On a Starlit Ocean

by Charlotte Nash

  “I meant it when I said I don’t care if you don’t agree with me. You don’t want to be with me, fine. But not with this guy, Erin. You don’t know him.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” His apparent concern had her wrongfooted.

  “I mean that, as I would for any employee, I did my due diligence. I might not be the perfect white knight, but I don’t want to see you with him.”

  “Crap, Tristan. You wouldn’t have hired him if you thought that.” But she couldn’t help think of the rumours Gus had heard, about Alex being thrown out of a club. The things he kept to himself.

  “He seems a reasonable doctor, I’m not denying that. Just, think about what you’re doing.”

  “Are you done?” she managed, though she was no longer sure of herself.

  “No, I’m not. I don’t want to lose you from the team. Everyone’s working really well and we’re on a tight schedule. This all has to come together.”

  Erin squinted down the beach path, thinking about all their work, the role she was playing in the group. They’d never replace her at this short notice. And then what would the village say? That she’d run out on them all again. She rubbed her arms, hating the thought.

  “Not to mention,” Tristan said, more softly, as though he didn’t really want to say this. “It would go a long way to quashing any misgivings anyone has about you around here. I know how hurtful it is when—”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said, curtly.

  He didn’t say anything for a second, then he carefully put a hand on her arm. Erin had to steel herself not to flinch. “I think the world of you, Erin. I don’t care what anyone says. That’s why I don’t want to see you make any mistakes. Are you still in?”

  Erin pulled back, feeling a thousand miles away from this place she used to call home. “Fine,” she said, knowing that she couldn’t walk away, except in this one moment.

  Erin spent the remainder of the day numbly restocking her on-board pantry and cleaning inside the yacht cabin. Her mood, which normally improved with the fading light at sunset, remained stony. Her mother had come by for another awkward round of tea at the cabin table, which along with Tristan’s warnings, had set her on edge. She wondering what time she would hear Alex’s footsteps on the jetty. Last night, it had been around eight. After the long day trekking through the overgrown paths in the north of the island, he had been perfect. She hadn’t wanted to talk. She wasn’t sure how it was possible that today felt so much different.

  She remembered other things, too. Like how last night, she’d noticed the tension within him. At the time, she thought it could be the wanting-to-know-what-we-are talk, or the I-think-we-should-remember-this-is-casual talk. Now, she didn’t know what to make of him at all.

  She heard him earlier than expected around seven-thirty, and didn’t know what to say to him. His familiar movements climbing down the cabin stairs, even his smile, seemed odd and unfamiliar.

  “What’s wrong?” he said as soon as he saw her face. He pulled her into an embrace. She ducked her head. “What?” he asked again, his lips against her neck, those large warm hands caressing her back.

  “Bad day,” she croaked eventually, those hands melting her apprehensions. “Tristan was on the war path.”

  He grunted in response. “Not surprised, really. Attitude like his.”

  She looked up at him. “Did he say something to you, too?

  “Sure, came to stick his oar in on the mainland. Not that different to any high-and-mighty management really.”

  Erin frowned. “Wait, when was this?”

  “Weeks back. I suspect he likes to know where he can put pressure on people.”

  Erin breathed out. So he wasn’t talking about today. Then she took in what he’d said.

  “What sort of pressure?” she asked.

  “Hang on, what did you mean, too?” Alex said at the same time. “What did he say to you?”

  Erin tried to make light of it. “Someone must have seen you coming and going from here, that’s all. That information made it back to the boardroom. He made a comment.”

  “I hope you told him where to stick his comments.”

  Erin might have smiled to herself, if the memory of Tristan’s anger wasn’t so fresh.

  “Hey, what’s the frown for?” Alex asked softly.

  Erin relaxed her face. “Nothing.”

  “Are you worried about people knowing about this?” he said, his fingers moving across the bare skin of her back.

  “Not exactly …” she answered, running her hand in turn over his chest, her doubts fluttering away to the edges of the present. “Are you?”

  “I’ve had my share of gossip. So believe me when I say that I don’t care about people talking about us.”

  “That right?” she asked, but she was grinning stupidly. Whatever Tristan’s warnings, she liked that he didn’t want it to be a secret.

  “Yes,” he said, walking her towards the cabin mattress, his mouth coming down warm on her lips and throat.

  “Be prepared,” she warned. “Your patients will be quizzing you next.”

  “You mean they haven’t started yet?”

  She laughed but he stopped kissing her, and lay down in the bunk beside her and took a breath. Erin suddenly realised he was about to say whatever it was he’d been thinking about last night.

  “The other day when you were talking about your father ... after that I walked around the surgery, wondering about him. I mean, he’s the last doctor to use the place, and it’s his handwriting in all the files. Will you tell me about him?”

  Erin’s limbs froze. She forced herself to relax, first her arms, then the large muscles in her legs. Of all the things she thought he was going to ask, that wasn’t it. She’d started out apprehensive about who he really was, been reassured, and now he had her back at these questions.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. How he ran the practice. What you remember. Anything.”

  “Sandy could tell you that.”

  “I don’t want to ask Sandy.”

  Erin shook her head. “I can’t tell you much about his work. I only went to the surgery to steal jelly beans.”

  Alex chuckled. “Okay, forget that. What’s the earliest thing you remember?”

  Erin took a breath. That long-ago time was safe relative to the near-present.

  “We lived in Sydney before we came up here, but I don’t remember much about that. We had a pretty big house, but he was working all the time at the practice, and he didn’t smile much. One year we came up here for a holiday. The resort was open then. We spent the afternoons racing around the harbour on the catamarans. Dad was a sailor, but he’d never had the time in Sydney, or that’s what Mum said. I remember one day coming for a walk with Dad, down from the resort to the village. When we went home, we were only there a few weeks before he told us we were moving here. I think Mum was relieved. She was tired of Sydney.”

  “What did Skye think?”

  “She was always happy if Mum was happy. And she liked school being two houses down. Dad set up the surgery here. He’d still go to the mainland for training or work, but we grew up here. We had Miss Rupert as our teacher for primary school, then I boarded for high school on the mainland. Mum didn’t like that, but there wasn’t much choice, and Dad said it was better for me. He was probably right.”

  Erin didn’t mention that Tristan had been boarding at the same time, that their romance had begun there.

  “Dad sometimes brought the boat across on weekends, and we’d go racing at the clubs up and down the coast. Those were the best times. He was happiest out on the water.”

  Next to her, Alex shifted. “Erin, what happened when he died?”

  Erin recoiled as if a boom had just come flying towards her head. “He was lost at sea,” she said softly. But the truth of that night was a painful pressure against the lie. She knew Alex sensed it.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

&nbs
p; Erin pulled her arms around herself. “No.”

  “It must have been terrible,” he said, soothingly, in a tone she’d heard before.

  “Don’t use that encouraging doctor technique on me,” she snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it, so back off.”

  In the silence that followed, Erin bit her lip. He didn’t say anything more, but her anger hung between them, a signpost that her version of the events that night were not the whole truth. And now here was this man who she barely knew trying to dig into it all, while at the same time being coy about his own past. Who Tristan had cautioned her about. In that moment, Erin wondered who the hell it was she’d invited willingly into her bed.

  She slid out of the bunk. “I think you’d better go.”

  “I’m sorry, Erin. I just didn’t want the rumours. I wanted to know him like you did.”

  “Now,” she said, turning cold. No one would know her father as she had done.

  Alex tried to apologise again, but Erin couldn’t hear a word he said. And then finally, she was alone on the yacht, just as she’d been that night off Fiji. Alone without her father, knowing she would never see him again.

  Angry, she punched the mattress still warm from Alex’s body, feeling her heart crack down the middle. She’d fallen for Alex more quickly than she’d realised, and now look what had happened. She’d let him get in under her defences. Maybe Tristan had been right.

  Matters did not improve two days later when Erin returned from the team meeting to find her mother waiting at the end of the jetty.

  “I’ll make the tea,” Erin said automatically.

  “No, not today. This will only take a minute. What happened between you and Tristan?”

  Her mother’s firm tone was so unexpected, Erin stumbled before she said, “Nothing.”

  “Erin, don’t do that.” Her mother’s voice was soft, but a steel sheet lay underneath it. “I’m not stupid, despite appearances. He was at the house having dinner on Saturday, and he’s been calling Skye from the mainland. She’s whipping around like a flag in a storm trying to work him out, and you’re tense whenever he’s mentioned. I know something’s happened.”

  Erin felt the guilt that normally tore at her in her mother’s company bury itself under these observations. Suddenly it seemed ten years ago, when they’d all been happy, and conversations like this had been a weekly occurrence.

  “He wanted to get back together and I didn’t,” she answered finally. “He was in a mood about it.”

  Her mother made a noise in her throat. “Skye’s saying the resort has problems in the approval process. And that Tristan’s been in meetings for two days about it.”

  “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about problems, and I think one of the team would have said something if there was.”

  “Skye also says she’s going to some dinner with a potential sponsor on the mainland this Friday.”

  Erin’s stomach dipped, as if cresting a rollercoaster. “Why?”

  “Something about the sponsor wanting to meet a local teacher.”

  Erin mulled. Patrick Donnelly’s mother had been a teacher; she’d seen it in the bio pack they had on him in the office. Aside from his love of endurance racing, he supported many local schools in remote communities. “Is he thinking of donating money to the school here, or something?”

  “You’d have to ask Skye,” said her mother. Then a veil dropped over her features, as though the effort of this conversation had become too much. Her skin paled.

  “Mum?” Erin asked, dodging around the galley so fast she caught her hip on the table.

  Anna pressed her hand into her temple, veins standing out against the lean fingers. She was sucking slow breaths and staring at the ground through half-lidded eyes. Erin stuck her head out towards the jetty, hoping to see someone around. But no one was.

  She turned back and helped her mother sit on the bench seat.

  “Mum? Mum! What’s going on?”

  Her mother shook her head faintly. Then Erin heard a bark down on the beach, and saw a black shape bounding after a ball. Monster. Erin stuck her head out again and yelled.

  “Tim! Tim, where are you?”

  The boy appeared guiltily from under the jetty, a slimy ball in his fist. His school shirt was askew, his bag slipping off his shoulder. Clearly late returning to class after lunch. “I was just—”

  “Run to the surgery and fetch Alex,” Erin said. “Right now.”

  Tim took off, calling to Monster. The minutes seemed so long passing; all Erin could do was rub her mother’s back, tell her not to worry, that help was coming, until she finally heard Alex’s familiar footsteps running down the jetty.

  Chapter 18

  Half an hour later, Erin sat chewing her nails in the surgery’s waiting room, trying not to let memories crowd out the present problems. She hadn’t been in the surgery since she’d come back, but almost nothing had changed. Same chairs. Same mark on the wall, the result of chasing Skye one afternoon. Erin had almost been grateful when Alex had asked her to wait a few minutes, so she didn’t have to go into the consulting room.

  “You feeling all right, honey?” Sandy asked, leaning on the reception desk.

  Erin nodded, and continued chewing her nail.

  “Can I get you anything? Cup of tea?”

  “No.”

  After that, Sandy went instead to make herself a cup, mumbling she’d make one for Dr Bell too, for when he was finished. She’d just brought the two mugs back to reception when the consulting room door opened and Alex appeared.

  “Sandy, could you come in and sit with Mrs Jacobs for a moment?”

  Sandy cast a furtive glance between Alex and Erin but she took the two mugs and disappeared inside the room. Erin hardly noticed. Her heart was stretched in so many directions, her stomach flipping with worry. Alex seemed sombre; she dreaded how bad this would be. She searched him, looking for clues, but he was collected and professional, far from the man she’d thrown out of her bed. He pulled a chair in opposite her and sat down.

  “She’s fine for now,” he began. “I think she probably fainted. She said there wasn’t any pain, and the ECG is clear. I’m happy saying this was nothing to do with her heart or brain.”

  Erin blew out a breath. “What, then?”

  “Her blood pressure’s very low, which is usually a good thing. But she might be prone to fainting, especially if she stands up quickly.”

  “She was sitting down when this happened.”

  He nodded. “She’s also pale on the inside of her eyelids, so she might be anaemic, too. And I don’t know her, but I’m wondering if she’s lost weight recently.”

  “I think so. I don’t think she’s eating well. She never drinks her tea,” Erin said faintly. This was all horribly familiar.

  He nodded again. “I’m going to send some blood away to check it’s nothing else. I’ll check out her nutritional status, a few other things too. If it’s just anaemia, it’s probably an iron deficiency, and we can address that pretty easily.”

  Erin rubbed her arms. “Can I see her now?”

  “Of course.”

  Before she could move, Skye burst in the surgery door. “Where is she?”

  “She’s okay,” Alex said, pointing to the consulting room. “Go ahead.” Skye disappeared, leaving Alex and Erin alone in the waiting room.

  “You’re not going in?” he asked.

  “I’ll give them a minute,” Erin said.

  She didn’t mention that at this moment, she felt she didn’t have the right to be here. That she was a stranger to both of them and all because of events that had started right here where she was standing. Alex lingered nearby, another painful reminder. Only two nights ago, he’d been lying beside her.

  “Erin, about the other night, I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t,” she said. She couldn’t go there now. Her mind was still reeling with her mother’s sudden turn, and the possibility the resort plan might be crumbling behin
d closed doors. She still had a job to do, but for how long would that matter? And even if she did well, the island would never be home again. Everything was falling apart, all over again. And all these fears, she turned on Alex.

  “I need you to leave me alone.”

  At least he didn’t argue. And an hour later, when she was satisfied her mother really was fine, and insisting on returning home, Erin marched back down to the old resort. Tristan’s office was empty, the door closed against the encroaching sand and sneaky nighttime possums, but she found Troy in the meeting room, packing up.

  “Where’s Tristan?” she asked.

  “Sydney, I think,” he answered.

  “When’s he due back?”

  Troy shrugged. “Supposed to be here tomorrow for the morning meeting, but not confirmed yet.”

  Erin took out her phone. At least here she was right under the mobile tower and reception was excellent. Still, her call went to voicemail three times before she sent a text, telling him it was urgent. An assistant with a bouncy voice then called her back and asked her to hold. Two minutes became five, then ten, as Erin’s patience ground to a nub. Sweat gathered under her hair, even in the shade of the pandanus.

  Eventually, he answered, and the weariness in his voice blunted all the barbs she might have thrown at him.

  “Erin?”

  “Are you coming back out tomorrow?” she asked, hating the desperation she felt.

  “We’re trying to resolve a few things here.”

  Erin detected doubt. She’d never heard him like this before.

  “Tristan – is the resort in trouble?”

  A long pause. “We have hit a few snags, but sometimes this happens. It’s not over yet.”

  Erin bit her lip. She needed his reassurance. “I want to make sure it isn’t. Just tell me what I need to do.”

  By Friday afternoon, Alex had the results of Anna’s bloodwork. Just as he suspected, she looked to have garden variety anaemia, an iron deficiency. Anna looked much better when Alex dropped around to talk to her about it.