by Amy Andrews
Felicity nodded, amazed at her outer calm. ‘It is.’ Even though what she really wanted was for him to say, ‘To hell with that,’ pick her up and throw her down on her bed. The temptation to spend every night like last night almost overwhelmed her now she’d done herself out of the chance.
But he was going back to Sydney. He had to go back to Sydney. He had to work out what he wanted.
And living in a state of denial was preferable to living in a state of hope.
* * *
Two weeks later, in early December, Callum strode into the Parson’s Nose—one of the many excellent gourmet pubs in town—searching the crowded room for his brother. If he’d been surprised to get a phone call from Seb—they had more of a texting relationship these days—he’d been utterly gobsmacked when Seb announced he was in Vickers Hill.
Today was Thursday, which was normally his day off, but Bill’s brother had died a few days ago and the funeral was this morning so Callum had been covering for the old man. He hadn’t minded and there had been the added bonus of seeing Felicity. But Bill had insisted he’d return for the afternoon appointments despite Callum encouraging him to take the whole day off.
Callum kept hearing from Julia about Bill retiring and all her grand plans for them but, as far as Callum could see, Bill wasn’t ready to go yet. He certainly didn’t seem to be in any hurry about finding a replacement.
‘Cal!’ Callum’s head swivelled towards the voice and he squinted, trying to locate Seb. Finally he clocked his brother, waving and grinning, near the bar.
Callum made his way through several groups of people as Seb slid off his stool. When he finally reached the bar he pulled his brother in for a bear hug as they slapped each other on the back. The circumstances of their lives the last few years had meant a lot of separation but it was always good to see him again.
‘Missing me, dude?’ Callum said as they pulled apart.
‘Always.’ Seb laughed.
They settled on their bar stools and Seb waved the bartender over, ordering Callum a local beer. They watched as he poured then they clinked their glasses together and toasted brotherly love.
‘What on earth brings you to sleepy little Vickers Hill?’ Callum asked, swiping froth from his top lip.
‘Well, it’s not the surf.’ Seb grinned.
Callum laughed. ‘No. Definitely not.’ He sighed. ‘I do miss the surf.’
‘Maybe I should be asking what on earth brings you to Vickers Hill?’
His brother may be younger but, being the black sheep of the family, he was never one for taking things at face value and always the one to ask probing questions. Even as a kid he’d wanted to know the whys, whats and wherefores of everything.
‘I needed some...clear air.’
Seb regarded him over the rim of his beer glass for a beat or two. ‘Have you found it?’
That was a much harder question to answer. Trust Seb to be the one asking it.
‘Yes. And no.’
Seb lifted an eyebrow. ‘Now, that requires further explanation so spill it, big brother.’
Callum didn’t even know where to begin. In five weeks he had managed to find clear air regarding his career. He’d arrived here conflicted, hoping like crazy that a change in pace and scenery would enthuse him for his new path.
And it had.
He’d seen a different side to what had felt like the yoke of general practice and he’d been a better doctor out here then he’d been the last two years in any of his placements.
Thanks to Felicity.
Felicity...
Yeah. The air there was far from clear. Pretty damn murky, actually. She’d been strict about their interactions and things between the two of them had been exactly as she’d wanted. They saw each other at work from one p.m. four days a week and rarely outside any more, apart from bumping into her at the shops or petrol station.
But that hadn’t stopped the trip in his pulse whenever he heard her laughter or checking her out every single time she walked into the room. She’d been stringing tinsel up around the office all this week and she’d started wearing very distracting Christmas T-shirts and a red Santa hat with a cute white pom-pom on the end.
She seemed pretty damn cheerful, her easiness with him so effortless considering he had to check himself constantly. The urge to flirt, to slip into banter, to yank on that distracting white pom-pom was harder to suppress than he’d thought.
He had to keep reminding himself of what she’d said and who she was. She was a sensitive, empathic woman who’d taken him on to advocate for her patients and wasn’t ashamed of how close her emotions bubbled to the surface. She’d got teary talking about her grandfather the first day he’d met her. Not to mention her reaction over Seb’s fiancé and, of course, her tears for Lizzy Dunnich.
I’m that kind of girl.
That’s what she’d said. And he was aware of it every day, watching her with the people she worked with and her patients. The way she cooed over the babies and clucked over the oldies, cheered over the wins and bossed the noncompliant with such a loving hand.
She wasn’t like other women he’d met. She wasn’t the kind he could play with and leave. Just walk away from and know she’d be okay. She’d told him she liked him. A woman had never told him she liked him. They’d confessed their love, their desire, their admiration. Their wildest sexual fantasies. But, looking back, he wasn’t sure any of them had liked him.
And he’d never really told a woman he liked her either. In fact, he’d taken himself by complete surprise when he’d said it back. But it had felt right and he found himself not wanting to screw it up. To leave with her still liking him, even if it meant having to ignore his libido.
Because he was going back to Sydney.
He had to go back. He had a lot to prove.
‘Uh-oh,’ Seb said, waiting with a cocked eyebrow, clearly amused at Callum’s prolonged contemplation. ‘That bad?’
He glanced at his brother. ‘There’s this woman...’
‘It’s always a woman.’ Seb chuckled.
Callum shook his head. ‘Felicity isn’t just any woman.’
‘Felicity?’ Seb frowned. ‘Do you mean Flick? Luci’s friend?’
‘Yep.’ And he told his brother everything.
‘Well?’ Callum asked after he’d run out of steam and his beer glass was empty.
‘Well, what?’
‘What do you think? Am I crazy?’
‘Hell, Cal,’ Seb groaned. ‘Don’t ask me. Luci has me so tied up in knots I don’t know what to do any more either.’
‘Luci?’ It was Callum’s turn to frown. ‘My Luci?’
‘Your Luci?’
‘I mean the one in my apartment?’
‘Yes. She’s the reason I’m here today. Her uncle died—’
‘I know,’ Callum interrupted. ‘I’ve been covering the morning appointments for her father.’
With Felicity.
‘Right. Well, she came back for the funeral and I know coming back and facing the town again was hard so... I thought I’d be here for her.’
‘You know?’
Seb shrugged and, if Callum wasn’t very much mistaken that was a smile breaking across his brother’s face. ‘We...talk. We’ve got close.’
Callum blinked. Could Seb actually be taking an interest in another woman after all this time? He hoped so. His brother had been to hell and back. ‘Good for you. You’ve been through a lot, man. You deserve to be happy.’
Seb looked him straight in the eye. ‘So do you, Cal. So do you.’
Callum appreciated the sentiment but his loss had been nothing compared to Seb’s. ‘Well,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘I’m sure Luci is very pleased to have you here.’
‘Oh, she doesn’t kno
w yet. I only made up my mind this morning and jumped an early flight.’ Seb checked his watch and quickly downed the dregs of his beer. ‘So I’d better get going. The funeral should be over by now.’
He stood and Callum followed suit. They shook hands and shared another bear hug. Seb mumbled something about spending Christmas together and then he was striding out of the pub, his ‘So do you, Cal,’ lingering in his wake.
* * *
Felicity pulled up outside Luci’s the day before Christmas Eve, a bunch of nerves knotting so tight in her stomach she feared it was going to burst open under the tension. Or she was going to throw up.
One or the other.
Callum was leaving tomorrow. In the morning. He’d be back in Sydney by lunchtime.
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Fourteen hundred kilometres out of sight. Although she doubted even the North Pole would be far enough to keep him out of mind...
She glanced at the lavender growing along Luci’s front path. She didn’t know why she was here.
No. That was a lie. She knew.
The little farewell party they’d thrown Callum at lunch today just hadn’t cut it. Giving him a polite hug goodbye in front of all their colleagues had seemed too impersonal considering what had transpired between them. She wanted to say things to him—personal things. Things she couldn’t say in front of everyone at work. But still needed to be said.
Private things.
That she wished him well, that he was going to be all right. And a brilliant GP. That she was pleased their paths had crossed and there were no hard feelings.
That she’d never ever forget their night on the train.
After weeks of keeping every thought and feeling strictly under wraps, she couldn’t let him leave without telling him that. She had to know he knew.
The last few weeks had been an exercise in self-control and, somehow, she’d managed. Just. But with him leaving tomorrow she couldn’t deny the strong pull to see him one last time.
To just...look at him.
So she’d jumped in her car and driven straight here. Hell, she hadn’t even bothered getting out of her uniform.
This last time felt ridiculously momentous and Felicity took a deep breath. It caught in the thickening of her throat as her trembling fingers reached for the doorhandle. She fumbled it then stumbled out as if it was her first ever step.
She was hyper-aware of everything around her as her pulse throbbed through her temples. The sun warm on her shoulders, even at almost seven in the evening after a record run of high temperatures and concerns about bush fires. The trill of insects. The laughter of kids somewhere up the street.
The smell of lavender and meat roasting from one of the nearby houses.
‘Good evening, Flick.’
Felicity startled at the imperious greeting from behind her, her heart pounding in her chest at being sprung again by Mrs Smith.
Did the woman have some kind of sixth sense? She was only coming to talk, for crying out loud.
‘Evening, Mrs Smith,’ she said, plastering on a smile as she turned to face the woman who she was quickly coming to think of as her nemesis. Even standing on her footpath in a baggy house dress and hair rollers she somehow still managed to look like the stern teacher who had taught Felicity in grade four.
‘You here to see Dr Hollingsworth?’
‘Er...’ Felicity tried to figure out a response that would cause the least amount of ire from Vickers Hill’s self-appointed defender of virtue.
But Mrs Smith didn’t wait for any further elaboration. ‘He’s leaving in the morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘Back to Sydney.’
‘Yes.’
She made a tutting sound. ‘You left your run too late, my girl.’
Felicity blinked. ‘My...run?’
‘He’s been here for two months. And you’re not getting any younger.’
What the ever-loving hell...? Had Mrs Smith just implied she’d been left on the shelf at the grand age of twenty-eight?
‘I’d been married for almost ten years and had three little kiddies by your age. You should be settling down with a nice local boy. What about Ed Dempsey? He’s had his eye on you for a while.’
Ed Dempsey? He had his eye on every woman with a pulse. Plus she’d never quite forgiven him for putting a green frog down the back of her shirt when she’d been four.
‘There’s nothing between Dr Hollingsworth and I.’
‘So why are you here on his doorstep at the last minute?’ A sudden light dawned over her wrinkly face and Felicity felt nine years old again under her eagle-eyed gaze. ‘Ah, I see,’ she sniffed. ‘You know...’ she glanced around her as she made her way towards Felicity ‘...you can’t expect him to buy the cow if he’s getting the milk for free.’
Felicity gaped at her old primary school teacher as she contemplated hacking off her ears to unhear what had just been said. ‘Mrs Smith.’
‘Oh, you don’t think I know what you young people get up to these days?’ She stepped off the footpath and Felicity resigned herself to a lecture about the perils of premarital sex from her ex-teacher. ‘Why, I...’
She didn’t get to finish her sentence and for a brief moment, as Mrs Smith stumbled, relief flowed like coolant through Felicity’s system. Unfortunately, she didn’t regain her footing and despite Felicity lurching for her as Mrs Smith looked around wild-eyed, desperately trying to grab hold of something, she fell hard on the road on her left side.
She cried out in pain. ‘Mrs Smith!’ Felicity threw herself down beside her, her annoyance forgotten. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ she managed through clenched teeth, rolling onto her back, groaning in pain as she grabbed her hip. ‘I’m not.’
Out of habit, Felicity placed her fingers on the pulse at Mrs Smith’s wrist. ‘Where are you hurt?’
‘It’s my damn hip,’ she snapped, raising her head as if she’d be able to see a bone sticking out or something before giving up and dropping her head back onto the road on an annoyed hiss.
Felicity was relieved to feel a strong, regular pulse, and slid her hand into Mrs Smith’s to give it a squeeze, whether the older woman wanted the comfort or not. She glanced down to find Mrs Smith’s left leg was markedly shorter than the right and badly externally rotated. Damn. Felicity would bet her life the older woman had sustained a fractured neck of femur.
‘Anywhere else?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ Mrs Smith grouched.
Felicity pressed her lips together to stop herself smiling. ‘Okay, hang on a sec.’ She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and dialled Callum.
‘Felicity?’
She ignored the husky query in his voice. And the tug down deep and low inside her. ‘I’m outside. Opposite. At Mrs Smith’s. She’s had a fall on the road and I’m pretty sure she’s fractured her left NOF. Can you give some help, please?’
She could have handled it herself if she’d had to but it made sense to have as much medical support as possible.
‘On my way.’
The call was hung up in her ear and she quickly dialled the ambulance station, which, thanks to her home visit schedule, was on speed dial in her contacts. She was ending the call as Callum crossed the road. He was wearing shorts that came to his knees and an ab-hugging T-shirt and was carrying a couple of pillows.
Her heart missed a beat or two.
‘You’ve called an ambulance?’ he asked as he knelt on the road, his knees pressing into the bitumen. He didn’t look at Felicity as he smiled at the older woman, who was noisily sucking air in and out of her lungs.
‘They’re ten minutes away.’
He nodded. ‘How are you going, Mrs Smith?’
‘I’ve been better,’ she said, alth
ough the cantankerous edge had obviously been weakened from the pain. ‘Think I might have broken my hip.’
‘I think you’re right,’ he murmured, slipping a pillow under her head.
‘What’s your pain level if one is the mildest and ten is the worst pain you’ve ever felt?’ Felicity asked.
‘A hundred,’ Mrs Smith panted.
Felicity believed her. Her brow was deeply furrowed and there was a ring of white around her tight mouth. Mrs Smith might be a bit of an old busybody but they bred them tough out here and she was one of the toughest characters in Vickers Hill.
‘The ambulance will be here soon,’ Callum soothed. ‘We’ll get you some pain relief and have you on the way to hospital in a jiffy. You think you can hold on for a bit longer?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she dismissed, her voice gruff, but she squeezed Felicity’s hand harder.
Finally he looked at Felicity, their gazes meshing, a question in his eyes she was too afraid to answer.
‘We’ll support her pelvis in a sling when they get here,’ he said, breaking their eye contact. ‘I brought out a sheet to fashion one but we’d better wait for the magic green whistle to arrive before we attempt anything.’
‘Agreed.’ Pain relief was their priority before they attempted any kind of handling. She just wished she could have a magic green whistle for their situation. One that took them back to that night on the train and turned them into two normal people with no baggage and open hearts.
‘Did you hit your head, Mrs Smith?’ he asked, and Felicity was grateful that Callum’s medical training had taken over. Grateful for any distraction from the question she’d seen in his eyes and from the answer she could no longer deny.
Why are you here?
Because I love you.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BY THE TIME the ambulance had departed it was well and truly dark. Then it was just the two of them standing in the middle of the road bathed in the silent strobing of red and blue lights as they faded down the street. The neighbours who had milled around had since melted away to their homes.
‘You want a drink?’
Felicity shook her head. She needed to go now that she knew the answer to the question. She certainly didn’t need to drink alcohol around him, lose her inhibitions and blurt it out.