New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  Leaving the house, she drove down to the clinic first, showing him around the consulting and treatment rooms, proud of the set-up and pleased when he praised it. Then back in the car, she took Cam to the top of the rise so he could see the town spread out below them.

  ‘It’s fairly easy to get around,’ she explained to him. ‘As you can see from here, the cove beach faces north and the southern beach—the long one—faces east.’

  ‘With the shopping centre running along the esplanade behind the cove, is that right?’

  He pointed to the wide drive along the bay side, Christmas decorations already flapping in the wind.

  ‘There’s actually a larger, modern shopping mall down behind this hill,’ Jo told him. ‘You just drive up here and turn right instead of left. We’re going the other way because the best cafés are on the front and the hospital is also down there. Until the surfing craze started, the cove beach was the one everyone used. It’s only been in relatively recent years that the open beach has become popular and land along it has been developed for housing.’

  Explaining too much?

  Telling him stuff he didn’t need to know?

  Yes to both but Jo felt so uncomfortable with the stranger in her car, she knew the silence would prickle her skin if she didn’t fill it with talk.

  ‘Can we eat before we visit the hospital?’ her passenger asked, and although there was nothing in his voice to give him away, memories of her own surfing days came rushing back to Jo. When the surf was running, food had been the last thing on her mind, so she’d return home close to lunchtime, starving.

  ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t had breakfast?’ she wailed. ‘I realised you’d come straight from the beach but … ‘

  She turned so she could see his face.

  ‘You should have said,’ she told him, mortified that she’d been proudly pointing out up-to-date equipment while all he wanted was something to eat. ‘I could have offered you food at the house—cereal or toast or something. It was just so late in the morning I didn’t think of it. Or we could have gone straight to the café instead of doing the clinic tour first.’

  She’d turned her attention back to the road but heard the smile in his voice when he replied.

  ‘Hey, don’t go beating yourself up about it. I’m a big boy. I can look after myself.’

  ‘Hardly a boy!’ Jo snapped, contrarily angry now, although it wasn’t her fault the man was starving.

  She pulled up opposite her favourite café, a place she and Jill had hung out in during their early high-school days.

  ‘They do an all-day big breakfast I can recommend,’ she told Cam, before dropping down out of the car and crossing the road, assuming he would follow. As she heard his door shut, she used the remote lock and heard the ping as the car was secured.

  ‘A big breakfast will hit the spot,’ Cam declared as he studied the blackboard menu and realised that the combination of eggs, bacon, sausages, tomato, beans and toast was just what he needed to fill the aching void in his stomach.

  If only other voids in other parts of him could be filled as easily …

  ‘I’ll have a toasted cheese and—’

  ‘Tomato sandwich and a latte,’ the young girl who’d come to take their orders finished.

  ‘One day I’ll order something different,’ Jo warned her, and the girl laughed as she turned to Cam.

  ‘The sky will turn green the day Jo changes her order,’ she said. ‘And for you?’

  He ordered the big breakfast, absolutely famished now he’d started thinking about food and how long it had been since he’d eaten. He looked out across the road at the people gathered on the beach, and beyond them to where maybe a dozen surfers sat on their boards, waiting for a wave that might never come.

  He understood their patience. It wasn’t for the waves that he surfed, or not entirely. He surfed to clear his head—to help to banish the sights and sounds of war that disturbed his nights and haunted his days.

  He surfed to heal himself, or so he hoped.

  ‘The surf was far better this morning,’ he said, turning his mind from things he couldn’t control and his attention back to his companion.

  ‘Higher tide and an offshore breeze. Now the wind’s stronger from the west and flattening the surf but those kids will sit out there anyway. They don’t mind if there are no waves, and now they’re all pretty good about wearing sun protection it’s a healthy lifestyle for them.’

  She spoke in a detached manner, as if her mind was on something else. Intriguing, that’s what his new boss was, especially as she’d been frowning as she’d explained surf conditions in Crystal Bay—surely not bothersome information.

  ‘So why the frown?’ Yes, he was intrigued.

  ‘What frown?’

  ‘You’ve been frowning since the girl took our order,’ he pointed out.

  A half-embarrassed smile slid across his new boss’s lips, which she twisted slightly before answering.

  ‘If you must know, I was thinking how predictable I’ve become, or maybe how boring I am that I don’t bother thinking of something different to have for lunch. This place does great salads, but do I order a roast pumpkin, feta and pine-nut concoction? No, just boring old toasted cheese and tomato. I’ve got to get a life!’

  Cam chuckled at the despair in her voice.

  ‘I wouldn’t think ordering the same thing for lunch every day prohibits you from having a life.’

  Fire flashed in her eyes again and he found himself enjoying the fact that he could stir her, not necessarily stir her to anger, but at least fire some spark in the woman who was … different in some way?

  No, intriguing was the only word.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t, and if my life wasn’t so full I wouldn’t need to employ another doctor, but the cheese and tomato is a symbol, that’s all.’

  Small-scale glare—about a four.

  ‘A symbol? Cheese and tomato—toasted—a symbol?’

  Now the eyes darkened, narrowed.

  ‘You know very well what I mean. It’s not the cheese and tomato, it’s the repetition thing. We get stuck in a groove—well, not you obviously or you wouldn’t be wandering along the coast in a psychedelic van, but me, I’m stuck in a groove.’

  ‘With a cheese and tomato sandwich, most uncomfortable,’ he teased, and saw the anger flare before she cooled it with a reluctant grimace and a head shake.

  ‘It’s all very well for you to mock,’ she told him sternly. ‘You’ve been off seeing the world with the army. You don’t know what it’s like to be stuck in a small town.’

  She hesitated, frowning again, before adding, ‘That came out sounding as if I resented being here, which I don’t. I love the Cove, love living here, love working here—so stuck is the wrong word. It’s just that I think maybe people in small towns are more likely to slip into grooves than people in big cities.’

  He had to laugh.

  ‘Lady, you don’t know nothin’ about grooves until you’ve been in the army. Everyone in the army has a groove. It’s the only way a thing that big can work. Hence the psychedelic van you mentioned—that’s my way of getting out of my particular groove.’

  And away from the memories …

  Jo studied the man who’d made the joking remark and saw the truth behind it in the bruised shadows under his eyes and the lines that strain, not age, had drawn on his cheeks. She had an uncomfortable urge to touch him, to rest her hand on his arm where it lay on the table, just for a moment, a touch to say she understood his need to escape so much reality.

  He’s not staying!

  The reminder echoed around inside her head and she kept her hands to herself, smiling as their meals arrived and she saw Cam’s eyes widening when he realised how big a big breakfast was in Crystal Cove.

  ‘Take your time,’ she told him, ‘I could sit here and look out at the people on the beach all day.’

  Which was true enough, but although she watched the people on the beach, her mind was
churning with other things.

  Common sense dictated that if she was employing another doctor for the practice it should be a man. A lot of her male patients would prefer to see a man, especially about personal problems they might be having. Elderly men in particular were reluctant to discuss some aspects of their health, not so much with a woman but with a woman they’d known since she was a child.

  She’d ignored common sense and asked for a woman for a variety of reasons, most to do with the refuge. Not that her practice and the refuge were inextricably entwined, although as the only private practice in town she was called in whenever a woman or child at the refuge needed a doctor.

  Mind you, with a man—she cast a sidelong glance at the man in question, wolfing down his bacon, sausages and eggs—she could run more effective anti-abuse programmes at the high school. The two of them could do interactive role plays about appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—something she was sure the kids would enjoy, and if they enjoyed it, they would maybe consider the message.

  The man wasn’t staying.

  And toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches were really, really boring.

  ‘Tell me about the refuge while I eat.’

  It had been on her mind, well, sort of, so it was easy to talk—easier than thinking right now …

  ‘It began with a death—a young woman who had come to live in the Cove with her boyfriend who was a keen surfer. They hired an on-site van in the caravan park and had been here about three months when the man disappeared and a few days later the woman was found dead inside the van.’

  Her voice was so bleak Cam immediately understood that the woman’s death had had a devastating effect on Jo Harris.

  But doctors were used to death to a certain extent, so this must have been more traumatic than usual?

  Why?

  ‘Did you know her?’ he asked. ‘Had she been a patient?’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘No and yes. I’d seen her once—turned out she’d been to the hospital once as well. Perhaps if she’d come twice to me, or gone to the hospital both times … ‘

  He watched as she took a deep breath then lifted her head and met his eyes across the table, her face tight with bad memories.

  ‘She came to me with a strained wrist, broken collarbone and bruises—a fall, she said, and I believed her. As you know, if you’re falling, you tend to put out a hand to break the fall, and the collarbone is the weak link so it snaps. Looking back, the story of the fall was probably true but if I’d examined her more closely I’d probably have seen bruising on her back where he’d pushed her before she fell.’

  Cam stopped eating. Somehow he’d lost his enjoyment of the huge breakfast. He studied the woman opposite him and knew that in some way she was still beating herself up over the woman’s death—blaming herself for not noticing.

  ‘And when she was found in the van? She’d been battered to death?’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt such … ‘ She paused and he saw anguish in her face so wasn’t entirely surprised when she used the word.

  ‘Anguish—that’s the only way to describe it. Guilt, too, that I hadn’t helped her, but just total despair that such things happen.’

  He watched as she gathered herself together—literally straightening her shoulders and tilting her chin—moving onward, explaining.

  ‘After she was dead some of the permanent residents at the park told the police they’d heard raised voices from the van but, like most domestic situations, no one likes to interfere. Her parents came up to the Cove and we found out they’d known he was abusive. In fact, he’d moved up here because she had often sought refuge with her parents and he’d wanted to isolate her even more. They offered a donation—a very generous donation—for someone to set up a refuge here. I … ‘

  She looked out to sea, regret written clearly on her face.

  ‘It was as if I’d been given a reprieve. I might not have been able to help one woman, but surely I could help others. My friend Lauren, a psychologist, had just returned home to work at the Cove and together we got stuck into it, finding out all we could, bringing in people who could help, getting funding for staff.’

  She offered him a rueful smile before adding, ‘Getting the house turned out to be the easy part.’ Then she sighed and the green eyes met his, studying him as if checking him out before telling him any more.

  Had he passed some test that she continued, her voice low and slightly husky, as she admitted, ‘My sister had just died so, in a way, setting up the refuge helped me, too.’

  She smiled but the smile could certainly not be classified as perky, as she admitted, ‘It became a passion.’

  ‘And?’ he prompted, for he was sure there was more.

  One word but it won a real smile—one that lit her eyes with what could only be pride in what she and her friend had achieved, although there were still shadows in them as well. Of course there would be shadows—the memory of the woman who died, then the connection with her sister’s death.

  A sister who’d loved roses?

  He brought his mind back from the roses and shadows in eyes as Jo was talking again.

  ‘Isn’t there a saying—build it and they will come? Well, that’s what happened with the refuge. It’s sad it happened—that places like it are needed—but on the up side, at least now women at risk anywhere within a couple of hundred miles’ radius have somewhere to go. I’m connected to it in that I’m on the committee that runs it, and also we, by which I mean the practice, are the medical clinic the women staying there use. Problem is, to keep the refuge open we need ongoing funding from the government to pay the residential workers and that’s a bit up in the air at the moment. The powers that be keep changing the rules, requiring more and more measurable ‘objectives’ in order to attract funding, but … ‘

  She nodded towards his plate. ‘This is spoiling your breakfast. Some time soon we’ll visit the house and you can talk to Lauren, who runs it, and you can see for yourself.’

  Cam returned to his breakfast but his mind was considering all he’d heard. He could understand how personal the refuge must be to Jo, connected to the woman who’d died, as well as to her sister. In a way it was a memorial—almost sacred—so she’d be willing to do anything to keep it going. Even before she’d admitted that the refuge had become a passion he’d heard her passion for it in her voice and seen it in her gleaming eyes as she’d talked about it.

  Passion! Hadn’t it once been his driving force? Where, along the way, had he lost his?

  In the battlefields, of course, treating young men so badly damaged many of them wished to die. Dealing with their minds as well as their bodies. No wonder he’d lost his passion.

  Except for surfing. That passion still burned …

  He brought his mind back to the conversation, rerunning it in his head. He found the thing that puzzled him, intrigued in spite of his determination not to get too involved.

  ‘How would employing a middle-aged female doctor in the practice help save the refuge?’

  He won another smile. He liked her smiles and was beginning to classify them. This one was slightly shamefaced.

  ‘It wouldn’t do much in measurable objectives,’ she admitted, ‘but it does bother me, personally, that some of the older women who use the house—women in their forties and fifties—might look at Lauren and me and wonder what on earth we could know about their lives or their problems, or even about life in general. I’m twenty-nine so it’s not as if I’m fresh out of uni, but I look younger and sometimes I get the impression that the older women might think that though I’ve got all the theory—’

  ‘Theory isn’t reality?’

  He couldn’t help it. He reached out and touched her hand where it rested on the table.

  ‘Look, I don’t know you at all, but having spent just a couple of hours in your company I’m sure you’re empathetic enough to be able to see those women’s situations through their eyes. The ar
my’s the same—a fifty-year-old colonel having to come and talk to some young whippersnapper straight out of med school about his erection problems.’

  He paused, then asked, ‘I take it you have staff at the refuge?’

  The tantalising green eyes studied him for a moment, puzzling over the question.

  ‘We have a number of trained residential support staff, who work with the women all the time.’

  ‘Then surely at least one of them could be an older woman, maybe more than one. These are the people spending most time there.’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘You’re right, of course. And a couple of them are older women, it’s just that … ‘

  ‘Just that you want to be all things to all people? No matter how much you do, you always want to do more, give more?’

  His new boss stared at him across the table. He could almost see the denial forming on her lips then getting lost on the way out.

  ‘Are you analysing me?’ she demanded instead. ‘Showing off your psychology skills? Anyway, I don’t think that’s the case at all.’

  He grinned at her.

  ‘You just want the best for everyone,’ he offered helpfully, finding pleasure in this gentle teasing—finding an unexpected warmth from it inside his body.

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she asked, but the words lacked heat and Cam smiled because he knew he’d hit home. She did want the best for everyone, she would give more and more, but would that be at the expense of her own life? Her own pleasure?

  And if so, why?

  Intriguing …

  Not that he’d ever find out—or needed to. He wasn’t looking to stay in Crystal Cove, unexpected warmth or no.

  Although …

  ‘Hospital next,’ Jo announced, mainly to break the silence that had followed their conversation, though the man mountain had been demolishing the rest of his breakfast so he probably hadn’t found the silence as awkward as she had. She replayed the conversation in her head, realising how much of herself she’d revealed to a virtual stranger.

  She’d forced herself to sound bright and cheery as she’d made the ‘hospital next’ suggestion, but the conversation about the refuge had unsettled her so badly that what she really needed was to get away from Fraser Cameron and do some serious thinking.