THEY WERE MAKING it work. Not without a few awkward silences from time to time, a few things that Jaye wanted to say but which remained unsaid. Not without missing her, when she set out for a four-day tour of potential sites for the new women’s clinic that she and Ranjini were setting up, and not without feeling a sharp twang of regret that he had work to do here and couldn’t go with her. Not without worrying about her safety either, even though he knew that Megan could handle herself.
When the truck pulled back into the compound, late in the afternoon, he saw Ranjini hurry out to greet her. Then watched as Megan disappeared out of view, obviously making for her bungalow. Jaye finished his afternoon ward round and then went to his bungalow, fetching the bottle of brandy that he kept for emergencies along with a couple of glasses.
He found her sitting under the tree, as he’d known he would. When he put the bottle and glasses on the wicker table, she smiled up at him.
‘So you want a full report on how it went?’ She nodded at the bottle.
Jaye sat down, pouring a little of the brandy into each of the glasses. ‘Yes. Four days’ worth.’
She laughed. ‘Okay. I’m glad to be back. Warmish water in the shower and a soft bed.’
‘You could swap bungalows with me if you want hot.’
‘No, I’ll keep the one I have. Warm water’s fine and I like the shade. Yours is too hot.’
Jaye leaned back in his seat, taking a sip from his glass. ‘So what about the places you saw?’
Megan told him all about the sites they’d visited, people she’d met and places she’d seen. Jaye listened, as if he hadn’t visited them himself, many times. She made it sound fresh and new.
‘So you’re going for the more central site.’ It would have been his choice too.
She nodded. ‘I think so. The existing facilities aren’t as good, but that’s something we can change. We want a location that’s accessible to as many people as possible. And there’s plenty of space there to build.’
Jaye smiled. ‘You’re thinking of building something?’ Of course she was. Megan might content herself with the status quo, and make the best of it, but she never lost sight of the possibilities.
‘I’m just saying that if the project is successful, there’s space to build.’ She grinned at him.
‘Here’s to it, then.’ He refilled their glasses, clinking his against hers.
‘Yeah. Even if I don’t get to see it.’
If everything went to plan, she would. She’d be involved with all of the new developments that the charity was undertaking, all over the world.
‘You’re not thinking of going anywhere, are you?’
‘No. But even the basic clinic’s going to take a while to set up. I’ll probably be gone by that time.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Wherever John Ferris decides to send me.’
This was the one thing he’d kept back from Megan. It was his decision, not John’s. She’d done well here, and he’d already emailed John to tell him that Megan should be offered the post that had been discussed when she’d been recruited. It was sooner than intended, but she was ready.
He’d kept quiet about that, though. The fragile balance of their relationship would be tipped if Megan felt that her future depended on his assessment of her.
‘Well, here’s to coming back.’
‘Yes. It is beautiful here.’
Jaye smiled. Six weeks ago she hadn’t yet had a chance to see the beauty of this country or to connect with its people. Now she’d used her growing connection with both to underpin her determination to give the right help, exactly where it was needed.
‘It is. This place is something special.’
‘Is that why you were so stressed out? When you got here and found that it had changed?’ Megan deftly put her finger on one part of the reason, conveniently forgetting that she was another part of it. She must know that she had been.
‘Yes. But it’s built on good foundations, with good people. All it needed was a nudge to get it back on track. And now that it is, it’s one of my favourite places in the world again.’
She smiled lazily. ‘What is it you like best about it?’
One of those half serious, half playful games, played over a couple of drinks, to pass the time on a long, hot evening. Jaye could go for that.
‘The people… And everything’s less complicated here.’
She grinned at him. ‘Is that because you’ve got a great big house at home to store your complications in while you’re gone?’
‘Probably.’ Jaye chuckled. ‘I love the silence just before the dawn. No old floorboards to creak around you.’
‘You like being a doctor, don’t you? More than you like being a duke.’
‘Yes, I like being a doctor very much. I can’t do much about being a duke, but it gives me the ability to do things I couldn’t otherwise do.’
‘Means to an end?’
‘Sometimes…’
‘And other times?’
He shrugged. ‘People can look at you differently. In fact, they sometimes don’t look at you at all, they’re too busy looking at the house and everything that comes with the title.’
She was nodding slowly. ‘Sonia?’
‘Yes. Amongst others.’
‘But here you’re a doctor.’
Jaye nodded and they lapsed into companionable silence. Drinking buddies on a warm evening, who could just let the time slip by and the conversation go wherever it wanted.
‘So how about you? Why did you want to become a nurse?’
‘I didn’t actually. I had to do something, though…’
‘And the careers guide just happened to fall open at the letter N?’
Megan laughed. ‘No, I chose nursing because my father wanted me to do business studies at college. He was going to take me into his company and fast-track me, without anyone knowing who I really was, of course. So I picked the course that I thought he’d most disapprove of.’
‘Which was nursing.’ Jaye chuckled. Megan had always seemed so sure of her goals, so focussed, and it was ironic that she’d fallen into the one thing that seemed to define her by accident.
‘Yes. You’re not taking notes, are you? I’d be devastated if this turned up on my employment file.’
‘I don’t need to take notes. I’ve got this place fitted with hidden cameras.’
‘Oh, hidden cameras are okay. So, anyway, I started the course, with the idea of dropping out in six months’ time and going travelling. But then I fell in love with the job.’
Jaye chuckled. ‘So you were caught out by your own scheming.’
‘Yeah. I was pretty immature in those days. Nursing knocked a lot of things out of me, and I’m lucky I found it before I did something stupid.’
‘I…can’t really imagine you doing something stupid.’
‘No? I found out who my father was when I was thirteen. Before that I just thought he was an uncle. I spent a bit of time after that concentrating on doing as many stupid things as I could think of, just to annoy him.’
‘That sounds…’
‘Constructive. It was a very constructive reaction.’ She turned the corners of her mouth down, giving the lie to her words.
‘How about understandable, then? It must have been a bit of a shock.’
‘Yes, it was a shock. He used to come and visit when I was little, and he’d bring me presents and take my mum and me out to nice places. When I found out that it was all a lie…it felt as if I was a lie. As if I had no real right to exist.’
Jaye’s heart thumped. He wanted to reach out and comfort her but that wasn’t what drinking buddies did. He picked the bottle up from the table, tipping another splash into both their glasses. She seemed to understand the meaning of the gesture, giving him a little nod before she took a sip.
‘And nursing was your one big rebellion.’
‘It is now. When I was a teenager I used to specialise in unsuitable boyfriends.’ She flashed him a grin that was pure mischief.
‘You can’t stop there. Unsuitable how?’
‘Well, they weren’t really unsuitable as far as I was concerned. Being unsuitable in my father’s eyes was always a big plus point for me. One of them was a professional poet. He travelled around in a beat-up minibus, giving readings in the evenings and doing odd jobs to make ends meet during the day.’ She laughed.
‘And your father didn’t like him.’
‘He loathed him. The whole thing was a bit of a non-starter really, but the fact that Harry was purple with disapproval made me hang on in there for almost two years. I had a lot of fun, went to quite a few music festivals, and then we went our separate ways.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if we put a few poetry books in the back of the medical truck? Did a few readings when we weren’t otherwise occupied?’
She laughed. ‘No. We’re not doing that. I think that’s enough skeletons in cupboards for this evening. What are your top ten favourite films?’
* * *
Megan rolled over in her bed, reaching for something. Someone. It took a few moments to slough off the remains of sleep and remember that Jaye wasn’t there.
They’d talked for a long time last night. Favourite films, favourite books. Best music tracks had been a hard-fought one. Jaye preferred jazz and she liked rock. And lubricated by a long day, a dark evening and more than one measure of brandy, they’d both probably said far more than they’d intended about themselves.
And when finally he’d propelled her towards her bungalow, both stumbling and laughing quietly in the darkness, he’d lingered for a few moments on the porch. So close that Megan had found herself melting at the thought of a goodnight kiss.
But she hadn’t been that drunk. If the darkness would cover anything they did, if Jaye’s sense of discretion could be relied on to keep it away from anyone here, it would still have been a secret. And Megan wasn’t like her mother. She didn’t do secret relationships, and she didn’t do relationships with her boss.
The banging on the door made her jump. It was far too loud to be Jaye, he would have knocked. Megan crawled out of bed, disentangling herself from the mosquito net and grabbing her dressing gown, and headed blearily for the door.
‘We have many people for clinic today.’ One of the junior nurses stood on the porch. ‘Dr Jayananda says no time for sleep.’
A faint remembrance of how they’d come so close to having no time for sleep once before drifted into her mind. Megan was sure he would have woken her himself then, and in quite a different way.
But this was… If it wasn’t quite so delicious, she could live with that. A busy clinic was something she could share with Jaye, and feel that it was a worthwhile thing and not an exercise in doing all the things she’d sworn to herself that she’d never do.
‘Thanks. Will you tell him I’ll be there in fifteen minutes?’ A lukewarm shower would do wonders in getting those thoughts out of her head. Which would start the day the way she meant to continue it.
* * *
Megan shone a little bit more each day. Jaye had known that she would be the person he wanted as the charity’s overseas co-ordinator almost from the start. Seeing her do what needed to be done, picking up a spade as readily as a medical bag when the situation called for it, had confirmed him in that thought.
He’d spoken with John Ferris, and they’d agreed that John would offer her the new job when she returned to London after her three-month placement here. And then Jaye had fallen back into the comfortable routine of working with Megan, pretending that he wasn’t quite a boss and she wasn’t quite a friend.
But he hadn’t reckoned on how hard she was finding it to leave here. Every day the sadness in her eyes seemed to grow, and he longed to tell her that she’d be back. Finally, he broke.
The lights were on in her bungalow, and he could see her shadow against the thin curtains in the living area. Megan was obviously still up and still working. Jaye tapped on the door, holding the folded offer letter in his other hand.
‘Have you got a moment? There’s something I want to discuss with you.’ Her gaze flipped behind him in the direction of his open-air office. ‘In private.’
‘Yes, of course. Come in.’ She stood back from the door and started to gather up the papers and maps that had been spread out on the sofa. ‘Sit down…’
‘It won’t take a moment.’ Jaye felt his hand tremble, and put it in his pocket. He hadn’t realised how very much this meant to him. ‘I’ve been talking with John Ferris and he’s asked me to give you this.’
‘An official letter…?’ She grimaced at the headed notepaper. ‘Is it ominous?’
‘No, it’s not ominous.’ Jaye hadn’t been sure quite why he had gone to these lengths to step back from this. Rather than just tell Megan, he’d typed out the letter and signed it on John’s behalf. It occurred to him that if she turned the job down, it might not be such a personal rejection that way.
She read the letter through, flipping through the pages. As she did so, a smile began to grow on her face. ‘You’re offering me… Overseas Development Co-ordinator?’
‘Yes. Don’t be fooled by the co-ordinator part. We’re hoping that you’ll have hands-on, day-to-day contact with patients. A practical assessment of their needs is what drives us.’
She nodded. ‘So…pretty much what I’ve been doing here for the last month?’
‘Not quite. You’ll have more authority, and a number of different sites to cover. There’s travelling involved, but it won’t be just a whistle-stop tour and then back to London. We’ll be expecting you to stay with the various projects for a few months and get acquainted with what really makes each of them tick. Then work up proposals with the various directors of each centre and report direct to John Ferris and the board of trustees.’
‘It sounds…’ She smiled suddenly, flushing pink and pressing the letter to her heart. ‘This is the job of my dreams, Jaye.’
And the quiver in his stomach wouldn’t let up until he had a yes from her. ‘And…?’
Suddenly she stepped forward, flinging her arms around his neck, and burying her face in his shoulder. It so surprised Jaye that he wasn’t sure what to do, other than keep his hands hovering inches behind her back, not touching her.
As quickly as she’d done it, she backed off again, her cheeks bright red.
‘What do you say, Megan?’ He had to know. Now.
‘Yes. Thank you, Jaye. It’s what I really want. More than what I want. Thank you so much.’
‘I can tell John that you’ve accepted the offer, then?’ Jaye struggled to maintain his distance when all he really wanted to do was to hug her back and accept her thanks for himself.
‘Yes. Should I write something?’
Probably not, since John would be expecting her to reply direct to Jaye. ‘That’s okay. I’ll tell him, and you can sort out all the details when you get back to London.’
‘And… Will I be working with you? From time to time?’
‘Since I’m planning on spending more time here and with our other projects, I imagine our paths will cross fairly regularly. But we’ll both be working quite independently of each other.’ He saw Megan’s cheeks burn hot again. If that was going to be a problem, then it was a big enough world, and he could contrive to avoid her. And he’d remind her that she’d already said yes and that he considered it binding.
‘I’m so glad. I’ve seen what you’ve done here and it’s… I really respect it.’ She turned her gaze up to him, her eyes shining, and Jaye almost fell to his knees with a mixture of relief and sudden pleasure that she’d been taking notice and she approved.
‘There’s plenty more to do.’ He risked a step further. ‘I’m looking forward to tackling it with you.’
Megan was smiling now, a great big beautiful Cheshire cat smile, and as excitement set in, she could hardly keep still. She practically danced across to the small kitchenette, and Jaye watched her, allowing pleasure to seep into his bones.
‘Coffee…? We have to celebrate, and this is the last I have left.’
Much as he would have loved to celebrate with her, in just about any way that Megan would let him, it was a bad idea. His own excitement and hers were an explosive mix, and Jaye already had what he wanted. He’d never forgive himself if he spoilt it all now.
‘It’s…a bit late for coffee.’
‘You think I’m going to sleep? After this? Coffee’s not going to make any difference. I can make you a cup of tea if you prefer it.’
‘Thanks, but I need to turn in. But I’m really pleased you’ve said yes.’ Jaye had reckoned on leaving the next bit for tomorrow, but he was on a roll. And he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight either. ‘There’s one more thing. I want you to take a day off.’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘A day off? I don’t have time. I’d set aside the next few weeks to finish up the plans for the women’s centre with Ranjini.’
‘You’ll be coming back to do that. And you’ve been working twenty-four seven since you got here.’
Megan shrugged. ‘Okay. I can…read a book, I suppose. Or sit under a tree.’
‘And how long will you be able to keep that up for before you decide there’s something pressing you need to do in the clinic?’ Jaye grinned.
‘A couple of hours. Possibly more.’ Megan grinned back.
‘That’s what I thought. Which is why I have a proposal for you. I promised my parents I’d go up to their house here, to make sure it’s okay. Since things are running pretty well now at the clinic, I have time to do it. It’s thirty miles from here and we can be there and back in a day…’ Jaye couldn’t quite say the words.
Come with me. I want to spend the day with you.
‘It’s a long way to go just to make sure I take a day off.’
‘If that’s what it takes… Or I could lock you in your bungalow.’
‘Nah. I’d find a way out.’ Megan laughed. ‘Okay, I’ll come. Thank you.’