Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor?

by Fiona McArthur

  She looked ahead to rice paddies and sighed. ‘It must be hard work in there.’ Just like that. She’d brushed him off. He’d asked her to but now he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling she could do it so easily. It was darned good she was leaving tomorrow.

  ‘Follow me,’ Harry steered them onto a smaller track. ‘This one comes out between the fields.’

  They bumped down a rocky incline and suddenly the way was smooth again as they hit a concrete path that rose between the fields and separated one rice paddy from the next. Their bikes were at waist-level with the workers and several called out to Harry as they pedalled past.

  Bonnie would have loved to have looked closer but she was too busy concentrating on not steering off the path into the water and reeds below. But it took her mind off Harry and she was glad of that. It wasn’t her job to save the world. She plastered a smile on her face, determined to soak in the sun and the sensation of wind in her face and blow away the distractions of the man beside her.

  Good. She looked happy again. Harry savoured Bonnie’s uncomplicated enjoyment of the scenery and the people they passed, like a new-taste sensation. He rolled her spontaneity around in his mind like a sweet in his mouth. It had been too long since he’d felt those things and it swallowed the dark feelings he’d been left with.

  But there was no escaping that through the course of today he’d begun to recognise that it wasn’t healthy to stay as closed off from emotion as he’d been, so he noted her pleasure, learnt from it, and even began to question his isolation.

  It hadn’t all been escape here, though. A large part of Bali had been healing to his soul. He wished he could have shown her his mother’s house. Let her feel the peace he always felt there. He wondered how she’d respond to that and to the different vibe of Ubud as a town.

  He pedalled faster to catch her and when he was alongside he caught her eye. ‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’ Funny how plans he formed for Bonnie were immediately acted on. Almost as if he acted before he could stop himself. Did he need more exposure when she was going? ‘I’ll drop you back at Kuta afterwards, and even take you to the airport tomorrow if you like.’ The words just kept flying out. She was going. There was no offer of commitment in that.

  Bonnie wanted to say yes. Knew she shouldn’t because every minute she spent with this confusing and compelling guy meant he was going to be harder to leave behind when her plane took off.

  She thought about Jimbaran, and the beach and all the people, and a secret place inside her whispered the urge to suggest somewhere more private, more amenable to intimacy, which should be the last thing she wanted. She was a fool. It was better to stay public. ‘Tonight, yes, I’d like that. Not the airport tomorrow. I’ll make my own way there.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said, and she was glad. It was like a limit she’d set herself. So far but not all the way. Now, that had connotations she didn’t want to think about.

  ‘How about when the bus drops you off after the ride I’ll pick you up in my car?’ He glanced at her as if not sure how she’d react. ‘Would you like to see Ubud? It’s only an hour’s run.’

  She hesitated. She’d be agreeing to disappear into the middle of Bali with Harry. A man she hardly knew. But she was kidding herself if she thought she’d throw away the chance to spend a little more time with him before she had to leave.

  And it seemed important to try to understand him before she left. Maybe even help him. ‘Seems a long way to go for dinner.’

  ‘Thought I’d show you my mother’s house. We could catch a kekak dance or just have a quiet dinner overlooking the rice fields. I’d like you to see where I live and why I love it.’

  She found herself agreeing, maybe foolishly, but the idea of being privy to a more personal side to Harry was too intriguing to resist. And she didn’t want the day to end. This whole slice out of time would end soon enough, which was a good thing if she was going to get over being drawn to this often silent man, and why he was hiding here in Bali.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LATER that afternoon, in Harry’s car, Bonnie looked out the window as Harry drove.

  Motorbikes were everywhere, swerving in and out of traffic, crazy loads piled on them, tooting politely to be let through. And nobody seemed cross.

  Very different to Western cities she’d been to. She glanced at Harry as he slowed to allow a young biker to pass him, and he seemed lazily alert, not at all perturbed by the chaos. What was it about him that drew her to him? He was the opposite of her ex-fiancé, career-climbing Jeremy, which in the big picture should be a good thing.

  Harry didn’t seem driven by anything, footloose, fancy-free except for the ghost of a wife. Well, that was what she assumed. She hadn’t actually asked him if he had a girlfriend but she didn’t think so, he seemed content to just coast through life. He was unlike anyone she’d ever known or even been drawn to. Maybe that was the attraction.

  The safety of him not being eligible in her eyes. And if she was honest, she was attracted to him despite her inner caution reminding her he was a man and men couldn’t be trusted.

  ‘Do you enjoy driving here?’

  He grinned at her. Pure schoolboy without a care now. It must be nice to switch on and off like that. ‘It’s like the bargaining. Just smile and you’ll be all right. Don’t get worked up about anything and everything will run smoothly.’

  Sounded like his life. ‘Pleasantly detached in your bubble from the real world? Is that why you stay?’

  He glanced at her and then away. ‘Maybe.’

  He changed the subject and she wasn’t surprised. Right at the beginning he’d said there would be no deep and meaningful discussions. ‘We’re coming into Celuk. A village famous for silversmiths. I’d like to pick something up from a friend of mine.’

  He slowed as they passed shopfronts and the occasional larger walled house, all proclaiming their trade in jewellery, and what woman didn’t love jewellery? Bonnie was no exception as she turned her head from side to side to see the shopfronts.

  When they parked, almost against the wall to get off the narrow street, there was barely enough room to open her door, but that wasn’t going to stop her having a peek inside.

  Harry grinned again and helped her squeeze out onto the little porch and up the steps into the shop. To her delight the inside exceeded her expectations. It seemed she’d found Aladdin’s cave crammed to the ceiling with glass-fronted cupboards packed with all types and sizes of silver jewellery.

  He introduced her to his friend, Putu, who reached under the counter and produced a small box filled with silver charms. Putu poked around in the box until he found what he was looking for and offered it to Harry.

  She couldn’t see what it was and at first thought it some sort of animal as Harry held it up to the light. She watched him clap his friend on the back and some money exchanged hands. And she looked away to control her inquisitiveness. There were trays and trays of all types of silver jewellery, plenty to distract a curious woman.

  Harry strode across to her. ‘Sorry to keep you in the dark but I wanted Putu to find the best one.’ He opened his hand. ‘I’d like you to have this, a keepsake of today.’ Harry stopped beside her and held out his palm. ‘As an apology for being so stressed.’

  There in the middle of his strong brown hand lay a tiny silver baby, curled up and content, beautifully crafted and cleverly suspended on a finely intricate chain.

  ‘She’s gorgeous,’ she breathed, and looked from Harry to the grinning shopkeeper. She could only marvel at the exquisite workmanship.

  ‘In honour of your birth today.’ He smiled and her legs wobbled in response. Good grief. She looked down at the shiny miniature again. Such dimpled cheeks and rounded limbs and something to remember Harry by. As if she’d forget him.

  ‘Thank you, Harry.’ She looked across at the silversmith and smiled. ‘You’re very clever.’

  Harry stepped closer and, typically, all the hairs on her arms recognised him and
stood up. She might even miss that sensation when she went. ‘Here. Let me put it on for you.’

  She turned and lifted her hair so he could fasten the clasp, and his fingers on her neck lifted any other follicle that wasn’t upright already. She stepped back, ostensibly to thank the silversmith but really to loosen the tightness in her chest and mentally fan her face.

  The shopkeeper brought the mirror and she could see herself with Harry behind her, like a picture. A picture that would soon become a memory.

  She turned and impulsively reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Thank you. She’s beautiful. I love her.’ He patted her shoulder and turned away to hide the expression in his eyes, and she sighed.

  Well, that had been a mistake. Harry briefly closed his eyes. He’d thought by buying her a trinket he could lose the guilt he still carried by not telling her the truth. But it hadn’t worked.

  Actually, he felt worse, almost as though he was trying to buy her forgiveness, which was ridiculous when, in fact, he owed nothing to this woman he barely knew. So why did he feel he was deepening the deceit?

  Because when it was all said and done she’d go on her way in good faith, blithely unaware he should have stood beside her at the birth and been there to support her in the responsibility. And he hadn’t.

  He’d lied by omission, run away from the risk of something going wrong, and pretended she had been the only person with the knowledge.

  He helped her back into the car and ensured she had her seat belt on and wondered, as he climbed in himself, what the heck was he doing with her beside him at this moment?

  Why hadn’t he waved goodbye after the bike ride and chalked the new insights she’d given him up for later thought or consigned them to the too-hard basket like he usually did? He had no idea but he had the sneaking suspicion he was going to regret this decision.

  He eased his vehicle back into the mayhem of the traffic and decided his mind was as bad as the street. Chaotic.

  Bonnie took one look at Harry’s set face and chose to stare out the window. She suppressed another sigh. The man was like a roller-coaster—exhilarating on the downward loops but full of unexpected corners that threatened to derail her when she least expected it.

  She’d just concentrate on the scenery and the bustling life all around her.

  When they arrived in Ubud the main street was packed with shops. Windows were filled with handprinted clothes, paintings, imitation designer luggage. There seemed to be dozens of restaurants, lots to distract her confusion from Harry’s behaviour.

  As they passed the stone-walled palace she began to see that the centre of town was built on a mountain, complete with rainforest and plunging gullies, and lush foliage everywhere. A town nestled in a jungle.

  Ubud had a different feel to the beachside suburbs and Bonnie was glad she’d had the chance to experience the variation. It had nothing to do with more time with the enigmatic Harry.

  Serene women in yellow sashes carried towering arrangements of offerings on their heads up stone steps, and everywhere were the welcoming smiles of Bali.

  She wished she could concentrate on the colours and activity and sheer beauty around her, but despite her attempt at resistance her eyes were drawn to the man beside her.

  Fascination lay in the way his brown hands moved confidently on the steering wheel, how easy he made it seem to navigate in the busyness and ordered confusion that was the main street, and how since they’d arrived in Ubud his shoulders seemed to have relaxed again into their more comfortable stance.

  Her hand slid up to touch the baby around her neck. The gift had come from nowhere and she wasn’t sure that he was happy now that he’d given it to her. But she couldn’t read his face and maybe it would be better to let the distance grow between them again. She turned back to the window.

  They crawled with the now-creeping traffic down a stone-banked incline then across an ancient bridge and suddenly the shops and traffic were gone and they were surrounded by rice fields again.

  Harry bumped into a narrow lane and up another hill and the rice fields almost brushed the car. She assumed they must be getting closer to the time they’d arrive at his house and little waves of awareness bounced between them in the quiet of the car. Then he turned and smiled at her and it seemed it was connection time again.

  The guy was such a light switch sometimes. On and off with the flick of a finger.

  The suspense of their arrival became more momentous the longer it took to get there. She reminded herself he was a well-known entity here, and she wasn’t really foolish sitting beside him going somewhere she didn’t know how to get back from. The concept that Harry would force her into anything didn’t enter her mind. She trusted him and she didn’t know why. Just that she did.

  Would anyone else be there? Was it only a peaceful dinner they were both thinking of or had thoughts of intimacy crossed his mind too? Should she keep reminding herself she was a paranoid woman with a poor track record in men?

  She sneaked a look at his profile as he glanced to his right. Hopefully he was unaware of the mixed emotions she was hiding behind her sunglasses because she couldn’t keep her thoughts sorted and orderly herself, let alone share them with him.

  Field workers waved and Harry waved back, and Bonnie gazed around and pretended to be the tourist she was, but her eyes kept returning to Harry’s hands. The very first time she’d seen him she’d felt a connection to those hands—until she’d seen his ring. How ridiculous. You couldn’t fall in lust with someone’s hands.

  They finally arrived, as close as they could get anyway. Harry’s house was on a rise, white-painted stone and many gabled, with a veranda on every side. He couldn’t drive all the way to the door so they walked up a stone path along the edge of a rice field and she could see ducks playing in the water that lay beneath the rice plants.

  When he opened the gate for her she felt her own shoulders drop because, magically, the peace and tranquillity wrapped around them both from the first footstep into the gardens.

  It was as if she’d stepped into a lush green veil of peace. Unexpected and very welcome. Harry rested his hand on the small of her back as she stood there and drank in the serenity, and even his presence became a part of the whole.

  ‘No wonder you love it,’ she said quietly, and shook her head at perfection. Brushed grass, tiled edges around gardens, little waterfalls and fountains, and a myriad of tiny stone altars with incense and frangipani flowers artfully arranged.

  Harry sighed with relief. It had been right to bring her. ‘Come inside.’ He could feel the swell of pleasure that she could see what drew him to stay.

  He saw it through her eyes, re-examining the facets he loved with renewed appreciation.

  Stone steps flanked by granite lions led up to a magnificently tiled veranda that peered over a sheer drop to the valley floor. A long way down, like a silver ribbon, a small stream meandered along under the lush rainforest that lay in pockets between the layered rice fields.

  Further along the veranda, on what seemed like acres of tiles, cushioned cane furniture waited patiently for a casual visitor to drop and soak in the scene below.

  A feeling of closeness grew as she shared Harry’s vision of his home. Like a window into a part of him that could help her understand him. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Harry. It’s wonderful.’

  A smiling Balinese man, perhaps in his sixties, approached with welcoming hands held out towards her. Harry spoke from behind her shoulder. ‘Ketut, this is Miss Bonnie. She is a midwife and flies back to Darwin tomorrow.’

  Ketut inclined his head and smiled warmly. ‘Welcome, Miss Bonnie. It is with great pleasure I meet you. Come, sit, let me make you both tea after your journey.’

  Well, that answered who else would be there, Bonnie thought, and stifled pathetic disappointment they wouldn’t be alone. She remembered then that Harry had spoken of his mother’s caretakers. She should have remembered.

  ‘Hello, Ketut.’ Bonnie settled into t
he luxurious cushions and raised her brows at Harry. She mouthed, Wow at the whole setting. ‘Tea would be lovely. Thank you.’ Ketut smiled and hurried away.

  ‘I thought we’d have afternoon tea here.’ Harry gestured to the view. ‘You could look around after that and decide where you’d like to eat. If you’d rather come back here, we can let Ketut know in time for him to whip something up. He’s a great cook.’

  A busy restaurant was the last thing she wanted but she’d definitely be safer—from herself. Here, she knew she’d be tempted to peer through the cracks in the walls of Harry’s isolation, to see why he affected her, why she worried about his inner sadness that he hid from the world but not from her, how she could help him. Every time she felt close to the answer in public he’d shut her out again and step back. Did she need that angst? Could she stop herself anyway? What if he did open up to her and they connected in a way that would hurt much more when she flew away tomorrow?

  No, she didn’t need that. ‘We could go out. There’s dozens of restaurants nearby. I’m easy.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Harry watched her blink in surprise and her shock was ironic. He wasn’t finding any of this girl/boy stuff easy when it concerned this woman. A notion all of his friends would find vastly amusing. ‘But it’s not your fault I find you difficult to fathom. Maybe I’m just out of practice.’ He shrugged. ‘But back to dinner. If you truly don’t mind, let’s eat here. We could walk the gardens. I’ll show you the house and we can have drinks on the platform overlooking the valley. Ketut will be happy doing what he loves and we’ll still drive through Ubud at night to show it to you when we leave to take you back to your hotel.’

  She looked away to the river below as she tried to stay relaxed—or at least appear that way. Hard with her knee almost touching his as they sat side by side. Tension simmered like a pot of soup between them. Millions of tiny bubbles that surfaced beneath her skin as the heat of Harry increased. And there was the intimacy of the setting. His house. Foreign country. Alone except for the caretakers.