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‘Wow!’
He could say no more for the stairway ended on the wide deck of the house he’d admired from below, and the sweep of beach and ocean, the high headland protecting the corner of the bay, and more ocean beyond it simply took his breath away.
‘You would have seen the whales migrating north at the beginning of winter, but they’re heading south now with their calves, on their long journey home to Antarctica.’
He glanced at the woman who’d offered this titbit of information. She was standing not far away, and he knew from the expression on her face that no matter how often she looked out at this unbelievably beautiful view it would never pall for her. Just seeing it had softened her mood enough for her to share her joy in the annual whale migration.
Softened it enough to accept him as an employee?
‘I gather you are Dr Harris?’ he said, wishing he’d asked more about his prospective employer when the woman from the agency had discussed the job. In truth, from the moment she’d mentioned Crystal Cove, he’d been so busy convincing her he would be perfect for the job he’d barely asked a question.
She was smiling now, the petite redhead on the deck with him, smiling and shaking her head.
‘Ask that question of anyone in town and they’ll say no. Dr Harris was my father, but I am a doctor, Joanna Harris, Dr Jo, or just plain Jo to the locals, most of whom have known me all my life. Some of the older ones are still, though I’ve been back for five years, a bit dubious about trusting me to diagnose their problems or prescribe medication for their ills. It’s because they did that dandling me on their knee thing years ago and can’t believe I’ve grown up.’
‘You took over your father’s practice?’ It was stupid to be asking the obvious but there’d been tension in Joanna Harris’s voice and he wondered if it was simply to do with the locals not accepting her entirely, or to do with something else.
‘His practice, his house, his life,’ she responded, sounding happier now, even smiling. ‘My mother died when I was young and Dad brought me and my sister up, then, whammo, two years ago he met a woman who sailed in here on a yacht, and he fell in love. His life is now with her, wandering the world, it’s wonderful!’
Faint colour in her cheeks and a shine in her eyes told Cam she was genuinely happy for her father, so why the tension earlier?
And did it matter?
He was coming to work for this woman, he didn’t need to know what made her tick.
‘But taking over his practice? Was that not so wonderful?’
Okay, so what made people tick fascinated him—he’d had to ask!
Jo studied the man who’d erupted into her life. So she’d told him about her dad going off, but did that give him the right to pry further into her life? And why ask that particular question? What had she said to make him think her life back in Crystal Cove was anything but perfect?
It wasn’t, of course, and probably never would be, not entirely, and especially not if the refuge closed because without the refuge she’d have time on her hands—time to think—and that meant letting all the mess of grief and guilt from Jilly’s death come flooding back. That definitely wasn’t his business.
She had no intention of answering his questions, now or ever. Neither was he staying. With school holidays looming and the town due to double or even triple in population for a couple of months, maybe he’d have to stay until the agency found her someone more suitable, but permanently?
No way!
The problem was, given that he was on her front deck, what did she do with him right now? She had to say something.
Politeness dictated the answer.
‘Would you like a coffee, tea, a cold drink?’
She looked up at him as she asked the question and saw the white lines fanning out from his eyes where he’d smiled, or squinted, in the sun. She saw lines of stress in his face as well. A photo taken when he’d just left the army? An army doctor? In this day and age most army doctors would have been deployed in war zones overseas. He’d mentioned deserts. Of course there’d be lines of stress in his face.
‘Water is fine,’ he replied, and she guessed he was probably as uncomfortable as she was.
‘I’m making coffee,’ she persisted, ‘so it’s no trouble.’
He looked down at her, a slight frown on his face.
‘Water’s fine,’ he repeated, then he crossed to the edge of the deck and looked out over the ocean.
Jo hurried into the house, anxious to read more of the file she held in her hands. It was strange that the agency hadn’t contacted her to let her know the man was coming—although maybe it was because he was a man they’d neglected to contact her. They knew she wanted a woman; they even knew why.
The kitchen faced the deck so she could keep an eye on the stranger as she popped a capsule into her coffee machine. While the milk heated, she flicked through the pages, coming to a highlighted passage about Dr Fraser Cameron’s second degree in psychology and his counselling experience. Had the agency highlighted it, or had they told him what she wanted so he’d highlighted it himself?
He’d been counselling young soldiers in a war zone? Doing more than counselling, too, no doubt.
Putting young men and women back together physically as well as mentally.
The very thought made Jo’s stomach tighten.
But hard as his job must have been, how would it relate to counselling women in a refuge?
The refuge …
If it closed it wouldn’t matter one jot whether the man could counsel women or not.
If it closed she wouldn’t need another doctor in the practice …
Jo sighed then stiffened, straightening her shoulders and reinforcing her inner determination.
The refuge was not going to close!
What’s more, if this man was going to stay, even in the short term, he’d have to help her make sure it didn’t.
She poured the milk into her coffee, filled a glass with water from the refrigerator, and headed back to the deck.
‘Did the agency explain the type of counselling you’d be required to do?’ she asked him as he came towards the table where she’d set down their drinks.
The little frown she’d noticed earlier deepened and he shook his head, then shrugged shoulders that were so broad she wondered how he fitted through a doorway.
Shoulders?
Why was she thinking of shoulders? Worse, when had she last even noticed physical attributes in a man, yet here she was seeing lines in his face, and checking on shoulders …
‘They said you wanted someone with counselling experience because although there was a psychologist in Crystal Cove, he, or maybe it was a she, was already overworked. I assumed you probably ran well-men and well-women clinics, sex education at the schools and parenting skills courses. You’d be likely to use counselling as part of these.’
Jo sighed.
‘The women’s refuge wasn’t mentioned?’
His reaction was a blank stare, followed by a disbelieving ‘Women’s refuge? The town has a population of what, thirty-five hundred and you have a women’s refuge?’
‘The area has a much larger population—small farms, villages, acreage lots where people have retired or simply moved in. Anyway, just because women live in a small town, does that mean they’re not entitled to a safe place to go?’
Had she snapped that he held up his hands in surrender?
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! No way I meant that, but it came as a shock, the refuge thing. No wonder you took one look at me and saw me as a disaster. My size alone is enough to frighten horses, not to mention vulnerable women, but surely we can work through this. Surely the women who use the refuge come in contact with other men in their lives, men who aren’t threatening to them? And wouldn’t it be a good thing if they did? If they got to know men who didn’t threaten them? Men who are just as horrified by what is happening to them, and just as empathetic with them, as a woman counsellor would be?’
He was right, of course! One of the refuge’s strongest supporters was Mike Sinclair, the officer in charge of the local police force, while Tom Fletcher, head of the small local hospital, was loved by all the women who used the refuge. But the refuge aside, did she want this man working for her?
The answer that sprang immediately to mind was a firm no, but when she questioned it she didn’t like the reasons. They were far too personal. She was judging the man on his appearance, not his ability—judging him on the effect he was having on her.
Anyway, did she have a choice but to accept him?
Not right now.
‘I suppose you’ll have to do,’ she said, hoping it hadn’t come out as an unwilling mutter. ‘But it’s a trial, you have to understand that. I’m not promising it will work out, but right now I’m desperate. The town doubles in size in school holidays, which begin officially in a fortnight, but before that we have the wonderful invasion of schoolies.’
‘Schoolies? You have schoolies coming here?’
And although she dreaded the annual influx of school-leavers every year, Jo still felt affronted that the man would think her town not good enough for them.
‘Not all school leavers want the bright lights of Surfers’ Paradise,’ she said defensively.
‘Ha!’ he said, blue eyes twinkling at her in a most disconcerting manner. ‘Bet you wish they hadn’t discovered Crystal Cove!’
She considered denying his assumption, but knew she couldn’t. He’d be working with her so he could hardly avoid seeing how frazzled she became as she worried about drunk, sick and sometimes very unhappy teenagers who were supposedly marking some rite of passage into adulthood.
Adulthood? They had as much sense as fleas, some of them …
‘You’re right. It’s only in recent years that young people have decided the Cove is cool enough for them. Most of those who come are keen surfers and they’re not a problem. Anyway, I’ll take you on but, as I said, we’ll have to see how things work out.’
‘I don’t mind that,’ the stranger—Cam—said calmly. ‘After all, I might not like working with you either, and there’s still a lot of coastline for me to cover in my surfing odyssey.’
She was about to take affront—again!—but realised he was right.
‘Fair call,’ she told him, ignoring the smirk that had accompanied his words. ‘Now, once the schoolies arrive—that’s next week—there’ll be no time to show you around so—’
She didn’t want to sound desperate but, given the situation at the refuge and the fact that she needed some free time to try to sort out funding problems there, she actually was desperate.
‘Can you start tomorrow? No, that’s stupid. Can you start now so I can show you the clinic, introduce you at the hospital, and give you a quick tour of the town?’
Was she looking dubious that he glanced down at his attire and raised his eyebrows at her, the amused expression on his face sparking an unexpected—and totally inappropriate—flicker of warmth deep inside her body?
This definitely wasn’t a good idea!
‘Like this?’ he said, then shook his head. ‘Give me an hour to check in at the caravan park and have a shower and shave. I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong first impression.’
The man’s amused expression turned into a smile—her stupid flicker graduated to a flutter in her chest that caused another mental head slap.
Reality added a harder slap, this one bringing her down to earth with such a thud her physical reactions to the man paled into insignificance.
‘It’s no good. You won’t find a patch of grass available at the caravan park,’ she told him, gloom shadowing the words. ‘Well, there might be something for the next few days but after that you’d be out on your ear. Most of the schoolies camp there, then during the school holidays regulars book the same sites from year to year. It’s a similar situation with the flats and units in town. Most of them are holiday rentals and, although you wouldn’t be looking for something permanent because we don’t know if it will work out, there’d be nothing available right now.’
Not put off by the despair in her voice, he was still grinning when he suggested, ‘Is there a shower in your medical centre? Will the council evict me or fine you if I camp in the parking area?’
Jo rolled her eyes.
‘Great—here comes Dr Cameron, emerging from his van in the parking area. I can just imagine what people would think!’ The words came out snappish but she knew she was more annoyed with the offer she’d have to make than with the man himself.
She told herself not to be feeble, straightened her shoulders, and made the offer.
‘There’s a flat.’
‘You make it sound like the castle of doom!’ Cam teased, wondering why the woman was looking so unhappy about the revelation. Although she’d hardly been joyous about anything since his arrival. ‘Rats? Spiders? Snakes? Cockroaches big as dogs?’
‘It’s here at the house,’ she muttered, sounding even more unhappy, although now he could understand why she was wary. It would be awkward to have a strange man living so close, though if she’d checked out his credentials and read through his references, she shouldn’t be too worried. ‘Out the back. Dad built it years ago and I used it for a while until he took off on the yacht. It’s got a deck, the flat not the yacht, although—’
She stopped, probably aware she was dithering, and she drew a deep, calming breath.
‘The deck on the flat—it’s not as big as this, but it has the northerly view. In the past, since Dad left, I’ve hired locums at holiday times and they’ve used it.’
Temporarily.
She didn’t say the word but Cam heard it in her voice. He could understand her reluctance to have a fellow-worker living in such close proximity full time but if locums had done so up till now …
Maybe she had a set against men?
Been hurt by one?
Realising he should be thinking about the job, not the woman who was hiring him, he turned his attention back to the subject.
‘I understood that although there’d be a trial period, you were looking for someone for a permanent position this time, not a locum. Has the town grown? Do you want to cut down on your own workload?’
She studied him for a moment, as if debating whether he was worth answering, then gave a deep sigh.
‘The town’s grown, a second practice opened but no sooner did that happen than the hospital had staff cuts, then the second practice closed, and with the refuge—well, I decided it was time to expand.’
The explanation rattled from her lips—nice lips, very pale pink, distracting him again—and Cam understood enough to know that the flat, like the job, was only temporary. While she might have been happy having a fortyish woman living permanently in close proximity to her, having a large male surfer was a different story.
‘I’ll show you over it then you’ll have to go back down the steps to the car park and drive along the road towards the highway, taking the first left to bring you up the hill and around to the carport.’
All business now, she led him off the deck, through a sparsely furnished living area. It was functional and uncluttered, decorated in sand colours, but with wide windows giving views of the sea in all directions, the room didn’t need decoration.
It was like the woman herself, functional and uncluttered, he decided, following a decidedly shapely bottom in khaki cargo shorts, a khaki singlet top completing her outfit.
A decidedly shapely bottom?
Well, he couldn’t help but notice, any more than he could have helped noticing the pink lips earlier. Was noticing such things about his boss unprofessional behaviour?
So many years in the army had left him unprepared for the niceties of civilian life, particularly where women were concerned. He held a mental conversation with his sisters and came to the conclusion that while thinking his boss had a shapely butt was okay, mentioning his opinion of it or of any other part of her anatomy, to her or anyone else, would definitely be unwise.
CHAPTER TWO
A BREEZEWAY divided the house from the little building perched beside it on the steep hillside.
