Stormbound Surgeon

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTERWARDS Joss helped Amy with the dishes and then settled himself down at the table with his briefcase and laptop.

‘Sergeant Packer rescued these, but the rest of my luggage is matchsticks,’ he told her sadly. ‘All I’m wearing is courtesy of my dad.’ He looked ruefully down at the splendid example of Daisy’s handiwork on his chest. ‘Fair Isle sweaters aren’t really my thing.’

‘I think you look very…fetching,’ she managed, and he glowered.

‘Fetching what?’

‘Fetching not very high stakes in fashion contests?’ she ventured, and ducked as a wad of paper sailed across the room and hit her on the forehead. ‘Ow.’

‘You asked for that.’

‘Hey, I like your sweater,’ she said, laughing, and his glower deepened. But he didn’t want to glower. She was smiling across the room at him and he wanted…

Damn, he knew exactly what he wanted, but the lady was engaged to be married. He was a guest in her house.

He couldn’t.

‘At least Sergeant Packer retrieved my briefcase,’ he managed, and he wondered if she’d heard that his voice sounded odd. For heaven’s sake, what was the matter with him? He was behaving like a schoolboy.

‘You really do have a conference to prepare for?’

‘Hey, that’s what I told Dad and Daisy. Do you think I’d lie?’

‘Only if you couldn’t get what you want any other way.’

He tried a glare but it didn’t come off. She was gorgeous! But he had to stay serious. He had to concentrate on something other than that beautiful smile. ‘She’s maligning me, Bertram.’ Joss bent and fondled his dog’s velvety ears. ‘You hear that? I cook her a meal to die for and she maligns me.’

‘There you go again. Who cooked the pies?’

‘Mrs Hobbs might have,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘But who fetched them. At great personal cost.’

‘Personal cost?’

‘I had to drive a pink Volkswagen.’

‘There is that.’ Then she frowned as the front doorbell pealed. ‘Who on earth…’

‘Maybe it’s another sofa,’ Joss told her. ‘Daisy told me there was more to come.’

‘Another sofa? How many do you think I need?’

It wasn’t another sofa. It was a crate of good china, with a problem attached.

‘I thought I’d drop these in and ask…’

Amy knew Marigold Waveny well. Her husband, Lionel, was the kite builder in the nursing home, and since Lionel and his kites had removed themselves from her ultra-neat home she’d never been happier. Neither had Lionel. Sometimes Amy wondered whether he’d feigned his senility to get more room for his kite-making. He and Marigold were still happily married-possibly much happier apart than they’d ever been together. Marigold spent her days at the nursing home, admiring kites, but at night she returned to her immaculate little home where there wasn’t a kite in sight.

‘I would have brought these earlier,’ she told them, handing over her box to Joss with gratitude. ‘But I was… I wasn’t very well. I had my phone switched to the answering machine so I didn’t hear about what Daisy was organising until just now.’ She gave Joss a shy smile. ‘Then I thought, Of course, I have all this china that I don’t even like.’

Amy lifted a cup and gasped. ‘Marigold! It’s Royal Doulton. It’s beautiful.’

‘You enjoy it. Heaven knows, you do enough for my Lionel.’

‘I wouldn’t be brave enough to use it,’ Amy told her, and Marigold shook her head.

‘I have Royal Doulton, too,’ she told them. ‘But not such a loud pattern. This belonged to Lionel’s mother, and if you dropped it I’d be very pleased. And I thought…’ The voluble little lady faded to silence for a minute and then worked up courage. ‘I thought…if I brought something…a gift…while the doctor was here…’

‘Yes?’ Joss was ushering her into the kitchen while she was speaking. His eyes were twinkling and he was smiling at Amy over the top of the elderly lady’s head. He’d been a doctor for long enough to know what was coming. ‘You didn’t need to bring a gift to speak to me.’

‘No, but I thought…’

‘Tell us, Marigold,’ Amy prodded, and Marigold took a deep breath and started.

‘Well…’

‘Well?’

‘I think… I think I’m dying.’

Joss blinked. He set down the carton of china and thought about it. ‘You what?’

‘I just…’ She shook her head as if trying to get rid of something. Get rid of terror? ‘My heart’s failing,’ she whispered. ‘It’s going to stop. I can feel it. I’m dying and who cares about fancy china then?’

She stared wildly from Joss to Amy and back again-and burst into tears.

Finally they got it out of her-the reason for her terror. She was sitting in one of Amy’s new chairs while Amy knelt before her, holding her hands, and Joss listened. And watched.

‘I’ve been so tired,’ she told them. ‘For weeks I’ve been so tired I feel like I’m about to fall over. But when I go to bed at night I can’t sleep. I just lie there and my heart hammers and hammers and I get so upset… I have thumping in my chest-it’s thumping now. The palpitations are awful. I can’t seem to get enough breath. Everything’s just too much effort. I try… I’ve been going into the nursing home every day to see Lionel but it’s been too much. Today I felt so dreadful I didn’t go.’ She looked distressfully at Amy. ‘I didn’t go!’

She should have realised, Amy thought ruefully. Marigold spent every day at the nursing home and today Amy hadn’t even missed her. It was just…well, today had been different.

Lionel hadn’t realised-but, then, Lionel had been taken up by a new kite and Joss’s dog.

‘I stayed in bed,’ Marigold told them. ‘But it didn’t help. My heart’s thumping just the same. And it hurts. I thought… I thought I might die carrying that box but then I thought at least I’d die on the doctor’s doorstep and not at home by myself.’

Gee, thanks, Amy thought wryly. Just what every home needs-a corpse on the doorstep.

But Joss kneeled beside her, and his expression said he was taking this deadly seriously. He took Marigold’s wrist loosely between thumb and middle finger, counting her pulse as he glanced at his watch. His brow was furrowed in concentration.

‘Do we have a stethoscope, Amy?’ he asked, and she nodded and rose. Her bag was by the door-she acted as district nurse so she always had her bag handy.

‘Am I going crazy?’ Marigold whispered.

‘I don’t think you’re going crazy.’ Joss was watching her closely, his mind obviously in overdrive. ‘You’re very thin. Have you always been this thin or have you lost weight recently?’

‘I’ve lost a bit,’ she admitted, looking fearfully up at him. ‘I’m so tired. I can’t be bothered cooking.’

‘So you’ve lost weight and you’re constantly tired?’

‘I am seventy-three, dear.’

‘You’re a spring chicken compared to those in the nursing home.’ He tilted her chin and ran his hand down her throat, gently feeling. ‘Mrs Waveny, do you have any family history of thyroid trouble?’

‘I…’ She thought about that and finally nodded, not sure what he was getting at. ‘Maybe I do. My mother had to take iodine for something. Would that be it?’

‘Maybe it would.’ Amy handed Joss a stethoscope, and he held it to Marigold’s chest and listened. There was silence. Bertram wuffled and snuffed beside the fire, a dog at peace, but there was no peace on Marigold’s face.

‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ she whispered as Joss finished listening.

Joss hesitated, thinking it through. He wasn’t a physician. He was a surgeon, for heaven’s sake-but he was practically sure he was right.

‘Marigold, you have what we call atrial fibrillation,’ he told her. ‘It’s a fast, irregular heartbeat.’

She gasped. ‘Is that bad?’

‘It’s not good. But I don’t think you’re dying. I suspect…’ Once more he ran his hands down her throat, feeling the swelling. ‘I suspect you have an overactive thyroid. I can’t be sure until we run a blood test-which I’d imagine we can’t do here-but for the moment I’m going to assume that’s the case.’

‘I… The thyroid is causing heart failure?’

‘You don’t have heart failure. Your heart isn’t failing-it’s just running on overdrive. Now, I’m not certain, but you have all the signs. You’re tired, your neck seems a little swollen. You’re short of breath, you’re agitated, you have pains in the chest and you have a fast, irregular heartbeat. If I’m right-if this is just an overactive thyroid-then it can be controlled with tablets.’

She stared, torn between disbelief and hope. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not kidding.’

There was a silence while she took that on board, her face lighting up by the moment.

‘I’m not mad?’

‘You’re not mad.’

‘Then what do I do about it?’ She gazed from Joss to Amy and then back again. ‘I guess…forget about it until I can see the doctor from Bowra?’

‘No.’ Joss shook his head. ‘Marigold, we can’t completely rule out heart disease, and until we do then we assume the worst. If you had someone living with you, maybe you’d be OK, but as it is you need to stay at the nursing home until we have some answers.’

‘But…’ Her distress level was rising again. ‘I will be able to go home again?’

‘Of course.’ He rose and took her hand, pulling her up after him. ‘If you like, I’ll drive you home now. We’ll pick up a nightie and a toothbrush and I’ll take you in to hospital. I’d imagine Amy has Lanoxin in the drug cupboard? Am I right, Amy?’

‘Sure.’ She was almost as dumbfounded as Marigold.

‘Great. Lanoxin slows your heart rate, Marigold. It’ll make you feel a whole heap better-and we’ll give you some sleeping pills, too, so you can get a decent sleep tonight. The combination will make you feel fantastic. Is it OK with you if you leave your car here? There’s a bed available, isn’t there, Amy?’

‘I…yes.’ Amy felt as stunned as Marigold looked at the speed with which things were being organised.

‘There’s no need-’ Marigold started, but Joss shook his head.

‘There is a need,’ he said firmly ‘Amy, will you ring Mary and let her know we’re coming? Let’s go now.’

Just like that…

Amy was left staring out at the departing pink Volkswagen feeling hornswoggled.

She would have coped.

Maybe she would have coped. If Marigold had come to her, she would have popped her into hospital and rung the doctor in Bowra. But Marigold wouldn’t have come to her.

There was a huge difference in people’s attitudes to a nurse and a doctor. The locals knew Amy was overworked and they knew she only had nurse’s training. If Joss hadn’t been here, Marigold would have waited. If it had been heart disease…

It could well have been a disaster.

Iluka needed a doctor.

It was never going to have one, Amy thought sadly. Joss would leave and they’d be back to where they’d started. But for now…

But for now, she’d eaten better than she had for months, she had a warm, comfortably furnished house, a doctor caring for her patients.

She felt so good she could almost burst.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she told Bertram, picking up pad and pencil and scribbling Joss a note. She needed to walk some of this happiness off before Joss returned.

It was still raining.

‘That’s what raincoats, galoshes and umbrellas are for,’ she told Bertram. She looked at the dog’s eager face and knew without being told that Bertram was as eager for a walk as she was.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ She took a deep breath. ‘I need to get rid of some energy. Get rid of… I don’t know. Something. Because otherwise your master’s going to walk in the front door and I’ll kiss the guy.’

And that would never do. Would it?

Joss returned to find Amy gone.

‘Bertram and I are at the beach,’ the note told him. He stared at it for a while as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

He had work to do.

He’d just done some work. Marigold was nicely settled in a room next to Lionel. She felt wonderfully at home, she had a diagnosis that she could cope with, her husband was by her side and she was with friends.

Would that city hospitals could be this good.

Could he ever be happy as a country doctor? He thought about it. Tonight had felt good. The whole damned thing. Hospitals where everyone knew each other…

But this would be an impossible place to set up a practice.

Whoa! What was he thinking about? Setting up here as a country doctor? He was a surgeon. He lived in the city.

Amy was here.

Amy was engaged to be married.

The whole damned thing was a figment of a stupid fancy. Get a grip, Braden, he told himself. What the hell was happening to him?

Amy was happening to him. Quite simply she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever met. She affected him as no one else had ever done.

He didn’t react to women this way.

Women were ancillary to his life. He’d decided that long ago. He liked having women around but he didn’t do the love thing. The commitment. He had his father’s example of what happened with commitment and there was no way he was travelling down that path.

So, tempting as it might be to commit himself to some woman-a house, babies, a mortgage, country practice…

No. It wasn’t tempting in the least. So why was he thinking about it?

Maybe it was because Amy was so patently unavailable.

That was it, he decided, and he was a bit relieved to discover a reason. She was engaged to another man. She couldn’t leave this place if she wanted to, so she was absolutely unattainable. Which was probably the reason he wanted her.

But that nice sensible reason didn’t help much at all. He flicked on his laptop and stared down at his conference notes.

Life-threatening haemorrhage can be caused by aortic dissection extending into the media of the aorta following a tear in the intuma, resulting in true and false lumina separated by an intimal flap…

What the hell was he talking about?

He’d written this a week ago. A lifetime ago. Tonight it wasn’t making any sense at all, because tonight all he could think of was Amy.

She was down on the beach. With his dog. While he was sitting up here like a fool with some stupid conference notes that no one wanted to hear.

‘They’re important,’ he told himself. They represented work he’d been committed to for the last three years.

‘I’ll worry about them when I get back to Sydney.’

‘You told Dad and Daisy you needed to stay here to get them written.’

‘So I lied. I stayed here to be near Amy.’

‘Amy’s engaged to another man.’

Damn.

He was going nuts, he decided. With a groan he pushed away his laptop, grabbed a coat that he’d seen hanging in the back porch and headed out the front door toward the beach.

The beach was wonderful. She always loved it. The seashore here was wild and windswept. In the summer millionaires parked their sunbeds here and concentrated on their tans but in winter she had it all to herself. The sand stretched away for miles in either direction. Her beach.

And tonight she had Bertram. That was special. The rain had eased a little-it was still stinging her face but not so much that she minded. She’d jogged down to the beach, Joss’s dog loping beside her, and by the time she reached the sand she was warm and flushed and triumphant.

It had been a truly excellent day.

She’d helped deliver a baby. The weight of her financial need had been lifted by magic. She had furniture, she had heating, she had enough to eat…

‘He’s solved all my problems in one fell swoop,’ she told Bertram, hurling a stick along the sand and watching in delight as the big dog went flying through the rain to fetch it back for what must surely be the hundredth time.

He loved it as much as she did.

Maybe she could get a dog.

Did Malcolm like dogs? She thought about that and decided probably not. Bertram hurled himself into the waves after another stick and came lunging back up the beach to her, then shook himself, sending seawater all over her.

No. Malcolm would definitely not like dogs.

Malcolm…

He hadn’t rung tonight, she thought, frowning. He always rang, at seven every night. If he didn’t find her at home he rang her at the nursing home.

Maybe the flooding had caused problems. Maybe the Bowra line was out of order.

She’d ring him when she got in. Or then again, maybe she wouldn’t, she decided. It was ridiculous to speak to him on the phone every night. It was just a habit they’d got into.

Malcolm was just a habit.

No. Malcolm was just…Malcolm.

As opposed to Joss?

Now, that was a stupid way of thinking. When the rain ceased and a ferry could be established, Joss would be gone. Malcolm was all she had, so she should take care of the relationship.

She’d phone tonight.

Or tomorrow night.

Whatever.

She was a dark shadow outlined against the sea. The moon was struggling to emerge from behind clouds. There were faint glimmers breaking through, sending shards of silver light across the waves. Amy was tossing sticks for Bertram and Bertram was running himself ragged, wild with excitement.

Joss stayed where he was among the dunes, watching woman and dog. They made a great pair, he thought. Amy was enjoying herself. Her body language as she bent over the dog, as she stooped to lift his stick and throw…she was soaking in every minute of this.

She should have a dog of her own.

Where could he get her one?

That was a crazy thought. For heaven’s sake, he didn’t know that she liked dogs. Maybe she was just being polite.

He didn’t think so.

She was…lovely.

But he was being stupid. Fanciful. This was a Cinderella type of situation, he told himself harshly. He was attracted to Amy because she was deserving and she was beautiful and she was unattainable. Would he be as attracted if she was available? Surely not.

She was committed to living in this dump for the next six years. What man would go near her knowing that?

Malcolm would. Obviously. And it wasn’t such a dump.

‘It’s the ends of the earth.’

‘This beach is lovely.’

‘Look around,’ he told himself harshly. The rain had stopped momentarily and the moon was full out. The beach stretched away for miles, as far as the eye could see. The moonlight played over the sodden sand, the wind whipped the waves into a frenzy and…

And nothing and nothing and nothing. There was only Amy and his dog. There was nothing else for miles.

Why would anyone ever come to this place through choice?

The millionaires did, he thought, looking back up the beach to the show of ostentatious wealth lining the foreshore. But the houses obviously belonged to those who valued their privacy. The millionaires came through choice. The elderly retirees who lived behind the sand dunes had come because they’d been conned.

This isolation must have been why Amy’s stepfather had built the place, Joss decided. It would be why all these mansions had been built. There were no shops to speak of and even the retirees who lived here weren’t provided for. Here there was absolute seclusion.

There’d be no children here spoiling the sand on sunny days-imposing their noisy presence on this super-wealth. In Australia, where it wasn’t possible to own a private beach, this was the best this tiny pocket of elite millionaires could do. They’d built their houses and they were screwing the rest of the population to maintain their fabulous lifestyle. For six weeks a year.

He was getting bitter.

He was also getting cold, he thought, and gave himself a mental shake. He had better things to do than stand here and think about Amy’s problems. He had a conference paper to write.

Ha!

The conference paper could wait. He took a deep breath and turned his face into the wind. Digging his hands deep into his pockets, he went to join his dog.

And Amy.

She saw him coming.

Joss was hunched into an ancient overcoat, and for a moment as he came down the sand hill toward him she had a vision of her father. The man who’d loved her and died, leaving her to her dreadful stepfather.

She’d loved her father. He’d been one special man.

‘What?’ He reached her and found she was smiling, but it was an odd sort of smile, tinged with sadness. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Maybe I have.’ She pulled herself together. ‘It’s that coat.’ She thought about not saying anything but then decided to tell him anyway. ‘It was my father’s-not my stepfather’s but my father’s. My mother kept it and then loaned it to Robbie. Robbie was our gardener.’

‘You were fond of Robbie?’

‘He’s a lovely old man. My friend. I had to let him go-there’s no money to keep him. One of the local farmers puts a couple of sheep on my grass now and that’s the extent of my gardening. Meanwhile, Robbie’s living in a council flat in Bowra and I know he’s miserable. I tried to make him keep the coat but he wouldn’t.’ She gave a twisted little smile. ‘He said to keep it until I can have him back again. As if… But I know he misses me as much as I miss him. And he’s so broke. My stepfather should have set up a superannuation fund for him, but loyalty to his staff wasn’t his style.’

‘You don’t sound like you spend much time polishing your stepfather’s headstone.’

‘I leave that for the nephews.’

‘They loved him?’

‘They loved his money.’ She grimaced. ‘Anyway, it’s too good a night to think about my stepfather. Isn’t this fabulous?’

Fabulous?

It had started to rain again and there was a cold trickle running down his nose. The wind was making a mockery of his hood-it had blown back and his hair was damp and windblown. The smell of the sea was all around them and the breakers were roaring into the night.

It was fabulous, he decided, and he glanced down at Amy and found her smile had changed.

‘You like it, too,’ she said on a note of satisfaction. ‘I thought you would.’

‘It’s great.’

‘There was no need for my stepfather and his cronies to make this beach so exclusive,’ she said reflectively. ‘You could have thousands of people here and still find a spot where you can be alone. There’s miles and miles of beach…’ She put back her arm and tossed Bertram’s stick with all her might along the beach. The dog put back his ears and flew. ‘And it’s all ours. Sometimes…sometimes I feel rich.’

‘Hmm.’

‘How can you bear to go back to Sydney?’

‘I can’t,’ he said promptly. ‘I think I’ll stay here.’

‘And become a beachcomber?’

‘There are worse fates.’

‘You wouldn’t miss your surgery?’

Of course he would. They both knew it. Beachcombing was a dream. Beachcombing with Amy.

‘Do you want to walk out on the rocks?’ she asked, seeing Joss’s face and having enough sense to change the subject. ‘It’s great-though you might get your feet wet.’

‘Wetter,’ he muttered. His shoes had sunk into the wet sand and he could feel the damp creeping into his socks. ‘Well, why not?’

‘Excellent.’ Amy grinned and grabbed his hand. ‘Follow me.’

The feel of her hand changed things.

Follow her…

She was leading him to a rocky outcrop which spiked up out of the breakers. ‘It’s a bit dangerous,’ she warned. ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you can get into trouble. So hang on.’

How could he do anything else?

A bit dangerous…

She needed her head read, he thought as she clambered over the first of the rocks, towing him behind. There were breakers smashing over the rocks in force. Back on the beach Bertram stood and looked on in concern. There was no way he was following and the look on his face said they were crazy to try.

But she’d done this a thousand times before.

The first few rocks were the worst-the foam from the breakers was surging over the slippery surface and they had to time their way between waves. Even then they didn’t quite make it-Joss ended up on the other side with shoes full of water.

‘Don’t tell me. It’s low tide now and the next wave will carry us off to our doom. Or we’ll be trapped with the tide rising inch by inch.’

‘You’ve been reading too many adventure novels,’ she said severely. “‘The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon stormy seas…” With moonrakers, pirates, chests and chests of jewels, and a heroine chained to the rocks as the tide creeps higher…higher…’

‘I seem to remember,’ he said faintly, ‘that “The moon was a ghostly galleon” started a tale of a highwayman.’

‘Same difference,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Same criminal hero and a dopey heroine abandoning all for love. But don’t worry. The tide’s full now so it doesn’t get any worse than this, and I’m not about to end it all for anything. Look. Clear rock.’

It was, too. The outcrop of rock stretched right out into the bay, a breakwater in its own right. And where she was leading him now… It was a channel of rock. The rocks on both sides formed a barrier.

‘It’s like Moses and the Red Sea,’ he said, stunned, and she grinned.

‘Yep. The parting of the water. This is my very favourite place in the whole world and I love it best when it’s just like this. Wild and stormy and wonderful.’

Joss didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Maybe it was because he was concentrating on keeping his footing on the slippery rocks-or maybe it was that he was just plain bemused.

Finally they reached the end-a vast flat rock perched high above the breakers. Amy released his hand to scramble up the last few feet, leaving him to follow. When he found his feet she was standing right at the end, staring into the moonlight.

The shafts of moonlight were playing over her face. She looked up and he thought that he’d never seen anything so lovely.

‘He makes bright mischief with the moon…’

Where had that come from?

Wherever-from a poem deep in the recesses of his schoolboy reading-it suddenly seemed apt.

Only the pronoun was wrong.

She makes bright mischief with the moon.

Amy would be happy wherever she was, whatever she did, he thought. She made the most of her life. She cared.

She was soaked to the skin. Her braid had come unfastened and her curls were a tangled riot around her face. She was wearing a coat that was too small and clothes that were too old-and she was turning her face into the wind as if she’d been given the world.

It was too much. It would have been too much for any man.

He took her hands in his as if to steady himself, and when her body twisted toward him he pulled her close.

He kissed her.

Of course he kissed her. There was a compulsion happening here that he had no hope of controlling. He couldn’t even try.

She was so desirable. So beautiful. So…

He didn’t know. But there was a damp tendril coiling down her forehead that he had to push softly away. There was salt water on her face that he had to taste… And her lips were soft and pliant and…and waiting.

Waiting for him.

She was so lovely.

His woman…

‘Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear…’

Moon madness. That’s what this was-the same blessed moon that had caused Romeo to forsake all for his Juliet.

For heaven’s sake, he was a surgeon-not a poet!

But he was a poet tonight. Who wouldn’t be with such sweetness in his arms.

Amy was so right for him. It was as if a part of him had been missing and had found its way home. Each curve of their bodies fitted together as if they knew each other through and through.

Joss held her close and deepened the kiss-because nothing, ever, had felt so right before.

And Amy?

What was she doing? she thought wildly. She’d taken this man to her very special place-her place-the place where she’d sobbed her heart out as a child or come when life had been just too bleak for words. It was a place of sanctuary and of healing.

She hadn’t expected this to happen.

To fall in love…

Because that was what was happening. As though responding to a force beyond her control, she opened her lips to the man who held her. More. She opened her heart.

It was so right! Her body was melting into his-aching-wanting and welcoming.

She felt herself sinking into him. Desperate to deepen the kiss. Desperate to grow closer. Though how could they be closer than they were at this minute? Two halves of one sweet whole. They’d been torn asunder by some mystery of fate and could now come together for always.

Always.

Joss’s hands were pulling her body ever closer. His kiss deepened and deepened again-and so did the wonder.

She was like no woman he’d ever kissed, he thought, dazed with the sensation of what was happening to him. And why? She was sodden with sea spray. She wore no trace of make-up and her clothes were shabby and her hair was blown every which way. There were trickles of rainwater running down her nose, merging with the rain on his face where their lips met. She looked about as far from his ideal woman as he could possibly imagine any woman being.

So how could she be meeting this need-this desperate desire-that until now he’d never known he had?

He didn’t know. All he knew was that she was…Amy.

And that was enough.

And finally-finally-they pulled away, as pull away they had to. The waves were sloshing over their shoes, they were sodden and back on the beach Bertram was starting to bark his anxiety for the world to hear.

‘We’re worrying Bertram,’ Amy managed, and her voice was a husky whisper, full of uncertainty.

‘Worrying Bertram!’ Joss tried to smile down at the confusion on her face. ‘I’m worrying me.’

That worked. ‘Hey, I don’t have any infectious diseases.’

He smiled-but only just. ‘Amy…’

But she put a finger on his lips to stop him saying more. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Apologise. It was a magic night. It is a magic night, and I always think magic nights should be sealed with a kiss. Don’t you?’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, dazed. ‘Amy, what the hell happened there?’

‘An electric charge?’ Her smile was returning. ‘Moonbeams and water. They pack a lethal charge.’

They certainly did. ‘Amy, I never meant…’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ she said cordially. ‘And neither did I. But Bertram thinks we did and seeing as he’s acting as our chaperon I think we should go back to him. Don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Of course he did. After all, he was cold and he was wet. Why on earth would he want to keep standing here?

He did. Badly.

But she was more in control than he was. ‘Let’s go,’ she told him, her voice firming as she took his hand to lead him back to the beach. ‘I have a fiancé to telephone and you have a conference to prepare for.’

Right. Right!

Bertram was waiting for them to return to the beach. His conference paper was waiting to be written. The unknown Malcolm was waiting in Bowra.

His life was waiting for him to get on with it.

But how the hell was a man to concentrate on writing a conference paper after that? Joss showered and changed into more of his father’s clothes-he’d kill for another pair of jeans, he decided, and wondered for about the thousandth time how Amy put up with no shops. Dried and warm, he returned to the kitchen to find Amy had disappeared.

‘I’ve gone to bed,’ the note on the table read. ‘Make yourself some cocoa.’

Right. Cocoa. When what he needed was…

Sex?

No. Not sex. Or not just sex.

He wanted Amy.

It was nine o’clock. After the day he’d had he should be exhausted. Maybe he should go to bed, but as he wandered down the passage he heard the shower running in Amy’s bathroom. A vision appeared unbidden…

Whoa. Unless he was careful here, he’d have to take another shower. This time cold.

Bertram was nosing at Amy’s bedroom door, whimpering to be let in to visit someone he’d decided very firmly was a friend, and Joss took his collar and pulled him away.

‘No. We’re not wanted, boy. She has a fiancé.’

It was just as well she did, he decided. The last thing he wanted was a tie that could hold him to Iluka. It was bad enough that he had a father here and he’d have to visit every few months.

But Amy was here.

The sound of the shower ceased. She’d be drying herself.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Braden, get a grip. You’re a grown man.’

‘Yeah, with grown man urges.’

‘She doesn’t want you.’

‘I could just towel her back…’

He was a guest in her house. He wasn’t wanted. He had a bed of his own to go to.

The phone rang and he hesitated, half expecting-half hoping-Amy would open the door and come out to the kitchen to answer it. And then he realised it was ringing in her bedroom. Damn, she had an extension. What business did she have, having an extension when she was broke?

He was losing his mind.

But he didn’t move. He sort of listened-just for a minute.

And from the other side of the door he heard, ‘Malcolm. How lovely. I was worried about you.’

Damn.

He took himself firmly in hand and took himself off to his bed. Alone. She was worried about Malcolm?

He was worried about himself!

Amy had herself under control-sort of-and was answering the phone to her fiancé. What had gone on tonight with Joss was an aberration, she told herself firmly. It had nothing to do with her or with her future. It had only been a kiss.

Which was why she’d made a dash to her bedroom and had locked the door, thankful that her room had an en suite bathroom so she didn’t have to face Joss again tonight.

It was only a kiss, she said to herself like a mantra. A kiss with no future.

Her future was here in Iluka. Her future was with Malcolm. Now he’d phoned, as she’d known he would-though it was really unusual for him to ring two hours late.

‘I was worried,’ she told him, striving to keep her voice light. ‘When you didn’t ring I thought the telephone lines might be down.’

‘No. The lines are fine. But I hear you’ve lost the bridge.’ Malcolm sounded strained, she thought. Unlike him.

‘Yes. We’re stranded but we’re fine. Though there was one casualty…’

‘A casualty?’ Still that note of anxiety.

‘No one we know. A young woman crashed her truck and she was in full labour. She ended up having her baby here in the nursing home.’

‘A baby?’ His voice rose in disbelief and Amy thought, He really is worried. For some reason he sounded terrified.

‘She’s fine, Malcolm. We all are. David Braden’s son is here and he’s a doctor. He was trapped when the bridge came down and Joss is a fine surgeon. He did a Caesarean, delivering a beautiful little girl, and now he’s on the spot for any medical needs we might have.’

There was a silence while Malcolm thought that through, then he said, ‘So…the woman’s fine. And the baby?’

‘Great. Malcolm, is there anything wrong?’

‘No. No. Did the woman say…who she was?’

Amy frowned. Charlotte hadn’t exactly given permission for her name to be broadcast. If it hadn’t been for the policeman tracking of her licence plates, they still wouldn’t know it. ‘For some reason I don’t think she wants her identity known.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I’m afraid she’s as stuck here as we all are. I guess they’ll organise a ferry over the river soon.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You sound…odd.’

‘Do I?’ There was another lengthy silence from the end of the line then he added, ‘It must be the distance or something. Water in the line.’

‘Is everything OK at your end?’ she asked.

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘No reason.’ But still she had this niggle of a doubt. He sounded distracted.

‘You’re OK yourself?’ He still sounded strained.

‘I’m fine,’ she said gently. ‘Just a bit tired. It’s been a long day. Goodnight, Malcolm.’

For some reason he was as eager as she was to end the conversation. ‘Goodnight,’ he told her, and hung up-leaving her staring at the receiver.

What on earth was going on?

Amy went to bed but she didn’t sleep. She lay awake and stared at the ceiling, thinking of a kiss.

This didn’t make any sense. The kiss and how she was responding to it didn’t make sense at all.

When Malcolm kissed her it didn’t feel like this.

Maybe it was because Joss was forbidden fruit, she thought bleakly. You always wanted what you couldn’t have-and she couldn’t have Joss.

Maybe she could open her bedroom door…

Oh, yeah, great. What was she thinking of? A spot of seduction?

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ she told herself honestly and then bit her lip. Where would that lead her? To a broken engagement and desperate unhappiness when Joss left.

As he surely would.

‘But I could just have fun-for a while. For a few short days while the bridge is down…’

Fun? She’d never had fun. She’d forgotten the meaning of the word. From the time her father had died the world had become a dangerous and threatening place, where the only way to survive was sheer, grinding hard work.

She had six years to go.

And after that? Marriage to Malcolm…

They might even marry earlier, she thought, and there was a note of desperation entering her thoughts now. Malcolm had been pushing for them to marry straight away. He’d have to stay in Bowra as his practice was there, and she was stuck at Iluka, but he could come at weekends. A weekend marriage…

It didn’t excite her at all.

Malcolm didn’t excite her.

‘It’s because he’s familiar,’ she told the dark. She knew him as well as she knew a pair of old socks. But… She thought about it. Tonight he’d been different. Not different in the way Joss was different but different all the same.

She didn’t know what had got into Malcolm tonight.

‘Maybe I don’t know all there is to know about him. Maybe he’ll turn into a James Bond in disguise. Or a Joss…’

The thought made her smile.

But it didn’t make her go to sleep-and it wasn’t Malcolm she was thinking about as she tossed and turned in the night.

It was very definitely Joss.

Joss had had a huge day. He’d almost been killed, he’d almost been swept away in the river, he’d fallen in love…

Hey! Where had that come from?

‘You’re imagining things,’ he told the dark. Love? What did he know about love?

He only knew that Amy was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.

But she wasn’t beautiful, he decided, trying to see things dispassionately. Not in the conventional way. She was too careless of her appearance to be classed as beautiful.

But when she smiled…

‘Beautiful,’ Joss told his pillow, and he groaned as he turned over yet again and tried for elusive sleep. ‘Just beautiful.’

At two in the morning the phone rang. Joss was still awake, so he heard it, and he heard Amy’s soft voice answering. Something at the hospital? By the time Amy knocked at his door he was already reaching for his father’s spare dressing-gown.

‘Problems?’

It was hard to concentrate on problems. He didn’t have his lamp on and Amy was lit by the hall light. She was wearing a long nightgown, trailing down to bare feet. It was cut low in the front and her curls were wisping down to her breasts. It was the first time he’d seen her with unbraided hair and the sight almost took his breath away. She looked sort of ethereal. Gorgeous…

But she was already hauling her hair back into a knot, ready for what lay ahead. ‘Joss, can you help?’

That was what he was there for. He was almost grateful to be asked. Any more staring into the dark and he was in danger of losing his mind.

Any more staring at the woman in front of him and he’d definitely lose his mind.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘A child. A little girl…’

He stared at that. ‘A child? In Iluka?’

‘We do have them. Just not many. Margy Crammond has her granddaughter staying with her. Emma’s six years old and she’s woken feeling dreadful. Margy says she can’t walk.’

‘Yeah?’ He tossed aside his dressing-gown, hauled off his pyjama jacket and reached for his dad’s Fair Isle sweater. His mind shifted straight into emergency mode. He was already sifting and discarding diagnoses, so much so that he didn’t even wince as the amazing patterned sweater slipped over his head. Joss was a doctor first and foremost, and an emergency had him putting everything else aside.

Or almost. Amy’s damned negligee was almost transparent…

Concentrate!

‘What do you think the options are?’ he asked. ‘Hysteria?’ Paraplegia in children was so unusual the first suspicion was a psychological diagnosis rather than a physical one.

But Amy was shaking her head. ‘Margy seems to think it’s something more serious. Hysteria would be unusual at two in the morning-though she is homesick. She’s been staying with her grandparents for a week and was supposed to be going home today. She’s a bit upset that she can’t. But Margy said she was sound asleep a couple of hours ago when they went to bed and she’s woken in trouble.’

Hell! He thought about the possibilities-in a place where there were no acute facilities-and he didn’t like them one bit. ‘I’ll go. Where is she?’

‘We’ll go,’ Amy told him. ‘This is my town. My people.’

‘And you have work tomorrow.’

‘We’ll go,’ she said again in a voice that told him he might as well save his breath. She wasn’t listening to arguments. ‘Half a minute while I pull on some jeans.’