by Lucy Clark
‘Don’t tease,’ he growled as he came to lie down next to her, slipping his arm under her head. The intense moment had passed and now, as they lay there, the atmosphere was one of friendship and support between a boyfriend and girlfriend. ‘It’s the way they don’t seem to take much of an interest in you, as though you’re always the afterthought, that I don’t like. Apart from that, I think your parents are both incredibly intelligent people who will one day find a cure for cancer.’
‘Perhaps they already have,’ May murmured. Was that the reason her parents had been so closed off lately? Installing extra security around the house? Huddling together whilst having wildly gesticulating conversations? Had they found a cure for cancer and someone didn’t want them to share it?
‘Really?’
‘I don’t want to talk about them,’ she told him. ‘Tell me about your exam. Are you supposed to be studying now?’
‘Yes. I was timing myself with the answers.’ He pulled his watch from his pocket and May immediately put it onto her wrist.
‘What subject?’
‘Biology.’
‘Ah. That’s my speciality. I’ll help you study. Where are your papers?’
‘I think you’re lying on them.’
‘Oh.’ She shifted around and pulled them out from beneath her, making sure they didn’t rip. ‘All right. Question number one,’ she said in her best gameshow-host voice and the two of them laughed.
‘Shh. We don’t want my parents coming in.’ He kissed her nose and she snuggled closer to him, breathing him in.
‘You smell good.’
‘I don’t think that information is included in my revision notes.’
‘I’ll soon fix that.’ May pulled a small pink pen from the pocket of her three-quarter-length pants, having left it in there from school that day, and wrote, ‘Arthur smells delicious’ in pink ink at the top of the page. ‘All fixed,’ she said, and handed him the pen so she could hold the papers more easily. ‘OK, future Dr Lewis. Time to study.’
‘I’d rather spend more time kissing you,’ he returned.
‘And that will be your reward because I’m not having you fail this exam because of me.’ She scanned his notes. ‘OK. Answer this.’ She chose a question and waited for him to answer. Whenever he got it right, she kissed him. Several times she asked him questions that weren’t contained within his notes, making him think even harder on the subject.
‘How do you know all this stuff?’ Arthur chuckled as he kissed her once more.
‘Are you kidding me? With one parent researching the human genome and the other an expert in synthetic compounds, is it little wonder this stuff runs through my veins?’
‘You should study medicine.’
‘And become a doctor like you’re going to be?’
‘I’ll be a couple of years ahead of you at medical school so we could study together.’
‘Like you help me study for my school exams?’ May giggled, remembering how their last study session had ended with the two of them making out on the couch. ‘I’d never pass!’
‘Sure you would. You’re smart.’
May eased back and looked him. ‘You think I’m smart?’
He seemed surprised by her question. ‘May, you’re the smartest girl I know. Why else would I be with you?’
‘Because I’m pretty?’
‘Honey, you’re beautiful. My belle.’ He kissed her. ‘And yes, there’s no denying we’re attracted to each other, but one of the main things I love about you is your intelligence.’
‘Love?’ Her eyes widened at the word. ‘You love me?’ May’s voice broke on the last word but she didn’t care. Inside, her heart was soaring as high as the highest bird on a cloudless day.
‘Yes.’ His grey eyes were intense, his words quiet and sincere. ‘Problem?’
‘No. No.’ She shook her head, a wide, silly grin pulling on her lips before he kissed her. She kissed him back, deciding that this was most definitely the best night of her life. Arthur loved her. Arthur loved her and she loved him back. It was as though her life was finally starting to make sense—as if she’d found the one place where she belonged.
‘You know I love everything about you,’ she said a moment later, the two of them a little breathless. ‘Except for the fact that your knee is digging into my leg.’ She tried to shift a little, to get comfortable so she could take his weight on top of her, but as she did so he shifted as well, almost tumbling off the bed. In order to stop himself, he reached out a hand to his bedside table for support but in the process accidentally knocked his clock off.
The clattering noise as it fell onto the polished floorboards made them both freeze. Holding their breaths, they stared at each other, waited to see if his parents had heard the noise. With the sound of a door being opened and footsteps heading towards Arthur’s room, they both scrambled like wildfire, moving fast. May headed towards the window, whilst Arthur righted the clock and picked up the scattered biology papers they’d previously knocked to the floor.
May just made it out the window and over to the branch of the tree, completely out of sight, when his father opened the bedroom door.
‘You all right?’ his dad asked.
‘Yeah, yeah. Just dozed off while trying to cram this information into my brain,’ Arthur remarked, shaking the biology papers with his hand. ‘The sooner this exam is over, the better.’
His father laughed then said goodnight to his son, closing the door behind him. May waited, almost willing Arthur to come over to the window. He did just that and she edged off the branch to meet him there. He kissed her through the open frame. ‘You’d better go.’
‘I know.’ She kissed him again, putting all her love and heart into the action. ‘I love you, Arthur Lewis.’
‘And I love you, May Fleming. Now go. Get to bed and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
With a giddiness of epic proportions, May shimmed down the tree, climbed the fence and was soon scaling her balcony as though her feet had wings. The instant she stepped inside her bedroom she froze, her giddiness turning to ice as she saw both her parents were standing in her room. The light was on, her mother’s face was ashen and her father’s jaw was clenched more tightly than she’d ever seen before. She was in trouble now!
‘May. Oh, my goodness. There you are.’ Her mother dragged her close and hugged her so tightly May thought she might pass out.
‘We thought they’d got you already.’ Her father wrapped his arms around his two girls. ‘Don’t ever scare us like that again.’
May wasn’t sure what was going on except she was positive this wasn’t the way normal parents disciplined their child for sneaking out of the house. A moment later she realised her mother was crying and her father was shaking.
‘What’s…?’ She stopped, not sure she wanted to ask what was going on because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. Instead she said, ‘Why are you crying?’
‘Oh, May.’ Her mother kissed her head. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘We need to get things organised,’ a deep voice said from the doorway, and that was when May realised they weren’t alone. The dread that had caused her to run to Arthur in the first place returned with full force as she eased back from her parents and stared at the dark-suited figure.
‘Pack only what’s necessary for now. The agency will pack the rest once you’re safe.’
‘Safe?’ May swallowed, trying to control her rising panic.
‘You’re all in danger. You need to leave here. Tonight.’
CHAPTER ONE
MAYBELLE FREEBOURNE ALL but strutted into Victory Hospital in one of Melbourne’s outer suburbs. She had finally returned to the last place she could remember being truly happy. She grinned to herself at the thought. It wasn’t necessarily the hospital that made her feel happy but rather the memories of the suburb where the hospital was located.
She stood in the middle of the new and improved hospital lobby and looked around. Victory Hospital was
a medium-sized teaching hospital with all the required medical and surgical departments, but it was nowhere as big as the Royal Melbourne Hospital situated in the heart of Melbourne City about an hour away. It would do her just fine.
Maybelle wanted to get lost in the crowd but not swallowed by it. She already knew how to blend in, how to adapt her looks and personality to be accepted by her colleagues. When you’d lived a life where you were forced to relocate every two to three years, you became good at it. There was a determination about her, a determination she hadn’t felt in a long time, and it felt good. Her life was finally her own. That was a good thing…right?
She wasn’t going to focus on just how she’d achieved such freedom. If she did that, she risked her thoughts spiralling down a black hole it was almost impossible to get out of. Almost impossible. The psychologist had said she was doing exceptionally well, given everything she’d been through.
Focusing her attention on the hospital walls, noting the renovations that had vastly upgraded and improved the overall aesthetics of the building, her mind compared it to how it had looked when she’d been eight years old. She’d been rushed into the emergency department in the wee hours of the morning with appendicitis, her scientist parents beside themselves with worry. They’d been smart people when it came to the human genome and synthetic molecules but actually seeing their daughter sick had made them both feel ill.
Nevertheless, that stay in hospital had highlighted many things for young Maybelle, the main one being that she loved the way the hospital seemed to function like its own little world, from the cleaners all the way up to the surgeons and everyone in between. While both her parents had encouraged Maybelle from her very first Christmas to be a scientist, especially as they’d given her a plastic Petri dish as a gift, her mother had been astounded when Maybelle had declared she’d wanted to be a doctor.
‘But there’s a lot of blood with medicine and during your medical training you’ll be working on cadavers.’ Her mother had paused for effect. ‘A cadaver is a dead person, sweetie. You don’t want to be around dead people.’
‘She can make up her own mind, Samantha,’ her father had chimed in, looking up from the scientific journal he’d been reading. ‘Just because you and I don’t like dealing with people and would rather spend time with a microscope, there’s no reason why she can’t be a doctor. Besides…’ he’d fixed her with an indulgent look ‘…you’re only eight, sweetie. You might change your mind when you’re older.’ Then he’d given her mother a look that said it was best to drop the subject and her mother had done just that.
Of course, when Maybelle had finally graduated from medical school, her parents had been incredibly proud of her.
‘I don’t know how you do it, sweetie,’ her mother had stated one night when Maybelle had returned from a long night in Emergency. ‘But I like it that you’re helping people, saving lives.’ She met her daughter’s gaze. ‘Especially after everything we’ve put you through.’
Maybelle had hugged her mother close. Ever since they’d been put into witness protection, it had forced the three of them to spend a lot more time together, and in some ways the close family Maybelle had always wanted was what she’d finally received.
‘Silver linings,’ her father had often declared. ‘We need to look for the silver linings in our day-to-day lives, especially if we’ve had a bad day.’
As it turned out, her parents hadn’t discovered a cure for cancer. Instead, they’d discovered something that could cause death and devastation on a mass scale if it fell into the wrong hands. The breakin at their house had been because the thieves had been looking for her parents’ research. Maybelle had found out many years later that there had also been several breakins at their laboratory. The government had offered to protect her family, if her parents continued to work for them, creating antidotes and staying out of sight.
‘Our work may never be published under our own names but we’re alive,’ her father would continue when he was on one of his silver-lining speeches.
‘And May was able to get through medical school with only two relocations,’ her mother would add. ‘One day she’ll be free of all this and able to start her own life—her real life.’
‘That day has come, Mum,’ Maybelle whispered to Victory Hospital’s walls before she headed towards the bustling emergency department, which was located on the other side of the lobby. Sure, things had changed but she’d changed a lot, too. It was the perfect mix.
She swiped her new pass card through the security lock and pushed the door open. On the other side, her excitement waned as she glanced around the very non-bustling ED. She was pumped, ready for action, and yet there were several medical staff at the desk, which was located in the middle of the treatment bays, chatting and laughing together. No action. No franticness. No calls of ‘Grab the crash cart’, or ‘Get the doctor here, stat’. Several of the treatment bays were indeed full but with patients who were now stable and being monitored.
With a deflated sigh, she headed towards the desk. She hated quiet and controlled environments. She liked busyness and movement and being rushed off her feet. None of the staff looked her way as she approached. Instead it appeared they were all listening intently to someone who was telling what must be an enthralling story.
‘And then,’ she heard a deep male voice say, ‘she stepped on the ball!’
At the delivery of the line, everyone laughed and the spell was broken. It was then that one of the staff turned and saw her standing there. The woman jumped and placed a hand over her heart.
‘Good heavens, you scared me. You must walk very quietly.’
Maybelle paused for a second, remembering how she’d been taught to sneak around places, to be inconspicuous, to make herself unnoticeable, but this time she hadn’t been doing it on purpose. She held up her identification badge. ‘New doctor. Officially start work in…’ Maybelle glanced at the clock on the wall ‘…about thirty seconds’ time.’
‘Oh, you must be Dr Freebourne. Uh… May, is it?’
‘Maybelle,’ she instantly corrected, and held out her hand.
‘I’m Gemma, the ED ward clerk, and I have your paperwork…somewhere here.’ Gemma quickly shook Maybelle’s hand, then started shuffling papers around on the desk. ‘Ah. Here it is.’
‘Did you say you were starting work?’ one of the nearby nurses questioned. ‘Fantastic. We’ve been so short-staffed of late.’
‘Hospitals are always short-staffed,’ another nurse mumbled in a matter-of-fact tone.
Gemma gathered the different pieces of paper together and held them out to the man who, Maybelle belatedly realised, had been the one enthralling the staff with his stories. ‘Here you go, Arthur.’
Upon hearing the name—Arthur—something clicked in Maybelle’s long-term memory. Arthur? It wasn’t a very common name nowadays—in fact, it was still considered rather old-fashioned—but the only Arthur she’d ever known had been named after a beloved family grandfather and, as such, he’d worn the name with pride.
Her Arthur. Her King Arthur. The first boy she’d ever loved. She smiled at the memory the name brought to mind but schooled her thoughts as her new colleagues started asking her questions.
‘What did you say your name was?’ one of the nurses asked.
‘This here,’ Gemma interrupted before Maybelle could get a word out, ‘is Dr Maybelle Freebourne. She joins us from a very busy and hectic teaching hospital in the heart of Sydney.’ Several of the staff, who were a mix of doctors, nurses and interns, listened to Gemma’s introduction before shaking hands with Maybelle and introducing themselves. This was just the sort of thing Maybelle wasn’t used to—this intimate attention. It made her feel as though she were under a microscope, that they’d want to know everything about her, and she most certainly didn’t want to tell anyone everything about her. However, it couldn’t be helped. She’d made her choice and was determined to make her life work.
‘Maybelle?’ The deep voic
e that had spoken her name made her look at the man who had spoken it. He was tall, about six feet four inches. He wore navy-blue scrubs with a white coat over the top, and a stethoscope around his neck. His hair, which had once been blond, was now a light brown, peppered at the sides with a hint of distinguished grey. His nose was slightly bent, indicating a break in the past, but it was his grey eyes that caused her mouth to go dry and her heart to momentarily skip a beat. There was no way she would ever forget those eyes. How could she when they’d once looked at her with such tenderness?
‘That’s a very old-fashioned name,’ Arthur stated.
‘Like you can talk,’ Gemma interjected, as Maybelle continued to stare at the man before her. ‘Arthur’s an old-fashioned name, too. You two will fit perfectly together. Maybelle and Arthur.’
‘Old-fashioned names are making a comeback,’ one of the nurses said, and began talking about how her friend was pregnant and quite a few of the baby books had many of those old-fashioned names in them and… Maybelle wasn’t listening to a word.
Instead, all she could hear was the thrumming of blood pumping wildly throughout her system, reverberating in her ears, causing her heart rate to increase. It was the same Arthur. This was the same boy who had lived next door to her so many years ago but now…he was even more devastatingly handsome. She couldn’t help but drink her fill of the man before her.
Why, oh why, hadn’t she questioned her government case worker more closely? When the paperwork had been prepared for the transfer to Victory Hospital, to her new life, Maybelle had only enquired about the CEO, not the director of the ED! However, it was too late to back out now and as his warm hand enveloped hers in the normal way of greeting, sparks spread up her arm, flooding throughout her body. If she’d had any doubt whether this Arthur was the same man who had been her first crush so many years ago, it fled with that one simple touch.
‘I’m Arthur. Arthur Lewis. Director of the ED.’
Arthur Lewis and his sister Clara. What fantastic times they’d had together. She and Clara had been soul sisters and for a long while Arthur had been the big brother she’d never had…that was until she’d started to see him as something more than a surrogate big brother.
