‘What are we doing together, then?’ The obvious question didn’t make her feel any better.
He chuckled. ‘Well, for my part, you’re probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met. You’re very clever, and you’re beautiful and a good person. And the sex is amazing.’
‘I thought it was just me who thought the sex was amazing.’ She grinned at him.
‘Then you haven’t been listening to me. What do you like about me?’
‘All of the above. And you have a really cute puppy.’
Drew nodded. ‘Yeah. The cute puppy does it every time. Why do you think I have her?’
There was something she had to do, even if it did still frighten her a little. Caro slid away from him, getting to her feet. ‘I want to show you, Drew. All of my designs and sketches. The way the prosthetic’s going to work.’
He caught her hand, holding on tight. ‘No. I don’t want to see it. Not until you’ve finished and it’s under licence.’
‘But... I want to show you that I trust you.’
‘I know, and I appreciate that. Let’s just take what we have for the time being, Caro. Know that there are things we can’t reconcile yet, and that maybe that will change.’
‘Hang on in there until it does, you mean.’
‘Yeah. I’m definitely hanging onto you.’ He pulled her down onto his lap.
It wasn’t everything, but it was something. Something to hope for when Caro had lost hope completely.
‘So, while we’re hanging on... I don’t suppose there’s any hope of some more of that amazing sex, is there?’
‘Not a chance.’ He rolled her over on her back, kissing her. Just as she was starting to melt into what promised to be the greatest make-up sex ever, a shape moved on the periphery of her vision.
‘Drew. Drew! We have to go to the bedroom, Phoenix is watching...’
* * *
‘Can you feel it?’ Drew’s voice sounded behind Caro.
‘No. I can’t feel anything. Apart from deep mistrust.’
‘Just relax. Let your shoulders do the work.’
Caro pulled on the oars. This wasn’t as easy as Drew made it look. The boat seemed to be going backwards, not forwards.
‘You’ve got stronger shoulders than me.’ Her tone sounded unpleasantly whiny. This rowing business was bringing out the worst in her.
She felt him slide forward, planting his feet on either side of her and his hands next to hers on the oars. That was better. She could feel the raw power of his body against hers, and when he pulled on the oars the boat started to make some headway.
‘Now can you feel it?’
‘Yes. Wonderful.’ She relaxed against his chest.
‘I meant the tide.’
‘Oh. No, I think I’ll have to practise a bit more. Maybe when I’m a bit less tired.’
His lips brushed against her neck as he planted a kiss. That she’d definitely felt. ‘Why don’t you go and sit with Phoenix?’
Phoenix was sitting in the stern, wearing her red lifejacket, her nose aloft in the evening breeze. Caro slid forward, careful to keep to the centre of the small craft as she turned around.
‘That’s much better. I can watch you row.’
He grinned at her. ‘I get it. You like watching me work.’
‘Yes, I do actually. You make an excellent reindeer wrangler.’
Drew pulled on the oars. ‘I wasn’t wrangling. I was attempting to hold them still while I did their health checks. And you didn’t do so badly yourself.’
Caro chuckled. ‘Apart from when I fell flat on my face in the mud.’
‘You’re particularly delightful when you’re covered with mud.’
It had been a good day. Drew had suggested that Caro might like to come with him to see the reindeer, and he’d let her help hold the animals while he gave them a thorough examination. They’d gone to the Hungry Pelican for supper and ended up missing the tide. Caro had a video conference booked with a robotics researcher in Australia first thing in the morning, so Drew was rowing her home.
‘I can see why you like it. The sea. It makes you feel that the little things don’t matter so very much.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s been here so much longer than we have. And it’s so much bigger than us.’
‘You must have missed it. When you were in hospital.’ Drew loved the open skies, whether they were on land or sea. Being cooped up in bed for so long must have been hard on him.
‘It was the worst thing...’ His face darkened. ‘Almost the worst anyway.’
Maybe she shouldn’t ask. But talking about the bad things with Drew had helped her to begin to come to terms with them.
‘What was the worst?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to hear that, do you?’
‘Yes. I do, actually. Whatever it was, it doesn’t frighten me.’
The water slopped against the side of the boat as he pulled silently on the oars. There were a lot of things that he hadn’t said about the accident, and sometimes his flat assurances to everyone that he was okay and doing well seemed more for their benefit than for his.
‘When I ran the car off the road, I was alone.’ He spoke suddenly. ‘I was dazed at first, and my leg didn’t hurt all that much. The pain came later.’
‘You were in shock.’ Caro nodded him on. Drew needed to say this and injecting her own sense of horror into the mix wasn’t going to help him.
‘Yeah. It was very quiet, and I could hear a dripping sound. I could feel blood seeping through my clothes, and...’ He stopped rowing suddenly, leaning on the oars as the boat bobbed up and down. ‘I knew that if someone didn’t come soon, I’d die.’
‘So you held on.’
‘I’m not entirely sure that it made any difference. But, yes, I willed myself to live. And I willed whoever happened to drive past to see my car and stop.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve never told anyone that. Everyone assumes that I was unconscious, and I don’t remember.’
‘I’ve heard that a lot of people don’t remember.’
He nodded, started to row again. ‘Yes, I’ve heard that too. It didn’t work that way for me.’
She hugged Phoenix as the boat moved forward in the water. Caro waited for him to say more, but it seemed that Drew had said everything that was on his mind.
‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘Thank you for listening.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I appreciate you not handling me with kid gloves. Probably a great deal more than you know.’
Blake hadn’t appreciated it at all. He had always been telling her that she shouldn’t be so literal, or so outspoken. But then Blake, and all his put-downs, were right where they ought to be. A long, long way away.
‘I could do kid gloves. If I put my mind to it.’ Caro covered Phoenix’s ears with her hands, and Drew chuckled. He knew what that meant. ‘Tonight...’
‘Sex with kid gloves. How does that work?’
‘I touch you very slowly. Very gently.’ Caro smiled at him.
‘I’m up for that. And leave Phoenix’s ears alone, she doesn’t know what we’re talking about.’
‘She knows some things.’ Caro spelled out the word cheese.
‘Okay. Well, if you don’t associate the word sex with treats from the fridge, then it’s not likely to have much significance for her...’ He manoeuvred the boat carefully into mouth of the cave beneath her house. Together they pulled it out of the water, then Drew wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.
‘You, on the other hand, react very admirably to the word...’ she whispered in his ear, feeling his body harden against hers.
Drew chuckled. ‘Just goes to show how well you’re training me up.’ His fingers brushed the side of her face, so lightly that it made Caro shiver. She took his hand, leading him through the cavern
and into the house.
* * *
Drew struggled to think of a time when he’d been so happy. There had been odd instances, but he’d never before been so perfectly content for twenty-one consecutive days.
It was odd. Nothing was settled between him and Caro. They were still different, and their relationship still wasn’t going anywhere. But happiness didn’t listen to logic, it just burst in on his heart anyway.
They tramped every inch of the ten acres around the Dolphin Cove Veterinary Clinic. They went beachcombing and diving in the bay. Drew showed her the woods, and the badger setts, and they listened in the silence for birdcalls. Phoenix seemed to be growing in front of his eyes and was developing an even bigger appetite and a gentle but mischievous nature. And he was getting stronger. His leg still hurt from time to time, and would do for a while, but he was beginning to feel powerful and able to tackle anything again.
They shared their nights, and when Drew wasn’t working at the clinic he spent his days with Caro. She still maintained a fearsome work schedule, but Drew could make sure that she ate something by cooking for her while she worked. And coaxing her to bed was never that difficult.
He was falling in love. And love brought with it the terror of loss. Drew tried hard not to think about it, because he knew in his heart that he couldn’t overcome his fears, and they had the power to tear them apart.
Yesterday she’d finished the first prototype of her animal prosthetic, and they’d packed it into a box and taken it to the clinic. Lucas and a selected group of consultants would be putting it through a whole barrage of tests, and assessing its viability, and he and Caro could take the weekend off. Drew had made cupcakes with candles to celebrate.
It wasn’t unusual for him to wake up alone. Caro often got up early, and he’d find her pottering around in her workshop, still wearing her pyjamas. But when he went to find her, calling that he was about to make coffee, she didn’t reply. And when he looked out of the window he saw something that almost made his heart stop.
Throwing on his clothes, he rushed down the steps onto the beach.
‘Caro! Get out of the water!’
She was wearing her drysuit and had waded into the sea until it was up to her waist. The brisk autumn breeze and a strong tide was buffeting her back and forth, so that she could hardly keep her footing, and a snorkel hung from her hand. Much good that would do her in this rough sea—she was just as likely to get a lungful of water as she was air.
‘In a minute.’
‘Now, Caro!’
She turned, pulling a face at him. And then the unthinkable happened, and a wave crashed into her back, knocking her off balance. Sudden panic gripped Drew’s heart and he waded into the water.
‘All right...’ She was thrashing around, trying to regain her footing. ‘I can manage.’
She couldn’t. She splashed around a bit more, buffeted by the tide and weighed down by the heavy suit, and finally she stopped fighting him and accepted his help. Drew marched her out of the water, trying to quell his anger.
‘I was just getting what I wanted, Drew.’ She brandished the underwater camera that Jake had lent her from the diving centre, and for a moment Drew cursed Jake for being so accommodating.
‘What was so important that you had to go into the water anyway?’
‘Those little crabs that we saw the other day. I was thinking about the way they scatter and react, and I wanted to see if I could work out a pattern.’
‘And you couldn’t wait one second longer and ask me to go with you? You know how strong the tide is on this beach, and there’s a riptide further along here...’ The mere thought made him feel sick.
‘Yes, you told me about that last week. It’s fine here, the tide was a little stronger than I’d thought, but I was managing.’
‘Managing isn’t good enough. You know that.’
He needed to calm down. If he could just get off the beach, then maybe the feeling of nauseous panic at the risk that Caro had taken might subside a bit, and he could reason with her. Drew turned, walking back up the steps to the house, and he heard the swish of the drysuit as she followed him.
Caro marched into the bathroom, leaving a trail of water behind her and slamming the door. Drew’s overnight bag was in the bedroom and he grabbed a set of dry clothes from it, bundling the wet ones into a ball and shoving them back into the bag.
Yes, he was overreacting. And, no, he wasn’t going to apologise for it. He of all people should know the dangers. And Caro knew why he couldn’t compromise on safety and had always accepted that.
She was in the bathroom for a long time. Drew suspected that she was spending most of it cursing him. It would probably be best to wait and talk about this when they were both a bit calmer.
A bit calmer wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Drew told himself that this was just a matter of her safety. That was of primary importance, but he knew that it was more than that. Their increasing intimacy was as challenging to Caro as it was to him. And they were both reacting in the only ways they knew how.
She made coffee in silence. They sat in silence to drink it and finally she got to her feet, making for the door that led to her workshop.
‘Don’t, Caro...’ If she disappeared in there, she’d be lost to him until this evening at least. He’d be cooling his heels, rehearsing all of the things he needed to say to her, and that wasn’t going to make things any better.
‘What, then? Drew, you’re not in charge of what I do.’
‘No, but I’m asking you to come back here and sit down.’
She did it, but not without a sulky quirk of her lips. Drew ignored it and tried to organise his thoughts a little. Maybe see things her way.
‘Caro, I know that your work is important to you. It’s been your home and your companion when you didn’t have anyone. But I can’t watch you put yourself at risk like this.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Going out on my own was a stupid thing to do, I’ll admit that. But I didn’t mean to take risks. I just...got an idea and...you know how it is, Drew. I don’t think about anything else.’
‘What I see is that you don’t trust me. I get too close, and suddenly you’re hiding behind your work. It’s all-consuming, Caro, and I can’t just stand aside and watch you working every hour of the day and night just to protect yourself from me.’
Drew shook his head. He’d thought that if they talked about this rationally, they’d find some solution. But all he’d done was convince himself that it would never work between them.
‘I’m not sure I know how to do things differently.’ Her eyes softened suddenly. ‘I’m not very good at trusting people.’
‘I know that, and I understand. But you have to understand how I feel.’
‘Yes. I do.’
And that wasn’t going to make any difference. He could never change Caro, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t know how to change himself either.
They stared at each other for a long time. When a tear ran down her cheek it almost broke him.
‘I’m going to go.’ Perhaps she’d say something that would allow him to stay. Give in just a little. But he knew she couldn’t.
‘You must do whatever you need to do, Drew. I won’t ask you to stay.’
She couldn’t ask him to stay. Caro knew all about moving on, and next to nothing about staying.
There were still a few more moments to turn this around. He called Phoenix and clipped her lead onto her collar. Put his jacket on, taking his time to zip it up. But there was nothing he could possibly say to stop the tide that was carrying them irrevocably away from each other.
Goodbye would hurt too much. I’ll see you would be a lie. Drew didn’t even dare take a last look at her, because he knew she’d be crying, and he doubted he’d be able to stem his own tears. He closed the front door behind him, and this time he wasn�
��t going back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CARO WAS EXPECTING LUCAS. She’d also expected to be up and dressed by the time he arrived, but last night she’d been up late, working. She hadn’t made any progress, but it had been better than lying awake, missing Drew, the way she had every night for the last two weeks. Somehow work didn’t seem to ease the pain the way it always had before.
The doorbell rang, and she grabbed her oversized cardigan, pulling it on before she went to answer it. Ellie was looking fresh faced and fabulous on the doorstep, a cardboard box tucked under one arm. That was the last thing she needed.
‘Ellie... Sorry. Bit of a late night last night.’
Ellie nodded. ‘Yeah, I was in my pyjamas until about half an hour ago.’
She was being nice. Extra nice, in fact, because Drew was Ellie’s friend, and Caro was on the outside now. She stood back from the doorway, and Ellie grabbed Mav’s hand, leading him inside.
‘Where did you get those?’ Ellie gestured towards her blue-and-green pyjama bottoms. ‘I love them, I have to have a pair.’
‘Uh...in America. I’ll look up the web link, maybe they have an online shop.’ And then what was she going to do? Write to Ellie as if she was her friend, with a shopping link? Ellie was hiding it well, probably for Mav’s sake, but she’d be justified in wanting to scratch Caro’s eyes out.
‘I brought your prototype back. Lucas and the review committee’s response is in here as well.’ Ellie handed Caro the box.
‘Thanks.’ Ellie perched the box on top of the packing cases in the hall.
‘I’m afraid they’ve suggested a few changes.’ Ellie grimaced apologetically.
‘That’s fine. It’s exactly what I wanted them to do. This is the first step in a long process, and it’ll be a while before I get it exactly right.’
Mav was looking up at her expectantly, and Caro remembered the promise she’d made to Lucas. She bent down, plastering a smile onto her face. ‘Would you like to see what I’ve got for you?’
‘Yes!’
‘Please.’ Ellie provided the missing word. Caro hurried into her workshop, bringing out the box she’d saved for him.
Healing the Vet's Heart Page 15