New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  Cam realised he’d gone too far—taken the extra step when it was Jo who should be making decisions about her staff deployment.

  He turned to her, hands up in the air.

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be making suggestions without consulting you, Jo. You’re Ellie’s employer, not me, but I get carried away.’

  Fortunately Jo wasn’t put out, flashing him a cheeky smile before saying, ‘I was wondering when you’d remember that, but it’s an excellent idea. Ellie, if you’d be happy to do it, I’d be happy to pay you for the four nights—and days so you can sleep. What are your hospital shifts like? Could you fit it in some time soon?’

  ‘Next week,’ Ellie told her. ‘I’d love to give it a go. I don’t have hospital shifts next week because I refuse to work schoolies week. Tom gets contract nurses in, and I’m off duty here as well.’

  Cam felt a surge of satisfaction out of all proportion to the small contribution he’d made—a surge that made him think maybe general practice in a smallish town would have a lot of rewards, and in this town he’d have the added attraction of fantastic surf.

  If he could persuade Jo to let him stay.

  Hmm, maybe not such a good idea, given how aware he was of her. Even sitting in a lunch-room with two other women, his body was conscious of every move Jo made, his mind considering changes in the inflections of her voice. Last night, knowing she was sleeping the other side of a fairly flimsy wall, he’d imagined things an employee should never imagine about his boss, no matter how attractive he found her.

  Sleep had eluded him for hours, although that was probably just as well, given the aforementioned flimsy wall. He would have hated to have awakened her with his nightmares.

  He tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Jo asking Ellie to phone Amy to make the arrangements, then, as Ellie and Kate left the room, he turned to the woman who’d so disturbed his sleep.

  ‘Can you afford to be paying Ellie to do the sleep programme? Will you charge the parents of the baby? Are such things covered by government subsidies?’

  She turned towards and smiled—second smile in one lunch-break, not that he was counting.

  ‘Worried I won’t be able to afford your salary?’ she teased, then the smile slid off her face as she added, ‘I’m sure there are government subsidies, if I wanted to research them and then do the paperwork, but I can afford to pay Ellie for her time. If this works, we can find out about possible subsidies for the future, but for now, if we can provide four good nights’ sleep for Amy and Todd, I’m happy to cop the cost. If it succeeds, well, it’s worth more than money to the Bennetts.’

  ‘Four uninterrupted nights’ sleep,’ Cam said, wondering if he’d ever reach that blissful pinnacle himself. And thinking of that goal, he was less guarded than he usually was. ‘Are there sleep programmes for grown-ups as well as kids?’

  She looked startled at first, his boss, then he read such compassion in her eyes he knew if he wasn’t very careful, he could easily drown in those green depths.

  ‘I wondered that myself after my sister died,’ she said softly, then offered him a third smile, and though it lacked the spark of the earlier smiles, it affected him more deeply than either of the earlier ones had.

  She rested her hand on his arm.

  ‘For me, it did get easier in time and I’m sure it will for you. Are they nightmares you suffer? Dreams so vivid and horrific you really don’t want to sleep?’

  She didn’t wait for a reply, simply tightening her fingers on his arm as she added, ‘That cliché about time being a great healer isn’t just a trite expression—we know that in our work.’

  Cam looked down at the small hand, pale against his tanned skin, and felt an urge to hold it for ever—to let it haul him out of where he’d been and into hope and life and …

  Love?

  Surely not.

  They’d finished seeing patients by five in the afternoon, making Jo remember the time when she’d worked with her father, the pair of them taking turns to have free afternoons, he to sail with Molly, his new-found love, while she had worked with Lauren on plans for the refuge.

  ‘So, surfing lessons for the little boys?’ Cam suggested as they left the surgery.

  Jo considered protesting but with daylight saving they had three full hours before sunset, and the sun still held enough heat to make the thought of hitting the surf very attractive.

  Not that she’d surf, just help the boys as they tried the boards in the water—teach them how to balance on the boards.

  ‘I’ll phone the refuge and speak to Jackie,’ she told Cam as he strode up the steps beside her. ‘The key to the storeroom padlock is—’

  ‘Above the door?’ he guessed, and she felt her face heat.

  ‘I know it’s stupid—I’ll stop doing it. It’s just that growing up here, no one locked their doors and if you drove down the road for a bottle of milk, you usually left your keys in the car while you popped into the shop. Small towns were safe places.’

  ‘For everyone?’

  She knew exactly what he meant. Violence against women in some form or another had probably been around for ever.

  ‘Probably not, although I wonder if the more hectic pace of life that we lead now and the expectations we put on ourselves might not have made abuse within relationships more prevalent.’

  ‘Who knows? But it would be interesting to find if there’s documented history of it anywhere.’

  Jo smiled, suddenly seeing a different side of the man who’d come to work for her, a side not unlike a side of herself—the bit that always wanted to know more, to delve deeper.

  ‘I think I’ll concentrate on the now—on keeping the refuge open—and leave the history for my retirement.’

  His reply was one of his quirky smiles, lighting up his face, easing the strain that lined it in repose.

  ‘I’ll change and get the boards,’ he told her. ‘Say half an hour? Will we need to collect the boys or will someone drive them to the beach?’

  ‘I’ll get them—well, we’ll get them—silly to take two cars. I can put the boards, your board as well, on the top of my car. I think the southern beach will be the best this afternoon. It will be less crowded and there should be some white wash close to the shore. That’s best for beginners.’

  Cam’s smile widened, but this time it wasn’t anything to do with their previous conversation—more to do with his passion for riding the waves.

  ‘Great—I haven’t surfed there yet.’

  ‘You’re going there to teach the boys,’ Jo reminded him, although when she’d seen the smile and heard the passion in his voice she’d felt a pang of longing.

  ‘I’ll have to show them, too,’ he reminded her, before turning to unlock the storeroom and retrieve the small boards.

  How had he inveigled her into this? Jo wondered as she drove Cam and two excited little boys down the track onto the southern beach, then along it on the hard sand near the water, looking for a spot that would be good for the lessons?

  ‘Do I need a permit to drive my van along here?’ Cam asked. ‘I checked out the beach near the headland, where it’s accessible, and saw vehicles driving south, but didn’t know if anyone could do it.’

  ‘You need a permit but they’re easy to get. You can apply at the local council office.’

  She pulled up where a lagoon had formed close to the beach, the surf breaking on a sand bank further out. The little boys tumbled out of the vehicle, their faces white with sunscreen, rash shirts covering their chests, arguing over who got what board the moment Cam lifted them down onto the sand.

  ‘We start on the beach,’ Jo told them. ‘Board on the sand, then lie on it, rise up to kneel on it, then stand and balance on it. The fin will make it a bit wobbly but not nearly as wobbly as it will seem on the water. Left foot in front, right foot behind unless you’re goofy footers—’

  Both boys laughed, pointing at each other and calling each other goofy footers while Jo explained the term for
surfers who put their right foot forward.

  ‘Now, feet in place, knees bent to keep you balanced, arms held out like this.’

  ‘Here,’ Cam said, dropping his board in front of her, ‘if you’re being Teach, you should show them.’

  He was so close—his nose, too, white with cream, his chest, at the moment, modestly covered with a tattered T-shirt, but so big, so male!—she felt a shiver of pure, yes, lust run through her. But could lust be classified as pure?

  She stood on his board, demonstrating the stance, thinking that if she’d brought her board she could have used it on the sand and Cam could have surfed—well away from her. But the image of the water droplets on his chest came vividly back into her head.

  Just as well he wasn’t surfing …

  ‘This is too easy!’ Jared’s complaint brought her back to earth.

  ‘Okay, we’ll try it in the water, and for this first lesson you probably won’t be standing up. We’ll be in the shallows, showing you how to catch the wave.’

  Jared began to argue, silenced only when Jo pointed out that there was no point learning to stand up on a board if you couldn’t paddle to catch the wave in the first place.

  She bent to lift Aaron’s board, but Cam stopped her.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ he said. ‘Surfers always carry their own boards, don’t they, boys?’

  He showed them how to tuck the boards under their arms, holding them about midway to balance them, then, a little boy on either side of him, the tall man headed for the water.

  Thankfully still with his broad chest decently covered.

  Jo slipped off the long T-shirt she’d pulled on over her bikini, hoping she wasn’t wiping off all the sunscreen she’d slathered on her pale body.

  She was feeling a squirmy kind of embarrassment at appearing so skimpily dressed in front of a virtual stranger, and an employee at that, but it was far too hot to wear a wetsuit, so her bikini had been her only option.

  Exactly as he’d pictured her—the curvy body, and pale, pale skin—Cam’s heart skipped a beat then Jared butted him with his surfboard, probably accidentally but definitely bringing Cam’s attention back to the surfing lesson.

  ‘I’ll hold your board, and Dr Jo will hold Aaron’s,’ he said. ‘When you’re actually surfing, you don’t stand around on your board, you sit on it, waiting for a wave, legs dangling over the side, then you lie on it to paddle onto the wave, so we’ll start sitting then lying down paddling to catch a wave. Once you’ve done that a few times, you can try standing up, but usually that’s in your second lesson.’

  Jared, of course, wanted to stand immediately and fell off innumerable times before he agreed that maybe paddling to catch waves was fun as well. Jo’s pupil was more wary, perhaps a little scared, but he had plenty of determination, working his little arms furiously through the water as he paddled to put his board into the white wash of the waves.

  ‘Enough lessons for one day,’ Jo eventually said to the boys as the sun dipped low enough to throw shadows from the dunes across the beach. She turned to Cam. ‘Why don’t you catch a few waves while I run the boys back to their mother and have a chat to Lauren about the meeting? I’ll drive back and collect you in an hour.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that. I can go home and get the van.’

  ‘But you can’t drive down the beach without a permit,’ she reminded him.

  Beyond the lagoon, the surf was so tempting Cam gave in, paddling out through the breakers to the calm beyond them, aware that at this time in his life he was more at peace out here on the ocean than anywhere else in the world. Out here the world was forgotten, his only thought which of the set of waves coming towards him would provide the best ride.

  Except that today peace, as he’d come to know it, eluded him. He was studying the sets, as usual, picking out the likely waves, but images of Jo kept intruding so he missed the first wave he’d picked out, no amount of paddling enabling him to catch it.

  He caught the next one, paddled back out, but after missing another curling green beauty he gave up, sat on his board, legs dangling, and thought about distractions. His psychology studies had taught him that humans are programmed for flight or fight. Adrenalin would pump into the body to help either option. Instinct told us to look out for danger, to predict it and in so doing work out how to avoid it.

  Wouldn’t that work with emotions as well as physical situations? He knew the attraction he felt towards Jo represented danger—not physical danger but it put at risk his immediate plan, which was to get his head sorted. And having predicted the danger, shouldn’t he avoid it—get away from the woman who was distracting him so much?

  For her sake more than his!

  Yes, he should flee.

  And leave her without a second doctor at the busiest time of her year? Very valiant that would be!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WITH an effort, Cam pushed these thoughts behind the new door, the one now labelled ‘Jo’, and concentrated on the surf, although his concentration was lost again when she returned, pulling up on the beach. She reached into the back of her vehicle, and took out the classic old surfboard he’d admired earlier.

  She was buffeted by the waves as she paddled her way out beyond the breakers, and it was obvious that it had been a while since she’d surfed, but when she came alongside him and he saw the sheer joy lighting her face, he stopped worrying about her. Even if the lad at the surf-club restaurant hadn’t mentioned she’d been good, he’d have guessed. It was evident in the way she lay on the board, the effortless way she paddled, and now, as she sat, the long-distance focus in her eyes as she stared out to sea made her experience obvious.

  ‘I’m taking the fifth wave in this set and if you drop in on me I’ll probably kill you. It’s been thirteen years since I’ve been on a board, and that’s my wave!’

  She paddled sideways towards it, rising into a crouch as the wave caught the board then standing up but still tilted forward so her body mimicked the curve of the wave as she slashed across its face. She bent into the barrel, flying out the other end, her cry one of delight but of triumph as well.

  She rode the board towards the beach, standing upright now, as if she owned the ocean, sliding right onto the sandbank. Then, to Cam’s surprise, and just a little dismay, she pushed her board into the lagoon, paddled across it, then picked it up and returned it to her vehicle.

  He caught the next wave and rode it well enough, but without a thousandth of the grace and skill he’d just witnessed. Assuming she wanted to go home, he, too, paddled across the lagoon, then tucked his board under his arm and strode up the beach to where she waited, wrapped in a towel, still flushed with the excitement she must have felt as she’d ridden a perfect ten.

  ‘Thirteen years?’ he queried as he fastened his board next to the small ones on the racks on top of the car.

  He regretted the words almost immediately as the excitement died from her eyes and the flush faded from her cheeks.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she said, not the words but the way she said them telling him to keep his questions to himself.

  And hadn’t he just decided that’s what he should do?

  Predict and avoid emotional danger, remember. In all fairness he had to stay but he had to build a wall between himself and his boss—invisible but no less strong for that—a wall that would keep his emotions at bay, and if it didn’t stop the attraction he felt towards her, well, that was too bad.

  He climbed into the car beside her.

  She shouldn’t have done it! The words hammered in Jo’s head.

  But for those few minutes she’d felt truly alive again. Was that so wrong?

  Of course it was, when Jill was dead.

  She closed her eyes against the tears welling in them.

  Surely she’d shed enough by now. Bad enough it had taken a year to draw a pain-free breath, but to still be crying for Jilly?

  ‘You okay?’

  Cam’s voice reminded her that this was the la
st person to whom she should be showing weakness. He’d probably had natural empathy before he’d studied psychology, so he’d suss out her misery far more quickly than the average person.

  She nodded.

  ‘Always drive the beach with your eyes shut, then?’ he asked, and the provoking question angered her enough to chase away her maudlin mood.

  ‘I could drive through the whole town with my eyes closed,’ she snapped.

  ‘Snippy, eh?’ he teased.

  ‘I won’t dignify that with an answer,’ she said, aiming for snooty but not quite making it, because once again she found a little bit of herself enjoying a bout of verbal sparring with this man.

  ‘But you did,’ he pointed out and she sighed, and smiled, steering the big vehicle carefully up over the dune and onto the road.

  She put her foot on the brake and turned towards him.

  ‘You win,’ she said, then was sorry she’d turned, for he was smiling at her again, not the quirky smile this time but one in which she could read understanding and, yes, the empathy she’d guessed at.

  ‘Your sister?’

  He asked the question—well, said the two words—so quietly, she knew she could ignore them if she wanted to, but deep down she knew it might help to talk about it.

  Another sigh.

  ‘You’ll hear about it soon enough—someone in town will tell you. Yes, my sister was injured in a surfing accident.

  When the waves were big we’d get a friend with a powerful jet ski to tow us out beyond the breakers. Jill was being towed out when the rope broke and she was caught by a wave and flung onto the rocks beneath the headland.’

  Jo hesitated then found she needed to tell him more.

  ‘What the town doesn’t know is that it was my fault. I was the one who wanted to surf that day, although the tail end of the cyclone further north had produced waves far bigger than Jilly liked to tackle. Surfing was my passion—the pro tour my ambition.’

  The words died on her lips, fading into the silence that filled the vehicle.