Storm Haven

CHAPTER THREE

‘WELL, we think he’s lovely.’

Nikki’s housekeeper and her small daughter were smitten. Beattie stood at the big wooden table, mechanically mixing her dough, her eyes far-away. Amy was fixed on her mother’s lap, her small fingers fingering the soft fabric of Nikki’s dress in blatant admiration. ‘Oh, Nikki, he’s just the best thing…’ Beattie continued dreamily.

‘Since sliced bread,’ Nikki snapped. She was perched on the stool as she held her daughter, sipping tea and feeling stranger and stranger. It was mid-afternoon. Her surgery was crowded, she knew, and she wasn’t even welcome there, much less wanted.

‘If you come near the place then I’ll pick you up and deposit you outside on your very neat bottom,’ Luke Marriott had said sternly, and by the look in his eyes Nikki wasn’t going to test the truth of his statement. She had the feeling that Luke Marriott didn’t make idle threats.

‘But what’s he doing here?’ Nikki asked for the fiftieth time. ‘He’s a surgeon, for heaven’s sake. What’s he doing acting as temporary locum in Eurong?’

‘I have no idea,’ Beattie said, giving her dough a sound pummelling. ‘All I know is that’s he’s an answer to a prayer, Nikki Russell, and you don’t ask questions when fate plays you lucky.’

‘He might be the answer to your prayers,’ Nikki said bitterly, ‘but he’s not the answer to mine. A more autocratic, overbearing…’

‘I know,’ Beattie sighed. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

‘Beattie!’

‘I don’t mean he’s rude,’ Beattie said, shocked by Nikki’s tone. ‘He just knows what has to be done.’ She looked down at her pastry. ‘And he really likes my cooking.’ She cast a look of disapproval at her employer. ‘No just picking around the edges. I asked him what he’d like for dinner tonight and he said, “The same as last night-only more!” I won’t give it to him, of course. Last night I made a chicken casserole but tonight I’ll do a standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding-and have apple pie to follow. Eh, but it’s good to cook for a man again. I haven’t since my John died.’

‘But he’s not staying here,’ Nikki said, frowning. ‘Isn’t he supposed to be staying at the hospital? I’d arranged it.’

‘I know.’ Beattie eyed her employer doubtfully. The thing is, Matron rang while you were in Cairns and asked if we could have him stay on for a while longer. Cook’s done the cylinder-head on her car and it’ll be a week or more before they can get the part. Meanwhile she’ll have to stay at the hospital-and Matron doesn’t want to use a ward.’ Beattie took a deep breath and her dubious look intensified. ‘So…so I told her of course we’d have him here.’

‘Beattie!’

‘We’ve plenty of room,’ her housekeeper told her severely. ‘For heaven’s sake, Nikki, there are three spare bedrooms. You hardly have to see the man apart from mealtimes.’

‘I’ll have my meals in my study,’ Nikki said angrily and Beattie smiled. ‘With Amy.’

‘Mummy, why don’t you like him?’ Amy had been intent on her drink and biscuits. Finished with the serious business of life, she turned to her mother. We think he’s nice. And he makes us laugh.’ She frowned direfully at her mother. ‘I’m not eating in the study if Dr Luke’s in the dining-room.’

‘Dr Luke!’ Nikki frowned back down at her daughter. ‘Mr Marriott to you.’

‘He said I could call him Dr Luke,’ Amy announced. ‘I said no one would think he was proper if we called him Mister, and he thanked me for the advice. And he agrees. And I showed him the swimming-pool this morning and he said he’d teach me to dog-paddle. Starting tomorrow. So he has to stay here.’

‘Well, there you are, then,’ Beattie grinned. Her smile faded a little and she looked down at Nikki in concern. ‘It’s better this way,’ she said gently. ‘The night calls come here and you’d be going out anyway if he was staying down at the hospital. This way…’

‘I know.’ Nikki threw up her hands. ‘This way I have nothing to do except study.’

‘Which is what you wanted, isn’t it?’ Beattie said doubtfully, and Nikki gave a reluctant smile.

‘Yes, Beattie,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s what I wanted.’

Nikki left and made her way back to her study. Her text still stood open at the causes of renal failure. Nikki picked it up and frowned at the blurred image. She’d have to put in her contact lenses and part of her didn’t want to.

She put a hand up to her face in a gesture of distress. Her heavy glasses were a token of her defence against the world, but they were a comfort to her. Charlotte had thought she was doing her friend a favour depriving her of them. If she had known how distressed it was making Nikki feel…

‘How exposed, you mean,’ Nikki whispered, and then shook her head angrily. She wasn’t exposed. There wasn’t the slightest reason to believe that Luke Marriott was the least bit interested in her. ‘I can wear what I like,’ Nikki muttered, looking down uneasily at the attractive dress she was wearing. Still…

Still, she would just go and change before Luke Marriott came home for dinner. After all, she had to go to her bedroom to find her contact lenses anyway…

Two minutes later she was back in the kitchen.

‘Beattie, where are the rest of my jeans?’ she asked softly. The housekeeper looked up, startled, from her cooking and turned a becoming shade of pink.

‘Oh, Nikki, dear, you startled me…’

‘Beattie, where are my jeans?’ Nikki’s voice was dangerously quiet. She stood with her hands linked behind her, staring at the elderly Beattie.

‘All of them?’ Beattie asked. She sounded flustered.

‘All of them.’

‘Well, I sent them to Charlotte, of course.’ Beattie’s expression of innocence didn’t quite come off. ‘Like she asked me to.’

‘Beattie-’

‘Now, I know you’ll think we’re interfering,’ Beattie said, paying minute attention to the pastry she was crimping, ‘but Miss Charlotte rang and said you’d bought the most lovely clothes and you wouldn’t be game to wear them if you didn’t get some encouragement.’ She flushed even redder. ‘So she told me to burn them. And I wouldn’t, of course,’ she said virtuously as she saw Nikki’s jaw drop. ‘So then she told me to pack them all up and put them on the aeroplane back down to Cairns. Said she’d look after them until you wanted them again.’

‘So…’ Nikki. stared, speechless.

‘So I did. I asked your new locum to give them to the pilot when he met you from the plane.’

‘Beattie-’

‘And Miss Charlotte said you were to yell at her and not me.’ And then Beattie smiled a cheeky smile. ‘But you can yell at me if you like. My shoulders are broad enough to take it.’ She left what she was doing, folded her floury arms and fixed her young employer with a hard stare. ‘Miss Charlotte thinks it’s time you started living again and I’m not disagreeing.’

Nikki sank on to a kitchen chair. Her anger was palpable. ‘So you take my clothes…’

‘Those things weren’t clothes,’ Beattie said harshly. ‘They were a disguise, is what Miss Charlotte reckoned, and she’s right. You’re pretty as any girl in Eurong, Nikki Russell, and you’re too darned young to be as bitter and reclusive as you’ve been.’ She sniffed defensively. ‘So we’ve taken a hand.’ She buried her hands in her pastry again. ‘And if you don’t like it you can sack me, but I’ve done no more than my Christian duty or what your mum would have done if she’d been alive.’ She sniffed again. ‘I was that fond of your mother! And I’ve a duty to her too-’

The telephone broke across her words. It was just as well, Nikki thought grimly. In another minute Beattie would be in tears. Flashing a look of frustrated fury at her housekeeper, she crossed to the bench to answer it. It was the last person she wanted to speak to. Luke Marriott…

‘OK, I said I wouldn’t disturb you.’ From the other end of the line his voice was clipped and efficient. ‘But I’ve a child here I’m unhappy about. Karen Mears.’

Karen…Nikki’s anger was placed aside. ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly.

‘It’s a greenstick fracture of her arm. But am I right in worrying?’

Nikki sighed. ‘Yeah,’ she said grimly. ‘We’ll have to get her to hospital. I’ll be right there.’

‘No.’ The voice was firm and authoritative. ‘I just wanted my suspicions confirmed. I can deal with it.’

‘But Mrs Mears will never let you-’

‘She’ll let me.’

‘Luke, Mrs Mears has problems…’

‘None that justifies this. Her problems can wait. For now, all we need to do is make sure Karen’s protected. Then we act.’

‘But-’

‘Nikki, I don’t need you. Go back to your study. I’ll see you tonight.’ The line went dead. Nikki was left holding the useless telephone. She stared down. Karen…

At least this showed that Luke Marriott was thinking as he worked. Most children presenting with a greenstick fracture would not excite attention. Karen, though…

Karen was eight years old-the eldest of a family of four children. Her father had walked out a year ago, and Nikki was sure Mrs Mears wasn’t coping. Karen seemed to be bearing the brunt of it. She’d been a quiet child to begin with but now she was withdrawn to the point where Nikki worried. She had grown thinner, her pinched little face pale and haunted, with her two huge hazel eyes a mirror of misery. The child had one cold after another, but the only time Nikki saw her was during routine school check-ups. The teacher had drawn Nikki aside and confided her worries.

‘She’s often bruised,’ the young teacher had whispered. ‘And she “forgets” her lunch most days. I’m sure she’s not getting enough to eat.’

Nikki had gone over the little girl thoroughly. There were bruises over the child’s body-enough to make her approach Mrs Mears.

‘She’s just clumsy,’ Sandra Mears had said defensively. ‘She’s always knocking into things.’

Nikki had watched the young woman’s hands tremble as she talked. Sandra Mears was younger than Nikki-much younger. To have to cope with the burden she was facing…

‘Sandra, can I organise you some help?’ Nikki had said gently. ‘I can get council child care one day a week-some time to give you a break. The four children must make you tired.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ Sandra had snapped. ‘I don’t want your charity.’

‘Sandra, it’s not charity-’

‘Well, I don’t want it,’ the girl had repeated, rising. ‘Now butt out of what’s not your business.’

‘Karen’s health is my business.’

There’s nothing wrong with Karen and if she says there is then she’s a liar.’ The girl had thinned her lips in a gesture of defiance, but still the lips had trembled. ‘Now let me get Karen and I’ll go home.’

And Nikki had been able to go no further. She’d talked to Karen’s teacher again and then, reluctantly, had contacted the state’s children’s protection services. The social worker had travelled from Cairns but, like Nikki, she had hit a blank wall.

‘There’s not a lot I can do,’ she’d told Nikki unhappily. ‘I’m sure Karen’s taking the brunt of her mother’s unhappiness. Sandra seems deeply depressed, but neither will admit there’s a problem.’

At what point should the authorities step in and remove children from a parent’s care? Nikki didn’t know. Unhappily she stared now at the telephone and accepted that the point might be now.

It took all her self-control not to go back to the hospital. ‘I don’t need you,’ Luke Marriott had said. If he could get Sandra to agree to the little girl’s going to hospital…

Well, he had as much chance as she did, if not better, Nikki thought bitterly. An autocratic male might succeed where she had failed so dismally. Maybe even egocentric surgeons had their uses! With this cheerless thought she buried her head again in her books, the hated contact lenses in place. If only she could concentrate!

Somehow Nikki managed to do some useful study. She left her books when Beattie called her for dinner, once more uneasily conscious of her new appearance. Her dress felt odd around her bare legs-like a forgotten memory. She wished she could go back to work. A white coat now would be comforting.

Luke Marriott was in the kitchen with Amy and. Beattie. Amy was involved in helping Beattie serve, and Luke seemed to be supervising. In his hand he held a glass of wine, and as Nikki walked in he raised it in salutation.

‘The worker emerges,’ he said drily, and Nikki flushed.

‘I would have described you all as the workers.’ She frowned at the glass. ‘Did you buy wine, Beattie?’

‘I bought wine,’ Luke told her. He filled another glass. ‘Have some.’

‘No, thanks. I never do when I’m working.’ She was being a wet blanket but the man unnerved her.

‘One glass isn’t going to interfere-’

‘I don’t want it!’ Nikki bit her lip, ashamed of her outburst. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. She turned to the housekeeper who was regarding her in astonishment. ‘Can I help, Beattie?’

‘I’ve all the help I need in young Amy here,’ Beattie told her. ‘You two go in. Shoo.’

‘I’ll wait and help carry in the plates.’ The last thing Nikki wanted was to be alone in the dining-room with Luke Marriott. Alone anywhere…

Nikki ate in silence while Beattie, Amy and Luke chatted amiably over the events of the day. Nikki couldn’t join in. Her overwhelming emotion was anger with herself.

Why on earth had she behaved like a tiresome child? Nikki hadn’t the faintest idea why this man was making her react like this, and she hadn’t a clue what to do about it. Her normal, cloistered existence was shattered. She was having to share her home with a man who made her feel…who made her feel like a gauche schoolgirl.

Luke lapsed into silence as Beattie left to clear the table, Amy virtuously helping, but he didn’t seem in the least uncomfortable. On the contrary, his deep blue eyes held the trace of a twinkle, as if he was aware of and enjoying the discomfiture his presence engendered in the girl at the other end of the table.

Finally the interminable meal came to an end and Nikki rose. She hadn’t tasted a thing and Beattie had gone to extraordinary trouble. It was a shame.

‘I’m going to put Amy to bed,’ she said stiffly.

‘You mean you do occasionally spend some time mothering?’

Nikki bit her lip. ‘I spend heaps of time with Amy,’ she said hotly. ‘And Amy understands how important my job is.’

‘Does she?’

‘Look, I don’t have to answer to you…’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Only to Amy.’

Nikki pushed back her chair, scraping it harshly on the polished boards. ‘Amy has to understand that life is serious,’ she told him. ‘And work’s important. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

‘Don’t you want to know about Karen?’ Luke enquired, raising his brows. ‘I thought a bit of professional concern might be in order.’

Nikki flushed bright red and sank down. She was going crazy. Not to have enquired…

‘Tell me about her,’ she said stiffly. ‘Of course I’m worried.’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course I am.’ Nikki bit her lip as again her anger threatened to burst out.

‘So why haven’t you interfered before now? You do know the child is being abused?’

‘Abused…?’

‘There are bruises all over her. And the X-ray shows the arm has been broken before.’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Well, it was.’ Luke grimaced. ‘The fracture is further up the arm from the original break. The bone’s calcified around the old fracture. It happened around a year ago, I’d say.’

Nikki closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t…Neither her teacher nor I picked that up,’ she whispered. ‘It must have happened during the long vacation. I’ve seen the bruising, though.’

‘And turned the other cheek?’

‘I contacted community services. They sent a social worker up from Cairns.’

‘That did a lot of good, I’ll bet.’

Nikki rose. ‘So what would you have them do?’ she snapped. ‘Take the children away? Sandra had Karen when she was fourteen. Fourteen! She’s only twenty-two now and she has four children. She married a no-hoper, had one child after another and now he’s left her and she has nothing. The community here labelled her eight years ago when she had Karen out of wedlock, and she’s been isolated ever since. She struggles on to hold them together-’

‘Well, she’s not struggling enough,’ Luke said grimly. ‘I’d say she has a temper and Karen’s taking the brunt of it.’

‘So we take all the children?’ Nikki shook her head. ‘Where does that leave them-or Sandra? I asked Karen about the bruises. She told me she kept falling over-Sandra’s obviously warned her about telling the truth-but if you gave her the choice of going to a strange foster home or staying with her brothers and sister, then I know the choice Karen would make.’

‘So you’re proposing we patch her up and send her back to face her mother’s temper again.’

‘No, of course not.’ Nikki subsided again into her chair. Some things were just so hard. ‘Not if it’s reached the stage of bones being broken. But I don’t know…I’ll have to contact Cairns again.’

‘The social worker?’

‘Well, what else do you suggest?’ Nikki demanded.

He smiled then, the blue eyes challenging. Rising, he came around to her end of the table and placed a hand on the back of her chair.

‘I suggest you abandon your studies for a couple of hours,’ he said firmly. ‘Let’s go and see Sandra now.’

‘What, now?’

‘As soon as Amy’s in bed.’ He looked at his watch. ‘She won’t be expecting us. It will give us a chance to assess what things are like at home, and we just might be able to do something constructive.’

‘Like bring all the children back here?’ Nikki said bitterly, and Luke’s smile deepened. He looked around appraisingly, through the French windows to the swimming-pool beyond.

‘Well, there’s certainly enough room.’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ Nikki said icily, ‘this is my home. And I like my privacy!’

‘And I wonder why?’ Luke said thoughtfully. ‘This place is enormous. It needs half a dozen kids to bring it to life.’

‘So you propose going and taking Sandra’s? Just to keep Amy company, I suppose.’

‘Dr Russell?’

Nikki looked up at him suspiciously. ‘Yes?’

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

They stopped at the hospital first. The children’s ward was in darkness. The nurse rose to greet them, her finger raised to her lips in a gesture of silence.

‘Karen’s only just gone to sleep,’ she whispered. ‘Despite the medication.’

Luke frowned. ‘Why? She should have drowsed off hours ago.’

‘She was too frightened to go to sleep. She said…’ The nurse hesitated. ‘She kept saying we’d take her away while she was asleep.’ She sighed. ‘And her mother didn’t come.’

‘Was Karen asking for her?’

‘No. But her eyes never left the door, waiting. Poor wee mite…’

Luke crossed silently to the bed and Nikki followed. The child was sleeping soundly in a drug-induced sleep. Her injured arm was flung out at a rigid angle. In the dim ward light her face was a wan pool of dejection. There were shadows under the huge eyes-shadows that spoke of abject misery. Nikki felt her heart wrench within her. Maybe this little one could come back to Whispering Palms for a while…

‘Professional detachment,’ Luke said softly from the other side of the bed, and Nikki raised her eyes as she realised he was watching her. ‘It’s a bit hard, isn’t it?’

‘It’s impossible,’ Nikki said wearily, and turned to go.

Nikki directed Luke mechanically, out past the town boundaries, along the coast road and then inland to an old farmhouse set well back from the road. This had once been the homestead for the sugar plantation it was on, but the owners had long ago wearied of the fight with white ants and age, and had rebuilt a mile further down the road. They were renting this house out for a pittance, waiting for nature to take its course.

It would soon happen. This land was natural rainforest, and without constant clearing the forest was reclaiming its own. Huge palms surrounded the house, so much so that it was difficult to see where house started and garden ended. The veranda was sagging wearily on rotten footings, and vines and the beginnings of coconut palms were shoving up through the boards.

What a place to bring up children! The place must be crawling with snakes, Nikki thought grimly, and it was miles from anywhere. Sandra had been isolated from the Eurong community since she’d had her first child, but by living here her isolation was complete.

There was complete silence as they approached the house. A rusted-out Ford sedan stood forlornly in front of the veranda, and a light showed through a single window. They could see a vague shape through the cracked glass. The figure rose while they watched and came towards the door.

‘What a dump!’ Luke stood at the edge of the veranda and looked up, whistling soundlessly between his teeth. ‘Surely there must be better places…’

‘What do you want?’

Sandra was standing at the door, the solitary light behind her casting her shadow twenty feet out into the night. She was wearing a worn dressing-robe, and her long hair was matted and wild. Her figure was so thin that she appeared almost emaciated. She stood, barefoot, her arms folded. Her stance spoke of defiance and a fear so tangible that Nikki felt she could almost touch it.

‘You didn’t come to see Karen,’ Nikki said gently. ‘We thought you might.’

‘Karen shouldn’t be in hospital. She’s only got a broken arm-’

‘We’re not keeping Karen in hospital because she has a broken arm,’ Luke said harshly. ‘Mrs Mears, may we come in?’

‘No.’

Luke nodded. ‘Then we’ll keep Karen until the social workers arrive from Cairns,’ he said firmly. ‘We have no choice.’

‘But-’

Luke looked up at the woman on the veranda, and in the dim light his eyes were suddenly implacable and hard. ‘Mrs Mears, Karen has bruises all over her. She has a broken arm and it’s not the first time it’s been broken. She flinches when I raise my hand as if she’s used to being beaten. And she’s malnourished. Hungry, Mrs Mears. Now, are we going to come inside and talk about it, or do we contact the authorities in Cairns?’

Sandra Mears gave an audible gasp and her hand flew to her mouth. She took a step back as if Luke had slapped her.

‘We need to talk, Mrs Mears.’ Luke’s voice had softened but was no less implacable.

There was a long silence. Then Sandra slowly turned as if sleep-walking, and walked inside.

Nikki had expected chaos. Judging from the outside, the house was a ruin and Sandra incompetent. To her amazement the place was almost pathetically clean, the cleanliness accentuating the abject poverty in the place. She looked around in amazement and then down to Sandra. Sandra had sunk to sit at the kitchen table. Her head fell forward on to her arms and her shoulders heaved. This girl was wretched, and despite her anger Nikki felt a wave of compassion. What sort of mess was this girl in?

‘So tell us, what happened?’

The compassion hadn’t touched Luke. He was standing over Sandra almost like the interrogator in a bad movie. Nikki put up a hand in protest but he silenced her with a look.

Sandra looked up, her tear-stained face a plea, but Luke wasn’t interested in pleas. ‘Tell us, Sandra,’ he said.

‘She…she broke her arm.’

‘No. Tell us.’

The silence stretched out. Outside on the veranda a cane toad started its harsh croaking. The naked lightglobe made the effect surrealistic and awful.

‘You know,’ Sandra said at last.

‘No. You tell us.’

Sandra cast a scared look up at him and dashed a hand across her cheek. Luke didn’t stir. His gaze didn’t waver.

‘She was…she wouldn’t…she wouldn’t do what I told her…’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s not true,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was Jamie. My…my youngest. He’s four. I’d just been to town and bought some biscuits. We hadn’t had biscuits for so long but…but the kids asked and asked. One packet of biscuits.’ She looked up, pleading with them to understand. ‘I just couldn’t bear not to-so I got them and then I went outside and when I come back Jamie had got at them and eaten six and shoved the rest in the toilet ‘cos he was full and he didn’t know what to do with the halfeaten packet and was scared I’d find them. And they blocked the toilet and I found them and I hit Jamie, but I couldn’t hit him hard ‘cos he’s only four and he gets asthma, and then Karen started crying and said I

shouldn’t hit him and…and I just-’ Her voice

broke off into tears.

‘So you hit Karen instead,’ Luke said, and to Nikki’s surprise his voice had gentled.

‘Yeah.’ The girl’s face came up. ‘I always do. She’s so like me. She just stands there and takes it. She doesn’t even cry. She just stands there. The other kids were crying ‘cos they hadn’t had any biscuits but not Karen…’

‘She’s so like you…’

‘Yeah.’ Sandra’s head sank on to her arms and she gave a broken sob. ‘I feel so bad. I love her so much and I hurt her…’ She managed to look up again. ‘Maybe it’s best if you take her away. I know I’ll keep hurting her. And I love her.’ She gave a desperate gulp as if to gain strength to continue. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I love her more than the rest of the kids put together and yet I hurt her…’

‘You didn’t come to the hospital…’

‘She’d look at me,’ Sandra said brokenly. ‘I know she’d just look at me and not say anything. She won’t even cry.’

Luke sat down at the bare, scrubbed table and his hand came out to cover Sandra’s. ‘Mrs Mears, you’ve reached the point where you accept help or watch your family disintegrate,’ he said softly. He motioned backwards to where Nikki was standing, silently watching. ‘Dr Russell and I can help, but only if you let us. You’ve admitted there’s a problem. If you love your daughter, then you must admit that you need help. And then accept it.’

Sandra’s eyes once more met his. There was a long silence. Even the cane toad outside had hushed. Nikki found she was holding her breath. So much depended on these next few moments.

Then Sandra took a ragged breath, and then another. She looked over to Nikki and back to Luke.

‘I’m in trouble,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do. Please…please help me.’

Luke nodded as if he had expected no less. His hand stayed exactly where it was, and Nikki had a sudden sense of how Sandra must feel. To have this man touching her, feeding strength, reassurance and warmth into her through his touch. There was a sudden, crazy moment of irrational jealousy, quickly stifled.

Luke stood, and motioned to Nikki. ‘Do we have any sleeping-pills, Dr Russell?’

‘Yes.’ Nikki frowned. She wouldn’t have thought leaving sleeping-tablets for this woman was the most sensible thing. Sandra seemed almost suicidal.

‘We’ll leave you two tablets for the night,’ Luke told Sandra, heading off Nikki’s criticism. ‘I want you to take them and get a solid night’s sleep. Tomorrow morning I want you to get up, wash your hair, put on your nicest dress and bring the children into the hospital. I’ll arrange the nursing staff to take care of them for the rest of the day. You’ll visit Karen and then meet me in my surgery at twelve.’

‘My surgery’. Nikki flinched on the words. This man had taken right over. Still, he had achieved more so. far than she had ever been able to with this sullen, frightened girl.

‘But-’

‘No buts.’ Luke was standing, still not taking his eyes from Sandra. ‘By twelve tomorrow I’ll have a list of options available for you, and I want you to come knowing that every option is better than what’s happening now.’

‘But there’s nothing…’ It was a frightened whisper.

‘There’s everything.’ Once more, Luke’s voice gentled and his hand came down on to her shoulder. ‘There’s a whole great world out here for you and your children, Sandra, and it’s time you started finding it.’

‘But Karen…’

‘Karen loves you.’ He smiled then and his smile warmed the bleak little room. ‘If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t help you. But Karen loves you and she’s a smart little girl. She wouldn’t love you unless you were worth loving. So let’s get to work and repay her trust.’

They left her then, sitting staring out bleakly into the night. Nikki was aware of intense disquiet as they bumped down the overgrown track away from the house.

‘You don’t think she’ll do anything stupid, do you?’ she said softly.

Luke flashed her a quizzical look. ‘Like suicide?’

‘Like suicide.’

He shook his head. ‘She loves her family too much.’

‘You sounded tougher before you met her.’

Luke nodded as he manoeuvred the little car out on to the road and turned homewards. ‘She’s OK.’ He was talking almost to himself. ‘Sometimes life is just too much. I think for Sandra it’s reached that point. But now she’s said she needs help-well, I reckon there’s light at the end of her tunnel, anyway.’

Nikki frowned across at him. His voice had suddenly flattened as if he was doing some sort of personal comparison. Surely this self-confident, overbearing male couldn’t have major problems in his life. And yet…He was at Eurong for a reason. What on earth was it?

‘Tell me why you’re doing country locums,’ she said gently, and he flashed her a look of amusement.

‘Probing into my ghosts, Dr Russell?’

Nikki flushed. ‘You’re a successful surgeon,’ she continued, and was annoyed at the trace of resentment she heard in her voice. ‘Why…why have you given it up?’

‘I haven’t given it up.’

‘Doing a locum in a backwater like Eurong is hardly a strategic career move,’ she said waspishly.

‘No.’ He smiled across at her. ‘Neither is burying yourself here in a house too big for you in a community that’s known and labelled you from childhood. And that’s what you’re doing, Dr Russell.’

Nikki bit her lip angrily. ‘Beattie-’ she started.

‘If you think I can practise for half a day in this place and not learn all the local gossip, you don’t know much about the town you live in,’ he told her.

‘Especially when you ask!’

He grinned. ‘Especially when I ask.’

The car slowed suddenly and Nikki looked out. They were still two miles from home on the beach road. Luke was pulling the little car on to the kerb, and coming to a halt.

‘Wh-what are you doing?’ Nikki stammered.

‘I’ve been in a stuffy surgery all day,’ Luke told her. ‘And the moon is full and the beach is calling. I’m taking a short walk, Dr Russell. Are you coming or do you intend to sit in the car and sulk while I walk?’

‘But…’

Luke didn’t hear. The car was stationary and Luke had left, striding swiftly around to hold the door open for her. ‘Coming, Dr Russell?’

A walk on the beach was how Nikki often ended her day. After hours spent trying to solve everyone else’s problems, the sea and the moonlight were often the only way she could calm her tired mind. But to walk with this man…

She looked up, and his eyes held a challenge. Afraid? they mocked, and suddenly she knew she was. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want what seemed to be happening whether she wanted it or not.

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ he said, for the second time that night, and his eyes mocked her.

Nikki took a deep breath. ‘I should be in bed,’ she said tightly.

He held up the car keys. ‘Well, the car’s going nowhere,’ he said gently. He held out his hand to take hers. Helplessly Nikki felt herself drawn up and out of the car. ‘A walk,’ he said firmly. ‘Nothing else, Dr Russell. Not yet.’