‘And our baby?’
It was too much. Malcolm gave a grunt of sheer exhaustion. ‘Charlotte, I can’t think. Not now… Please.’
It was time for the physician to call, Joss decided. He might be riveted to this conversation but he didn’t want Malcolm to collapse.
The sciatic nerve was a hell of a nerve to insult. Malcolm would be in pain for months, and Joss thought it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. He took a deep breath, rose and twitched back the curtain.
They stared at him in the dim light. He must look quite a sight, he thought. Surgeon in hospital gown, having slept off the effects of coming close to drowning.
They didn’t look too flash themselves. They might be as old as he was but they looked for all the world like two silly kids in trouble.
Malcolm closed his eyes-he didn’t know who Joss was and his body language said that he didn’t much care. Joss gave him a searching look and rang the bell. OK, the man had treated Amy like dirt but he needed morphine.
‘I’ll get you something to ease the pain,’ he told Malcolm, and then he looked at Charlotte. Charlotte knew who he was, and he could tell by her dawning horror that she’d figured he’d heard everything that had happened.
His argument wasn’t with Charlotte. She was as much a victim here as Amy was. Maybe more.
‘You need to go back to bed,’ he told her gently. And then, as Amy appeared at the door and looked in bewilderment from Joss to Charlotte to Malcolm and finally back to Joss, he said, ‘Amy, here’s Charlotte ready to go back to bed. Can you bring me ten milligrams of morphine for Malcolm? Then maybe you could go and tuck Charlotte in. She has something to tell you.’
Then, as Malcolm jerked into awareness and started to speak, he held up his hand.
‘Leave it,’ he told Malcolm. ‘You’ve done enough damage as it is. I risked my life saving you and now I’m not sure why. For now, Charlotte has a choice. She tells Amy what I’ve just overheard-or I do it for her.’
The helicopter arrived an hour later to collect Malcolm. It landed on a newly gravelled patch at the back of the golf course, the rain had miraculously stopped, the wind had eased back to moderate and the landing was easy.
Iluka was back in touch with civilisation.
‘You can go, too,’ Amy told Joss. It was a subdued Amy who’d returned from seeing Charlotte to hand him a pile of cleaned and dried clothes. She’d said nothing-just shaken her head in mute misery at his enquiry. Now she returned to his bedroom to find him fully dressed and looking down at a sleeping Malcolm. ‘If you want to go back to Sydney you can go with him.’
If he wanted to go…
He gazed across the bed at Amy and he thought, Why the hell would he want to go to Sydney?
Why not?
‘Um…my dog’s here. I can’t leave Bertram.’
‘We can take care of Bertram until you have time to come back and collect him. If you like, I’ll have someone drive out and collect your belongings from White-Breakers.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Jeff’s bringing the helicopter team here now to prepare Malcolm for the flight. They’re paramedics, so you’re not needed on the flight, but if you want to go…’ She took a deep breath. ‘If you want to go, then decide now.’
He thought about it for another two seconds. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Let Charlotte take my place.’
‘Charlotte wants to stay here.’
‘Does she?’
‘She’s one mixed-up lady,’ Amy whispered. ‘Just like me.’
‘Do you feel like kicking this louse?’ he asked curiously, and she thought about it.
‘No,’ she said after a long time. ‘For one thing, he’s already kicked himself harder than I ever could. For another…’ She hesitated. ‘He’s not so bad.’
‘He two-timed you.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But what?’
‘But maybe I would have gone mad without him.’ She looked up at Joss and her eyes were bleak. ‘You think that sounds soft. Maybe it is. But four years ago, when I knew I had to come back here, I felt I was living in a nightmare. Malcolm was my friend. He coped with all the paperwork-he made it possible for this place to be built-he was here for me.’
‘He was here for Charlotte as well.’
‘No, that came later.’ She sighed. ‘Charlotte is very…honest. She’s explained everything to me. She met Malcolm a couple of years back and they started a friendship-which turned into a relationship. After all, what Malcolm had with me was a weekend once a fortnight.’
‘And the promise of a fortune.’
‘Maybe.’ She was watching Malcolm’s face. He was deeply asleep, his chest rising and falling in a regular rhythm, his body sleeping off the battering shock it had received. ‘Charlotte said that wasn’t the only reason he wanted to keep the engagement going. Why he wanted to marry me. She said he was worried about me.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘Maybe I do.’ She met his look, and her eyes were challenging. ‘Maybe I need to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was all I had.’ She swallowed. ‘He was a future. A husband. Babies. A semblance of normality.’
‘You’re not thinking of still going through with it?’ he demanded, and she shook her head.
‘Of course not. Charlotte’s had his baby. Regardless of what Malcolm wants, as far as I’m concerned our relationship is over.’ She tugged at the engagement ring on her third finger until it came off. Then she stood staring down at the diamond glistening in her palm. ‘The helicopter’s here,’ she said bleakly. ‘You can go. You can all go.’
‘Do you love him?’ Joss asked, watching her bleak face.
‘I…’
‘Amy?’
‘Leave it,’ she whispered and turned and walked out the door.
Should he go to Sydney?
Joss rang Jeff who said, yes, the chopper was here, the machine could fit four passengers and they were prepared to take him as well as Malcolm. He was bringing the van to the hospital now to collect anyone who wanted to go.
Could he be ready himself?
No.
Malcolm was as ready as he ever would be. Joss wrote up a patient history ready for handover and then walked out to the living room.
Lionel was there, cutting a vast ream of yellow fabric into kite pieces. He’d lost his favourite kite and another one had to be made pronto to take its place. Heaven forbid that there ever be spare space in the living room!
‘More kites?’
‘There are never enough kites,’ Lionel told him, and Joss nodded in full agreement. No. There were never enough kites. He looked around at the jumble of crazy constructions that Amy put up with and he wondered how many nursing-home managers would have allowed it.
There were never enough kites.
There was never enough…joy?
‘You should sell them,’ Joss said, more for something to say than anything else. ‘You make great kites. You could make some money from them.’
‘Not here I couldn’t,’ Lionel said morosely. ‘When I retired I thought I’d set up a little shop here and sell them to kids coming to the beach. That’s a joke. Even if kids came-which they don’t-the only place I could sell them now is from the nursing home. Who comes to a nursing home looking for a kite?’
‘Why could you sell them from a nursing home and nowhere else?’ Joss said slowly, thinking it through. Lionel was a bit confused. Was this just another example of his confusion? ‘Why not out of your garage?’
But Lionel wasn’t confused about this. ‘There are caveats on every other damned place,’ he said. ‘There’s one quarter-acre block zoned for commercial use for the post office and general store and that’s it. The rest of the district is zoned purely residential to perpetuity and use for commercial purposes is banned. Except this place. But I can’t see me sticking up “Kites for Sale” above the nursing-home sign. Can you?’
‘I guess not,’ Joss said,
but his brain was beginning to tick over.
An idea was stirring at the back of his mind. It probably wouldn’t have a hope of working. There probably wasn’t a loophole.
But if he was right…well, why not?
Did she still love Malcolm? That was the last unanswered question.
The helicopter team arrived and together they organised Malcolm for the long flight to Sydney. Joss helped immobilise his leg, administered more painkiller and sedative to help him with the flight and then stood back as Malcolm said his farewell to Amy. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen.
‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ Malcolm told her as they lifted his stretcher into the police van. He took her hand and she submitted to his urgent grip. ‘Listen, Charlotte and I…’ He was speaking urgently. ‘I don’t…’
‘You don’t have to tell me that what’s between us is over.’ She smiled down at him and there was the trace of affection in her voice. ‘You needn’t bother. I know. It is over.’
‘Charlotte wants to stay here.’
She was deliberately misunderstanding what he was trying to say. ‘That’s OK. We’ll look after her for you.’
The conversation wasn’t going the way Malcolm had planned but his head was too fuzzy to do anything about it.
‘Amy…’
‘I’ll give your engagement ring to your father,’ she told him. ‘I’d give it to you now but it may get lost. Or would you like me to give it straight to Charlotte?’
‘No! Amy!’
But she was shaking her head and she even had a rueful smile on her face. ‘Maybe you’re right. That would be bad taste. Almost as bad taste as fathering a child while you’re engaged to someone else.’ She hesitated and then stooped and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
‘Goodbye, Malcolm,’ she said and stood back to let him go.
She was…crying?
Joss turned to find there were tears welling in Amy’s eyes.
Damn the man. He was so angry he felt like following the van, stopping it and dislocating the other hip.
Had he been mistaken in telling her about Malcolm’s infidelity? Or in forcing Charlotte to tell her?
He thought about it. Maybe Malcolm could have convinced Charlotte to keep quiet. Maybe Amy would still have married him, had a couple of kids, been happy with her weekend husband until her six years were done.
What else was there for her?
Anything, he thought angrily. There had to be a life for this woman-a life that she wanted rather than the one dictated by the despotic old fool, her stepfather.
He scowled at the retreating back of the police van and then looked up to find Amy watching him.
‘Why didn’t you go when you had the chance?’ she asked. ‘You could have escaped.’
Was that what he wanted? To escape? He thought about it and looked at her pale face and thought about it some more.
‘I talked to Jeff,’ he told her at last. ‘He reckons if the rain doesn’t start again they’ll have a ferry lined up by tomorrow. Bertram and I can drive out of here under our own steam.’
Her face closed in pain-but he wasn’t sure. Was it pain for him-or pain for Malcolm?
Maybe even she didn’t know.
‘Bully for you,’ she said, and turned and walked into the nursing home without another word.
CHAPTER TEN
JOSS popped in to check on Charlotte before he went home, and found her weeping into her pillows.
‘He’s just weak,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t see it before. But he’s a fool. Thinking I’d do something to ruin our future, dashing here in his stupid speedboat in this weather, thinking Amy wouldn’t find out…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You know, I really did think he was doing this for Amy’s sake. I thought he was committed, and it was too late for him to draw back. I was even sympathetic. But now… I just don’t know any more. And I loved that speedboat as much as he did!’
Whew! It seemed Malcolm had blotted his copybook in more ways than one. If Malcolm wanted a long-term relationship with this lady, he had a few bridges to build, Joss decided. As it was, he’d gone from having a relationship with two women to being very close to having a relationship with neither.
Amy was looking as bleak as Charlotte.
They drove home in the dark together but there seemed little to say. There was a constraint between them that was growing worse all the time.
He should have kept his oar out of her affairs. She was looking like she’d lost her world.
What was it with the creep? What did Malcolm have that Joss didn’t?
The thought brought him up sharply. For heaven’s sake, was he jealous?
Jealous of a guy with two relationships?
No. He was jealous of a guy who’d had Amy’s heart in the palm of his hand.
His leg hurt. All of him hurt. All of him ached, and it wasn’t just physical. He ached for Amy. He ached for the impossibility of the whole damned set-up.
He ached.
Back at the house, Bertram greeted them with the joy of one who’d been abandoned for at least a month.
He needed a run.
‘I’ll take him to the beach,’ Amy told him. ‘You put yourself to bed. Your leg must hurt.’
It didn’t hurt so much any more. Not if it meant not going to the beach with Amy.
This was his last night here. Tomorrow the ferry would be operating and he’d be out of here.
‘I’ll come.’
‘Your leg…’
‘My leg can drop off for all I care. I’ll come.’
So they walked, slowly in deference to Joss’s stitched leg. He’d have gone faster but she deliberately held back. She was wearing faded jeans and a big sloppy sweater. Some time during the day her braid had started to work free and she hadn’t had time to rebraid it. She looked like part of the landscape, he thought. A sea witch. Lifting her face to the sea. Drinking it in.
She looked free.
She was anything but free.
The dog ran in crazy circles around them, the circles growing larger and larger as he revelled in this, his last night on the beach. Tomorrow Bertram would be back in his hospital apartment, Joss thought ruefully, limited to two long runs a day. After the freedom of the seashore it’d seem like a prison.
Sydney would seem like a prison.
He put a hand down and suddenly Amy’s hand was in his. It was almost an unconscious gesture on his part-to take her hand-but when he’d done it, it felt good.
It felt great!
She felt like his woman.
She loved Malcolm?
‘He’s a rat,’ he growled, and he felt rather than saw her surprise.
‘I know.’
‘You won’t take him back.’
‘No. I won’t take him back.’ She was speaking as if from a distance-as if speaking to herself. ‘I never should have got engaged to him in the first place.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I didn’t love him.’
There. The thing had been said. It was out in the open, to be faced by the pair of them.
‘But still you agreed to marry him,’ he said cautiously and she nodded. She kicked a ball of sand before her and it shattered into a thousand grains and blew away on the wind. The weather was clearing by the moment. Joss was wearing her father’s overcoat but he hardly needed it.
The moonlight was on their faces. The salt spray was gentle. It was their night.
‘I just can’t handle it,’ she said tightly. ‘I know I’m doing a great job here, I’m keeping all these people happy. Just…what about me? That was why I got engaged to Malcolm. So I could have a life-any life-apart from the nursing home.’ She kicked another lump of sand but this time it didn’t dislodge and she almost tripped. ‘Damn,’ she said, and he knew she wasn’t speaking about the sand.
‘Take me out to your rock,’ he said on impulse, and she hesitated. ‘Go on.’ His hand was still in hers. ‘It’s my last night here.’
‘It’s my special place.
’
‘Share it with me.’
‘You don’t want…’
But he was propelling her forward. ‘I want.’
‘You’ll get your feet wet.’
‘Heroes don’t mind wet feet,’ he told her. ‘Not when in pursuit of fair maidens.’
She stared at him for a long, long moment, and then, without a word, she turned and led him out across the rocks.
And when they reached it, he turned her and took her firmly into his arms.
There were so many things between them. There were so many obstacles. But for now, for this moment, they fell away as if they didn’t exist.
The dangers, the pain and the confusion slipped away. Joss held Amy in his arms and once again the thought flooded his mind. This was his woman. Here was his home.
She smelled like the sea. His lips were on her hair and the sea spray was a fine mist, damp against his mouth. Her figure was a lovely curving softness against his chest. The fabric of her ancient sweater was as lovely as silk to him. He gloried in the softness against his hands as he felt the pliant contours of her body, and he felt his body surge in recognition of a longing he hardly recognised.
He’d wanted women before, he thought, wondering, but not like this.
She was his.
She had to be his. His need was so strong it was almost primeval, a surge of something as old as man itself. Here was his mate. Half of his whole. He held her tighter, savouring the moment, waiting for her face to turn up to him as he knew it must, for her lips to find his…
Waiting to claim her.
This was impossible. She was a captive in this place. She couldn’t leave, and he couldn’t stay.
But how could he leave her? All this time he’d been fighting against a commitment he didn’t understand. He’d thought his father a fool for allowing himself to love, but love wasn’t something you chose.
Love was here.
Love was now.
She was pulling back-just a little-just enough to see his face in the moonlight. What she saw seemed to satisfy her.
‘Joss,’ she said, and it was enough.
Stormbound Surgeon Page 15
