Healing the Vet's Heart

by Annie Claydon

  He was becoming aware that his leg was aching, so he sat down on the bunk next to her. Drew inspected her shoulder carefully, flexing her arm again, and her face showed no pain. A red mark showed where a bruise was beginning to form and she tried to squint down at it.

  ‘How does it look?’

  ‘Not so bad. You’ll have a bruise.’

  ‘I’m glad you were there, Drew. Thank you.’

  ‘It’s what diving buddies are for.’ Caro was a lot more than just a diving buddy to him, but he couldn’t go the whole hog in emulating her habit of saying exactly what was on her mind.

  ‘And I could do with a hug.’

  ‘So could I.’ Drew curled his arms around her. She nestled against his chest and he felt the last of his own shakiness subside.

  Haltingly, she began to whisper. The shock of the blow. Feeling afraid but knowing she was safe when he’d caught hold of her. All of the things that Drew had never talked about when he’d had his accident, and which he probably should have. She voiced her fears and then put them aside, snuggling against him as if he was her comfort.

  Maybe a little closer. Maybe a little longer, although Peter and Jake might start wondering what they were doing. He dared to plant a kiss on the top of her head, and then he let her go.

  ‘You’ll give the nets a rest for a while?’ This time his question didn’t involve any of the push and pull between concern and wanting to be strong.

  ‘Yes, I think I will.’ She gave him an impish look. ‘I suppose that means we’re staying out here for a bit longer?’

  Drew sighed. ‘Yes. We’re staying.’

  Caro grinned at him as he walked out of the cabin, and Drew took the stairs with renewed energy, using the rails to boost himself upwards. They had work to do.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY DIDN’T MANAGE to collect as many seabirds as they had this morning, but that was largely because there were fewer stuck in the oil. Most of the ones they did find alive were in bad shape, and there were a few other marine creatures as well, a dead starfish and an octopus. They heard over the radio that the boat Lucas was working from had rescued a sea otter and was heading back to the clinic.

  They were all tired, and the sun was sinking low on the horizon. Peter turned the boat and they made for home. Drew looked over his shoulder more than once, obviously thinking the same as Caro. The job was only half-finished, and there was still more to do, but they’d done all they could today.

  Ellie and Lucas were at the dock and helped to unload the boxes of birds. Caro saw Jake stride across to a woman who was carrying a drowsy two-year-old, hugging them both and kissing his son before they walked to their car together. Drew asked Lucas if there was anything he could do at the clinic and was told no.

  ‘The tide will be in soon.’ Drew walked to his car with Caro in the gathering dusk.

  ‘Yeah, I’d better be getting back.’

  ‘Or you could come to the Hungry Pelican and we’ll get something to eat. You can stay at mine tonight, and we’ll be ready to go back out again in the morning.’

  No question about whether she was going or not. He knew that he couldn’t keep her away.

  ‘I’ve heard the food’s really good there, Ellie’s mum and dad run it?’

  Drew chuckled. ‘That’s right. You must be getting used to village life if you’re hearing gossip. Although as it goes, that isn’t all that juicy.’

  ‘I might have to try and do something with my hair first...’

  ‘Your hair’s fine. No one dresses up for the Hungry Pelican.’

  The quayside pub was already busy, and Caro excused herself to go to the rest room while Drew made his way to the bar. She combed her hair, wincing as her shoulder protested and the comb snagged in a knot. At least the day at sea had brought a bit of a glow to her cheeks, and that, along with fixing her hair back in a slightly lopsided plait, was about as good as it was going to get.

  Drew was talking to a man behind the bar, who had a shock of white hair. He introduced him as Gordo Stone, and the man leaned over to shake her hand.

  ‘I’m Ellie’s dad. I heard you’ve been out with Drew today.’

  ‘Yes, we just got back.’

  ‘Ellie says it’s not as bad as we’d feared.’

  Drew shook his head. ‘It’s a small spill. Hopefully it won’t be coming onto the shore.’

  Gordo nodded. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘I’ll have a sparkling water.’ Drew turned to her. ‘Do you want to try the local brew?’

  Gordo was already moving towards the pump and there seemed to be no escaping it. ‘I’ll have a half, thank you.’

  Drew reached for his wallet and Gordo shook his head. ‘First round’s on me for everyone who’s been out today. Something to eat, Caro? We do a mean fish and chips, even if I do say so myself.’

  ‘Fish and chips sounds great. A large portion, please.’

  Drew chuckled. ‘Gordo doesn’t know how to do small portions. Same for me too, please.’

  ‘Right you are.’ Gordo turned, shouting to someone who was working in the kitchen behind the bar, and then got their drinks for them.

  Both Gordo and Drew were looking at her, and it appeared that she was expected to taste hers now. She took a sip.

  ‘Mmm. This is very good.’

  Gordo nodded in approbation and turned to his next customer, while Drew guided Caro over to a table by the fire. When their food arrived, the chips were good as well. And the fish was delicious. They were both hungry.

  ‘Oh.’ Caro leaned back in her seat, surveying her empty plate. ‘That was lovely.’

  Drew was looking pleasantly relaxed now too. He seemed to know everyone here, exchanging a few words with whoever happened to walk past their table.

  ‘You want another drink?’

  ‘What I’d really like is a hot shower and a bed.’ Caro wondered whether she should emphasise that both would be alone as she saw that flash of mischief in his eyes again. No, alone went without saying.

  ‘Me too.’ He got to his feet, making his way over to the bar, and Caro grabbed her coat and followed him.

  ‘You can put that away.’ Gordo had seen Drew’s wallet in his hand.

  ‘What’s the matter, Gordo? Won the lottery?’ Drew raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’ll take your money next time you’re in here.’ Gordo propped his elbow on the beer pumps. ‘But no one would have expected you to go out today, Drew. Not so soon after the accident.’

  ‘You’ll take something from me?’ Caro had been feeling for her purse at the bottom of her bag and finally found it.

  Gordo laughed. ‘My Ellie doesn’t know when she’s beaten either. Off with you both, before I throw you out.’

  Drew chuckled, leaning over the bar to shake Gordo’s hand. Then he ushered Caro through the door and into his car.

  ‘That was nice of him.’ Ellie settled into her seat as Drew drove through the narrow lanes to his cottage.

  ‘He and Wyn are great. I used to hang out with Ellie at their place quite a bit when we were kids and my mum and dad were arguing.’

  ‘You and Ellie...you never thought about getting together?’

  Drew let out an explosive laugh. ‘What? No. Ellie and I practically grew up together, she’s the sister I never had. I think there were about ten minutes, when we were sixteen, when I realised that she might be pretty.’

  Caro raised her eyebrows. ‘What? Ellie’s gorgeous.’

  He shrugged. ‘She’s my friend. I tend not to notice things like that about her.’

  But he’d said that he found Caro beautiful. It was better not to think about that, particularly if she was spending the night at Drew’s place.

  ‘It must be nice. To have a friend like that.’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’ He stopped the car outside his cottage.
‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. Like I said, my parents moved around a lot, they still do. It’s tough enough to keep up with them, let alone anyone else.’

  ‘Apart from the robots.’

  Suddenly that didn’t seem enough. If she’d had somewhere like this to call home... Caro could see why Drew never wanted to leave.

  ‘I noticed something at the pub tonight.’ It was time for a change of subject.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘All of the people who stopped to talk to you... Not one asked you how you were.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t believe they did. Perhaps telling everyone exactly the same thing is starting to work.’

  ‘Or perhaps it’s just that you seem so much better. You’re hardly using your stick now and you move much more confidently.’

  ‘My leg still hurts from time to time, but I don’t feel as if it’s going to give way under me.’ He shrugged. ‘My physio told me that I’d get to the point where suddenly I started to forget all about it.’

  He broke off suddenly, gazing at her. Nothing that was ever said or done between them made Caro shiver quite so deliciously as the silences. And this silence told her that she’d helped him forget that he was a recovering invalid and remember who he really was.

  Drew had done that all by himself. She might have been there when he finally made that transition, but Caro couldn’t take any of the credit for it. All the same, the warmth of his gaze was compelling, and for a moment she couldn’t break free.

  Finally, Drew moved. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  His cottage was...just Drew all over. She could imagine him on winter evenings in the book-lined sitting room, sprawled on the comfortable sofa. Surrounded by the things he loved, stones and shells on the mantelpiece and in front of the rows of books memories dredged up from the sea. Photographs on the wall, of boats, divers and underwater scenes, and one of Drew with his arm around a dark-haired beauty on the beach. The large kitchen diner at the back would be full of light in the daytime, and now it was cosy and inviting. A place where serious cooking and a lot of informal entertaining might take place. At the back, the kitchen lights illuminated a small garden, which was a riot of different shrubs, probably all planted with an eye to giving shelter and nourishment to different species of birds and insects.

  He dumped her diving gear in the hall, and Caro followed him upstairs with the smaller bag that contained a change of clothes. The spare room doubled up as an office, with more books and a desk, and a pull-out sofa bed.

  ‘I’ll leave you to take a shower.’ He jerked his thumb towards a door that led out to the top half of the kitchen extension downstairs and must be the bathroom.

  ‘Thanks.’ Caro couldn’t suppress a yawn. She was rather hoping that Drew wouldn’t want to talk too much now, because all she wanted to do was sleep.

  ‘I’ll make the bed up for you now. Would you like a hot drink before you turn in?’

  ‘Um... Thank you. That would be lovely.’ She couldn’t stop herself from yawning again. A shower, a hot drink and then a comfortable bed sounded wonderful. Second only to curling up with Drew and falling asleep to the soft sound of his breathing, and neither of them were going to let that happen.

  ‘Go, before you fall asleep in the shower.’ He smiled, shooing her out of the room.

  The warm water on her shoulder made it throb, and when Caro inspected it in the mirror there was a red mark that looked as if it was going to form into a bruise. The dolphin hadn’t meant to attack her, she had just got in the way, and the damage was well worth the glimpse of the two dolphins circling the boats.

  When she returned to the bedroom, the overhead light was off and a lamp burned by the bedside, throwing soft shadows across the room. The sofa bed was made up, with a warm blanket the colour of a stormy sea draped over the duvet. There was a folded T-shirt with the logo of the diving centre on the back, and Caro smiled, reckoning that this was Drew’s way of telling her she’d earned her stripes as a diver. She towelled herself dry and slipped it over her head.

  There was a mug with a saucer perched on top of it by the bed, and on further inspection it contained hot chocolate. Drew clearly wasn’t expecting her to go back downstairs, and she slipped gratefully under the duvet. She’d only drunk half of the hot chocolate when drowsiness overtook her, and she snuggled down in the fresh-smelling sheets and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  It had been a while since Drew had cooked breakfast for more than one person. Sometimes it had just been him and Luna, and sometimes a whole gang of divers, who’d camped out in the spare bedroom and on the floor in the living room.

  He’d woken early and rather than lie in his bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing that Caro was curled up next to him, he’d got up and gone downstairs. When he heard the quiet sounds of her moving around, and the noise of the shower, he started to make breakfast.

  Twenty minutes later she appeared in the kitchen, her hair still damp and cascading down her back. Her eyes were bright, and she still had the last traces of a pillow crease in her cheek. Drew wondered if it was possible to kiss a pillow crease away and decided to view it only as evidence that she’d slept well.

  Breakfast in company was different from the way he remembered it. Not the bandying of jokes and the hurried gulping down of coffee and bacon sandwiches, but Caro’s warm eyes and a succession of questions and ideas, some of them completely crazy and a few that...if you just let go of your preconceptions they made every kind of sense. He forgot all about the insistent push to get out of the house and wanted to spend all day just talking to Caro, bathing in her unique and creative view of the world.

  ‘Why not?’ She shot him a laughing smile. Why not was the thing that marked Caro out from everyone else he’d ever known. She had a completely different set of boundaries from most people.

  ‘Because... I don’t know. I can’t imagine sea life sending distress signals to us when something bad happens.’

  ‘But what if they could? What if the dolphins are out there calling us right now? What if we just can’t hear them? Or we can hear and we simply don’t understand.’ She took a bite from the slice of toast she’d been waving in the air to illustrate her point.

  ‘What if that toast just shouted, Don’t eat me!’ He grinned at her.

  She held the slice to her ear. ‘Too late. I didn’t hear it. But seriously, warning systems, Drew, triggered by the very organisms at risk. I’m sure that there are loads of surveillance systems in place for endangered species, but what if we could make them better?’

  That was always Caro’s refrain as well. Refusing to accept that some things were too hard or couldn’t be made any better. She extended those principles to him, and her belief that he would heal had made him believe it too.

  ‘I’m just a working vet...’ Who didn’t have the vision or the ability to turn far-fetched ideas into reality.

  ‘Rubbish! You’re the one who gave me the ideas in the first place.’

  The thought that something he’d done had nudged Caro’s creative process into gear and focussed her capricious mind was endlessly gratifying. Drew was still trying to get his head around it when his phone beeped, and he opened the text his father had sent.

  ‘Dad says he’s getting ready to go now. Is forty minutes too soon to meet him down at the harbour?’

  Caro shook her head. ‘I’m fine with that, if you are. Or sooner...’

  There was still a lot more left to do. And Caro’s drive and energy added a new facet to the task ahead of them. He nodded, texting his father that they’d be there as soon as they’d finished their coffee.

  * * *

  More birds. Not as many as yesterday, but a greater proportion of them were dead or dying. But every time they pulled a living bird from the water, and Drew laid it carefully in a makeshift nest in one of the boxes, he saw Caro give a littl
e nod of pleasure.

  There were more boats, too. As the day wore on, resources from various environmental agencies arrived, and Drew made his decision.

  ‘I think we should go back in now. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day at the clinic, we’ll be starting to clean the birds that are strong enough. There’s not a lot more we can add here.’

  They made their way back to the veterinary centre to drop off the boxes of birds, and then returned to the harbour at Dolphin Cove. He and Jake shook hands, wordlessly acknowledging the efforts of the last two days, and Gramps came aboard, shooing Drew away when he offered to help tidy up on the boat.

  ‘I’ll take you home, then.’ Drew loaded his and Caro’s gear into the back of his car. She was beginning to look like a proper seafarer, clad in a thick sweater and oilskins and climbing off the boat without waiting for a helping hand. Gramps clearly considered this was all his doing and had exchanged a couple of jokes with her before he took up his usual stance, leaning against the helm and watching her go.

  ‘Thank you. I guess I should go now while the tide’s out.’ She quirked her lips down, and it occurred to Drew that she didn’t want to leave him, any more than he did her.

  They had plenty of time, and he drove as slowly as he could to Smugglers’ Top, without collecting a queue of other impatient drivers behind him. He parked on the rough ground that led down to the beach and opened the boot of the car.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand with your gear.’

  ‘That’s okay, I can manage. Although...’ She hesitated. Drew could wait. ‘Would you like to come up and have some lunch? You can catch the low tide again this afternoon.’

  ‘Thanks, that would be great. Mum’s reckoning on keeping Phoenix for a few days, so I don’t have to get back for her.’ Drew tried to sound casual about his reply.

  ‘Right, then.’ Caro gave him a delicious smile, picking up the larger and more cumbersome of the two bags and leaving the one that Drew could sling easily over his shoulder. ‘You take that one.’