctor’s the day she’d fallen off the swing.

Superman!

She smiled at the memories and told herself that today, with all the emotions of her return home churning inside her, she’d probably have hugged any familiar face.

An image of Will as he was now, dark hair touched with silver, lips stretched in a surprised smile, continued to linger in Alex’s head, making her feel hot and embarrassed and somehow ashamed all at the same time.

Why had he suggested dinner?

He could have talked to Alex in the visitors’ room, or his office, but a bar?

Had a beautiful woman giving him a hug gone straight to his head?

Or had his mother’s gentle nagging—you’ve got to start going out again some time, Will—prompted the choice?

His mother was probably right!

He did have to start going out again.

Three years now—three years, eight months and five days, if he was counting—since Elise’s death, and Charlotte deserved to have a mother …

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.’

The galah was brushing his feathers against the tears as if to dry them up, and seeing the love between the pair made Will’s heart twist, but at least the bird had made it easier for Alex to step back into her childhood home.

She had found a tissue and finished the mopping up operations.

‘Thanks, Will, for everything,’ she said quietly. ‘Not only for now but for before, because that first year with the Armitages you were always around and so—so normal you helped me be normal too. I’ll be okay now I’m home—home with Buddy. I’ve left my luggage in the visitors’ room of the CCU, but I can collect it tomorrow. I imagine there’ll be a ton of forms to fill out and arrangements to be made.’

He was being dismissed in the nicest possible way and although he’d have liked to help her—to save her the pain of making arrangements for her father whatever they might be—he knew he had to go.

He touched her shoulder and, daring the bird to object, kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘You thought he’d take your eyes out, didn’t you?’ Alex teased, smiling now, then she reached out and gave him a hug. ‘Thanks again!’

He walked away, aware of the woman in the lighted doorway, blue eyes watching his departure, a pink and grey bird dancing on her shoulder, still enquiring about the whereabouts of Bruce.

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