Читать книгу Medical Romance January 2017 Books 1 -6 - Marion Lennox - Страница 14
ОглавлениеSHE WOKE TO the sound of thumping. It wasn’t steady, though. It was a decidedly wobbly thump.
Someone was thumping on the veranda outside her bedroom window.
She glanced at her bedside clock and practically yelped. It was after eight. She’d gone to bed over twelve hours ago. Despite the feigned chirpiness she’d put on for Tom, her body had demanded sleep.
Maybe that was a defence.
For now she was here, the place she’d left eighteen months ago, wondering if she could ever forget.
She didn’t want to forget, but the pain of remembering was appalling. At least in London she could throw herself into her work, but here...
Up on the headland was a tiny grave. She’d thought she’d go there last night but in the end she just couldn’t. She’d declined Tom’s invitation to share dinner. She’d pleaded jet lag, eaten eggs on toast and hit the pillows.
But now... Thump...thump...thump...
Intrigued, she tossed back the covers and hauled up the window. Her bedroom looked straight over the veranda to the ocean beyond. The sea air felt blissful. She breathed in the salt and then she looked along the veranda and decided to stop breathing for a while.
The mixed emotions of moments ago came to a grinding halt.
For Tom was here, and Tom was gorgeous.
There was no other word for it. He was totally, absolutely gorgeous.
He was wearing boxers and nothing else. The weak winter sun was doing its best to make his bronzed body glisten. A sheen of sweat on his chest and brow made him look even more...
Gorgeous. She couldn’t get past that word.
* * *
Tom had a skipping rope and was doing his best to skip, but his lazy leg was dragging. He was forcing himself on, but every second or third skip his leg didn’t lift. He’d swear and keep going.
‘Good morning.’
Tasha’s greeting made him miss the rope again.
She was just along the veranda. She’d stuck her head out the window and she smiled as he turned to look at her.
‘What’s the sound of a centipede with a wooden leg?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know—what?’ he demanded, goaded, knowing something corny was coming.
‘Ninety-nine thump,’ she told him, and grinned as if it was an entirely original joke and she expected applause. ‘That’s you, only you don’t get to ninety-nine.’ She swung her legs over the window sill and perched. She was wearing a long white nightie with lace inserts. It reached her ankles and reminded him of something his grandma would have worn, but there the similarity ended.
Tasha didn’t look like anyone’s grandma, Tom thought. Her brown-gold curls were tousled from sleep, tumbling to her shoulders. She wore no make-up but she needed none. She looked pert and wide awake and beautiful.
And interested.
‘What’s causing the leg to drag?’ she asked, as if it was any of her business.
‘A subarachnoid haemorrhage,’ he said carefully. ‘Pressure in the brain.’
‘I get that, you idiot,’ she told him. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, I have a medical degree, too. So, let me see... Balance problems can be due to muscle weakness and paralysis, damage to the cerebellum—that’s the part of the brain that controls balance,’ she added kindly. ‘You could have loss of sensation in the leg itself, with high-tone or low-tone damage to the vestibular system, though I see no evidence of spasticity. You could have impaired vision, hypotension, ataxia, or poor awareness of body position. You have been assessed?’
‘In hospital.’ He hated talking of his medical problems—especially to a woman in a nightgown, a woman who until now he’d thought of as someone he could help.
Their roles were suddenly upside down and the sensation made him feel like snapping and retreating.
He couldn’t. She’d come here to help. He owed it to her to be cordial, even grateful.
‘But not since you came home, which was three weeks ago,’ she was saying. ‘You have foot-drop. You probably need a brace to support the ankle. Are you having pain?’
‘No!’
‘I’ll bet you get tired. Fatigue is one of the most common after-effects of what’s happened to you, especially if you entertain on the side.’
‘I am not tired and I don’t entertain!’
‘And crabbiness, too,’ she said equitably. ‘Personality changes. You weren’t crabby last time I was here.’
‘Tasha...’
‘So you need a thorough physiotherapy assessment.’ She gave him an almost apologetic smile. ‘You know, I’m not the only bossy woman in your life right now. Rhonda was in full organisation mode before I left England. She’s determined you make the most of me being here, so she’s booked an assessment for you this afternoon. The plan is for me to take your morning clinic and then to drive you to Summer Bay. They have a full physio clinic, with all the rehab equipment you need. They’ll do a full assessment and start you this very afternoon. And every afternoon I’m here.’
‘What...?’
‘Rhonda’s set it up and I agreed,’ she told him calmly. ‘I know you will, too. It’s not worth me coming all this way for you to be put on a waiting list.’
‘I don’t need—’
‘Of course you do and you know it.’ She softened. ‘Tom, you haven’t had time to take care of yourself. I get that, but I’m here now. You know you need specialised physio, targeted specifically for your problems. Jumping rope’s good but it has limitations. The Summer Bay clinic has a neuro-physiotherapist on site and she sounds excellent. She’ll co-ordinate the team.’
‘Who told you...?’
‘Rhonda explained the situation,’ she said. ‘You hired a bossy boots, not me, so you have only yourself to blame that she’s getting us organised. But you know she’s right. Muscle weakness, speech... Your recovery needs to be a multidisciplinary effort.’
‘I don’t need...’ He was starting to sound like a parrot.
‘You know you do need,’ she said patiently. ‘You’re trying to be your own doctor and it doesn’t work.’ Her voice gentled again. ‘Tom, when I hit the wall I knew to come to you for help. You took over and I let you. I needed to let you. So now it’s you who’s in trouble. We can’t make you but why not relax and go with what Rhonda and Hilda and I have planned?’
‘“Blast of the trumpet...”’ he managed, and she grinned.
‘“Against the monstrous regiment of women”?’ She even had the temerity to chuckle. ‘John Knox knew what he was up against, although I think it was only two women he was complaining of—the women on the throne. You have three women to rail against—me, Rhonda and Hilda. Now...could you walk me through the clinic work after breakfast? Then you can take a nice nap while I do morning surgery.’
‘A nice nap...’ He was almost speechless.
‘I might need to wake you if there’s something I don’t understand,’ she told him. ‘But I hope I won’t.’
‘Are you really registered to work in Australia?’
‘Of course,’ she said, sounding wounded. ‘I hold an Australian passport and I organised Australian registration and worked here during IVF and the first part of my pregnancy. I know the system. Okay, I’m heading for the shower. Then breakfast. Let’s get this show on the road.’
* * *
She stood under the shower and let the hot water wash away the cobwebs left from jet lag.
She tried not to shake.
She’d done well, she thought. She’d acted as if she knew what she was doing, as if she was on top of her world.
Except she wasn’t. And she wasn’t because when all was said and done, Tom Blake was just that. A Blake boy. The sight of his near naked body on the veranda had shaken her as she’d had no intention of being shaken.
Paul Blake had entered her life like a whirlwind, sweeping her off her feet with his love for adventure, his exuberance and his passion. She’d fallen hard and was married before she knew it. Then she’d spent years watching him take crazy risks. Being terrified for him. Not knowing that he was betraying her and he’d been betraying her almost from the start.
In the end she’d realised marriage vows meant nothing. Personal loyalty meant nothing.
Tom seemed kinder and gentler, but in essence he seemed the same. He admitted openly that he loved women—serial women—and he took the same crazy risks Paul had.
Was she being unfair? Was she judging Tom because of Paul?
No. She was judging Tom because of Alice and Susie, and all the Alices and Susies before, all the women he’d chatted about in his newsy emails. Plus the fact that he’d been injured because of a reckless surfing accident.
She was sensible to judge—so why was she shaking?
Because she was vulnerable? Because the sight of him on the veranda had made something twist inside her that frightened her?
Because she didn’t trust herself.
‘There’s no reason to be scared,’ she said out loud. ‘I have no intention of going down that road again. Besides, he’s not the slightest bit interested.’
‘But if he was?’ She was talking to herself.
‘Then I’d run. I’d head to the cats. Much safer.’
‘Even if they make you sneeze?’
‘Sneezing’s harmless,’ she told herself. ‘As opposed to the Blake boys, who aren’t harmless at all.’
Stuck in the corner of the dressing table was the appointment card outlining the details of the booking she’d made the day before she’d left for Australia.
She’d thought—hoped?—she could be brave enough to try again for a baby.
Now she glanced out the window at Tom, who was still doggedly skipping. She remembered how much she’d needed him.
Fear flooded back.
She picked up the appointment card and thrust it back into the bottom recess of her suitcase.
Her reaction to Tom said that she wasn’t very brave at all.
* * *
Any doubts as to Tasha’s ability to take over were allayed the moment Tom took Tasha into the clinic.
Rhonda and Hilda’s niece was currently filling in for Rhonda. To say Millie was less than satisfactory was an understatement. She was cute and blonde and dimwitted. She chewed gum and watched while Tom and Tasha sorted the morning files. There was half an hour before the first patient was due, and Tom had no intention of leaving unless Tasha seemed capable.
She proved it in moments.
He handed her the list of appointments and watched as she did a fast check of the associated files. As she reached the end of the list she turned to him, looking worried.
‘Mrs Connor?’ she said. ‘Margie Connor? Millie’s booked her in for last on the list but according to her file her last three appointments have been for serious cardio. events. The reason for today’s visit is that her legs are swelling and she’s feeling breathless. Should we—?’
And Tom swore and reached for the phone. Rhonda would have picked this up.
‘Margie Connor never rings unless it’s something major, and her heart failure’s getting worse,’ he told Tasha. ‘Good call.’
Margie answered on the second ring, which was another confirmation that all was far from well. Normally Margie would be on the beach with her dogs at this time of the morning.
‘Margie? You’re coming in this morning? Millie says it’s your legs and you’re short of breath?’ He listened and grimaced.
‘If they’re that swollen get Ron to bring you in straight away. Pack a nightie and toothbrush—you know the drill. We might get away with adjusting your medication but if the swelling’s too much you could need a couple of days in hospital to get rid of the fluids. It’s nothing to panic about but the sooner we see you, the less fluid we’ll have to get rid of. I’ll be waiting at the clinic. Straight away, Margie. Don’t spend time making yourself beautiful for me. You’re gorgeous as you are.’
He replaced the receiver and turned and Tasha was glaring at him. Strangely her glare made him want to chuckle. She was like a mother hen, defending her territory.
Only her territory was actually his.
‘You aren’t staying here,’ she said severely. ‘I can deal with this.’
‘Margie’s scared,’ he said simply. ‘She has grounds for being scared. I’m not having her face a strange doctor.’
‘I’m not strange.’
‘No,’ he said, and he had to suppress a grin as her glare continued. ‘You’re not. Apologies. But you are different. I need to be here and you need to accept it. Tasha, what you’re proposing will only work if you let me share when it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate now.’
Was it a glare or was it a glower? He couldn’t decide, but either way it was cute.
Um...cute wasn’t on the agenda. She was a colleague.
He held up his hands, as if in surrender. He wasn’t in control. He knew it, he didn’t like it but he had to accept it. ‘Tasha, I know I’ve been pig-headed in keeping on working,’ he told her. ‘But until now I haven’t had much choice. I accept I need help. Believe it or not, I’m deeply grateful that you’re here and I will do the rehab. Of course I will. But this is my town and these are my people. You need to accept that I care.’
‘You’re supposed to rest.’
‘Rest doesn’t mean lying in bed for the next couple of months. We can share. I’ll back off when I need to—and, yes, I’ll concede you may be a better judge of that than I am—but we have two consulting rooms. I’ll work mornings, but at half-pace. You’ll work next door and if you need me, call.’
She stood back and considered, while on the sidelines Millie watched on with vague interest. It was like an intellectual decision was being made, he thought. A clinical assessment with a prognosis at the end.
She was very, very cute.
‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘That seems fair but there’s a deal-breaker. In the mornings we share your work. In the afternoons you let me share your rehabilitation.’
That took him aback. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. You let me come with you this afternoon and hear what the physios say. I have no intention of watching as you complete every exercise, but someone close to you should have an overview. You know patients often hear only what they want or think they need to hear. You don’t have a mum and you don’t have a partner—unless you’re considering taking Millie or Susie. Are you?’
‘No!’ he said, as Millie recoiled in horror at the idea.
She grinned. ‘Then let me in, Tom. You know rehab is gruelling. You’ll need encouragement and sometimes you’ll need pushing. You need to share.’
‘I don’t need...’
‘You keep saying that, but is it true? You don’t need my help? Like Bill didn’t need a doctor at the foot of the steps yesterday? Tom, be honest.’
‘I don’t want to share.’ How ungracious was that, but the words seemed to come from deep inside. Handing over to Tasha was losing even more of the control he valued so much.
She raised her brows and gave him a long, hard look. And then she seemed to come to a decision.
‘Tom, the way I see it, we have three alternatives. One—you leave everything to me. Two—you share. Three—I leave.’
Things were suddenly serious. ‘What the...?’
‘I told Rhonda and Hilda I’d take over your workload, whether you want me or not. But of course I can’t.’
‘It’s good of you to see it.’
That earned him a wry smile. ‘I am being good,’ she told him. ‘I’m trying my hardest to see this from your point of view. I’m thinking of you as yet another gung-ho Blake boy, but what you just said has made me brave enough to push my luck. You said, “This is my town. You need to accept that I care.” So I accept you care, but—accepting that—do you concede that the town needs me? You can’t cope yourself. Do you need me to be here?’
There was a moment’s silence. He met her gaze and she met his gaze right back. Her eyes flashed a challenge.
And amazingly he also saw the faintest hint of laughter, as if she knew the dilemma he was in and was faintly enjoying it. Whereas he wasn’t.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, and then added a grudging ‘Thank you.’
‘And do you also concede that most people dealing with head injuries need a support person?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Concede it,’ she said. ‘You said it yourself—for now, I may be a better judge than you are. I’m here not only for this town or for your patients. I’m here for your care as well.’ The laughter faded. ‘Tom, eighteen months ago I realised I needed a support person and I came to you. I followed your advice and you were with me every step of the way. If you were treating someone for a head injury now, would you say they needed to take someone with them for at least the initial assessment at rehab?’
‘I don’t need...’ He stopped. The three words were like a repetitive mantra in his head but the worst thing about this mantra was he knew it wasn’t true.
‘The Blake boys don’t need,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly grim. ‘Not usually. But for now face the fact that you do. When people are listening to what medical practitioners are telling them their hearing’s often limited. They hear the first thing but they’re so busy taking it in that they miss the next.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t miss things.’
But at that Millie chimed in with something like glee. ‘Like the top step yesterday? You missed that. You bruised yourself, too, though you wouldn’t let anyone help. And your medical bag.’ Millie was enjoying herself. ‘On Tuesday you left your bag in the surgery and you had to get the taxi to turn around. You’re missing things all the time.’
‘I normally leave my bag in my car,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not used—’
‘Exactly,’ Tasha told him. ‘Thank you, Millie. That’s just the point. You’re not used to any of this. Give up, Tom,’ she said, her voice gentling. ‘For once, accept that you’re human like the rest of us. And I will leave if you don’t accept my help.’
‘What, go back to England?’
‘There are other reasons I need to be in Australia,’ she said, diffidently. ‘Right now the overriding one is you, but I don’t need to be in Cray Point. It’s co-operation or nothing.’
‘Or you’ll go where?’
‘What I do from now on is none of your business. Do you want my help or not?’
‘I... Yes.’ There was nothing else to say.
And she smiled, a smile that held understanding as well as satisfaction. ‘Excellent,’ she said, and strangely he got the feeling that she understood where he was coming from. ‘Is that a car? Could Margie be here already?’
She was, and she was in almost complete heart failure. Medical need took over.
A truce had been reached. Sort of. For a while Tom was able to forget his doubts as he and Tasha fought to stabilise her.
Finally Margie was loaded onto the medevac chopper and evacuated to Melbourne, her prognosis a whole lot better than when she’d arrived. Tom took himself to his room. Tasha took the spare room and they started working through patients.
It was a normal day, Tom told himself. Except that Tasha was in the next room and Tasha was bossy and Tasha was...
Disturbing.
He’d been out of his comfort zone ever since the accident, floundering with loss of control.
Tasha’s arrival should have helped, he told himself. So why did he feel even more out of control now than he had before she’d arrived?
* * *
Later that afternoon Tasha drove him across to Summer Bay, while he tried not to grit his teeth beside her.
Tasha didn’t mind his silence. The sun had come out. Tom’s car was a soft top and she’d asked that they take the roof down. Tom had consented with bad grace but the wind from the sea blew her curls out behind her and she felt like the fog of the last eighteen months was lifting a little.
This really was the most beautiful place. Every curve seemed to open a wilder view of the ocean and the air was so salty she could almost taste it.
The sea was winter wild. She felt clean and refreshed and ready for anything.
Another try at pregnancy?
She thought of the card at the bottom of her suitcase. How much courage would she need to be to go there?
Too much.
Focus on what comes next, she told herself, which was getting Tom through rehab. She glanced across at his grumpy face and smiled.
‘You look like a kid heading for the dentist.’
‘That’s what I feel like,’ he admitted. ‘You know I can do this on my own.’
‘I know you can’t.’
‘What made you so know-all?’
‘A medical degree,’ she said serenely. ‘Same as you. If you were your patient you’d be saying exactly the same.’
‘And my patient would have the right to refuse.’
‘He would,’ she said equitably. ‘And you’d tell him exactly what he’d be losing in the future by doing so.’ She considered for a little, and then glanced at him again. ‘Tom...would I be right in thinking you’re afraid you might fail? That you won’t recover the power you once had?’
He didn’t reply. The look on his face said she’d nailed it.
‘You’ve come so far,’ she said gently. ‘Rhonda and Hilda told me how much damage there was, and you’ve fought back. You know it’s still early days. You know...’
‘I do know.’
‘But the world was yours before and now... You’re no longer invincible. But you must have felt like that before. You and Paul and your dad before you. Daring all, and never thinking of the cost.’
‘Do you really think—?’
‘I know,’ she snapped, and then got herself under control again. ‘Sorry. That’s past anger from watching Paul go off to climb mountains. And knowing your dad was killed test-driving a car at...what speed? And looking at the damage you’ve done surfing in stupid conditions. But you will get better, Tom. Every prognosticator tells me you will, so you might as well just get on with it.’ She steered the beautiful little car around the next curve and took in the stunning vista before her and then she grinned. ‘How often have you been bossed by a woman?’
There was no answer. She tried to suppress her grin and she kept on driving.
* * *
How often had he been bossed by a woman?
Never?
He’d been raised by a woman who’d been so in love with his father that she’d never got over it. She’d adored her son but her ambitions for herself had disappeared the day her husband had walked out on her. The house had been a shrine to that short marriage. She’d been loving but weak and Tom had learned early that he could pretty much do what he liked.
He loved his mum. He loved Cray Point, but even as a child he’d learned to be deathly afraid of the love that consumed his mother. That kind of love meant misery and heartache and he had no intention of going down that road.
His mother had lost control of her life the moment she’d met his philandering father. To Tom, control was his mantra. He put up with Rhonda and Hilda’s bossiness—he even enjoyed it—but theirs was bossiness at the edges. The big decisions in life were his.
He was still in control now, he told himself. He didn’t need to accept Tasha’s presence at his physiotherapy session. Would she leave if she didn’t think he was putting a hundred and ten percent into these sessions?
She may well.
Right now she looked like she was enjoying the sun on her face, the wind in her hair, but underneath her smile was a determination he’d had no clue about.
Had losing Paul and then losing her baby caused that determination, or had it already been there?
‘Where do you call home?’ he asked, tangentially, and she glanced at him for a moment before turning her attention back to the road.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just...you went back to England. Is home there?’
‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve never really had a home.’
‘Never?’
‘My mum and dad were with the Australian army but they were based all over the world. They were Special Services, so for half of my childhood I was never allowed to know where they were. When they were killed I was in a boarding school in Sydney but I’d only been there for eighteen months. Before that I’d been in an international school in Egypt. Before that...a list of countries I can hardly remember. After they died I stayed with my aunt in London, but she doesn’t like me. I remind her of my mother and it still makes her cry. You can’t imagine how wearying that is. But I’m her duty so she’s still constantly wondering why I’m not staying with her. I think that’s one of the reasons I joined Médicins Sans Frontières where I met Paul. So, no, I don’t have a home.’
‘If Emily had lived?’ It was a hard question but as a doctor he knew that hard questions were too often left unasked.
‘I would have made a home,’ she said without missing a beat. ‘That was the plan. To settle and stay. To find a community. To give her a childhood where she could have best friends. And a puppy. She would have loved a puppy.’
Her voice faltered and then she steadied. He knew that about her too, by now. Whatever life threw at her, she steadied.
But he could tell the young Tasha had ached for a puppy.
‘But that’s the past,’ she told him, moving on with a briskness he guessed she’d cultivated from years of deflecting sympathy. ‘I need to figure a way forward and I will, but one thing at a time. Next step is to get you working at full capacity. Thus your physiotherapy, and here we are.’
* * *
She was his support person.
He’d never imagined he could need such a thing.
A cute, blonde dynamo came out to greet them. ‘I’m Dr Sally Myers, neuro-physiotherapist, but I’d prefer it if you called me Sally. Can I call you Tom and Tasha?’
‘Of course,’ Tasha said. They’d been sitting in the waiting room for ten minutes, with Tom growing more and more impatient while Tasha calmly photographed recipes from housekeeping magazines with her phone. She tucked her phone away as they both rose to greet Sally. ‘Tom can see you on his own if he’d like,’ she told Sally. ‘But would it be more helpful if I came in, too?’
‘It always is,’ Sally said frankly. ‘You’ll be needing support, Tom, and if Tasha’s happy to give it...’
‘Fine,’ Tom snapped, and both women looked at him, astonished.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It’s just that I’m used to doing things alone.’
‘Of course you are,’ Sally said, sympathetic but firm. ‘I’m sure Tasha understands and so do I. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you should have been here weeks ago. We have a lot of catching up to do and if Tasha’s prepared to help then your chances of a full recovery are greater. Do you want to look a gift horse in the mouth?’
And Tom looked at Tasha and she raised her brows in mock enquiry. She was smiling. Laughing?
Anything less like a horse he’d yet to see.
She was offering him a faster way to recovery. What was he doing, being a bore?
‘Let’s do it,’ he growled.
‘So you’d like Tasha to sit in and learn the exercises?’ Sally was making him say it out loud.
‘Yes.’
And then he glanced at Tasha and her eyes were still dancing. She understood, he thought, and then he thought that if he had to share there was no one he’d rather share with.
She was a loner. She wouldn’t push past his boundaries—maybe she even understood them.
‘Yes, please,’ he said.
* * *
He was learning to stand.
It sounded simple. Tasha had been with Tom for almost twenty-four hours now and she’d seen him sit and stand scores of times.
She’d also seen the way he’d favoured his good leg every time.
Sally had assessed him, prepared his programme, told him bluntly what he risked by not doing it, told him the importance of attending clinic every day and then disappeared to deal with the next recalcitrant client. A more junior physiotherapist took over.
She proceeded to have Tom sit and stand and walk, sit and stand and walk, sit, stand and walk. Tom was forced to favour his bad leg every time.
Tasha saw that it hurt. She saw how much of an effort it cost him. She saw the beads of sweat on his forehead and something inside her clenched.
She hated this, and she was forcing him to do it.
No. Her presence let him do it. She knew Tom accepted the need for such hard work. His skipping this morning had shown her how hard he’d been trying himself, but he needed this professional approach.
She was right to have come, even if arriving at Cray Point, being with Tom, being so close to her daughter’s grave, did stir up all sorts of emotions she’d rather not face.
Emily...
‘Let’s end with swimming,’ the physio decreed at last. ‘Did you bring your swimmers?’
‘Yes,’ Tasha told her, and Tom swivelled and stared.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sally told me swimming might be involved. Just lucky I made myself useful with the laundry last time I was here. I knew they were in the laundry cupboard. I brought your boardies rather than the budgie smugglers you wear under your wetsuit.’
‘Thanks,’ he said through gritted teeth. And then... ‘You know, if you were serious you’d swim with me.’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she told him, and grinned and pulled a pair of rainbow-coloured swimmers from her bag. ‘I came here to be a hands-on support person, Tom Blake, and I’m with you all the way.’
Why not? she thought. She’d learned a whole lot about pain in the last eighteen months and one thing stood out. Sitting thinking about it didn’t help. She needed to be distracted—and how much more could she be distracted than by jumping into the pool with Tom Blake?
* * *
And in the end it was fun. Ridiculously fun. The young physio—Liselle—ran him through some basic water exercises, leg, arm and neck, and then produced a stretchy band, which she used to rope his good arm to his body. Then she turned to Tasha.
‘We can do this three ways,’ she told them. They were standing chest deep in the warmed pool. ‘I can toss a ball back and forth to Tom, making him use his weak arm, while Tasha watches. That’s pretty boring. Or, Tasha, I can tape your favoured arm and have you and Tom have a competition as to who can catch the most. But what’s most fun is if I play, too. See this neat little net? I get to play goalie. You two work together, both using only your weaker arms. You guys have to stand behind the three-metre line and stay at least two metres apart. The rule is that you need to toss the ball to each other before you aim for goal and it doesn’t matter how many times you do it. You feint to try and get the ball past me. Every time you miss I get a point, but every time you work together and get a goal then it’s a point to the Wobble Team.’
‘The Wobble Team,’ Tasha said blankly, and Liselle grinned.
‘You’re both wobblers, Tom because of your head injury and Tasha because I’m taping your right arm and you’ll find even that sets you off balance. Game?’
And Tom and Tasha looked at each other.
‘I’m in,’ Tasha said. ‘Wobblers, huh?’
‘No one calls me a wobbler and lives to tell the tale,’ Tom growled.
‘Prove it, big boy.’ Liselle laughed and tossed him the ball.
He caught it and grinned with his success. Too easy. But apparently it was.
‘I threw it straight and slowly,’ Liselle told him. ‘But something tells me you don’t like being treated with kid gloves, so sharpen up.’
‘Right,’ he said, and tossed the ball to Tasha. His arm felt stiff and strange but there was no way he was letting it stop him. ‘Let’s show this lady what wobblers are capable of.’
And for the first time for six long weeks he had...fun.
It was fun. Yes, his body still didn’t feel as if it belonged to him. He had two disadvantages—one was that he was forced to use his weak arm and the other was that his movement was restricted because his leg didn’t obey orders the moment he sent it. And Liselle was good. ‘I play water polo,’ she admitted. ‘And, yes, state level.’
But he had Tasha, and Tasha was amazing.
She looked amazing. Her costume wasn’t anything to write home about—a simple one-piece—but it was in a myriad of tropical colours. She was trim and lithe and agile, and she ducked and weaved in the water as if water was her second home. She hadn’t tied her curls back. She was soaked the first time he threw an awkward ball to her and she dived for it. She surfaced laughing, her curls spiralling every which way, and she tossed the ball back to him and he was so distracted that he missed.
He didn’t get that distracted again. Her look of disappointment at his easy miss had him focusing, and she was, too. She was laughing, diving, yelling to him, feigning tosses towards goal, pretending to toss towards the goal and then tossing to him, pretending to toss to him and then tossing straight at the goal.
For all her laughter she was taking this game very seriously. So did he and at the end of half an hour, when Liselle called time, the score was dead even and even Liselle was looking exhausted.
‘I need to find you guys a greater handicap,’ she told them. ‘You work too well together as a team. Tasha, if you keep working Tom like this we’ll have him a hundred percent in no time. Will you come to every session?’
‘There may be medical imperatives that stop me coming,’ Tasha told her. ‘But I’ll try. And I do the driving so unless Tom wants to catch a taxi I need to bring him.’
Did he want to catch a taxi?
He looked at Tasha, who was swinging herself out of the pool. Water was streaming from her curls, running in rivulets down the smooth surface of her throat and the curve of her breasts. Her legs were perfect—no, make that everything about her was perfect.
No, he didn’t want a taxi.
‘I think we could do this until we get to the stage where it’s Liselle and me against you, and we play until we lose,’ she told him. ‘You reckon we could do that in two months?’
‘There’s a challenge,’ Liselle said, grinning. ‘I could bring in the rest of my polo team as reinforcements.’
And for the first time since the accident Tom suddenly felt normal. These women were smiling at him, daring him, challenging him. And they were expecting him to get back to normal or better.
‘You think I can do it?’ he demanded, facing his fears front on.
‘I’m sure of it,’ Liselle said. ‘Look how far Tasha’s driven you today.’
‘It was you,’ Tasha said.
‘It was all of us,’ Liselle admitted. ‘But, Tom, with Tasha driving you, there are no limits to what you can do. I know it.’
* * *
‘There are no limits to what you can do.’
The words kept playing in her head, a mockery.
It was almost dusk. The sun was sinking in the west. Tom was fast asleep in front of the fire. For all his protestation that he’d coped well, the rehab had knocked him around. While he slept Tasha finally found the time and the courage to walk up the headland to the Cray Point cemetery. To Emily’s grave.
It was a place of tranquil beauty, overlooking the sea. Emily’s grave was a simple headstone surrounded by carefully cultivated flowers.
Planted by Tom.
She had so many conflicted emotions they were playing havoc with her mind.
Tom. Being here. Grief.
Trying for another baby.
To have another baby feeling as she did wasn’t fair, she thought. She was still gutted by Emily’s death. The pain and humiliation she’d received from Paul was still with her, and yet she hadn’t managed to build defences.
For that was what was bothering her most now. She knew she could fall for Tom. His very smile seemed dangerous.
‘So how weak does that make me?’ she asked Emily, as she crouched by the little grave and ran her fingers through Tom’s flowers.
She hadn’t been strong enough for Emily. She’d needed Tom. ‘And something keeps whispering that I still need him,’ she said out loud, whispering to her little girl. ‘How can I think of another baby without the strength to face whatever comes?’
‘There are no limits to what you can do...’
‘Maybe there are,’ she told herself. ‘And maybe I’ve reached them. I loved Mum and Dad. I thought I loved Paul, and, oh, I loved you, my Emily. But each time... How can I think of trying again?’
But it wasn’t just the thought of another baby that had her asking the question.
Tom... How she felt, seeing him again...
It was weakness.
But for some reason the question kept hammering in her brain.
How could she think of trying again?
