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‘But nothing. George Meredith’s in town. Have you met him? He’s a local prospector—he spends his time scraping in dirt anywhere from here to Longreach. What he doesn’t know about opals isn’t worth knowing. I know he’s in town because I saw him for a dodgy back this morning. I told him no digging for a week, to stay in town, get himself a decent bed and put his feet up. He’ll be down at the hotel. I also know he has some really decent rock. Let’s go and take a look.’
He had more than decent rock. He had ready-made jewellery.
‘I don’t normally make it up,’ he told them. A big, shy man, quietly spoken but with enormous pride in the stones he produced to show them, he stood back as they fingered his fabulous collection. ‘I sell it on to dealers. But a mate of mine’s done some half-decent work and while the back’s been bad he’s been teaching me to do a bit. These are the ones I’m happiest with. When me back’s a bit better I’m heading to Cairns—I reckon the big tourist places will snap this lot up. Hang on a sec.’
They hung on. George had spread his stones out on the coverlet of his hotel bed for them to see. Now he delved into a battered suitcase and produced a can of aftershave. He glanced suspiciously at his visitors, then grinned as if he’d decided suspicions here were ridiculous, but all the same he turned his back on them so they couldn’t see what he was doing. He twiddled for a bit and then spun back to face them. The aftershave can was open at the base and a small, chamois pouch was lying in his open palm.
He opened it with care, unwrapping individual packages. Laying their contents on a pillow.
Four rings and two pendants. Each one made Jill gasp.
‘They’re black opal,’ George said with satisfaction. ‘You won’t find better stuff than this anywhere in the world. You like them?’
Did she like them? Jill stared down at the cluster of small opals and thought she’d never seen anything lovelier.
She lifted one, drawn to it before all the others. It was the smallest stone, a rough-shaped opal set in a gold ring. The stone was deep, turquoise green, with black in its depths. But there was fire, tiny slivers of red that looked like fissures in the rock, exposing flames deep down. The opal looked as if it had been set in the gold in the ground, wedged there for centuries, washed by oceans, weathered to the thing of beauty it was now.
She’d never seen anything so beautiful.
‘Put it on,’ George prodded, and as she didn’t move Charles lifted it from her, took her ring finger and slid the ring home.
It might have been made for her.
She gazed down at it and blinked. And tried to think of something to say. And blinked again.
‘I think we have a sale,’ Charles said in satisfaction. Both men were smiling at her now, like two avuncular genies.
‘It ought to go on a hand like that,’ George said. ‘You know, that stone… I almost decided to keep it. I couldn’t bear to think of it on some fancy woman’s hand, sitting among half a dozen diamonds and sapphires and the like. If you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am,’ he said, ‘your hands are right for it. Worn a bit. Ready for something as lovely.’
‘Not a bad pitch,’ Charles said appreciatively.
‘I mean it,’ George growled, and from the depth of emotion in his voice Jill knew he did.
But…
‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘This is black opal.’ She hadn’t lived in a place such as Crocodile Creek without knowing the value of such a stone. ‘You can’t…’
‘I can,’ Charles said solidly. ‘Jill, why don’t you go down to the bar while George and I talk business?’
‘I—’
‘Go,’ he said, and propelled her firmly out the door.
They went to dinner at the Athina. They were greeted with pleasure and hugs and exclamations of delight before they so much as made it to their table.
Word was all over town.
‘Oh, but it’s beautiful,’ Sophia Poulos said mistily, looking at the ring and sighing her happiness. ‘If you two knew how much we hoped this would happen…’
‘We’re only doing this for Lily,’ Jill said, startled, but Sophia beamed some more.
‘Nonsense. You wear a beautiful ring. You wear a beautiful dress. You are a beautiful woman and Dr Wetherby…he’s a very handsome man, eh? And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. You’re doing this for Lily? In my eye!’ She gave a snort of derision and headed back to her kitchen. ‘Hey,’ she yelled to her husband. ‘We have lovers on table one. Champagne on the house.’
It was silly. It was embarrassing. It was also kind of fun. But as the meal wore on, as the attention of the restaurant patrons turned away, there was a sudden silence. It stretched out a little too long.
It’s just Charles, Jill told herself, feeling absurdly self-conscious. It’s just my boss.
‘What’s happening tomorrow?’ she asked, and it was the right thing to ask for it slid things back into a work perspective. Here they were comfortable. For the last eight years they’d worked side by side to make their medical service the best.
‘There’s three days’ work happening tomorrow,’ Charles growled. In the project ahead Charles held passion. The kids’ camp on Wallaby Island had been a dream of Charles’s since he’d returned to Crocodile Creek. Jill had been caught up in his enthusiasm and had been as devastated as Charles when the cyclone had wreaked such havoc.
But tragedy could turn to good. With public attention and sympathy focussed on the region, funding had been forthcoming to turn the place into a facility beyond their imagination. Charles was heading there tomorrow to welcome the first kids to the restored and extended camp. It was a wonder he’d found time to talk to the social worker about Lily, Jill thought ruefully, much less take this evening off to wine and dine a fiancée.
And give her a ring.
As they talked about their plans—or, rather, Charles talked and Jill listened—her eyes kept drifting to her ring.
She’d never owned anything so beautiful. Despite what George said, it didn’t look right on her work-worn hand.
But Charles had always known what she was thinking. She had to learn to factor that in. ‘It’s perfect,’ he said gently, interrupting what he was saying to reassure her, and she flushed.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s me who should be sorry. This is no night to be talking about work.’
‘We don’t have a lot more in common,’ she said bluntly, and then bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to sound so…tart.
Maybe she was tart. Maybe that was how she always sounded. She’d stop pretences years ago.
One of the reasons she’d relaxed with Charles over the years had been that he seemed to appreciate blunt talking. He asked for her opinion and he got it.
She needed to soften, though, she thought. He wouldn’t want a wife who shot her mouth off.
‘We have Lily in common,’ he reminded her, and she nodded.
Of course. But… ‘I’m not sure why you want her,’ she said cautiously. ‘I know your reaction when her parents died was the same as mine—overwhelming sadness. But you do already have a daughter.’
‘I have Kate,’ he said. ‘A twenty-seven-year-old daughter I’ve only known for the last few months.’
‘You must have loved her mother.’
‘We all did,’ he said ruefully. ‘Maryanne was gorgeous. She was wild and loving and did what she pleased. I wasn’t the only one in love with her. You know that’s what caused the rift in my family? Philip, my brother, shot me by accident, but he put the blame on a mate of mine who also loved Maryanne. The repercussions of that can still be felt today. Anyway, that’s what happened. I was injured and was sent to the city. Apparently Maryanne was in the early stages of pregnancy but didn’t tell anyone. Certainly not me. A rushed marriage to a young man who was little more than a boy, and who was facing a life of paraplegia…that would never be Maryanne’s style.
‘By the time I was well enough to return here she’d disappeared down south. Apparently she had Kate adopted and then proceeded to have a very good life. The first I knew of it was when Kate arrived on the scene just before the cyclone.’
He said it lightly. He said it almost as if it didn’t hurt, but there was enough in those few words to let Jill see underneath. A young man wildly in love, deserted seemingly because of his paraplegia. Knowing later he’d fathered a child, but Maryanne had not deemed it worth telling him. It was more of the same, she thought. More of the treatment meted out by the jeweller.
Charles as a young man would have been gorgeous. She knew enough of his family background to know he was also rich. Maryanne might well have chosen another course altogether if she hadn’t classified the father of her child as something…
Well, it was all conjecture, Jill thought harshly. Charles must have done his own agonising. It wasn’t for her to do his agonising for him.
‘But it does mean you have a daughter,’ she said gently into the silence.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘But I missed out on the whole damned lot. With Lily it’s a bit like being given the chance again.’ He hesitated. ‘OK. Enough. What about you?’
‘Me?’ she said, startled.
‘All I know of your background is from other people,’ he said. ‘Maybe if we’re to be married I ought to know a bit more.’
‘You don’t want to know about Kelvin.’
‘Harry told me he was in jail.’
‘He had a five-year sentence for…for hurting me. I’m still…’
‘Afraid of him?’
‘He used to say he’d kill me if I left him,’ she whispered. ‘He demonstrated it enough for me to believe him.’
‘You think he’s still a threat?’
‘He doesn’t know I’m here. You know that. You know I’ve changed my name. Judy Standford, dumb, bashed wife of a fisherman down south, to Jill Shaw, director of nursing at Croc Creek. But he’ll still be looking.’
‘Surely after so many years…’
‘What Kelvin owns he’ll believe he owns to the end,’ she said bleakly. ‘He’d want me dead rather than see me free.’
‘Why the hell did you marry him?’ he asked savagely.
‘The oldest reason in the world,’ she said. ‘Like you and Maryanne, only maybe without the passion. I was sixteen. A kid. Kelvin was a biker, a mate of my oldest brother, Rick. Rick agreed I could go with them to a music festival. I was way out of my depth and I ended up pregnant. My dad…well, my dad was as violent in his way as Kelvin. Kelvin agreed to marry me and I was terrified enough to do it. Only then I lost the baby. And when I tried to leave… It just…’ She stopped, seeming too distressed to go on.
‘You don’t have to explain to me,’ Charles said gently. ‘But, even after you left, you never thought you’d marry again? You never thought you’d like a child?’
‘Of course I’d like a child,’ she said explosively. ‘I was seven months pregnant when I lost my little girl. I hadn’t realised…until I held Lily…’
‘So Lily’s a second chance for both of us.’ He reached over the table and took her ring hand, folding it between both of his. The warmth and strength of his hold gave her pause.
She’d been close to tears. Close to fury. His hold grounded her, settled her. Made her feel she had roots. But it also left her feeling out of her depth.
‘D-don’t,’ she said, and tugged back.
‘We need to show a bit of affection,’ Charles said wryly. ‘If we’re to pull off a marriage that doesn’t look like a sham.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it is a sham.’
‘You see, I’m thinking that’s where you might be wrong,’ he said. ‘We’ve been given Lily. It’s a huge gift.’
‘We should be home with her now.’
‘She doesn’t need us now,’ Charles said. ‘That’s the problem. Oh, she needs us in that we’re providing security whether she knows it or not. But if we said she was to live with Gina and Cal…’
‘She’d be upset,’ Jill said. She tugged her hand away and stared down into the depths of her ring. ‘Or she’d be more upset,’ she amended. ‘She’s traumatised.’
‘She won’t let the psychologists near.’ Charles sighed. ‘Well, you know the problems as well as I do. Do we tell her tonight that we’re getting married? That she can stay with us for ever?’
‘Cal knows. Gina knows. Sophia Poulos knows. We’d better do it or she’ll be the last in Croc Creek to find out.’
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLES settled the bill and they went out into the balmy night. On another occasion they might have walked here—or wheeled here, Jill corrected herself. Charles never let being in a chair stop him going places. The strength in his arms was colossal and he could push his chair long after those around him were tired from walking.
But there was packing to do tonight and they needed to collect Lily before it got too late. So they’d driven. Or Charles had driven. He was almost as fast getting into the car as a normal driver, opening the door, sliding into the driver seat, clipping his chair closed and swinging it into the rear seat behind him. By the time Jill had adjusted the drapes of her dress they were already moving out onto the road.
He was a normal guy, Jill thought as she tried to focus on the road ahead, and she swallowed. A normal husband. Did he realise what that did to her?
It terrified her.
She’d agreed to this marriage why? Because she loved Lily. Because she couldn’t bear that Lily be further dislocated.
Because Charles was in a wheelchair and would make no demands on her as a wife?
Maybe that had been a factor, she conceded. Up until now Charles’s paraplegia had made this marriage seem…safer? A sexless marriage.
But maybe that was dumb. His injury was so low that maybe…maybe…
Maybe nothing. It didn’t matter, either way. She trusted Charles. It’d be OK.
But she glanced sideways at his profile in the moonlight. The lean, angular features of a strongly boned face. The crinkles around his eyes where years of laughter had left their mark. And pain. He’d never admit it but you didn’t suffer the type of injury he’d endured without pain.
She loved the way his hair crinkled at the roots and then became wavy—just a little. She loved the silver in it. Premature grey was so damned sexy in a male…
Sexy. See, there was the thing. Charles didn’t see himself as sexy so neither should she. She was right to think of his paraplegia as her security. She had to keep thinking of him as disabled, because if she kept thinking of him as sexy this marriage of convenience would never work. She ought to run rather than risk it.
But she was tired of running. She wanted a home. A home, a husband, a daughter.
Charles.
If Kelvin found out, he’d kill them all.
Was she being paranoid? The logical part of her said yes. The part of her that had been controlled by Kelvin said she wasn’t being paranoid at all.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, his voice a little strained. Maybe he was finding this as hard as she was.
‘That maybe it’s good for you that you’re going to Wallaby Island tomorrow,’ she said, and for the life of her she couldn’t stop her voice from sounding faintly waspish. ‘This place is going to be awash with gossip, and you and Lily will have escaped.’
‘Just snap their noses off when they ask to see your ring,’ he said. ‘That’ll sort them out.’
‘You think I’m…prickly.’
