New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Did you believe it was the first time?’ Cam’s barely disguised anger at the thought of a man hitting a woman was so genuine Jo put the memory of Jackie’s misery out of mind and found a smile. She was only too aware that there was little to smile about right now, but she was pleased her new employee knew enough about abuse to ask the question. Had he always known or was that why the light had been on in the flat until the wee hours of the morning?

  Research?

  ‘It might have been, although while she was in hospital overnight—I did a D and C after it—I met him a couple of times. He straightened everything on the bedside cabinet, ordered her dinner for her, and checked his watch when she went to the bathroom. I realised he was keeping himself under rigid control because I was there, but you could tell he ran her life down to the last detail—a totally controlling man.’

  She heard Cam sigh, and saw him shake his head.

  ‘From what I’ve read,’ he said, confirming her guess he’d been studying up on it, ‘the first thing to do is persuade the men to accept responsibility for their actions. If they can do that, then they can move on to the next step of learning other ways to resolve problems—other ways to handle anger. The depressing thing from my research seems to be that many will never change, is that right?’

  ‘I think a good percentage do, especially those who have ongoing involvement with a group or a mentor,’ Jo replied.

  ‘Even though most men blame the women for their reactions?’ Cam said. ‘“It’s her fault—she started it” kind of thing.’

  Jo smiled.

  ‘You have been reading up on it,’ she teased.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, sounding slightly put out. ‘Wouldn’t you have expected me to?’

  Jo was pulling into Jackie’s street, driving slowly, alert for any parked cars or other vehicles approaching.

  ‘Maybe not quite so soon,’ she said. ‘This is the house. There’s no car here but we won’t park in the driveway. That’s one of the golden rules of a rescue. Don’t make it too easy for someone to block you in. Not that there’s any great danger. According to Jackie, her husband’s gone to indoor cricket so he shouldn’t be home for a couple of hours.’

  Jo turned off the engine and although she was sure Jackie was right, she still made sure the interior light was off before she opened the door and slid out. The evening was still and strangely silent, and suddenly she was very glad to have Cam as back-up, right there just a pace behind her as she walked up the path.

  Jackie was out the door before Jo reached it, hustling her two children in front of her, both of them wearing pyjamas and backpacks, Jackie towing two suitcases.

  Crying.

  Cam helped the two boys into the back of the big vehicle, detaching them from their backpacks first. He slid the second one into the middle seat, explaining he’d sit in there with them.

  ‘Mum’s crying again,’ the older one said.

  ‘She’ll be okay,’ Cam told him. ‘Now, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Cam, and you are?’

  ‘Jared,’ the older one replied, then he nudged his brother. ‘Tell ‘im your name, stupid!’

  Cam felt the sigh inside him this time. Okay, so it might be normal childish behaviour but the way the little fellow whispered his name, ‘Aaron’, Cam had to wonder if the culture of abuse had already been passed from father to son—to the elder son at least.

  He’d been helping the kids to keep out of Jo’s way as she looked after their mother, but now, before getting into the car with the kids, he glanced around. The two women had disappeared.

  Cam lifted the two suitcases they’d left behind into the rear compartment, and had shut the tailgate when they reappeared, Jo hustling Jackie down the path.

  ‘But he gets so angry if I leave a light on after I leave a room,’ Jackie was explaining, and Cam realised for the first time the hold abuse could have on a person. Here was a woman literally fleeing for her life and she’d gone back into the house to turn off a light to avoid the anger of the man she feared.

  The man she was fleeing.

  Cam held the door for Jackie, acknowledging Jo’s introduction before climbing in the back with the kids.

  ‘Cam’s come to work with me,’ Jo said, adding, ‘over the holidays,’ just late enough to give Cam a little hope that the job might turn into something more permanent.

  Although if he continued to feel physical disturbances whenever he was around her, maybe the couple of months’ trial period would be more than enough.

  And he hadn’t wanted anything permanent anyway.

  Had he?

  A slight disturbance beside him took his mind off his boss. Aaron’s body was shaking, the little boy in tears.

  ‘Sook!’ his brother said, but under his breath so his mother didn’t hear.

  Aware it wasn’t his place to chastise the older boy, Cam settled his arm around the little fellow and drew him close.

  He’d seen too many children cry, and that quivering little body spiked memories into his heart, hurting it so badly he had to take a deep breath and force his mind back to the present.

  What he needed was a diversion.

  ‘Can you swim?’ he asked Aaron. ‘Do you go to the beach? I’m a surfer and I go there most mornings. Maybe one day, if your mum says its okay, I could take you out on my surfboard.’

  ‘Me too?’ Jared demanded, and Cam agreed he could take him as well.

  ‘As long as you’re a good boy and look after your little brother.’

  He had been going to say ‘look after your mum’ but remembered just in time something else he’d read the previous evening. According to research children were mostly left alone in domestic abuse situations, unless they tried to protect the person suffering abuse—usually the mother.

  ‘I can swim real well,’ Jared told him, while young Aaron snuggled closer, warm against Cam’s side, and whispered that he, too, could swim.

  Cam’s arm tightened around him, the feel of the small body pressed to his warming some of the cold places inside his body.

  Inside his heart?

  It was always the kids who suffered.

  They’d reached the refuge, and Cam was pleased that the ‘treat’ lot were still out. It would give Lauren time to settle Jackie and the two boys into the vacant room.

  ‘Do we hang around?’ he asked Jo, aware now the activity had died down that he was starving. He glanced at his watch—nine o’clock—no wonder.

  Jo saw the glance and as her own stomach was grumbling she knew what he was thinking.

  ‘We can go,’ she told him. ‘In fact, it’s best we do. Lauren will settle Jackie in before the others come home.’

  She was uncertain what to say next—sure Cam wouldn’t have had time to do much shopping and not knowing how much food he could keep in his van. Fortunately he broke the silence.

  ‘Well, it’s too late to be cooking dinner,’ he told her, ‘and I’m fairly short of supplies in the van, so, is there somewhere good we can eat?’

  His smile caused what were becoming customary disturbances inside her, and she was about to protest that she’d be fine—after all, he could find himself something to eat—when he spoke again.

  ‘Come on, what’s the absolute best place to eat in town?’

  ‘Surf club,’ she replied automatically, definitely not thinking things through. Things like eating at the surf club looking out at moonlight on the ocean, with a man to whom she didn’t want to be attracted.

  ‘Although it could be closed by now,’ she finished, but not quickly enough.

  ‘Closed by now?’ Cam echoed. ‘It’s only nine o’clock!’

  He sounded so disbelieving Jo had to smile at him.

  ‘Country hours,’ she explained, then to escape, or perhaps to hide the smile that didn’t want to go away, she added, ‘I’ll just let Lauren know we’re going.’

  She slipped away, relieved to be out of Cam’s presence, although she’d been pleased to have it earlier. And she was
stuck with him for another hour or two, depending on how long it took to order, get served and eat a meal.

  Stuck with him and the moon and the ocean …

  Perhaps clouds had covered the sky while they’d been inside.

  That wish wasn’t granted. As she pulled into the car park she had to acknowledge that it was a near perfect late November evening. The moon—yep, almost full—was shining down on the ocean. The clubhouse, tucked away from southerlies behind the headland, looked north across the bay and out to sea.

  Unbelievably beautiful.

  Picture-postcard perfect.

  Romantic.

  How could the sudden advent of one man into her life start her thinking of romance?

  Was she so needy? Frustrated? Desperate for love?

  Love?

  Now, where had that word come from?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘NOT much surf,’ Cam said, obviously checking out the waves while she was muddling around in her head with moonlight on water and other most unsuitable thoughts.

  The irony of the situation made her smile. Totally unaware of the effect he was having on her, the man who was confusing her so badly was thinking surf.

  She could do surf.

  And thinking surf was miles better than thinking romance.

  ‘You should get a southerly swell coming up on the open beach south of the headland over the next few days,’ Jo told him, having automatically checked the weather report on the internet before she’d left the surgery.

  ‘You surf yourself?’ he asked, touching her on the arm as he asked the question, so she had to stop walking towards the clubhouse and turn to answer him.

  ‘Not any more,’ she said, then, before sadness could overwhelm her and spoil the magic of the beautiful evening, she added, ‘All the local kids surf almost from the time they can stand up on a surfboard, but it’s hardly the most sensible sport for someone with my colouring.’

  She’d ducked out of the question a bit too neatly, Cam decided as he followed her into the surf club. She led him not into the downstairs part where all the gear would be kept but up some steps to one side and onto an enclosed veranda where the view was even better than it had been downstairs.

  The desire to question her further was almost overwhelming, but even on short acquaintance he was beginning to read her ‘keep off’ signs and there was definitely one in place right now.

  A keep-off sign and a look of sadness on her face. Not unlike the look when she’d walked into the little flat.

  Some connection?

  He didn’t like her looking sad.

  Not that he should care, but she was his boss.

  The restaurant was all but empty, another couple sitting close to the windows on the western side, nodding to Jo who crossed to say hello.

  Cam let the young man who’d met them at the door show him to a table on the opposite side of the room, a table that gave a spectacular view out to sea. Jo joined him, explaining the other couple were regular visitors to the Cove, coming for a couple of months each year and having their final dinner for this visit at the club.

  ‘Do you come here often?’

  He trotted out the trite pick-up phrase with just enough amusement in his voice for her to hear it for what it was, and smile.

  ‘Excellent conversational opening—a little lacking in originality but full marks for sounding sincere.’

  She filled their glasses with water from the carafe on the table before speaking again.

  ‘To answer truthfully, I wish I could but I never seem to have time, or when I do have a free evening, I’m usually too tired to be bothered going out,’ she said. ‘They do the best calamari if you’re a calamari eater. Other places manage to make it taste like stethoscope tube but here it’s melt-in-the-mouth-perfect.’

  She turned to greet the waiter who’d approached their table, introducing Cam to the young man.

  ‘He won’t be here for long,’ she added, and just as Cam decided he’d had enough of being introduced as a temporary gap-filler he realised she was talking to him, not about him. The person who wouldn’t be here long was their waiter.

  ‘He’s one of the best surfers the Cove has ever produced,’ Jo was saying. ‘He’s off to join the pro tour at the start of next season.’

  ‘I’m not as good as Nat Williams,’ the young man said.

  ‘Nat Williams came from Crystal Cove?’ Cam demanded, surprised he didn’t know that the current legend of world surfing was a local boy.

  ‘Grew up with Jo here,’ the young waiter said. ‘Everyone said she could have been just as good, but of course … ‘

  He stopped and blushed so the few adolescent spots on his face turned purple.

  Had Jo trodden on his foot to stop his revelations?

  What revelations?

  ‘And you’re having?’ the young man asked, startling Cam into the realisation that he hadn’t looked at what was on offer, and he wasn’t that fussed about calamari, tender or not.

  ‘Perhaps you could get us our drinks while he looks,’ Jo suggested in a patently false kindly voice. ‘Who knows how long he’ll take to choose now he’s actually opened the menu?’

  Was she taking a swipe at him to divert him from the earlier revelations? He had no idea, and knew it shouldn’t matter but why anyone would stop surfing—short of losing a limb to a shark—he couldn’t imagine. In his head he’d still be riding the waves when he was eighty.

  Ninety?

  He had to ask.

  ‘You were as good a surfer as Nat Williams? Did you consider the pro circuit? Were you good enough for that?’

  She frowned at him, toyed with her glass of water and finally sighed.

  ‘I might have been,’ she said, looking away from him, out to the ocean where at some time she must have been totally at home. ‘I won junior titles, a few intermediate ones.’

  ‘And you stopped?’

  He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice, but instead of responding—well, it wasn’t really a question—she diverted him by reminding him he was supposed to be studying the menu.

  He ordered the fish of the day, feeling it wouldn’t be right to be eating steak in a restaurant right on the beach, and sipped the light beer he’d managed to order earlier. And before he could follow up on her surfing past, she diverted him again.

  Intentionally?

  He had no idea, but it was some diversion.

  ‘You do realise that now you’ve told those two little boys you’ll take them surfing that you’ll have to keep your word?’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d have heard that conversation,’ he replied, to cover his surprise. ‘You and Jackie were talking the whole time. But of course I’ll keep my word. Poor kids, stuck in a situation like that. It makes me realise just how lucky I was with my childhood. Are they likely to be at the refuge for long?’

  Jo shrugged her shoulders, the little movement drawing his attention to her breasts, which lifted at the same time. His mind went haywire—sending him an image of her in a bikini, riding in on a wave, a slight figure but as shapely as a mermaid on the prow of an old sailing vessel.

  ‘It depends on so much,’ she was saying. ‘She has the option of staying a month, but usually if a woman is serious about not going back to her husband or partner, the organisation has found other accommodation for her before that.’

  She studied him for a moment, then asked, ‘Would you like me to run through the process?’

  Not particularly.

  Not right now.

  I’d rather know your surfing history …

  Those were his answers of choice but his reasoning—he’d rather talk about her—seemed far too, well, invasive at this stage of their involvement, so he nodded.

  He also pushed the new door, which was sliding open and revealing totally unnecessary but vividly imagined images of his bikini-clad boss, firmly closed yet again.

  ‘The first thing Lauren will do with Jackie—after they’ve sett
led the kids into bed—is sit down with her to make a list of her—Jackie’s—priorities. What does she want to do? After safety for herself and the children, what’s most important for her?’

  Totally focussed now, Cam considered this, then asked, ‘Will she know?’

  Jo smiled. He wasn’t stupid, this big hunk of manhood she’d employed—

  Temporarily!

  ‘Not immediately but they work on a plan for now—what’s most important now. Whenever a woman talks to us about leaving an abusive relationship we give them all the information we can—about keeping as safe as possible within their home until they make the decision to leave, telling someone else the problem, making sure the children know a neighbour they can go to, that kind of thing. We also give them a list of papers to secure somewhere so they can be grabbed in a hurry—all the documents all governments insist we produce in order to prove we are who we say we are.’

  ‘You mean things like birth certificates?’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘And marriage certificates, kids’ birth certificates as well, driving licence, bank books or bank account numbers, medical scripts, although we can replace those.’

  She paused and looked across the table at Cam. He was so darned good looking she couldn’t believe she was sitting here discussing work matters with him.

  Well, actually she could. He was so darned good looking she doubted he’d ever discuss anything but work matters with a fairly ordinary-looking female like herself.

  A twinge of what could only be regret ran through her, then he smiled—an ordinary, encouraging, I’m listening kind of smile—and something very different in the way of twinges rippled down her spine.

  It was followed very quickly by a rush of panic.

  Attraction was the last thing she needed in her life right now.

  Wasn’t it?

  She had no idea. Perhaps because she hadn’t felt it for so long she hadn’t given it much thought. She was reasonably sure she hadn’t missed having a man in her life.