Why couldn’t he stop watching a woman called Kate?
* * *
He worried her.
He messed with her equanimity.
‘Everything was fine until he arrived,’ she told Hobble. She was floating on her back in the dolphin pool. She spent almost all her time focussed on her small charges’ needs, but at dusk, when kids and parents headed in for dinner, she floated on the water and let herself be still.
The dolphins didn’t try to play with her. They never did. They seemed to sense that she had a need for healing almost as great as her small patients. Sometimes they swam in slow circles around her. Sometimes they simply let her be.
They were wounded, too. Each one of the dolphins in the enclosure had a backstory of tragedy. They put her own history into perspective.
Until Jack had arrived she’d thought she’d achieved peace. Why had he disturbed that peace?
Because he might have inadvertently told Simon where she was?
That was one reason but weirdly it was a minor one. The bigger one was the way he made her feel. He was an old friend, caring for his small nephew. A man faced with his life being turned upside down.
A man who had a gift of tuning in to troubled kids.
A man who just had to smile at her and who made her feel...
Like she was losing control again?
She would not lose control.
The only child of elderly parents, she’d been controlled since birth, not by aggression but by the power of too much loving.
She’d adored her parents but their pressure had been relentless. All their focus, all their adoration, had been on her. If she upset one, the other would gently blackmail her. ‘You know your mother’s not well.’ Or...‘You know your father has a weak heart...’ And then, even more of a sledgehammer... ‘It’d make us so happy and proud if you married Simon. We could die knowing you were safe.’
Safe. Ha! As a promise, it sucked.
Jack could keep her safe. He’d said so.
How could anyone keep anyone safe? By gentle or not-so-gentle control?
She wasn’t making sense, she decided, but, then, when had emotions ever made sense? All she knew was that she’d had a lifetime of control and she wasn’t going back. Jack Kincaid might make her knees turn to jelly, but that was no reason to forget resolutions forged by fire. He might want to keep her safe, but she’d learned to run and she’d continue to run. Or at least hold desire at bay.
Hold Jack at bay?
She was reading too much into a kiss, she thought. She was reading too much into how Jack looked at her.
But she knew she wasn’t.
* * *
She’d organised a formal counselling session for Harry late that afternoon. Maisie was lying at Harry’s feet, while, at Kate’s request, Harry was drawing a picture of himself with Hobble.
Jack was leafing through a magazine, trying to fade into the background. At first he’d felt he shouldn’t be at these sessions, but Kate had insisted.
‘Harry’s had enough of being alone. He needs to know that every problem he has he can share with you.’
Jack was no longer arguing. The change in his nephew was amazing.
Harry finished his picture of Hobble but he’d only used a tiny part of the page. To Jack’s surprise, the little boy drew a careful box around his picture of himself and the dolphin, then, underneath, he drew a table, and two figures sitting at the table.
And underneath the table a dog.
‘That’s you and Jack,’ Kate said, and it wasn’t a question.
‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘And our dog.’
‘You and Jack would like a dog?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s a picture of you and Hobble.’
‘On our wall,’ Harry said. ‘So we’ll remember it for ever and for ever.’
Then he paused, looked at his picture and added a box beside the table.
‘Would you like to tell me what that is?’ Kate asked.
‘It’s my ant farm.’
‘You have an ant farm?’
‘Yes.’
Kate looked a query at Jack but Jack gave an imperceptible shake of his head. This was news to him.
‘So this is your house, where you live with Jack.’
‘Yes,’ Harry said, and he cast Jack a look that was half scared, half defiant.
The moment had come. There was no backing out now.
‘That’s right,’ Jack said. ‘You’ll need to paint a bigger picture of you and Hobble for our real wall.’
‘Yes,’ Harry said, still a bit defiant, still suspicious.
‘But it won’t be the house where you lived with your mum and dad,’ Jack said, because it seemed important to say it like it had to be. ‘I work at the hospital and your house is too far away. We’ll need to find a house just for us, somewhere closer.’
There was a long moment while Harry thought this through. Jack could see the conflicting emotion on his small face. He saw anguish, loss—and finally bleak acceptance.
‘Will we find a new house?’ he asked in a small voice.
‘Yes.’ A kid and a dog...a hospital apartment was no longer feasible. ‘You can help choose it.’
That made him brighten a little.
‘With my own bedroom? And a window with a tree?’
Harder, but manageable. ‘Yes.’
‘Will Annalise live with us?’
‘No. Just you and me.’ He looked dubiously at the picture. ‘And a dog and an ant farm, though it might take a while before we can find a dog.’
‘Can we find one like Maisie?’
Oh, hell, why not? He had a sudden flash of dog-sitters and big back yards and his social life going down the toilet, but there wasn’t a lot of choice. ‘Yes.’
‘Why won’t Annalise live with us?’
‘She doesn’t like dogs.’
It was obviously the right answer. ‘All right,’ Harry said, turning back to his picture. ‘The dog can stay in my bedroom. And my ant farm.’
‘Of course,’ he said weakly, and Kate gave him an approving grin and went back to concentrating on Harry’s picture.
Harry and Jack and Dog and ant farm?
Move over, Harry, he thought. I need counselling myself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TELEVISION HAD FAILED her. This was a remote community, there were exactly three channels to choose from, and tonight, unless she wanted news of the day, hyenas feeding off dead zebras or a documentary about weight-loss programmes, she was lost.
Maisie was off doing her dog therapy with their latest patient arrival. Kate was on her own.
She wanted diversions but there weren’t any. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jack.
She’d listened to the commitments Jack had been making in the counselling session and she’d been astonishingly moved. He was losing his girlfriend, his apartment, his lifestyle.
Maybe he hadn’t thought it through, but she’d watched his face as he’d said it and she knew that for now he believed in what he was promising.
Resolutions didn’t always last. Don’t believe in people, she told herself, almost fiercely. Once upon a time she’d believed in Simon.
Restless, she headed out to the beach. The tide was low, and the moon hung silver over the water. She could walk as far as she wanted.
She never went far. Like her injured dolphins, she wasn’t leaving.
Why, tonight, was she suddenly thinking of leaving? Because a man called Jack had her...discombobulated. For discombobulated she certainly was. She needed to get herself in order, she told herself. Her day started at dawn. She needed to head for bed.
To sleep? Not possible.
She had to try. She’
d been walking for an hour and she needed to be up at dawn.
She walked slowly across the sand hills, past the bungalows holding sleeping children and their parents.
She walked past Jack’s veranda, keeping to the shadows in case he was outside.
He was outside, on the phone.
She had no right to stop and listen but there was no way her feet would obey her conscience. She stopped and she listened.
‘Helen, what’s happened to his ant farm?’
He was sitting on the cane settee with a beer. Harry must be asleep, she thought, and Jack was on speakerphone. Why not? It’d be easier to sit back and talk while gazing out at the moon.
He must have just come out, Kate thought, or he’d have seen her on the beach. The path up to the bungalows was heavily planted, with side paths to the individual accommodation. That was lucky. She didn’t want him to see her.
Why? She hardly knew, and she certainly had no right to eavesdrop. But what was between them was starting to feel strange; uncharted territory. She should slink off into the shadows, but somehow she was caught. What Jack was saying would impinge on Harry’s life, she told herself. Maybe she even had a duty to listen.
Ha! Yet she stayed where she was, unashamedly eavesdropping.
‘What are you talking about?’ Helen was demanding.
‘An ant farm. I gather it’s important to him. It’s a tank like a skinny goldfish bowl, full of ants. I used to have one when I was a kid. Did you take it to your place when we cleared up?’
‘I can’t remember seeing it. Hang on and I’ll ask Doug.’ There was a muffled conversation while Helen talked to someone in the background and when she came back on the line the news wasn’t good. ‘Doug says he wondered what that was. It was in Harry’s room, a tank full of dirt. He binned it.’
Uh-oh. Kate had known Harry for little more than a week yet even she knew what was important.
This was important.
‘Put Doug on,’ Jack said, and she heard the tension in his voice. He must have also realised the enormity of this loss.
But Doug had a good memory. Jack pushed for details and Doug could describe size and shape.
‘Right,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll go on the internet and order a replacement. Can you set it up before we get home?’
‘Where do I get ants?’ It was Helen again, sounding horrified. ‘Do you want us to go out to the garden and dig ’em up?’
‘He’ll know the difference between home ants and the ants he had,’ Jack said. ‘This is one kid you can’t fool by swapping budgies.’
Kate smiled a little at that. How many kids had been spared trauma when their pet bird died by parents simply replacing them? But...ants?
‘You’re saying he can pick individual ants?’ Doug demanded.
‘He’s his mother’s son and I know my Beth,’ Jack said simply, and then corrected himself bleakly. ‘I knew my Beth. She’d know every characteristic of every ant. We may not be able to replace the exact ants but they’ll be a certain breed. I’ll grill him tomorrow and hopefully order them on the internet. I know we can’t get it looking exactly the same but we can tell him the twins tipped it over and you’ve replaced the soil. His favourite ants might have got squashed. It’s a compromise but it’s the best we can do.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ Helen came back on the phone. ‘All this worry, and we’re fretting about ants? And when are you coming home?’
‘When the ant farm’s ready.’
‘So Harry’s coming back here?’
‘No,’ Jack said, firmly and surely. ‘Helen, your family is great. I know you and Doug love Harry to bits, but he’s a kid who needs silence. He stays with me.’
‘He’ll get more than silence with you,’ Helen snapped. ‘He’ll be totally isolated.’
‘He won’t be.’
‘You work six days a week, twelve-hour days. What sort of life is that for a child?’
‘I’ll change things.’
‘You need a wife. Annalise?’
‘She’s no longer in the picture and even if she was, I couldn’t ask this of her. This is my call. Helen, I can organise my life. I can make things good for Harry. Trust me.’
‘It’s a child’s life,’ Helen said bleakly. ‘It’s a huge trust.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll do what I have to do. Watch this space.’
* * *
He’d disconnected. Kate stood silent. She should back away, she thought. She had no right being here.
‘You can come out now,’ Jack said, and her world stilled.
There was nothing for it. She emerged from the shadows, feeling like a criminal.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was coming up the path and didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘You want to help me choose ants?’ he asked, as if she’d done nothing dishonourable at all.
‘Jack, I didn’t mean—’
‘I knew you were there,’ he said. ‘Eavesdropping’s only a crime when it’s successful.’
‘I had no right—’
‘You have every right. You’re transforming my nephew’s life. You want to listen in on us twenty-four seven, it’s fine by me. We need what you’re doing, Kate. We need you.’
As a statement it took her breath away. Trust... He looked down at her and smiled, and if she’d had any more breath to spare she’d have lost it then.
That smile...
‘Ants,’ he said. ‘Research. Glass of wine first or are you on call?’
‘No wine,’ she said, because with that smile she did not need alcohol.
‘But you have time for ant-farming?’ He shifted sideways on the settee and gestured to the laptop in front of him. ‘Want to take a look? I know it’s not Sunrise Babes but, hey, I bet what goes on in these closed, glass communities will make your eyes pop.’
And who could resist an invitation like that? She headed up the steps, still feeling shamefaced, but Jack had moved on.
‘Gel?’ He was staring at the screen. ‘I thought you just used dirt. When did ants start needing gel? And it says you can’t order queen ants on line. Quarantine between states? How did Harry get the first one? You’re going to have to help me here, Kate. Tomorrow’s counselling session has to be all about how he feels about his ant farm, and subtle questions as to technical detail on how he got the last one. And look at this! They shove the dead ones up the top and you’re expected to remove them to prevent disease? They have to be kidding. Maybe that’s why all mine died when I was a kid. I think I need counselling. I’m an oncologist, not an ant funeral director. I think I’m in trouble.’
And then he glanced at her again and his smile faded.
‘Maybe we’re both in trouble,’ he said softly, and she met his look for a long moment—and then flinched and went back to looking at a screen full of ants.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY SPENT A ridiculous hour researching ant farms. ‘I can put it on my CV now,’ Kate said proudly at the end of it. ‘Doctor, physiotherapist, counsellor, dolphin expert and now ant-farm advisor.’
‘Is there no end to your skills?’ Jack demanded, and she grinned.
‘Nope.’
‘Do you take an active hand in caring for the dolphins?’ he asked.
‘We all do,’ she said simply. ‘This place runs with a team of committed professionals, and every one of us can turn their hand to anything. Even Bob, the groundsman, is expected to interact with the kids, and he loves it. We don’t have a full-time vet—that’s a gap—but we get online help. Usually injured dolphins don’t come straight to us. They’re found in more populated areas so the initial vet work is done there. They’re brought to us to give them time and space to heal. There’s not a lot of hands-on work to do for a healing dolphin. Dolphin hea
l pretty magically anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if a shark took a chunk from your backside you’d be remembering it for the rest of your life, but for some amazing reason dolphins regenerate torn flesh. They arrive looking gruesome, yet as soon as we get them non-stressed, their regenerative power takes over. This place has released hundreds of dolphins, slightly scarred but ready to fish another day.’
‘To the local fishermen’s displeasure.’
‘There is that,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘But when the founders of this place set it up they chose a place well away from any fishing harbour. We do get locals complaining that we’re ruining their sport. Someone even shot a dolphin last year, but he got such appalling local press that he’s not been heard of since. Gotta love a dolphin.’
He smiled, feeling the pride she so obviously had in this work. And for a stupid moment he felt...jealous?
Jealous of this slip of a girl, burying herself at the edge of nowhere, passionate about her patients and her dolphins but nothing else.
He thought of the life he lived back in Sydney. He was in charge of a large, modern cancer centre, but it was part of a huge teaching hospital. He spent so much of his time fighting for funding, organising support for patient care, dealing with the requirements to hold a large medical team on focus, that his contact with patients was becoming less and less.
This might be so much more rewarding.
‘It’s not all it looks,’ Kate said, and he glanced at her sharply. She could guess his thoughts? She’d done psychology, he thought. Dangerous. He should stop thinking immediately.
‘I need to fight for my patients, too,’ she said. ‘Every one of them has special needs, and those needs often can’t be held in abeyance while they’re here. I have two kids who are still on chemotherapy. I have to fight to get the drugs, fight to be given the knowledge how to administer them. If your Harry had come here with cancer, I’d have done my homework before he came. I’d have been onto his doctors, and I’d have pleaded with them to give me the resources to keep him safe.’
‘You didn’t have those resources with Toby Linkler.’
‘He’d run out of options,’ she said bleakly. ‘If he’d stayed in Melbourne, if the family had wanted it, he might have been given another round of chemo, but the medical team who looked after him knew it was the end.’
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