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‘How dare you come near me with your lies and your schemes? My son would never have a child with the likes of you. Get out of my house; you’ll not get a penny out of me. Nothing.’
It had taken her two years to calm down, to find the courage to write. This time she’d enclosed a picture of Dusty, who looked just like his father, saying that even if he didn’t wish to help support Dusty, she’d like some kind of recognition that Dusty had had a dad.
She’d received a lawyer’s letter in response, threatening her with a defamation suit.
She could prove it in a minute, she thought. Nate had known it; that’s why he’d grudgingly paid child support. DNA testing would be conclusive, either from the old man or from Nate’s brother.
But what was the point? Prove paternity she already knew? Pay a fortune she didn’t have in lawyer’s fees?
Dusty needed to forget it, as she almost had. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she told Dusty now. ‘I know this is hard, but you need to accept that your dad’s dead. So’s your grandpa. There’s nothing left to show you of your dad’s family.’
‘You said Dad had a brother.’
‘He hardly talked of him. I don’t think they liked each other.’ She didn’t think the whole family liked each other.
‘So let’s find him.’
‘Dusty, he won’t want to see us. He’s probably grouchy like your grandpa.’
‘No, but we could see him,’ Dusty said. ‘It’d be like an adventure. Just … looking. I might be able to take a picture with my zoom lens. Then when Mike asks I can say he’s a secret and we had to sneak a look …’
And it’d be something to talk about, Jess thought. A game …
‘I’ll look him up on the internet,’ she promised. ‘I’ll see.’
‘It’s all I want for Christmas,’ Dusty said, belligerent. ‘To see my dad’s brother.’
‘What about a skateboard?’
‘Not even a new gaming console,’ Dusty said grandly. ‘And looking at an uncle would be cheap.’
Sneaking a photograph of this uncle wasn’t going to be cheap. It was free.
With Dusty in bed, she searched the internet and up he came. Ben Oaklander.
Nate’s brother was in Australia, and information about him was everywhere.
Apparently he was a doctor, an obstetrician, just as she was, only this guy was seriously good. He was five years older than she was, but about twenty years older in terms of career.
She remembered the first time she’d met Nate. He’d been studying law, and she’d been in first year medical school. Her friend introducing her as ‘my friend, Jess, who’s just started medicine.’
‘What, a save the world do-gooder like my sainted brother?’ Nate had snapped, but then he’d looked at her, focused, apologised for his bad manners and set himself out to be charming. Which had been very charming indeed.
His brother had hardly been mentioned again.
And here he was. Nate’s brother.
A do-gooder?
Not so much.
She was at a site advertising a conference being held in December, at somewhere called Cassowary Island off Australia’s Queensland coast. Keynote speaker, Benjamin Oaklander.
A biography.
One of Australia’s most eminent obstetricians. Youngest professor … Contributor to three texts, author of thirty journal articles. Top of his field. Highly regarded researcher.
A picture. He was dark where Nate had been blond. He was about the same height, though, standing tall among a group of colleagues at an award ceremony, and he had the same lovely eyes, a deep, azure blue. He was smiling straight at the camera, and that smile …
She remembered that smile. Dangerous.
But this would do, she thought. There was no need for sneaky zoom lenses when she could show Dusty this.
She closed the computer with a snap.
But then she thought—it wouldn’t do. She knew Dusty. He didn’t see the internet as real. He wanted real contact.
Maybe when he was older she’d try and contact this man.
She opened her laptop again.
That smile …
She was so over that smile. Just looking at it … the arrogance, the lies, the deceit. ‘I’ll take care of you for ever …’
Well, she’d looked after herself, she told that smile. There was no way any insidious smile could breach her defences. Once was enough.
‘Mum …’
Ouch. She flicked the backward arrow on the internet. It wouldn’t do to show Dusty a blank screen. He came up behind her, rubbing sleepy eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t ask questions,’ she managed, trying to sound Santa-Claus mysterious.
But he was already behind her, looking. ‘Oh, yum,’ he breathed. ‘Is that an island?’
She looked then—really looked. Cassowary Island, close to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A small research centre dedicated to cassowaries, with a privately run, wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary attached.
Nothing else, apart from an international-standard conference centre with eco-resort accommodation. Miles of glorious beaches, turquoise waters, rainbow coral, multicoloured fish, turtles, dolphins … Resort mantra: ‘Take only Photographs, Leave only Footprints.’ Oh …
‘Oh, Mum,’ Dusty breathed. ‘Are you thinking about holidays?’
‘Just dreaming,’ she said.
And suddenly she was. How long since she’d had a proper holiday?
She’d gone over her head into debt to finish her medical training. Then her mother’s health, always precarious, had failed even further. She’d died two months ago. This would be their first Christmas without her.
Christmas without her mother didn’t bear thinking of.
‘We might go somewhere,’ she said, glancing wistfully at turtles.
‘Why not there?’
‘It’s the other side of the world.’
‘It’d be warm.’
‘I guess.’ She could even afford it now, she thought. She’d been earning for a while now and with the sale of her mother’s small house … Maybe she could.
‘It says there’s an obstetric conference happening.’ Dusty’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Is that why you’re looking? The nineteeth to the twenty second of December. Mum, that’s cool. School finishes on the fifteenth.’
‘You don’t want to go to a conference with me.’
‘I bet we can’t afford to go unless it’s for work,’ Dusty said wisely. ‘You never do anything not for work. Or for Gran. Or for me.’
‘Maybe I can make an exception. We could find lots of places that are warm. Maybe you could ask for that for Christmas instead of finding out about your dad.’
And her son’s face closed. ‘I want to find out.’
‘Dusty, we can’t.’
‘You said we’d have two weeks’ holiday for Christmas. I bet we could find something out in two weeks.’
‘I’d rather go somewhere warm.’
‘Then let’s do sleuthing and then go somewhere warm,’ Dusty said, sliding his hand into hers. ‘We can sleuth really fast.’
‘Dusty …’
‘You have to help,’ Dusty said, smiling his gorgeous ten-year-old smile; the smile she’d disconcertingly just seen on the screen before her. ‘I bet you’d like photos, too. It can’t be nice not having any pictures of Dad. I’m sure you want some.’
She didn’t.
But then … she knew where Dusty was coming from. Her own father had died when she was twelve. The albums filled with pictures of her father holding her, playing with her, had assumed almost supernatural importance.
She tucked her son back into bed. Threatened him with no Santa if he didn’t stay. Went back downstairs and stared at a stranger’s smile; a smile that she knew like it was part of her.
Kill two birds with one stone? It looked a great conference.
She could ‘just happen’ upon Ben there, tell Dusty who he was, then they could have a week on the island when everyone left.
She glanced through the window into the night. Sleet was slashing the frozen streets.
Tropics. Turtles. Sun.
A wildlife sanctuary … She read a little about it. Apparently it was independently run by three women, fiercely passionate about their cause. The care and rehabilitation of injured wildlife.
Her father had been a park ranger. She’d been brought up with animals; with passion for their care.
Cassowary Island had been decimated by a cyclone fifteen years ago. Efforts were being made to re-establish the cassowary population; to restore the native flora and fauna.
Echoes of her childhood. Echoes of her father’s passion.
She’d love to go to this island.
And Dusty? He’d been silent and clinging since his grandmother had died. The need to find out about this uncle might be part of his grief, she thought. Insecurity. A need for a wider sense of family than just she could give him.
There was little chance that any Oaklander would give him any sense of family, she thought, but still … It might help if she showed him she was doing her best to help. The holiday itself would be wonderful for them both, and if they went to this conference he could see his uncle without it being a big deal.
Good idea, or an unmitigated disaster?
Or an unmitigated disaster?
How could it be a disaster? Ben Oaklander had no hold on her. He was nothing to do with her. She didn’t need him as she’d needed his brother.
So go take a look, show Dusty where he got his smile and then walk away. Even if Ben reacted coldly—which she’d expect—they’d have an awesome holiday afterwards to make up for it.
They might even have fun. Heaven knew, they deserved it.
It was only …
She glanced back to the computer, to the conference blurb. To Ben Oaklander’s image.
The Oaklander smile.
It was no longer dangerous—surely?
It couldn’t be.
CHAPTER TWO
SATURDAY morning a month later, they were halfway between the north coast of Australia and Cassowary Island.
Ben Oaklander was sitting not ten yards away from her.
She was feeling … weird. Confrontation wasn’t supposed to happen this fast.
The conference wasn’t due to start until Monday. A hover craft had been organized to bring delegates to the island on Sunday night, so the daily ferry was almost empty. It held a skipper, a deckhand, two elderly women who looked to be wildlife carers—the ‘Cassowary Island Habitat’ emblem on their jackets gave them away—and one solitary male who sat in the bow and read.
Who happened to be Ben Oaklander.
She’d known who he was the minute she and Dusty had climbed aboard. Dusty hadn’t noticed. He was blown away by the ferry, the sea, the prospect of what was before them, and the guy on the foredeck in casual clothes was a long way from the formal, suited headshot she’d shown him on the net.
But Ben’s profile was unmistakable. Jeans, T-shirt, faded trainers. A body to die for.
A true Oaklander.
Gorgeous.
