Falling for Dr December

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Quite apart from her new name, she had grown out her trademark super-short pixie cut, the chubbiness of her baby face even as a teenager had been replaced by an elongated profile and her braces were long gone. The awkward teen with the tomboy dress sense, who would milk the cows, help to plant the crops, shoo away the crows and look forward to a twenty-minute car trip into Armidale as if there were no bigger treat possible, no longer existed. She had left that life far behind. She didn’t belong in this town any more.

Laine walked away from the window with her heart suddenly, and unexpectedly, aching for her past. And even more for what had been taken from her. She kicked off her designer espadrilles and lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes closed and her mind slipped back to a happy time. A time when she’d felt loved and protected and wanted. Turning on her side, she felt a tear slip from her eye and roll down her cheek. It had been many years since she had stopped and yearned for that time in her life.

She wiped the tear away with the back of her hand, and silently berated herself for being swept up in emotions after only a few hours of being in the town. It was silly. Melancholy musings had no place in her life. She was an independent woman with no ties, just the way she liked it. The way it needed to be, she told herself, before she drifted off for a much-needed nap. The frantic six-week schedule she had given herself hadn’t factored in any down time between shoots and flights and finally it had caught up with her.

Hours later she was woken from her slumber by a knock at the door.

Laine sat upright, staring at the wooden door, with no clue as to who would be on the other side. Waking with memories still so close to the surface, it quickly took Laine back to a time when she would run from a knock at the door. When she had felt sure someone was coming to take her away from the loving home she had found. Earlier in her childhood, the knock had signalled that the authorities had been called and a decision made to move her to the next placement. She became numb and often didn’t care as she’d been leaving a less-than-pleasant situation, but all that had changed when she’d come to live with the Phillips family and found a place she’d truly wanted to call home. Then the knock would send her scurrying to hide so that they couldn’t find her and rip her away from a place where she felt safe. Over time, with help from her new parents, she’d learnt that a knock did not signal something ominous. It merely meant visitors were arriving and she learnt to embrace the sound.

Then there was Manhattan, where no one knocked on her door unexpectedly. They had to call from the lobby and she or the concierge had to let them up. Laine liked it that way.

She quickly looked around the clean motel room. The housekeeping was done. There was no reason for anyone to be calling on her. No one knew she was in town. The arrangement to use the McKenzie property had been done by a third party so they had no knowledge she was in town.

‘Laine, it’s Pierce,’ came the deep voice from the other side of the door. She could hear him clearly. There was no other noise. No sounds of taxi horns or police sirens or people partying in the room above. For a brief moment Laine found comfort in the silence. It was so peaceful until the knocking started again.

‘I’ve finished up for the day and thought we might grab a bite to eat,’ he suggested tentatively through the still-closed door. ‘If you’re up to it.’

Laine was hungry but the thought of spending more time than absolutely necessary with Pierce was unsettling. He was an incredibly attractive man with charisma and home-grown charm and she was feeling slightly vulnerable, being back in this town. It was as if the warm memories of her past were trying to thaw her now cold outlook on life. She didn’t like the feeling at all. She didn’t like having her resolve questioned.

Pretending to be asleep wasn’t as option as it was only seven o’clock. So, grudgingly, she climbed from the bed and made her way barefoot to the door.

‘About dinner, I’m not sure,’ she began as she opened the door. Pierce was leaning against the wall, dressed in jeans, one dusty boot having caught the lip of a red brick. His grey checked shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, hiding the perfectly toned chest she’d already been privy to. He was handsome in any light but it wasn’t an arrogant or cocky assurance he had. It was the confidence a man had when he knew himself. One who wasn’t searching for anything. One who had found what he was looking for. She wondered for a moment if Pierce had found himself in Uralla or had he arrived already content?

He dropped his booted foot to the ground and turned to face her. ‘I’m heading to the top pub for a quick meal and I thought you might like to join me.’

His smile was perfect but more than that it was genuine. Laine was accustomed to the perfect smile that a model managed to show on cue but with no actual meaning behind it. Her stomach fluttered. Another feeling she was not expecting or enjoying. Her mind told her to feign a headache and slam the door but the clear country evening with a hint of his cologne convinced her heart to accept his invitation.

‘I guess that would be okay.’

She was surprised by her own reaction. She was not spontaneous like this. She always weighed up all the options and then, after careful consideration through a jaded lens, she chose the one that would best fit her schedule. On the way to retrieve her purse from her backpack near the window, Laine heard alarm bells ringing in her head. They were as clear as every other sound she had heard since she had arrived in the quiet little town that morning, but they were in her own mind and her heart quickly shut them down as she slipped her espadrilles back on.

Something was driving her to spend time with the man at her door. And her cold New York reasoning was losing this battle. Her head was in a spin and she was going with it, even if it was against her usual calculated judgement.

‘I think this will go well,’ he remarked, as she closed the door to her room. ‘Neither of us has to drive as it’s walking distance so I can’t offend you again.’

Laine allowed her mouth to curve into a smile as they made their way up the bitumen driveway to the main road.

‘So they still call them the top pub and the bottom pub?’

‘Yes, not sure why really but no one ever says meet you at the Coachwood and Cedar or the Thunderbolt, it’s just the top or bottom pub.’

Laine smiled again at the way nothing had changed, but it was a bittersweet smile as they walked past the bottom pub and spied numerous patrons outside, enjoying a beer and a chat in the balmy evening breeze. She reminded herself she would only be in town for a few days and that after that her life would return to the one she knew. The life she had grown accustomed to. A life on her own on the other side of the world. And with any luck no one would recognise her tonight or any time over the next few days.

They meandered their way to their choice of venue for the evening, only a block away. It was a small town but the locals still managed to support two hotels and a number of cafés and restaurants.

Pierce held the door open and they stepped inside. It was hive of activity. It was mid-week and still busy. There was a drone of patrons’ happy chatter and clinking of glasses as they walked through the front bar towards the dining section.

‘G’day, Doc,’ came a gruff voice just before they reached the dining area, followed by a hearty pat on Pierce’s back. ‘Who’s the pretty lady? Even blind as a bat without my glasses I can see she’s beautiful. And just to let you know, I’ll be disappointed if you tell me she’s your sister.’

Laine saw the older man smiling in her direction. She recognised him immediately but realised he didn’t have the same recollection. Her stomach dropped. It was Jim Patterson, her father’s best friend. He had more silver in his still thick wavy hair and his face was a little more lined but the twinkle in his blue eyes hadn’t changed at all. For thirty years, the pair would relax over a cold beer on a Sunday afternoon on the back veranda. Jim was older than her father by quite a few years but they had struck up a friendship while working on the land as jackeroos when Arthur had just left school and Jim had been in his late twenties. Laine had gone to school with two of his four sons. She looked at Jim’s face and for a moment she thought he might have remembered but she could see there was nothing. She was relieved that his vision was challenged without his glasses.

‘Jim,’ Pierce said, stepping back to let the old man closer to Laine. ‘This is Laine. She’s a photographer from New York.’

‘New York, hey?’ He laughed. ‘Well, I’m pleased to meet you but old Uralla is a long way from your neck of the woods, young lady. What brings you from the Big Apple to our little town?’

‘An assignment actually,’ she replied, meeting the older man’s handshake. ‘I’m shooting a charity calendar to aid FCTP. Foster Children’s Transition Programme. Pierce is my final subject.’

The old man nudged Pierce in the ribs and laughed again. ‘So, you’re a pin-up now? Uralla’s own poster boy. Well, that’s a hoot.’ Then he turned his attention back to Laine. ‘You’re not shooting him in his boxers, though, are you, love? That wouldn’t be something I’d want on the wall, but then again maybe the ladies would like it.’

Laine smiled at Jim and remembered he always had a great sense of humour. When he lost Claire he was beside himself with grief but the townsfolk lifted his spirits and made sure he was never alone. They cooked meals, helped him take care of his sons as the youngest was only eight, and they carried him through the sadness to a better place. And clearly he had stayed there and was back to his old self.

‘Not his boxers. He’s in jeans but that’s about it.’ Laine smirked as she watched Pierce’s face fall.

‘Enough of that,’ he announced, changing the subject. ‘I’ll let you go, Jim, so we can get a table.’ Turning his full attention to Laine, he added, ‘Maybe we can talk about your history with Uralla? “Eons ago” was the term you used. I was hoping over a glass of wine you might elaborate on that just a little.’ Pierce pulled out a chair for Laine.

Laine suddenly felt a cold shiver run over her before a large lump formed in her throat. Accepting the dinner invitation had been a huge mistake. She had been fooling herself to think she could enjoy dinner with Pierce and not have to talk about herself and her connection to the town. She didn’t talk about herself. Not ever. Her private life was a closed book and she intended to keep it that way. She thought he had accepted that but apparently not. The night had to end. Now.

‘I’m sorry, Pierce, I completely forgot there’s a call I need to make to one of my editors in the US. I’ll be crucified if I don’t do it,’ she lied, moving away from the chair and Pierce. ‘You eat and if I finish quickly, I’ll come back and join you,’ she lied again, before she made her way back through the crowded front bar. Laine had no intention of returning for a dinner she anticipated would spiral into the Spanish Inquisition.

With that, she rushed out of the top pub, leaving Pierce alone, and made her way down the street. Anxiously she looked back over her shoulder once or twice and when she felt confident that Pierce was not following her, she ran into the bottom pub and sat down at the furthest table from the door. Her stomach was feeling empty from hunger and churning with nerves. She wasn’t sure if the motel restaurant would be open, so she decided to grab a quick meal at the pub then head back to her room.

Dinner with Pierce would have been impossible. She had been naïve to accept the invitation and not expect that it would mean bringing up the past. Losing her family in Uralla gave her more heartache than she’d thought possible for one person to bear and she had no intention of discussing it.

Putting her life in Australia behind her had been easy in a big city with her high-profile career to keep her busy. And that’s what she needed now. She didn’t need dinner and question time with a country doctor.

‘Here’s the menu,’ the young waitress said, as she placed the glossy card on the table for Laine. ‘And we have some specials as well on the board over there. Can I get you a drink?’

Laine ordered a tonic and lime and glanced over the menu quickly, choosing grilled salmon. The waitress jotted down the order on her small pad, scooped up the menu and headed to the bar.

With a heartfelt sigh, Laine looked around the room. It was less noisy than the top pub but the locals were still engaged in friendly repartee and she could hear laughter and the clicking of billiard balls on the pool table in the next room. A dark purple-coloured outback mural decorated part of one wall. The old chairs she remembered had all been replaced with new light-coloured wooden ones but the atmosphere hadn’t changed. Taking a sip of her drink, which had arrived quickly, she hoped the food would be served quickly too.

Laine wanted to finish the shoot, leave Uralla and head back to New York. This was her last stop of the calendar assignment. Editing would take another two weeks, followed by a few weeks off, and then in March she would be heading to Rome. After that who knew where she would be? It didn’t matter as long as she was on the go and not putting down roots anywhere. There would be another shoot for the American arm of FCTP towards the middle of the year and then back to Sydney for a quick visit for the annual fundraiser around Christmas. Sydney, she told herself, not