‘I can only try and understand how difficult it must be for you, me turning up out of the blue.’
‘All the oncology staff were told who was going to take over from Dr Price a couple of weeks after he announced his retirement. It wasn’t a total surprise.’ Her expression softened and she took a sighing breath. ‘I had plenty of time to adjust.’
‘So can I at least be your friend?’
‘It’s not that easy,” she said but he didn’t want to push her.
‘Can we talk inside?’
Richard purposely kept some physical distance between them and hoped Joanna understood he wasn’t trying to encroach on her personal space. He didn’t want to continue their conversation on the pavement, in the dark, though.
She didn’t answer but opened the gate and headed for the pathway running along the side of the building. He began to follow and was relieved she didn’t object.
‘I live in the house on the back half of the block. It fronts a laneway but I come in this way at night.’
Richard took her comment as a sign she had no objection to him coming with her and continued along the path, a couple of steps behind. By the soft light of the remnants of dusk he could just make out the roofline of a small house tucked behind a two-metre-high fibro fence. Joanna made her way to a second gate and left it open once she had gone through as if she’d resigned herself to the fact that he was tagging along, no matter what she did. A light was on, illuminating the small back patio, and she proceeded to unlock the glass sliding door that led into the rear of her house.
Richard followed her in and glanced around the cluttered living room. There were books piled in a corner, spilling off overloaded shelves. A guitar in a soft case leaned up against the wall next to a music stand holding what looked like a couple of ‘how to play’ books. The homely furniture was comfortably worn in.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Joanna said as she scooped up a basket of washing and stashed it in what he presumed was a laundry room.
‘What mess?’
Her response to his attempt at humour was a hard-edged glare as she shifted her roomy shoulder-bag from the coffee table to the counter separating the main living area from a small kitchen.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
She’d remembered he preferred tea to coffee. It was a small thing but it touched a chord in his heart. She hadn’t blotted out all the memories of their past.
‘I’d love one.’ He paused, wondering if he could penetrate the stubborn resistance she’d demonstrated so far to any help he offered. He decided to take the hard line. ‘But after we clean up that wound. There’s a fair bit of blood and it’s hard to know what’s underneath. Have you got a first-aid kit?’
‘I’m quite capable of doing it myself,’ she said with a scowl.
The hard line hadn’t worked so he thought he’d try the practical.
‘Maybe if you had eyes in the back of your head. The blood is coming from behind your right ear, so you’d at least need someone to hold a mirror for you. Are you working tomorrow?’ As a last resort he thought he’d try and appeal to her sense of vanity. Cosmetically he would certainly do a better job than her, particularly if there was a significant laceration.
She frowned.
They both stood awkwardly at opposite sides of the room as if it was a stand-off. If only she would relax and realise his sole motive was to help her. He’d do the same for a complete stranger. Well, sort of…
‘At least go and look in the mirror.’
He began to walk towards her and she edged away like a frightened animal that had been cornered. Was she really so terrified of being alone with him she couldn’t bear him to come near her?
‘Okay, you win. I’ll go and have a look.’
He managed to suppress a gasp as she headed off down a passage that he assumed led to the bedrooms and bathroom. She had a decent-sized haematoma, already an impressive purple colour, on the right side of her occiput and dried blood streaked down her neck. He assumed it would be easy enough to treat the wound but he doubted he could do much to conceal the damage.
He went into the kitchen and opened her freezer, hoping to find something he could improvise as an icepack. His plan was to clean the wound and then apply ice before he attempted any repair work.
‘What exactly do you think you’re doing?’
Joanna had returned.
He thought of saying something flippant, like he had a sudden craving for ice cream, but he knew better. Joanna wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
‘An icepack? Can we use the frozen peas?’
She was standing about two metres away, holding a damp, bloodstained face cloth to the back of her head.
‘Oh…er…yes, okay.’ It wasn’t exactly an apology but a step in the right direction.
‘What’s the verdict? Am I allowed to touch you with my healing hands?’
A hint of a smile crossed her lips and Richard took it as a sign her tension was lessening a little, though he realised he had a long way to go before she’d trust him.
‘You’re right,’ she said, looking everywhere but at his face. ‘It’s a lot worse than I thought and I doubt I could do a decent job on my own.’
Thank God for that. He had no idea what he would have done if she’d refused.
‘Wise decision. To the bathroom, then.’
He followed her down the passage, past two closed doors he assumed were bedrooms to the bathroom. It was efficiently compact, like everything else in the small house, with room enough for a shower recess and vanity. Mirror tiles, topped with a small fluorescent tube, took up most of the wall above the basin. She flicked on the mirror light, laid a first-aid kit and a hospital dressing pack on the vanity.
‘There’s gauze in the dressing pack, chlorhexidine in a specimen jar and butterfly sutures in the first-aid kit.’ The simmering tension ramped up a notch but fortunately wasn’t directed at him. ‘I just hope it doesn’t need stitches,’ she added.
‘You’re certainly well prepared,’ he said with a smile, but she’d already turned away from him so he could do his healing work.
‘You can take the face cloth off now.’ He poured antiseptic into the plastic tray and used the disposable forceps to dab a square of gauze into the bright green liquid. ‘Okay if I put a towel over your shoulders?’
Lord, she had beautiful shoulders. They were softly rounded, lightly tanned…
He checked his errant thoughts in double-quick time. There was no point in dwelling on Joanna’s physical beauty when he’d been treated like an unpleasant though necessary evil as soon as they’d walked through her door.
She reached across for the hand towel next to the vanity and draped it across her upper back as if she’d suddenly become aware of the amount of skin exposed by her strappy singlet top. She was obviously keen for him to get on with the job in hand so she could reclaim her territory.
‘Right, then. This might sting a little.’ Richard rolled out the standard hospital-speak.
She remained silent but he could see her tension as he applied the cool liquid to clean the skin around the wound before discarding it. He doubted his ministrations would be painful so she was most likely responding to his touch. He disposed of the soiled gauze and began cleaning the wound with a fresh swab.
‘It’s only small,’ he said, to reassure himself as much as Joanna. ‘About a centimetre. One butterfly suture should be enough to close the wound and I expect it will be healed in three or four days.’ He ran his fingers over the boggy skin covering the haematoma. ‘The bruising will take longer, though.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s quite a work of art.’
‘Just get on with it.’ Richard could feel her disapproval. ‘Please,’ she added quietly.
* * *
Oh, how Joanna wanted him to hurry up and finish so she could send him packing. The last thing she needed was to experience Richard Howell, one-time husband extraordinaire, up close and personal.
The problem was that her react
ion to him had been totally unexpected.
She’d thought she was over him, but she had been wrong.
When she’d seen him at the auditions and then heard that song, the memories had been like a bunch of sharp needles pricking her head, trying to penetrate her brain. And she’d managed to ward them off, keep them at an acceptable distance, until Richard insisted he accompany her home.
It wasn’t his fault either. He was just being the same caring, loving, gentle man he’d always been. She was the one who had changed. She’d spent the past three years making a new life for herself with a thickly drawn line separating it from her past. Seeing Richard again meant reliving the deep, unremitting pain of losing their darling son and the cruel way she’d rejected her husband during her grieving. She was the one who’d destroyed their marriage by shrouding herself in a cocoon of sorrow. Richard had done the right thing in leaving her and he deserved a new life too…without her. He had to move on, not live in the past, and for him to achieve some sort of closure she knew she mustn’t let him get close to her.
‘Ouch!’
She was brought back to reality by the sharp pain of strong fingers holding her wound together while the butterfly suture was carefully applied. Richard was leaning close and she could feel the comforting warmth of his steady breathing on her neck.
‘I thought you were going to ice it first.’
‘I changed my mind. The laceration’s smaller than I thought.’
She turned around to face him, being careful not to put any tension on the wound. His eyes twinkled with amusement.
Dangerous.
He was making it difficult for her to maintain the distance she desperately needed to…To what? To stop herself falling into his comforting arms? To stop the mesmerising look in his eyes from melting her resolve? To stop him from unravelling her tightly ordered world that didn’t have room in it for a man, let alone a man who’d done everything he could to help her through the biggest tragedy in her life, the only thanks he’d had to be coldly rejected.
If there was still a tiny spark of attraction it was purely physical. He was a very good-looking, sexy man and she’d not shared her bed, in fact she’d not had a boyfriend, since Richard had left. Sex wasn’t the basis of a long-term relationship, though. There had to be commitment, and that was asking the impossible of her. There was no denying her happiest days had been with Richard and Sam but she couldn’t face the prospect of having to relive the anguish when things had gone wrong. She’d been so young. She’d had dreams of a perfect life. Now she knew there were no guarantees of happily ever after, but there were certain precautions she could take to minimise the possibility of being hurt.
She moved away from him.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly as she collected the debris of the clean-up and placed it in the bin.
‘My pleasure,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I’ll go and make tea, shall I?’
I’ll go and make tea.
The simple statement tripped a switch for Joanna. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she began to sob.
It had always been Richard’s solution when the road had been rough or they’d had a disagreement—to make a cup of tea, sit down quietly and not make any decisions until they’d at least finished one cup. But she didn’t need to be reminded.
She sniffed, but before she managed to bring her hand up to her eyes to wipe away the evidence of memories she’d tried to put behind her, Richard enfolded her in his arms. And she was powerless to resist. She felt the steady thud of his heartbeat, the gentle movement of his chest with each breath, the solid, reassuring strength of his arms around her, the feather touch of his lips on her forehead.
‘No!’
No way. The stakes were too high. She couldn’t bear even the slightest possibility of heartache all over again.
Richard dropped his arms as she pulled away.
‘What’s the matter, Jo?’
She wiped away the remains of her tears with a handful of tissues and blew her nose.
‘Nothing’s the matter. I’ll be all right in a few minutes.’ She took a deep breath to steady her voice. ‘I don’t want tea after all. I need to be on my own.’
The cold stare she sent him did the job and he gathered the jacket he’d shed before attending to her injury.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she almost growled.
‘Right. I’ll see you at work next week, then.’ He opened the sliding door, the lines on his face indicating a mixture of bewilderment and concern. At the last moment he turned. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’
‘Just go,’ she said, and closed the door firmly behind him.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN Richard arrived back at the hospital the auditions were in full swing. He couldn’t face going back in, though. And he was too emotionally drained to even talk on the phone to James Francis. So he decided to leave a message at the switchboard, requesting them to contact his colleague and ask him if he could look after his saxophone until Monday.
Maybe by then he would be in a fit state to apologise and explain.
Maybe his busy weekend—shopping, moving into his new house, going through the motions of settling in—would take his mind off the disturbing thoughts of Joanna that wouldn’t leave his head.
But it didn’t.
He was still thinking of her when he arrived on the ward early Monday morning to do a quick check of the weekend admissions. When he found out Joanna wasn’t starting until nine it was difficult to disguise his disappointment.
A busy morning in the long-term follow-up clinic at least cheered him up and gave him something outside himself and his inner confusion to concentrate on. The morning was taken up with seeing the happy, living evidence of all the hard work his team did in the early stages of diagnosing and treating childhood cancer.
It always gratified him to know more than eighty per cent of his charges survived their disease for longer than five years and the majority of those went on to live normal adult lives. All of the patients he saw that morning had done well: Jenna, who’d had a brain tumour removed as a baby, now a lively toddler; Jay and Tom, two young adults who’d been the same age when they’d developed osteogenic sarcomas affecting the tibia, a bone in the lower leg. Tom had needed amputation but Jay’s leg had been saved. Though the boys lived in different parts of the state they’d stayed friends and always organised their clinic visits for the same time. And, of course, the majority of leukaemia victims did well.
When he waved the last patient out the door, Richard packed his things.
‘See you next time,’ Margaret, the sister in charge, called as he headed towards the door. ‘Have a good afternoon.’
‘I’ll try,’ he replied, feeling an unexpected jolt of nerves at the prospect of seeing Joanna again.
He had a quick lunch and headed for Matilda Ward for the first round of the week—a teaching round. He expected it to be demanding because it included the junior doctors as well as two or three medical students.
And Joanna would be there.
If his first working week was anything to go by, the ward rounds she attended always seemed to have an air of cheerfulness. She could be counted on to lighten the atmosphere if either staff or patients got bogged down in the sometimes daunting complexities of the diseases and their treatment.
If there was a bright side, she’d find it.
And there she was. He could see her through the glass partition enclosing the day ward, where procedures like outpatient chemotherapy, lumbar punctures and transfusions were performed. Her eyes were bright with encouragement as she assisted with supervision of three children having chemo. Though he couldn’t hear what she was saying, one of her charges laughed and the others were smiling at her animated conversation.
He held up his hand in what could be interpreted as either a wave or a truce, but she ignored him and continued her jovial chat with the kids.
Did the woman have endless reserves of
strength? he wondered as he swung into the nurses’ station, almost colliding with Anita, the resident.
‘Sorry, I was just coming to find you,’ she said. She’d only been working on the unit a couple of weeks but Lynne had told him she’d already proved to be keen, competent and a quick learner.
‘What can I do for you?’
She looked a little put out, as if she was about to ask for bus fare to the moon.
‘I need supervision inserting a central line. Jack’s in Theatre with Tilly Farmer and the plastics team.’ Jack was one of the oncology registrars in his final year of specialist training, trying to learn everything he could and hoping for an overseas posting when he’d finished his exams. The young doctor took a long sighing breath. ‘And this one will make up my quota so I can officially do them on my own.’
Richard glanced at his watch. He had twenty-five minutes before the round was due to start.
‘Is it set up?’
‘In the chemo suite. Joanna said she’s available to help if I need her.’
Right.
Joanna was available.
Terrific. Wasn’t it? Of course it was. She was the best nurse on the ward and he wouldn’t let the unresolved issues he had with her distract him.
‘And the patient?’
‘Danny Sims.’
‘He’s an outpatient, isn’t he? Pelvic Ewing’s sarcoma.’
‘That’s right,’ the resident doctor said as they walked towards the specially set-up suite of cubicles. ‘Dr Price prescribed intensive initial therapy in view of the site and prognosis.’
The boy’s diagnosis made working with Joanna even more difficult as Danny had the same type of cancer that had taken Sam’s life. He wondered how Joanna would cope. Would she relive a little of the pain of Sam’s illness every time she saw Danny?
Richard remembered seeing Alan Price’s notes on the boy and the chemo regime he’d worked out. Though cures were increasingly common for the extremely rare but often fast-growing tumour of the connective tissue associated with bone, location in the pelvic area meant a much poorer prognosis.
‘When’s he due to start treatment?’
How To Save a Marriage in a Million Page 5