Had joining MSF really been the way to distance himself from his brother’s orbit after he’d married Fiona or had he, on some level, still been trying to win approval by following in Al’s footsteps? Taking the most adventurous path a career in medicine could provide?
Was he still doing that now, dreaming of a future with Fiona as his wife? With him being a real father figure to Sam?
No!
His love for Fiona was real. It always had been.
Nobody else would see it that way, though, would they?
Did it matter?
Hell, yes!
He had to know that Fiona’s love was as genuine as his own. It wouldn’t be good enough to be getting what he dreamed of simply because he was stepping into shoes that could no longer be filled by their owner.
He was a different person from his brother. A very different person.
And, dammit…He was proud of who he was.
He pulled off the road onto a deserted lookout area. He slammed the door shut as he got out and he stood with his back to the lake, oblivious to the bite of the freezing wind buffeting him, staring at the shrouded peaks of the Remarkables.
OK, he wasn’t as famous and rich as Al had been but he had qualities Al had never had.
He was capable of commitment to a single person. For better or worse. He had an inner strength that meant he could survive anything the rest of the world chose to throw at him. He could take what life offered and make the best of it with good grace. He didn’t have to get exactly what he wanted because he’d grown up learning how to deal with not getting it.
But if he wasn’t exactly what Fiona wanted—the part of him that was nothing like his brother—then he would move on.
Because love was the only thing he couldn’t compromise on and take what was offered and make the best of it. Making the best of what Fiona offered—if it wasn’t just for him—could never work. Not long term. It would destroy him. Tear him apart, piece by little piece.
Even if Fiona was prepared to try and forget Alistair and never compare him to his brother, the rest of the world would do it for her. Her son might do it. Sam was already proud of who his father had been. Nick could imagine a teenage version of Sam confronting him over some issue.
‘You’re not my real father,’ he might say, ‘and you never will be, no matter how hard you try.’
Nick finally shivered and realised how cold he was becoming and how tightly his fists were clenched. It was hard to flex his fingers enough to open the car door again. He paused for another moment before climbing into shelter, however, taking one more glance at those rugged peaks behind him. The clouds were thicker now, getting ready to dump large amounts of snow.
He could deal with this. He could stand beside Fiona and weather any storm. Protect her and Sam. It was what he wanted to do more than he’d ever wanted anything. Even a childhood trying to win the approval and love of his family faded into insignificance compared to this desire.
He was here and if Fiona could show him that she needed him—for himself—then he would never want to be anywhere else.
Nick hadn’t come back.
Bernie went home, finally confident that nobody was going to come knocking on the Murchisons’ door.
‘It’ll be yesterday’s news by tomorrow,’ he told Fiona. ‘It’s not as though you’re a stranger here. Your mother is well respected in all sorts of community groups and a lot of people think the world of her.’ His look suggested that he himself was now Elsie’s number-one fan. ‘And of you, too, Fiona. Look at how many people have called or texted you this afternoon, offering support.’
This was true. So many people had called her mobile.
But not Nick. And that hurt.
‘I’m going to visit Sam’s kindy tomorrow,’ Bernie said in parting. ‘They could do with a few hints on security, I think. That is, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’d appreciate that,’ Fiona said.
The evening ritual was the same as always. Dinner and a bath for Sam. Stories and bedtime.
The ordinary was all the more precious because it was under threat but, oddly, it felt incomplete. To everybody.
‘Where’s Uncle Nick?’ Sam asked.
‘He’s busy, sweetheart.’
‘But I want him to tell me a story.’
‘Maybe next time.’
‘When’s next time?’
‘I don’t know.’ Maybe there wouldn’t be a next time.
‘Why doesn’t Uncle Nick come and live with us, Mummy? Then he could tell me stories every night. And play cars with me…and…and…’ Sam’s eyes widened with the excitement of his new idea. ‘And it would be like having a daddy, wouldn’t it?’
Fiona kissed her son, rubbing her nose gently in his hair. He still smelled of baby sometimes. Soft and warm and vulnerable.
‘Snuggle down,’ she whispered with a catch in her voice. ‘It’s time to go to go to sleep, my love.’ Fiona kissed her fingertip and then touched the tip of Sam’s nose. ‘Sweet dreams.’
She dimmed the light and took a final look at her son before leaving his bedroom, her heart heavy.
Nick had said he’d been dreaming. That it could never work. She wasn’t going to be the only person hurt if he chose to leave and the thought of Sam’s bewilderment or pain was enough to stir a new emotion into today’s mix of disappointment and fear.
Anger.
Who did Nick Stewart think he was, swanning into their lives like this? Giving them all the opportunity to fall in love with him? And then just deciding it wasn’t going to work and leaving again—which was what his silence for the rest of today was suggesting.
‘Fi?’ Her mother was calling from the sitting room. ‘Come here, darling. Quickly!’
‘What is it?’
‘Local news on television. I just switched over and they’re interviewing Nick.’
And so they were. He was standing outside Lakeview Hospital, looking so serious and impossibly gorgeous with his dark eyes, the equally dark shadow of his jaw and his hair tousled by the wind.
‘…are both New Zealanders. This is their home and they have the right to live their lives here without having their privacy invaded.’
‘He just said it was coincidence that brought him here,’ Elsie said breathlessly, ‘and that finding he has family was a miracle after the tragedies of his past.’
Fiona had missed the next question being asked by the female reporter.
‘…whatever it takes to protect them,’ Nick was saying calmly. ‘And if that means taking myself and my connections back to some obscure Third World country, then, yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.’
Fiona gasped.
‘He doesn’t mean that,’ Elsie said quickly. ‘Or, if he does, maybe he’s just thinking short term. Going away for a bit to let the fuss die down.’
Fiona said nothing. If Nick went away, he would never come back. You wouldn’t go through the pain of breaking a relationship and then front up for potentially more of the same further down the track.
But it was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To have her life back the way it had been?
She wanted safety for Sam. It wasn’t so much the dramatic and unlikely event of someone kidnapping her son. It was more that public interest would be awakened. His life would be held up for public scrutiny. He might end up thinking—like Al had done—that what other people thought of you was more important that what you thought of yourself.
Obscurity had been a goal in setting up this life but that was already lost.
And if Nick went away, he would be taking too much with him.
Too much of her heart.
She would never feel whole again.
The interview was over and a local weather forecaster was discussing the possibility of heavy snow over the next couple of days. The ski season could kick off nice and early this year.
Elsie switched off the television. ‘Don’t let him run away,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not the answer for any of yo
u. He said he wanted to protect you and he can’t do that unless he’s prepared to stay.’
Fiona picked up the phone. She rang the Patterson house but the line was engaged.
She tried Nick’s cellphone but it went straight to voice-mail.
‘Leave a message,’ Nick’s voice told her. ‘I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.’
A message? Saying what?
I love you, Nick, but I’m scared. I ran away from my past because I was so hurt by it all. I don’t want to get hurt again. I really don’t want Sam to get hurt…
No. It wasn’t something she could leave in a message. She needed to be with Nick to talk to him. To read his body language. To touch…and be touched when words were not enough.
Maybe Nick was scared as well. There had been something about him in that interview. The way he had held himself so still. The way his careful words had revealed nothing too personal. He hadn’t been enjoying the attention at all. He was hiding from the world. Perhaps he was hiding from her, too and that was why he hadn’t come back or even rung.
He was keeping himself ‘invisible’. Protected.
And why would you do that if you weren’t afraid of being hurt?
If nothing else, Fiona could reassure Nick that he was loved. For himself. That she understood.
She tried to call him again but the line was still busy.
The phone call had been unexpected.
Unnerving.
‘How the hell did you get this number?’
‘I have my sources.’
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Trevor Hayes. Recognise it, mate?’
‘You wrote the article in today’s paper.’
‘Yeah…’ The drawl was smug. ‘Nice, huh? Or didn’t you think so?’
‘I think it’s bloody lucky you’re on the other end of a phone line. Mate.’
The laughter was a warning. ‘I’m just hitting my stride, Dr Stewart. Wait till you see the next instalment.’
Nick wanted to hang up. His finger hovered over the cut-off button on the phone but something held him back. This man was an enemy. Nick needed to know who and what he was going to fight.
‘Amazing what you can find on the internet,’ the unpleasantly confident voice continued. ‘Bit of a player, your brother, wasn’t he?’
‘Tabloid papers thrive on the kind of rubbish so-called reporters find when they don’t give a damn about the truth.’
Trevor chuckled, unfazed. ‘He was the famous one in the family, wasn’t he? Did you get a bit jealous?’
‘No.’
‘Fancied the same things, maybe? Like his wife?’
Nick recognised the prickle on the back of his neck. He got it in war zones when things were about to hit the fan. This man was dangerous. He had the power to really hurt Fiona.
‘Or did you share?’ The softness of the words only accentuated their venom. ‘Like nice brothers might?’
Nick remained silent. Was this call being recorded?
‘How long’s the affair been going on, mate? Is that little guy really your nephew? Looks rather like a chip off the old block to me. Your block, that is.’
‘You could get sued for printing something like that. You will get sued, believe me.’
‘Who said I’m going to print it? A picture tells a thousand words, mate. From what I’ve heard it’s only a matter of time until we get a great shot of you and your sister-in-law. Nothing to stop me digging up some old stories. Punters are smart. They can read between the lines.’
‘You won’t get away with it.’
Nick hadn’t felt this angry since…since that night in the washroom, facing Alistair and trying to stand up for Fiona.
‘Be fun trying. Hey, I caught that interview you did for Lakeside TV. You could be right, you know.’
‘What about?’
‘Scarper off to the other side of the world and there won’t be much point to my story, will there? Why don’t you push off back to where you came from?’
‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘Ooh! Nasty word. No. I’ve got this bet with a mate, see? Told him I could get you off the scene.’
‘And why would you want to do that?’
As if he couldn’t guess. Trevor had to be a mate of Jeff’s. Jeff wanted a clear field to see if he had a chance with Fiona.
The mocking laughter over the telephone line was eerily reminiscent of the way Al had laughed at him so long ago.
‘Let’s just call it “brotherly love”, eh? Hey! Isn’t that an awesome headline for the next instalment?’
The phone rang again a short time later.
Nick was still pacing, furious at how powerless he felt. He could no more fight the pain this journalist was capable of inflicting than he could fight his brother’s ghost.
Memories. Innuendo. Intangible things that shouldn’t be such a threat but they were. And they were capable of hurting the only people Nick truly loved.
Fiona. And, worse…Sam. Fiona had been right. There was absolutely no point in destroying a little boy’s pride in who his father had been. If this Trevor got away with anything in print, it would come back to haunt Sam. Someone would remember. He would get taunted at school. He would learn to make at least part of himself invisible.
Nick snatched up the phone, thinking it was Trevor again. Ready to start doing battle.
But it was Doug. One of the medics lined up for the new project had pulled out. They needed Nick for at least a three-month posting. How soon could he leave?
The timing of this call was fate stepping in. Trevor could win his bet. There would be no story if he wasn’t here. Not that Jeff stood a chance but, as much as Nick hated the idea, this was the only way he could protect Fiona.
A call to Hugh cleared the way to leave Lakeview Hospital with GP cover for just a few days. The internet search for suitable flights took the longest time, especially when some glitch in the phone line temporarily disconnected him.
By the time Nick picked up his mobile phone and saw the call he had missed from Fiona, it was nearly 2 a.m. Far too late to call her back. His flight out of Queenstown wasn’t due to leave until late afternoon tomorrow, however. That should leave more than enough time to go through a farewell process that could only be painful.
Short-term pain. Better than trying to fight the intangible.
You couldn’t live in the past.
Or even with the past in this particular instance. Fiona didn’t want that any more than he did, and there was no way any of them could escape if they were together because the past was the reason they were together.
There simply wasn’t a way to remove that part of the equation and see if there was enough left to build a future on.
Their love was too new. Too fragile to withstand the threat that Trevor represented.
Too precious to stay around and participate in its destruction.
Nick had seen that moment of indecision in Fiona’s eyes when he’d suggested it was better if he didn’t return to the Murchison house that afternoon. And something else. Not blame exactly but recognition that this wouldn’t be happening if he wasn’t here. Something more like…regret.
That had hurt as much as blame. And Fiona didn’t know the half of it, did she?
But maybe if he left now, before any more damage could be done, Jeff and his mate would lose interest. Given time, there might be a chance to come back.
To try again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE silence was eerie.
Even though it was still dark as Fiona dressed the next morning, grateful to end a sleepless night, she knew it had been snowing heavily. She could feel that peculiar, muffled quality of the world outside her window.
There was nothing muffled about the acoustics inside the house, however.
‘Mummy! It’s snowed!’ Sam was shrieking with excitement. ‘I want to make a snowman.’
‘We’d better get you out of your pyjamas, then. Let’
s take your clothes in by the fire and you can get dressed where it’s nice and warm.’
‘Ga! I’m going to make a snowman!’
‘Not until you’ve got something hot in your tummy, young man. Come and have your porridge.’
Fiona rubbed the condensation from a window and looked out on a white-shrouded garden. ‘I’ll have to put chains on the car. The ploughs won’t get this far up the hill for a while. No kindy for you today, Sam.’
‘Do you need to go into work so early?’ Elsie set a bowl of hot cereal in front of Sam. ‘You won’t get off the main roads with an ambulance.’
‘We’ve got the Jeep. And the chopper. We’ll only be going out for real emergencies today but I still need to be on station.’
Not just for work. Fiona needed to see Nick. To talk to him. She had done a lot of thinking in those sleepless hours when the snow had been falling. Thoughts that could only be shared with one person.
But his car was not in the car park when she arrived at Lakeview Hospital. It still wasn’t there an hour later when Fiona had checked the supplies in the Jeep and had been in contact with the police and fire service to discuss access issues for emergency calls today.
She walked over to the hospital.
‘He’s stuck,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Snowed in.’
If only it had happened yesterday. They could have been cut off from the outside world and reality wouldn’t have intruded. Fiona could have had another whole day of the bliss she had discovered in Nick’s arms. Fantasy, yes, but irresistible nonetheless.
‘We’ve got GP cover,’ Lizzie continued. ‘Apparently it’s been organised anyway to cover until Hugh gets back on Wednesday.’
‘So Nick is leaving?’ Fiona could feel the blood draining from her face. Had she lost already?
‘He’s got a flight due to leave at 5 p.m.—if the airport’s open, that is.’
Five p.m. The clock had started ticking. The final decision on Fiona’s future was only hours away.
Had he been planning to leave without telling her? What on earth was she supposed to say to Sam? He would be building his snowman by now. Elsie had probably found a carrot for a nose and bits of charcoal for the eyes. It would be Uncle Nick that Sam would want to show his creation to.
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