‘My father killed my mother, Em,’ he said, barely breathing the words so she had to strain to listen, certain Ken wouldn’t hear them.
‘He killed her and the baby she held in her arms. He lifted up his arm and struck her. I watched her fall and heard the silence—a silence so loud I’ve never forgotten it. I don’t remember if he knelt to touch her, to see if she was dead, although looking back I knew she’d hit the corner of the table in her fall. My father ran howling from the room—gone—and no one knew until I don’t know how long later when I was in hospital and someone told me he was dead.’
She used the hand he held to draw him closer.
‘You were how old?’
They were both whispering, the words disappearing into the darkness of the hut.
‘Five, from what I’ve pieced together and what Hallie found out when they took me in. Yet the sight of him with his raised arm lives with me day and night. It’s there inside me, Emma, the same way as his genes are. I know I have his temper, I’ve felt it surge inside me from time to time—quick, hot, unthinking—and I wouldn’t want to put someone I love at risk.’
‘But Pop was your father for far longer than your birth father was around,’ Emma pointed out. ‘I know debate rages over nature versus nurture but surely you’ve been far more influenced by Pop than by your birth father.’
‘In every way except genetically,’ he argued, then he drew back from her. ‘Anyway, that’s the story. You asked, and now I’ve told you, okay?’
Only it wasn’t okay at all. In fact, Emma wanted to cry. Wanted to hold him in her arms and tell him it was nonsense, that she knew him well enough to know he’d never harm another human being, maybe any living thing. But she sensed he wouldn’t listen, and she knew for sure that other people would have tried—Hallie and Pop in particular.
And if Hallie and Pop, who’d raised him and loved him unconditionally, couldn’t convince him he was wrong, how was she, who barely knew him, going to succeed?
Although she didn’t barely know him at all. She might not have known him long, but she did know he was special. He was caring and compassionate, kind, and friendly, and fun to be with. He was special...
CHAPTER NINE
KEN DIED AT three and, swallowing a sob, Emma conscientiously wrote it in her notes. Marty had collected the stretcher from where he’d left it by the door and together they gently lifted the frail body onto it, Emma wrapping the quilt around it this time, as if he could still feel the cold.
They carried him to the chopper and secured the stretcher, then walked together back into the hut, knowing they had to check for any papers he might have, to dispose of any food, blow out the lanterns, and if possible secure the hut against any vandals that might make their way out here.
But the stress of the vigil, their sadness at the old man’s death, and Marty’s story had churned up too many emotions and in search of relief they turned to each other, clasping each other in a vice-like grip.
Their kiss spread fire through their bodies as they melded together, feeding the hunger that had been raging between them for too long.
Had it gone on forever, or was it only a matter of minutes before Marty eased himself away from Emma?
‘Later?’ he whispered.
‘Later,’ she replied, and it sounded like a promise.
He took one of the lamps outside to where he knew Ken had kept a meat-safe in the shade of a lean-to, and emptied it of cheese and some bread that had been there long enough to be breeding different types of mould.
Emma had found garbage bags and had handed one to him, so he emptied the weird metal contraption with the wet bags hung over it, and returned to the shack to find other perishables.
‘I’ve put together all the papers I can find,’ Emma told him, for all the world as if this was just another day, another job and the word ‘later’ had never been said. Twice. ‘There should be something there about next-of-kin if he had anyone.’
She paused, then added, frowning slightly, ‘Should we take his clothes? There’s not much and most of it should be thrown away.’
‘I think leave them. Someone will come out to see to things out here.’
‘Then I’ll sweep the floor to leave it tidy,’ she said, and had to smile.
‘Putting off the later?’ he teased, coming closer to her to touch her cheek.
‘No, I’m not!’ she snapped. ‘Now get out while I sweep.’
He walked down to the creek, pausing where he’d sat with Ken in days gone by, then looked back at the shack.
Had Ken been hiding not from people but from life itself?
Was that what he, Marty, was doing—hiding from life, but doing it amongst people, plenty of people so they didn’t realise...?
* * *
Emma cleared what she could from the little shack, sadness for the old man she hadn’t known battling with Marty’s explanation of why he wouldn’t—in his mind couldn’t—do commitment.
Personally, she was certain nurture played a far more important part in a person’s upbringing than nature, but she knew from the way he’d spoken that Marty held a deep, primal fear of physically hurting someone he loved.
She’d done some psychology as part of her medical course, but not enough to know if such a deep-rooted notion could ever be dislodged. Certainly, the love he’d received from Hallie and Pop and the loving support of all his foster family hadn’t driven it away, so possibly not.
And that thought filled her with unutterable sadness...
‘Come on, it’s time to go.’
Marty’s call woke her to the fact they should be moving, and she gathered the little stack of papers she’d collected, and with a last look around the shack headed for the door.
Only to stop, and turn, aware something had caught her eye, yet unable to place it. She looked around, certain she’d seen something that might be important—just a glimpse—turned again and caught it, an early sunbeam catching on glass, high up on the wall—a photo!
She hurried back and lifted it off the nail where it was hanging, not stopping to investigate as Marty already had the engine revving and she knew she had to go.
Blow out the lamp and go...
But once on the chopper, belted in, she had time to wipe the dust of ages off the glass and take a proper look at the picture in her hands.
A photo of a woman—young, and rather beautiful—beautiful in that haunting way as if the image could be labelled sadness.
It was the eyes—the look in them—that gave that impression—a polite half-smile on lovely lips, but such sadness in the heavy-lidded eyes Emma could feel it in her chest, her heart...
She turned it over, looking for a name, but the back was bare. Yet somehow she was sure she knew this woman.
Or did she only know the feeling the woman portrayed?
Nonsense!
Why should she be sad? She had the boys, her father, a job she loved, and she’d made sure over the years to keep her memories of Simon to the happy times.
These she had tucked into that box that she stored in the back of her mind, and if she took it out and sifted through them from time to time, well, that was only natural surely.
But permanent sadness like this woman had been feeling?
The slightest of bumps told her they were back at Base, an ambulance waiting to take Ken’s body to the hospital. She’d already learned they only used the hospital landing site for emergencies, sparing patients and staff within the building unnecessary noise disturbance.
She undid the stretcher straps, then stood aside as two ambos came in to take over. She grabbed her bag and clasping the paperwork she’d found—and the photograph—against her chest, she jumped lightly down and walked towards Marty’s vehicle.
And now the memory of ‘later’ returned to the forefront of her mind.
‘M
y place?’ he said as he opened the door for her, and she’d probably have said no if he hadn’t touched a finger to her chin and lifted her head so he could look into her eyes.
And she into his, so what she saw there took her breath away.
She nodded, and slid in, wanting to be close, to feel his heat and wonder how his skin would feel against hers.
He pulled up in front of a small house, set in a wild cottage garden that would be a riot of colour in the daylight.
‘Hallie does my garden,’ he said as he helped her out, and she knew they were just words to keep him going until they were inside, because the hand that held hers was shaking, and her own body was tight with tension.
They barely made it through the door before they were kissing again, Emma desperate to learn the taste of him, to run her fingers through his hair, across his back—learning the feel of him, needing all her senses to take in this man, needing to drown in him...
* * *
A voice in Marty’s head shrieked warnings, but it was too far away to be clearly heard. Emma was so soft in all the right places, so pliant as he moved towards a wall to give them some support, and he knew she needed this as much as he did.
They fumbled with each other’s clothes, while their lips maintained a desperate contact. Then her breasts, bare, soft and warm, were pressed against his skin, while her hand had slid down his belly, easing down his jeans, to hold him, hard and hot, in her hands.
He found her heat, already moist, and lifted her so her legs clamped around his waist, and he could slide into her, death adding passion to the frantic coupling—the act an affirmation of life.
She cried out as he groaned his own release, and she eased back against the wall, still clasped in his arms, breathing hard, trembling slightly.
So he held her, her head resting on his shoulder, until the trembling ceased, and his own breathing steadied. Then, for a little longer, for this was Emma, and this could not be because—
Because he loved her?
Hadn’t he dismissed that thought way back in their friendship?
So why now had he discovered it anew right now?
The idea was so astonishing he shook his head to dislodge it, but the movement did little more than make Emma move in his arms—still close but not so close she couldn’t rearrange her clothing and do up the buttons on her shirt.
So, he, too, pulled clothes into place, his fingers not quite steady as the enormity of what he—they—had just done hit him with the force of a boxer’s punch.
‘I know there’s no commitment,’ Emma said quietly, moving away from him. ‘It was just something we both needed at the time.’
Yet he read pain in her eyes—knew she needed more...
What could he say?
I love you?
Would she feel she had to love him back?
When he knew full well how much love had hurt her in the past, and how she didn’t want to risk it?
They walked out to the car.
* * *
The short ride home was agony for Emma. She knew she’d want him again—want to make love with him properly next time—want to do it slowly, unhurriedly, delighting in discovering the man inside the clothes, delighting in his discovery of her...
Tiredness, that’s all it was. She’d sat beside him in the vehicle often enough without wanting to rip his clothes off, so of course she could sit beside him again.
Would sit beside him again.
Had to sit beside him again...
She looked down at the photo she’d left in the car, seeking distraction in its beauty and sadness.
Had Ken loved her, this woman with the hauntingly sad eyes?
Had she loved him in return?
And had their love been doomed, as hers and Marty’s was?
Love?
She looked harder at the face in the picture, turning it to show Marty when he got in.
‘I found this,’ she said, and he took it from her hands to look at it.
‘She’s lovely,’ he said, passing it back, no mention of sad eyes or unrequited love.
‘Might have been his mother,’ he added.
No, she was too young to have been his mother—the clothing told Emma that much. She’d seen a similar dress in another photo somewhere—a photo of her paternal grandmother perhaps? They’d discovered boxes of old photos when they’d moved into the old house...
She was so engrossed in the distraction she’d provided for herself that she was startled when Marty pulled up at her front gate.
She opened the door and turned to thank him—well, to look at him really but she’d thank him as well.
He was staring straight ahead, his face so still it might have been carved from marble—a bust that was titled, ‘Say Nothing’.
She thanked him anyway and slipped out, heading for the gate and, now that she was home, praying that the boys would still be asleep and she could tiptoe into her bedroom and maybe get an hour’s rest before they woke.
Puppy—why hadn’t they found a real name for the huge dog? Puppy was just ridiculous!—was there to greet her, and she patted him gently then sent him back to his bed on the veranda.
Making it safely to her bedroom was one thing, but she desperately needed a shower, and as the bathroom was close to the boys’ room that was hardly an option right now.
‘One day I’ll put in an en suite bathroom,’ she muttered to herself, sinking down onto the bed and flopping back, staring at the ceiling, at the wall opposite her bed, at the portrait of a woman that had hung there when they’d moved in and which she’d decided to leave hanging there.
She sat up, looking more closely, then knew, tired as she was, she’d have to stand up and look more closely.
Standing in front of it, she shook her head, unable to believe the coincidence. The artist had put a glint of laughter in the eyes of the woman as he’d painted her—maybe they’d been talking, joking—but the dress was certainly the same as the one in the photo, and the heavy-lidded eyes were unmistakeable.
She’d always assumed it was a portrait of her great-aunt, the woman who had left the house to her father because she’d never married, never had children of her own.
Because of unrequited love?
Because Ken Irvine hadn’t asked her—or had he asked her and been turned down?
Not by her, if the sadness in her eyes in his picture was any guide.
Separated by her family perhaps, so she’d lived on alone, a lonely woman in a large house that should have been filled with children’s laughter, while deep in the forest Ken kept her near him in a picture on his wall...
It’s all nonsense, she told herself. You’re tired and your imagination’s gone into overdrive. You should give up doctoring and write romance novels if you can come up with such a story so quickly.
Or was it something else that had fired her imagination?
Had the picture been symbolic of—?
No!
Perhaps?
No!
Although it could be, couldn’t it? Symbolic of her and Marty...
Except Marty didn’t love her, and she wasn’t sure she loved him.
Not definitely sure...
Go to bed!
CHAPTER TEN
OFF DUTY FOR the day, Marty drove carefully back to his little house on the top of the hill.
From the day, aged fourteen, when he’d started work at the local Wetherby surf shop, he’d banked every penny he’d earned—drawing out what he needed for gifts for family members at Christmas or birthdays or sometimes a bunch of flowers for Hallie, but squirrelling the rest away with one aim in mind.
Eventually he’d have enough for a deposit on a house—his house, his home.
He’d once joked to Mac that he’d learned more maths working out how to get the best in
terest on his money than he ever had at school.
So why, as he dumped the rubbish bag from Ken’s shack into his wheelie bin and walked into his house, did he not feel the usual thrill of possession—the pride of ownership—that the house usually gave him?
Because it was empty?
Ridiculous. He was here, wasn’t he?
Was it because the air retained a faint scent of Emma?
He shook away that memory. It had been something they’d both needed, an affirmation of life—nothing more...
No, it was the house itself that bothered him. It seemed to echo with the same kind of...not exactly sadness but definitely emptiness as Ken’s shack had.
He touched the walls he’d painted with such care, walked through to the kitchen where appliances he’d chosen himself stood neatly on their shelves.
Maybe it was because he was hungry.
He pulled some bacon from the refrigerator and set it under the grill, turning the heat up high so it wouldn’t take forever. Made himself a pot of tea—not for him a tea-bag in a cup—he had enough of that at work. No, Hallie had instilled in him that tea came from a pot, pointing out that you could always pour a second cup, or even a third, if you felt like it.
Hallie...
Was Emma right when she talked about nature and nurture?
Hallie and Pop had certainly nurtured him, and taught him not only the skills he’d need to live a successful life but the values to lead a good life.
Which he had—in his own way, right up until Emma Crawford had walked into the picture and everything had become so convoluted in his mind he didn’t know where to start thinking about it.
And desperately wanting to make love to her again—to make love, not just have sex—was not the answer.
More a problem that he’d just have to ignore and hope it would go away.
Because, for all the nurturing he’d received, he knew that, in a flash, nature could take over. It hadn’t happened for years but it had happened, the first time when he’d been at high school and an older boy had been teasing Liane.
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