‘Watch me.’
‘It’s unethical,’ I said wildly, and his mouth curved into a bitter smile that didn’t contain a hint of humour.
‘I haven’t slept this weekend. My patient list is longer than I can bear to think of, and I don’t have time to give the islanders the care they deserve. I’ve given your grandmother—a visitor to my district—emergency care. When she’s able to leave hospital I’m asking that her family care for her. So … tell me about ethics, Jennifer Kelly.’
‘This is blackmail.’
‘Call it what you like. That’s the way it is.’
My thoughts were flying everywhere. ‘You don’t like Muriel.’
‘I don’t know Muriel. I don’t like what she did, but Henry loved her until the day he died. He knew everything about her. I might not approve of the private investigator thing—frankly I found it creepy—but he told me about the jet-setting life Muriel’s been leading while he suffered here by himself. After hearing that, it’s a wonder I can bear to look at either of you.’
He glanced at his watch as if he had places to go, people to see. Which he surely did. ‘But don’t let me keep you,’ he said. ‘You need to change your grandmother’s airline ticket before she wakes and changes her mind. Muriel’s welcome to stay in this hospital until that leg’s settled but after that she’s yours. If you leave you’ll need to organise some hired help, but I’ll not be assisting.’
I opened my mouth and shut it again.
He meant it.
I took a deep breath. My mind was in overdrive. The idea of Henry having us watched was almost overwhelming but right now it had to be put on the backburner.
I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t.
But I stared up into Jack’s blank face and suddenly I had no choice. This man was expecting me to walk away. He thought Muriel and I were as good as each other—ordinary, to say the least.
What he thought of me shouldn’t matter. Muriel being cared for by hired help shouldn’t matter.
If I stayed, Richard would be incredulous, and for good reason. I had so much to lose.
But for now it was this man’s condemnation I couldn’t bear. And Muriel … Like it or not, I couldn’t leave her.
‘I’ll change them both,’ I hissed.
His eyebrows rose. ‘Both?’
‘Both the airline tickets.’ What was I saying? This was professional suicide. Personal madness. All for an old lady who couldn’t stand the sight of me. ‘Blackmail’s illegal,’ I added wearily.
‘I’m not blackmailing. I’m simply outlining the care I’m prepared to give—the limits of my professional duty. Just because those limits don’t suit you…’
‘Oh, shut up. Fine. I’ll stay. I’ll lose my job and Muriel won’t thank me for it. She won’t even want me to stay. But I’ll go change both our flights. Crazy or not, you’ll have your way.’
5
lull n. a pause between a set of waves, a break enabling surfers to paddle out easily for the next ride or to rest.
I drove away from the hospital feeling like I was in the wrong body.
Muriel was safely tucked into her hospital bed. She’d wake but she wouldn’t expect me to be there. Why should she? Muriel needed no one.
So what was I doing? I’d be missing the Clayburgh birth, I’d be bombing my career path, all for a woman who had no claim on my affection.
Jack McLachlan had manipulated me. I was so angry I was having trouble hanging onto the steering wheel.
I wasn’t used to driving on the left. For the third or fourth time I hauled the buggy back from the right, just in time to almost clean up a cow around the next bend. The stupid island cow hadn’t heard of the road rules.
Maybe it was one of my cows, escaped, I thought, and the idea made me almost physically ill. Was I responsible for cows, too?
I left the cow to her own devices. She looked happy enough grazing on the roadside. Someone else’s problem.
As Muriel should be.
I should call Jack’s bluff. He’d give in. He must.
He might. I knew that. But I couldn’t bear that either. To have him taking over Muriel’s care because I’d walked away…
He had me every way I looked. I was staying.
Focus on the practical, I told myself. For now it was the only thing I could do. That meant … shop. I needed supplies for a six-week stay.
Six weeks. Aaagh!
On closer inspection the general store still looked like something out of a time warp. It was a big, slightly dilapidated building selling everything from mops and buckets to hair gel. A middle-aged woman wearing a crimplene frock stretched far too tight over a massive bust stood sentinel behind the counter. A couple of younger women in jeans and crop tops stared at me with unashamed curiosity—and more than a hint of disdain. They clearly knew who I was but they weren’t about to introduce themselves.
What was it with this place? I seemed to have been judged before I arrived—and found somewhere below pond scum.
‘What can I help you with?’ Crimplene demanded.
I asked for jeans, shirts, plain sneakers … and gumboots. Me, Jennifer Kelly, in gumboots. There are no words to describe how I felt as I was handed the black rubber footwear.
And I was being watched. It was like the general store had been struck by paralysis. All three women waited in silence while I struggled behind a flimsy curtain to try things on. Which was, in itself, laughable. Why bother trying?
‘We only get clothes in three sizes,’ Crimplene explained when I asked for different sizing. ‘Small, medium, large. If it’s too big you cut it down to size. Do you sew?’
‘No!’
‘I just asked. No need to get your knickers in a twist.’ There was another pause and then came the question they’d clearly been aching to ask. ‘They say you’re stuck here.’
Oh, doesn’t good news travel fast? It had been a whole fifteen minutes since I’d sat with my head in my hands in the hospital car park and then driven here. ‘For six weeks,’ I said through gritted teeth as I pulled on the gumboots. They looked appalling. The jeans were baggy and the shirt was unisex. If Richard could see me now he’d have kittens.
‘Well, good luck then,’ the woman said as I paid, and I clenched my teeth some more and told her there was a cow wandering on the road just south of the store. See? I was delegating responsibilities. Telling them the cow was none of my business. I can play at that game, too, Jack McLachlan.
The thought didn’t even make me smile.
I headed back to Turtle Bay, unpacked, thought about stiff drinks and decided not, then found our airline tickets and rang the airline. I listened for half an hour to a disembodied voice telling me how important my call was and then I calmly told This-Is-Emma-Thank-You-For-Waiting-How-Can-I-Help-You to change both flights to six weeks hence.
Then I sat and thought about Isabella and lawsuits and catastrophe. And loss of control.
And Richard.
I missed Richard so much I felt ill. I missed everything about him.
I loved the way he dressed. The gloss on his yummy brogues. His state-of-the-art phone—the way it held every detail of our lives. I loved that phone. I had the same model but Richard’s seemed better. Mine was set up so it beeped on my boss’s birthday. Richard’s reminded him three days early and held suggestions for gifts, tucked away from any tiny hints picked up during the year. I just had to smile at something in a shop window and a careful note was taken. Richard was so organised it was unbelievable.
I loved his smile. I loved his beautiful, skilled hands. His hint of just the right aftershave.
But I think what I loved most was Richard’s sense of control. He never panicked. Nothing went wrong in Richard’s world. Richard would never find himself stuck on a weird island with twenty decaying surfboards, a herd of salami cows and a sick grandmother who loathed him.
On impulse I tugged open the bureau and grabbed more letters from Henry’s stash, some of the early ones. I took
them out onto the back step—away from the ghost of that worn chair—and read almost defiantly.
Dear Jenny,
I hope life has settled for you now as you make your life in the US. I know your grandmother will be good to you, and I hope the two of you can learn to have fun. Muriel deserves fun.
Fun’s a strange concept for me. Once upon a time I hoped … I thought … But enough. I have this house and this farm.These are my boundaries and I know not to rail against them. Here I’m in control.
Outside is chaos.
And there’s always the surf. It’s my escape, the one part of my life where control is unimportant.
That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? With surfing, control is everything, but to let go…
To catch a wave, to bust a gut to get fast enough to get on it, to disappear into the surf not knowing if you have the breath to stay under, to feel the wave’s power taking you, lifting you, surging forward in its own direction…
I guess that’s why I’m here, Jenny. I’m under control, but with the surf controlling me.
I’m taking a board down to the beach now.Your grandmother’s Malibu.
Does she ever think of it?
Ha!
Henry.
Control? So Grandpa had the family mantra.
I set the rest of the letters aside. This place was closing in on me. This tiny farmhouse full of memories of a grandfather I’d never known. This jungle of a garden. The sea beyond. The cows. The letters. Everything. I was a city girl—a city doctor—and this was all so foreign. This was Henry’s world.
His spidery handwriting was starting to assume a life of its own. Was the shakiness because of his burns? Had it hurt him to write?
Beside me on the doorstep were my ruined shoes. Looking at them made me want to cry, but crying wouldn’t help.
I should phone Richard.
Midday on Sunday would be Saturday evening in Manhattan. Richard would be having pre-dinner drinks and his weekly update with his parents.
Should I ring him and tell him what I’d done? I didn’t have to imagine his reaction. Risk my position at the hospital? Risk a lawsuit from the Clayburghs? This was lunacy.
I’d ring him … later.
Chicken.
Right. I was a stupid, blackmailed chicken who was about to lose her career. I was committing professional suicide.
I had six weeks.
I had no clue what to do with myself.
Aimlessly I donned my new jeans and shirt and avoided looking in the mirror. I put my feet into my brand new gumboots and walked out into the garden.
Then I sat down among the lettuces and gazed at my shiny black feet.
I’d thought I might pull some weeds. Instead I leaned back against a rock and closed my eyes. I was in the shade but the wind was warm and the sound of the sea was soothing.
What was Muriel thinking now, I wondered. She’d be feeling as trapped as I was.
Trapped with her ghosts?
I couldn’t worry. She wouldn’t even thank me for worrying.
I slept.
‘You know, you’re turning out to be very useful. With you there we can dispense with the need for scarecrows.’
I jolted sky-high. Jack McLachlan was standing right above me.
He was wearing board shorts. A towel was draped over his shoulder. He was bare-legged and bare-chested. Prepared for a swim.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t prepared for anything. I was having trouble breathing.
‘Did I scare you?’
‘Who, me?’ Somehow I got it out without gibbering. ‘What makes you think you scared me? I’m cool with waking up in strange gardens and having semi-naked, blackmailing doctors accosting me.’
He sifted the accusation. ‘Semi-naked?’ He glanced down at his broad expanse of chest and he grinned. ‘This is Nautilus Island’s summer uniform. Hey, I like your gumboots. Very shiny.’
‘Yeah, and they cost me fifteen bucks.’ I was struggling to my feet. ‘Unlike the shoes you ruined.’
‘I didn’t ruin them. You stood in the cow pat all by yourself.’
‘You sprayed them!’
‘I was helping!’ He was good at sounding wounded.
I glowered. ‘Fat help.’
‘The cows will like your gumboots much more than your silly wee red things.’
‘The cows are all girls. No girl in her right mind would prefer gumboots to Jimmy Choos.’ Anger was still simmering but I was priding myself on my control. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Bridget and I are trespassing.’
‘Bridget?’ His girlfriend? His wife?
I looked behind him. Neither.
Bridget looked to be about eight years old. She was sitting in a wheelchair on the gravel beside Jack’s van. Her wheelchair was a sturdy affair, with wide-tread tyres that looked as if they were designed for rough terrain.
She had the same deep brown hair as Jack, though her curls were shoulder-length and bunched into pigtails, and they weren’t sunbleached. She wasn’t tanned. Her skinny little body was clothed in a bathing suit that looked too big for her, and her legs, half hidden by her beach towel, looked almost emaciated. The child had Jack’s blue eyes, but hers were huge and shadowed—far too big for her wan little face. Was she Jack’s daughter?
Drifter was standing guard beside her. The dog had her nose on the little girl’s knee. They were clearly friends.
But the child looked scared to death.
Why?
‘Hi.’ I deliberately turned away from Jack and concentrated on Bridget. ‘Do we need to introduce ourselves, or will Jack get around to it?’
‘I was getting there,’ Jack said. ‘Dr Kelly, this is my niece, Bridget McLachlan. Bridge, this is the lady I was telling you about. Dr Kelly is Henry’s granddaughter.’
‘Call me Jenny.’
‘Will you still let us eat your strawberries?’ Bridget whispered.
‘Strawberries?’
‘They’re the plants to your left,’ Jack said with exaggerated kindness. Farmer telling city girl the facts of life. ‘Low little plants with red blobs in the middle.’
‘I know what strawberry plants look like. I can even grow them.’ I straightened in my stupid gumboots and glared.
Jack nodded thoughtfully, then turned to Bridget. ‘I guess she can keep a strawberry plant in a window box in her New York apartment, but it’d be harder to raise a cow the same way. So messy.’
I threw him a look that was meant to put him in his place. I didn’t want to talk to this man, but in front of this little girl I had no choice. ‘Very droll. What I meant was that when I looked I couldn’t see a single ripe strawberry.’
‘Whoops. Don’t say a word, Bridge,’ Jack said urgently. ‘Not without our lawyer. Shall we blame Drifter?’
‘You mean you ate them?’
‘Drifter can sniff out a strawberry from a hundred yards.’
And despite the emotions of the morning I found myself smiling. This place, this time, was so unreal nothing seemed to be connecting. ‘Drifter’s responsible?’
His wide blue eyes asked how I could doubt him. ‘She’s not responsible. Drifter’s the most irresponsible dog I know. But she does eat strawberries.’
‘So you haven’t eaten a single one.’
‘I definitely want my lawyer.’ He stepped back and placed a hand on Bridget’s shoulder in a gesture of protection. ‘Bridge, we’re in trouble. And now we’re trespassing on the lady’s property.’
‘Why?’ I asked, intrigued.
‘You have the best path to the beach,’ Bridget explained, relaxing a fraction now both adults were smiling. ‘Your farm’s the flattest on the whole island. Our path has steps down to Turtle Bay but it’s steep. Here I can roll down your path without getting out of my chair. And we’re always here anyway.’
‘Eating my strawberries?’ But hostility had faded—just for the moment. They were a team, Jack, Bridget and Drifter, each with an identical expression of if w
e go down, we go down together.
They were impossible to frown at. Impossible to dislike. Even if this man had just destroyed my career.
No. Muriel had done the destroying. She should never have come.
I should never have come.
‘So I’m supposed to give you permission to eat my berries and trek across my land?’
‘Will you?’ Bridget asked, her voice tremulous again. She sounded as if she expected to be kicked, I thought incredulously. Bridget might be brave beside her uncle, but I’d met damaged kids during my training. Bridget was expecting the worst.
‘Of course I will,’ I said, so promptly that Jack’s laughter died. His eyes caught mine. He knew I’d guessed.
Thank you, his expression said, and I met his gaze for a moment longer—long enough to feel myself blushing. What was it with this man?
‘So we can still go to the beach across your land?’ He was asking the question but his eyes were asking more. What?
‘It’s a bit hard to refuse—seeing you did do my milking.’
‘But we ate your strawberries.’
‘And you saved my grandmother’s leg. Despite the blackmailing I believe you have the upper hand. Just.’
‘How nice.’ He beamed. ‘You hear that, Bridge? Let’s make a break for it before she changes her mind.’
‘I won’t change my mind.’
‘You haven’t changed your mind about extending your stay?’
Just like that, my good humour died. ‘Why should I?’ I could think of a hundred different reasons why I should change my mind and return to New York, none of which I was going to tell this man. Instead: ‘If your ultimatum is still in place…’
‘It is.’
‘Then I’m stuck. I’m even wearing stupid farm clothes.’
‘You look very nice.’
‘Yeah, right. I need a belt to make the jeans fit. A big belt. Where do you people buy clothes?’
‘Mostly over the internet,’ Bridget volunteered. ‘Mrs Firth at the general store doesn’t mind. She says she can’t be expected to stock clothes for everyone. Carrie helps us. The post takes ages, though.’
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