'I'm sorry,' Sam said at last, and Susie attempted a smile.
'Does that mean I don't have to throw Brenda out to sleep under bridges?'
'There don't seem to be all that many bridges hereabouts to sleep under,' he said cautiously, and her smile firmed.
Great. He loved it when she smiled. But she was looking confused. That was what kept happening. He'd make her laugh and she'd relax, and then she'd think of Grant and haul herself back to reality. Which was confusing.
He had to figure out a way to find a new reality.
The door of the clinic opened and a young woman appeared, towing a child.
'Donna,' Susie said.
'Hi,' Donna said. 'Sorry, I'm not booked in but Thomas was trying to blow polystyrene balls out of his nostrils and one's gone down.' She looked hopefully at Sam. 'Susie tells me you have amazing ball skills.' She grinned.
Sam came as close to blushing as he'd ever come in his life. He took a step back and Donna chuckled.
'Sorry. Sorry. I couldn't resist it. This is all so perfect and far be it from me to mess it up with my innuendos. But Thomas really has got a ball stuck down there. Can you get it out, please?'
Sam loved it. A week went by and the fog in his head was almost a memory.
That his stay here had been extended indefinitely had been accepted enthusiastically by every islander. They had a doctor on call, and symptoms were surfacing that had never seen the inside of a doctor's clinic before. They loved it that they could turn up at the tiny surgery set up next to the post office, sit on the post office steps and wait to see the doctor.
It wasn't an ideal surgery. It had originally been a first-aid post, a place where Susie could meet someone who needed stitches, who needed a bit of urgent attention while transfer was arranged to the mainland. It had a desk and two chairs and an examination couch, and the waiting room was the front steps. It was really squashed and he did think longingly about his magnificent office back home. But that was the only thing he missed.
He didn't have time to miss anything else.
He swam in Susie's cove every morning. That was compulsory—especially when on the second morning of his stay he'd gone down to the cove at dawn and discovered Susie was already there.
He'd seen she'd been disconcerted to have him join her. For a moment on that first morning she'd looked like she'd turn and go home.
'I'm sorry,' he'd said. 'There must be other swimming beaches nearer Doris's. I just didn't know them. I won't bother you again.'
'You're not bothering me,' she'd said, but he'd known that he was. 'I'll go.'
'No.' She shook her head. 'This is dumb. It's a big beach.'
She'd headed into the water with brisk determination. He'd followed, but that first morning he'd taken care not to swim anywhere near her.
On the third morning he was swimming across the cove, she was swimming in the other direction and suddenly she turned and started swimming beside him. They swam together for a bit, and then she pulled away. He pushed himself to keep up.
She pulled away again.
It became a challenge, one he suspected she was enjoying as much as he was. She swam for half an hour, seemingly unaware of him swimming beside her, but surely she must be as aware as he was. It was like there was some sixth sense— one he'd never known he'd had until now. The feeling that this woman was close by.
He could have swum for longer but Susie's swimming time was obviously restricted. Exactly half an hour after she'd entered the water she left, saying little, towelling herself dry then heading up the cliff to her car and going home, presumably to wake the twins up and start her day.
An hour later she'd phone him at Doris's and run through the patients who were booked to see him that morning. By the time he entered his clinic he had a comprehensive idea of what he was facing. One way or another, Susie's presence stayed with him all morning, be it as a memory of her acerbic patient commentaries—things like 'You'll be seeing Cheryl Barnes for her cough but she's smoking five packs a day. She'll lie through her teeth about it, but you might want to run it past her as a possible cause.' Or 'Leo Hasting's booked in because he's having trouble sleeping. His wife has early-stage Alzheimer's. There's a resource pamphlet in the desk drawer—I tried to give it to him last time he saw me but he refused. See if you can do any better.'
And in the quiet times between patients, there was the memory of her early-morning swimming.
He worked in his tiny surgery until lunchtime, while Susie ran her pilates classes. Then he walked back along the headland to have lunch with Doris. At two Susie collected him and they did house calls together.
And house calls with Susie were fun.
She was like a waft of a fresh sea breeze, he thought. She'd still be in the jogging suit she wore for pilates—'It's really comfy and it feels like a uniform,' she told him when he'd said it looked cute. It consisted of knee length joggers—-bright yellow or bright red—a matching singlet and a tiny crimson or sea-green jacket. Her hair was always bunched in pigtails or braids, tied with a ribbon to match her joggers.
The islanders loved her. She breezed into their cottages and the islanders' pleasure was palpable. Even in the grimmest of circumstances they greeted her with smiles.
There were grim circumstances. This island had become almost a retirement home for elderly fisherfolk. The nearest nursing home was fifteen miles south on the mainland, Susie explained, and the Ocean Spray residents would rather die than go there.
'And that's not an exaggeration,' she explained as they finished a call that had left Sam almost speechless. Miriam Edwards was dying slowly of bone metastases. Her husband was caring for her with dogged pride and a level of exhaustion that seemed almost unbelievable.
'Miriam should be in a hospice,' Susie said. 'But it would mean Tom could only see her twice a week. She'd get much better pain control there—I'm really struggling to think of what I can do and get the doctors to agree to give me phone orders. Miriam is one of the reasons I agreed to this crazy contract. A doctor here, even if it's only for a week, is fantastic.'
'Thank you,' he said. But then he thought about it. 'No,' he said. 'There's no way I should be accepting compliments. What we're doing with Miriam is deeply satisfying.'
'You've given her her first pain-free sleep for a month,' she said. 'And Tom, too. I just wish so much I could get long-term help.'
'Once the bridge is rebuilt it'll be better,' he said, and she shrugged.
'If it's rebuilt. The powers that be are vacillating. And even when it's rebuilt, Doc Blaxson once a week if he can't think of an excuse is hardly good medical care. He's employed by the district hospital, and island medical care is part of his job description. But he does what he must and no more. He certainly doesn't care.' She eyed him with caution. 'Not like you do,' she said softly.
Sam didn't say anything. They drove to their next call without talking and he was grateful for her silence. He cared?
Yes, he thought. Amazingly, he did care, as he'd cared for little else for the last few months. He was falling in love with the medicine of this place. It was too small a population to ever make a living as a doctor—hell, Susan was struggling to make a living as a district nurse—but for the last few years, as he'd climbed the career ladder, he'd lost touch with this sort of medicine.
He was good at his job. Very good. The downside of that was that he was no longer the first point of contact for a patient. Well, he hadn't been that since his intern days, but as a junior orthopod he'd at least seen problems early. Now he was referred patients who were under the care of other specialists.
'Can you take a look at this hip?' the referral letter would say.
At this hip. Not at this person.
He wouldn't mind being able to do more than that again.
Thinking of that, though, had to wait until night-time, for after the house calls was his favourite time of the day.
'It's only because it's summer,' Susan told him. 'And because maybe I thin
k it's important that the boys get to know their uncle.' But for whatever reason, she'd decided to let Sam in on her evening ritual.
They barbecued on the veranda and Sam was invited. Brenda was there, too, a quiet little woman with a head covered permanently in curlers—a woman waiting for ever for an excuse to take them off and party. But even when she went ballroom dancing her curlers stayed put, Susie told him, and he had the feeling they were part of her head.
Brenda was like a big kid. She was competent enough at the simple things—she'd be safe enough to leave in charge of the boys as necessity obviously decreed she must—but .she'd hardly be good company for Susie. She giggled with the kids, she ate her sausages with gusto, she joined in their after-dinner game of beach cricket, then listened in on the twins' bedtime stories and retreated to watch television while Susie said goodbye to Sam.
On the first night Susie was inside before the first commercial break in Brenda's show.
On the second night it was the third commercial break before Sam left.
After that they gave up and Sam only left when they heard the end credits from Brenda's open window.
It was like releasing a pressure valve, Sam decided. He could talk to Susie as he'd never been able to talk to anyone. They steered away—by mutual unspoken consent—from the deeply personal. Like Grant. But there was so much that wasn't personal. They started off talking about shared patients. They ended up comparing star signs, discussing astrology and then astronomy, favourite car colours, soccer teams, the virtues of wool socks over synthetic, favourite Beatle—deep divide over that—predilection for oatmeal over cereal, anything and everything, closer and closer...
And on the sixth night they kissed.
It wasn't meant to happen. Or at least maybe Susie hadn't meant it to happen. In truth, Sam had been thinking of very little else. He knew it was dumb-. Grant had hurt Susie so badly that to try and kindle any sort of passion must end in disaster.
But she was irresistible. She was different to any woman he'd ever met, and on that sixth night, when the end credits started and he'd risen out of the swing to take his leave, he tugged her up to join him, and instead of holding her steady at arm's length, suddenly she was in his arms.
She was lovely.
She'd changed out of her normal island gear—the gym outfit that was her standard work uniform—at night. She was wearing a faded pair of denim shorts and a frayed white T-shirt. She'd tugged the ribbon from her braid so it was unadorned, and she'd been playing beach cricket in bare feet. The moon was rising behind her, and she was so lovely that she took his breath away. So what was a man to do? He'd have had to be inhuman to resist.
He kissed her softly, hesitantly, on the top of her head, half expecting her to react with anger. But she didn't pull away. Amazingly her hands came up to hold him, tugging gently at his hips to bring him forward and bridge the gap between them.
She turned her face up to his. For a long moment he stared down at her in the moonlight, and then, gently, wondrously, he lowered his face and he kissed her as he had wanted to kiss her since they'd met.
And just like that, his universe shifted, realigned, settled. It was like some giant jumble of jigsaw pieces falling gently into place. His world had been out of kilter, off true. Now it settled where it ought to be.
Susie.
How the hell could he ever have thought he could marry Marilyn? he thought wildly. And how could Grant possibly not have wanted to marry Susie?
Her lips were softly yielding, yet her hands were on his hips, tugging him forward, holding him against her as if she was doing a claiming of her own. Their kiss deepened and deepened again. She tasted of the sea. Of the last vestiges of barbecue. Of Susie.
How long it lasted he could never afterwards remember. All he knew was that this was timeless. It was a full stop, let's pause and regroup and start again, with things as they were meant to be.
She was meant to be here.
His hands were holding her tight against him. Her T-shirt was skimpy and his hands naturally ended up on the exposed skin of her waist. She was warm and smooth and infinitely inviting.
He shifted back, just slightly, to see. 'Susie...'
'Don't stop.'
'Yeah, stop.'
The intruding voice broke in with a jolt. Her television show was over, and now Brenda had stuck her head out the window to see where Susie was. Now she was gazing at them both in affronted amazement.
'Susan, don't let him do that.'
They pulled apart, and it seemed as if Susie was as reluctant as he was.
'Why not?' Susie asked, her voice a husky whisper.
'He's a man,' Brenda said.
'Oh,' Susie said, looking up at him in the moonlight. 'So he is.'
'I'm making cocoa,' Brenda said. 'Tell him to go home so we can have cocoa and go to bed.'
'Go home, Sam,' Susie said, but her eyes weren't saying go home at all. She smiled up at him, a trifle rueful. 'OK, then. Maybe you'd better. Go home so we can make cocoa and go to bed.'
'Yes, ma'am,' he said. But he was still holding her and she wasn't making the slightest effort to pull away. 'I'd hate to keep you from your cocoa. Same time, same place tomorrow?'
'Sounds good.'
'It sounds really good,' he said softly, and he tugged her forward and kissed her lightly on the lips, one more time, just because he had to, and then he let her go, turned and disappeared into the night.
* * *
'Why did you let him kiss you?' Once he'd gone Brenda was venting her outrage, acting as if she'd personally been violated. 'You can't just.. .let him.'
'I guess that's exactly what I did.' Susie was sitting at the kitchen table with her mug of cocoa, starting dreamily into the middle distance.
'You're not going to marry him, are you?'
Her happy little haze dissipated, just like that. 'I... No,' she whispered.
'Then don't let him kiss you.'
'Maybe I shouldn't.'
'You know you shouldn't. Anyway,' Brenda grumbled, carrying her mug across to the sink and dumping it on the draining-board with a savage little thump, 'he's from America. Even if you wanted to marry him you couldn't. We need you here.'
'I know that.' She hadn't meant her tone to be so sharp. She swallowed and tried again. 'It's OK, Brenda. I just kissed him.'
'Then don't do it again,' Brenda said crossly. 'I don't like it.'
'He's a nice man.'
'Yes, but I want things to stay the same,' Brenda said. 'That's what we all want.'
'Things do change, though,' Susie said doubtfully. 'Like the bridge falling down. That's different.'
'It's not,' Brenda said, suddenly triumphantly sure of her ground. 'Cos there wasn't a bridge here for ages and your dad was the ferryman. Then there was a bridge and now look at it. We're back to where we started. No bridge.' She wrinkled her nose, clearly thinking deeply. 'Hey, I know,' she said at last. 'Maybe you can kiss him. Maybe you could marry him and buy a new ferryboat and Sam could be the new ferryman. The twins would like that:'
'No,' said Susie.
'No?'
'No.'
Brenda glowered, unwilling to lose such a neat plan.
'If you don't want him to be our new ferryman then don't kiss him,' she ordered. 'Leave him alone.'
Susie stared into the dregs of her cocoa. Brenda waited for her to agree.
But Susie was saying nothing.
'You kissed Susie last night.'
It was seven-thirty and Doris was pouring Sam's breakfast coffee and her tone was accusatory. Sam almost dropped his cup.
'How the hell—?'
'Nothing happens on this island without everyone else finding out half an hour ago,' Doris told him. She set down her coffee-pot and fixed Sam with a look that said she was fifty years older than he was and she intended to speak her mind. 'Don't you mess her about.'
'I wouldn't.'
'Your brother did.'
'How—'
'I told yo
u. The place is bugged. And you're his twin. You mess Susie around and you'll be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.'
'Or on a boat,' he said, but she didn't smile.
'I'm serious, Sam.'
'I think I am, too,' he told her.
There was a moment's loaded silence. 'You mean it?' Doris said at last, and Sam shook his head.
'I don't know. It's way too early. But she's a great woman.'
'We need her,' Doris said flatly, and then, as Sam frowned, she winced and continued.
'It's not fair,' she said. 'I'd be the first to say it's not fair. But if you wanted to whisk her off to the US to give her a happy ever after, we'd be in one hell of a mess. She wouldn't leave the twins. She wouldn't leave Brenda and she wouldn't leave us.'
'I'm not asking her to.'
'But you kissed her.'
'Yes. But...''
'But it's just a holiday romance?'
'I don't know,' he said helplessly, and she nodded.
'Maybe you don't,' she said. 'Sam, what you've been doing here is terrific. I'm thinking I might even give you a cut in your room rate. But not if you're messing with Susie. How long are you staying?'
'I'm not sure,' he said. 'Until my great-aunt comes.'
'Which is when?'
'A few days?'
'And that's all.'
'I'm not—'
'That wasn't a question,' Doris said flatly. 'It's an order. Three days after your great-aunt arrives I cross off your booking. We love having a doctor here but not if it means you're making Susie unhappy.'
'I'm not making Susie unhappy.'
'You will,' she said darkly. 'And that's not a question either.'
'Susie, he's gorgeous.'
'He is, isn't he?' Come hell or high water, pilates classes went on. Donna hadn't been able to catch Susie all week, and in desperation had booked into her class. Susie had her balanced on the reformer bench, doing cat stretches against counterweights. She thought that might shut her friend up, but no such luck.
'So you're seeing him again tonight?'
'I might be.'
'And you're serious?'
'Of course she's serious.' Perched on the saddle of the exercise bike, pedalling gamely, Muriel was ready to proffer an opinion on everyone. 'He's the first good-looking young man to appear on the island for ten years. Excepting your Nick,' she conceded to Donna. 'And you had to drag Nick here against his will.'
His Island Bride Page 10
