CHAPTER TEN

AT TEN on Tuesday Lily arrived at the Harbour to take Tom to the beach.

She was growing really fond of Tom.

So much for anonymity, she thought ruefully as she passed through the hospital on the way to Tom’s ward. She’d come to Sydney aching to be a nobody and here she was, involved up to her neck. She was part of the Harbour team. She was Tom’s friend. She was Luke’s pretend lover.

But her involvement was an illusion, she thought as she was greeted by staff members all through the hospital. It was a part of the deception that was her relationship with Luke, but at the same time it was a taste of something she’d never known.

Until now, gossip had seemed vicious and hurtful. Here it was a way of life. A part of belonging. The Harbour was closing round her, enfolding her as one of its own, and the sensation was extraordinary.

At Lighthouse Cove she’d been the daughter of a man who’d died owing money to half the town and of a woman whose morals were questionable. She’d been shunned as a ‘bad lot’ all through her teen years. During her training in Adelaide, at the end of every shift she’d faced the long drive back to Lighthouse Cove. She hadn’t had time to join in social fun. She was considered an outsider. She was used to being an outsider. When she’d come here what she’d wanted was to be anonymous, but now…

She was a member of the Harbour team.

Tom’s friend.

Luke’s lover.

The concept of belonging was an illusion, she told herself savagely. It had to end but it was messing with her head. It was like a siren song, dragging her in.

Luke had it for real, she thought, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t know how lucky he was. She had to go back to Lighthouse Cove. She had to leave Luke and everyone around him.

She walked into Tom’s ward—and Luke was there.

Both men were casually dressed. Tom was already settled into a wheelchair. Luke had a bag full of beach-towels slung over his shoulder. They looked relaxed and happy and ready to go.

They took her breath away.

Luke took her breath away.

‘You’re two minutes late, Nurse,’ Luke said, mockingly severe. ‘Tom and I have been waiting and waiting.’

He was wearing jeans. His short-sleeved, open-necked shirt displayed a hint of the muscles of his chest. His hair looked ruffled.

His hair always looked ruffled, Lily thought. He had the most gorgeous hair. He had the most gorgeous smile…

‘I’ve borrowed John’s SUV,’ he said, while her thoughts flew everywhere. ‘I figured it’d be easier to get the wheelchair in and out.’

‘You’re coming with us?’

‘I said I would.’

‘But I didn’t think…’ She drew in breath. ‘I mean…don’t you have surgery?’

‘I have an excellent registrar and an easy list,’ he said. ‘I need to be back by three for a cleft lip and palate but Tom will be ready for a sleep by then.’

‘I won’t,’ Tom said indignantly. ‘But if you need to be back by three, why are we hanging round here? Push.’

Luke chuckled and pushed.

Lily followed, feeling flummoxed.

She hadn’t intended this. She thought, It’s dangerous. But then Luke was the one who worried about dangerous.

They passed Reception on the way out and Evie was there.

‘It’s the Williams family.’ Evie smiled. ‘Have a lovely day.’

‘Thank you,’ Lily said, and glanced at Tom and then at Luke and saw similar expressions on both their faces.

The Williams family…

It didn’t exist. Another illusion.

Dangerous.

The beach was gorgeous. The day was gorgeous.

They wheeled Tom down the ramp, helped him into the water. Tom’s legs were white from years on the farm where long protective pants were the norm. The scar on his thigh stood out stark and dreadful. Luke expected him to sit in the shallows and do his exercises.

Instead he swam. Luke hadn’t even known he could swim. Lily swam too, and he watched.

He watched as they swam, then he watched as Lily helped his uncle go through his exercises, then he watched as they duck-dived for stones.

‘I’m playing lifesaver,’ he told them when Tom accused him of laziness, but he wasn’t.

He was watching Tom come out of his shell. And he was watching Lily. In her simple, green, one-piece bathing suit, with her wet curls spiralling down her back, with her eyes sparkling…

She was entrancing.

He was watching his uncle fall under her spell.

He was falling under her spell himself.

He should join in, but if he duck-dived he’d brush against her body. He wanted it—but he wasn’t going there.

Need. Desire. Things he’d put away for a lifetime were suddenly front and foremost.

‘What is it?’ she demanded as she surfaced and saw him watching. ‘You’re watching me as if I have two heads.’

‘One head’s enough.’

‘So’s one and a half legs,’ she retorted, after a thoughtful stare back at him. ‘That’s all Tom has and he’s beating me at duck-diving every time. You don’t want to compete?’

‘No.’

‘More fool you,’ Tom said, and chuckled, tossed the next stone and dived.

He abandoned lifesaving. He went and swam in the bay, hard and fast and long.

Alone.

They swam until they were exhausted. They ate fish and chips on the foreshore and Tom started drooping. Lily brushed the sand from her toes and slipped on her flip-flops, decreeing time out was over.

‘Back to the Harbour,’ she said. ‘Tom, you need a sleep, and you, Dr Williams, have surgery scheduled.’

‘Luke!’

‘Luke,’ she said, and smiled.

Oh, that smile…

‘Are you going back to the farm tonight?’ he managed.

‘Of course.’

‘Let me take you to dinner here instead.’ Where had that come from?

He knew where it had come from. From need, pure and simple.

‘She has to feed the horses,’ Tom said.

‘Okay, then,’ Luke said, driven against the ropes. ‘We’ll have dinner at the farm. I’ll stay the night and come back early tomorrow.’

She surveyed him with caution, as if he’d just proffered a peace offering and it might just explode. ‘But you don’t like commuting,’ she said at last.

‘I’ll make an exception.’

‘That’s big of you.’

He ignored the sarcasm. ‘I’ll bring up a couple of Pete’s pies.’

‘They are good,’ she said, weakening. ‘Okay.’

She’d accepted.

Dinner. On the farm. With Lily.

He thought of the restaurant meals Hannah used to love. Dinner in any restaurant within a mile of this hospital meant every mouthful, every nuance was reported back to the gossip machine. Hannah had thrived on gossip.

Lily was different. He could see dinner on the farm with Pete’s pies was a temptation where dinner anywhere else wasn’t.

‘We’ll stay in separate houses,’ Lily said, cautiously.

‘A man’d be a fool…’ Tom retorted, and Lily grinned.

‘You stay out of this. Isn’t the older generation supposed to keep up moral standards?’

‘What fun is there in moral standards?’ Tom demanded. ‘And the whole hospital thinks you’re sleeping together anyway.’

So even the patients thought it. Luke rolled his eyes—and caught Lily doing exactly the same.

He laughed and Lily laughed and things suddenly lightened.

Filled with hope?

‘Okay,’ Lily said. ‘If you bring pies, I’ll supply wine. Tom’s veranda at eight?’

‘We have a date,’ he said gravely.

‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Pete’s pies are awesome.’

And that was that.

He watched Lily feed the last of the chips to flying seagulls, going to enormous effort to make sure a one-legged bird was well fed.

That was Lily, he thought.

Hope?

Suddenly he had it in spades.

‘Exactly how long have you known this woman?’

It was Finn—of course.The man was always where he was least expected to be.

Luke had less than an hour to get to the farm. He’d just repaired a cleft lip and palate, the procedure had taken longer than expected and even for his boss, he wasn’t interested in stopping.

‘I can’t remember,’ he lied. ‘I need to get on.’

‘The way you look at her…you’re thinking of making it legal?’

‘What, marriage?’ That was enough to make him pause.

‘That’s what the grapevine’s saying. The girls in Accounts are taking bets on you having another society bash. Will your parents come over again?’

In your dreams, he thought. A wedding like the last one…

Hannah’s parents had serious money. His parents had come from Singapore. He still woke in a cold sweat thinking of that wedding.

‘If anyone’s to be married it should be you,’ he told Finn. ‘I’ve done my time. You haven’t even stuck your toe in the water.’

‘You can have a lot more fun without marriage.’

‘I don’t see you having fun.’ He surveyed his friend with concern and decided to be blunt. ‘It seems to me you’re using women to distract yourself from something else. Pain?’

‘Leave it.’

‘So…you can talk to me about Lily and marriage and I can’t talk to you about the pain in your right arm?’

‘Who said anything about pain?’

He wasn’t landing Evie in it. ‘This is the Harbour,’ he said mildly. ‘Knowledge permeates its walls and then oozes out again.’

‘The walls have it wrong.’

‘The walls don’t think so. What exactly hurts?’

‘I’ve strained a muscle,’ Finn snapped. ‘It’s getting better.’

‘So who’s seen it?’

‘No one needs to see it. It’s healing.’

‘Can I take a look?’

‘No.’

‘Finn…’

‘Get out of here. Go find your woman,’ Finn snapped. ‘They help.’

Luke hesitated. They help. The statement hung. That’s what he’d thought, that Finn was using women to blot something out.

Physical pain or mental?

‘Maybe you need to talk to a shrink,’ he said softly. ‘Hell, Finn, what you’ve been through… Let me make you an appointment.’

Uh-oh. He’d got that wrong. Finn’s face tightened with anger. If looks could kill, Luke would be dead right now.

But Finn was his friend and he wasn’t backing down. ‘You know you need help,’ Luke said. ‘Why can’t you admit it?’

‘You know where you can put your help.’ Finn stalked to the door, lifted his right arm—which didn’t shake—and swept it hard across the bench.

Patient notes went flying, and Finn was gone. The door slammed so hard behind him it almost came off its hinges.

That went well, Luke thought. Or not.

He stared at the closed door. He thought about going after him. Thought it’d be useless.

Besides, he was having dinner with Lily.

He collected the pies—beef and burgundy, and chicken and leek. They smelled fantastic. Pete wrapped them in cloth with directions about reheating. ‘Put ’em in a microwave and I’ll come after you with a cleaver. Treat ’em right. You’ll never win a lady with a soggy pie.’

‘Who said anything about winning a lady?’ he demanded. But Pete had already moved on to his next Harbour client, his next piece of gossip.

About twenty pairs of eyes followed him out the door of the pub. Counting pies.

Tomorrow they’d know he hadn’t come back to Kirribilli tonight, he thought, and then he thought, So what?

One way to stop gossip—pretend to be in love.

A better way to stop gossip… Acknowledge you were.

He stopped short, feeling…discombobulated.

In love.

He drove all the way to Tarrawalla and the two words stayed with him all the way.

Lily was waiting. She had the table set on Pete’s veranda.

He wasn’t to be invited inside?

She took the pies and sniffed her appreciation. ‘I’ll put them in the Aga to reheat,’ she said and he blinked.

‘You’re using the Aga?’ As far as he knew, the slow combustion fire stove hadn’t been used in his lifetime.

‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s fabulous.’ She slipped inside and returned with wine.

She was wearing jeans and an oversized windcheater. She had mosquito coils burning by the table.

Romantic dinner by candlelight?

Dinner by mosquito coils.

‘How did the cleft palate repair go?’ she asked, and that took him back all over again. He hadn’t told her what he’d been doing.

But, then, those Harbour walls…

‘He’ll be okay. We’d been hoping to wait until he was a little older but his local hospital rang this morning. He was starting to suffer respiratory distress so we had to bring it forward. His mum’s been beside herself but it’s gone well; she can sleep easy tonight.’

‘That’s great,’ she said simply. ‘Those pies will take fifteen minutes to reheat. You want to take a walk, or just sit and listen to the frogs?’

‘Frogs are great.’

‘Aren’t they?’ she said, and shut up and listened.

She wasn’t expecting him to talk, he thought. She wasn’t expecting him to do anything.

Nothing.

He’d spent four hours this afternoon in nerve-racking surgery. He’d made the best possible job he could of tiny Joshua McFaddon’s disfigured mouth. He was delighted with the result, but it had taken it out of him. He’d been up since five.

He was physically exhausted and Lily was simply saying listen to frogs.

The silence deepened, and the thought that had been playing in his head all the way up here grew louder. And louder.

‘I believe I’d like to try living with you,’ he said, before he even knew what he intended to say.

The words hung.

I believe I’d like to try living with you.

Where had that come from? The desire.

It had just happened. He wanted to live with Lily. Simple as that.

He didn’t want the huge emotional roller-coaster of courtship, engagement, wedding. Not the romantic fantasy. But this need was growing more powerful by the moment. To have this restful woman beside him.

But she was looking…flabbergasted.

‘Live,’ she said, floundering. ‘You mean…like housemates? Your bedroom at one end of the house, mine at the other?’

‘No,’ he said. For she might be restful but she was also beautiful. And sexy. And so desirable she made a man burn. ‘I believe I mean live together as in what the Harbour believes we’re doing right now.’

‘For three weeks?’

‘I suspect I’d like to make it permanent. It feels like it would be great—being permanent.’

She was looking at him like he was nuts. Maybe he was. He shouldn’t decide he wanted a permanent relationship when he’d known her for less than a week, he thought, but it felt like he’d known her for much longer. She seemed…the part of him that was missing.

If she was, she wasn’t about to join up again. ‘You’ve lost your mind,’ she said.

‘I’m just saying what I’m feeling,’ he told her, trying to figure it out as he went. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you. When I’m with you I feel like I’ve come home.’

She tried to smile. ‘That’s because I smell of the hay I’ve been hauling.’

‘There is that,’ he conceded.

‘So you agree it’s nonsense.’

And suddenly he thought, I’ve scared her.

‘Lily, I’m not pushing for anything you don’t want,’ he said hastily. ‘I’m simply saying what I feel. With Hannah…we were an item for two years before I proposed. We were engaged for another year while she organised the wedding of the millennium. For all that time I didn’t feel like I’m feeling now. Like this is where I should be.’

‘On the veranda of your uncle’s farm?’

‘With you,’ he said softly. ‘If you’ll agree, I’d love you to come back to my apartment,’ he said, urgently now. ‘Lily, we decided to be pretend lovers. Let’s see if we can be real ones.’

‘Lovers.’ She still thought he had a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, he thought. This woman was a highly trained medic. Any minute now she’d produce a strait-jacket to stop him hurting himself.

‘I know it’s fast…’

‘Yeah, I feel like I’ve missed something,’ she said warily. ‘The process that goes before. Like dates and stuff. We haven’t actually slept together yet, have we? I mean, I haven’t forgotten anything important?’

‘I… No.’

‘There you go.’ She sounded like she’d decided to humour him. ‘No matter what the Harbour thinks, one kiss does not a relationship make.’ She took a deep breath, moving on. ‘Luke, I’m hungry. Maybe that’s your problem. Hunger makes people do weird things. Stay where you are. Don’t move. I’ll see if the Aga’s done its magic.’

The Aga had. So had Pete. The pies were wonderful.

Lily ate hers with one eye on the pie and one eye on him. That was in case he suddenly developed strange twitches, he thought, or saw dancing elephants.

He found himself smiling as he ate. This really was ridiculous. He was out of his mind.

But he still felt exactly the same, like the woman across the table was part of him.

She wasn’t eating enough. He wanted to bully her to eat more but he thought he had more important things he wanted her to agree to tonight.

‘Walk?’ he said when they’d eaten, and she was still watching him. He rose and held out his hand. ‘Please.’

‘I need to do the dishes.’

‘Blighty,’ he called. ‘Patch.’ As the dogs hared up the veranda steps he put dirty plates down and the washing up was done. Sort of.

‘Sorted,’ he said, and she choked.

‘Of all the… Typical surgeon!’

‘What?’

‘No finesse. You were supposed to offer to wash, thus earning brownie points.’

‘Would you consider living with me if I washed them?’

‘You’re ridiculous.’

For an answer he held out his hand again. ‘Walk. Please.’

She hesitated, and then cautiously took a step forward.

Excellent. He took her hand and he led her down the veranda steps, down to the creek and into the night.

They walked silently, the dogs following at their heels. Silence was almost their usual state, he thought. That was fine by him; he’d been raised in silence and it was a friend.

His fingers were linked with Lily’s. In a moment the silence would end, her fingers would withdraw and the moment would be gone, but in the silence was a promise of a future.

Hope.

They followed the creek along the bank, skirting trees, boulders, fallen timber. At one point they had to cross the creek to get further, stepping over widely spaced rocks. He wanted to help her but she was intent on coping herself.

She reached the other side and he took her hand again.

She didn’t resist.

‘I’ve fallen in love,’ he said gently, at last, and the words hung in the night sky.

‘That sounds…easy to do,’ she said cautiously. ‘People do it all the time. Only not with me.’

‘A man’d be mad not to.’

‘Because I helped your uncle?’

‘Because you’re wonderful.’

‘Okay, I helped your uncle and I’m wonderful,’ she said, and he could tell she was struggling to sound placid. ‘Two compliments do not lovers make.’

‘I know,’ he said ruefully. ‘It’s too soon. But I’d love you to come back to my apartment, to see if we can make it work.’

She stopped then, turning in the moonlight so she could see his face. She looked troubled.

‘That’s another thing I don’t understand. Why would you want to go back to your apartment when you could stay here?’

‘Maybe we could stay here,’ he said, thinking that with this woman anything was possible. Even a home was possible. ‘But not while you’re working nights. I don’t like this. I’m away during the day. Tom’s not here. What if something happens?’

‘I’m not Hannah,’ she said, and he flinched.

‘I know that.’ He raked his hair, knowing he needed to get a handle on what he was feeling. Knowing it was too huge for any handle. ‘But I’d never want a marriage where I couldn’t reach you.’

‘Who’s talking marriage?’ she demanded, astounded.

‘Okay, I’m not,’ he said hastily. ‘Not yet. But even now, when we’re little more than friends, I hate you being here by yourself.’

‘We’re nothing more than friends,’ she said, calm and sure. ‘And I love being here. I don’t need you to know that I’m safe. I’m a big girl. I’m responsible for my own safety. I don’t take risks—or not many. You know I won’t ride Glenfiddich, even though I’d love to, but even if I did, I don’t want anyone wrapping me in cotton wool. If that’s the kind of relationship you want, then thank you very much but no.’

‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘that right now I’d be content with any relationship you’d be prepared to give.’ He took her hand back in his and looked down at their linked fingers in the moonlight. She looked up at him, and he knew her answer was no.

‘I have my mother,’ she said, and it was like saying, ‘Step away.’

He didn’t. He held her more strongly still. ‘I won’t let your mother hurt you.’

‘You’ll protect me from my mother as well?’

‘From anything that threatens you. The way I’m feeling…’

‘Well, you can stop feeling,’ she said, suddenly angry. She tugged back as if he’d suddenly shown signs of the plague.

‘Lily…’

‘I’m my own person,’ she said. ‘Or I’m trying to be. I’m struggling really hard to have a life. With Mum like she is, I only manage it in snatches, but in those snatches I’m not about to be cocooned.’

‘I wouldn’t—’

‘Of course you would,’ she said. ‘That’s why you don’t commute from here, isn’t it—because you think that if you live here then you and your Uncle Tom might learn to depend on each other. You both hold onto your precious independence because anything else is too scary. And me? You’d take me back to the Harbour, back to the Sydney Scandal Central, you’d ensconce me in your sterile apartment and you’d keep me safe. You’d bring me up here when you’re free to watch me. I bet you’d even offer to buy me a nice quiet mare.’

That idea had crossed his mind. She met his gaze and saw.

‘Ha!’ She tried to smile but it didn’t come off.

‘Do you think,’ he said cautiously, moving sideways, ‘that apart from the safety thing, a relationship might be possible?’

‘Do you mean do I find you sexy? Of course I do.’

He reached for her hand again but she stepped away fast.

‘Of course you’re sexy,’ she said. ‘You’re so sexy you make my toes curl. And you’re kind and clever and a brilliant doctor, and I love the way your hair does that really cute kick at the sides. And you have the best horses. But you won’t let me ride them. You come with a past, and that past is problematic. And I come with a mother and she’s more so.’

‘I can fix—’

‘Your past? I don’t think so. How do you walk from the shades of a dead wife and child? Hannah will always be with you. I suspect you’ll always want her to be.’

He thought about that, trying to be fair. In some ways, she was right.

Hannah had been a gorgeous, vibrant girl who’d pulled him from his studious, solitary life and introduced him to fun. It hadn’t worked—he’d been too infatuated to see past her glossy exterior until it was too late—but he was grateful for what she’d given him. She’d died carrying his child.

She would always be a part of him.

‘And I’ll always be with my mother,’ she said, softly, watching his face. ‘Of the two, I’d choose Hannah. At least you can keep the parts of her you loved and let the rest go.’

‘You can’t do that with your mother?’

‘No,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Enough. This was a lovely walk. It was a huge compliment, saying you’d like what’s between us to go further, but I’m old and wise enough now to know what’s possible and what’s not.’

She took his hands back in hers and looked down at them, steadily, surely. She was bracing herself, he thought, and here it came.

‘Luke, let’s be honest,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t want to be tied in a relationship with me. You’d want to cocoon me and I’d kick against the traces and you’d hate it. My mother would be included and you’d hate it. The threat of what happened to Hannah would always hang over us and our lives would be impossible. Tonight we had great pie, some lovely wine, a gorgeous walk, but now it’s over.’

And before he knew what she intended, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, lightly, a feather touch, her lips brushing his so fleetingly it was as if he was imagining it. And when he went to hold her close she backed away.

‘Your house is thataway,’ she said, pointing through the trees where he could just see his veranda light. He’d left the car and walked to Tom’s. ‘Mine’s in the opposite direction. The dogs will take me home. You need to go home by yourself. You and Tom have lives apart. You only know two extremes—apart or so close you’d cage me. But with my mother I’m already caged, and that cage is a long way from your side.’

She didn’t sleep. Of course she didn’t. How could a girl sleep after such a night?

She lay in the dark and thought about living with Luke Williams. Sharing his bed. Sharing his life.

Impossible, impossible, impossible—but, oh, to be asked…

For him to feel as she was feeling seemed a miracle. A miracle that couldn’t be taken further.

Maybe she should try it, she thought in the small hours. She could return to his apartment and see if she could make it work.

But if she put one toe in the water her whole body would follow. If she slept with him…

She knew she’d melt.

‘I’m weak,’ she whispered, and she knew she was.

‘And I can’t be,’ she said. ‘I’d break my heart. To let myself love him and then have to walk away…’

Oh, but to let him walk away now…

She rolled over in bed and stared across the valley. She could still see his veranda light in the distance.

Was he lying in bed thinking the same?

Thinking about sharing his life?

He wasn’t talking about sharing. He was talking about tugging her into his life and holding her close. They were two different things and she was wise enough to see it.

Sleep wouldn’t come. Her stomach was hurting. Avoid stress? Ha. She gave up, warmed a hot-water bottle to alleviate the cramps and headed out onto the veranda, where the dogs lay on an ancient couch. They roused and wagged their tails and shifted along, as if this was her place as well.

She lay, and the dogs sprawled on top.

‘See, I’m hopeless at being alone,’ she told them. ‘Is it time I went home to my mother?’

He dropped by the next morning, just at dawn. She woke to find him staring down at her, woman under dogs.

To say she felt at a disadvantage was an understatement.

‘Do you mind?’ she managed. ‘This is my bedroom.’

‘So I see.’ He sounded stunned.

He was looking gorgeous, she thought, in tailored pants and his crisp, white shirt. He wasn’t wearing a tie but it’d be in his car, she decided, ready to be popped on at need.

She was in her ancient nightgown. She’d be smelling of mosquito repellent. The only thing she could put on at need was dog hair.

She wanted, quite desperately, to be in her nice, anonymous, nursing uniform. On level pegging. Right now she felt like a charity case. Someone to be looked after. That was how he thought of her, wasn’t it?

‘You’ve slept with the dogs,’ he said.

‘Mmm.’ She tried to act casual. She yawned and stretched and the dogs yawned and stretched with her. ‘We like it out here.’

‘You sleep outside when you’re here by yourself?’ He sounded appalled.

‘I have the dogs.’

‘I’m commuting,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll stay at my farm until Tom comes home.’

‘Until…’

‘Okay, maybe I’ll commute after he comes home as well,’ he snapped. ‘Maybe I need to. He’s even more pig-headed than you.’

‘That’d be hard.’

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said, brusque again.

‘I’ll be going to bed early tonight. I’ll thank you not to check on me.’

‘Lily—’

‘Independence,’ she said.

‘It’s your mantra. You want it for yourself, so give it to me. Say byebye to Daddy, guys.’

She lifted two dog paws and waved them at Luke. Luke spun on his heel and left.

Discombobulated didn’t begin to describe how she felt as he walked away.