Stormbound Surgeon

CHAPTER TEN

JOSS popped in to check on Charlotte before he went home, and found her weeping into her pillows.

‘He’s just weak,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t see it before. But he’s a fool. Thinking I’d do something to ruin our future, dashing here in his stupid speedboat in this weather, thinking Amy wouldn’t find out…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You know, I really did think he was doing this for Amy’s sake. I thought he was committed, and it was too late for him to draw back. I was even sympathetic. But now… I just don’t know any more. And I loved that speedboat as much as he did!’

Whew! It seemed Malcolm had blotted his copybook in more ways than one. If Malcolm wanted a long-term relationship with this lady, he had a few bridges to build, Joss decided. As it was, he’d gone from having a relationship with two women to being very close to having a relationship with neither.

Amy was looking as bleak as Charlotte.

They drove home in the dark together but there seemed little to say. There was a constraint between them that was growing worse all the time.

He should have kept his oar out of her affairs. She was looking like she’d lost her world.

What was it with the creep? What did Malcolm have that Joss didn’t?

The thought brought him up sharply. For heaven’s sake, was he jealous?

Jealous of a guy with two relationships?

No. He was jealous of a guy who’d had Amy’s heart in the palm of his hand.

His leg hurt. All of him hurt. All of him ached, and it wasn’t just physical. He ached for Amy. He ached for the impossibility of the whole damned set-up.

He ached.

Back at the house, Bertram greeted them with the joy of one who’d been abandoned for at least a month.

He needed a run.

‘I’ll take him to the beach,’ Amy told him. ‘You put yourself to bed. Your leg must hurt.’

It didn’t hurt so much any more. Not if it meant not going to the beach with Amy.

This was his last night here. Tomorrow the ferry would be operating and he’d be out of here.

‘I’ll come.’

‘Your leg…’

‘My leg can drop off for all I care. I’ll come.’

So they walked, slowly in deference to Joss’s stitched leg. He’d have gone faster but she deliberately held back. She was wearing faded jeans and a big sloppy sweater. Some time during the day her braid had started to work free and she hadn’t had time to rebraid it. She looked like part of the landscape, he thought. A sea witch. Lifting her face to the sea. Drinking it in.

She looked free.

She was anything but free.

The dog ran in crazy circles around them, the circles growing larger and larger as he revelled in this, his last night on the beach. Tomorrow Bertram would be back in his hospital apartment, Joss thought ruefully, limited to two long runs a day. After the freedom of the seashore it’d seem like a prison.

Sydney would seem like a prison.

He put a hand down and suddenly Amy’s hand was in his. It was almost an unconscious gesture on his part-to take her hand-but when he’d done it, it felt good.

It felt great!

She felt like his woman.

She loved Malcolm?

‘He’s a rat,’ he growled, and he felt rather than saw her surprise.

‘I know.’

‘You won’t take him back.’

‘No. I won’t take him back.’ She was speaking as if from a distance-as if speaking to herself. ‘I never should have got engaged to him in the first place.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I didn’t love him.’

There. The thing had been said. It was out in the open, to be faced by the pair of them.

‘But still you agreed to marry him,’ he said cautiously and she nodded. She kicked a ball of sand before her and it shattered into a thousand grains and blew away on the wind. The weather was clearing by the moment. Joss was wearing her father’s overcoat but he hardly needed it.

The moonlight was on their faces. The salt spray was gentle. It was their night.

‘I just can’t handle it,’ she said tightly. ‘I know I’m doing a great job here, I’m keeping all these people happy. Just…what about me? That was why I got engaged to Malcolm. So I could have a life-any life-apart from the nursing home.’ She kicked another lump of sand but this time it didn’t dislodge and she almost tripped. ‘Damn,’ she said, and he knew she wasn’t speaking about the sand.

‘Take me out to your rock,’ he said on impulse, and she hesitated. ‘Go on.’ His hand was still in hers. ‘It’s my last night here.’

‘It’s my special place.’

‘Share it with me.’

‘You don’t want…’

But he was propelling her forward. ‘I want.’

‘You’ll get your feet wet.’

‘Heroes don’t mind wet feet,’ he told her. ‘Not when in pursuit of fair maidens.’

She stared at him for a long, long moment, and then, without a word, she turned and led him out across the rocks.

And when they reached it, he turned her and took her firmly into his arms.

There were so many things between them. There were so many obstacles. But for now, for this moment, they fell away as if they didn’t exist.

The dangers, the pain and the confusion slipped away. Joss held Amy in his arms and once again the thought flooded his mind. This was his woman. Here was his home.

She smelled like the sea. His lips were on her hair and the sea spray was a fine mist, damp against his mouth. Her figure was a lovely curving softness against his chest. The fabric of her ancient sweater was as lovely as silk to him. He gloried in the softness against his hands as he felt the pliant contours of her body, and he felt his body surge in recognition of a longing he hardly recognised.

He’d wanted women before, he thought, wondering, but not like this.

She was his.

She had to be his. His need was so strong it was almost primeval, a surge of something as old as man itself. Here was his mate. Half of his whole. He held her tighter, savouring the moment, waiting for her face to turn up to him as he knew it must, for her lips to find his…

Waiting to claim her.

This was impossible. She was a captive in this place. She couldn’t leave, and he couldn’t stay.

But how could he leave her? All this time he’d been fighting against a commitment he didn’t understand. He’d thought his father a fool for allowing himself to love, but love wasn’t something you chose.

Love was here.

Love was now.

She was pulling back-just a little-just enough to see his face in the moonlight. What she saw seemed to satisfy her.

‘Joss,’ she said, and it was enough.

His mouth lowered to hers and he claimed her.

His woman.

And Amy…

This was an impossibility. This man… He had no place in her life. She was trapped here and tomorrow he’d be gone.

But tonight…

Tonight she held him close. She was twenty-eight years old, she’d been engaged to someone else for the last two years, it was six years before she could leave this place…

All of those things were as nothing on this night.

For tonight there was only Joss.

‘I love you,’ she whispered against his chest, so low that Joss could hardly hear against the sound of wind and waves. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want him to hear. It wasn’t a declaration to him. It was a declaration to herself.

Tomorrow the loss and the loneliness would begin. Tonight there was Joss.

She lifted her face to his and she linked her hands behind his head and pulled him down to her.

‘Joss,’ she whispered, and after that she couldn’t whisper a thing. For a very long time.

Afterwards, Joss could never remember how they made it to the house. Making love on the beach wasn’t an option. Maybe in midsummer-but not when the sand was still soaked from two weeks of storms and the wind was still chill. No. He wanted this woman in the comfort of a bed.

Liar. If the bed wasn’t on offer…

He wanted this woman any way he could have her. And he wanted her for ever.

She wasn’t arguing. In that final moment as she placed her lips against his they both knew that they were surrendering themselves to each other. Completely. If this night was all they had, then so be it. Better one night than never. If this night was to last a lifetime then they’d take this night with joy.

They weren’t protected. Joss had nothing and when he remembered he groaned, but Amy wasn’t fussed at all.

‘If you’re happy to take the risk then so am I,’ she murmured as they reached the bedroom door and paused. There was a brief moment of sanity to reassure Bertram-and lock him in the kitchen-and take stock of what they knew lay ahead. ‘If I end up pregnant from this night I’d think it nothing but wonderful.’ She smiled up at him. ‘And you?’

He thought about that. Nothing but wonderful…

Amy carrying his child?

So much for his fear of commitment. The thought filled him with unadulterated joy.

‘You’re sure, my love?’

‘I’m sure. I’d make a very good single mum.’

He had his own ideas about that. Single mum? Humph!

But now wasn’t the time to declare his hand. Not until he was sure. If she thought she was headed for single parenthood, well and good. For now.

With a whoop of sheer loving triumph he swept her up into his arms so he was carrying her down the hall. He was laughing into her gorgeous dancing eyes and she was laughing back at him, loving him, wanting him…

‘Then so be it,’ he told her. ‘So be it, my love. Let’s see if we can make a baby. The way I feel tonight, we might even make quads!’

They were falling onto his bed, their clothes were disappearing. The moonlight was slanting across their bodies, as if in blessing…

Man and woman, becoming one.

Dawn came too soon. Or maybe it wasn’t dawn. Something was ringing.

Joss stirred. Amy was cradled in his arms, her lovely hair was splayed out over his chest and she was cradled against him in love and in peace.

Who said married couples needed double beds? he thought sleepily. Single worked just fine.

‘Um…it’s the telephone.’ Amy lifted her head. ‘Why did we end up in your room when the phone’s in my room?’

‘The world’s in the rest of the house. Here there’s just us.’

Which was fine-but the telephone was ringing.

‘Maybe it’s urgent,’ Joss said.

‘I think we should forget the medical imperatives. Charles the First can give it a shot.’

Charles the First? Oh, right. The ancient doctor with dementia. ‘Maybe.’ But the ringing kept on. ‘Maybe someone’s dead.’

‘There’s not a lot we can do if they’re dead,’ she said practically. ‘Call the undertaker-not us.’

‘Amy…’

She sighed. ‘Hey, I’m the conscientious one, not you.’ She rubbed her face against his bare chest, and her hair felt like silk against his skin. The sensation was unbearably erotic. ‘OK, oh, noble doctor. Go and answer the phone. I’ll keep the bed warm.’

‘Promise?’

She smiled down into his eyes, love and laughter fighting for supremacy. Love won. ‘I promise.’ But she was kissing him so deeply that he couldn’t resist.

The phone stopped. Two minutes later it started again and Joss swore.

‘It’s nine o’clock on a Monday morning,’ Amy told him, still laughing. ‘The world has a right to intrude.’

‘It’s not nine o’clock.’

‘That’s what your watch says.’

‘You’re lying on my watch.’

‘That’s not all I’m lying on. Go and answer the phone.’

‘Did I tell you I love you?’

She beamed. ‘Yes. But tell me again if you like.’

‘I love you.’

‘There you go, then.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips and pushed him away. ‘That makes a hundred and eleven. But tell me again.’

‘I love you.’

‘A hundred and twelve. Go and answer the phone.’

It was Sue-Ellen from the nursing home.

‘The ferry’s operating. Emma’s parents were the first over and they want to know if they can take their daughter home right away.’

Joss groaned. He really did need to check the child first.

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he told her.

When he returned to his bedroom Amy was gone.

‘Amy?’

‘I’m in the shower.’

‘You promised to keep the bed warm.’

‘I lied. People do.’

He thought about that as he hauled open the bathroom door to find her under a cloud of steam.

‘I don’t,’ he told her.

‘Yeah, right.’

There was only one way to handle insubordination like that. Joss hauled the shower screen wide and swept Amy up into his arms. They stood naked as the water poured over them and he kissed her so hard she lost her breath and had to pummel him away with her fists. Breathless and laughing, she leaned back in his arms and looked up at him with love.

‘If you need to see Emma before she’s discharged, we need to go.’

Damnably they did.

‘Joss…’

‘Mmm?’

‘Thank you for last night.’

‘It’s the first of-’

‘No.’ The laughter died then. ‘Joss, it’s not the first of anything. It’s a one-off. Today you’ll get into your stepmother’s amazing pink Volkswagen and you’ll drive onto the ferry and out of my life.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’ She struggled to be free and reluctantly he loosed her. Not so much as you’d notice, though. She was still linked within the circle of his arms.

‘I’ve had a long-term engagement,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want another.’

‘But-’

‘No.’ She was holding him close but her voice was urgent. ‘Joss, you know I can’t leave here for six years. This place would die. So many people would lose so much. I can’t hurt them and you wouldn’t want me to.’

He thought about that. In truth, he’d been thinking of little else. Except for how wonderful this woman was.

How he needed to keep her.

‘You can’t stay here,’ she told him.

He thought about that.

‘Joss?’

‘Mmm?’

‘You need to return to Sydney.’

He did. Damnably, he did. There was so much to do.

‘Remember me,’ she told him. ‘But not…not with faithfulness. I’m not waiting for you and you’re not waiting for me. We’re free.’

Free.

Once it had seemed the only way to be. Now, as he kissed her one last long time, it seemed a fate worse than any he could think of.

Free?

Where was the joy in that?

They made their way back to the nursing home in almost as deep a silence as the way they’d driven home the previous night.

So much had changed-and yet so little. They reached the nursing home and they were surrounded by need.

Emma’s parents were waiting to see him, desperate to know her poisoning hadn’t caused long-term damage. Charlotte’s father had appeared, wanting to blast someone for his daughter’s unhappiness, Rhonda Coutts’s daughter had come to make sure her mother was being well cared for and was recovering. And more…

There must have been a longer queue on the far side of the river waiting to come to Iluka than the queue on the Iluka side waiting to get out, Joss decided. He fielded one query after another, always conscious that Amy was working close by. Amy was here.

Amy would always be here.

‘Now the ferry’s operating, Daisy’s happy for you to take her car back to Sydney,’ his father told him, and he had to raise a smile to thank her. Driving a pink Volkswagen would get him a few odd looks but those looks were the least of his problems. ‘That is,’ his father added, looking sideways at his son, ‘if you still want to go.’

He didn’t, but it was never going to get easier. Another night like last night and it’d be impossible.

His life was waiting in Sydney. Or…the chance of a new life?

‘He’s going.’ Unnoticed, Amy had come up behind them. She smiled at David, who’d driven in to the nursing home specifically to find his son. ‘He’s being kicked out of his lodgings, so he must.’

That was news to Joss. ‘I’m being kicked out?’

‘Yes.’ Her face was strained and pale but somehow she summoned a smile. ‘It’s far too crowded with two people, one dog and only ten bedrooms. Someone has to go. I drew straws and Joss is it.’

‘Will you keep Bertram?’ Joss demanded suddenly. He couldn’t bear to think of her in that mausoleum alone. But she shook her head.

‘Of course not. He’s your dog.’

‘I’ll buy you a pup.’

‘Thank you, but no.’

And into his head came a faintly remembered line. ‘I want no more of you…’ Where had that come from? Schoolboy Shakespeare? Wherever, it was apt.

It was time to go. He couldn’t commit himself to this woman. At least…not yet.

He still had almost a week of leave left. He could stop at Bowra and then…

‘You look like you’re aching to get back to Sydney already,’ David said, watching Joss’s face. He smiled at Amy and explained. ‘Joss always gets this far-away look when he’s making plans, and he’s making plans now. What’s on back in Sydney?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Joss said slowly. ‘I won’t know until I get there.’

There was one more heartbreaking moment as Joss stood in front of the little Volkswagen ready to leave. Bertram was sticking his head out the window and wagging his tail in anticipation, waiting for Joss to say goodbye.

This was no aching farewell of two star-crossed lovers. Star-crossed lovers didn’t get a look-in at Iluka, where everyone’s life was everyone’s business.

David and Daisy were there, plus almost every nursing-home patient and close to every Iluka resident as well. In these few short days Joss had won Iluka’s heart.

As they’d won his heart. He could see why Amy couldn’t leave.

‘Come back soon,’ they called, and he looked at Amy’s ashen face and thought not.

Not until some of those plans came to fruition.