A Woman Worth Waiting For

by Meredith Webber

  How her friends had laughed!

  But Max hadn’t laughed—even when she’d embarrassed both of them by declaring her attraction. He’d put up with her shenanigans as she’d insinuated herself into his life, and eventually she’d won a grudging admission from him that the attraction wasn’t all one-sided.

  Poor Max! He’d been so concerned about the ethical issues of a student-tutor relationship, and he’d had to fight his own feelings as well as her persistence. Then, just when all the barriers had been about to come tumbling down, he’d had to go—summoned back to the United States by some family crisis.

  Ginny squeezed her eyes tightly closed, but could still see the words he’d written to her after his departure—words that had been kind, even loving, but had, nonetheless, broken her heart.

  If it was Max, how did she feel about meeting him again?

  Not that she had met him yet.

  Maybe she didn’t need to, even if it was.

  Her mind dithered and her body trembled and six hard-won years of maturity disappeared.

  So she only partly registered the two large security men who entered the department from the rear and looked carefully around. Sarah was with them, speaking and waving her hand then leading them back towards the waiting room.

  Security men! There were security cameras in the waiting room. If she looked at the screen in the security office, Ginny decided, she’d see the man—and realise it wasn’t Max at all!

  Then she could relax and regain her usual composure.

  Before she could set off on a hare-brained dash to the security office Sarah returned, but with one man, not two. And it was Max. She didn’t have to look at him to know, because all the little hairs on her arms stood on end and her heart rate rose to danger levels, while a chill of warning slid icily down her spine.

  Sarah led him inexorably towards the office door.

  ‘Max was telling me you’re old friends,’ the new doctor said cheerfully. ‘I’ve just made my mark at Ellison General by asking Security to throw him out. It turns out he’s a psychologist and here quite legitimately. He’s studying stress in A and E departments but was rather hoping to go unnoticed for a few days.’

  ‘U-unnoticed?’ Ginny managed to stutter. ‘A man his size?’

  She had to look at him then, had to force herself to face him.

  ‘Hello, Max,’ she managed. ‘It’s been a while.’

  Max McMurray looked down into Ginny’s huge green eyes. Those eyes, a pert nose spread with caramel-coloured freckles and a smile as wide as Australia had been his undoing six years ago.

  And his reason for returning to this country.

  He was damned if they weren’t still affecting him.

  The eyes, that was. And the freckles. He hadn’t seen the smile yet and, judging by the wariness in the sea-green depths, might not see it for some time. But the lips were the same—the deep V in the middle of the top one, the slight upward tilt to the corners as if they were always getting ready to smile…

  ‘Yes!’

  Brilliant reply! Really top-class. You’re going great guns here! A fourteen-year-old schoolboy would do better!

  He tried again.

  ‘You’re looking well.’

  It was a blatant lie—she looked terrible. Pale and somehow haunted, the incredible eyes too big for her face, the freckles standing out against chalky-white skin, the dark hair that used to fall in such a straight, no-nonsense fashion to chin-length tousled into confusion.

  A raised right eyebrow challenged his remark.

  ‘At the end of twelve hours on duty? You’ve got to be joking.’

  A little colour was creeping back into her cheeks, while in his own blood desire stirred. Thick and sludgy as yet, but no less worrisome because he knew from experience it would soon become hot and insistent. She was the only woman he’d ever known who had this immediate physical effect on him.

  Sure, he’d flirted with other women from time to time, even shared their beds, but none had ever set fire to his body the way Ginny Willis had.

  And still did, it seemed.

  ‘Obviously know each other.’

  He’d missed what the woman with the red-gold hair—what had she said her name was?—was saying but, in spite of his scrambled brains, he thought he’d caught the gist of it.

  ‘I was Ginny’s tutor—’

  ‘He was my tutor—’

  The dual explanations exploded simultaneously, so it sounded like a rehearsed line. The woman must have caught the undercurrents surging through the air for she glanced from one of them to the other, but all she said was, ‘Ah!’

  ‘We were just leaving.’ Ginny’s voice was anxious as it hurried into the silence. She grabbed the other woman by the arm as though to hustle her out the door.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your car.’ He didn’t know why he’d offered. Yes, he did! Having found her again, he couldn’t let her go—not right away. And not when he’d quickly checked her left hand and seen no evidence of a declared attachment to another man.

  Although she might remove her rings while she was at work…

  ‘Have a car.’

  The negativity in her voice filled in the bit of conversation he’d missed this time.

  ‘Then I’ll walk you wherever you’re going,’ he said, pig-headed now, although he guessed she didn’t want his company. ‘Given the recent crime wave in this town, women shouldn’t be walking around on their own at night. Or in the daytime either, for that matter. Success breeds extra boldness with serial killers.’

  Ginny stepped away so the other woman was between them.

  ‘I wasn’t going to walk on my own,’ she told him, her voice as cool as his blood was hot. ‘Sarah and I are both flatting across the road.’

  ‘In the hospital accommodation? But that’s wonderful! I’m there, too. Why don’t we all have dinner together in the canteen? Save cooking when we get home.’

  He was babbling and knew it, but even worse was his confusion resulting from Ginny’s announcement that she and Sarah—that was the redhead’s name—were apparently sharing a flat.

  Delight that a man wasn’t sharing Ginny’s living quarters vied with disappointment she wasn’t living alone…

  Therefore more accessible to predatory males like himself? What was wrong with him?

  ‘Evening canteen meals are terrible. I’ve invited Sarah—you’ve met Sarah Kemp—for dinner. I suppose you can come, too.’

  Once again he’d missed the beginning of a statement, but it appeared he’d been invited to dinner.

  As had Sarah? Maybe they weren’t flatmates? Hope springs eternal…

  You’ve never heard a dinner invitation more grudgingly given, he reminded himself, so don’t let it go to your head.

  ‘That would be great!’ Oh, how pathetically grateful he sounded. He’d regressed from a fourteen-year-old to an eight-year-old, and all because he’d met the woman he’d returned to Australia to meet!

  But accidentally—before he’d been prepared to meet her. Before he’d even figured out all the things he wanted to say.

  He really had to pull himself together. Make an effort to at least sound like a mature and rational adult.

  ‘I meant to shop today but didn’t get around to it. Once I walked into the waiting room, it seemed more important to get a feel for the place, rather than organise food.’

  He glanced at Ginny as he spoke—hell, he’d done nothing but glance her way since this stupid conversation had started! But this time he caught a flicker of movement on the right side of her shapely lips. The beginnings of a smile?

  ‘So nothing’s changed in your work patterns,’ she said, the smile now flirting around her mouth, teasing him to a kind of breathless anticipation as he waited for the full-blown effort.

  She turned to Sarah and added, ‘Typical absent-minded professor when it comes to work-related matters. Ten minutes could stretch to five hours once his interest’s caught, though I wouldn’t have thought there’
s been much to interest anyone in the A and E waiting room today. I’ve never known the place so quiet.’

  ‘Isn’t that interesting enough in itself?’ Max asked her, using his own smile in an effort to tempt hers further out.

  He was doomed to disappointment. She was no longer looking at him, her attention fixed on a point beyond his left shoulder. So the smile, when it came, wasn’t for him at all.

  Max turned to see the recipient while disappointment jarred with an irrational jealousy, intensifying when he saw the darkly handsome man approaching them.

  He was handling this rush of negative emotion quite well until the newcomer deftly cut Ginny from their threesome, moving her a little apart and bending towards her with an unmistakable intimacy.

  ‘Sorry, but I’ve just offered to provide a meal for these two newcomers. You know how the powers that be encourage us to make new staff members feel at home.’ Max couldn’t help but overhear Ginny’s clear-voiced explanation. He fancied he’d caught a note of regret in it, as if she’d far rather be doing whatever Mr Dark and Handsome had suggested.

  In an effort to appear unaffected, Max turned to Sarah, but she’d forgotten his existence as well. She was studying the newcomer with an alert kind of interest.

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’

  Ginny’s question to the man stopped Max’s breath, until he heard the murmur of a muted apology or explanation and relaxed again.

  He realised he’d have to accept that someone as attractive as Ginny undoubtedly had a special man in her life, but he was pretty sure he’d find it easier to accept tomorrow when he’d got used to the fact he’d met up with her again.

  Or maybe next year.

  Next century?

  ‘We’ll wait for you outside,’ Sarah said, taking Max by the arm so he’d be in no doubt as to who was included in the ‘we’.

  ‘Was I staring?’ he asked, when the fresh early evening air brushed against his heated skin and brought him down towards a semblance of normality.

  ‘No,’ Sarah told him gently, ‘but you were making little growly noises and, while I don’t think Dr Markham heard you, it seemed to be upsetting Ginny.’

  He should have denied the ‘growly noises’ comment, or at least investigated its veracity, but the name sparked his interest.

  ‘Dr Markham? Paul Markham? Is that who it was?’

  ‘I believe so, although I haven’t been introduced,’ Sarah said, and now she was studying him with as much interest as he’d taken in the dark-haired stranger. ‘Know the name, do you?’

  Max gathered his scattered wits and aimed for lightness when he said, ‘Who in Ellison wouldn’t? Especially coming new to the place—there’s always someone to fill you in on all the gossip and scandal.’

  ‘Yes?’

  The intonation in the woman’s voice told him she didn’t believe a word of his explanation, but something else was niggling in his usually ordered and productive brain. ‘Mind like a computer’, he’d heard himself described. Well, right now the disk drive had crashed, and all he had was fragments of information and no easy way of retrieving it. Who would have believed the sight of a woman could have caused such chaos?

  He focused on the redhead. What was her name?

  ‘Kemp? You’re Sarah Kemp? Tony Kemp’s wife? What are you doing here?’

  She smiled at him.

  ‘A locum, and that’s genuine. What about you?’

  He hesitated, giving her time to probe deeper.

  ‘If you know of me through Tony then you know him. Or of him. Are you with the police?’

  Max shook his head.

  ‘No, I really am what I say I am—a psychologist. Medical degree first then further studies in psychology but I was always more interested in research than a career in psychiatry. And I’m genuinely here at Ellison—well, Ellison first and then other hospitals—to study stress in Accident and Emergency.’

  ‘But?’ Sarah persisted.

  ‘Stress is my specialty. Stress factors, stress triggers, the build-up of stress—’

  ‘In serial killers?’

  Max studied the woman. He’d met Tony Kemp in Washington twelve months earlier, when the Australian policeman had attended a series of lectures he’d given on multiple offenders. Drawn to a man who’d spoken with the accent of his own childhood, they’d had a few drinks together at the end of each day and for a while had exchanged occasional emails. So, if the pretty doctor was married to a man senior enough to be travelling to overseas conferences, it was likely she’d picked up some tips.

  ‘I’ve read the books, seen files, know something about it,’ he admitted, and she nodded, as if satisfied that some hunch had proved correct. He was about to query her assumptions when Ginny came through the door.

  ‘Sorry to keep you both waiting, but poor Paul’s so upset. I guess it’s bad enough to lose your wife at any time, but this way—it’s so pointless. Just because the unfortunate woman had long dark hair!’

  ‘Is that the only resemblance between the victims?’ Sarah asked, as they walked towards the entrance to the car park. ‘I’ve been away and really don’t know much about it all—apart from my husband’s warning to go nowhere alone the whole time I’m here. Even though I’m a redhead!’

  ‘After Isobel was killed, the local paper ran the photos of all three victims side by side, and there’s definitely a resemblance. Not only the long hair, but slim build and fairly elongated faces. Isobel had what I think of as a classic beauty—and to see her and Paul together, they made a stunning couple.’

  Ginny sounded sad, as if envious of either the pair’s beauty, or perhaps of their marriage, Max thought. Had she been attracted to Paul Markham before his wife was killed?

  Been friends, or more than friends?

  You don’t want to go there, he told himself as his experience with crime started him along the line of means, motive and opportunity—with the focus on motive!

  Ginny killing off a rival? The thought was too stupid to even contemplate. He really had to take control of the turmoil in his mind. Forget this unexpected reunion for a moment and concentrate on the conversation.

  ‘According to the only newspaper article I read, the police found nothing to link the three or any likely suspects in any of the women’s circles of friends.’

  Sarah offered this scant information as they waited for a break in the traffic, so they could cross the road to the row of flats. Max, who’d searched the police reports for the same kind of linking information, nodded his agreement, then remembered he was here to seek out new information, not go over old ground.

  Or renew an old relationship, come to that!

  ‘Hard to believe there’s never been any gossip about the two doctors,’ he said, keeping his voice deliberately light to cover his earlier—and totally unworthy—suspicions. ‘Hospital grapevines must be slipping if no stories surfaced after the poor woman disappeared.’

  ‘No stories surfaced because there were none!’ Ginny said, leading them in a dash across the road when a small break appeared. ‘They were two people with related careers, dedicated to their jobs and to each other.’

  ‘I can understand him being dedicated to his job, but does anyone get dedicated to A and E? I mean, it’s hardly the most rewarding place in the hospital to work. You, for instance.’ Max turned Ginny to face him, though touching her was a mistake as it generated a twitchiness beneath his skin. Hers, too, if the start she gave was any indication. ‘Is it where you want to stay? For ever?’

  Ginny gave him a long, hard look.

  ‘Why are you asking? Why do you want to know? And don’t tell me it was nothing but idle conversation because you wouldn’t know an idle conversation if it bit you on the backside. All your questions lead somewhere, even if it’s only into an analysis of the poor questionee’s mental health.’

  Max grinned at her.

  ‘The thing I can’t believe,’ he told her as a flooding wave of happiness at being in her company again rocked him b
ack on his heels, ‘is that I didn’t even consider I might meet up with you again so quickly.’

  She frowned her bewilderment.

  ‘What do you mean? So quickly?’

  Sticky question. It was OK to dream you’d meet that special girl again one day, but if you talked about dreams like that, people tended to look around, expecting to see men in white coats arriving to carry you off.

  And it was OK to plot and plan, put out feelers, suggest studies, all with the aim of finding her again, but to admit it was tantamount to admitting an obsession!

  ‘When I came back to Queensland, I thought there was a chance we might run across each other…’ Good going, McMurray. You’ve suggested just the right amount of casual happenstance. ‘But when this came up at Ellison, I didn’t for a minute imagine you’d be here. It must be fate—kismet.’

  The frown, instead of vanishing with this logical explanation, deepened, growing into a scowl.

  ‘Well, I can’t see why you would have expected me to be here. Or why you’d remember me for that matter. You never did see further than the end of your nose. All I ever was to you was little Ginny, the student-nuisance. As for kismet—I went to school with a girl of that name and, believe me, she was nothing but trouble!’

  She shook her arm free of his hand and stalked away from him, spoiling her huffy exit slightly by tripping on the bottom step.

  Little Ginny! Yes, he’d called her that, and had hurt her with the words. Hurt her because he did see further than the end of his nose—far enough, in the beginning, to worry about the ethical concerns of a student-tutor relationship, and later to know it would be wrong to tie a twenty-year-old student to him for an indefinite period of time, especially when they were thousands of kilometres apart.

  ‘This first one is my flat,’ she announced. ‘How about you give me half an hour to shower, then come in for a drink while I fix us something to eat?’

  Max knew he should protest—at least make noises about not wanting to put her out—but he couldn’t deny himself the opportunity to see more of her, to be with her, perhaps make her smile…

  ‘I’ve a bottle of Californian wine someone gave me when I left the States. I’ll bring that,’ he offered.