The words kept playing in her head, a mockery.
It was almost dusk. The sun was sinking in the west. Tom was fast asleep in front of the fire. For all his protestation that he’d coped well, the rehab had knocked him around. While he slept Tasha finally found the time and the courage to walk up the headland to the Cray Point cemetery. To Emily’s grave.
It was a place of tranquil beauty, overlooking the sea. Emily’s grave was a simple headstone surrounded by carefully cultivated flowers.
Planted by Tom.
She had so many conflicted emotions they were playing havoc with her mind.
Tom. Being here. Grief.
Trying for another baby.
To have another baby feeling as she did wasn’t fair, she thought. She was still gutted by Emily’s death. The pain and humiliation she’d received from Paul was still with her, and yet she hadn’t managed to build defences.
For that was what was bothering her most now. She knew she could fall for Tom. His very smile seemed dangerous.
‘So how weak does that make me?’ she asked Emily, as she crouched by the little grave and ran her fingers through Tom’s flowers.
She hadn’t been strong enough for Emily. She’d needed Tom. ‘And something keeps whispering that I still need him,’ she said out loud, whispering to her little girl. ‘How can I think of another baby without the strength to face whatever comes?’
‘There are no limits to what you can do...’
‘Maybe there are,’ she told herself. ‘And maybe I’ve reached them. I loved Mum and Dad. I thought I loved Paul, and, oh, I loved you, my Emily. But each time... How can I think of trying again?’
But it wasn’t just the thought of another baby that had her asking the question.
Tom... How she felt, seeing him again...
It was weakness.
But for some reason the question kept hammering in her brain.
How could she think of trying again?
CHAPTER SIX
LIFE SETTLED INTO a routine—sort of—but a medical house was never normal. As soon as the locals realised Tasha was available, the phone went all the time.
‘Do you spend all your time in the clinic?’ Tasha demanded at the end of the second week. She’d just finished an extra clinic and Tom had come to find her.
‘I can’t,’ Tom told her. ‘We have a huge elderly population. I need to do house calls.’
But Tasha was doing the house calls now, and was astounded by how many were needed. ‘You need two permanent doctors,’ she told him.
‘We do. Are you interested?’
He’d just returned from a long rehab session to which he’d had to go alone. Ray Desling had spilt his toe with an axe just as they’d been preparing to leave. It had nearly killed Tom to climb into a taxi and leave Tasha to clean and stitch, but her threat was still there.
‘You stop doing rehab, I stop being here.’
What was he doing? Proposing she stay? For ever?
‘What would I do in Cray Point?’ she asked, sounding astounded.
‘Live?’ He limped behind the reception desk so he could see the files she was processing. It felt good to stand beside her at the end of the day, figuring how much they’d achieved. That included how much he’d achieved. The left-sided weakness was lessening by the day.
‘Live?’ she said now, sounding puzzled. ‘Just live?’
‘Like everyone else,’ he told her. ‘That’s what we do in Cray Point. You could learn to surf and fill your spare time patching people up. That’s the story of my life.’
‘With ladies on the side,’ she retorted. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve been here for two weeks and nary a lady. Is there a problem?’
He managed a smile. Since his accident he hadn’t felt the least bit like dating. In truth, ever since Emily’s death his heart hadn’t been in it, and maybe the women he’d spent time with sensed it. But he wasn’t telling Tasha that.
‘Susie’s tossed me over for the guy who fixes her computer,’ he told her, and tried to look glum.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Are you heartbroken?’
He forgot the glum and grinned. ‘How can I compete with someone who knows how to increase internet speed? In times gone by, legend says women found doctors sexy but I suspect they only found them useful. Geekiness now seems a strong draw card.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I don’t get involved. I never have.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I suspect I’m like my father and my brother,’ he said honestly. ‘I have no idea how to play happy families and I suspect it’s too late to learn. Now, about you staying...’
‘You’re offering me a job?’
‘If you’re interested.’
‘I’m not,’ she said, too quickly.
‘Then I guess it’s my turn to ask: because?’
‘Same reason. Because I suspect you’re like your father and your brother.’
He frowned. ‘Tasha, I’m offering you a job, not proposing marriage.’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed. ‘You are. But working together... It couldn’t work long-term. I don’t know if you’re aware of the tensions...’
And of course he was. He’d have to be an insensitive idiot not to feel them, but to talk about them out loud...
They’d been in the same house for two weeks now and the tensions she’d talked of were building. There was nothing tangible, just an undercurrent of awareness that couldn’t be avoided.
It was a big old house with a rabbit warren of rooms, yet somehow he always knew where Tasha was. When she walked into the room, tension escalated. When they cooked together, when their bodies brushed in passing, or sometimes at sunset when he sat on the veranda and she came out to join him, the tension was so great it felt almost a physical thing.
It wasn’t helped by the physio sessions. The water play was something he looked forward to more and more. He’d felt almost gutted today when Tasha hadn’t been able to come. He loved her skills and her excitement. He loved the way she beamed whenever he pushed himself to the limit and achieved more and more.
So what? She was a friend, not a lover. There was no reason for tension.
She was a woman without a home, without a base. She was a fully qualified medical practitioner. A colleague. It was entirely sensible to be offering her a job.
But she’d been feeling the tension, too, and the knowledge set him aback.
‘It’s hormonal,’ he said, trying to sound knowledgeable, trying to set things on a medical footing. ‘Two single adults, working closely together... But there’s nothing between us...’
‘There’s a whole lot between us, but attraction isn’t possible.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘You need to find yourself another Susie.’
‘That sounds insulting.’ He thought about it for a little longer. ‘It sounds like you’re afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ she told him. ‘And I didn’t mean to be insulting. But I’m aware, and I don’t want to stay aware. I don’t intend to feel that tension for the rest of my life.’
‘Hey, we’re adults,’ he said, striving for lightness. ‘Surely we can get over a bit of physical attraction.’
‘Is that what it is?’
‘You’re hot,’ he said honestly.
‘Like Susie and Alice and the rest.’
‘Tasha...’
‘Too right, it’s insulting,’ she said flatly. ‘Don’t you ever call me hot again. This is an inappropriate conversation to be having with a colleague, which demonstrates my point. We can’t be colleagues. I leave in six weeks. You’ll be fit enough to drive again and take over here. I�
�ll get on with my life.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I have plans.’
‘Care to share?’
‘No.’ How could she talk to Tom about what she’d hardly faced herself? What she probably didn’t have the courage to face.
‘Because you don’t know?’
‘I’m a doctor. I can go anywhere I want in the world and get a job.’
‘Drift, you mean.’
‘It’s better than staying here and being seduced by you.’
Silence.
The words hung. And hung and hung.
Tasha closed her eyes. Beam me up, Scottie, she thought. What had she just said?
‘I wouldn’t,’ Tom said at last in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. ‘I have no intention—’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I have no idea where that came from.’
Another silence. And then...
‘Because we both want it?’ Tom asked.
She covered her face with her hands. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘This is a reaction from not having a Susie or someone like her around,’ she whispered into her hands. ‘It reflects badly on both of us.’
‘It has nothing to do with Susie. It’s the way you make me feel.’
‘Then don’t feel. We both know it’s impossible.’
‘Why is it impossible?’
‘Because I have no intention of being one of your brief flings and you don’t know how to do anything else. You’ve said it yourself. And me... I have no intention of being involved with another Blake boy.’
‘I’m not Paul.’
‘You’re not, but you’re like him in so many ways. I have no idea why he married me. He managed to stay by my side for our honeymoon but that was the extent of it. Then he was off adventuring, challenging himself, pushing himself to the limit. Heaven knows if there were other women. I only found out about the last, but looking back, he made our lives so separate there may well have been others.’
‘So why did you marry him?’
‘Who knows?’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he reminded me of my parents. Maybe I’m genetically drawn to risk-takers, or maybe I’m just stupid. Persuading me to marry him must have seemed a challenge to Paul, but once the challenge was met he moved on. For a time I tried to keep up. I learned to abseil and we climbed in places I still can’t believe. I went caving and scuba diving, and we did it in some of the most dangerous countries in the world. I pushed myself to the limit but pretty soon I realised that no matter what I did I wasn’t important to him. It was the thrill of conquering that was important. And finally I discovered that included women... Who needed a wife? There could always be another Susie or another Alice.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘To who?’
‘To me. I’m not Paul.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘But you said yourself you don’t know about being faithful. And then there’s the fact that you threw yourself onto rocks in the surf on a day everyone knew it was stupid to be there.’
‘I—’
‘Please, Tom,’ she said wearily. ‘This is a dumb conversation. I never meant to say those things and I regret it already. I’m being rude and judgemental and I have no right to be either. I’m sorry. It’s my problem, not yours, but it is a problem and it means I can’t stay. So can we just go back to how we were fifteen minutes ago? I have Emma Ladley bringing her daughter in any minute. Megan has menstrual problems, which Emma thinks have been compounded by boyfriend woes. Women’s business. You need to leave.’
‘You don’t need me?’
‘Of course I don’t need you,’ she managed. ‘I needed you once and I’m very grateful but I have no intention of needing you again.’
‘Tasha, the job...we could help each other.’
‘We could destroy each other,’ she told him. ‘Please... Leave me be.’
* * *
He left and she shook, which was an entirely inappropriate reaction. She’d overreacted to the point of ridiculous, she told herself. Tom had offered her a job and suddenly they’d been talking about lust. They’d even talked of the impossibility of a long-term relationship, which was something neither of them had even thought of.
Except she had considered it. Of course she had. She’d been living with Tom for two weeks now and she’d been aware of him every moment. She’d acknowledged the attraction and she hadn’t been able to put it aside.
Tom was her friend. He’d helped her at a time when she had been most vulnerable. She even acknowledged that she loved him—as a friend.
Except it wasn’t quite as a friend, for every time he was near her, her body reacted in a way that was entirely inappropriate. She loved being near him. Tension or not, she loved sitting out on the veranda late at night and having him sit beside her. She loved his body in the pool, the vulnerability he exposed during rehab, the way he pushed himself to the limit and the exultation when he achieved the next step in physical fitness.
She loved the way he locked his gaze with hers as they passed the ball in their weird version of water polo. They were getting harder and harder to beat.
They were becoming a team.
‘But only for now,’ she muttered. ‘It’s transient. Long-term? No and no and no.’
But living here...
The thought was suddenly like a siren song. Living in Cray Point? Buying her own little cottage? Maybe taking courage in both hands, taking up that appointment for another attempt at IVF, using here as a base...?
Tom was her friend and she knew by now that she could depend on him. She could surely live here, work here, with Tom in the background.
She couldn’t because she felt...
‘Like I have no intention of feeling,’ she muttered. ‘Like I’d be nuts to feel. You don’t need to take risks—you know where that gets you. Get on with your life, Tasha Raymond, and go and greet your next patient. She has women’s troubles and boyfriend troubles. Who needs either? Not me, that’s for sure.’
* * *
Tom went home and pulled a casserole out of the freezer. How many casseroles had Hilda left? He stared at it for a long moment and then replaced it.
He rang for the taxi.
Five minutes later the taxi pulled up. Karen, the local cab owner, greeted him with cheer.
‘Hey, Doc. Got an emergency?’ In truth, Karen had been enjoying being on call for him. Until Tasha had arrived she’d been making a fortune.
‘I need to go to the supermarket.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? I thought Hilda had organised you everything. Casseroles, pies, deliveries twice a week. When she left she told me you wouldn’t need for anything.’
‘I don’t always need what Hilda thinks. I want a change for dinner tonight.’
‘Something special? I heard Susie’s going out with Donald. Hmm...’ She grinned. ‘I’m guessing...you and Tasha...’
‘Karen!’
‘Just saying.’
‘I’m only buying steak!’
‘Whatever you say, Doc,’ she said expansively. ‘Whatever you say.’
* * *
Tasha arrived back at the house half an hour later to find the house empty. Her footsteps echoed on the ancient floorboards.
It felt strange. Wrong.
‘How fast have I got used to company?’ she demanded of herself. Too fast. Apart from her brief, disastrous marriage she’d been a loner all her life, yet here she was reacting with a shiver of desolation because Tom wasn’t home.
She walked out to the veranda and the table was set. Two places.
Candles. Flowers.
She’d seen this set-up before, on that appalling night she’d arrived, eighteen months ago.
/> She’d hardly registered then but she did now. He must have had a date.
Did he think he had a date now?
‘You idiot,’ she said out loud and, she wasn’t sure whether she was talking to herself or to Tom. She’d have an egg on toast later, she told herself. By herself. And then she’d go to bed early.
She didn’t need this tension between them and she had no intention of escalating it.
But she couldn’t settle. She needed a walk and she knew where she wanted to go.
Five minutes later she was walking along the cliffs, up towards the headland.
Emily was waiting, and tonight of all nights it seemed imperative to talk to her.
* * *
His car was back. That meant Tasha was home—except she wasn’t.
Her coat was missing from the back veranda, as were her walking boots.
She was upset and that upset him. He still didn’t understand what had happened this afternoon. All he knew was that he’d messed with their relationship and it felt bad.
He took his gear into the kitchen and set it out. Salad, steak, fruit and cream. It wasn’t nearly as professional as the meals Hilda had prepared, but for some reason tonight it felt important to cook himself.
In truth, he wasn’t sure what he was doing. The ground under him felt shaky and it wasn’t just his weak leg that was the cause.
He opened an excellent wine. He checked the dining table on the veranda and decided to ditch the candles and flowers. Then he put them back again.
Then he ditched them again, dumping them in the trash so he couldn’t change his mind. He brought the place settings into the kitchen and set the table there.
Better.
She still wasn’t home.
The night was mild and clear. The moon was just coming up, hanging low over the eastern sky. The sounds of the surf and the call of distant plovers were the only things that cut the silence.
He thought of putting on music and decided not to.
What was he doing? He should be getting things back to a normal setting, except he wasn’t sure what a normal setting was any more.
Why had he asked her to continue to work here, and why had it escalated so fast?
Falling for Her Wounded Hero Page 8