Paul duly admired the baby, but Kirsten could tell he was thinking about Cathy’s words.
‘It seems incredible—she’s in here with a new baby, and not so far away her husband is totally marooned by flood waters.’
‘It’s been a rough few months for the locals,’ Kirsten agreed. ‘Well, that’s my lot. The east wing is much the same as this, only not renovated at all. Kitchen through this way.’
The tour went on, Kirsten introducing Bella and Mrs Mathers who’d decided she would help out in the kitchen. Right up to the attics where Meg and Libby were dressing the rabbits in dolls’ clothes.
‘Anthony’s down at the motor pool,’ Meg said with great authority. Then she turned to Paul and said, ‘You’re in the army. Why do they call it a pool when there’s no water in it?’
‘You might have tried to extricate me. Come up with an emergency or something,’ he complained as Kirsten led the way down to the first floor where most of the staff had their temporary accommodation.
‘I thought you managed quite well,’ she said, still chuckling over his stumbling explanation of lots of things gathered in one place also being called a pool. ‘This is where your virgins all resided,’ she added, waving her hand towards the two corridors branching off from the landing.
‘At the moment, it’s hospital staff to the left and army to the right—bathrooms in both directions so don’t go losing your way.’
He turned and looked into her eyes.
‘As if I would. I saw the bed in your so-called “office” downstairs. The only place I’d lose my way would be down there.’
Kirsten felt a shiver feather down her spine as she recognised the flirtatious approach. She wasn’t sure how to handle it so opted for a change of subject.
‘You didn’t meet Mr Graham. He was on the IPPB unit when we were down there.’
Paul’s eyebrows rose.
‘No comment?’ he said, and she shook her head, doubly embarrassed because the flare of heat in her cheeks would undoubtedly have given her away.
Harry came through the front door and saw the couple standing at the top of the steps. His first reaction was a sinking feeling—he knew he hadn’t wanted Paul Gamble here. But as he moved towards them something in the way Kirsten held herself betrayed that she was ill at ease and he grew annoyed, thinking his doctor friend might have upset her.
‘Well, what do you think of your patients?’ he asked Paul, hoping to remind him that he was here to care for them, not flirt with Kirsten.
‘Ah, they’re in excellent hands,’ Paul replied, taking hold of one of Kirsten’s hands as if to illustrate his point. ‘Delightful hands,’ he added, while Harry noticed she wasn’t exactly pulling it away.
‘So you’re leaving?’ Harry asked him.
Paul shrugged, then smiled.
‘Can’t!’ he said with infuriating nonchalance. ‘We’re flooded in, remember. The bird that dropped me off flew straight back out.’
‘I’m sure I could arrange something,’ Harry told him, frowning at the way he still held Kirsten’s hand.
Why didn’t she remove it from his grasp? Surely she’d seen enough of Paul to know exactly what he was like? And what were they doing upstairs? Inspecting Paul’s temporary quarters?
‘Any time!’ he added, then he turned away before he said something he might regret, heading for the office where he could vent some spleen by roaring at his clerk. There was sure to be something he’d done wrong.
Kirsten detached her hand from Paul’s clasp. She should have done it earlier, but Harry’s sudden arrival had thrown her off balance, then something in the way he’d glared at her had made her forget it was there.
‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said to Paul as she hurried down the stairs.
‘Good grief! Don’t tell me you’re afraid of our Harry. Let me assure you, his bark is far, far worse than his bite. Gentle as a lamb, he is, under that gruff exterior.’
‘I’m not frightened of anyone,’ Kirsten said, but all the same she’d just as soon Harry hadn’t seen her holding hands with Paul.
Not when she wanted his help with her master plan, she told herself when the thought jolted her into wondering why.
The rain had eased again as Harry watched his men place the final sandbags on the levee bank. It was mid-afternoon and teams had worked through the night to fill the breach near the main street. He was now confident he could divert the worst of the water around the town. True, the water level in the already flooded streets would rise, but the full force of the new surge should sweep past, saving the buildings that would otherwise be directly in its path.
There was nothing to do now but wait for the peak, expected tonight around midnight.
He dismissed his driver and made his way on foot, moving somewhat reluctantly back towards his temporary HQ. With everything under control, the volunteers having been sent home to rest and a few of his men keeping watch, he could take a break himself.
Or spend some time with Martin Graham, tell him what they’d done in preparation—maybe try to gauge a little of the man’s personality—learn a little of his life.
The inner uncertainty that had kept him pacing in the night niggled at his stomach. If only he could talk it over with someone who knew the man—someone who also knew and understood the old man’s frailty.
Someone like Kirsten McPherson.
He groaned to himself as he climbed the hill.
He’d already judged her to be a competent and caring physician, so why was he so reluctant to discuss his problem with her?
‘Because you’re afraid of revealing too much of yourself to the woman,’ he heard himself reply aloud.
And avoided asking himself why because he already knew, and didn’t fancy, the answer.
‘Do you often talk to yourself?’
He blinked hard as the subject of his cogitations materialised in front of him.
‘Did you levitate here?’ he demanded, trying to still the rapid beating of his heart.
‘No, I walked down in the normal way,’ Kirsten told him, and he could hear a newly familiar gurgle of laughter beneath the words and see the merriment again in her sparkling eyes.
‘You were so lost in your own thoughts you didn’t see me,’ she added in her kindly way.
He forced his gaze away from her sweetly pretty, portrait-painting face and pulled himself together.
‘Were you looking for me?’
‘Not really. Just getting some fresh air, checking on the flood level. Stretching my legs.’
Harry heard the list of explanations but the ‘not really’ right at the start had given him heart.
‘Not really?’ He repeated the words as a question.
She half turned, studied the waters for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, then spun back and raised her head so her eyes met his, a hint of defiance in the blue depths.
‘You talked about strategic planning. I need a plan. At the moment we’re reacting to each crisis as it occurs, rather than working our way steadily forward, and I wondered as you’re here and know about strategies and stuff, if you’d—’
The flow of words ended as abruptly as they’d started but before Harry had time to make sense of them she launched into speech again.
‘But, of course, it’s not your concern, and not your business or your problem as you’ll soon be gone from here and, anyway, planning to fight an enemy is probably very different from planning to fight a government department…’
Her voice trailed off and she looked so dejected he wanted to give her a good hug—though when he’d last felt the urge to hug someone he couldn’t think!
‘Is it so very bad, your hospital problem?’ he asked, forgoing the hug but resting his hand on her shoulder in what he hoped she’d interpret as a comforting manner.
‘Yes, it is!’ she said stoutly, not moving out from under his hand which emboldened him to move his thumb against the soft white skin on her neck.
Comforting only, of c
ourse.
‘The area manager’s talking about cutting off our funds. Old Mr Graham, as chairman of the hospital board, did most of the negotiating—well, arguing really—with them, and now he’s so ill I know I can’t worry him with this latest blow. Jim Thompson’s in hospital, and everyone else is either fighting the flood or evacuated so I have to come up with something myself.’
She had moved as she was speaking, not away from his hand but turning more towards him, so now, as well as imploring blue eyes, he had an all too close-up view of a pinkly soft and tantalising mouth.
And the only strategy he could bring to mind was one that involved seeing the blue eyes close as he bent to taste those tempting lips. He reminded himself that he was a soldier—on duty even—trained to resist diversions…
‘Harry?’
The huskiness that caressed his name, the uncertainty in that softly murmured word, sent a shiver down his spine, and no amount of military training could withstand the purely primal urge to take this woman in his arms and kiss the breath out of her.
He slid his hand off her shoulder, down her back, feeling the bones beneath her flesh, the heat of that flesh beneath her clothes. Wanting to prolong the moment, put off the instant when their lips would meet, he drew her closer, his eyes locked on hers, seeing acceptance as well as questions, knowing she, too, felt the strands of attraction drawing them—
‘Sir?’
Anthony’s piping voice brought him stiffly to attention, his hand dropping off the doctor’s back, allowing her to scurry a few paces backwards as if she, too, was as embarrassed by their closeness as he now was.
‘Grandad wondered if you could visit him. When you’re not busy, that is.’
The child’s curious brown gaze shifted from Harry’s face to Kirsten’s then back again.
‘Did Kirstie have something in her eye?’ he asked, and Harry found himself smiling, although his body was strung as tight as fencing wire and he fancied Dr McPherson was feeling much the same way.
‘We thought so,’ he temporised, thinking of the desire he’d thought he’d seen before those dark lashes had fluttered down, just as he’d imagined they would. ‘I’m not busy now. I’ll come up and see your grandad.’
Kirsten nodded in answer to the question in Harry’s eyes then sighed as he turned away from her. She watched Anthony slip his hand into his new friend’s larger one, and sighed again as the pair walked off up the hill.
And what’s this sighing business? the last skerrick of common sense left in her brain demanded. You should be glad Anthony arrived when he did. Harry Graham was off limits. He’s passing through, here today and gone next month. And no matter how seductive his brown eyes, how firm the feel of his fingers on your skin, unless you want to get your heart broken you’ll steer clear of him.
She stared out across the flooded town and sighed again. Then nodded. The voice of common sense had been right. She was committed to Murrawarra, at least for the foreseeable future while she fought for the hospital’s survival. And Harry was regular army. He would be ordered out of her life before long, no matter what sparks of attraction might have unexpectedly sprung up between them.
Added to which, the attraction itself was weird—totally out of whack—when she considered how aggravating she found him. That morning she’d been furious with him for bringing Paul Gamble to town and only the thought of seeking his help over ‘the plan’ had made her decide to set that little matter aside for the moment.
How could she possibly be attracted to such an infuriating, domineering man?
‘Are you going up, staying put or walking down?’
Paul’s question brought her out of her gloomy reverie and she turned to smile at him.
‘Walking down to see where it’s reached,’ she told him. ‘How much have you seen?’
He fell in beside her.
‘From the air it looked like an ocean of murky brown water—stretching as far as one could see. It seemed impossible to believe anything could be left standing in its wake, but when we landed I saw the tops of buildings and realised that, beneath it all, the town still stood.’
They talked about the previous floods and Kirsten pointed out the various landmarks now all but obliterated by the water.
‘This can’t have been the first time it’s happened,’ Paul said, ‘so why wouldn’t the town have been moved, perhaps a century ago, when the locals realised it was in the path of flood waters?’
Kirsten shrugged.
‘Most floods leave it a little damp around the edges. The flood-prone houses and businesses all have their routines for preparing for the water, and then dealing with the mess. And if you’re ever here in winter you’ll realise just how cold it gets on the hills when the westerly winds whistle across the continent and batter at any building foolish enough not to seek the shelter of the valleys.’
She turned because the sight depressed her, and began to walk back up the hill, answering Paul’s questions but wishing it was Harry with her—in spite of the fact she wasn’t interested in Harry.
Forgetting she was annoyed with him.
Maybe the brown eyes—
‘I met your Mrs Mathers earlier,’ Paul interrupted her thoughts as they walked back into the hospital wing. ‘From what she told me, she’s one of those who are used to floods.’ He turned to Kirsten and smiled. ‘Did she really have all her jewellery stolen in the last flood?’
Kirsten grinned at him.
‘Trying to imagine what “jewellery” she might have had?’
Paul nodded.
‘Not that anything would surprise me,’ he assured Kirsten, who chuckled at this patent lie.
‘It was a bead curtain,’ she explained. ‘The kind people hang across an open door to deter the flies. Multicoloured beads in blue and scarlet and green that shone like jewels in the sunlight.’
‘Jewels!’ Paul gasped, laughing so hard he could barely speak. ‘Of course! She even told me what they were. Emeralds and sapphires and rubies.’
‘They meant a lot to Mrs Mathers,’ Kirsten told him, although she was enjoying sharing the light-hearted moment with him. Until the door opened opposite where they stood and Harry stepped out, the scowl on his face stealing the laughter from her lips.
‘Perhaps you could enjoy your joke somewhere else,’ he said in quiet but steely tones. ‘Mr Graham is just dropping off to sleep and this is supposed to be a hospital.’
Paul looked from him to Kirsten, raised one eyebrow and murmured, ‘Touchy!’ Then he disappeared in the direction of Brett Woulfe’s room.
‘I’m free if you wish to discuss strategy,’ Harry said to Kirsten, but so coldly she decided the last thing she wanted was to spend more time in his company when he was in this mood.
But could she knock back his offer? Look a gift horse—or gift infantry, in Harry’s case—in the mouth?
‘We can talk in my room,’ she said, and, her heart heavy with uncertainty, she turned and led the way.
But once they’d reached her office and she’d shut the door so they could discuss the matter in peace, waving Harry into a chair, it seemed he was more anxious to discuss the patient he’d just left than the hospital’s dilemma.
‘I’m afraid my visit might have tired him,’ he said, no sooner settled in the chair than he was out of it to pace the room again. ‘I did the talking at first, told him what we’d done as far as the levees were concerned and how we hoped to send the main surge around the town instead of through it, but then it seemed he wanted to talk about the hospital…’
Harry paused in his pacing and turned to look at the doctor, sitting so still beside her desk she might have been a statue.
Portraits—statues—he shook his head to clear it of ridiculous fantasies.
‘Well, aren’t you going to say something?’ he demanded when she continued to sit there, frowning at him.
‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked. ‘Do you want reassurance you haven’t tired him when you’re intelligen
t enough to know that talking is an effort for him?’
She tilted her head a little to one side, and her frown grew more perplexed.
‘Besides, I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you at all. I know you’ve an empathy with the old man, but…’
Kirsten left the sentence incomplete but indecision held Harry back from telling her what was really troubling him. He couldn’t bear for her to feel bad towards him if he eventually decided there was nothing to be gained by making himself known to Martin Graham.
And he couldn’t do that if he felt his admission of who he was, and what had happened thirty-two years ago, would cause more grief and pain to the old man and possibly put his health in further jeopardy. He did what any sensible man would do and changed the subject.
‘This plan of yours. You’ve got to use people power—voting power. Get someone who might conceivably lose his seat—or win the seat—in the next election on your side. That’s one strand of your strategic plan. Mr Graham tells me you’ve already got a petition going, but to get the numbers to influence government you need to draw more attention to the problem, need a wider campaign. Media is good. Aim for airing the problem on one of those current affairs shows, and have another group of people willing to ring a couple of popular radio personalities on their phone-in sessions.’
Kirsten heard the words and knew she should be writing down these ideas but her heart was troubling her.
Because she knew instinctively that Harry Graham was using his rush of words, his rapid-fire suggestions, to paper over something else, something too painful for him to share.
Share with her.
And why should he? the scrap of common sense demanded.
Because I want him to, her unhappy heart replied.
CHAPTER TEN
‘ARE you listening to me?’
The irritable demand brought Kirsten back to the present.
‘Media, go on talk shows, get people beyond the district around Murrawarra interested in our plight. Yes, I’ve made a note of it all.’
She realised how patently untrue that was and added, ‘A mental note.’
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