New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  She had no intention of answering his questions, now or ever. Neither was he staying. With school holidays looming and the town due to double or even triple in population for a couple of months, maybe he’d have to stay until the agency found her someone more suitable, but permanently?

  No way!

  The problem was, given that he was on her front deck, what did she do with him right now? She had to say something.

  Politeness dictated the answer.

  ‘Would you like a coffee, tea, a cold drink?’

  She looked up at him as she asked the question and saw the white lines fanning out from his eyes where he’d smiled, or squinted, in the sun. She saw lines of stress in his face as well. A photo taken when he’d just left the army? An army doctor? In this day and age most army doctors would have been deployed in war zones overseas. He’d mentioned deserts. Of course there’d be lines of stress in his face.

  ‘Water is fine,’ he replied, and she guessed he was probably as uncomfortable as she was.

  ‘I’m making coffee,’ she persisted, ‘so it’s no trouble.’

  He looked down at her, a slight frown on his face.

  ‘Water’s fine,’ he repeated, then he crossed to the edge of the deck and looked out over the ocean.

  Jo hurried into the house, anxious to read more of the file she held in her hands. It was strange that the agency hadn’t contacted her to let her know the man was coming—although maybe it was because he was a man they’d neglected to contact her. They knew she wanted a woman; they even knew why.

  The kitchen faced the deck so she could keep an eye on the stranger as she popped a capsule into her coffee machine. While the milk heated, she flicked through the pages, coming to a highlighted passage about Dr Fraser Cameron’s second degree in psychology and his counselling experience. Had the agency highlighted it, or had they told him what she wanted so he’d highlighted it himself?

  He’d been counselling young soldiers in a war zone? Doing more than counselling, too, no doubt.

  Putting young men and women back together physically as well as mentally.

  The very thought made Jo’s stomach tighten.

  But hard as his job must have been, how would it relate to counselling women in a refuge?

  The refuge …

  If it closed it wouldn’t matter one jot whether the man could counsel women or not.

  If it closed she wouldn’t need another doctor in the practice …

  Jo sighed then stiffened, straightening her shoulders and reinforcing her inner determination.

  The refuge was not going to close!

  What’s more, if this man was going to stay, even in the short term, he’d have to help her make sure it didn’t.

  She poured the milk into her coffee, filled a glass with water from the refrigerator, and headed back to the deck.

  ‘Did the agency explain the type of counselling you’d be required to do?’ she asked him as he came towards the table where she’d set down their drinks.

  The little frown she’d noticed earlier deepened and he shook his head, then shrugged shoulders that were so broad she wondered how he fitted through a doorway.

  Shoulders?

  Why was she thinking of shoulders? Worse, when had she last even noticed physical attributes in a man, yet here she was seeing lines in his face, and checking on shoulders …

  ‘They said you wanted someone with counselling experience because although there was a psychologist in Crystal Cove, he, or maybe it was a she, was already overworked. I assumed you probably ran well-men and well-women clinics, sex education at the schools and parenting skills courses. You’d be likely to use counselling as part of these.’

  Jo sighed.

  ‘The women’s refuge wasn’t mentioned?’

  His reaction was a blank stare, followed by a disbelieving ‘Women’s refuge? The town has a population of what, thirty-five hundred and you have a women’s refuge?’

  ‘The area has a much larger population—small farms, villages, acreage lots where people have retired or simply moved in. Anyway, just because women live in a small town, does that mean they’re not entitled to a safe place to go?’

  Had she snapped that he held up his hands in surrender?

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! No way I meant that, but it came as a shock, the refuge thing. No wonder you took one look at me and saw me as a disaster. My size alone is enough to frighten horses, not to mention vulnerable women, but surely we can work through this. Surely the women who use the refuge come in contact with other men in their lives, men who aren’t threatening to them? And wouldn’t it be a good thing if they did? If they got to know men who didn’t threaten them? Men who are just as horrified by what is happening to them, and just as empathetic with them, as a woman counsellor would be?’

  He was right, of course! One of the refuge’s strongest supporters was Mike Sinclair, the officer in charge of the local police force, while Tom Fletcher, head of the small local hospital, was loved by all the women who used the refuge. But the refuge aside, did she want this man working for her?

  The answer that sprang immediately to mind was a firm no, but when she questioned it she didn’t like the reasons. They were far too personal. She was judging the man on his appearance, not his ability—judging him on the effect he was having on her.

  Anyway, did she have a choice but to accept him?

  Not right now.

  ‘I suppose you’ll have to do,’ she said, hoping it hadn’t come out as an unwilling mutter. ‘But it’s a trial, you have to understand that. I’m not promising it will work out, but right now I’m desperate. The town doubles in size in school holidays, which begin officially in a fortnight, but before that we have the wonderful invasion of schoolies.’

  ‘Schoolies? You have schoolies coming here?’

  And although she dreaded the annual influx of school-leavers every year, Jo still felt affronted that the man would think her town not good enough for them.

  ‘Not all school leavers want the bright lights of Surfers’ Paradise,’ she said defensively.

  ‘Ha!’ he said, blue eyes twinkling at her in a most disconcerting manner. ‘Bet you wish they hadn’t discovered Crystal Cove!’

  She considered denying his assumption, but knew she couldn’t. He’d be working with her so he could hardly avoid seeing how frazzled she became as she worried about drunk, sick and sometimes very unhappy teenagers who were supposedly marking some rite of passage into adulthood.

  Adulthood? They had as much sense as fleas, some of them …

  ‘You’re right. It’s only in recent years that young people have decided the Cove is cool enough for them. Most of those who come are keen surfers and they’re not a problem. Anyway, I’ll take you on but, as I said, we’ll have to see how things work out.’

  ‘I don’t mind that,’ the stranger—Cam—said calmly. ‘After all, I might not like working with you either, and there’s still a lot of coastline for me to cover in my surfing odyssey.’

  She was about to take affront—again!—but realised he was right.

  ‘Fair call,’ she told him, ignoring the smirk that had accompanied his words. ‘Now, once the schoolies arrive—that’s next week—there’ll be no time to show you around so—’

  She didn’t want to sound desperate but, given the situation at the refuge and the fact that she needed some free time to try to sort out funding problems there, she actually was desperate.

  ‘Can you start tomorrow? No, that’s stupid. Can you start now so I can show you the clinic, introduce you at the hospital, and give you a quick tour of the town?’

  Was she looking dubious that he glanced down at his attire and raised his eyebrows at her, the amused expression on his face sparking an unexpected—and totally inappropriate—flicker of warmth deep inside her body?

  This definitely wasn’t a good idea!

  ‘Like this?’ he said, then shook his head. ‘Give me an hour to check in at the caravan park and h
ave a shower and shave. I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong first impression.’

  The man’s amused expression turned into a smile—her stupid flicker graduated to a flutter in her chest that caused another mental head slap.

  Reality added a harder slap, this one bringing her down to earth with such a thud her physical reactions to the man paled into insignificance.

  ‘It’s no good. You won’t find a patch of grass available at the caravan park,’ she told him, gloom shadowing the words. ‘Well, there might be something for the next few days but after that you’d be out on your ear. Most of the schoolies camp there, then during the school holidays regulars book the same sites from year to year. It’s a similar situation with the flats and units in town. Most of them are holiday rentals and, although you wouldn’t be looking for something permanent because we don’t know if it will work out, there’d be nothing available right now.’

  Not put off by the despair in her voice, he was still grinning when he suggested, ‘Is there a shower in your medical centre? Will the council evict me or fine you if I camp in the parking area?’

  Jo rolled her eyes.

  ‘Great—here comes Dr Cameron, emerging from his van in the parking area. I can just imagine what people would think!’ The words came out snappish but she knew she was more annoyed with the offer she’d have to make than with the man himself.

  She told herself not to be feeble, straightened her shoulders, and made the offer.

  ‘There’s a flat.’

  ‘You make it sound like the castle of doom!’ Cam teased, wondering why the woman was looking so unhappy about the revelation. Although she’d hardly been joyous about anything since his arrival. ‘Rats? Spiders? Snakes? Cockroaches big as dogs?’

  ‘It’s here at the house,’ she muttered, sounding even more unhappy, although now he could understand why she was wary. It would be awkward to have a strange man living so close, though if she’d checked out his credentials and read through his references, she shouldn’t be too worried. ‘Out the back. Dad built it years ago and I used it for a while until he took off on the yacht. It’s got a deck, the flat not the yacht, although—’

  She stopped, probably aware she was dithering, and she drew a deep, calming breath.

  ‘The deck on the flat—it’s not as big as this, but it has the northerly view. In the past, since Dad left, I’ve hired locums at holiday times and they’ve used it.’

  Temporarily.

  She didn’t say the word but Cam heard it in her voice. He could understand her reluctance to have a fellow-worker living in such close proximity full time but if locums had done so up till now …

  Maybe she had a set against men?

  Been hurt by one?

  Realising he should be thinking about the job, not the woman who was hiring him, he turned his attention back to the subject.

  ‘I understood that although there’d be a trial period, you were looking for someone for a permanent position this time, not a locum. Has the town grown? Do you want to cut down on your own workload?’

  She studied him for a moment, as if debating whether he was worth answering, then gave a deep sigh.

  ‘The town’s grown, a second practice opened but no sooner did that happen than the hospital had staff cuts, then the second practice closed, and with the refuge—well, I decided it was time to expand.’

  The explanation rattled from her lips—nice lips, very pale pink, distracting him again—and Cam understood enough to know that the flat, like the job, was only temporary. While she might have been happy having a fortyish woman living permanently in close proximity to her, having a large male surfer was a different story.

  ‘I’ll show you over it then you’ll have to go back down the steps to the car park and drive along the road towards the highway, taking the first left to bring you up the hill and around to the carport.’

  All business now, she led him off the deck, through a sparsely furnished living area. It was functional and uncluttered, decorated in sand colours, but with wide windows giving views of the sea in all directions, the room didn’t need decoration.

  It was like the woman herself, functional and uncluttered, he decided, following a decidedly shapely bottom in khaki cargo shorts, a khaki singlet top completing her outfit.

  A decidedly shapely bottom?

  Well, he couldn’t help but notice, any more than he could have helped noticing the pink lips earlier. Was noticing such things about his boss unprofessional behaviour?

  So many years in the army had left him unprepared for the niceties of civilian life, particularly where women were concerned. He held a mental conversation with his sisters and came to the conclusion that while thinking his boss had a shapely butt was okay, mentioning his opinion of it or of any other part of her anatomy, to her or anyone else, would definitely be unwise.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A BREEZEWAY divided the house from the little building perched beside it on the steep hillside.

  ‘A double carport so you can keep your van under cover,’ his guide said, waving her left hand to indicate the covered parking spaces. She reached above the door for a key, saying, ‘I know I shouldn’t keep it there,’ before inserting it in the lock and opening the door.

  The flat was as different from the minimalist-style house as it was possible to be. Roses, not giant cockroaches! The roses dominated the small space. They bloomed from trellises on the wallpaper, glowed on the fabric covering the small lounge suite, while silk ones stood in vases on small tables here and there.

  ‘Ha!’ Cam said, unable to stop himself. ‘You wanted a fortyish woman to fit in with the furnishings, although … ‘

  He turned towards his new boss and caught a look of such sadness on her face he wished he hadn’t opened his mouth. Though now he had, he had to finish what he’d been about to say or look even more foolish than he felt.

  ‘Well, one of my sisters is forty and roses definitely aren’t her thing.’

  The words came out strained, mumbled almost under his breath, but he doubted Joanna Harris heard them. She’d moved across the small room and opened the sliding glass windows, walking out through them onto the deck.

  The way she stood, hugging herself at the railing, told him she wanted—perhaps needed—to be alone, so he explored the neatly organised domain, finding two small bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen had been fitted somehow into the tiny flat. The configuration of the bathroom made him wonder. There was a shower above a tiled floor, no cubicle, just a floor waste where most of the water would go. The basin was set low, no cupboard beneath it.

  This and a silver bar screwed onto the wall at waist height suggested the room had been built for someone with a disability and now he looked around he realised the doorways were wider than normal—to accommodate a wheelchair?—and hand-grips had been installed in other places.

  Jo had spoken of a sister …

  A disabled sister?

  He looked out at the figure standing on the deck, a hundred questions flashing through his mind, but the way she stood—the way she’d handled his arrival and their conversation since—told him he might never have those questions answered.

  A very private person, Jo Harris, or so he suspected, although on an hour’s acquaintance how could he be judging her?

  She should have redecorated the flat, Jo chided herself. She should have done it as soon as she’d moved into it after Jilly died—yet she’d always felt that changing the roses her sister had loved would have been letting go of her twin for ever.

  A betrayal of some kind.

  And surely ‘should’ was the unkindest word in the English language, so filled with regrets of what might have been, or not been. Should have done this, should not have done that. Her own list of shoulds could go on for ever, should have come home from Sydney sooner being right at the top of it!

  Jo hugged her body and looked out to sea, waiting for the view to calm her, for her mind to shut away the memories and consign the shoulds to
the trash bin she kept tucked away in her head. Coming into the flat usually upset her—not a lot—just brought back memories, but today, seeing the stranger—Cam—there, he’d looked so out of place among the roses Jill had loved, it had hurt more than usual.

  ‘I’ll bring my car up.’

  He called to her from the doorway and before she could turn he was gone. Good! It would give her time to collect herself. Actually, it would give her time to scurry back to her place and hide from the man for the rest of the day, though that was hardly fair.

  She found a little notebook on the kitchen bench and scribbled a note. ‘Will meet you in the carport in half an hour, we can get a bite to eat in town and I’ll show you around.’

  A bite to eat in town.

  It sounded so innocuous but within an hour of being seen down the street with him the word would be all over town that Jo Harris had finally found a man!

  As if a man who looked like him—like the picture of him anyway—would be interested in a scrawny redhead.

  Of course once the locals realised he’d come to work for her, the talk would settle down, then when he left …

  She shook her head, unable to believe she’d been thinking that maybe it would be nice to have a man around.

  A man or this man?

  She had a sneaky suspicion the second option was the answer but she wouldn’t consider it now. Instant attraction was something for books, not real people—not real people like her, anyway.

  The man would be her colleague—temporary colleague—and right now she had to show him around the town. She’d reclip her hair and smear on a little lightly coloured sunscreen, the only make-up she ever used, but she wouldn’t change—no need to really startle the town by appearing in anything other than her usual garb.

  Unfortunately as she passed through the kitchen she saw his résumé, still open on the bench—open at the photo …

  She added lipstick to the preparations. After all, it, too, had sun protection.