Which was?
Her mind was whirling.
Surely she wasn’t thinking love?
Of course she was.
She was leading the way out of the house, was right inside the front door, in fact, when he stopped her with a touch on her shoulder and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly.
‘Remember,’ he whispered into her hair, ‘that sometimes things just happen, without reason and without anyone being accountable. Sometimes we dig around for reasons when there aren’t any.’
Cam tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes.
‘You might also want to remember that I think I’m falling in love with you—maybe already fallen. Although I didn’t know it until right this minute, and I admit I’m not that good a catch, that I have problems, I want you to know that I’ll keep working on them. And one more thing, I am not moving on!’
She stared at him in disbelief but warm colour was back in her cheeks and he could feel her body straightening, her resolve stiffening, and now he knew for certain—it was love. For who could not love a woman who faced life with such courage—a woman about to return to the place where her sister had been so badly injured in order to help someone else?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SURFING needed different muscles from running so the race up the path to the top of the headland had Cam puffing and panting. He only kept up with Jo because his strides were longer.
They’d parked in a cluster of police and rescue vehicles in the car park near the clubhouse. The area had been cleared of people, curious onlookers held at bay by police and volunteer rescue personnel. More police would already be on the headland, but what else would they find?
Mike came towards them as they reached the top, both of them breathing deeply to replenish the oxygen they’d used on the run.
‘What’s happening?’ Cam asked.
‘Jackie and Richard and the kids came up for a walk—Richard’s suggestion—to have breakfast and go up the headland.’
Cam nodded. Jo had talked about her family doing it regularly on a Sunday morning.
‘They get to the top and Richard climbs over the barrier.’ Mike’s voice was strained and Cam remembered he and Richard were friends.
Jo reached out and put her hand on Mike’s arm.
‘Someone else can tell us,’ she said gently, but Mike shook his head.
‘No, I’m the one who’s been talking to him. He says he’s no good to anyone and might as well end it now.’
Cam was thinking clearly—putting all he knew of precarious mental states to use—concentrating on Richard.
‘Something happened to him,’ he said to Mike. ‘A year or so ago—that’s when the abuse apparently started—would you know of any change in his circumstances?’
Jo was muttering to herself about the selfishness of suicides, but Cam ignored her, aware Mike was trying to think.
The policeman shook his head.
‘He did have a mate—no, that couldn’t be it.’
‘A mate who died?’ Cam guessed, but Mike shook his head.
‘I know his mother died, but that was earlier. His good friend from under-nineteen cricket made the Aussie Ashes side last summer but … ‘
And took the place Richard might have thought was his? Cam wondered. It wasn’t much to go on, but maybe it was something.
‘Where are Jackie and the boys?’ Jo asked, and Mike pointed to the fence, where Richard was clearly visible on the cliff-side while Jackie and the two children huddled against the safe side of the fence.
‘That’s your job, Jo,’ Cam said. ‘While I’m talking to him, see if you can ease them back, away from the fence.’
‘So if something happens they won’t see it?’ she whispered, and he knew she was so stressed with memories and her fear for the family he wanted to hug her yet again.
He made do with a smile and hoped she’d read the hug in it.
‘With me there chatting to him? Have faith, woman! I just don’t want any distractions for him.’
Jo felt the smile go right through her, the heat of it melting her bones so she longed to sag against him and stay there, possibly for ever.
She stiffened her bones and her resolve and smiled back.
‘Leave Jackie and the kids to me.’
Cam nodded at her, a special kind of nod that seemed to confirm a lot of things that hadn’t yet been said, then he began to question Mike about Richard’s request.
‘Did he give any reason for wanting me?’ Cam asked, as the two men moved towards the fence, Jo following but not too close. She could hear the waves crashing on the rocks, feel the thud of their power beneath her feet, but her fear now wasn’t from her memories, but for Cam.
‘No, just said he wants to talk to you—asked for you in particular,’ Mike was saying as the two men reached the high point of the headland where a safety fence, eight feet high, had been erected.
Jackie and the two boys were crouched in a pathetic heap, crying helplessly.
‘Wait until I’m talking to him then ease them slowly away because if he does jump they don’t want that memory in their heads for ever,’ Cam said quietly to Jo, although he knew the advice was unnecessary. If anyone would know what best to do for the little family, it was Jo, whose mantle of care was like a blanket spread across the whole Cove.
But right now he had to stop thinking about her—stop thinking about anyone but the man who was in such agony of spirits that death seemed the only option.
‘Do you want me this side or that, Richard?’ he asked.
He spoke quietly but he knew from the gasp behind him that Jo had heard the question—knew too how fearful she must be to see someone else’s life in danger on the headland.
‘You’d come over?’ Richard was asking.
‘Of course,’ Cam said. ‘I might not be able to climb it as easily as you—I’m not built for climbing—but I think I could make it.’
Richard seemed to consider this for a moment.
‘Why would you want to?’
‘I thought maybe if I was closer to you I could see what you’re seeing more clearly,’ Cam told him. ‘It’s hard to know what people are thinking, but we should be able to see what they’re seeing and right now I’d like to know what you’re seeing that makes you think life’s not worth living.’
‘Well, you can see that easy enough,’ Richard said. ‘I’m no good, that’s why!’
‘No one’s no good,’ Cam said.
‘I’m no good,’ Richard repeated, although the words lacked the conviction the first assertion had.
‘Of course you are. We all think that about ourselves from time to time. Look at me—a trained doctor and psychologist yet I’m surfing my way along the coast, looking for a purpose in life. I believed I’d failed the young soldiers I was supposed to help and I let myself forget the good I could do, the help I could give people. I bet you’ve forgotten the things about you that made Jackie fall in love with you—make her still love you as I’m sure she does.’
‘That’s different,’ Richard muttered, but Cam saw he’d moved a little bit away from the edge.
‘Not so very different. I had to learn to live with the guilt and feelings of helplessness. They might never go away but I’m learning to handle them now—learning to accept them, not run away from them. You have to learn to live with your temper, how to control it or how to walk away when you can’t control it. From the little I know of you, you’re not stupid. You can learn to handle the problem, and once you’ve told your friends about it, they’ll help you every step along the way. My problem was I never talked about the horrors that I saw. I tried not to even think about them. Stuff you bottle in just festers but, like an infected wound, once you open it up, it will heal.’
Cam knew he was following good psychological processes using personal admissions so Richard didn’t feel he was the only one with a problem, but was it working?
Would Richard think it all a con?
Of a
ll the people gathered on the headland, Jo was the only one who’d know he, Cam, was speaking from his heart. Would she know also that it was because of her he’d changed? Because of her he’d moved on?
He hoped so, just as he hoped he could talk Richard off this cliff, but reason told him he couldn’t get through to Richard while they were on opposite sides of an eight foot fence. He sighed inwardly and put a foot into the wire mesh.
‘I’m coming over,’ he said. ‘It’s best we sit together if we’re going to talk.’
No reply but once again Richard inched further from the edge, giving Cam a spurt of hope. Somehow he clambered over the fence, ungainly as a hippo scaling a wall, then he settled beside Richard on the grassy ledge, trying hard to ignore the waves crashing on the rocks beneath them. Heights had never been his favourite places.
Richard started talking, unprompted, asking him questions about the army, asking him how men who’d seen horrors in their lives could learn to live with them, and it occurred to Cam that Richard’s mate getting into the Aussie cricket team was probably not a trigger for his violence but a final straw.
‘I went into the army because my family had always had army people in it—my dad and grandfather and a long string before them. What about you? I don’t even know what work you do,’ Cam said, thinking perhaps something in Richard’s job might lie at the root of his problems.
‘I’m an accountant but I do volunteer work for the SES.’
Ha! The flat tones as he’d spoken told Cam more than the words themselves, although the SES? The State Emergency Service was made up of volunteers—the members called out to all manner of emergencies, from floods to fires, to searches for missing children, and multi-car pile-ups on the highway.
‘That’s got its fair share of horror,’ Cam said quietly, and Richard nodded, then he began to cry.
‘She was only four, younger than Aaron, and I was the one who found her. I should have been happy—well, not happy but relieved her parents had got some kind of closure. But all I felt was anger—anger at a useless waste of life—anger aimed not only at the man who’d abducted her but at myself and all human beings that we allow such things to happen. I didn’t know the anger was building inside me. I thought I was okay—I mean, it was six months later. Then the doctor said Jackie—said we—said the baby would be a girl, and something just cracked inside me … ‘
Cam put his arms around Richard’s shoulders and held him while he bled out his pain in stumbling words and shattered sentences, the little girl, his boys, helplessness and anger.
‘I knew I must have killed Jackie’s love when that happened, and that made me angrier because she kept saying it didn’t matter and she loved me and I kept thinking it had to be a lie.’
Cam held him tightly, knowing that further along the fence, where it ended near the northern edge of the cliff, the emergency crew was quietly cutting through the wire mesh. He hoped that was all they were doing. Prayed they didn’t have some mad rescue plan to suddenly rush at him and Richard with the two of them sitting so close to almost certain death.
Back behind the main stage of the drama, Jo stayed with Jackie, the two boys having been taken back down the path by Jackie’s parents.
Every atom in Jo’s body wanted to move forward, to force her hand through the mesh and get a grip on Cam’s clothing.
As if that would keep him safe!
She sighed, shaking her head in disbelief at the pain she was feeling—the pain that fear was pumping through her body—fear for a man she’d known only a week.
Could people fall in love in a week?
Cam had said he loved her—or had he said falling in love—either way, love was part of the equation, but could it be real, could it be possible, could it last, something that happened so quickly?
She should have told him how she was feeling.
How was she feeling?
Afraid! That’s what.
And muddled.
And probably in love …
Cam eased himself away from Richard, needing to look into his face as he spoke to him.
‘There’s so much help available,’ he said quietly. ‘For a start, there are ways of helping you come to terms with the terrible things you experienced when you found the little girl. And once you can learn to live with those memories, you’ll find a lot of the anger has gone and even if it hasn’t, you can learn what triggers it, and what other ways you might be able to do to handle those triggers. Right now, you have a wonderful opportunity to begin to change. I’m not saying it will be easy, but isn’t it worth giving it a go? You obviously love your family very dearly. Wouldn’t it be worth getting help so you can keep on loving them—and they can keep on loving you?’
‘They’re better off without me!’
Cam felt his gut knot. For the first time Richard had stated his intention, which, given the place, was obviously to jump.
Did that mean he, Cam, was losing the argument?
That he wasn’t getting through to him?
He had to try again—try harder.
‘Are they?’ Cam asked, reaching out to rest his hand on Richard’s forearm. ‘Look at me, Richard, and tell me honestly, will your boys be better off growing up without a father, without your love—without even knowing how much you love them? Jumping off is the easy way out. You don’t have to put any effort into that—believe me, I know it—but is it any way to show you love those boys—to show Jackie that you love her? She loves you very much or she wouldn’t have gone back to you, but is leaving her to battle on on her own any way to repay that love? Of course it isn’t. You have to fight for love. In your case, you have to fight the things inside you that are hurting the love you have for her. You can do that—you can conquer those ghosts—and your future with your family will be so much stronger and better and brighter because you have conquered them.’
Cam saw Richard’s eyes widen, almost as if they needed to be bigger, to take in all he was saying. Cam held his gaze, hoping to force his message into Richard’s brain while his own brain was questioning the words he’d said, the bits about fighting for love, turning them around to examine them more closely, picking out the bits that could apply to him—to him and Jo.
Conquering ghosts and going on stronger—those bits particularly.
Cam hauled his mind back to the man with him on the ledge.
‘Richard?’
‘I can’t go back now,’ he said, and moved his legs.
Despair reverberated through Cam’s body, and despair ignited anger, but he held it in check.
‘Because you think going back would be cowardly? Because you think if you turn around now and walk away people will think you weren’t brave enough to jump?’
Richard turned away from him, but Cam grabbed his shoulder and gave him a little shake.
‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘walking away now will probably be the bravest thing you’ve ever done because it will mean you’ve faced up to things that are wrong and you’re willing to put them right. Walking away is like a warrior putting on his suit of armour and preparing for war, because what lies ahead is going to be far harder than jumping off a cliff. Except for Jackie, every person behind the fence at the moment is a trained professional and they will understand that by walking back you’re making the courageous choice. Then there’s Jackie and you know damn well that if you don’t walk back through there you’ll break her heart.’
Finally Richard nodded. Cam helped the emotionally exhausted man to his feet and Jackie’s desperate cry of ‘Richard’ echoed over their heads. Richard turned and looked towards the cry and Jackie escaped Jo’s hold and raced to the fence, taking Richard’s hand through the mesh. Like that, holding and releasing fingers through the diamond shaped wires they walked to the cut in the fence, where Jackie fell into his arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS mesmerising, seeing love like that, Jackie and Richard, their fingers looping then parting, all the way along the mesh.
So mes
merising, in fact, that it wasn’t until they’d reached the gap that Jo realised Cam wasn’t following along behind.
Her heart stopped beating until she traced her way back along the mesh and saw him, sitting down again, leaning back against the fence, still only inches from the edge of the cliff, totally drained of all energy by the tension of the situation.
She sprinted towards the gap, eased past the policeman who was guarding it, and walked carefully along the narrow lip beyond the fence. Reaching Cam, she sat down beside him, resolutely banishing memories of Jilly from her mind.
She tucked her hand into his, and just held on for a while, then, as she felt his tension easing, she spoke.
‘Walk you back?’
She said it quietly, not urging him in any way, knowing, for all the hurtful memories the place held, she’d be content to sit—for ever if necessary—until he was ready to leave.
She looked out at the ocean, reasonably calm today, so the waves sloshed rather than crashed against the cliff. The mighty power was leashed, but for how long?
She thought of Jilly, and, looking out at the mighty Pacific, she said goodbye. Oh, her sister, her twin, would live on in her heart, but Cam’s arrival in the Cove had shifted Jo’s perspective.
Cam’s arrival?
Or love’s arrival?
Still uncertain, she only knew that things had changed.
‘We have to go forward,’ she said quietly, ‘moving into the sunshine, and letting the shadows fall behind us.’
Cam turned and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.
‘That’s a thought to hold on to, isn’t it?’ he said softly, pressing a kiss against her temple.
‘Can Richard do it? Will he be all right?’ Jo asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Cam answered honestly. ‘We can only hope and be there for him and try in every way we can to help him.’
‘You’re a good man, Fraser Cameron,’ Jo said quietly, but her voice was distracted and he could only guess at the thoughts that must be racing through her head. Her mention of going forward had told him so much. Sitting here was helping her not just to say goodbye to her sister but maybe let go of a little of the guilt and grief she’d carried in her heart for far too long.
New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree Page 16