The One Man to Heal Her

by Meredith Webber

  ‘That sounds fun,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could give me details.’

  ‘Better than that,’ Tony told her. ‘Our monthly meeting is next Thursday evening. I could pick you up and take you, maybe have dinner later—a group of us often go on.’

  Had his original invitation sounded too much like a date? Alex wondered, but, group or not, she needed to be doing something with her spare time, and maybe meeting other men—other than Will, that was—because the Will thing was just too confusing…

  ‘I’d love it,’ she said, and realised she meant it. It was just the thing she needed to help her settle back into the town, and doing anything on the river would be fun.

  They finally got down to the paperwork, Tony explaining that her father had expressed his wish that no memorial service be held.

  ‘He wanted a minimum of fuss,’ Tony told her, ‘although that wouldn’t stop you having a few of his friends and relations around if you wished. He made all the arrangements himself, and it really only needs one signature from you, acknowledging that we’re taking the body. Virtually signing him over to us.’

  Alex signed, although she couldn’t help but wonder what had prompted her father to do this. She was a listed organ donor herself, and later intended willing her body to a university, but it seemed such an alien thing for her father to have done.

  ‘Did he ever say why?’ she asked Tony, who looked slightly startled by the question.

  ‘I never asked him,’ he said. ‘I suppose I just assumed it was because you’d studied medicine and he felt he was doing his bit. He talked about you a lot. I know he was very proud of you.’

  Hmm!

  Alex tucked that thought away to consider some other time, and agreed she’d be ready for the Thursday meeting if Tony collected her at six.

  ‘Though it’s probably better if I take my car—that way, if we’re late you won’t get stuck here when the ferry stops.’

  He shrugged. ‘I can always get home around by the highway. It’s a bit further but not a worry. And the place where we meet is tricky to find the first time. I’ll see you at six.’

  With which he walked through the house with her, shook her hand, and departed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALEX WALKED BACK into the house, aware her clothes were scattered in the upstairs hall, knowing she had to unpack—to sort things out—but totally lost as to where to start.

  Presumably the house was now her house. In fact, it wasn’t a presumption, her father had told her the details of his will—‘everything to my daughter Alexandra’, as simple as that. So it was her house, although it felt very alien right now. Apart from the kitchen and the deck, which definitely felt like home.

  But her old bedroom?

  Her father’s room?

  Could she live in either?

  The sewing room!

  For some reason, when she’d walked through the house with Will she hadn’t thought to enter the sewing room.

  Because it had been so much her mother’s domain?

  Because she’d feared it would be as much changed as her parents’ bedroom?

  Well, no time like the present…

  She stepped over clothes and suitcases to open the door at the end of the hall—the door to the room that looked out over the roof of the deck to the river. Here her mother’s long sewing desk had been built in so she could sew and see the river at the same time.

  Alex’s hand hesitated on the doorknob as she wondered, for the first time, why her parents hadn’t made this room—the room with the view—their bedroom?

  She opened the door and almost closed it again, the transformation was so startling. Gone was the long bench and the cabinets that had held cloth and cotton; gone was the serviceable felt carpet that had covered the floor; gone were the shutters her mother would lower over the windows when the setting sun peeked in.

  In their place were a brand-new bedroom suite, the bed clothed in the softest of grey linens, a polished timber floor, sleek blinds that rolled down to keep out the glare but not hide the view, and sitting in the middle of the bed the threadbare galah that had been Alex’s favourite toy even before the advent of Buddy.

  Down the far end was a door and, opening it, Alex found a tiny en suite bathroom, grey with touches of pink, just like the bedroom colours.

  Tears streamed down her face as she considered the amount of work her father must have done to transform this room for her. And regret that it had been so long, that she’d not come home sooner, that they’d lost so many years together, all gathered in her chest like a physical pain.

  She sank down on the bed, hugging her misery to herself, rocking as she cried out the pain of the lost years.

  * * *

  Will hadn’t intended visiting. In fact, his intention had been to see as little as possible of Alex until he’d sorted out how he felt about her. But after Brian’s phone call he knew it would be better to talk to her in person. That way, he could, hopefully, gauge if she was ready to start work earlier than planned—emotionally, and also physically, given the long plane trip—or if he should advise Brian to get a locum.

  So, with his mother and Charlotte off at their party, he drove to the house and rang the bell.

  No reply.

  He checked the car was in the garage, and the boat in the shed beneath the house.

  He rang the bell again, called her name, then began to get anxious about her.

  She’d been through so much emotional turmoil in such a short time…

  Buddy’s arrival from the back of the house—an agitated Buddy—tightened Will’s tension and banished any doubts about entering the house.

  He found the rock that hid the key and opened the door, Buddy bouncing on his shoulder, enquiring about Bruce.

  ‘Forget Bruce, where’s Alex?’ Will muttered at the bird, who cocked his head as if considering the question, then flew off through the house, swooping back to land on the banister at the top of the stairs.

  ‘I’m not stupid enough to follow you without at least looking down here,’ Will told him, walking swiftly through the lower rooms and checking the deck.

  Buddy had moved and was lifting pieces of Alex’s clothing in his beak, making more of a mess of the upstairs hall than had probably been there in the beginning. Although the chaos of half-unpacked suitcases made Will’s heart beat faster.

  He checked the first room—the monastic room of her father—empty.

  Checked the next, the Alex schoolgirl room—also empty.

  It was only as he shut the door he noticed another door at the end of the hall—a room they hadn’t entered earlier.

  Why? he wondered, but as Buddy was now jumping up and down on the doorknob, Will approached it, calling to Alex, although softly this time.

  She was asleep on the bed, her arms wrapped around her body and something that looked like a very dead bird. Tearstains on her cheeks tugged at Will’s heart as he stood looking down at her.

  She was breathing, she was okay, he should let her sleep, and although he knew he couldn’t stand there, looking at her, he was reluctant to leave.

  Buddy solved the problem, bouncing up and down on Alex’s head with his raucous cry of ‘Who’s a pretty girl, then?’

  Her eyes opened slowly—blue as the late afternoon sky beyond the windows.

  ‘I’m sorry for intruding, I had a message for you and you didn’t answer the door and—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said sleepily. ‘I don’t know why I fell asleep. I should be up—there’s stuff to do.’

  She sat up on the bed, looking around in unmistakeable wonder.

  ‘My father did this for me,’ she whispered to him. ‘He did all this and I didn’t know. I didn’t look in here this morning—too many memories, I suppose—but he’s transformed it, made this beautiful room with the river right there…’

  And the tears came again.

  He’d have had to be made of marble to have not reacted, Will realised as he sat beside her on the b
ed and put his arm around her, drawing her close to offer comfort.

  ‘You’ve had a rough homecoming,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re entitled to a good cry.’

  ‘Not really,’ she protested, easing a little apart but remaining in the circle of his arm. ‘I don’t know why I’m being such a wuss.’

  ‘Such a wuss, such a wuss!’ the bird shrieked, and Alex recovered completely.

  ‘Buddy, you’ve learned new words!’ She stared at the bird in amazement, truly surprised but very thankful for the diversion, because being held by Will was far too enticing and she’d been battling an urge to snuggle closer.

  ‘Give me a minute, I’ll meet you out on the deck,’ she said.

  She’d been about to add that they could watch the sunset when she realised that might not be a good idea. Too much romance in joint sunset watching…

  He walked away and she eased herself off the bed, hurried into the little bathroom and splashed water on her face, brushed her tousled hair.

  Will had said something about a message.

  Presumably for her.

  Get downstairs and ask him, she told herself, for all she’d have preferred not to have seen Will quite so soon.

  Not until she’d sorted out a few things in her head—and body—and preferably not until she’d gone to the kayaking meeting and met people and had at least the beginnings of a normal social life.

  As if that would help! the cynic in her head whispered.

  Ignoring it, she headed downstairs, joining her visitor on the deck as the setting sun painted the western sky with extravagantly brilliant red and purple and orange streaks.

  She shook her head at the beauty of it and refused to give way to tears again. Instead, she plonked down in a chair out of touching distance from Will and said brightly, ‘A message?’

  He studied her for a moment, as if assessing her current emotional state—or perhaps her ability to understand a message.

  ‘Brian Lane phoned. He’d heard about your father’s death and someone had told him I’d seen you at the hospital so I think he wanted me to suss out how you were—how your father’s death had affected you.’

  ‘Because?’ Alex asked, aware she was frowning but unable to guess where this conversation was going.

  Did the man she was going to work with think she might be too emotionally fragile to handle the work?

  ‘Because he’d like you to start earlier if you could,’ Will told her. ‘He’s in Melbourne, where he’s trying to arrange care for his mother, who has dementia, and he’s having a tough time finding somewhere suitable. His wife’s got three children under four so she stayed at home, but Brian really needs more time down there.’

  ‘And the other partner? Mal Parker?’

  ‘Is booked to fly to the US on Tuesday for a conference. He could cancel, but Brian phoned me to ask what I thought. It’s not a frantically busy practice—two practitioners can handle it easily. I don’t know if Brian told you, but apparently his aim in taking you on was so he could return to Melbourne, where both his and his wife’s families live.’

  ‘So it normally has two doctors, but one can manage?’ Alex asked, as she took in what Will was telling her and realised that starting work would be the best possible thing for her in the circumstances. Especially if she was busy!

  ‘That’s right. The practice manager will sort out the appointments so you’re not overwhelmed but they had already planned to have only one doctor there for the next fortnight so it shouldn’t take too much fiddling.’

  Will stopped and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘What do you think?’

  What did she think, apart from how his eyes seemed to be saying things that weren’t coming out in his words?

  Worrying about her?

  Forget the man’s eyes!

  ‘I’m happy to do it. It will be good to have something to do—something to keep me busy while I settle back into the town. But I need to speak to Brian myself, and maybe arrange to go into the rooms tomorrow. I wonder if I could get the practice manager to meet me there to show me around and explain how they do things.’

  ‘I’m sure Brian can arrange it, and I have his number here if you want to phone him now.’

  Will pulled out his mobile and scrolled through it, finally coming up with what he was looking for. He passed her the phone, their fingers touching, electricity jolting through Alex for all the transaction was purely business.

  She carried the phone inside to write down the number—and to get away from the distraction that was Will. Her reactions to him were nothing more than by-products of the emotional storm she’d come home to, she told herself as she jotted down the number.

  They had to be because they were like nothing she’d ever felt before.

  Will had joined her in the kitchen.

  ‘Mum and Charlotte are eating out so what if I go down to the co-op while you’re talking to Brian and get us fish and chips for tea? I’m sure it’s the proper homecoming dinner to eat on your deck.’

  Fish and chips on the deck!

  Twenty years ago it had been a Sunday evening treat because her mother had never cooked on a Sunday. Sunday had been a day for church in the morning, and reading or playing quietly in her room in the afternoon. Her parents, with their strong beliefs, had spent Sunday afternoons studying their Bibles. As an adult, Alex had often wondered why they had found it so hard to apply its teachings about love and forgiveness to their own daughter.

  But fish and chips on the deck would be a true homecoming. They had always been the best part of long, slow Sundays.

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ she said, ignoring all the alarm bells about Will and proximity that were going off in her head. After all, she’d need someone to talk to about the job she was to start on Monday, and Will would probably know something of the set-up in the practice.

  Business, purely business, she reminded herself.

  Brian was delighted to hear from her, offered his sympathies, thanked her effusively and promised to get Marilyn, the practice manager, to phone as soon as possible.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be only too happy to spend time with you tomorrow, because we all owe you a huge debt for this.’

  Strangely at ease now that decision had been made, Alex returned to the deck, where the more muted colours of the dying sunset were just as beautiful a sight.

  Tomorrow, learning about the practice, then on Monday the excitement of starting a new job would banish all the other strange emotional stuff that had been going on in her head since her father’s death and the weird physical stuff going on in her body since meeting Will again, and soon she’d have a whole new life in the town she’d once called home.

  She’d brought the handset of the phone out onto the deck with her, and the ringtone startled her out of her dreams of a new life.

  Sure it would be Marilyn, she answered with her name, then listened in shock as a woman’s voice screamed into her ear.

  ‘You ruined my life, you slut!’ the voice said, then the caller slammed the phone down.

  Alex stared at the slim piece of plastic that had delivered the message—stared warily as one would at a snake or perhaps a poisonous spider.

  It had to be a wrong number, and the woman hadn’t listened when she’d said her name.

  That would explain it.

  But the venom in the voice had unsettled her.

  Fortunately, the next phone call—and, yes, she was a doctor, she’d had to answer it—was Marilyn, so a sensible conversation about where and when to meet the following day pushed the ugly words to the back of Alex’s mind.

  Will’s return was another diversion—a confusing diversion but right now confusion was better than mulling over the phone call.

  Seeing her there, with the river behind her reflecting the fading colours of the sunset, Will wondered how he could not fall in love with her.

  If only love wasn’t off limits—too hard, too hurtful—and then there was Charlotte…

  ‘Fi
sh and chips for two,’ he said, far too brightly, ‘and a bottle of a nice sav blanc to go with them. I should have asked what you’d like. I just thought…’

  He was behaving like a schoolboy with his first crush on a girl, except this girl was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, and he wasn’t sure…

  Well, in truth, he wasn’t sure what he wasn’t sure about, although deep down he knew it was to do with Charlotte and her well-being, and love, love lost, and pain…

  ‘Sounds great. I’ll get us glasses—and do you want plates or will we eat them out of the paper?’

  Ah, something he was sure about.

  ‘I think they taste best out of the paper.’

  She grinned at him.

  ‘Me, too!’

  Yet for all the light-hearted chat, he sensed a tension in the air.

  Sexual tension?

  Yes, some of that! Inevitable from his point of view whenever he was near Alex.

  But something else as well.

  She returned with not only glasses but an ice bucket as well, set them on the table, then poured the wine before propping the bottle in the bucket amidst the ice.

  She smiled again.

  ‘You know, I imagine this is the very first time that the ice bucket has held anything alcoholic. My parents got it for a wedding present, and I remember at Christmas they’d get a bottle of non-alcoholic wine from the supermarket and the ice bucket would be set in pride of place in the middle of the table.’

  Maybe he was imagining her tension, he decided as he smiled at her little tale and carefully unwrapped enough of the parcel of food for them to begin eating.

  ‘Did you speak to Marilyn?’

  Alex nodded around the end of a very long chip.

  ‘She can’t do tomorrow morning so I’m meeting her at two in the afternoon. She sounds very nice.’

  ‘She is,’ Will replied, ‘and one of the most efficient practice managers I’ve ever met. She runs those rooms like a military operation yet everyone loves her and is happy to have her yell at them when things don’t go according to plan.’