‘Hey, she offered,’ Nell broke in before he could get any further. ‘The staff were really pleased you’d found time for a run. I finished surgery, came out and discovered every nurse in the hospital knew you were down at the beach.’ She grinned. ‘Keeping secrets isn’t this town’s strong point. Anyway, I found this waiting for me on Marion’s desk, with the suggestion that I might like lunch on the beach as well.’ She beamed up at him. ‘You know, you have very nice staff.’
He had very interfering staff.
‘I need to go back.’
‘To shower and change before afternoon surgery?’ She nodded but she was flipping the cloth from the top of the basket. ‘Sure, but you’ve got ages and there’s chicken and avocado sandwiches. My favourite. And chocolate éclairs.’
He was backed up against a wall. ‘I usually just have fruit for lunch.’ It sounded pathetic, even to him.
‘Then that’s why you’re skinny and I’m fat,’ she said, and he grinned despite himself.
‘No, Dr McKenzie. You’re fat and I’m skinny because you’re pregnant and I’m not pregnant. It has nothing to do with chocolate éclairs.’
Her twinkly eyes assessed him, running over the long lines of his body. She was assessing him the same way she’d have assessed a laboratory specimen, and he found the experience disconcerting to say the least. ‘I guess you’re not really skinny, but there’s not an inch of spare fat on you,’ she decided out loud. ‘Whew. That’s what the glossies call a body to die for.’
‘What glossies?’
‘Any glossies. Especially those ones that have six-pack men in the middle.’
‘I’m amazed you read them.’
‘They sure beat medical journals.’ She grinned. ‘Besides, I have high literary tastes,’ she said with dignity. ‘A girl has to keep informed of what’s up to date. And in fashion.’ Her eyes narrowed against the sun. ‘I have to inform you—in case you don’t already know—that your type of body is very much in fashion.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ He was so disconcerted he was almost at the blushing stage.
‘Well, it’s very nice,’ she told him kindly. And then she sighed. ‘I can tell you don’t indulge in cream cakes too often. There’s not a lot of chocolate éclairs in your biceps. I won’t be as lean as you even after Brunhilda’s born.’
That startled him out of his self-consciousness of standing semi-naked and discussing his body build… He clutched this new straw and held on.
‘Brunhilda?’
‘This baby’s been kicking me all morning,’ Nell told him. ‘So I said one more kick and she was being christened Brunhilda. Or Cornelius if he’s a boy.’
He grinned at that. She really was the most extraordinary woman. ‘And he—or she—stopped kicking immediately?’
‘Nope,’ she said sadly, handing him up a sandwich. ‘I can see I’m about to have discipline problems. Cornelius or Brunhilda kept right on kicking. So that’s it. They’re doomed till they can come of age and change their names by deed poll. Never make a threat you don’t intend to keep, that was my grandma’s motto, and that’s what I intend…’
And then her voice faded a bit, as if memory was intruding. ‘Well, never mind. Maybe I don’t intend all that much. Go on. Wrap yourself around your sandwich. There’s heaps more where they came from.’
Why had she suddenly gone quiet?
She had him intrigued, he realised. He sat on his towel and ate his sandwich—and then another—and then another after that because really they were extraordinarily good, and he realised he knew not the first thing about Nell. And something about the way she was looking now said that it might well be hard to find out.
‘You were raised by your grandparents?’ he asked, and her face shuttered.
‘Yes.’
It was about as communicative as a closed door. He tried again.
‘But there wasn’t a lot of love lost between you?’
‘You might say that. Hey, there’s lamingtons in here. Well done, Mrs Condie. Yum.’
He refused to be diverted. ‘What happened to your parents?’
‘I don’t know. Or at least I don’t know much.’
That raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I don’t know who my father was, and my mother dumped me here with her parents when I was three months old and was never seen again.’ She bit into her lamington reflectively. ‘Not that I blame her for never coming back, mind you. My grandparents told me she wasn’t married—a whore was how they described her. Intolerance personified, that was Grandmother and Grandfather. So Sandy Ridge was hardly a great place in which to be a single mum.’
Blake eyed her speculatively. ‘And yet you’ve returned—presumably to bring up your baby alone.’
‘My grandparents are dead,’ she told him as if that explained all. ‘There’s the difference. I dare say if my grandparents were alive you’d have had second thoughts about living here, too.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘Worse.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘Nope.’
‘Why not?
Attack was the best form of defence. ‘Want to tell me about your marriage?’
‘Um…no.’
‘There you go, then.’ Subject closed. ‘Ernest, I believe this sandwich is spare. Can I interest you—?’
She got no further. She definitely could interest Ernest. He was very much a sandwich-eating dog. Or an éclair-eating dog. Or lamington. Or whatever…
Their picnic finished, the last scraps enjoyed to the full by garbage-bin Ernest, they were left with silence. Somewhat to Blake’s surprise it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. They sat on and watched the sea, and their thoughts went in all sorts of directions, but it was an easy peace now that was settling between them.
Truce…
He had a partner, Blake thought, and the enormity of what was being offered slammed home once again. Someone to share his workload. Someone to give him time to run…
‘You know, you don’t always have to run,’ she said into the silence, and it was as if she’d read his thoughts. His eyes widened but she ignored his surprise to continue. ‘Beaches are good for lying on, too. Trust me. I know this. Sleeping in the sun is one of my splinter skills.’
He thought about it. Sleeping in the sun… Why would he do that? ‘I enjoy running,’ he said brusquely.
She nodded. ‘I’m sure you do—like we both enjoy medicine. But there’s more to life than medicine and running.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as looking at glossy centrefolds. Or decorating a Christmas tree,’ she told him, suddenly sounding annoyed. ‘Which brings me to my next point. I can’t believe you haven’t done it. So tonight, after surgery, is decreed a Christmas-tree-decorating session. Write it in your diary in black ink. “Eight p.m. Help Nell with tree.” Got it?’
‘I’ll be busy.’
‘You’ll be busy decorating the tree.’
‘Nell…’
‘Hey, you didn’t call me Dr McKenzie.’ She beamed. ‘There’s an improvement.’
He corrected himself. ‘Dr—’
‘You’re slipping. It’s Nell.’
‘I might be very grateful for your offer to share my workload,’ he said stiffly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m welcoming you to share my life.’
For heaven’s sake—she was only asking him to decorate a tree. He was overreacting here, and the lurking twinkle behind her eyes told him she knew it.
‘Now, whatever made you think I wanted to do that?’ she asked, incredulous. ‘I’ve done that once before, thank you very much. Shared my life with a man. And if you think I’m going down that road again, you’re very much mistaken.’
‘I didn’t mean sharing in that way.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ she approved. ‘If you had, I’d be out of here. But decorating a Christmas tree’s not sharing a life. It’s just a part of sharing a house. Sharing a Christmas. They’re very di
fferent things, Dr Sutherland.’
He could only agree. But he looked at the way she was looking at him, and he wasn’t so sure.
She was a mind-reader, and the thought was very, very threatening.
Afternoon surgery was endless, if only because every single patient wanted to know about Nell. They remembered her from years back and were amazed.
‘Is it true Nell McKenzie’s back in town? And now she’s a doctor like her grandpa was? Well, who’d have thought it? She was such a quiet little thing. And she’s pregnant, they say? Poor lamb, just like her mother. Well, at least she doesn’t have to face that harridan of a grandmother.’
Blake listened politely and fielded the questions as best he could, but over and over he found himself aching to ask questions himself. Somehow he forced himself not to, because if he asked questions about Nell, he decided, then it was possible she could ask questions of him, and he didn’t want to think where that could lead.
They weren’t sharing a life. They were sharing a house—and Christmas—and even that seemed threatening.
Finally he finished. He saw his last patient at about six, and then spent some time flicking through the histories of the patients Nell had seen that morning. He found her notes meticulous and she’d made no decision he wouldn’t have made himself.
So, yes, she was competent, but somehow it didn’t make him feel any better about what was happening. Sure, his workload had eased, but in its place was a problem. Invasion of personal space… He didn’t like it. He didn’t want it and he hadn’t asked for it.
Eight o’clock came all too soon. Christmas-tree-decorating time. Write it in your diary in black ink, she’d ordered, but he hadn’t needed to. It was indelibly planted in his mind. How could he avoid it?
But then… They couldn’t get a tree, he thought with some relief. What had she been thinking of? It’d be too late now to take a trip out to the pine plantation, and the shops would be well and truly closed. Ha!
Nevertheless, he was taking no chances. He spent more time than necessary doing a ward round, he ate dinner in the hospital kitchen—suppressing just the faintest niggle that Nell might have cooked something—and it was almost nine before he finally made his way home.
There was a tree in his sitting room!
It wasn’t just a tree, he thought, stunned. It was the mother of all Christmas trees. She’d arranged her grandparents’ furniture in a circle, there was a gorgeous Turkish rug in the centre of the room, and in a bucket in the centre of the rug was the pine plantation’s biggest Christmas tree ever. It spread about eight feet in diameter, and its top just touched the ceiling. It dominated the room, its sweet scent of pine making him think of…
Of Christmas.
He’d blotted it out, he thought blankly. He hadn’t thought of Christmas for years. Not properly. Christmas was a family day other people celebrated, while he spent it fixing up broken legs from new roller skates or coping with perforated ulcers from too much pudding.
Now, in the time it had taken to haul one massive tree into his home, Nell had hauled up all these memories that he’d successfully buried for years.
‘Do you like it?’ she demanded the minute he walked in the door, and he could only stop and blink.
‘Um…’
‘Isn’t it huge?’ She was on her knees, threading popcorn. ‘Help me do this before Ernest gets the lot. I’ve had to repop four lots already.’
There was popcorn everywhere. Strands and strands of multicoloured corn were roped around the tree, and more was scattered on the rug. Ernest was in his basket where he’d obviously been banished, looking at the popcorn with mournful eyes.
‘Here you go.’ She rose stiffly to her feet and before he knew what she was about there was a threaded needle and a bowl of yellow corn in his hands. ‘I’m off to dye some blue. Finish that, will you?’
He didn’t seem to have any choice. He sat—and threaded popcorn.
‘Where did you get the tree?’ She had him fascinated. She’d been in town barely more than a day and she was organising faster than he’d thought possible.
‘Lorna and Des Scott sent their son around to see if I needed any help.’ She beamed. ‘Wasn’t that nice of them? I remember Des as the chemist when I was a little girl, and Ron’s just like him. I met Lorna when I popped around to Ethel’s this afternoon to see how she was getting on, and they couldn’t have been more helpful. The pair of them were like two old chooks, planning our Christmas.’
He was having trouble taking this in, but one thing stood out. ‘You popped around to Ethel’s?’
‘I was worried about her,’ Nell told him, shaking her corn in its blue dye. ‘She was so upset yesterday about breaking her diet that I thought a follow-through this afternoon wouldn’t hurt. But don’t worry. She’s stuck to her diet all day and I found her reading recipe books and planning Christmas to her heart’s content.’
Damn, he should have visited Ethel himself—but those sorts of things hadn’t been done in Sandy Ridge. Follow-throughs. Unless they were urgent there simply hadn’t been time.
With a jolt he realised that now there was. Follow-throughs… They were a medical imperative and now he’d have time to do them.
If they weren’t done first by Nell.
‘She was really OK?’ he asked grudgingly, and she smiled.
‘She was great. She was up to her elbows in mince pies, but she hadn’t eaten a single one. She’s talked to Mrs Condie and she’s cooking them for the hospital patients. Oh, and for us.’ She held up a tray of mince pies. ‘I arrived just as a batch were coming out of the oven and they’re delicious. Like one?’
‘No. Thank you.’
It wasn’t that he didn’t want one. It was that he hardly dared have it. Sitting on the floor, threading Christmas decorations and eating mince pies… Things were starting to look seriously out of hand. He glanced at Ernest and found he was being regarded with a look that was suspiciously like sympathy.
‘Does she organise you, too, boy?’ he asked, and Nell glowered from the kitchen.
‘Hey, I heard that.’
‘Ernest wants some popcorn.’
‘Ernest will pop himself if he eats anything more. He ate all my yellow corn while my back was turned. And it causes flatulence. He’s sleeping on your bed tonight.’
‘Spare room again, Ernest,’ Blake told him, and grinned at the dopey dog’s expression. Honestly, you’d swear he understood. He was one crazy dog. ‘Where did you get him?’
‘Who, Ernest?’
‘That’s who I mean.’
‘Why do you ask?’ Nell had gone back to corn-popping. She was holding the lid of the pot tight and the sound of popping corn filled the room.
‘It’s just… He seems ancient.’
‘He was born ancient.’
‘How old is he?’
‘The vet thinks about twelve.’
‘So you’ve had him for twelve years?’
‘Nope.’ She set her pot aside and returned to kneel under the tree. Picking up the corn, she also started threading, so they were side by side, threading in unison. It was a strange feeling. Intimate… ‘I said the vet thinks,’ she told him. ‘If I’d had him since a puppy surely I’d know the age of my very own dog.’
‘OK.’ Her voice was cross and Blake found himself apologising. ‘I’m sorry. Tell me how he came into your life.’
‘I’ve only had him for a few months.’
‘Really?’ Blake’s mouth twisted into laughter. ‘Don’t tell me. You went to the lost dogs’ home and picked out the most decrepit one you could see.’
‘There’s no need to be rude about my dog.’ She glowered. ‘As a matter of fact, he chose me.’
‘How?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘So I’m threading popcorn. I have all the time in the world.’
She hesitated and for a minute he thought she wouldn’t go on. And then she shrugged. ‘I was walking home from the hospital late at nigh
t and I was mugged. A group of four or five kids came from nowhere and grabbed me from behind. They hit me.’ Her voice faded a bit. ‘And…well, they took my bag and they hurt me. Not rape or anything, but they bashed… Anyway, when I finally figured out what was going on I was lying in the street, and Ernest was there. He was licking my face.’
Blake thought it through and watched her face. There was a heap going on here that he didn’t understand and it behoved him to step carefully. ‘Licking appears to be Ernest’s specialty,’ he said at last, and was rewarded with a smile.
‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘I thought you were going to say he chased off the attackers.’
‘Hey, there were five of them. Ernest had more sense. He knew the best course of action was to stay in the shadows and administer first aid.’
‘And then what happened?’ His eyes were still locked on Nell’s. For some reason he found himself holding his breath. It was a sort of watershed, he realised. A chink in her armour. Maybe she’d finally tell him something.
‘So I sat in the gutter and I howled and I howled, like a great big sook. But I howled out a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with the mugging. I held onto Ernest and he licked me—and then I made a few resolutions.’
‘I see.’ The thought of her bashed filled his consciousness. Nell, sitting in the gutter, bleeding maybe, and sobbing… The image was light years away from the confident young woman he saw before him. It was jarring to say the least.
He didn’t like the image at all. He found he was sitting by her Christmas tree with his hands clenching over fistfuls of popcorn—anger building at five unknown youths who’d dared to hurt her.
But she was no longer a victim. Not Nell. ‘You don’t see at all,’ she said, a tiny smile flickering back. ‘It was logical. I figured that was the end of me being a doormat. From that moment on, Ernest and I were going to take charge of our lives.’
He smiled up at her, and once again their eyes met. An unspoken message passed between them, and in that instant something changed. Something he couldn’t define. But it was…nice. ‘Well, bully for you and Ernest,’ he told her gently, and she smiled.
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