Desperate times called for desperate measures! The overworked saying rang in his head, causing him to wonder if stress reduced brain-power to such an extent that clichés were all it could dredge up. He’d certainly come up with a few weak ones this evening!
He’d have to make it obvious to Mary-Ellen there was nothing going on between himself and Rowena—not that there was, apart from one kiss.
And to make it clear to her, it would also have to be very clear to Rowena. He couldn’t remember what he’d said earlier—how much of his attraction he’d confessed. But so what if he contradicted himself now—as long as he could keep her safe.
‘Well, if you won’t leave the house,’ he said, hoping he sounded clinically cool not maniacally irrational, ‘would you at least leave my bedroom? I had a sensible mother who believed boys should be able to look after themselves. I’ve been making my own bed for thirty years.’
Rowena flinched—at the steely cadence of his voice as much as at the words themselves, although they were cruel enough.
She glanced towards him, but one look at the grim set of his face was enough to stifle any protest.
‘Please yourself!’ she said, as lightly as her churning emotions would allow, then she flung the second sheet down on the bed and walked out of the room, taking care not to brush against him as she went.
It was the kiss that had done it—it had to be. Up till then, he’d been against her staying, and he’d argued angrily, but he’d still been David. Not the cold, imperious stranger who’d ordered her out of his bedroom.
His bedroom? Of course!
Oh, how could she have been so dumb? David had been so obviously shocked by the arrival of his missing wife’s twin that it had to have brought back memories of his marriage. Then, on top of that, she, Rowena Stupid Jackman, had been insensitive enough to kiss him in the bedroom he’d shared, if only for a few short breaks, with the woman he’d loved.
Pain lodged beneath her ribs, and lumped its way into her throat as she walked blindly down the hall that ran through the centre of this bedroom wing.
She heard the growl of a vacuum cleaner coming from one of the rooms further down the hall—the cleanest of the closed-off rooms, according to Sarah.
Hurt, embarrassed and troubled, Rowena hesitated outside the door. She could take over Sarah’s job and clean the room herself. Or fling herself into Sarah’s arms and weep away at least some of her frustration. Tempting, but hardly mature behaviour, Rowena! And it would also mean having to confess about the kiss to Sarah, and right now she was feeling so embarrassed about forcing the issue that she’d far rather try to blot it from her mind.
She wandered out to the wide veranda encircling the house and gazed out over dark paddocks that seemed eerily quiet and other-worldly beneath a cloud-stacked sky.
Great! Just what she needed—the weather was closing in and Mary-Ellen Whoever-she-was-these-days would probably be stuck on the island for weeks, reminding David on a daily basis of the woman he’d loved.
And somehow lost!
Literally.
CHAPTER THREE
ROWENA rose early, although the dark clouds massing above shut out any glimpse of the sun, and the morning was dark, cold and clammy with the fog, wisping and twirling above the paddocks.
She dressed, then debated whether she should sit in her bedroom until she heard sounds of movement from one of the other two inhabitants of the house or if she could sneak out to the kitchen and make herself a cup of tea.
Sitting on the bed would only exacerbate her already strung-out nerves, so she opted for the sneaking.
‘Ha! So I’m not the only one who wakes early,’ Sarah greeted her, from her perch beside the warm stove. ‘Actually, David’s up as well. I heard him banging around outside, presumably feeding or watering his animals. Is his sheep one of the milking kind, do you know?’
‘Yes, but he’s a ram, not a sheep, remember,’ Rowena replied. ‘Or he was until David doctored it. In fact, it was a stud sheep, one of a neighbour’s herd, but the darned thing was uncontrollable. Always breaking down fences or escaping under them and coming over here to David’s place.’
‘He was in love with my pig,’ David said, coming in on the conversation in time to explain. ‘Still is, poor chap! Though the pig won’t have a bar of him.’
He spoke lightly but the signs of a sleepless night were clearly visible in the drawn lines of his face and a greyness in his cheeks.
‘What time are you two off to work?’
Rowena turned to Sarah.
‘You’re the boss. I usually get in about half an hour before the first patient so I can get out the files and tidy up any outstanding paperwork. How about you?’
‘Half an hour early—that’s about eight.’ Sarah glanced at her watch. ‘And fifteen minutes’ travelling—we’ll leave in twenty minutes.’
She was answering David but then turned to Rowena.
‘Are you happy to take me? I’ve a hire car booked but haven’t got around to collecting it from the garage. In fact, there was some mix-up with the booking as I’d wanted a four-wheel drive and they only had a small sedan available.’
Nice normal conversation, Rowena thought as she nodded to Sarah and waved the teapot towards David to offer him a cup. Behind her, the toaster popped out an evenly browned piece of toast, and to any alien hovering above, the scene would have been one of earthly normality.
But the air in the room was brittle with tension, so much so she was surprised it didn’t crackle when she moved.
Sarah broke it by teasing David about the pig, then asking how he’d come by it.
‘A present from a friend who thought a small piglet was the perfect going-away present to someone daft enough to go and live on an island.’
‘Didn’t this friend realise it would grow?’ Sarah asked, and David shrugged his broad shoulders.
‘City folk!’ he said, using the islanders’ explanation for the vagaries of all their visitors.
‘And the native animals?’ Sarah persisted, apparently determined to keep the conversation going.
‘They’re only temporary residents. People tend to bring them to me when they’re found injured but alive. I either patch them up or, if they’re too bad, put them down humanely. Once the injured ones are fit and well, they go back to the bush—or that’s the theory. I’ve a wombat in a log behind the shed who has no intention of ever going bush. I mean, why root around in tough forest country when you can find plenty of food in my lush green paddocks?’
‘Well, James will love them all. Speaking of hollow logs, do you have many on the property? I wouldn’t mind taking some back to use as planters.’
As Sarah continued to question David, Rowena’s thoughts drifted back to the previous night. To the early part of it, when David had said he was tidying up his life for a reason—and almost intimating that the reason was her.
Which must mean he cared…
Though perhaps she’d misunderstood, which would explain his coldness now…
‘Coming?’
Sarah’s voice suggested she was repeating her question, and Rowena stood up, crossed hastily to the sink, washed her cup and plate, then, muttering about teeth, hurried from the room.
This was no time for dreams—not when the reality was that David didn’t want her here.
Though, for his sake, and his future on the island, she was staying, whether he liked it or not.
‘You OK?’
Sarah’s question dragged David out of gloomy introspection—brought on by the sight of Rowena’s shapely figure exiting through the kitchen door.
‘No!’ he said, because he was so far from OK a lie would have been obvious. ‘But, hopefully, I’ll get there eventually.’
He read the concern in Sarah’s eyes, and tried what he hoped would prove a reassuring smile.
‘Mary-Ellen’s arrival threw me, but I’d intended cleaning out the shed—facing up to all the stuff packed away in there—so nothing’s reall
y changed except she’ll be watching every move I make, and needling me as much as possible.’
‘Why?’
Natural question, bluntly delivered.
Why?
‘I guess because she honestly believes I killed her sister. I suppose if the same thing had happened to someone I cared about, I’d want it finalised.’
Even as he said the words he realised how terrible they must sound to Sarah. ‘I mean, if I thought someone had killed Sue-Ellen, if I suspected someone in particular, I’d want to see justice done.’
‘But you don’t think she was deliberately killed?’
David sighed and ran his hands through his hair, kneading at his scalp with frustration.
‘No! I just can’t believe it. There’d be no reason, you see. At first, I thought she’d simply left me—in fact, I suspected that if she had, Mary-Ellen had probably helped her. They came over to the island together—a few days before I was due to fly in. They brought a couple of horses for Sue and I to ride during the holidays, then Mary-Ellen went back with the empty horse float. It would have been easy enough for Sue-Ellen to hide in the float for the trip back on the ferry, even though the ferry crew reckon they’d have seen her because one of the deckhands backed the float on while the other gave directions.’
‘Were you having trouble in your marriage that made her leaving you a possibility?’
David gave her a weak smile.
‘We were always having trouble,’ he admitted. ‘From the honeymoon at Aspen onward. I fell in love with a beautiful woman, Sarah, madly in love, and married her without ever knowing her. We were as unalike as two people ever could be, and on top of that she was—’
He stopped short, loyalty to his absent wife preventing him from voicing his professional opinion about her mental state or his personal opinion of her spending habits and her casual attitude towards extramarital affairs!
Sarah didn’t press him.
‘You say at first you believed she’d simply left you. What changed your mind?’
He thought back.
‘Mary-Ellen’s behaviour, I suppose. She was hysterical, hurling accusations, acting nearly demented with grief. At first I thought it was all show—put on to convince me she didn’t know anything. But I felt a tension behind it all—it’s hard to explain, especially as both of them could throw tantrums. But this was different—it made me believe Mary-Ellen’s behaviour was genuine—and I couldn’t believe Sue-Ellen would go off and not contact her sister at some stage.’
‘To let her know she was all right? They were close?’
David let his gaze drift around the room, remembering the scenes played out whenever the pair had been together.
‘There was a bond—an almost unbreakable link—so even when they fought and at times acted as if they hated each other, it held them together. I used to think Sue-Ellen was jealous of her sister—Mary-Ellen was married to a prince or duke or whatever at the time. When Mary-Ellen phoned to say she was leaving him and coming home, Sue was delighted, but I had a feeling the delight was partly because her sister’s marriage had failed.’
‘Complex things, twins!’ Sarah said, and David gave a huff of laughter.
‘Tell me about it! But the other thing that bothered me about her disappearance was that she’d done it from the island. Because, apart from private yachts sneaking in at midnight and even then a fishing boat would probably have seen it, people’s comings and goings are monitored by flight or ferry tickets. If you were going to disappear, it would be far easier to do it from the mainland—hire a car in a false name, drive to another town and fly somewhere.’
Sarah nodded slowly.
‘So because she disappeared from here, it was more likely she’d died?’
‘The island’s a hazardous place,’ he explained. ‘She could have been walking along one of the cliff paths and slipped into the sea. Injured herself in a fall in the bush and not been able to get to help. These were the things that tormented me, Sarah, but I couldn’t get anyone to listen. Especially as Mary-Ellen pooh-poohed the idea her sister would walk anywhere!’
He let his breath out in a long, regretful sigh.
‘Oh, they searched, but I felt it was perfunctory. To the authorities, once they took her disappearance seriously, there was only one feasible answer. Especially when the city police found a man who confessed to being her lover and who claimed she was going to leave me for him.’
He drew a deep ragged breath.
‘They assumed I’d murdered her and hidden her body so, instead of looking at places where she might be found alive, they dug up any recently turned-over ground, and searched the farm, the bottom of the wells and any handy ravines for her body.’
‘It must have been hell for you,’ Sarah said, reaching out to touch his hand.
‘I’m ready!’
Rowena reappeared, and the pain of loss stabbed into David’s ribs. But he had to do it, had to stay aloof from her no matter how hard it was—or what level of pain he detected in her eyes. He was diverted from these bitter thoughts by the sound of a vehicle approaching up the long drive leading to the house.
‘We’ll get going,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘Come on, Rowena. Let’s leave him to his fate.’
‘That’s not a very nice expression!’ David protested, but if he’d had his way they’d have been gone long before Mary-Ellen arrived. He just hadn’t expected her this early on such a gloomy, overcast day.
And thank heavens Sarah hadn’t asked about the weather.
‘Help! Where did this wind come from?’ Sarah demanded, as she clutched her coat around her body and struggled across the yard towards the car.
‘Blew up an hour ago—you’ll notice the mist’s gone,’ Rowena responded. ‘Though this is only a breeze compared to what is probably on the way.’
‘A breeze? Don’t ever let me out in a gale!’ Sarah yelled, grabbing the car door as the wind tried to snatch it out of her hands.
They sat in the car and waited until the mud-splashed Range Rover reached the end of the drive and pulled up at the bottom of the shallow front steps.
‘It’s only plebs like us who use the tradesmen’s entrance round the back,’ Rowena muttered, starting the engine and taking off as if anxious to leave the house and its visitors far behind her.
‘David will manage her better today,’ Sarah said, giving Rowena’s knee a comforting pat. ‘He was shaken yesterday, thinking it was his wife when he’d thought she was dead for all these years.’
‘Why?’
The puzzled look Sarah shot her told Rowena she’d been too blunt, but it was a question which had niggled in her head all night.
‘I mean, why would he presume she was dead, not just missing?’
‘He was just explaining it to me. I think it’s mainly because she didn’t contact her sister—didn’t contact anyone, of course, but most particularly her sister. They were too close for her to go on living and not let her sister know. Well, I think that’s what David thinks and I assume that’s what the police believed or they wouldn’t have gone through with a murder investigation.’
‘They did it because of Mary-Ellen’s demands!’ Rowena said bitterly. ‘The family had connections everywhere—and money to burn—so, of course, the police and politicians all listened to her rather than to David.’
‘Do you remember it? The investigations here on the island?’
Rowena thought back.
‘I guess I do, but my main memories are of sympathy for David. It was only twelve months after Peter and Adrian went missing—I was still hurting and it brought it all back. For Peter, the locals who have planes did air searches and the fishermen scoured the coastline, but with Sue-Ellen there were squads of imported folk stumbling around the countryside, looking for a grave, as I remember, while helicopters buzzed overhead and boats searched the sea for a body.’
They drove into the little township as she finished her explanation, and pulled up behind the surgery.
; ‘But enough of that—of the bad memories. Let’s think about today. Mrs Alistair’s bringing Mick back in—the child with suspected hepatitis. He’s the first patient. If the blood test’s negative, will you retest or not?’
‘I don’t think it’s worth it,’ Sarah told her when they’d dashed from the car to the building, against a wind that now included big splattering drops of rain. ‘It’s more than likely the acute phase has passed and we’ve missed that kind of diagnosis. Also, as there’s little we can do to treat it, except advise rest and plenty of fluids, there’s no point. Didn’t David say something about another child?’
‘The Williams girl,’ Rowena confirmed as she unlocked the door and led them inside. ‘But why not treatment? There are treatments for hep. B and some of the other forms of the disease. Can we be sure it’s not something treatable?’
Sarah nodded, understanding what Rowena was thinking—understanding also that they were talking about a little boy not much older than her son had been when he’d been lost at sea.
‘Other forms would have shown up in the blood. I’ll certainly double-check the test results, but if this is the second case, I should also have a look around at common denominators to see if we can find a carrier.’
She took the file Rowena handed her and flipped it open.
‘A carrier? You mean someone else who’s affected?’ Rowena asked.
‘Someone who has it, perhaps as part of a general infection. Has there been an outbreak of rubella recently, or is there someone you know of with Epstein-Barr virus?’
‘Epstein-Barr—heavens! I haven’t heard of that for years. Mostly the islanders get common things like colds and flu, the occasional broken arm or leg and, of course, have farm and fishing boat accidents.’
‘Actually, Epstein-Barr’s most common early form is glandular fever—and it’s from the same viral family as cold sores.’
They were back at work, Rowena realised as she listened to Sarah’s explanations. And for the next eight hours, because the islanders were curious about the new locum and would pop in on the slightest of pretexts, she should be too busy to think about David Wright—or the romance that had ended before it had even begun.
Her Dr. Wright Page 4
