Excitement effervesced along Ava’s veins like a dropped can of cola shooting fizzy streams outwards to her fingers and toes. Maybe she had a chance to get to know this man properly. Find out why he hadn’t wanted to talk about his life before now. Learn about his loss, hear about his work and family. Most especially, find out why he’d waited outside maternity for her this morning when he had reduced a connection she’d thought special to something gossip-worthy.
She tried not to hold her breath in case he reverted to being distant if they ran into someone from the hospital. Nobody passed before they came to his four-wheel drive.
He opened her door first, and when she was settled she watched him stride around to his side.
Nice manners … Nice butt.
What was it about this man that penetrated her barriers? Apart from mind-blowing sex the night before last, that was. There’d been plenty of guys around at work and at the few social occasions on the station since Jai but she hadn’t been interested.
Was it a positive sign that he was obviously doing this against his better judgement, or a bad sign? And all that baffling subtext. Was it a lack of real feelings and he was just a sex maniac who fancied her, or was it something else?
Maybe she should just ask. For her own protection.
He climbed in and shut his door, then glanced across at her as he reached for the key. When he smiled, she felt her resolve soften and the need for answers fade.
‘We’re mad,’ he said.
That took her words away until she managed, ‘It’s only breakfast.’ But they both knew it wasn’t. As a reflex she added a little too forcefully, ‘Why did you want me to pretend we didn’t know each other last night?’
His hands rested on the steering wheel, fingers open. A good sign he planned on telling the truth? ‘I told myself I’m leaving in a month.’ He said it slowly and very clearly, as if reciting something he’d said over and over. ‘It’s nobody’s business except ours. And I didn’t want to kick the rumour mill into gear and fly away unscathed.’
Ava nodded. ‘Okay. On the face of it.’ But why was he worried? She believed she had enough credit to survive one affair without damage from the gossipmongers. ‘I know you lost your wife – you told me on the plane – but is that why I’m getting mixed messages?’
He started the car and it surprised her that he still took off. They were having a big conversation – maybe too big for multitasking after a long night shift.
Ava watched his hands – confident, competent and far too sexy – as he drove out of the hospital car park and onto the road to his hotel. He had beautiful fingers, and her skin shivered with goosebumps as memories of their night together flashed through her mind, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t asked about his departed wife. She dreaded the answer, actually.
Then he said, ‘My wife died two months ago. Car accident.’
She tried not to suck her breath in too loudly. Ouch. She’d never thought he could have been so very recently bereaved. He had to be feeling guilty and chock-full of Regrets’R’Us. Should she ask him to pull over and let her out? Her stomach sank at the notion.
Before she could act on her jumbled thoughts, he went on. ‘Roslyn had been in a coma for a year after the accident.’ His voice remained level, like he was describing an unknown patient. Too level for the occasion, which hinted to her that emotions ran deep, and he wasn’t letting them out. That was fair enough, but his wife being in a coma for a year made his actions more understandable.
‘Her EEG showed flat since admission.’ He turned the car left. ‘She was cared for privately until she succumbed to a respiratory infection twelve months later – two months ago.’
Ava furrowed her brow and tried to think. Once she’d handed over her patients to the next shift, her mental processing after night duty took that little bit longer. While she tried not to get too bogged down with his guilt, or the fact that she was the one he was feeling guilty about, her brain reeled with the inconsistency of what she knew about long-term coma patients. It wasn’t a situation she’d had much experience with in Alice Springs, as any such patient would be airlifted out. ‘Is long-term care usual with a flat EEG? To be maintained on respiratory support for that long?’ Ava had always thought flat brainwaves meant flat brainwaves – forever. Tragedy in a shell of a body. The ultimate donation of life with a harvest of organs.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel and she winced and looked away. How badly did she need to know? She shouldn’t have asked. He deserved his privacy. ‘Don’t answer if you don’t want to.’ Then she had another thought. ‘Or maybe it would help if you haven’t talked about this stuff with anyone.’ It wasn’t exactly her idea of a light pre-breakfast conversation, but if it would help Zac, her new friend, ex-lover – whatever he was or could be – then she would survive.
A minute passed, then two, but it didn’t faze Ava; she and patience were old friends. It was a part of her work.
‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘After the accident, within a day, the hospital suggested organ donation and the removal of ventilatory support. It was Roslyn’s parents who insisted she be admitted to a private facility. In case of a miracle.’ He shook his head and she knew he didn’t agree. ‘I didn’t feel I had the right to overrule them.’
His hand lifted briefly from the wheel, as if trying to catch the sense of the past. ‘But she lay for months, unchanged, except towards the end her chest became worse – a hospital-acquired infection. Her body was racked with fever and she wasted away in front of us, every day thinner, more wraith-like, trapped in our decision to maintain life support despite the fact that everything real, everything that made her Roslyn, was gone.’
‘Pull over, Zac. I’d like you tell me, but you don’t need to do it while you’re driving.’
He looked at her a little startled, but he did what she asked. When he’d stopped and turned off the engine, staring straight ahead with his hands resting lightly on the wheel, she murmured quietly, ‘Thank you. Did she die or was life support withdrawn?’
‘We turned it off.’ The words fell like cold stones between them and she blew out a breath. Tough love.
He shrugged helplessly, with his hands tighter on the wheel. ‘It became obvious, even to her parents, that we were increasing her suffering without any hope of a future. They finally agreed to a day.’ Although he was talking, she felt it wasn’t to her. Maybe to himself, maybe to his wife, maybe to her parents or his friends, who didn’t understand.
But she was the one listening. She and listening were old friends, too. ‘That must have been heavy on you.’
‘Thank you.’ His face turned towards her. ‘Funny how you pray for someone’s suffering to pass, yet when the time approaches you wish for more time.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve had a little to do with palliative care, with babies who come home to die because nothing can be done for them. I’ve seen that. Felt that tension, that maybe if we waited something would change.’
He nodded. ‘I think you do understand.’
She did. Life was precious. But sometimes the cost was too high.
He sighed. ‘So the morning came.’ His voice dropped and she strained to hear. ‘It was a beautiful day. I think that made it harder. Like that song about the seasons in the sun. Her seasons were all gone and Roslyn needed to sleep in peace, and this machine that hissed in and out, dragging the air in and out of her reluctant lungs, had to let her go. We had to let her go.’
‘And this was two months ago?’ No flipping wonder he’d looked emotionally drained after one night shift. He wasn’t just physically empty, he was also spiritually empty. Her heart ached to give comfort. To him. To Roslyn’s parents. To Roslyn, even.
He said, ‘The machine stopped. I’ll never forget the silence in the room as we watched her heart slow, falter and stop. No breaths. No heart rate. Nothing. What was left of her was gone. It was tragic. Horrible. But Roslyn’s death was a release for us all.’ There was another pause and then he said, ‘Especially Roslyn. Twelve months is a long time to be held back from peace.’ His eyes briefly met hers. ‘But those internal conversations make you guilty, too.’
Ah, guilt. Ava understood feeling guilty even when everyone else said you were innocent. She’d been there. Guilt explained a lot. Poor guy. He’d made the sort of horrible decision she hoped she’d never have to make. ‘It’s tough all around,’ she said, and impulsively rested her hand on his arm. She squeezed and felt his muscles tense under her fingers.
He lifted his other hand and touched hers briefly in appreciation, then put it back on the wheel. He huffed out a pent-up breath. ‘After the funeral, I needed to get out of the city. Thought I’d try remote locum posts. Last month, Weipa …’
Ahhh. ‘This month, Alice.’
‘Correct.’ He ran his hands through his hair. Roughed it up very nicely, Ava thought, with a tug of attraction.
‘Weipa proved to be a steep learning curve and a good reality check from all the sympathy that hung around my own hospital. I went back to Sydney for a few nights and then I was on a flight out to Alice for a month while my house sale is going through. It was Roslyn’s dream home and it’s far too big for me on my own. The plan is to return a new man and start a new life. That’s it.’ He looked at her for a moment and shrugged, then turned on the engine.
Then he’d met her, Ava thought. Of course he was still going back to Sydney in a month. His intention to not form any lasting relationship with her made a little more sense now. She should have the same sense. He had given her more than enough to chew over, and maybe regret she’d come back with him. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you.’ He pulled out into traffic and drove the short distance to the hotel. In no time, he was slowing the car for the hotel entrance.
He parked and switched off the engine, and they gazed at each other. His story sat between them like a heavy mist they were trying to peer through. Funny how sure she was that on the other side of that mist there could be glorious weather.
Well. Ava scooped her handbag off the floor. It was too late to wish she hadn’t come, and being out of the car and in fresh air would help. ‘Breakfast?’
‘Please.’
They left the car and walked together towards the main entrance. After a small silence, strangely not awkward as it should have been, she said, ‘I hope one day you’ll tell me about Weipa. That’s one of the places where I’d like to do a stint, and they say it’s an amazing flight into the town.’
He laughed without amusement. ‘I hope you’ll tell me about your world out here, too.’ He gestured behind them. ‘But shouldn’t you be criticising me for being an uncaring husband? Cheating on my just-buried wife?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s not my call. Out here we promote the “don’t judge others” habit and I agree.’ Then she stopped and he paused too. She held his gaze. ‘From the little I know of you, you’re not a cold person, Zac. Not someone who’s uncaring about your wife’s recent death.’ She raised her brows. ‘You might be conflicted about what we did.’ Wicked thoughts swirled in her brain, and no doubt in her eyes, and she flicked him a very brief smile, then started to walk again. ‘But you’re not cold.’
‘Not cold now.’ His voice followed her, low and definitely more upbeat. The glance he sent her as he caught up promised as much warmth as she could handle, and her cheeks heated when he said, ‘What we had two nights ago warmed me right up.’
With a room full of people inside the hotel, they needed something else to think about. The air between them had shrunk like plastic wrap, and she could feel the warmth of him and the sizzle of her own skin. Her belly swirled with remembered sensation and she dared not meet his eyes in case this new wanton woman inside her, the one she didn’t recognise in sensible Ava, took his hand and steered him upstairs instead. That would not be a good idea.
Say something, she urged herself. ‘Um. We really should think about food.’ Or she wouldn’t get to eat.
He said, ‘You could sleep here today and we could go to work together tonight.’
Oh my, she thought, but she couldn’t stop her smile from forming.