New Doc in Town
Meredith Webber
New Doc in Town
Meredith Webber
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u6b5674b4-b727-545d-8a51-343c073ed277)
Title Page (#u94426c9e-07d5-5b55-88c2-244703b4e03a)
Praise (#u0cf6376f-bddc-5b44-ac72-780a49266724)
About the Author (#u561127e8-879b-5083-8ad7-944eb2ca3cfb)
Chapter One (#u4630fdb2-89b5-51bc-8cbf-887ea0af4ff2)
Chapter Two (#u361f3cd2-f037-541e-b857-a02cfb7f0e36)
Chapter Three (#u464b1c38-bb45-5812-8116-27842bc03d6d)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise for Meredith Webber:
‘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
‘Medical
Romance favourite Meredith Webber has written an outstanding romantic tale that I devoured in a single sitting! Moving, engrossing, romantic and absolutely unputdownable. 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
Don’t miss this heartwarming new duet by Meredith Webber!
NEW DOC IN TOWN
Jo Harris has given up on love— but gorgeous Cam might just be able to light the sparkle in Jo once more!
MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, ‘Some ten years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and 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.’
CHAPTER ONE
THE psychedelic camper-van spun through the entry to the parking lot with a squeal of tyres, startling Jo as she inserted the key into the deadlock on the surgery door. She watched, fingers tightening on the key she’d just turned, as a man in tattered board shorts and a bright Hawaiian-print shirt emerged from the van.
A very tall man, thickset.
With very broad shoulders.
Her heart might have skipped a beat but that didn’t stop her medical mind checking the man out.
He didn’t seem to be bleeding, and he wasn’t limping or doubled over in pain, so sending him on to the hospital was definitely the best idea …
Definitely!
But do it politely.
Don’t freak him out.
Calm voice, no sudden moves.
‘I’m sorry but the clinic is closed,’ she called out to him. Took a deep breath and added, ‘If you follow the main road down through two roundabouts then turn right at the third you’ll find the hospital. It has twenty-four-hour Accident and Emergency cover.’
Jo—Dr Joanna Harris to give her full title—carefully unlocked the door she’d just locked, and prayed that she sounded confident. The man didn’t move, standing motionless beside the van, studying her with a slight frown on his face, as if her words hadn’t made sense.
Then, like the sun bursting through clouds on a showery day, the frown cleared and the big man smiled.
Against all common sense Jo felt her tension ease, which was ridiculous given that the local pharmacy had been robbed three times in the last six months.
‘Shouldn’t there be more than one person locking up a medical clinic?’ the giant asked, his deep voice rumbling up from somewhere inside a broad chest that was barely hidden by the hula girls, hibiscus flowers and palm trees—a lot of palm trees.
Tension returned despite the fact the voice was warm—teasing almost—and held no hint of threat.
‘There are no drugs kept on the premises,’ Jo told him, pointing to a large sign posted on the glass door.
‘Do people actually believe those signs?’ the stranger asked, and though she knew people probably didn’t, Jo defended her sign.
‘Of course they do! And we’ve got cameras.’ She pointed to the camera angled downward from the corner of the building. ‘Now, if you’d just move your vehicle, I can put up the chain across the car-park entrance. We’re not open at all on Sunday. I was doing some tidying up.’
Stupid thing to say—now he’d know there was no one else around—although he’d probably guessed that when he’d seen her locking up. Maybe it was because the man wasn’t sending out scary vibes that she’d been prattling on to him.
She still had her fingers on the key and the key was in the lock and she was pretty sure she could get inside before he reached her if he did make a move in her direction.
Cam studied the woman who was resolutely—and foolishly—guarding the clinic entrance. She was a midget—five-three at the most, slim built but curvy for all that, and with a wild tangle of pale red hair—yet she was standing her ground.
He’d driven in on a whim, noticing the sign—Crystal Cove Medical Clinic—at the last minute, wanting to see the place, not expecting anyone to be there on a Sunday morning. It hadn’t been until he was out of the van that he’d seen the woman. Now he was trying to look as non-threatening as possible, arms hanging loosely at his sides, joints relaxed, although there was no way he could minimise his six-three height.
‘I’ll be going,’ he said, keeping his voice as soft and low as he could. ‘I noticed the sign as I was driving past and thought I’d take a look. I’m coming to work here, you see.’
Even across the car park he saw the woman turn so pale he thought she might faint, while her loss of colour made a wash of faint golden freckles stand out on her skin.
‘You’re coming to work here?’ she demanded. ‘You’re coming to work here?’
‘That’s right,’ Cam told her in his gentlest, most encouraging tone. The one he usually used to calm barking dogs and tearful small children.
And women who maybe weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. This one had had to repeat his words a couple of times before she got the picture.
‘I’m the new doctor,’ he added. After all, people were usually reassured by doctors. ‘Got the job through Personal Medical Recruitments in Sydney.’ He offered another smile. ‘Not exactly looking the part at the moment, I’ll admit, but I polish up okay.’
‘You can’t be the new doctor,’ the woman wailed, and shook her head so bits of hair flew everywhere. ‘You can’t possibly be! You’re a man!’
Well, he could hardly deny the man part, but he was definitely a doctor, so Cam waited for more.
It wasn’t long in coming.
‘I asked for a mature woman,’ she continued, ‘preferably over forty, with counselling experience and a motherly manner, not for some overgrown adolescent male with a painted van and three surfboards and probably the counselling skills of an aardvark.’
Cam bit back an urge to ask if aardvarks had any counselling skills and if so how she knew. This wasn’t the moment to make light of the situation.
‘Maybe I was all they had,’ he suggested, although he was well aware he’d conned the woman at the medical recruitment agency into offering him this particular job, using every bit of charm he could dredge up because the surf at Crystal Cove was reputed to be some of the best on the east coast. Geographically, the spot was a perfect stopping-off place on his planned surfing safari. A high, rocky headland reached out into the sea, so if the southerlies were blowing the sheltered north cove would have good surf, while leaving effective swells on the open beach a few days later.
He’d thought he could fill in a few months here quite happily, working and surfing. The working part was important, as he knew there’d be times he couldn’t surf—flat sea, bad weather. He didn’t want to have long days doing nothing because doing nothing left him too much time for thinking, too much time for remembering the horrors he’d seen. ‘And I’ve not only done extra courses on counselling, but I’m good at it.’
His gut twisted as he said it, and it took all his skill at closing the many doors in his mind to shut away memories of the kind of counselling he’d done. He smiled to cover the momentary lapse.
Jo finally turned to face the man she’d been talking to over her shoulder, although she left the key in the lock. Living in a community where just about everyone rode the waves on one kind of board or another, she was used to seeing men with their over-long hair turned to, mostly temporary, dreadlocks by the salt, so this man’s brown, matted, sun-streaked hair wasn’t so unusual. Neither was his tanned face, which made his pale eyes—he was too far away to see a colour—seem paler, and his teeth, now he smiled, seem whiter.
The smile was good, but he was probably the kind of man who knew that—knew the power of a charming smile.
Charming?
Was it that good?
She’d certainly relaxed!
Annoyed by this self-revelation, she stiffened her resolve.
‘I’m sorry but I really don’t think it will work out. I didn’t ask for a woman on a whim, or because I can’t work with men—in fact, the former owner of the practice was a man and I worked with him for years. It’s just that … ‘
She couldn’t begin to list all the reasons this man would be an impossible employee.
‘Just that?’ he prompted, smiling again but helpfully this time.
‘Just that it’s impossible!’ Jo snapped, but even as she said it, she realised how stupid this was, to be having the conversation across half the parking lot—the man standing where he’d emerged from the van, she on the surgery steps. ‘Oh, come up to the house,’ she added crossly, then shook her head. ‘No, show me some authorisation and identification first—something from the agency, your driver’s licence, anything.’
He reached back into the van and brought out a quite respectable-looking briefcase, tan leather, a bit battered, but in not bad condition. He opened it and withdrew a file.
‘It’s all in here,’ he said, walking towards her.
He walked well, very upright, yet with an unconscious grace. She could picture him on a surfboard, cutting across the face of a wave, a conqueror of the ocean, sun glinting off the water droplets on that chest …
Jo gave herself a mental head-slap—a reminder to stay with it, although the longing that had come with the thought of riding the sea remained like a bruise in her chest. The man was still a stranger for all he knew the name of the agency she used to recruit staff, and held himself in an unthreatening manner. Reading body language was something she’d had to learn, but he, too, could have learned it.
He stopped a reasonable distance from her and passed her the file, then stepped back. Yep, he’d done the same body language course! Maybe he was the genuine article. but she’d wanted a woman.
She opened the file and stared at the photo it contained. Surely the gorgeous male with the short back and sides hairstyle, the dark arched eyebrows over pale blue-grey eyes, the long straight nose and shapely lips quirked, in the photo, into a slight smile wasn’t the surfie type standing right in front of her.
She looked from the photo to the man and saw the eyes, blue-grey, and then the same quirky, half-embarrassed smile, although the beard stubble she could see now he was closer to her hid the shapely lips.
‘Fraser Cameron?’
A quick, decisive nod.
‘I’m usually called Cam. I’d just got out of the army when they took the photo,’ the man explained. ‘I had an interview with the agency, put in my résumé, promised to keep in touch by phone and went surfing for a while. Nothing like a few years in the desert to give you a longing for the ocean. Deserts and ocean—well, they have sand in common but that’s about all.’
As job interviews went, this wasn’t going too well. Cam had realised that from the start. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the young woman in front of him was his boss-to-be, and she didn’t seem too happy about any aspect of him, even apart from the fact he wasn’t female.
Not that he could blame her. He should have had a shower at the beach and washed the salt out of his hair—at least run a comb through it. But until he’d seen the sign for the surgery and driven in on a whim, he’d been intent on finding a caravan park and having a proper hot shower and shave for the first time in, what—four days? He rubbed his hand across his chin—no, maybe only three. He’d stopped in Port Macquarie and had a shave there …
She was reading through his résumé, glancing up at him from time to time as if trying to fit the printed words to the unshaven man in front of her, and the fact that she was occupied gave Cam the chance to study her in turn.
The wild hair was probably the bane of her life, untamed curls that would refuse to do what she required of them. Today she’d tugged her hair into some kind of clip thing on the top of her head but, like Medusa’s snakes, strands were curling out from the containment and glinting a vibrant red-gold in the sun. Her skin went with the red hair—pale and freckled, almost milk white at her temples and so fine he could see the blue line of a blood vessel beneath it. Would he feel the throb of her heartbeat if he kissed that blue thread?
The thought startled him so much he took a step backwards, just as she looked up, clear green eyes fixed on him—still shooting darts of suspicion in his direction.
‘I guess you are who you say you are,’ she muttered, so obviously put out at having to make the admission he had to smile.
‘But still not a woman,’ he reminded her, the temptation to tease her too strong to resist.
She shot him a glare that might have affected a lesser man, but he’d grown up with three sisters, all of whom were good glarers, so he met it with a smile, although he knew—also thanks to his siblings—it would make her angrier.
‘The house is this way,’ she said, leading him across the front of the clinic building then along the side of it to where steep steps climbed towards a house that must look north over the ocean. From the bottom of the steps he could see how the clever architect had cantilevered the building out from the steep slope, and he could imagine the magnificent view of the ocean whoever lived in the house must enjoy.
‘Wow!’
He could say no more for the stairway ended on the wide deck of the house he’d admired from below, and the sweep of beach and ocean, the high headland protecting the corner of the bay, and more ocean beyond it simply took his breath away.
‘You would have seen the whales migrating north at the beginning of winter, but they’re heading south now with their calves, on their long journey home to Antarctica.’
He glanced at the woman who’d offered this titbit of information. She was standing not far away, and he knew from the expression on her face that no matter how often she looked out at this unbelievably beautiful view it would never pall for her. Just seeing it had softened her mood enough for her to share her joy in the annual whale migration.
Softened it enough to accept him as an employee?
‘I gather you are Dr Harris?’ he said, wishing he’d asked more about his prospective employer when the woman from the agency had discussed the job. In truth, from the moment she’d mentioned Crystal Cove, he’d been so busy convincing her he would be perfect for the job he’d barely asked a question.
She was smiling now, the petite redhead on the deck with him, smiling and shaking her head.
‘Ask that question of anyone in town and they’ll say no. Dr Harris was my father, but I am a doctor, Joanna Harris, Dr Jo, or just plain Jo to the locals, most of whom have known me all my life. Some of the older ones are still, though I’ve been back for five years, a bit dubious about trusting me to diagnose their problems or prescribe medication for their ills. It’s because they did that dandling me on their knee thing years ago and can’t believe I’ve grown up.’
‘You took over your father’s practice?’ It was stupid to be asking the obvious but there’d been tension in Joanna Harris’s voice and he wondered if it was simply to do with the locals not accepting her entirely, or to do with something else.
‘His practice, his house, his life,’ she responded, sounding happier now, even smiling. ‘My mother died when I was young and Dad brought me and my sister up, then, whammo, two years ago he met a woman who sailed in here on a yacht, and he fell in love. His life is now with her, wandering the world, it’s wonderful!’
Faint colour in her cheeks and a shine in her eyes told Cam she was genuinely happy for her father, so why the tension earlier?
And did it matter?
He was coming to work for this woman, he didn’t need to know what made her tick.
‘But taking over his practice? Was that not so wonderful?’
Okay, so what made people tick fascinated him—he’d had to ask!
Jo studied the man who’d erupted into her life. So she’d told him about her dad going off, but did that give him the right to pry further into her life? And why ask that particular question? What had she said to make him think her life back in Crystal Cove was anything but perfect?
It wasn’t, of course, and probably never would be, not entirely, and especially not if the refuge closed because without the refuge she’d have time on her hands—time to think—and that meant letting all the mess of grief and guilt from Jilly’s death come flooding back. That definitely wasn’t his business.
She had no intention of answering his questions, now or ever. Neither was he staying. With school holidays looming and the town due to double or even triple in population for a couple of months, maybe he’d have to stay until the agency found her someone more suitable, but permanently?
No way!
The problem was, given that he was on her front deck, what did she do with him right now? She had to say something.
Politeness dictated the answer.
‘Would you like a coffee, tea, a cold drink?’
She looked up at him as she asked the question and saw the white lines fanning out from his eyes where he’d smiled, or squinted, in the sun. She saw lines of stress in his face as well. A photo taken when he’d just left the army? An army doctor? In this day and age most army doctors would have been deployed in war zones overseas. He’d mentioned deserts. Of course there’d be lines of stress in his face.
‘Water is fine,’ he replied, and she guessed he was probably as uncomfortable as she was.
‘I’m making coffee,’ she persisted, ‘so it’s no trouble.’
He looked down at her, a slight frown on his face.
‘Water’s fine,’ he repeated, then he crossed to the edge of the deck and looked out over the ocean.
Jo hurried into the house, anxious to read more of the file she held in her hands. It was strange that the agency hadn’t contacted her to let her know the man was coming—although maybe it was because he was a man they’d neglected to contact her. They knew she wanted a woman; they even knew why.
The kitchen faced the deck so she could keep an eye on the stranger as she popped a capsule into her coffee machine. While the milk heated, she flicked through the pages, coming to a highlighted passage about Dr Fraser Cameron’s second degree in psychology and his counselling experience. Had the agency highlighted it, or had they told him what she wanted so he’d highlighted it himself?
He’d been counselling young soldiers in a war zone? Doing more than counselling, too, no doubt.
Putting young men and women back together physically as well as mentally.
The very thought made Jo’s stomach tighten.
But hard as his job must have been, how would it relate to counselling women in a refuge?
The refuge …
If it closed it wouldn’t matter one jot whether the man could counsel women or not.
If it closed she wouldn’t need another doctor in the practice …
Jo sighed then stiffened, straightening her shoulders and reinforcing her inner determination.
The refuge was not going to close!
What’s more, if this man was going to stay, even in the short term, he’d have to help her make sure it didn’t.
She poured the milk into her coffee, filled a glass with water from the refrigerator, and headed back to the deck.
‘Did the agency explain the type of counselling you’d be required to do?’ she asked him as he came towards the table where she’d set down their drinks.
The little frown she’d noticed earlier deepened and he shook his head, then shrugged shoulders that were so broad she wondered how he fitted through a doorway.
Shoulders?
Why was she thinking of shoulders? Worse, when had she last even noticed physical attributes in a man, yet here she was seeing lines in his face, and checking on shoulders …
‘They said you wanted someone with counselling experience because although there was a psychologist in Crystal Cove, he, or maybe it was a she, was already overworked. I assumed you probably ran well-men and well-women clinics, sex education at the schools and parenting skills courses. You’d be likely to use counselling as part of these.’
Jo sighed.
‘The women’s refuge wasn’t mentioned?’
His reaction was a blank stare, followed by a disbelieving ‘Women’s refuge? The town has a population of what, thirty-five hundred and you have a women’s refuge?’
‘The area has a much larger population—small farms, villages, acreage lots where people have retired or simply moved in. Anyway, just because women live in a small town, does that mean they’re not entitled to a safe place to go?’
Had she snapped that he held up his hands in surrender?
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! No way I meant that, but it came as a shock, the refuge thing. No wonder you took one look at me and saw me as a disaster. My size alone is enough to frighten horses, not to mention vulnerable women, but surely we can work through this. Surely the women who use the refuge come in contact with other men in their lives, men who aren’t threatening to them? And wouldn’t it be a good thing if they did? If they got to know men who didn’t threaten them? Men who are just as horrified by what is happening to them, and just as empathetic with them, as a woman counsellor would be?’
He was right, of course! One of the refuge’s strongest supporters was Mike Sinclair, the officer in charge of the local police force, while Tom Fletcher, head of the small local hospital, was loved by all the women who used the refuge. But the refuge aside, did she want this man working for her?
The answer that sprang immediately to mind was a firm no, but when she questioned it she didn’t like the reasons. They were far too personal. She was judging the man on his appearance, not his ability—judging him on the effect he was having on her.
Anyway, did she have a choice but to accept him?
Not right now.
‘I suppose you’ll have to do,’ she said, hoping it hadn’t come out as an unwilling mutter. ‘But it’s a trial, you have to understand that. I’m not promising it will work out, but right now I’m desperate. The town doubles in size in school holidays, which begin officially in a fortnight, but before that we have the wonderful invasion of schoolies.’
‘Schoolies? You have schoolies coming here?’
And although she dreaded the annual influx of school-leavers every year, Jo still felt affronted that the man would think her town not good enough for them.
‘Not all school leavers want the bright lights of Surfers’ Paradise,’ she said defensively.
‘Ha!’ he said, blue eyes twinkling at her in a most disconcerting manner. ‘Bet you wish they hadn’t discovered Crystal Cove!’
She considered denying his assumption, but knew she couldn’t. He’d be working with her so he could hardly avoid seeing how frazzled she became as she worried about drunk, sick and sometimes very unhappy teenagers who were supposedly marking some rite of passage into adulthood.
Adulthood? They had as much sense as fleas, some of them …
‘You’re right. It’s only in recent years that young people have decided the Cove is cool enough for them. Most of those who come are keen surfers and they’re not a problem. Anyway, I’ll take you on but, as I said, we’ll have to see how things work out.’
‘I don’t mind that,’ the stranger—Cam—said calmly. ‘After all, I might not like working with you either, and there’s still a lot of coastline for me to cover in my surfing odyssey.’
She was about to take affront—again!—but realised he was right.
‘Fair call,’ she told him, ignoring the smirk that had accompanied his words. ‘Now, once the schoolies arrive—that’s next week—there’ll be no time to show you around so—’
She didn’t want to sound desperate but, given the situation at the refuge and the fact that she needed some free time to try to sort out funding problems there, she actually was desperate.
‘Can you start tomorrow? No, that’s stupid. Can you start now so I can show you the clinic, introduce you at the hospital, and give you a quick tour of the town?’
Was she looking dubious that he glanced down at his attire and raised his eyebrows at her, the amused expression on his face sparking an unexpected—and totally inappropriate—flicker of warmth deep inside her body?
This definitely wasn’t a good idea!
‘Like this?’ he said, then shook his head. ‘Give me an hour to check in at the caravan park and have a shower and shave. I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong first impression.’
The man’s amused expression turned into a smile—her stupid flicker graduated to a flutter in her chest that caused another mental head slap.
Reality added a harder slap, this one bringing her down to earth with such a thud her physical reactions to the man paled into insignificance.
‘It’s no good. You won’t find a patch of grass available at the caravan park,’ she told him, gloom shadowing the words. ‘Well, there might be something for the next few days but after that you’d be out on your ear. Most of the schoolies camp there, then during the school holidays regulars book the same sites from year to year. It’s a similar situation with the flats and units in town. Most of them are holiday rentals and, although you wouldn’t be looking for something permanent because we don’t know if it will work out, there’d be nothing available right now.’
Not put off by the despair in her voice, he was still grinning when he suggested, ‘Is there a shower in your medical centre? Will the council evict me or fine you if I camp in the parking area?’
Jo rolled her eyes.
‘Great—here comes Dr Cameron, emerging from his van in the parking area. I can just imagine what people would think!’ The words came out snappish but she knew she was more annoyed with the offer she’d have to make than with the man himself.
She told herself not to be feeble, straightened her shoulders, and made the offer.
‘There’s a flat.’
‘You make it sound like the castle of doom!’ Cam teased, wondering why the woman was looking so unhappy about the revelation. Although she’d hardly been joyous about anything since his arrival. ‘Rats? Spiders? Snakes? Cockroaches big as dogs?’
‘It’s here at the house,’ she muttered, sounding even more unhappy, although now he could understand why she was wary. It would be awkward to have a strange man living so close, though if she’d checked out his credentials and read through his references, she shouldn’t be too worried. ‘Out the back. Dad built it years ago and I used it for a while until he took off on the yacht. It’s got a deck, the flat not the yacht, although—’
She stopped, probably aware she was dithering, and she drew a deep, calming breath.
‘The deck on the flat—it’s not as big as this, but it has the northerly view. In the past, since Dad left, I’ve hired locums at holiday times and they’ve used it.’
Temporarily.
She didn’t say the word but Cam heard it in her voice. He could understand her reluctance to have a fellow-worker living in such close proximity full time but if locums had done so up till now …
Maybe she had a set against men?
Been hurt by one?
Realising he should be thinking about the job, not the woman who was hiring him, he turned his attention back to the subject.
‘I understood that although there’d be a trial period, you were looking for someone for a permanent position this time, not a locum. Has the town grown? Do you want to cut down on your own workload?’
She studied him for a moment, as if debating whether he was worth answering, then gave a deep sigh.
‘The town’s grown, a second practice opened but no sooner did that happen than the hospital had staff cuts, then the second practice closed, and with the refuge—well, I decided it was time to expand.’
The explanation rattled from her lips—nice lips, very pale pink, distracting him again—and Cam understood enough to know that the flat, like the job, was only temporary. While she might have been happy having a fortyish woman living permanently in close proximity to her, having a large male surfer was a different story.
‘I’ll show you over it then you’ll have to go back down the steps to the car park and drive along the road towards the highway, taking the first left to bring you up the hill and around to the carport.’
All business now, she led him off the deck, through a sparsely furnished living area. It was functional and uncluttered, decorated in sand colours, but with wide windows giving views of the sea in all directions, the room didn’t need decoration.
It was like the woman herself, functional and uncluttered, he decided, following a decidedly shapely bottom in khaki cargo shorts, a khaki singlet top completing her outfit.
A decidedly shapely bottom?
Well, he couldn’t help but notice, any more than he could have helped noticing the pink lips earlier. Was noticing such things about his boss unprofessional behaviour?
So many years in the army had left him unprepared for the niceties of civilian life, particularly where women were concerned. He held a mental conversation with his sisters and came to the conclusion that while thinking his boss had a shapely butt was okay, mentioning his opinion of it or of any other part of her anatomy, to her or anyone else, would definitely be unwise.
CHAPTER TWO
A BREEZEWAY divided the house from the little building perched beside it on the steep hillside.
‘A double carport so you can keep your van under cover,’ his guide said, waving her left hand to indicate the covered parking spaces. She reached above the door for a key, saying, ‘I know I shouldn’t keep it there,’ before inserting it in the lock and opening the door.
The flat was as different from the minimalist-style house as it was possible to be. Roses, not giant cockroaches! The roses dominated the small space. They bloomed from trellises on the wallpaper, glowed on the fabric covering the small lounge suite, while silk ones stood in vases on small tables here and there.
‘Ha!’ Cam said, unable to stop himself. ‘You wanted a fortyish woman to fit in with the furnishings, although … ‘
He turned towards his new boss and caught a look of such sadness on her face he wished he hadn’t opened his mouth. Though now he had, he had to finish what he’d been about to say or look even more foolish than he felt.
‘Well, one of my sisters is forty and roses definitely aren’t her thing.’
The words came out strained, mumbled almost under his breath, but he doubted Joanna Harris heard them. She’d moved across the small room and opened the sliding glass windows, walking out through them onto the deck.
The way she stood, hugging herself at the railing, told him she wanted—perhaps needed—to be alone, so he explored the neatly organised domain, finding two small bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen had been fitted somehow into the tiny flat. The configuration of the bathroom made him wonder. There was a shower above a tiled floor, no cubicle, just a floor waste where most of the water would go. The basin was set low, no cupboard beneath it.
This and a silver bar screwed onto the wall at waist height suggested the room had been built for someone with a disability and now he looked around he realised the doorways were wider than normal—to accommodate a wheelchair?—and hand-grips had been installed in other places.
Jo had spoken of a sister …
A disabled sister?
He looked out at the figure standing on the deck, a hundred questions flashing through his mind, but the way she stood—the way she’d handled his arrival and their conversation since—told him he might never have those questions answered.
A very private person, Jo Harris, or so he suspected, although on an hour’s acquaintance how could he be judging her?
She should have redecorated the flat, Jo chided herself. She should have done it as soon as she’d moved into it after Jilly died—yet she’d always felt that changing the roses her sister had loved would have been letting go of her twin for ever.
A betrayal of some kind.
And surely ‘should’ was the unkindest word in the English language, so filled with regrets of what might have been, or not been. Should have done this, should not have done that. Her own list of shoulds could go on for ever, should have come home from Sydney sooner being right at the top of it!
Jo hugged her body and looked out to sea, waiting for the view to calm her, for her mind to shut away the memories and consign the shoulds to the trash bin she kept tucked away in her head. Coming into the flat usually upset her—not a lot—just brought back memories, but today, seeing the stranger—Cam—there, he’d looked so out of place among the roses Jill had loved, it had hurt more than usual.
‘I’ll bring my car up.’
He called to her from the doorway and before she could turn he was gone. Good! It would give her time to collect herself. Actually, it would give her time to scurry back to her place and hide from the man for the rest of the day, though that was hardly fair.
She found a little notebook on the kitchen bench and scribbled a note. ‘Will meet you in the carport in half an hour, we can get a bite to eat in town and I’ll show you around.’
A bite to eat in town.
It sounded so innocuous but within an hour of being seen down the street with him the word would be all over town that Jo Harris had finally found a man!
As if a man who looked like him—like the picture of him anyway—would be interested in a scrawny redhead.
Of course once the locals realised he’d come to work for her, the talk would settle down, then when he left …
She shook her head, unable to believe she’d been thinking that maybe it would be nice to have a man around.
A man or this man?
She had a sneaky suspicion the second option was the answer but she wouldn’t consider it now. Instant attraction was something for books, not real people—not real people like her, anyway.
The man would be her colleague—temporary colleague—and right now she had to show him around the town. She’d reclip her hair and smear on a little lightly coloured sunscreen, the only make-up she ever used, but she wouldn’t change—no need to really startle the town by appearing in anything other than her usual garb.
Unfortunately as she passed through the kitchen she saw his résumé, still open on the bench—open at the photo …
She added lipstick to the preparations. After all, it, too, had sun protection.
Leaving the house, she drove down to the clinic first, showing him around the consulting and treatment rooms, proud of the set-up and pleased when he praised it. Then back in the car, she took Cam to the top of the rise so he could see the town spread out below them.
‘It’s fairly easy to get around,’ she explained to him. ‘As you can see from here, the cove beach faces north and the southern beach—the long one—faces east.’
‘With the shopping centre running along the esplanade behind the cove, is that right?’
He pointed to the wide drive along the bay side, Christmas decorations already flapping in the wind.
‘There’s actually a larger, modern shopping mall down behind this hill,’ Jo told him. ‘You just drive up here and turn right instead of left. We’re going the other way because the best cafés are on the front and the hospital is also down there. Until the surfing craze started, the cove beach was the one everyone used. It’s only been in relatively recent years that the open beach has become popular and land along it has been developed for housing.’
Explaining too much?
Telling him stuff he didn’t need to know?
Yes to both but Jo felt so uncomfortable with the stranger in her car, she knew the silence would prickle her skin if she didn’t fill it with talk.
‘Can we eat before we visit the hospital?’ her passenger asked, and although there was nothing in his voice to give him away, memories of her own surfing days came rushing back to Jo. When the surf was running, food had been the last thing on her mind, so she’d return home close to lunchtime, starving.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t had breakfast?’ she wailed. ‘I realised you’d come straight from the beach but … ‘
She turned so she could see his face.
‘You should have said,’ she told him, mortified that she’d been proudly pointing out up-to-date equipment while all he wanted was something to eat. ‘I could have offered you food at the house—cereal or toast or something. It was just so late in the morning I didn’t think of it. Or we could have gone straight to the café instead of doing the clinic tour first.’
She’d turned her attention back to the road but heard the smile in his voice when he replied.
‘Hey, don’t go beating yourself up about it. I’m a big boy. I can look after myself.’
‘Hardly a boy!’ Jo snapped, contrarily angry now, although it wasn’t her fault the man was starving.
She pulled up opposite her favourite café, a place she and Jill had hung out in during their early high-school days.
‘They do an all-day big breakfast I can recommend,’ she told Cam, before dropping down out of the car and crossing the road, assuming he would follow. As she heard his door shut, she used the remote lock and heard the ping as the car was secured.
‘A big breakfast will hit the spot,’ Cam declared as he studied the blackboard menu and realised that the combination of eggs, bacon, sausages, tomato, beans and toast was just what he needed to fill the aching void in his stomach.
If only other voids in other parts of him could be filled as easily …
‘I’ll have a toasted cheese and—’
‘Tomato sandwich and a latte,’ the young girl who’d come to take their orders finished.
‘One day I’ll order something different,’ Jo warned her, and the girl laughed as she turned to Cam.
‘The sky will turn green the day Jo changes her order,’ she said. ‘And for you?’
He ordered the big breakfast, absolutely famished now he’d started thinking about food and how long it had been since he’d eaten. He looked out across the road at the people gathered on the beach, and beyond them to where maybe a dozen surfers sat on their boards, waiting for a wave that might never come.
He understood their patience. It wasn’t for the waves that he surfed, or not entirely. He surfed to clear his head—to help to banish the sights and sounds of war that disturbed his nights and haunted his days.
He surfed to heal himself, or so he hoped.
‘The surf was far better this morning,’ he said, turning his mind from things he couldn’t control and his attention back to his companion.
‘Higher tide and an offshore breeze. Now the wind’s stronger from the west and flattening the surf but those kids will sit out there anyway. They don’t mind if there are no waves, and now they’re all pretty good about wearing sun protection it’s a healthy lifestyle for them.’
She spoke in a detached manner, as if her mind was on something else. Intriguing, that’s what his new boss was, especially as she’d been frowning as she’d explained surf conditions in Crystal Bay—surely not bothersome information.
‘So why the frown?’ Yes, he was intrigued.
‘What frown?’
‘You’ve been frowning since the girl took our order,’ he pointed out.
A half-embarrassed smile slid across his new boss’s lips, which she twisted slightly before answering.
‘If you must know, I was thinking how predictable I’ve become, or maybe how boring I am that I don’t bother thinking of something different to have for lunch. This place does great salads, but do I order a roast pumpkin, feta and pine-nut concoction? No, just boring old toasted cheese and tomato. I’ve got to get a life!’
Cam chuckled at the despair in her voice.
‘I wouldn’t think ordering the same thing for lunch every day prohibits you from having a life.’
Fire flashed in her eyes again and he found himself enjoying the fact that he could stir her, not necessarily stir her to anger, but at least fire some spark in the woman who was … different in some way?
No, intriguing was the only word.
‘Of course it doesn’t, and if my life wasn’t so full I wouldn’t need to employ another doctor, but the cheese and tomato is a symbol, that’s all.’
Small-scale glare—about a four.
‘A symbol? Cheese and tomato—toasted—a symbol?’
Now the eyes darkened, narrowed.
‘You know very well what I mean. It’s not the cheese and tomato, it’s the repetition thing. We get stuck in a groove—well, not you obviously or you wouldn’t be wandering along the coast in a psychedelic van, but me, I’m stuck in a groove.’
‘With a cheese and tomato sandwich, most uncomfortable,’ he teased, and saw the anger flare before she cooled it with a reluctant grimace and a head shake.
‘It’s all very well for you to mock,’ she told him sternly. ‘You’ve been off seeing the world with the army. You don’t know what it’s like to be stuck in a small town.’
She hesitated, frowning again, before adding, ‘That came out sounding as if I resented being here, which I don’t. I love the Cove, love living here, love working here—so stuck is the wrong word. It’s just that I think maybe people in small towns are more likely to slip into grooves than people in big cities.’
He had to laugh.
‘Lady, you don’t know nothin’ about grooves until you’ve been in the army. Everyone in the army has a groove. It’s the only way a thing that big can work. Hence the psychedelic van you mentioned—that’s my way of getting out of my particular groove.’
And away from the memories …
Jo studied the man who’d made the joking remark and saw the truth behind it in the bruised shadows under his eyes and the lines that strain, not age, had drawn on his cheeks. She had an uncomfortable urge to touch him, to rest her hand on his arm where it lay on the table, just for a moment, a touch to say she understood his need to escape so much reality.
He’s not staying!
The reminder echoed around inside her head and she kept her hands to herself, smiling as their meals arrived and she saw Cam’s eyes widening when he realised how big a big breakfast was in Crystal Cove.
‘Take your time,’ she told him, ‘I could sit here and look out at the people on the beach all day.’
Which was true enough, but although she watched the people on the beach, her mind was churning with other things.
Common sense dictated that if she was employing another doctor for the practice it should be a man. A lot of her male patients would prefer to see a man, especially about personal problems they might be having. Elderly men in particular were reluctant to discuss some aspects of their health, not so much with a woman but with a woman they’d known since she was a child.
She’d ignored common sense and asked for a woman for a variety of reasons, most to do with the refuge. Not that her practice and the refuge were inextricably entwined, although as the only private practice in town she was called in whenever a woman or child at the refuge needed a doctor.
Mind you, with a man—she cast a sidelong glance at the man in question, wolfing down his bacon, sausages and eggs—she could run more effective anti-abuse programmes at the high school. The two of them could do interactive role plays about appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—something she was sure the kids would enjoy, and if they enjoyed it, they would maybe consider the message.
The man wasn’t staying.
And toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches were really, really boring.
‘Tell me about the refuge while I eat.’
It had been on her mind, well, sort of, so it was easy to talk—easier than thinking right now …
‘It began with a death—a young woman who had come to live in the Cove with her boyfriend who was a keen surfer. They hired an on-site van in the caravan park and had been here about three months when the man disappeared and a few days later the woman was found dead inside the van.’
Her voice was so bleak Cam immediately understood that the woman’s death had had a devastating effect on Jo Harris.
But doctors were used to death to a certain extent, so this must have been more traumatic than usual?
Why?
‘Did you know her?’ he asked. ‘Had she been a patient?’
Jo nodded.
‘No and yes. I’d seen her once—turned out she’d been to the hospital once as well. Perhaps if she’d come twice to me, or gone to the hospital both times … ‘
He watched as she took a deep breath then lifted her head and met his eyes across the table, her face tight with bad memories.
‘She came to me with a strained wrist, broken collarbone and bruises—a fall, she said, and I believed her. As you know, if you’re falling, you tend to put out a hand to break the fall, and the collarbone is the weak link so it snaps. Looking back, the story of the fall was probably true but if I’d examined her more closely I’d probably have seen bruising on her back where he’d pushed her before she fell.’
Cam stopped eating. Somehow he’d lost his enjoyment of the huge breakfast. He studied the woman opposite him and knew that in some way she was still beating herself up over the woman’s death—blaming herself for not noticing.
‘And when she was found in the van? She’d been battered to death?’
Jo nodded.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt such … ‘ She paused and he saw anguish in her face so wasn’t entirely surprised when she used the word.
‘Anguish—that’s the only way to describe it. Guilt, too, that I hadn’t helped her, but just total despair that such things happen.’
He watched as she gathered herself together—literally straightening her shoulders and tilting her chin—moving onward, explaining.
‘After she was dead some of the permanent residents at the park told the police they’d heard raised voices from the van but, like most domestic situations, no one likes to interfere. Her parents came up to the Cove and we found out they’d known he was abusive. In fact, he’d moved up here because she had often sought refuge with her parents and he’d wanted to isolate her even more. They offered a donation—a very generous donation—for someone to set up a refuge here. I … ‘
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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