by Sue MacKay
‘I’m all out of it. You’ll have to go completely natural, which is better than being plastered with goo anyway.’
That softness intensified. He paid the nicest compliments, even if not quite true. ‘Then I’m nearly done.’ She looked around the bathroom. ‘You thinking about any changes in here?’
Cody nodded. ‘There’s not a room that doesn’t need dealing with. I’ll give you the grand tour before we head out.’
‘The house appears huge.’
‘It is.’ He grinned. ‘I visited when I was fourteen and in the rugby team. The coach owned it, and I’ve wanted something like it ever since.’
‘You got the real deal.’
‘Wanting this place is what started me on the property ladder. A fishing mate and I saved hard to go halves in a rundown shack that we could rent out. Soon we mortgaged it to the hilt and bought another, and then another, until…’ his grin widened. ‘…here I am. Back in Wellington in the house of my teenaged dreams.’
‘Go you.’ She gazed out of the window at the harbour sparkling in the sun, absorbing how much he’d told her about himself. ‘You’ll never get tired of looking at that.’
‘I agree. Even the windy days are wonderful. Then there are the ferries scooting back and forth, and the fishing fleet heading out to the Strait. It’s great.’ He was almost purring.
As they wandered along the Parade hand in hand Cody said, ‘I’m thinking we should hire two paddle-boards and give it a crack before you cancel that order. This could be the one sport you’re great at.’
The sea was so calm she couldn’t use that as an excuse. ‘I haven’t got any gear with me and I’m not immersing this skirt in salt water.’
‘I’d have enjoyed watching as it got wet and figure-hugging.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Not my lucky day. I could offer you one of my tee-shirts but that’d be all over the place on you, no figure-hugging going on at all. We’ll have to drop by your place. You think those other two will still be there once we’ve had breakfast?’
‘I have no idea.’ She batted his arm lightly. ‘You make it sound as though we’re definitely following through on your idea of paddle-boarding.’ Her problem being…? Didn’t she want to have fun with him? Hadn’t she been extolling the reasons she should let go and enjoy life?
‘Relax. Your knees will be fine.’
They mightn’t have got the skin scraped off them, but they were going to hurt like stink tomorrow, Harper decided as she stiffened into a slight turn three hours later. Breakfast had been long and leisurely, then there’d been coffee with Suzanne and Steve in her tiny back yard. Now finally they were on the water, and she was wobbling front, backwards and sideways, feeling like a drunk penguin. ‘Keeping my balance is hard work,’ she growled as Cody came close.
‘Relax into the movement of the board, don’t fight it.’
Easy for him to say. ‘Go away. You’re causing waves.’ Show off. Just because he could do this without even trying. So unfair. She’d have to challenge him to a knitting contest next. Except she barely knew one end of a knitting needle from the other.
Damn, but he looked good wet. Those board shorts clung to his butt and thighs, making her mouth moist and her tummy tight. As for his chest… She’d never been a chest girl before but Cody was breaking all her norms.
Now he grinned at her. ‘Waves are when water rises above the level.’
She didn’t deign to supply him with a reply. Instead she pushed the paddle deeper and pulled on the handle to move forward. Her arms were starting to complain about this added activity too. Paddling was definitely more strenuous than inserting IV lines or stitching wounds.
She snuck another sideways glance and had to stare. Cody standing on his board, looking for all the world as if he’d been born doing this, was a picture to remember. He had natural balance. ‘How come you’re so relaxed with this?’ She could see his calf muscles adjusting as the board beneath his feet shifted. Unlike hers, which were tight and unyielding to any movement.
‘Comes from years of staying upright on the deck of a heaving trawler.’ Cody pushed the paddle through the water, his strokes effortless. Didn’t she know it? Her face heated as memories of the previous night flooded her brain.
‘Want to head back to shore?’ Mr Oh-So-Good-at-This cruised close again. ‘I’ll shout you a cold drink.’
‘And an ice-cream.’ What had happened to the diet? Tomorrow. She began working the board around to face the shore—or make that she began trying to head home—but the current had changed and she wasn’t going anywhere in the direction she needed to.
‘Now I know where the brats get their love of ice-cream. They’re copying Auntie Harper.’
A wave passed under her board and she froze, afraid to move in case she got it wrong and overbalanced. ‘That’s a proper wave,’ she muttered through clenched teeth.
‘Hey,’ Cody was yelling. ‘Back off. Can’t you morons see what we’re doing here?’
Harper risked twisting her head to the left to see who had caused his annoyance and her decidedly wobbly ride, and saw a speed boat about a hundred metres away going full throttle and sending out huge bow waves.
Slosh. Slosh. Water rushed at her, over her feet, and continued into shore. ‘Do I paddle or freeze? Do I try to keep moving while balancing like a stork?’
The left side of the board lifted. Uh-oh. Her hands gripped the paddle handle. Like that’s going to help, she thought as she leaned into the lift. The board dropped back flat while her momentum took her head-first into the tide.
Thunk. As she popped upwards, pain blasted into her skull. The board? It had to be. She kicked hard, hopefully away from it, and surfaced—to get a swipe on the chin from the paddle she’d let go as she’d fallen in. Ow. Pick on me, why don’t you?
‘Harper? You all right?’ Cody straddled his board, reaching out to her, concern etching his face.
‘My knees are fine.’ She spluttered out a mouthful of salt water. ‘Yuk. That’s gross.’
‘Those morons should’ve been driving their boat a lot slower. There are speed restrictions around here,’ Cody muttered as he concentrated on getting her sorted. Catching her hand, he tugged her close to his board, hers following as the cord attached to both her ankle and the back of the board snapped tight. ‘Hey, you’re bleeding.’
‘I got whacked, but not hard enough to do damage.’ Or so she’d thought.
Strong fingers held her chin and tipped her head back gently. ‘You’re the doctor, but I’m thinking you’re needing a couple of stitches on your chin.’
She began to feel a sharpness on the corner of her chin. ‘Guess I’m going into work after all.’ She didn’t doubt he was right. He knew his medicine.
‘I can take you to the weekend emergency surgery. Though that will take longer, since you’re not staff.’ Cody put his hands under her arms and hauled her up to sprawl across his board. As easy as that. ‘Stay still and I’ll paddle us back in.’
She shook her head. Was nothing too much trouble for Cody Brand? He’d never used a board before yet he was already turning them towards shore and calmly pushing his paddle through the water despite that current. It would be too easy to get used to this, to come to rely on him to look out for her.
Harper stiffened. No way. She watched her own back. No one else did. Not even for a few weeks while they had an affair. Huh? They were having an affair now? Why not?
‘You okay? You’ve gone quiet, and I don’t like a quiet Harper as much as the chatty one.’ Above her, Cody was smiling that heart-melting, ‘I will take care of everything’ smile that was his trademark.
‘I’m thinking I like the sound of going to the surgery, wait or no wait.’ There was less chance of people from work knowing she and Cody had been spending the day together.
‘No problem. That cut hurting yet?’
‘I’m trying to pretend it doesn’t.’ The sharp ache was amplified with salt water sluicing over it as they bobbed up and down. The
daily summer sea breeze had arrived, chopping the surface and adding to the pressure pushing them in a direction in which they didn’t want to go.
But Cody had everything under control and within a very short time he jumped off to push the board with her still sprawled over it onto the beach. ‘Here we go.’ He leaned down and lifted her up, placing her carefully on her feet. ‘Let me get that cord off your ankle.’ He looked across the beach to the van that the board-hire company operated from and waved. ‘Give us a hand, will you, buddy?’
*
‘Her sewing skills weren’t too bad.’ Cody dropped an arm lightly over Harper’s shoulders as he led her out of the emergency surgery to a taxi he’d ordered.
She looked a little pale and those black threads weren’t helping her appearance as she muttered, ‘Two stitches, and the poor woman was terrified of making a mistake with you hovering over her. You’re not a frustrated plastic surgeon, by any chance?’
‘Me? Never. More into dress making,’ he quipped.
‘You have absolutely no problem laughing at yourself, do you?’ There was wonder in her voice and those tired eyes.
‘Don’t see any problem with that. I know who I am and I’m totally comfortable with people having a laugh at me. Believe me, I’d never have survived nine years on the trawlers if I couldn’t take the crap the guys threw at me. You’re fair game with some of those rogues if you get too serious about just about anything.’
He felt her shudder under his arm. ‘I’ve had a very sheltered life.’
‘Huh? You can say that after our drug-runner incident? Or having dealt with Friday and Saturday night revellers and their drunken angst in the ED?’
‘I guess.’
There’d been something else in her earlier comment. ‘A previous partner didn’t take kindly to being teased about his skills, or lack of?’ Her history concerning partners was a complete mystery, and likely to stay that way, he acknowledged to himself.
But Harper did what she’d done last Sunday on the beach. She blurted the truth quickly and emotionlessly. ‘My husband had a great sense of humour except when it came to anything about himself.’
Husband? Jeez. Cody shoved his free hand through his hair. He did not do having sexual relations, sexual anything, with a married woman. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘That I was married? I don’t tend to make a big deal of it. It’s an episode of my life I do not want to revisit.’ She looked up at him and now there was emotion lining her voice. ‘No point. What’s done is finished.’
Phew. Was married, not is married. He could breathe easily again. ‘How long have you been separated?’ He should quit while he was ahead, but he liked learning little snippets of information about her. Marriage wasn’t small, whether she’d separated or not. Okay, so he was nosey, or out to protect himself. He couldn’t decide which.
‘The divorce came through two months ago, right on the two-year anniversary of when we officially called it quits. I was in a hurry. If I wasn’t going to be married in the full sense of the word then I wanted out.’
‘I get that.’ I think. But then he’d never been there; he would never have the chance to see his marriage through or leave it. That had been taken out of his hands by the man who’d killed Sadie.
‘You ever been married? Or in a serious relationship?’ Harper asked.
Don’t want to go there. He could change the subject. But then he’d asked first. Which only went to show how much he lost the plot when he was around Harper. ‘Yes. Years back. It lasted six months and then she died.’
‘Cody.’ Harper spun around to stand in front of him, her hands resting on his cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’
His gut twisted at the sight of that genuine concern for him. Her hands were soft and gentle on his cheeks. He placed a hand over one of hers and lifted it to kiss her palm. ‘Me too.’ Another kiss, then he stepped back.
‘Don’t want to talk about it?’ There was no reproach in her eyes or her tone. Just a genuine concern that if he didn’t want to carry on this conversation she’d be okay with that.
‘Not really. It would spoil the day.’ Wrapping his hand around her soft small one, he swung them high. ‘I don’t want to do that.’
‘Then take me back to my place so I can change into something half-decent and we’ll go out for a drink and dinner. My shout.’
‘Yes to all of the above, except I’m shouting you.’ When she began to argue he covered her mouth with his and kissed her, long and slowly, long enough for her hopefully to forget whatever she’d been going to say.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WILL YOU LOOK at that?’ Tim, one of the doctors clocking off from night shift, whistled as Harper took the notes he was handing her about a patient in Resus. ‘Things get a little rough between you two over the weekend, did they?’ He glanced from Harper to someone behind her.
Turning slightly, Harper saw Cody strolling in, looking totally ready for the start of the week and not at all as if he’d spent most of the weekend making love with her or doing other energetic activities.
Then, ‘What did you say?’ Cody snapped, that nonchalance gone in a flash.
‘Joking, mate. Harper’s chin looks like it’s taken a nudge. What happened?’ His question was directed at her.
But she didn’t get a chance to answer.
Cody stepped up to Tim and growled, ‘Nothing like what you’re thinking.’
‘Take it easy.’ Tim stepped back. ‘I said I was joking.’
‘It’s not a joke to suggest someone has been rough with a woman.’
Harper grabbed Cody’s arm and pulled until he settled back down on the heels of his shoes. She shouldn’t be touching him at work, but she had to get him to see sense. Quickly. ‘Tim didn’t mean anything. He certainly wasn’t suggesting for one moment that you knocked me around.’ Dropping her hand, she handed Cody a file. ‘This patient’s ours. Go and get her. Now.’ She was talking to him as though he was a recalcitrant child, but he needed to get away from Tim and calm down.
‘Yes, doctor,’ Cody snapped, a flicker of hurt crossing his face before he all but snatched the file from her fingers. Tossing a glare at Tim, he turned to head for the waiting room.
Watching him stride away, his back über-straight, his head high, she said, ‘I was paddle-boarding and fell off—took a hit on the chin.’ What was bugging Cody, for him to go septic so fast? Had someone accused him of hitting a woman in the past? Surely not? He absolutely wouldn’t do anything remotely violent—he was the proverbial gentle giant, except when confronted with a gunman in Resus. She’d swear her career on that, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t accused him of some such action to get attention or make his life uncomfortable.
‘Ambulance bringing in hit-and-run victim, male, twenty-four, cyclist. ETA fifteen—though it’s the start of the rush hour, so that might go out further.’ Karin had taken the call when Cody had headed for the waiting room on Harper’s instructions.
‘What’s the damage?’ Harper asked. Cyclists copped more than their share of shoulder injuries.
‘Probable fractured clavicle, fractured humerus—otherwise nothing obvious,’ Karin replied, unknowingly acknowledging Harper’s thoughts.
‘One for the orthopaedic crowd, then. You want to take him?’
Karin nodded. ‘Absolutely. Thanks.’
‘I’ll be within calling distance.’ She’d also look in on the situation regularly. Karin was a very competent registrar but it never hurt to make sure she didn’t have any problems with a patient. Now, where had Cody got to?
There he was, escorting an elderly man and woman into Cubicle Two. His face was strained, though he spared a smile when the couple said something to him. ‘Deep cut to thigh,’ he told Harper in a less-than-friendly tone as she approached. ‘Mr Gregory fell over the gardening fork and landed on some corrugated iron an hour ago.’
‘He shouldn’t have been digging the garden at all,’ the woman Harper presumed was Mr Gregory’s wife gr
owled. ‘He’s been told to leave it to our boys.’
As Cody eased the man onto the bed, Mr Gregory retorted, ‘I want to pick my veggies this summer, not next year. They never have time for a cup of tea, let alone to turn over the garden.’
‘Maybe that’s because you told them off last time they came to help.’
Okay, that was enough. Monday morning and crotchety patients—and nurses—was not how she wanted her week to start. ‘Right, Mr Gregory. I’m Dr White. Nurse Brand says you’ve got a deep cut which we will probably have to sew back together. Let’s take a look.’
While Cody removed the man’s trousers, Harper turned to the woman. ‘Mrs Gregory?’ She nodded and Harper continued. ‘Would you mind sitting over there? Thank you.’ Right, everyone was in their place and she could get on with her day. Except she glanced at Cody and her heart softened. Whatever that altercation had been about, it had shaken him. There was a white line around his mouth, and his eyes were sending out spears to anyone who dared look at him, which was mostly her at the moment. Well, I didn’t do anything wrong.
Cody looked up, those eyes wintry. ‘I’ll get the gear.’ He nodded at the wound he’d exposed on the old man’s thigh.
‘Thanks.’ She snapped on gloves and began to gently probe at the wound. ‘When you do something you do it well, don’t you, Mr Gregory? We’re going to have a load of stitches in here by the time you go home.’
He winced when she touched the wound again. ‘Yes, lass, I believe in doing a proper job, no matter what it is.’
‘I bet you grow fabulous vegetables.’ She chattered on to keep him occupied and hopefully not noticing too much pain. It also kept her mind off Cody and whatever his problem was.
‘Do you grow a garden, doctor?’
‘Can’t say I’ve ever tried.’ Could that be her next attempt to find something to do outside of work? No. She’d decided to give that up and focus on what she already had, hadn’t she?