Storm Haven

by Marion Lennox

  Jeans weren’t what Charlotte envisaged when she said shopping. Charlie dragged her friend from one shop to another and there wasn’t a pair of jeans in sight.

  ‘Honestly, Charlie,’ Nikki expostulated. ‘This stuff is crazy.’ The shop Charlie had pushed her into was up-market and exclusive, dealing in everything from beautiful imported shoes and designer fashions to the most indulgent of lingerie. Nikki fingered the soft Swiss cotton of the dress her friend had just discovered. The frock was lovely, light and soft, with swirling green pastels which lit the brilliant red of Nikki’s hair. ‘I wouldn’t wear this in Eurong. It’d be wasted.’

  ‘Maybe yesterday you wouldn’t have worn it,’ her friend grinned. ‘But today…today Luke Marriott is your new locum. I wouldn’t be seen dead in anything less than this dress if Luke Marriott was in the vicinity. Honest, Nikki-’

  ‘Charlie, I am not the least bit interested in Luke Marriott,’ Nikki snapped.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Charlotte said simply. ‘My grandmother would look twice at Luke Marriott. And she’s been happily married to my grandfather for fifty years!’

  ‘Charlie-’

  ‘Look, just try it on,’ Charlie pleaded. She thrust the dress into Nikki’s hands and pushed her towards a changing-room. ‘You could even wear this to work-with a nice white coat over the top. It’s time you gave the bachelors of Eurong their money’s worth. I bet you charge top rates even when you wear your mouldy old jeans.’

  Half laughing, half exasperated, Nikki gave in. She was fond of Charlie-in fact Charlotte Cain had been a true friend for a long time. It wouldn’t hurt to humour her. And these clothes-she fingered the soft cotton with a trace of regret-these clothes could join the rest of the things she had put away five years ago. Her mother’s jewellery. Her cosmetics. Her contact lenses. She looked up to her face and grimaced at the too heavy glasses. She knew she was being stupid wearing these but they were a defence against something she no longer wanted.

  They were a defence against the likes of Luke Marriott. Unbidden, the thought of Nikki’s new locum flashed before her and it was all she could do not to rip the dress she was trying on from her back. The thought of him produced something that was close to panic.

  This was crazy. There was no need for her to panic. Luke Marriott obviously had problems of his own and a three-week stint as her locum was hardly going to change either of them. Her panic was inexplicable and needless.

  Nikki forced herself to concentrate on the dress. It was pretty, there was no doubting that. It fell in soft folds around her slim form, catching the colour of her eyes and highlighting her brilliant hair. She should get her hair cut, she thought crossly. There was too much of it. Or maybe she should just tie it back into a severe knot. She shoved her glasses back on and opened the curtain. Charlie and the shop assistant were both waiting.

  ‘Oh, Nikki, it’s lovely!’ Charlie exclaimed delightedly. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Nikki agreed reluctantly. She fingered the fine cotton. ‘It feels good.’

  ‘And so it should.’ Charlotte took her by the shoulders and spun her around. ‘It really makes you look like…well, like you ought to look. Apart from those glasses.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my glasses.’

  ‘Why do you wear them all the time?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘You know you only need them for reading.’

  ‘I’m more comfortable with them on.’

  ‘But you used to wear contact lenses.’

  ‘Well, I don’t any more,’ Nikki snapped. ‘I’ll take this off.’

  ‘You’ll buy it?’

  ‘If you think I ought to,’ Nikki said flatly.

  The shop assistant had been watching the proceedings with interest. ‘It does look pretty,’ she said. ‘But have a look at it in the full-length mirror before you buy it. There’s one just around the corner here.’

  ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Charlotte said, her voice firm. ‘Go and look, Nikki.’ Then she reached forward towards the objects on Nikki’s nose. ‘And look without these awful glasses!’

  ‘Charlie-’

  ‘Can you see without them?’ Charlotte demanded.

  ‘Yes, but-’

  ‘Then look without them.’ Charlotte firmly removed the offending articles and thrust her forward. ‘Now go and look at what you should be, Nikki Russell!’

  Nikki was propelled firmly forward by the shop assistant. The assistant had obviously taken Nikki’s lack of interest as a personal challenge. She stood next to Nikki, chatting cheerfully at Nikki’s image in the mirror.

  ‘It looks so good, miss. You should wear that colour all the time. Green really suits you.’ She smiled up at her reluctant client. ‘And your friend’s right. You shouldn’t wear those glasses.’

  Nikki stared at her reflection and a part of her cringed. She wanted no part of this. To be beautiful… Scott had told her she was beautiful…

  ‘I’ll get changed now,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You will take it?’ the assistant said anxiously.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Nikki grimaced. Charlotte would give her no peace unless she did, and her friendship with Charlotte was important. Speaking of Charlotte… She looked around. Where was her friend?

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Your friend must have slipped out.’ The assistant frowned. She looked around the shop, visions of shop-lifting clearly flashing through her mind. People who distracted the shop assistant and left were a worry. Surely not. These two women seemed…well, classy.

  But Charlotte had gone.

  And then Nikki parted the curtain to her changingcubicle and realised with horror that something else had gone as well. All her clothes. Everything. Her sandals. Even her glasses…

  The shop assistant was right behind her. Seeing what Nikki had seen, she gave a nervous but relieved giggle. ‘Oh, dear,’ she offered. ‘Your friend seems to have… to have taken all your clothes.’

  ‘Charlie…’ Nikki’s voice was an angry wail. What on earth was her friend playing at?

  ‘I’m back.’ It was the cheerful voice of Charlotte coming back in the door from the street. ‘Missed me?’

  ‘Charlie, where are my clothes?’ Nikki asked softly. Her tone was low and dangerous.

  Charlie grinned, unperturbed.

  ‘I put ‘em in a rubbish bin,’ she confessed blithely. ‘Actually I put ‘em in about five garbage bins. I put your jeans in one. I put your shirt in another. One sandal per bin. I wish I’d been able to get your knickers and bra. But you will be sensible and buy some more of those, won’t you, sweetie?’

  ‘Charlotte!’

  ‘Well, you were going to buy new clothes,’ her friend said innocently. ‘You said you were. And you’d never choose to wear those old things when you have lovely new clothes, now would you?’ Her face assumed an expression of innocence. ‘You weren’t buying these just to humour me, now were you, Nikki?’

  It was so close to the truth that Nikki gasped. She opened her mouth to say something and then couldn’t think of a thing to say. Finally she closed her mouth again and contented herself with glaring.

  ‘That’s better,’ Charlie said. She turned to the shop assistant. ‘You know, this girl has nothing now but the clothes she’s standing in. I think we need at least a couple more outfits.’

  The sales assistant choked on shocked laughter. ‘Oh, yes, miss,’ she breathed. She turned to Nikki. ‘We have the loveliest linen suit that you’d look smashing in.’

  ‘Wheel it out,’ Charlie said firmly.

  ‘Charlotte, where are my glasses?’ Nikki said awfully, and her friend threw up her hands in mock-fright.

  ‘Beats me,’ she laughed. ‘Either Mall Litter Bin 36 or Mall Litter Bin 39. Or was that your left sandal?’ She shrugged.

  ‘Charlie…’

  Her friend put her hands on her hips. ‘Nikki Russell, you are my very best friend.’ She smiled, then her face grew suddenly serious. ‘You have b
een vegetating in Eurong for the past five years with no one to appreciate how lovely you really are. Now I find that one of the most eligible males I know is working as your locum. I’m damned if I’ll let you go home wearing those glasses. I’d be failing in my friendship if I did. Now try this suit on, Nikki Russell, and let’s have no more nonsense.’

  ‘Charlie, I am not the least interested in Luke Marriott.’ It was almost a wail.

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ her friend said simply. ‘All I’m ensuring is that Luke Marriott is interested in you.’

  It was a still angry Dr Russell who climbed from the plane at Eurong airstrip the next day. The wind was hot and blustery. The dress Charlotte had chosen hung coolly on Nikki’s slim body, fluttering in the breeze. It felt soft, pleasant and frightening. Nikki’s legs were bare apart from simple crystal-green sandals. Her hair wisped around her face, no longer held back by the rigid frames of her glasses. Nikki’s fingers kept moving self-consciously to her face, but there was no dark shield to hide her. She felt strange, and frighteningly exposed.

  ‘It’s only until I reach home,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I can change immediately.’ If only she had more glasses…

  The pilot had come around to help her from the cabin. As she thanked him he reached down on to the floor and retrieved a package the size of a small suitcase.

  ‘This is for you too, Doc,’ he grinned. ‘A Miss Cain sent it out to the airport last night. Said we weren’t to give it to you until now.’

  Nikki looked down at the package and her lips tightened. The package was emblazoned with the logo of the shop she had visited the day before. She had refused to buy anything more than the dress she was wearing, but she knew already what would be in the parcel. Everything Charlotte had pleaded with her to buy, she imagined.

  ‘I suppose these are all paid for,’ she said icily, and the pilot grinned as though he too was in on the plot.

  ‘They’re bought on approval,’ he said.

  ‘Well, here.’ Nikki thrust the package at him. ‘I don’t approve. You can take them right back.’

  ‘Not me, Doc.’ The pilot backed off with his hands held up in negation. ‘I promised Miss Cain that they’d stay in Eurong for a least a week. If you don’t want them after that, she says I can bring ‘em back.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘You wouldn’t have me break a promise,’ he smiled.

  ‘Yes.’ Nikki put the parcel down on the tarmac and glared.

  His grin deepened and he shook his head in mocksorrow. ‘Tut-tut. What a thing to say. Now, I’m sorry, Doctor, but undermining my moral values is something I don’t hold with. Have it here in a week if you want it returned.’

  ‘Fine,’ Nikki snapped. ‘I will.’

  ‘Now, Doc…’ Pete was looking anxious and Nikki sighed and relented. It was no fault of the pilot’s that she had such a scheming friend.

  ‘Sorry, Pete. It’s just that I’m feeling managed.’

  ‘Yeah, she looks managing, that Miss Cain.’ The pilot looked behind her across the runway. ‘And speaking of managing…is this your new locum?’

  Nikki spun around. She’d been expecting Beattie to meet her, but striding across the tarmac was Dr Luke Marriott. He was walking swiftly towards them, carrying a parcel in his arms.

  It was all Nikki could do not to gasp. The change in the man was extraordinary. Instead of the disreputable vagrant of two days ago, this man was well-dressed, arrogant and assured. It showed in his stride, in his immaculately tailored linen trousers and quality open-necked shirt-and in the way his eyes dropped approvingly over Nikki’s figure.

  ‘Well, well, well.’ He whistled soundlessly as he neared them. ‘A veritable transformation…’

  ‘You should talk,’ Nikki said abruptly, and then flushed. Her eyes fell away. She didn’t know how to react to this man.

  He grinned. ‘Didn’t you like my coating of prawns, bait and blood?’ he smiled. He looked up to the pilot. ‘Thanks for bringing her back.’

  It was as if he were a parent thanking the air hostess for looking after a child. Nikki’s flush deepened and she felt anger mounting within her.

  ‘Couldn’t Beattie come to collect me?’ she asked ungraciously.

  ‘You don’t approve of the substitute?’ he demanded, his eyes still laughing. He motioned down to the parcel in his arms. ‘Beattie and Amy are involved in a most important function at Amy’s kindergarten. They said they’d meet you at home. Speaking of Beattie, she asked me to send this down to Cairns.’ He handed it over to the pilot. ‘Can I leave it with you? The address is on the label.’ Then he turned back to Nikki. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Fine.’ Nikki turned away but the pilot stopped her.

  ‘You’ve forgotten your parcel, Doc,’ he said apologetically, looking down at the bulky package still at Nikki’s feet. He looked from Luke to Nikki, obviously relishing the undercurrents he was sensing.

  ‘Leave it here until next week,’ Nikki snapped. ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘I’m not doing that,’ the pilot said definitely. ‘This building is open to heaven knows who. You’ll have to take it.’ He turned to Luke. ‘Can you take it for Doc Russell?’

  Luke nodded and held out his hands to accept it. ‘I get rid of one and I’m given another. What is it?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘I gather our Doc Russell went shopping yesterday,’ the pilot grinned.

  ‘As per instructions.’ Luke Marriott smiled and the smile made Nikki’s heart give a sickening lurch. ‘Very good, Dr Russell. I’m glad to see you can follow orders.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Nikki said icily. ‘I thought I was the general practitioner and you were the locum. Or was I mistaken? Since when has the locum given orders to his employer?’

  Luke’s smile only deepened. ‘For three weeks, you said, I was the general practitioner and you were out of work,’ he told her. ‘And that’s the way it’s going to be.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Nikki said savagely; and then wished she hadn’t. Both Luke and the pilot obviously found it enormously amusing.

  ‘Come on, Nikki Russell,’ Luke Marriott said kindly, in the voice of one humouring a fractious child. ‘Let’s take you home.’

  ‘Dr Marriott…’

  ‘It’s Mr Marriott,’ Luke told her. ‘I thought your friends in Cairns would have told you that. But you can call me Luke if you like.’

  Nikki stood almost speechless. The ground was being swept from beneath her feet. She felt as if every foundation she possessed was cracking. ‘Luke Marriott, I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at…’ she started.

  ‘I’m not playing at all.’ Luke raised his free hand in acknowledgement and farewell to the pilot, tucked Nikki’s parcel under his arm and started walking towards the hangars. In the distance Nikki saw her car parked, waiting. He glanced at his watch. ‘In fact, I’m late.’

  ‘Late?’

  ‘For afternoon surgery,’ he informed her blandly. ‘I have patients booked.’

  ‘My patients!’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘They’re mine. You’re not wanted for three weeks, Dr Russell. You can take yourself off to your texts or sleep by the swimming-pool for all I care. But you’re not working.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Beattie has explained things to me,’ Luke went on blandly. ‘She tells me you’re set on passing this exam and it’s my responsibility to see that you do. And I’m one to take my responsibilities very seriously.’

  ‘I’m not your responsibility…’

  ‘No. But your practice is. For the next three weeks, Dr Russell, you are not wanted.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘WELL, we think he’s lovely.’

  Nikki’s housekeeper and her small daughter were smitten. Beattie stood at the big wooden table, mechanically mixing her dough, her eyes far-away. Amy was fixed on her mother’s lap, her small fingers fingering the soft fabric of Nikki’s dress in blatant admiration. ‘Oh, Nikki, he’s just the best thing…
’ Beattie continued dreamily.

  ‘Since sliced bread,’ Nikki snapped. She was perched on the stool as she held her daughter, sipping tea and feeling stranger and stranger. It was mid-afternoon. Her surgery was crowded, she knew, and she wasn’t even welcome there, much less wanted.

  ‘If you come near the place then I’ll pick you up and deposit you outside on your very neat bottom,’ Luke Marriott had said sternly, and by the look in his eyes Nikki wasn’t going to test the truth of his statement. She had the feeling that Luke Marriott didn’t make idle threats.

  ‘But what’s he doing here?’ Nikki asked for the fiftieth time. ‘He’s a surgeon, for heaven’s sake. What’s he doing acting as temporary locum in Eurong?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Beattie said, giving her dough a sound pummelling. ‘All I know is that’s he’s an answer to a prayer, Nikki Russell, and you don’t ask questions when fate plays you lucky.’

  ‘He might be the answer to your prayers,’ Nikki said bitterly, ‘but he’s not the answer to mine. A more autocratic, overbearing…’

  ‘I know,’ Beattie sighed. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

  ‘Beattie!’

  ‘I don’t mean he’s rude,’ Beattie said, shocked by Nikki’s tone. ‘He just knows what has to be done.’ She looked down at her pastry. ‘And he really likes my cooking.’ She cast a look of disapproval at her employer. ‘No just picking around the edges. I asked him what he’d like for dinner tonight and he said, “The same as last night-only more!” I won’t give it to him, of course. Last night I made a chicken casserole but tonight I’ll do a standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding-and have apple pie to follow. Eh, but it’s good to cook for a man again. I haven’t since my John died.’

  ‘But he’s not staying here,’ Nikki said, frowning. ‘Isn’t he supposed to be staying at the hospital? I’d arranged it.’

  ‘I know.’ Beattie eyed her employer doubtfully. The thing is, Matron rang while you were in Cairns and asked if we could have him stay on for a while longer. Cook’s done the cylinder-head on her car and it’ll be a week or more before they can get the part. Meanwhile she’ll have to stay at the hospital-and Matron doesn’t want to use a ward.’ Beattie took a deep breath and her dubious look intensified. ‘So…so I told her of course we’d have him here.’