Читать книгу Forbidden Nights With The Boss - Anna J. Stewart - Страница 14

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 last 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.

‘And you gave up your dream? Because you felt guilty?’

The question shocked Jo so much that at first it didn’t make sense, then she realised the track his thoughts had taken.

‘But I didn’t give up my dream—not in a, well, now-I-can’t-be-a-pro-surfer kind of way. All I wanted to do was be with her—there was no time for surfing,’ she told him. ‘Then, because she was so badly injured, because she spent so long in hospitals and rehab centres, and I spent so much time with her, studying medicine seemed a natural thing to do.’

She stared out to sea, replaying her answer in her head then adding, ‘I think,’ in such a worried, pathetic voice that Cam couldn’t help himself.

He reached out and put his arm around her shoulders, shifting so when he drew her closer her head could rest against his chest.

‘Sometimes stuff we have shoved into the deep recesses of our minds needs dredging out,’ he said quietly, and felt her head nod against his body. Then his other arm snaked around her, and he held her close, dropping a kiss onto the wet red snarls of hair on the top of her head.

‘Salty,’ he mused then he sniffed, ‘and you smell like the sea. It’s a good smell, healthy, you should get your hair ocean wet again before too long.’

He was talking to calm her, to reassure her. There was nothing beyond comfort in the hug he was giving her, and if his body didn’t agree with that, then too bad.

The warmth of his body crept into Jo’s cold one, right into the frozen places that even hot summer weather had failed to warm since Jilly’s death. The inner warmth whispered danger, but it whispered—no, shouted—other things as well. Things like desire …

Far harder to handle, desire, than lust. Lust could be put down as a base animal instinct but desire—well, surely that was about softer feelings.

She pushed away from the warmth, and her thoughts.

‘Thanks for the hug,’ she said, in as matter-of-fact voice as she could summon up. ‘I needed it. I didn’t realise just how much emotion would come dredging up—to use your words—on the back of one wave. But that’s twice I’ve dredged stuff up to you—now it’s your turn.’

He looked startled, but she wasn’t relenting.

‘Is it just your memories from the army or more than that you’re escaping?’

‘Escaping?’ he echoed, and she had to laugh.

‘Of course you’re escaping—surfing your way along the coast. Not that it isn’t a good way to escape, but can you do it for ever?’

Cam stared at her.

Okay, he was attracted to her, and there was an element of danger in that attraction, but this—this questioning, that was different, disturbing.

‘Probably not,’ he admitted, and she laughed again.

‘That’s not nearly enough,’ she insisted, touching him on the arm, something she had done before—something he enjoyed her doing. ‘I can understand there are probably things you can’t talk about—things people who haven’t experienced being a doctor in a war zone could never imagine—but you must have known you’d come out of the army one day and had maybe not a dream but an idea of what you wanted to do. Just as Jilly’s death changed my career path, was it just the army experience that changed yours?’

It isn’t her business, one part of him insisted.

She’s impertinent for asking, it added.

But deep inside a longing to share just a little of his turmoil was growing stronger and stronger, and as he looked into her eyes and saw the depth of compassion and understanding there, he knew that this was a woman he could tell.

‘I came home remote, detached, even morose—or so my ex-fiancée told me. The psychologist I saw—they run us all past one of them from time to time—dismissed PTSD but pointed out I was pretty close to suffering it, with flashbacks and nightmares. He suggested drugs but surfing is my drug of choice, hence the coastal odyssey.’

He blurted out the words then heard their echo in his head and realised how ridiculous they sounded.

He shouldn’t have mentioned the morose part!

How pathetic.

Heaven help him.

‘I’d have been way beyond morose.’

How had she picked up on the one thing he regretted? he thought, then tuned back in to what Jo was saying.

‘Though I can’t imagine anyone the description fits less than you. As for remote and detached—well, sometimes those are places we all need to be at times.’ She squeezed his arm with her slender fingers, sending an electric arc of desire fizzing through his body.

Talk about inappropriate.

He covered her hand with his, hoping, really, to stop the reaction, but touching her while she was touching him seemed to make it worse—far worse.

‘And what about this ex-fiancée? Did she dump you because you were remote?’

The zinging in his body was so extreme it took him a moment to compute Jo’s words and when he did, and heard the sympathy behind the question, he had to smile.

‘Not really,’ he told Jo. ‘It was more a mutual thing. We’d grown apart even before I went away. Our lives diverged.’

He was about to add that it wasn’t a broken heart he was escaping but the gentle tightening of her hand on his arm was so pleasurable he decided to accept a little extra sympathy.

Pathetic, that’s what he was …

‘Perhaps we should go home,’ he finally managed, then immediately regretted it when her hand slid from beneath his and she started the car.

Squinting against the setting sun, Jo turned the car for home, her heart thudding in her chest as she considered how easy it would be to fall if not in love with this man then certainly into bed with him.

No, surely the surge of sympathy she’d felt when he’d mentioned his ex-fiancée was more than lust?

Attraction, would that do?

She should be asking more about the ex-fiancée—or maybe not. Maybe he’d said all he intended saying …

The silence stretched while her mind tossed questions back and forth—how bad had it been in the army? Was the engagement over or did the ex still love the morose man? Cam morose? Not that she, Jo, had seen.

‘Have you been on your own since your father left? No wild affairs, no men passing through your life, no blighted romance?’

Jo found the questions so unexpected—and hadn’t it been her turn to be probing?—that she had to stop the car again.

‘And you’re asking because?’ she asked, while just a little twinge of hope twittered in her heart.

He raised his eyebrows as if her demand had surprised him. Then he smiled and she wished she’d just kept driving.

‘I just wondered,’ he said, oh, so gently, ‘whether you might have been punishing yourself for your sister’s accident for way too long—not surfing, which you obviously love—and maybe standing back from any kind of close relationship because she can’t have one.’

‘I suppose I asked for that,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘telling the story of my life to a psychologist.’

She shifted so she was leaning back against the door, almost out of touching distance—not wanting to touch, although it was so tempting.

Concentrate on the conversation, she told herself. Maybe get him talking.

She didn’t want to consider why that seemed important right now, so she didn’t.

‘Do you do it to yourself?’ she asked instead. ‘Discuss the pros and cons of your surfing escape inside your head? Is it easier to understand grief and loss and horror if you can rationalise it through stuff you’ve learned from books?’

He smiled again and she knew she shouldn’t have stopped the car—should have driven straight home and escaped into the house. The problem was, the more she was with this man, the more she wanted to know of him—and be with him.

But for all he made noises about maybe staying longer in Crystal Cove, she knew he’d eventually move on.

‘I’m not sure it works, doing it to yourself—well, it hasn’t so far for me, although every day things look a little brighter and going on gets a little easier,’ he said. And this time it was he who touched—reaching out to rest his hand on her arm as she had rested hers on his.

The brush of his fingers on her skin zapped her nerve endings to life and she found herself shivering—not with cold but with a weird mix of excitement and delight.

She definitely shouldn’t have stopped the car.

And, no, she wasn’t going to cover his hand with hers, as he’d done earlier. Definitely not, although her hand was moving in that direction.

The jangling tones of her mobile stopped the strangeness going on in the car right then and there. She answered it, and listened, her heart sinking in her chest.

‘Do you want us to come over?’ she asked.

‘It’s Jackie’s choice,’ Lauren told her.

Jo closed the phone, not even bothering with a goodbye, then bumped her forehead gently on the steering-wheel as frustration threatened to overwhelm her.

‘Jackie going back to Richard?’ Cam asked, his voice deep with concern and understanding.

‘Apparently he came to see her when the boys were out with us. He took her for a drive so they could talk. He’s just collected all three of them.’

‘Surely she’ll be safe for a while,’ Cam said, and Jo shrugged.

‘It’s so hard to predict. Yes, I’d say in most cases where a woman goes back, the man does try to control his temper for a while, and in Jackie’s case the abuse was more emotional than physical, but Richard’s such an unknown quantity, and though Jackie is an intelligent woman, she’s lived under his domination for so long now, I wonder if she’ll ever be able to break free.’

‘Are you his doctor?’

Jo looked at Cam, wondering where this was going.

‘Richard’s? No way. He’s one of those men who’d drive three hours down the road rather than trust a woman doctor. He used to see Dad but, then, young men like him rarely see a doctor anyway. He was good at all sports so any injuries he had were mostly sport related. He might see Tom at the hospital now, if he has a strain or sprain.’

She hesitated, wondering why Cam had asked, trying to fathom his thinking.

‘Why?’ she finally asked.

‘I was thinking if he did use the clinic, you could have switched him to me. I couldn’t have brought up the subject of abuse, not in any way, but he might be harbouring a grudge against you.’

Jo smiled.

‘That’s a lovely offer, but I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.’

He shook his head.

‘Not so big,’ he said, ‘and you of all people should know that no one could handle an angry man with a cricket bat.’

The thought of Jackie returning to that situation filled Jo with fear, although the bat, as far as she knew, had been no more than a threat.

‘Best we get home,’ she said, sliding the vehicle back into gear.

Richard Trent came at ten. Cam couldn’t say for certain he’d known the man would come, but his gut feeling—and his knowledge of men from his time in the army—had made him ultra-cautious, so he was sitting not on his deck but in the darkened living room of the flat, music playing softly as he explored the world of programmes for abusive men on his laptop. The backlight of the screen was sufficient for him to read the information offered by the internet.

The vehicle pulled up, a dual-cab, four-wheel-drive ute, a muscle car. At first Cam thought it might be Mike, maybe returning for a private visit to Jo, but as the man came into range of the sensor lights, Cam realised he didn’t know him.

Neither did he know Richard Trent, and Jo hadn’t answered about having men—or even a man—in her life, so it could be perfectly innocent, but Cam was already out the door, mooching towards his van, the bundle of clean beach towels he’d prepared earlier tucked under his arm.

‘Hi!’ he said, all innocence. ‘Visiting Jo, are you? I’m Fraser Cameron, her new tenant in the flat. Working for her over the holidays.’

The stranger, his face pink but his lips thinned to a white line of anger, stopped about a yard in front of Cam, glaring at him.

‘So you’re the bastard, are you? Call you Cam, don’t they? Cam this, Cam that, my boys haven’t stopped, but let me tell you this, Fraser Cameron, my name is Richard Trent and you stay away from my kids. If they want to learn to surf, I’ll teach them, understand?’

Cam held out his free hand in a ‘hey, man’ gesture, then actually used the words.

‘Hey, man, no worries. It was just that Jo found the old boards in her storeroom and, knowing the boys, she thought they might like to try them.’

‘Well, they don’t and they won’t and you can tell that to Dr Harris as well. She, of all people, should know how dangerous it is to surf, seeing what it did to her sister.’

It flicked through Cam’s mind that Jo had been right—it had taken all of two days for someone to tell him about her sister.

‘And tell her to stay away from my wife while you’re at it. My family is none of her business, understand?’

Cam nodded, but his mind was whirring. Richard Trent was wound so tightly he was going to unravel totally before too long. Cam had seen it in young soldiers, particularly among those handling new responsibilities, and he knew it was impossible to predict just how the unravelling would happen. It could be an explosive burst, or a crumble into desperation that could often precipitate worse results than the explosion.

Could he help Richard Trent unwind in some way? Offer something to help the man relax? The fact that Richard hadn’t walked away when he’d finished his warning suggested he might be looking for help, if only subconsciously.

‘Have you surfed yourself?’ Cam asked.

‘Everyone in the Cove surfs,’ the man growled, edging towards his ute. ‘I know the boys’ll want to do it some time, but they’re better off concentrating on their cricket right now.’

‘It’s years since I played cricket,’ Cam told him, hoping to keep a conversation going long enough for Richard to calm down before he got back behind the wheel of his vehicle. ‘Though I did quite well at it when I was at school. Is there a local club? I’m probably not staying on at the Cove—two months’ trial run over the holidays—but if I stayed I’d be interested.’

In a game that would keep me out of the surf all summer? Cam’s head protested, but he could feel a little of the tension easing out of Richard.

‘We’re always looking for new members and we’ve an indoor cricket comp as well.’

He turned to Cam now, leaning against his ute, ready to talk a little more, Cam suspected, but rubbing at his left shoulder at the same time.

‘You a leftie?’ Cam asked. ‘A bowler?’

Richard frowned but his voice as he asked, ‘How’d you guess?’ was less tight.

‘Looks like you’ve got a bit of tendonitis. We’ve got an ultrasound machine down at the clinic that sometimes helps, and if you wanted to come in some time, I could use it on that shoulder and maybe do a bit of joint manipulation.’

Cam held his breath. He could feel Richard’s suspicion coming in waves off his body, yet his shoulder must be very sore for it to be distracting him in this situation.

Was the injury exacerbating the home situation?

Was he in so much pain he was taking it out on Jackie?’

Wishing he had more practical experience at dealing with domestic violence situations, Cam remained silent, then was delighted when Richard said, a little grudgingly, ‘Could I get an appointment tomorrow?’

‘Of course—in fact, if it suits you to come in early, we could make it eight-thirty. I don’t officially start until nine, so I could spend some time with you.’

Richard nodded as if agreeing, but through sheer bad luck Jo emerged from the house, a bag of rubbish in her hand, apparently heading for the bin but probably carrying it as an excuse as he, Cam, had carried the towels.

‘You!’ Richard yelled at her, swinging towards Jo, his hands forming fists, although they hung on arms held rigidly to his sides.

‘Keep away from my wife and my kids!’

He flung himself into his car.

‘I almost wish he’d slammed the car door,’ Cam said as the ute backed out into the street and Richard drove away. ‘If he could let a little of his tension out in normal ways like slamming a door, I wouldn’t be so concerned, but his control is so strong it’s killing him.’

‘Better him than Jackie and the kids,’ Jo murmured, then, ashamed she’d even thought that way, let alone said it, she retracted it. ‘No, please let’s not have anyone dying.’

She looked at Cam, wondering why he was clutching beach towels against his chest.

‘Did you bump into him by accident?’

‘Not entirely,’ Cam told her with a slow smile. ‘Hence the beach towels—I wanted an excuse to come out to the van and now I’m here I’d better put them in. They won’t work a second time.’

‘He won’t come back, surely,’ Jo said, but she was still puzzled by whatever had been going on in the carport. ‘Did you expect him to come?’

‘I thought it was a fifty-fifty chance. Helping his wife get away was one thing, but taking his boys to the surf—that was really undermining his control of his family.’

Jo found herself sighing, something she seemed to be doing far too often these days.

‘Did he mention it?’

Cam had slid open the campervan door and was putting the towels in a small cupboard under the back seat.

‘Told me if they wanted to surf he’d teach them, and suggested I pass the message on to you.’

‘But he was here a while, I heard the voices,’ Jo said. ‘Longer than delivering a message would have taken. That’s why I came out. I thought it might be someone who was lost and you were having trouble with directions.’

‘I tried to talk to him,’ Cam admitted. ‘Actually, he’s got a bad shoulder and I’d just suggested he come in first thing in the morning to let me look at it.’

‘And I came bumbling out and spoiled it all.’

Cam closed the door of the van and turned towards her.

‘I doubt that. I don’t know if I was getting through—he hadn’t agreed to see me as a doctor. And for a while there, I was panicking, thinking I might have to join his cricket club and it would take up my surfing time.’

He’d have joined if he’d thought it would help Richard. The thought flashed through Jo’s head and although she barely knew this man who’d come to work for her, she knew this guess had been correct. He was that kind of man.

Although …

‘But would it work?’ she asked. ‘Even if he comes in for his shoulder, could you talk about other stuff?’

This time his smile was so warm and teasing Jo knew she should sack him right now—this very minute—and somehow muddle through the holidays on her own, or get a locum, or leave town herself. Anything rather than fall in love with Cam.

Fall in love? Where had that come from? What had happened to simple lust?

Or even complicated lust?

‘What if the fact he is in pain was adding to his aggro at home?’ the smiling man asked. ‘And if we could do something for the pain … ‘

He left the sentence hanging in the air, but the way he’d said ‘we’ had touched off the zapping sensation along her nerves again, and she muttered a very hasty goodnight and took her bag of rubbish back into the house.

To Cam’s astonishment, Richard Trent did turn up at the clinic

the next morning, confirming Cam’s guess that his shoulder

must be extremely painful.

‘Have you had ultrasound treatment before?’ Cam asked

him.

‘A couple of years ago—maybe more. Jo’s dad did it.’ The way Richard said Jo’s name told Cam the man had calmed down from the anger he’d been feeling the previous evening, but Cam was also very aware he couldn’t venture into any matter beyond this particular appointment.

‘Then you’ll probably remember that I’ll put some gel on your shoulder, then rub the head of the machine across it. What it does is send sound waves into your body. They warm the area, which provides some pain relief, but more importantly they increase blood supply to the muscle or tendon to help healing and reduce swelling. Have you had an ultrasound test—same machine, different use—to pinpoint the exact problem?’

Richard was up on the treatment table by now, and Cam applied gel and moved the head of the machine over the skin of the injured shoulder.

‘A while back, down in Port,’ Richard admitted. ‘The doctor bloke there said there was calcification in the tendons around the rotator cuff and I should have an op.’

‘Maybe,’ Cam told him, ‘although sometimes this together with a little manipulation and massage will break the calcification down. Problem is, this treatment is best if you have it for five to ten minutes, two to three times a day. Most people can’t fit three medical appointments into their day, although now you can buy small, battery-operated machines that work with the same sound waves. You could check out the local pharmacy or try the internet, maybe get one you could use at home.’

Cam finished and turned off the machine then massaged the shoulder, not talking now, knowing silence was awkward for some people and they would rush to fill it with talk.

Not Richard Trent! He remained stoically still and silent while Cam massaged his shoulder, then sat up, thanked Cam, pulled on his shirt and was preparing to depart when he hesitated.

Was Richard about to open up to him?

Remember whatever he says you have to be non-judgemental. The message rang loud and clear in Cam’s head.

‘I shouldn’t have got upset about you taking the boys surfing—you were probably only doing what you thought was a good turn.’

Cam nodded. He wanted so desperately to help this man, and the wanting reminded him of why he’d gone further than straight medicine and studied psychology as well.

‘It was nothing. I’m sorry it upset you,’ he said, testing every word before he said it, afraid he could lose whatever slim connection he might have made with Richard. ‘I surf every morning, and love it so much I want everyone to know the joy. I suppose it’s like you with cricket. Jo was telling me you played schoolboy cricket for the state.’

‘Long time ago,’ Richard said. ‘BM I call it.’

‘BM?’

‘Before marriage! Jackie was pregnant, we had to get married, I’m not telling you anything the whole town doesn’t know.’

But you’re telling me you’re bitter about it, very bitter, yet you’ve obviously been married a long time now and the abuse is only recent—what’s changed? Cam’s mind was racing. He knew many of the cricketers who played for their state or country were married, many with children, so why would it have stopped Richard’s career?

Again speaking carefully, Cam asked, ‘Would you have liked to play on? Go further?’

‘Wouldn’t anyone?’ Richard muttered, and this time he did leave, but he left behind a man who’d received a precious gift—a reminder for Cam that this was what he enjoyed—helping people and knowing that in his own small way he could help people.

Not that he’d done much for Richard yet, but Cam knew he was no longer rudderless—that his career was back on track, his enthusiasm for practising medicine and psychology alive and well again.

Jo must have passed Richard in the hall, for she arrived in Cam’s doorway seconds later.

‘Any luck?’ she asked.

Cam grinned at her.

‘His shoulder might be less painful,’ he replied, ‘and I’ve a feeling of cautious optimism, though that could well be misplaced.’

He grinned at her, wanting to share the new optimism he was feeling, but she couldn’t have got the vibe because she frowned, and he had a sudden urge to kiss that little frown line away.

Maybe kiss her lips as well—hold her—but not in a comforting way.

Fortunately—well, probably fortunately—she disappeared from his doorway while he was pondering kisses and hugs, leaving him staring at the space where she had been.

Puzzled and a little uneasy about this sudden urge to kiss his boss in a very inappropriate setting, he used getting a beach permit as an excuse to avoid lunch in the communal room. But was she also avoiding him that she was out at lunchtime too, and on Thursday? She actually phoned him in his consulting room on Friday to remind him of the meeting. ‘I’ll drive you, save taking two cars,’ she suggested.

‘No, I’ll take the van. If we finish in time I might put my new permit to good use and go down the long beach for a surf.’

The surf had flattened out and she probably knew that, but she didn’t mention it, simply reminding him the meeting was at four at the community centre.

‘It’s the modern-looking building behind the hospital. There’s a meeting room on the left as you walk in,’ she explained to him. ‘See you there.’

It was fairly stupid as he couldn’t avoid her for ever, and he did see her at work, passing in the hall, meeting to discuss a patient at the front desk, but in work mode he could forget how she’d looked on a surfboard, body curved, head held high, eyes aglow, at one with the elemental force of the ocean—in control of the curling green wave.

Almost forget.

He was early for the meeting—army training too strong for him to ever arrive anywhere late. But arriving early had its own reward, for he could see these virtual strangers enter the room, and watch the interaction between them.

Mike was an organiser, arriving with a small briefcase that he opened to reveal a laptop and a sheaf of papers, copies of an agenda, Cam discovered when Mike handed him one.

Lauren, now, was different. One look at her face when Tom walked in was enough to tell Cam she was attracted to his old acquaintance, which made the fact that Tom studiously avoided looking at Lauren even more interesting. Lauren was a beautiful woman, and Tom was a man who collected beautiful women. Had he tried and been rebuffed?

The attraction between them seemed apparent to Cam, a newcomer, looking in from the outside, but one was resisting and one was ignoring—interesting!

‘Did you come to try the chairs or are you going to get involved?’

Jo’s teasing remark brought him out of his analysis of the vibes in the room and he smiled at the people he was finding so intriguing.

‘Thinking of something,’ he said, then knew he’d made a mistake. Jo wasn’t one to let an opening like that slip away.

‘So tell,’ she demanded, and Cam had to sort some vague thoughts he’d had while out on his board this morning into sensible order. But not before he’d snapped a ‘Yes, boss’ and a crisp salute at her, and watched the delicious colour rise in her cheeks.

Business! his head reminded him.

‘I think long term we—or you lot—need to get the men’s programme up and running, and we can start planning it and working on how best to get men to attend. As far as attendance goes, we can contact people who already run these programmes to see if they’ve any ideas. But … ‘

He paused, aware he had their attention.

‘While outlining what we’re doing to get that up and running might impress the people who hold the purse-strings, maybe another project, one we could begin right now, would show we’re serious about running an integrated programme against domestic violence in the Cove. For a start, get the local council involved. I’ve noticed as I’ve travelled north that many towns have big signs on the highway where the town begins, saying domestic violence isn’t tolerated in this town, and a toll-free number to call for help.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ Lauren told him. ‘I’ll get on to the council.’

‘Actually, I can do that. I’ll talk to the mayor about it,’ Cam offered.

Jo was smiling at him—like a teacher pleased with her pupil?—but she wasn’t letting him stop there.

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘We should begin awareness programmes in the high schools—right now. This time of year, the final-year students have gone, but the lower years are still there and teachers are at their wits’ end, trying to keep their pupils occupied. I know this because army recruitment officers were always welcomed at the end of term time. We could offer to do a school programme focussing on violence.’

Jo caught on first.

‘You’re right. We need to get kids, especially adolescents, not only aware of DV but thinking seriously about how they handle anger. What do they see of violence? How do they think about it? How does it make them feel? We could do some role playing of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, get the kids involved, the older ones in doing role plays and the younger ones making posters.’

‘We started working on something like that last year,’ Lauren said, looking directly at Tom for the first time, and colouring slightly.

Definitely something there, Cam confirmed to himself.

‘Just before schoolies,’ Tom offered. ‘Then all hell broke loose. We had that low off the coast, gale-force winds and rain, and some of the kids’ tents were blown away and both the hospital and the refuge became hostels for wet, stranded teenagers.’

‘Better weather forecast for this year,’ Mike said, but in such gloomy tones Cam had to ask.

‘Are they so bad, the schoolies? After all, they’re legally adults, most of them. They’re over eighteen when they leave school. Surely they don’t all run wild?’

‘Wait and see,’ Jo warned him, green eyes pinning him in place—distracting him. ‘Explaining schoolies is impossible, although, as an army man, maybe you can imagine it. Picture a couple of hundred new recruits turned loose for a week, alcohol flowing freely—binge drinking is apparently what you do to prove you’re an adult—some drugs, although Mike and his crew are very vigilant and we have a great sniffer dog wandering through the gatherings, and then there are hormonal girls and testosterone-laden youths and all the problems of love and lust.’

Cam rather wished she hadn’t mentioned testosterone and lust, but he set that distraction aside to concentrate on what he was learning.

‘We have a chill-out zone staffed with volunteers where kids feeling sick or lost or just in need of a hug can go. We have bottled water available all over the place, the council provides entertainment on the esplanade, local and imported bands, most nights, and generally speaking we’re really well prepared and organised,’ Lauren said, and Cam heard the but hanging at the end of the sentence.

‘Anyway, let’s tackle schoolies when we have to. For now, can we discuss Cam’s idea?’ Jo said. ‘He’s right in thinking we’d be welcomed at the high school. Lauren, have you got time to work with him on a rough outline for a programme? And maybe the two of you could do the first run, then whoever is available could do the other classes. I think having a man and a woman running each session makes it easier to do some simulated violence scenes and maybe if there’s time, we could talk about control issues as well—equate it to bullying, which is a big issue in schools these days.’

So, Jo’s palming me off onto Lauren, and from the look on Tom’s face he’s no happier about it than I am, Cam realised.

Than I am?

For crying out loud, what was happening to him?

I’m going soft on my boss, that’s what, he admitted to himself, and for some bizarre reason the admission sent a rush of heat through his body.

Jo was watching Cam’s face and, no, she wasn’t going to think about why her gaze had drifted that way, so she saw his reaction to her suggestion about him working with Lauren.

Puzzled? Yes, puzzlement was there, but also present was something that looked like suspicion. She hadn’t deliberately suggested they work together, had she?

Of course not, she’d suggested it because they both had psychology training so were the best suited for the job. Of course, Lauren was beautiful, and Jo had felt for a long time that Lauren needed a man in her life. No harm in bumping them together.

No harm at all and the squelchy feeling inside her at that thought actually confirmed it was a good idea. She’d had enough internal disturbances over Fraser Cameron.

‘We need get the programme organised first,’ Lauren suggested, then she smiled at Cam. ‘Your boss ever give you time off? If we’re going to put our heads together, it would suit me better during the day. With the cutbacks in funding I’m doing the night shift at the refuge. It’s not a late night for me, but after it I’m too drained to do any logical thinking.’

Cam turned to Jo and raised his eyebrows.

‘Tell me what time suits you, Lauren, and Cam can fit in,’ Jo said. ‘I didn’t know I’d have help this week so I’m palming patients off to him as they come in. We haven’t written any appointments up for him so far, so he wouldn’t be breaking any.’

Lauren mentioned a time, and Jo ran very efficiently through all the decisions they’d made and the jobs people had to do, listing Cam as the person to get in touch with people running existing men’s programmes and telling Lauren that as the chairman of the co-ordinating domestic violence scheme in the Cove she, Jo, would handle the applications for funding.

‘I think,’ she added, the little frown that creased her brow—one line only—attracting Cam’s attention, ‘that we have to rename ourselves. Being just a co-ordinating committee for the refuge has been fine up to now, but I think we need to show the funding bodies that we’re serious. We need to show we’re being proactive in dealing with domestic violence throughout the community, which is what we’ll be doing.’

‘How about the Domestic Violence Integrated Response Team?’ Mike suggested, showing Cam by his use of key words that he was an old hand at filling out forms for government agencies.

‘Not sure about the “Response”,’ Tom said. ‘Jo’s right, we’ve got to go beyond responding to situations if we want to prove our worth.’

‘Response and Prevention?’ Lauren offered. ‘After all, we do a lot of work with women to show them how to stay safe in their relationships.’

‘Let’s think about it,’ Jo said. ‘We’re on the right track and we’ve enough to go on with for now. But while we’re here, can we get back to schoolies? Mike, have you got enough volunteers for the chill-out zone?’

‘We’ve got the usual lot but can always use more.’

He turned to Cam.

‘You going to volunteer, mate?’ he asked. ‘Up to now, Tom and Jo have shared the call-out duties.’

‘Happy to do it,’ Cam said. ‘I imagine Jo can tell me where to be and when. She’s good that way, my boss.’

Jo decided to ignore him, although she’d heard the tease behind the words. Had anyone else heard it? Would it start speculation?

Not that there was anything to speculate on.

And why would that depress her?

‘Let’s all go to the pub for a bite to eat,’ she suggested, thinking a relaxing beer and a little light conversation with her friends might restore her equilibrium.

‘You’ll have to count me out,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve a patient coming in from a farm up in the hills, suspected broken collarbone. He’ll be arriving any minute.’

‘And I’m on duty at the refuge,’ Lauren said, ‘much as I’d have loved a relaxing evening with friends.’

Whether Mike was going to join them became a moot point when he answered his mobile.

‘Road accident,’ he said briefly. ‘No injuries but both drivers over the limit.’

He left the room as Tom also stood up and closed the file he’d had in front of him. He was watching Lauren as she, too, stood and Jo could see the concern on Tom’s face. He was as worried as she, Jo, was, about Lauren’s health. Her friend was driving herself to exhaustion.

‘I can do some evenings at the refuge,’ Jo offered. ‘Now I’ve got another doctor in the practice, I’m not nearly as busy, and Cam could take any late calls that come in if I’m not available.’

‘I can manage,’ Lauren said.

‘Not for much longer,’ Jo told her. ‘And I’m telling you that as your doctor as well as your friend.’

Lauren sighed. She waited until Tom had followed Mike out of the room, then said quietly, ‘You haven’t heard, have you?’

‘Heard what?’ Jo asked.

‘Nat Williams is coming home for Christmas. Bringing his American wife and their two kids—they’ll be here for a month.’

Jo was so shocked by Lauren’s attitude she forgot a stranger—well, almost stranger—was in the room with them.

‘You can’t possibly still be carrying a torch for that man,’ she fumed. ‘Lauren, get over it—it was, what, nearly fifteen years ago?’

‘I am not carrying a torch for him,’ Lauren said. ‘His dumping me was the best thing he ever did for me. It’s not that, it’s the family thing, coming here with his wife … ‘

She shrugged her too-thin shoulders.

‘I can’t explain it. You know me—practical Lauren—never one to go for vague feelings but the feeling I have isn’t vague and I don’t even know if it’s to do with Nat. Maybe it’s the refuge and the trouble we’re in there, or—oh, I don’t know, Jo, I hate sounding melodramatic and you know that isn’t like me, but I have this terrible sense of impending doom.’