Читать книгу Forbidden Nights With The Boss - Anna J. Stewart - Страница 10

JO WATCHED the patient being loaded into the ambulance, then turned and spoke to the young policeman who’d arrived, introducing him to Cam, who explained what he’d seen of the incident. While some of the onlookers who’d been closer to the scene gave their versions of what had happened and the shopkeeper began cleaning up the glass, Cam had set the moped upright, and was looking at it, obviously checking for damage.

‘I’ll handle that, mate,’ a voice said, and Jo turned to see that the man who hired out the little motor scooters had arrived with his ute, having heard of the accident on whatever grapevine was in operation this Sunday.

‘So, hospital?’ Cam asked, once again taking Jo’s arm, and although she knew full well it was only to guide her across the street—a street she’d crossed without guidance for a couple of decades—the stirrings in her body magnified and all she wanted to do was get away from him for a short time, give her body a good talking to and move on without all this physical disturbance before it drove her mad.

‘I guess so,’ she muttered, with so much reluctance Cam halted on the kerb to look at her.

‘You’ve changed your mind about visiting the hospital?’

Was her expression such a giveaway that he added a second question?

‘Or changed your mind about employing me?’

Cam watched the woman as he spoke. He was teasing her—well, he was almost certain he was teasing her. It was just that for a moment he thought he’d read regret in her expression.

But he hadn’t started work so surely she couldn’t be regretting hiring him already.

As if he could read the face of a woman he barely knew! Yes, he could guess at his sisters’ emotions, but he’d never really been able to tell what his ex-fiancée was thinking just from looking at her face.

‘Why would you think that!’ the woman he’d questioned demanded, stepping off the kerb so he was forced to move if he wanted to keep hold of her arm. ‘I was thinking of the kid—the diabetic. It’s one of the worries when the schoolies are here, that any kid who is a diabetic can drink too much, or play too hard, and not take in enough fluids. I haven’t had an instance here, but that lad made me think.’

That was a very obvious evasion, Cam guessed, but he didn’t say so. Whatever Jo had been thinking about was her business, not his, although he did hope she wasn’t regretting hiring him before he’d even started work.

And it was probably best not to consider that hope too closely—could it be more than the surf that made him want to stay on here?

It couldn’t be the woman—they’d barely met …

And it certainly wasn’t the accommodation!

Although thinking about waking in the rose bower did make him smile: waking up in the flat would certainly be a far cry from a desert camouflage tent.

But even as he smiled he wondered if he shouldn’t leave right now, before he got as entangled as the roses in the bower. It wouldn’t be fair to any woman to be lumbered with him the way his mind was—the nightmares, the flashbacks, the doubts that racked him.

Jo beeped the car unlocked, then looked at Cam in vague surprise as opened her door and held it.

‘Not used to gentlemen in Crystal Cove?’ he asked, discovering that teasing her was fun, particularly as a delicate rose colour seeped into her cheeks when he did it.

Jo refused to answer him. Okay, so he was a tease. She could handle that. She just had to get used to it and to take everything he said with the proverbial grain of salt. And she had to learn not to react.

Not to react to anything to do with the man.

Already she was regretting suggesting she show him around.

She pulled into the hospital car park, enjoying, as she always did, the old building with its wide, sheltered verandas and its view over the beach and the water beyond.

Today must have been ‘putting up the decorations’ day for the veranda railing was garlanded with greenery while red and green wreaths hung in all the windows.

‘Great hospital!’ Cam said.

‘It’s a triumph of local support over bureaucracy,’ she told him. ‘The government wanted to close it some years ago and the local people fought to keep it. We’ve even got a maternity ward, if you can call one birthing suite and a couple of other rooms a ward. It’s so good for the local women to be able to have their babies here, and although we don’t have a specialist obstetrician we’ve got a wonderful head midwife, and Tom’s passionate about his obstetrics work.’

‘I vaguely remember him being keen on it during our training,’ Cam said, while Jo hurried out of the car before he could open her door and stand near her again.

She really needed to get away—needed some time and space to sort out all the strange stirrings going on in her body, not to mention the fact that her mind kept enjoying conversations with her new employee. It was almost as if it had been starved of stimulation and was now being refreshed.

Impossible.

Was she away with the fairies that she was even thinking this way?

She was saved from further mental muddle by Tom, who was not only at the hospital, checking on the moped driver, but was delighted to meet up with a friend from bygone times.

‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than hang around listening to us play “Remember this”,’ Tom told Jo. ‘How about you leave Cam here and I’ll drop him back up at your place later?’

Jo’s relief was out of all proportion to the offer Tom had made, but she hoped she hid it as she checked that this was okay with her new tenant and made her escape.

He was just a man—Cam, not Tom, although Tom was also a man, though not a man she thought of as a man.

This particular dither was so ridiculous it told her just how far out of control her mind had become. She drove home, made herself a cup of tea—very soothing, tea—and sat on the deck to try to sort out what was happening to her.

Was it because it was a long time since she’d been in a relationship that her new employee was causing her problems?

Three years, that’s how long it had been.

There’d been the odd date in that time—very odd, some of them—but nothing serious. Nothing serious since Harry had declared that no power on earth would persuade him to live in a one-horse, seaside town for the rest of his life, and if she wanted to leave Sydney and go back home, that was fine by him.

He’d been so underwhelmed by her departure from their relationship she’d wondered if he’d already had a replacement woman lined up.

Not that she’d wondered for long. So much had happened after she’d returned home. Jill’s death within a few months, for a start. Jo had been devastated. Fortunately she’d had the distraction of helping Lauren set up the refuge, then her father had fallen in love, then she’d taken over the practice. More recently, she’d started worrying about the refuge closing. A new relationship had been the last thing on her mind.

Not that the town was teeming with men with whom she could have had a relationship if she’d wanted one, and relationships in small towns—well, they had their own set of problems.

She was aware enough to know that the refuge, building it up and working for it, had helped her through the worst of the pain of Jill’s death. Perhaps now that there was a possibility of it closing, was she subconsciously looking for a new diversion?

A six-foot-three, broad-chested, blue eyed diversion?

She didn’t think so.

Besides, the refuge wasn’t going to close, not while she had breath in her body to fight it.

And if she was fighting, then she wouldn’t—shouldn’t—have the time or energy to consider her new tenant, not his chest, or his eyes, or anything else about him …

‘Who are those people who arrange marriages in some countries? Wedding planners? Marriage consultants?’

It was a strange conversation to be having with someone she barely knew, but Jo was glad the man—the one with the eyes and chest she was going to ignore, however hard that might be—had brought up a topic of conversation for, when she’d met him in the lunch-room after morning surgery, she’d wondered what on earth they could talk about.

They could talk about patients, of course, but lunchtime was supposed to be a break and unless something was urgent—

She frowned at the man, well, not at him but at not knowing the answer.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, ‘although I do know the kind of people you mean. An old-fashioned form of internet dating, I suppose. I think the family went to the woman and she organised the—matchmakers, that’s what they were called. Or are called if they still exist.’

She was intrigued enough by now to actually look at the man who was sitting across the table from her. His face was freshly shaven so quirky lips and pale blue eyes were clearly visible, and his hair, though still long, was shiny clean—brown streaked with gold.

He was more handsome even than his photo, which had made him look formal and a little stern, while this man would have every woman in town booking in for appointments.

Best to stop considering his looks and get back to the conversation.

‘Why do you ask?’

He grinned at her, making her forget her decision to stop considering looks just long enough to add super-smile to the catalogue of his appeal.

It also caused just a little tremor in her stomach.

Well, maybe more than a little tremor, but it was still small enough to ignore.

‘Just that every patient I’ve seen this morning, the men included, would find it a perfect career choice. Some were more subtle than others, but before I’d written a script, every one of them knew my marital status—single—my career prospects—doubtful at present, although most assured me you’d keep me on—and had asked what I thought about my boss. Didn’t I think she was a wonderful woman? I’ve also been told that you’re a good cook, one woman seemed to think you could sew, while several others assured me you were a good financial prospect as you owned the surgery and the house and also had investment properties in the city.’

‘Sew?’

Cam smiled again as the word burst from his boss’s lips.

‘Why the hell would anyone be telling you I can sew? Why would I want to sew? Why would you be interested? You’ve been in the army. I’m sure you’re much better at sewing than I am, given the number of buttons you must have had on your uniforms, or are doctors the kind of officers who have people who sew on their buttons?’

Knowing all three of his sisters would have reacted with the same horror, Cam continued to smile.

‘I think that particular patient thought it was a nice womanly trait to point out to me, and, no, no button sewers in my army life.’

‘You’re enjoying this!’

The accusation was accompanied by a fairly good glare, well up on the glare scale he’d set up in his head many years ago. She looked good glaring, too, fiery colour in her cheeks, her eyes seeming greener, a bit like an angry elf.

‘Of course,’ he said smoothly, teasing her because it was fun. ‘Though I do wonder what it is about you that makes everyone think you’re incapable of finding yourself a man and that you need help from the whole town to sort out your life.’

A very angry elf!

‘Bloody town!’ she muttered. ‘Honestly, they never let up. I shouldn’t have employed you—I knew that right from the start—now we’re going to have to put up with every patient casting sideways glances at us, or, as you’ve found this morning, asking straight out. If I’d had an ounce of sense I’d have come home from Sydney as a widow.’

‘Having killed off your husband and got away with it?’

Only with difficulty was Cam holding in a laugh.

‘There’s no reason I couldn’t have killed off some mythical husband while I was training in Sydney. Not murdered the poor man, but I could have had him die a painful, lingering death, leaving me grieving for ever. That way they’d have accepted I wasn’t interested in a relationship. But coming up here single? Big mistake! I’ve had patients trailing their sons and nephews and even grandsons through the door—here’s Edward in from the farm to meet you, he’s got one hundred and forty breeding sows and good teeth. The place is impossible.’

Cam had to smile, but just to tease her further he did the maths.

‘One hundred and forty breeding sows? What? A couple of litters a year? Twelve to fifteen a litter? Edward would have been a good catch!’

‘Edward was not the slightest bit interested in me once he realised I haven’t a clue about pork, ham and bacon, and have never known which bit comes from where. What’s more, he’s happily engaged to a woman who works in the piggery for him, who understands percentage body fat and other things important to pigs.’

Jo hoped she’d spoken coolly enough to put a stop to this absurd conversation, but inside her there was a little glow at the simple pleasure of having someone to talk to, to joke with, while she took a break. Not that she didn’t talk and joke to the other staff, two nurses and the receptionist, but talking to Cam was different somehow.

Because he was a man?

Hell’s teeth, she did hope not! Her mind went into panic mode at the thought. She didn’t know if she was ready for a relationship with a man—well, she was, her body was—but was she ready for the fallout when he moved on? For the talk around the town, for the pain if she was foolish enough to fall in love with him?

Her body’s reaction to him could be explained. That was definitely because he was a man, and possibly because her body had been pure and chaste for so darned long she could barely remember what attraction was like.

Until now.

Though surely it hadn’t always been this strong—this immediate …

And how could she be thinking of a relationship when the man had shown not the slightest interest in her as anything other than his boss?

‘Mrs Youngman.’

He was looking at her, obviously awaiting a response, his eyes looking grey-blue today—the charcoal shirt?

‘I’m sorry, miles away,’ she muttered, feeling heat rise in her cheeks when she realised just where her thoughts had been. ‘You were saying?’

‘Mrs Youngman was one of my first patients. The note on the front of her file said, “Query IVF.” She’s fifty-two. Has she talked to you about this?’

The question brought Jo’s focus back to work immediately.

‘Helene Youngman? That’s who you’re talking about?’

Cam nodded, which didn’t help at all.

‘Query IVF? Who wrote that?’

Now he shrugged, the impossibly wide shoulders lifting the neat charcoal shirt, moving the material so she saw the V of tanned chest beneath the unbuttoned collar. Nope, her mind might be focussed but her body was still hanging in on the attraction stuff, stirring deep down.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he replied. ‘I thought maybe you had at her last appointment, or perhaps the receptionist when Mrs Youngman phoned for an appointment.’

‘Helene Youngman!’ Jo repeated, trying to come to terms with the town’s mayor making enquiries about IVF. She had grown-up children and she was a widow. Hauling her mind back to work, Jo added, ‘She must have asked to see you, to see the new doctor—everyone in town would have known you were here within hours—because she didn’t want to talk to me about it, which is a bit of a downer for me as we’re quite friendly. Not that it matters who she talks to, of course, but what did you tell her?’

‘Only what I knew—specialist clinics in the capital cities, maybe in large regional cities—best to see a gynaecologist first and get checked out before spending too much money. I want to check out information about available programmes so I know for the future, but didn’t want to ask one of the nurses because she, Mrs Youngman, gave the impression she was embarrassed enough asking about it, although she must have mentioned it to someone because of the note. I said I’d see what I could find out for her and post it.’

‘Embarrassed? Poor thing, that’s exactly what she would be. Actually, it’s hard to believe she came here to enquire, rather than drive down the coast to Port, but she’s a busy woman. She’s our local mayor and runs two hairdressing salons as well. Although if she goes through with it—and good luck to her if she does—speaking to a doctor about it is going to be the easy part. Facing the local population as it becomes obvious, that’s what will be hard for her. We’ll need to make sure she gets plenty of support.’

He liked the ‘we’, as if she’d already accepted him as a colleague, but watching her Cam could practically see Jo’s mind working as she tried to puzzle out the request so when she added, ‘I didn’t even know she was seeing someone, let alone involved enough to want a child with him,’ he wasn’t surprised to see a blush rise in her cheeks.

She pressed her hands against them.

‘What a small-minded thing to say—why should I know? That’s just what I was talking about earlier. Small-town mentality, you see. We all think we know everything that’s going on all the time, and if we don’t we’re surprised, even a little put out. That’s terrible, isn’t it?’

The clear green eyes, like the shallow water at the edge of the ocean when the surf was flat, met his with a plea for—understanding? Absolution?

The first he could give.

‘It’s natural enough, and part of the charm of small towns.’ The colour was fading from her cheeks so he went for the second as well. ‘And I didn’t find it small-minded. To me you simply sounded caring.’

She smiled at him and it was as if the sun had hit the placid green water, sparking golden lights in it.

Golden lights on placid waters? Was his success in getting a job here—even if it was only temporary—turning him fanciful? Had waking up to that spectacular view then the chance for an hour in the surf before breakfast and work altered the chemistry in his brain?

He brought his mind back to work.

‘So, what do you know of it? Do you keep information? Is there a specialist clinic in Port Macquarie or would she have to go to Sydney?’

The eyes she fixed on him were serious now, intent, and a little frown was tugging at her eyebrows.

‘I’ve read something recently about some IVF clinics restricting treatment to women over, I think, forty-three. It can’t be a totally random age choice but apparently the odds of conception in women older than that are so low they only allow one try.’

‘Is that fair?’ Cam asked. ‘Given the range of ages at which women can reach menopause depending on genetic and other issues, might not a fit fifty-two-year-old woman be as good a recipient of treatment as a younger woman with less healthy reproductive organs?’

Jo smiled at him.

‘You’d be wasted surfing along the coast and not working,’ she said. ‘You’re obviously an empathetic doctor and, yes, you’re right, it seems strange to pick an age, but funding—it always comes back to money. Check out what you can on the net, ask one of the nurses to dig out the information we have—they won’t talk—and we’ll take it from there.’

He liked the ‘we’ part, again, which was foolish given it was his first day at work and the job was temporary. And he’d have liked to talk some more—not necessarily about IVF—but his boss was on her feet, small, neat feet clad in sandals, her toenails painted the palest pink with what looked like little faces or maybe flowers stuck on them.

And since when had he noticed feet? Could he blame the army and its predilection for shiny boots?

Or could he put that down to the view and early morning surf as well?

‘Patients await,’ she added as she bustled through the door, although it seemed to him she was escaping something rather than hurrying towards something.

Escaping him?

Was it the small compliment he’d paid her—calling her caring was hardly world-shattering, Jo wondered as she fled the lunchroom. Or was it the attraction that was getting harder to ignore whenever she was near him?

He was just a man.

Okay, he was a tall and handsome man with a chest a gorilla would have been proud of, but physical attributes had never been that important to her in a man. Men she’d loved, well, nearly loved, or thought she’d loved at one time or another hadn’t been exactly weedy, but given that she was hardly red-carpet material herself, she’d never expected too much in the way of looks in a man. She’d found attraction in common interests, shared jokes and a sense of being at ease with the person.

And, for some unknown reason, she had been at ease almost from the start with Fraser Cameron, even when she’d thought he might be coming to rob the surgery.

She had to get her head straight.

Think about Helene! She was healthy—kept herself fit running and swimming—in fact, Jo often ran with her on the beach in the early mornings.

And she wanted a baby?

A totally unfamiliar sensation coiled in Jo’s belly.

No! No way was she going to get clucky now! She never got clucky. She handled babies every day of the week and heard not even the faintest tick of the fabled clock.

Because she’d never fancied anyone enough to get involved, enough to consider having children with him?

Even Harry?

That was a scary thought because it prompted the question why now, and she didn’t want to consider the answer in case it had something to do with blue eyes and a quirky smile and soft brown hair with gold highlights …

It took some effort, but she turned her mind back to work matters.

She collected the pile of files for her afternoon appointments and headed into her room, promising herself she’d do some research into IVF for older women on the internet later. It would keep her busy after dinner which was good because the previous night, imagining Cam in the flat next door, had been so uncomfortable she’d ended up going back to the beach and running until she was exhausted enough to go home and sleep.

Maybe a bit of IVF research would be good …

And the squirmy feeling in her stomach was probably indigestion.

Fate dictated that her first three patients of the afternoon were babies. Two were in for injections, which one of the nurses would give, and six-month-old Kaylin, a gurgling bundle of delight had decided she didn’t need to sleep.

Ever!

‘She’s okay now because she’s been in the car and she always sleeps in the car,’ Kaylin’s mother, Amy Bennett, explained. ‘But we can’t drive around all night so she gets some sleep because it means we don’t get any. We’re getting desperate, Jo, and Todd gets so cranky when he doesn’t get his sleep and I know I’ll lose my milk if things don’t settle down. With the dairy we can’t avoid the milking every morning and with a hundred milkers Todd needs my help. In the beginning Kaylin was good, she’d just sleep in the capsule down at the dairy while we worked, but that only lasted about a month. Remember I came in to talk to you before … ‘

Amy’s voice trailed away.

Jo thought about it as she dug through files in the cabinet behind her for information on the sleep programme offered from time to time at the local hospital in conjunction with various government departments.

Any number of babies had problems developing regular sleep patterns, but Kaylin had so far defied all the tried and trusted methods of training babies to sleep and not only was Amy looking stressed and worn out, but the baby, too, was suffering.

Think laterally! Jo reminded herself of her father’s words. Running a successful practice in a small coastal town meant understanding the dynamics of her patients’ lives. A pregnant woman with complications might refuse to go to the more specialised hospital in the nearest regional city unless someone—usually the family doctor—organised someone to look after her older children.

She’d learnt this from her father even before she studied medicine, hearing him discuss options for patients’ welfare that went beyond straight doctoring.

So as far as sorting things out for Amy went, Kaylin’s sleeping pattern was only part of the problem.

‘I can arrange for you to stay at the hospital while the expert works with you and Kaylin,’ Jo explained as Amy leafed through the information, ‘but it means Todd will have to get someone in to give him a hand with the milking. You’ve still got that old house on the property, haven’t you? The one you’ve rented out from time to time?’

Amy nodded.

‘Then maybe you could offer it rent free to someone in exchange for help with the milking. That will give you more time to spend with Kaylin. Now she’s getting too big for the capsule, you’d have to find an alternative way to keep her safe while you’re helping Todd, in any case.’

Amy looked doubtful.

‘You know we did it once before,’ she murmured. ‘I think it was your dad, just before he left, that arranged for the Scott family to have the house.’

‘Oh, dear, not so good a suggestion, then,’ Jo replied, remembering the complicated plan she and Lauren had cooked up to get Mrs Scott and the two little Scotts out of the house and into the recently opened refuge when the man Todd Bennett had employed had turned out to be an abusive husband.

Jo shuddered at the memory, thinking of the volunteer who’d driven the wife and children to safety and who had later been targeted by Bob Scott. The volunteer’s house had been peppered with eggs and tomatoes.

‘But then again, it’s hardly likely you’d get another couple like the Scotts.’

Amy shrugged.

‘You just don’t know, do you?’ she said, but after Jo had checked out both her and Kaylin, Amy agreed she’d talk to Todd about it and let Jo know if she wanted to stay in the hospital for the sleep programme.

‘Do you know where Mrs Scott and the kids went?’ she asked as Jo was walking with her back to the reception area.

‘Back to Mr Scott,’ Jo told her, remembering how wary she’d been when the woman had made that decision. ‘Mr Scott completed a programme they were running in Port to help men like him and I think he joined a support group, so hopefully it all worked out.’

Amy waved goodbye and Jo turned to go back to her room to check who was next. She ran smack bang into a broad chest.

‘Men like him?’ the owner of the chest repeated. ‘Abusive?’

Jo nodded, her mind still full of the uneasiness that thinking about the Scotts had caused.

‘And the man went to Port? There’s a refuge but no programme for men here?’

Jo had backed away from him, and now his persistence forced her to look up into his face.

‘The Scotts were gone two years ago, why the interest?’

Cam beamed at her, his smile so warm she felt it radiate against her skin.

And set alarm bells clanging in her head!

‘It’s something I can do,’ he announced, still beaming with delight at whatever he was thinking. ‘Something I can set up. If not a regular programme at least a support-slash-discussion group.’

It was an excellent idea, and something she and Lauren had often discussed, but why was Cam being so helpful?

So he’d have to stay on?

‘You’re only here for a couple of months,’ she reminded him.

‘On trial for a couple of months.’ His retort was so swift she knew he’d followed her thoughts. ‘Anyway, if it doesn’t work out here at the clinic, I could always stay on in town and surf for a few more months, maybe pick up some shifts at the hospital. Tom said yesterday that they could probably get funding for a part-time doctor, and after the holidays I can live in my van in the caravan park so I wouldn’t be bothering you.’

Bothering her?

Had he guessed how she was reacting to him? Well, not her so much but her body …

Whether it was his proximity—the hall was getting narrower by the minute—or the thought of Cam being around for longer than was absolutely necessary, Jo didn’t know. All she knew was that she feeling extremely flustered and she did know she didn’t do flustered.

Ever.

‘We’ve both got patients to see,’ she reminded Cam, and stomped away, even more put out because the soft-soled sandals she wore didn’t make satisfactory stomping noises.

Hmm.

Cam watched her go.

Had he flustered her?

Jo Harris didn’t strike him as a woman who flustered easily.

And why was he thinking about her—in particular, why was he thinking about her as a woman? He may not have PTSD, but he certainly wasn’t in any state to be getting involved with a woman. He couldn’t blame Penny for cutting him out of her life, knowing the man who’d returned to her hadn’t been the man she’d loved, but if she couldn’t love the new him, who would?

Remote, she’d called him. Remote, detached, and morose.

He hadn’t liked the morose with its undertones of brooding, but the remote bit had really got to him. It was a word that sounded unpleasant. It could never be used to describe Jo. He’d seen her angry, and snappish, and competently assured as she’d knelt by the injured moped driver. He’d even seen the shadows of sadness in her face, but she was always involved—ready with an opinion, seeking new ideas.

Remote suggested a detachment from the world, and for sure it was one of the symptoms of PTSD that he had been able to tick. On leaving the army, he’d felt as if the world he’d returned to was a parallel universe and he was rudderless in it. He’d been on the outside, looking in, aware that none of the people around him could, in their wildest dreams, have imagined what he’d seen and been through.

The strange thing was that he didn’t feel that way now. Maybe it was the surf at Crystal Cove clearing his head, but the idea of starting a support group had stirred something akin to excitement in him, and he was looking forward to doing some research on IVF treatments for older women.

Looking forward to helping people?

Getting involved?

He wasn’t sure what had caused the change, but though he might be on the right track he suspected he had a lot more healing to do before he could think in terms of a relationship with a woman.

Although Jo obviously had her own baggage—her sister’s death, for a start.

Could two wounded souls somehow help each other heal?

He remembered how her eyes had looked—clear green pools—and his body stirred in a way that was totally inappropriate as a reaction to one’s boss, however temporary his employment might be …