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Orphan Under the Christmas Tree
Meredith Webber






More Praise for Meredith Webber:

‘Meredith Webber does a beautiful job

as she crafts one of the most unique romances I’ve

read in a while. Reading a tale by Meredith Webber

is always a pleasure, and

THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

is no exception!’

—Book Illuminations on THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE


Orphan Under The Christmas Tree

Meredith Webber




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Table of Contents


Cover (#uedae4759-f4b9-505c-b243-d88b736cb27b)

Title Page (#u838ec0c0-db2b-53b9-be6e-38ea08a3114b)

Praise (#uf5276e79-7bd4-5cbd-b389-d25b52a23c89)

Dedication (#ud9ae2f88-ee4c-5a1a-96ca-0d4030d9d0b2)

CHAPTER ONE (#u55d118b3-1641-588b-87ea-0a2460615e8c)

CHAPTER TWO (#u21f091dc-37b1-5937-9e08-fcca6aef7ea3)

CHAPTER THREE (#u8417b118-0652-5155-9049-effb074af010)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


For my sister-in-law Caroline, an inspirational refuge worker




CHAPTER ONE


SHE was a psychologist.

She should be able to look at a problem, consider it from all angles, and then solve it.

So why was Crystal Cove’s annual bunfight of the raising of the Christmas tree causing Lauren Cooper such grief?

Easy answer!

Nat Williams would be there. Nat Williams, Crystal Cove’s very own surfing superstar, current world number one, had been invited to press the button that would engage the ropes and pulleys that would lift the already decorated tree into position in the middle of the park that ran along the esplanade above the Cove’s sheltered northern beach.

In her head, Lauren could hear her friend, Jo Harris, saying, ‘But you’re over him,’ and Lauren was.

Totally, and years ago, and relieved to be out from under his spell!

Not even heart-broken, not even then at seventeen, so why now, at twenty-nine, did she feel ill at the thought of meeting him again?

Lauren, Crystal Cove’s only practising psychologist, manager of the local women’s refuge and general all-round competent person, rested her elbows on her desk, put her head in her hands, and groaned.

‘Migraine?’

Wrong time and wrong place to be groaning! She’d completely forgotten she was at her desk at the hospital. The problem was she shared her office space with other therapists, and so it was open to any hospital personnel who happened to be wandering around.

She lifted her head and looked at the person who happened to be wandering around right then.

Dr Tom Fletcher, tall, dark, lean, and so handsome just looking at him sometimes took Lauren’s breath away.

‘No, I’m fine,’ she told him as he pulled a chair over from an adjacent desk and settled down across from her.

‘Really fine,’ she emphasised, in case he hadn’t got the message the first time.

‘No, you’re not.’

The words jolted Lauren out of her welter of doubt and anxiety and she frowned at him across the table. Eighteen months ago when Tom had first taken up his position as head of the Crystal Cove hospital, he’d asked her out, and she’d been very, very tempted.

But there was something about Tom Fletcher, with his grey eyes, easy smile and over-abundance of charm that had warned her to steer clear. Going out with Tom Fletcher might have meant getting involved. Getting involved might have meant …

She’d steered clear, reminding herself her life was just perfect as it was! She had a good job, a satisfying challenge in running the local women’s refuge, great friends, family close by—the life she wanted for herself.

The life she’d chosen for herself!

As for Tom, well, her refusal hadn’t dented his confidence. Since his arrival in town she’d watched him flirt with every woman in Crystal Cove; watched him squire any number of them around town, although none of the women he’d dated then deserted seemed to bear grudges against him, singing his praises as a companion, their pleasure in the affair, remaining friends with him even after the relationships had ended.

Tom Fletcher, she’d realised very early on, was one of those men all women loved, and apparently he loved being loved by them, but he was of the ‘love them and leave them’ tribe with no intention of ever settling down.

And to be honest, she wasn’t sure about the affairs or even his prowess as a lover because none of the women ever talked.

Which in itself was odd …

‘Earth to Lauren?’

She stared at him, unable to remember what he’d said, and unable to believe she’d drifted off into her own thoughts while the man, apparently, had something to say to her.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘What was it you wanted?’

You, Tom would have liked to say, but he knew he could never say it. Oh, he’d asked her out once, but fortunately she’d said no, because as he’d grown to know Lauren Cooper he’d realised she was a woman who deserved the best of everything the world had to offer and, as far as men went, that wasn’t him.

‘Nothing,’ he said instead. ‘Except to know if you’re okay. You’re pale as milk, you’re sitting in an empty room way after working hours, and groaning loudly.’

She looked into his eyes and managed a wry smile.

‘Not loudly, surely?’ she queried.

‘Loudly!’ he repeated. ‘It brought me racing from my office.’

Her smile improved.

‘You? Race? Ice-cool Tom? The one who keeps his head when all around are losing theirs, isn’t that the saying?’

‘Well, I hurried,’ he amended then because it was always so—well, nice—to be sitting talking to Lauren about nothing in particular—something that rarely happened in both their busy lives—he added, ‘And you did groan, so tell me.’

If only she could! With a supreme effort of will, Lauren refrained from groaning again.

Although …

She studied him for a moment, considering the bizarre idea that had flitted into her head—checking it from all angles.

Tom was a friend, after all, and what were friends for but to help each other out?

Although might it not be tempting fate?

‘I am a friend.’ Tom echoed her thoughts. ‘So, rather than doing both sides of the argument in your head, why don’t you talk it out with me?’

‘Because it would involve you!’

Was it because the answer had come upon her so suddenly that she’d blurted that out?

‘Aah!’ Tom was grinning at her, laughter dancing in his eyes, mischief gleaming there as well. ‘You’ve killed someone and need help to dig the hole to bury the body!’

She had to smile!

‘Not quite that bad,’ she admitted, ‘although there were times today when I could have strangled an obnoxious eight-year-old who thought hosing all the girls who walked past the refuge was a fun way to pass the afternoon.’

‘Bobby Sims?’ Tom asked, and she smiled again as she nodded in answer to his query. One of the things that made Tom Fletcher so darned appealing—apart from film-star looks—was his empathy. He could sit down with someone and be on his or her wavelength within minutes, or so Lauren had always found.

‘But you didn’t strangle the terror of the refuge, so what’s the problem?’

Lauren shifted her attention away from Tom—too distracting—looking around the room, feeling so ridiculous she wondered if she could make up some story to explain her groan and he’d go away and she’d find an excuse to just not go to the tree raising.

Except she had to go!

As her eyes came back to rest on Tom’s face, he lifted one eyebrow, a trick she’d tried and failed to master in her youth, and she knew he deserved an honest answer.

‘You’ll think I’m stupid,’ she began, then was furious with herself for being feeble enough to utter such an inanity. ‘No, I am stupid. And pathetic, and ridiculous, and I’ve got myself into a tizz over nothing so best you just slope off to wherever you’re going and leave me groaning into my hands.’

Lauren didn’t do stupid. That was the first thought that came into Tom’s head as he listened to her castigate herself. Of all the women he’d ever known, she was the most sensible, practical and level-headed, guided by what had always seemed a boundless store of common sense and a determination that bordered on ruthless—at least, where keeping the women’s refuge open was concerned. As far as he knew, in her private life she was just that, private—she lived alone and seemed to like it that way—but stupid? Never!

‘I’m not going,’ he announced. ‘Not until you tell me what’s got you frazzled like this. Is it Christmas? Does your family make a big deal of it, so you have relatives who bore you stupid descending on you for weeks at a time, and people arguing about who’s doing the cake and the best stuffing for the turkey?’

That won a smile, but it was wan and he realised that, subconsciously perhaps, he’d been worried about Lauren for a while. She was still as beautiful as ever, having good bone structure so tiredness didn’t ravage her features as it did some people. But she was pale, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes had deepened so they had a bruised look.

The smile had dried up while he was thinking about her looks, and she was frowning at him now.

Quite ferociously, in fact, so the words, when they came, seemed to have no meaning—certainly nothing to connect them to a ferocious frown.

‘I want to ask you out,’ she said, her eyes, a golden, greeny-brown and always startling against her golden blonde hair, fixed on his, no doubt so she could gauge his reaction.

Challenging him, in fact!

‘Okay,’ he managed, though battling to process both the invitation and the fierceness of it, which made the slight start of pleasurable surprise he felt quite ridiculous. ‘When?’

‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘In fact, right now—we should be leaving any minute.’

‘But it’s the great tree raising do tonight,’ he reminded her. ‘We’re both going anyway. The entire hospital staff was invited.’

No reaction beyond another, barely suppressed groan, so he took a wild guess.

‘Do you mean after the tree raising? Dinner somewhere perhaps?’

He was speaking lightly, but inside he was a mess of confusion, though why he couldn’t say. Perhaps because Lauren looked so unhappy, while her lips, usually full and with a slight natural pout, were pressed together, suggesting the tension she was feeling had increased rather than decreased after she’d shot out the invitation.

‘I suppose we could eat afterwards,’ she mumbled, and Tom had to laugh.

‘Now, there’s a gracious invitation,’ he said, but no glimmer of humour lightened Lauren’s face. If anything, she was looking even more grim!

He stood up and walked around the desk, squatting beside her and looking directly into her face, putting his hand on her shoulder—the lightest of touches but showing her without words that he was there for her.

‘Tell me,’ he said softly, and to his astonishment tears welled in her eyes, overflowed, and slid silently down her cheeks.

She made no attempt to brush them away so he pulled out his handkerchief, checked it was reasonably clean, and dried them for her.

‘I am being stupid,’ she muttered angrily. ‘I have to go because of the refuge—it’s been the main fundraising focus for the Christmas raffle and I’ll be getting the cheque and heaven knows—well, you know too—the refuge needs it, and if Cam and Jo hadn’t just become engaged I’d have asked Cam, but it would start too much talk in the town, and then there’s Mike but he seems quite interested in that new young probationary policewoman, and the school teachers have all gone home for the holidays, so—’

‘So you’re stuck with me,’ Tom finished for her. ‘That’s okay, I get the picture. You need a man tonight. That’s fine. Do you want anything special? A bit of panting? Lusting? Public displays of affection? Kisses, or just hand-holding?’

She knew Tom was only teasing, but hearing it put like that Lauren wanted nothing more than to shrink to mouse size and crawl into a hole and hide. How embarrassing! How could she have asked him?

And trust Tom to make a joke of it!

But wasn’t that for the best? At least he wasn’t getting any false ideas. So why did that thought make her feel weepy again?

She hauled in a deep, steadying breath, and watched as he straightened up.

‘I just need you to be there, that’s all,’ she said, cross with herself for making such a mess of things.

‘But obviously with you!’ he said quietly, and she, who hadn’t blushed since she was fourteen, felt heat flooding into her cheeks.

Mortified, she pressed her hands to them to cool them, or hide the vivid colour, and nodded.

‘No worries!’

But that was Tom! Nothing ever worried him—or seemed to …

He put his arm around her shoulders and looked into her face.

‘Now,’ he said gently, ‘I know you’re beautiful enough without it, but all my ladies go for a little make-up when they have to cover the signs of tears. I wouldn’t like to think the entire population of Crystal Cove sees you’ve been crying about having to go out with me. It would do my reputation no manner of harm, so into the washroom with you. We’ve ten minutes or so before we have to leave.’

He turned her and gave her a little push towards the washrooms, catching up with her to hand over her big tote, which she’d left beside her chair, passing it to her with such a warm smile her stomach turned over.

Was she stupid to be doing this? Stupider than she usually was over men?

Was he stupid to be doing this?

Tom took himself off to the men’s washrooms and splashed cold water over his face.

He’d been attracted to Lauren from the first time he’d seen her. Then working with her on the board of the refuge, he’d got to know her as a person and become, he thought, a good friend. So her refusal to go out with him had worked out for the best, he’d decided, because Lauren Cooper was a woman who deserved the whole deal as far as love was concerned and he didn’t do love.

Oh, he understood it existed. It even worked for a lot of people, but to him it was the most destructive force on earth and he’d decided at an early age that he would avoid it at all cost. The women with whom he’d enjoyed affairs over the years had always understood there’d be no ‘happy ever after’ scenario ahead of them. He was always honest, explaining right at the beginning that he enjoyed women and their company, enjoyed the physical pleasure of affairs, and hoped the enjoyment was mutual, but that he wasn’t looking for anything long term, particularly not marriage.

A few had asked why, and a few more had thought they’d change his mind, but on the whole they’d parted amicably enough and he remained on friendly terms with many of the women.

Lauren, however, was different …

‘Are you having second thoughts in there?’

An edge in her voice told him she’d recovered a little of her composure, but he wouldn’t have been human if he wasn’t wondering what had rattled her so much.

He emerged from the washroom, wanting to ask, but the Lauren who was waiting there was so far from the tense and tearful woman he’d left that any words he might have had dried to ashes on his tongue.

Which, he hoped, wasn’t hanging out.

She’d swept her shoulder-length blonde hair into a pleat at the back of her head, making her neck look longer, elegant. Mascara darkened her eyelashes, emphasising her fascinating eyes with their dashes of brown, green and gold, but it was her mouth that drew—and held—his attention.

He tried to remember if he’d ever seen Lauren wearing lipstick and decided, if he had, it must have been a pale, neutral shade, because one thing was for sure, he’d never seen those full, lush, pouting lips covered in a glossy, vibrant, fire-engine red.

A red that yelled danger, and beware, but at the same time tempted and seduced!

‘Much better,’ he managed to mutter, because wasn’t he Mr Cool where all women were concerned?

Inside he wasn’t cool at all, not even close.

Inside he was wired—his mind playing tricks on him, showing him flashing images of those lips while his body ached to feel them on his skin—just once—no, more than once—just once would never be enough …

‘So, shall we go,’ she said, Ms Cool definitely, whatever angst she’d been suffering, possibly was still suffering, hidden behind her war paint.

And it was war paint!

Those red lips would challenge every man who saw her, distract them from the tree raising, make them think things most of them shouldn’t think about a woman they maybe didn’t know.

She’d linked her arm through his elbow while his mind was rioting, and now walked him back along the corridor, and out of the hospital, her tote slung across her other shoulder, so her body was pressed to his, all down one side.

At least walking beside her he couldn’t see her lips, although he did keep sneaking glances at them—at her …

Tom was obviously regretting saying yes, Lauren decided as they left the hospital building. His usual rattle of cheery conversation had dried up, perhaps because he was trying to think of some way to extricate himself from this situation.

And was the lipstick too bright?

From the day she’d heard Nat Williams was coming back to town she’d searched the internet for red lipsticks, wanting bright and vibrant red, not orangy red or pinkish red, but fire-engine red.

Challenge red!

And it had to last, not disappear the moment she sipped a drink or ate a sandwich …

She knew it was pathetic, still to be hung up over something that had happened to her teenage self, although the psychologist in her accepted that the damage Nat had done to her would probably never go away.

Well, some of it wouldn’t—that was for sure …

‘You usually chat,’ she said to Tom as they crossed the car park, heading for the esplanade.

She’d spoken mainly to divert her thoughts, but also because it was weird, walking in total silence with the usually loquacious Tom.

He was regretting it!

‘Struck dumb by your red lips,’ he said, and something in his voice told her there might be an element of truth in what he’d said.

‘You struck dumb by lipstick?’ she teased, hoping they could reach some comfortably light-hearted plane before they joined the crush by the beach. ‘Hardly!’

‘You’d be surprised,’ he muttered, then he seemed to collect himself, taking her hand in his and drawing her towards the area where the road had been blocked off, and seating erected to one side of where the big tree lay. ‘Come on, we’re in the good seats,’ he said. ‘I can see Jo and Cam among the crowd milling near the platform—we can sit with them.’

He pointed out the two doctors. Jo Harris was Lauren’s best friend, Fraser Cameron Jo’s new fiancé. But he didn’t think Lauren was listening to anything he said, and was it because he was holding her hand that he felt her stiffen?

He turned towards her but her attention was on the stands, where a platform marked the place where the guest of honour would press the button to raise the tree. Tom checked out the people on the platform. Helene Youngman, the local mayor, four councillors, the managers of a few local businesses who donated funds towards the Christmas tree decorations, a youngish bloke in casual gear—was he the new dentist? Cam had heard someone had bought the practice but hadn’t met the man.

Whoever he was, he had a woman and a couple of kids with him. And everyone seemed to know him so maybe he wasn’t the new dentist …

Tom had been so engrossed in checking out the dignitaries on the platform, he hadn’t realised that Lauren had dropped his hand. She had also stopped moving, standing there, a yard or so behind him, seemingly frozen on the spot.

She couldn’t do it! Seeing Nat there with the woman who must be his wife had made Lauren’s stomach turn over—not with remembered love but with remembered fear, and apprehension for the woman she didn’t know. And most of all regret!

She should have spoken out—told someone—anyone …

Got him the help he must have needed, although at seventeen she’d had no idea help existed for men like Nat …

No idea that there were other men like Nat …

Back then she’d blamed herself …

Tom had turned back, taking her hand again, easing her towards the steps, and Jo materialised beside her, grabbing her other hand, the fingers of Jo’s left hand squeezing hers, Jo’s soft voice telling her she could do this, giving her a quick shoulder-to-shoulder hug, although Lauren was usually the hugger.

They climbed the steps to the platform and before Lauren could catch a strengthening breath, Nat was there in front of her.

‘Lauren Cooper,’ he cried as he stepped closer, arms out held for a welcoming hug. ‘Well, probably not Lauren Cooper any more. Far too beautiful not to have been snapped up by some lucky man!’

Her brain misfired, synapses missing, catching in the wrong places, so she answered far too brightly.

‘Hardly snapped up—far too busy playing the field! Wasn’t it you who used to quote that tired old saying about why buy a book when you can join a library?’

She flashed a brilliant smile and pulled Tom forward.

‘Tom’s more a set of encyclopaedia than a single book. Nat Williams, meet Tom Cooper.’ And for extra effect she pressed a kiss on Tom’s cheek, branding it with a scarlet imprint, then reaching into his pocket, her mind reeling at her own outrageous behaviour, to find his handkerchief to wipe it off.

Fortunately for her peace of mind, because she was too shocked by how far she’d already gone to consider any further conversation, Jo’s new fiancé, Cam, was a mad keen surfer and as soon as Jo introduced him to Nat, Cam commandeered the local surfing superstar, edging him away from the little group to talk waves and beaches and barrels and other surfing stuff.

Which left Lauren to face her best friend.

‘What is going on?’ Jo demanded. ‘And don’t tell me Tom knew you were going to introduce him like that. An encyclopaedia from the lending library! You made him sound like a hooker—or whatever the male equivalent of a hooker is. I was looking at him when you said it and he was as shocked as I was.’

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Lauren muttered, not able to even glance in Tom’s direction, fearful of the disgust she might see.

‘No?’ Jo persisted.

‘Of course not! I panicked a bit, that’s all,’ she muttered angrily. ‘Let’s leave it, shall we?’

‘Actually, I thought the encyclopaedia bit was great—heftier, more oomph, than an ordinary novel. And I don’t know what they call the male equivalent of hookers—hooksters, do you think?’

Tom had materialised beside them, taking Lauren’s hand in his and squeezing her fingers in the most comforting way as he joked about Jo’s objections.

Still clasping Lauren’s hand in his big, warm paw, he turned to Jo.

‘Okay, Jo?’

Before Jo could reply—not that there was anything she could say now Tom had taken the wind from her sails—the mayor stepped up to the microphone and was urging everyone to take their seats. Tom tucked his hand beneath Lauren’s elbow and steered her after Jo and Cam towards some spare seats in the fourth row of the temporary stands.

‘I am sorry, Tom,’ Lauren whispered to him. ‘I don’t know what came over me, and Jo was right, I made you sound cheap. The whole scenario was stupid—I can’t believe I fell apart the way I did back at the hospital and put you in that position.’

‘Hush,’ he said. ‘No talking. We’re here to be an audience to the great and good of Crystal Cove, but do feel free to reach into my pocket for a handkerchief any time!’

For the second time in umpteen years, Lauren felt a blush creeping into her cheeks, but before she could apologise again, Tom was shushing her, whispering in her ear that they could talk about it later, not, he’d added, that there was anything to talk about.

Although they would talk, Tom added to himself. Lauren was his friend and for that reason he was very eager to find out just what the golden boy of Australian surfing had done to Lauren in the past to send the normally calm, cool and collected woman into such a panic. The Lauren he’d seen tonight was so unlike the woman he’d come to know during his time in the Cove that he could barely believe it was the same person.

The mayor finished her speech by introducing ‘someone who needs no introduction to most Cove residents, world surfing champion, Nat Williams’.

The crowd gathered in the park and spilling out onto the beach let out a collective roar of approval. It wasn’t often the sleepy seaside hamlet had something to celebrate.

Nat Williams acknowledged the applause very graciously, then brought another roar of approval when he said, ‘It’s great to be home and to see all my old mates again. There’s no place in the world like the Cove.’

In fact, Tom decided as the big tree began to rise into position, it was obvious the people in the crowd were more excited about Nat’s return than about the tree.

He peered down towards the front row of seats, picking out the blond head of the surfing great. Two small children sat beside him, and next to them a lovely brunette, long, dark locks flowing around her shoulders. She stood out from the crowd not only for her good looks but because of her clothes, a long-sleeved shirt and jeans when most of the women present, if they weren’t still in swimming costumes with a sarong wrapped over them, were wearing strappy tops or dresses, minimal clothing as the day had been hot and the nor’ easterly hadn’t come in to bring relief.

He felt Lauren shift on the bench beside him and turned to see that she, too, was looking towards Nat Williams’s wife.

And frowning.

Okay, so putting two and two together was easy enough—they’d had a past relationship, Nat and Lauren—but knowing Lauren as he did, he couldn’t understand that she hadn’t sorted herself out by now. She was one of the most sensible people he knew and her training as a psychologist must surely have helped her move on, but her reaction to the thought of seeing Nat again had been disturbing.

Could she still fancy herself in love with him that she was frowning at his wife?

Well, that might explain why she hadn’t accepted his invitation to go out.

Although he doubted anyone as sensible and together as Lauren could still be clinging to some long-gone love.

Not knowing anything of love except that for its destructive powers, he couldn’t really judge, but he had always pictured it like a fire—yep, a destructive force—but if a fire wasn’t fed it died out—he knew that side of love as well.

So surely Lauren’s feelings for Nat, unnurtured for however many years, should have died out.

His ponderings stopped at that point as an ominous creaking from somewhere beneath the temporary stand warned him of imminent danger. The creak was followed by a screech as if metal components were being wrenched apart.

‘Get everyone off the stands,’ he yelled, as he felt the faintest of movements beneath his feet.

‘And everyone away from underneath or near them.’ Fraser Cameron shouted his own caution. Cam was already guiding Jo towards the side aisle, telling people who were close to the edge on the lower seats to slide under the railing and jump. It wasn’t far, less than two metres, but Cam was obviously thinking of lightening the weight on the straining scaffolding underneath.

Tom urged Lauren to follow Jo, telling her to make sure everyone was clear on that side, then he began ushering the people sitting in front of him off the stands. The important people on the platform, which must have been more stable, were turning around, disbelieving and bewildered by the panic building behind them.

As the noise beneath became more tortured, metal bracing twisting and wrenching from its brackets, the noise above increased, so the aisles were jammed and people were jumping from the top level, way too high, while those on the platform remained in their seats, stunned into immobility by their disbelief that the stands could possibly be collapsing.

Tom thrust through the throng, ignoring yells of protest at his actions, and grabbed Helene, pushing her towards the edge of the platform.

‘Jump,’ he ordered. ‘You’ve all got to jump. If the stands collapse all those behind you will come down on top of you, burying you and suffocating you.’

He grabbed the two Williams children, one under each arm, and hurtled to the edge of the stage, passing them down into the arms of a couple of helpers who’d appeared from the crowd below.

‘Take them as far away as you can and keep people back,’ he said, while behind him he could hear Cam telling people to keep calm, they’d all get off in time.

Which might have happened if the temporary seating hadn’t suddenly swayed sideways, igniting fresh terror in the crowd. They surged forward, leaping over seats, knocking others down, adrenalin kicking in, urging flight from danger.

Tom kept hustling those on the platform to the edge, telling them to jump then run, but fear could sometimes freeze the body so some people just stood, as if unable to hear the urgent message he was giving, so he had to lift and carry them to the edge where others helped them down.

A sudden howl of protest from the scaffolding and the stand collapsed, metal tubing smashing through the wooden seats and steps, the stands twisting, spilling people everywhere, trapping some while pitching others into the air.

Tom grabbed Nat Williams’s wife and leapt, hoping Nat was helping other people, though he suspected the surfing hero had been one of the first to jump, his wife forgotten.

‘Thank you. I must find my children.’

She had a soft American accent and dark shadows beneath her eyes.

Maybe being with Nat wasn’t all that much fun…




CHAPTER TWO


MIKE SINCLAIR, the head of the local police station, materialised in front of Lauren, as she and Jo were urging people away from the collapsed stands.

‘We need to move uninjured people away,’ he said, ‘and set up an area for those injured.’ He indicated an area of the esplanade, already closed to traffic. ‘Jo, if we make this space a triage area, can you stay here and treat minor injuries? The ambulances will come through to here, while Lauren, if you can stay with those who were on the stands but aren’t injured and those who have friends somewhere in that mess. Keep them calm. The Emergency Services people will be here soon—they’ll have bottled water and basic first-aid equipment.’

Lauren understood her role and moved through the crowd, urging the panicking locals back from the stands, helping injured people across to Jo, telling the others to stay clear, comforting tearful women and shocked men, telling children they’d be safe, just to wait over by the tree and their parents would find them soon.

She was doing okay until she found Bobby Sims, rubbing furiously at tears he obviously felt embarrassed about shedding.

Bobby Sims, easily the most disruptive of all the children who were given temporary shelter at the women’s refuge, crying?

‘I’ve lost Mum,’ he told Lauren, at first shaking off her comforting arm but eventually accepting it, and accepting a hug when she knelt in front of him and folded him in her arms.

He pressed close against her for a moment, then he lifted his head to say, ‘She was right there.’

He pointed to where the jumble of metal scaffolding lay heaped with wood and people.

‘Right near it. Greg was under there and he called out to her and she went and then it all fell down.’

Would Joan Sims have responded to a call from the man she was in the refuge to escape?

Lauren didn’t know. She’d been running the women’s refuge for the three years since it opened, and still couldn’t tell which women would go back to the partners who abused them, and which wouldn’t.

In the meantime, there was Bobby …

‘We’ll find your mum,’ Lauren assured him, ‘but while we’re looking, will you help me?’

Bobby’s startled ‘Me?’ suggested no one had ever asked him for help before.

‘Yes, you. You know most of the kids around here from school. A lot of them will be like you—they’ll have become separated from their parents. Go through the crowd and bring any kids who are lost or crying over near the tree. Once you get them there, they can look at the lights and decorations until their parents turn up to find them.’

Bobby seemed to consider objecting to this plan, then he straightened his shoulders and took off, hopefully to do something useful, not set fire to the Christmas tree or try some other devilment.

Lauren continued to herd people away from the stands, but the cries of pain and distress had her turning back towards the scene, checking, seeing Tom there in the thick of it, clambering over twisted metal to tend the injured.

Could the stand collapse further? Tom wondered about it as he lifted people trapped by the metal struts or wooden planks of seating. And had anyone been caught underneath?

Kids often played under scaffolding …

He sent a plea to the fates that this hadn’t been the case and knelt to reach a man caught between two metal seats, apparently trapped.

‘Can you hear me, mate?’ he asked, leaning further in to press his fingers to the man’s carotid.

The man didn’t respond, but his pulse was strong, and movement of his chest told Tom the trapped man was breathing.

Tom used his hands to search for blood. If it wasn’t pulsing out from any part of the man’s body, then the best thing to do was to leave him so the paramedics could stabilise his spine before they shifted him.

‘Can you give me a hand here?’

Tom glanced around to see Cam higher up in the wreckage, bent over another victim—male again.

‘His legs are trapped,’ Cam explained as Tom clambered cautiously across the tumbled seating.

Tom took one look and was about to tell Cam to leave it for the rescue crew when he saw the blood on the man’s thigh. There was no doubt the man’s femur was broken and his femoral artery damaged. They needed to get him out now.

While Cam supported the man, Tom began, cautiously, to shift debris from around him, trying to get at whatever was pinning the man’s legs and trapping his feet.

A twisted prop lay one way, a wooden seat caught beneath it, and below both some scaffolding that hadn’t moved, holding steadfast to its job, just when they needed it to bend a little.

Tom eased himself into a gap he’d found close by until his feet were on the solid scaffold, then he peered down to see if any unfortunate person had been caught below him and found the area was clear.

‘I’m going to jump on this bit and see if I can shake the twisted part free,’ he told Cam. ‘Hold the bloke in case it all gives way.’

Cam didn’t bother with a caution—they both knew if they didn’t get the fellow out he could die before the jaws-of-life equipment arrived and the safety crew made the scaffolding secure enough for them to do their work. They were governed by all kinds of workplace safety regulations but Tom wasn’t.

He grabbed the twisted bar and held it in his hands, then jumped, both feet rising then thumping back on the solid bar. Nothing happened, although he thought he might have felt a faint give in the bar in his hands.

He jumped again and felt the whole tottering edifice sway to one side then the other—sickeningly!

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but looking down he’d seen a lot of the scaffolding still holding in the section directly beneath him so he didn’t think bending the piece beneath his feet would do much more damage than had already been done.

‘One more go,’ he said to Cam, moving so he could stand above the bar he needed to move and jump down onto it. Praying he wouldn’t miss as coming down on it could do him a very painful injury.

Putting that wince-causing image out of his head, he jumped and felt the scaffold give, felt the bar in his hand tear away, so the seat was released and they could get at the man.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing up there? Don’t you know there are experts for that kind of thing? Have you got a hero complex, or perhaps a death wish?’

He turned to see Lauren standing far too close to the devastated stands, hands on hips, the fury in her words visible on her face.

‘Lovely Lauren, don’t tell me you’re concerned for my welfare?’

Lauren didn’t need to look around to know that plenty of locals had heard the exchange. She was sure Tom had known that too, and had said it as revenge for her demented ‘date’ ploy and the encyclopaedia reference. She’d kill him! She’d climb up there and do it now if not for the fact that another person up there might endanger him.

Him?

No, she meant the other people still up there. Cam and whoever he and Tom had been tending.

Didn’t she?

She didn’t have a clue, she just knew that seeing Tom up there jumping on the already damaged scaffolding had sent cold chills through her body and clamped a band of steel around her heart.

‘The kids are all gone now.’

The voice, laden with doom although obviously the message was good, made her turn. Bobby Sims was right behind her, fear and apprehension making his usually bright, mischievous face pale and tense.

‘And I still can’t find Mum.’

The way he said it melted Lauren’s heart. For all his exasperating devilry, Bobby was still a little boy who loved his mother and had been with her through her string of abusive boyfriends.

‘You stay with me, we’ll find her,’ she told him. ‘If she’s not around here, maybe we’ll find her at the hospital. I have to go up there to talk to the people waiting to find out about their friends and family. We’ll get something to eat and drink up there as well. The canteen will be open.’

To Lauren’s surprise, she felt a small hand slip into hers, making her very aware that this wasn’t Bobby, the torment of her life, but a little boy who couldn’t find his mum.

She gave the little hand a squeeze, then knelt in front of him.

‘I’ll look after you, whatever happens, Bobby,’ she promised, drawing him into her arms to give him a comforting hug, repeating the promise that she’d take care of him, rocking him slightly as she offered comfort beyond words.

To her surprise he not only accepted the hug but he hugged her back, although as soon as she felt he’d had enough, she stood up. She led him up the road towards the hospital, following straggling groups of people who were also missing someone they knew or loved, the night silent with shock so the whispering shush as the waves slid onto the sand sounded loud in the darkness.

Once at the hospital, she realised she needed to start sorting people again—telling anyone not injured to wait on the veranda so the nurses on duty and those who had come in when they’d heard of the emergency listed the others according to the severity of their injuries. Jo, Cam, Tom and the other hospital doctor were all at work, Jo and Cam in the ER, working their way through the patients. Tom, Jo explained as she splinted a sprained wrist, was in Theatre with a man with a broken femur.

After checking with the ER manager that Joan Sims hadn’t been brought in, Lauren took Bobby through to the canteen.

‘What would you like to eat?’

For the first time since she’d seen him by the devastated stands, Bobby’s face lit up.

‘I can have any of that stuff?’ he asked, looking at the offerings, hastily prepared, Lauren guessed, in the servery.

‘Go for it,’ Lauren told him. ‘Grab a plate at one end and fill it up with whatever you want, but if you eat too much and throw up you have to clean up the mess.’

‘Me? I’m only eight!’

‘You,’ Lauren confirmed. ‘You’re never too young to learn to do a bit of cleaning.’

She watched as he heaped his plate then put some of his choices back, settled him at a table, told him she’d be on the veranda and to come out there when he finished. She was about to depart when she saw shadows chase across his face and tears well in his eyes.

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I should have something to eat as well. Wait here while I get some food and we’ll eat together then we can both go onto the veranda.’

She grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee and returned to find Bobby had nearly finished his large dinner.

‘There was apple pie there and some chocolate stuff and ice cream,’ he reminded her.

‘Go get some,’ she said, ‘but, remember, not too much.’

She was surprised to see him pick up his plate and carry it over to the servery, something she knew he refused to do at the refuge, telling whichever woman on duty in the kitchen it was a ‘girls’ job’ in tones of such lofty disdain they knew he must be echoing at least one of the men who’d moved through his mother’s life.

Back in the ER things seemed to be more chaotic than ever, but as Joan Sims hadn’t turned up Lauren stopped in her office to phone the police station. She spoke to a civilian helper who’d come in to assist, telling him Bobby Sims was with her if anyone phoned to enquire.

The helper checked his lists.

‘No one’s called us so far,’ he told Lauren, who was beginning to get a really bad feeling about Joan. She looked at Bobby, sitting dejectedly on a couch in the little anteroom where therapy patients waited, and had a brainwave. A lot of the OT and physio patients were kids so there was a TV, DVD player and a stack of DVDs in the small room.

‘Can you work a DVD player?’ she asked Bobby.

‘Course I can,’ he scoffed, then his eyes lit up. ‘Can I watch one of those DVDs?’

He’d obviously seen the shelves of them.

‘They’re all yours,’ Lauren told him. ‘I’ll be just outside on the veranda if you need me.’

She was about to walk away when the image of him standing there in front of the shelf made her turn back. She crossed the office and went into the little room where she gave him a big hug, then knelt so they were on eye level with each other.

‘Are you okay to stick with me until we sort this out?’ she asked him.

He nodded, then for the first time in the turbulent few years that she’d known Bobby he put his arms around her neck and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek.

‘Have fun,’ she whispered in his ear when she’d kissed him back. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

For some weird reason she found she had a lump in her throat and was swallowing it as she came out of the office into the corridor, slap bang into Tom.

‘I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Do you have to be here? Can’t you go home and get some sleep?

Someone should be resting—there’ll be a lot of fall-out over this and plenty of traumatised people for you to have to deal with over the next few days.’

He’d put an arm around her as he spoke and was holding her close enough for her to see the concern in his eyes.

For a moment she felt like Bobby—she wanted to return the light hug he was giving her, return it with interest because a hug was what she needed right now—but she’d already embarrassed Tom enough for one night with her encyclopaedia statement so she stepped away.

Practical Lauren returning!

‘I’m fine. Have you eaten? Should I be rustling up some food for you and Cam and Jo?’

‘We’ve people feeding us all the time,’ Tom assured her, ‘but it will be a long night. At last count there are about thirteen with serious enough injuries to be hospitalised, and another seven or so who need bones set, or stitches in wounds, then there are muscle tears, that kind of thing, strains and sprains.’

‘No fatal injuries?’ Lauren had to ask, although just thinking of it made her cold all over.

Tom closed in on her again, resting his hands on her shoulders.

‘You’re worried about someone in particular?’ he asked, his voice so gentle Lauren had to swallow again.

Unable to speak, she nodded.

He nodded back, his face grave. ‘There’s talk of someone trapped underneath on the road side of the collapse,’ he said. ‘And from what I’ve heard it’s unlikely the person would have survived.’

The pulsing siren of an ambulance stopped the conversation.

‘They’re playing my song,’ Tom said, his voice lightening though his smile was grim, but he didn’t hurry off, pausing instead to give Lauren a real hug—like the one she’d wanted to give him earlier. ‘I’ll catch up with you some time soon,’ he said, and the words sounded like a promise …

The woman was so badly injured Tom wondered if there was any bone in her chest that wasn’t broken, but he had no time for stupid speculation, he needed all his focus on trying to save her.

Crush injuries to the chest were common from appalling road accidents, and Tom knew the only way to deal with them was bit by bit. She had oxygen pumping into her, the pressure low so they didn’t do more damage to her lungs, and her heart was still beating, which in itself was a problem, as it was also pumping blood out of her system through many torn veins and arteries.

‘Sometimes it seems as if more’s coming out than is going in. I’ve got the blood group done and we’ve sent out a call for whole blood but in the meantime the fluids should hold her.’

Tom looked up to see Cam gloved up on the other side of the operating table, ready to assist.

Two hours later they both stepped back, the woman, sadly still anonymous to them, beyond help.

‘Should we have been helping with the other injuries instead of trying to save her?’ Tom said to Cam as they stripped off their gloves and gowns and were washing together at the tub.

‘Jo and your co-worker are handling them all—they were down to minor stuff when I left and I would think they’ve finished now,’ Cam assured him.

They walked together through to the ER where Jo was slumped on a chair beside a couple of nurses, talking to Mike and another policeman. All of them turned towards Cam and Tom, took one look at their faces, and let out a collective sigh.

‘We don’t even know who she was,’ Tom said. He turned to Mike. ‘Do you?’

‘Joan Sims—Jo and Lauren know her from the refuge. Apparently she’s got a little boy.’

‘Bobby Sims,’ Tom said, remembering with sadness his and Lauren’s conversation about the rebel earlier. ‘I’ve met him before but he’s always come in with a teacher or someone from the refuge so I hadn’t met his mother. Where is Bobby now?’

‘He’s asleep in the little waiting room off Lauren’s office,’ Jo told him. ‘Now all the other people who came in have been patched and matched and those not hospitalised have gone home, Lauren’s in there with him.’

Tom turned and headed for the therapists’ office, his mind on the small boy. He must have a father, although maybe Joan Sims had been escaping abuse by someone else.

Would the child be safe?

He felt a shudder, as if the floor had moved beneath his feet, and shadows of the past flew by like phantoms in the night.

Of course Bobby Sims would have family …

Lauren was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands, exactly as she had been earlier—however long ago this afternoon had been.

‘Bobby?’ Tom asked as he came into the room.

Lauren nodded towards the alcove and Tom walked quietly towards it and stood a minute, looking down at the sleeping child. He had sandy-coloured hair rough cut and tousled and a serious over-bite that would need braces before too long, but, like all sleeping children, he looked so innocent Tom had to brace himself against the pain.

‘His mother died—we couldn’t save her,’ he said, returning to slump into the chair he’d left in front of Lauren’s desk earlier.

‘I was kind of expecting that. Mike came in earlier,’ Lauren responded. ‘He said she had horrific injuries.’

‘Will you take Bobby back to the refuge until someone finds his family?’ He wasn’t sure why he’d asked, although it probably had a lot to do with the phantoms that had flashed by.

Lauren looked up at him, her eyes dark with concern.

‘I couldn’t do that to him, Tom,’ she said softly. ‘I couldn’t put him in there with other kids who have their mothers. I promised him I’d look after him. I’ve all but finished my hospital and private work now until mid-January and when I have to be at the refuge, I can probably take him or get Jo to mind him, but the problem is my flat’s so tiny and there’s no yard and he’s a little boy who needs lots of space. I could take him out to the family farm but my brother and his family and my parents are all away for a couple of weeks—spending Christmas with my sister in Melbourne. I was to go too, but—well, you know how low on funds we are at the refuge, and I’ve cut the staff and … ‘

Tom frowned down at her.

‘That doesn’t mean you should be working yourself to death there,’ he muttered. ‘But that’s not the point, I can understand you taking Bobby home tonight, but surely you don’t have to worry about a yard for him to play in—he’ll have family somewhere.’

Lauren stared at the man across her desk. Eighteen months she’d known Tom, worked with him, attended various committee meetings with him, thought she knew him as a friend, yet there was a strange note in his voice now—one she couldn’t quite put her finger on—not panic, certainly, but some kind of disturbing emotion.

However, whatever was going on in his head, she needed to answer him.

‘Joan never named Bobby’s father, perhaps she didn’t know, and Greg, the most recent of the men she’s lived with, is violent,’ she reminded him. ‘Like a lot of women in abusive relationships, Joan had cut herself off from her family, or they from her. Oh, Mike and his people will try to trace relations, but there’s more.’

She took a deep, steadying breath.

‘Bobby saw Greg in the stands right before the collapse. He was calling to Joan, and she went—’

‘This man was underneath the stands? Did you tell Mike?’

Lauren nodded.

‘He wasn’t killed or injured there … ‘

She watched as Tom computed the information she’d just shared.

‘Is Mike thinking—?’

‘They won’t know until the workplace health and safety people inspect the wreckage, but Mike’s been to Greg’s place—he’s not there, or at any of the pubs. They’re looking for him.’

A wave of tiredness so strong it was like a blow swept over her, and she shook her head.

‘I can’t think any more tonight. Best I get Bobby and myself home.’

‘Stay at my place,’ Tom offered. ‘I’ve three bedrooms, plenty of yard for Bobby to play in, and I can dig out some toiletries and hospital night attire for you both as well. You don’t want to be driving when you’re as tired as you are, and if Bobby’s still asleep you’ll never get him up the steps to your flat.’

Lauren stared at the man across the desk from her, wondering just what the offer meant, then realising it was nothing more than the kindness of a friend.

She felt a tiny stab of regret that it wasn’t something more, but shook the thought away. As if it could be that …

She even managed a smile as she made a far-too-weak protest.

‘You don’t have to do that for me,’ she said. ‘Especially after I was so rude about you earlier.’

He grinned at her and the stab deepened.

‘I rather liked the encyclopaedia reference, not to mention putting the surf god in his place.’

‘I doubt that,’ Lauren told him, but the regret she’d felt earlier was turning to guilt …

‘Come on,’ Tom added. ‘I’ll show you where the hospital emergency packs are, or do you know?’

‘I know,’ Lauren told him, pleased to have something concrete to grasp hold of. ‘I often bring in women who have left home with nothing.’

Tom nodded, so much understanding in his eyes she felt like crying, or maybe asking for another hug, but such weakness was definitely exhaustion so she hustled off to get some toiletries and night gear for herself and Bobby. She returned with her haul to find Tom had lifted the sleeping boy and was carrying him along the corridor towards the side door that was closest to his house.

Tom’s house was the official hospital residence, built in the same style as the hospital with wide verandas on three sides, all of them providing glimpses of the ocean. As Lauren walked through the door she tried to think if she’d ever been inside the house before. She’d been to the house often enough, invited to drinks or a barbecue with other friends, but they’d always sat on the veranda.

The living room was comfortably furnished, very neat and tidy, the only thing out of place a folded newspaper resting on the arm of a leather lounge chair. It was off to the left of the central passageway, doors on the right obviously opening into bedrooms.

Tom pushed the second door with his foot and it opened to show a pristinely neat bedroom, a single bed set in the middle, an old polished timber wardrobe on one side and French doors opening to the veranda on the other.

‘Do you want to wake him to do his teeth and change his clothes or should we just let him sleep?’

Lauren considered the question—letting the little boy sleep was obviously the best solution, but he might wake and not know where he was.

‘Not that I want to hurry you or anything but my arms might give way any minute,’ Tom said, and though there was a smile in the words Lauren knew Bobby must have grown very heavy in his arms.

‘I think we’ll let him sleep,’ she said, and she slipped past Tom and his burden and turned down the bed, then, when Tom put Bobby down on the clean sheet, she slid off his rubber flip-flops and pulled the top sheet over him.

Tom came forward and turned on a bedside light, using a button to dim it.

‘All mod cons in this place,’ he said, then he touched the little boy on the head and hesitated for a few seconds before following Lauren out of the room.

‘Your bedroom is this way,’ he said, pushing open the next door. ‘There’s a bathroom just beyond it, towels in a cabinet behind the door. Do you need anything else? Would you like a drink of some kind?’

Lauren shook her head, then common sense dictated she should ask.

‘I don’t suppose you’d have a blow-up mattress or a comfortable lounger? I’d like to sleep beside him in case he wakes up in the night and doesn’t know where he is.’

Tom smiled at her.

‘Great minds,’ he said. ‘I was intending to do just that, but if you’re sure then it would be better for you to do it as he doesn’t really know me except as someone who causes him pain when he lands in the ER after one of his wilder pranks. I do have a blow-up mattress from far-off camping days. I’ll get it.’

He was about to walk away, but Lauren caught his arm so he turned back to her.

‘Why?’ she asked, adding, when she saw the puzzled expression on his face, ‘Why were you thinking of staying with him?’

Tom’s smile was gone, his face now pale and grim, although it would be. It was well after midnight and he must be exhausted.

‘I was Bobby once,’ he said softly, then he slipped his arm away from her fingers and disappeared back along the passage and into what must be the front bedroom.

His bedroom!

I was Bobby once?

What did he mean?

And why was it suddenly very important to Lauren that she find out? Find out all she could about the enigmatic man she’d thought she knew …

Why had he said that?

Lauren was a psychologist—she’d want an explanation for a statement like that.

But would she ask?

Lauren, his friend, would have, but this Lauren was different.

Because he’d seen vulnerability in her for the first time in the eighteen months he’d known her?

Because he felt, not exactly proud, but somehow pleased that she’d trusted him enough to show that vulnerability?

So he’d shared a bit of his?

Oh, please! Enough with the psychological delving.

He reached up on top of his wardrobe for his old backpack, assuming his blow-up mattress would still be shoved inside or strapped to it. He hoped the rubberised material hadn’t rotted. If it had, Lauren was in for an uncomfortable night. Perhaps the reclining lounge chair would be more comfortable for her, although they would probably wake Bobby trying to manoeuvre it into the bedroom, and would it fit?

He tried very hard to concentrate on these nice trivial matters, but in his head the image of a little boy, younger than Bobby by a couple of years, tucked into a strange bed in a strange room—the first of a series of strange beds in strange rooms …

‘Tom? Can I help?’

Lauren was in the doorway and it was obvious he’d dithered for so long she’d had time to have a shower for her hair clung in damp tendrils to her neck, and she was wearing what must be one of the ugliest nightdresses ever created. A vague purple colour, faded from much washing, it had something he assumed were bunches of flowers printed all over it, and it hung, shapeless as a deflated balloon, from her shoulders.

‘Fetching, isn’t it?’ she said, smiling at the thoughts she’d obviously guessed he was having. ‘Maybe the hospital insists on the design—it’d work better than an old-fashioned chastity belt for randy staffers.’

Though not for him, Tom discovered. Standing there in his bedroom door, freshly showered, totally exhausted but still so temptingly beautiful, his body would probably have reacted if she’d been wearing a suit of armour.

‘You’d look good in a wheat sack,’ he told her, hefting the whole backpack down from the top of the wardrobe and turning his attention to finding the mattress, shaking his head in frustration when it failed to materialise.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m so tired I could sleep on a barbed-wire fence. It’s a warm night so if you wouldn’t mind lending me that puffy-looking duvet you have on your bed I can fold it, probably in three—is that a king-size bed?—and it will be fine.’

Looking at the bed was a mistake. He immediately pictured Lauren in it. And it was a king-size bed but right now he didn’t want to think about why he used a bed that size, let alone explain it.

‘Okay,’ he said, realising that the sooner he got Lauren tucked away in Bobby’s bedroom the sooner he could sort through the craziness inside his head.

Could he put it all down to seeing Bobby in that neatly made single bed?

Of course he couldn’t. It had started back with Lauren’s groan, and the strange sensation of … satisfaction? … he’d felt when she’d asked him to stand by her.

Not to mention his determination to find out more about the vulnerability he’d glimpsed in the woman he’d thought was so together.

He’d stalled again, standing in the bedroom, only vaguely aware of Lauren walking past him and hefting the duvet from his bed. He reached out to take it from her, but as he touched her arm she dropped it, and stepped over it so she was close enough to hug.

For him to hug her, although it didn’t happen that way.

It was Lauren who moved closer, Lauren who put her arms around him, slipping her hands beneath his shoulders so she could reach around his body, then she hugged him tightly to her, her head pressed against his chest, a whispered ‘Thank you for being there for me tonight’ rising up into his ears.

Then, just as he was certain she’d feel his body’s unacceptable reaction to the embrace, she pulled away, picked up the duvet from the floor, and left the room.




CHAPTER THREE


LAUREN shouldn’t have hugged him, she knew. Of course she shouldn’t, especially not without asking, but his words had sounded so bleak and there’d been such sadness lingering in his eyes as she’d stood at the bedroom door that she’d been unable to resist.

The problem was that now, lying on his folded duvet, smelling the man that had permeated it, she could still feel the tremors of—what, attraction?—that hugging him had startled into life. Tremors she hadn’t felt in years but still recognised for what they were—definitely attraction!

In truth, she had always been attracted to Tom—what woman wouldn’t be?—which was why she’d never accepted any of the invitations he’d offered when he’d first arrived in town. Attraction led down pathways she didn’t want to follow. Attraction led to trouble …

And disappointment.

Even disgust from one man she’d gone out with—a man who’d called her names that shamed her even now to think about, a man who had been disgusted when she’d tried to explain it was terror that had stopped her, not a desire to tease and walk away, definitely not a wish to anger him in any way …

Go to sleep, she told herself, trying to shut down her mind, knowing she’d need to be ready for anything the following day. Above her on the bed, Bobby stirred, and Lauren reached up to touch his arm, talking quietly to him, telling him she was there and she’d look after him, although she knew he’d probably moved in his sleep and couldn’t hear her words.

It was enough of a reminder of her responsibility to Bobby that it enabled her, at last, to stop thinking about tremors of attraction, and Tom, and the past, and drift into a deep sleep.

They were both still sleeping when Tom looked into the bedroom at eight the following morning. The revolting nightdress had ridden up so he could see Lauren’s long, slim, tanned legs curled into the folds of his faded navy duvet.

Could he wake up to Lauren underneath that covering? he wondered. Wake up close to her, not practically falling off the edge of his big bed the way he always had when women shared it?

He shook his head at the way his mind was working. It was lack of sleep, and the uncertainty of the outcome of the collapse of the stands, not to mention Bobby’s future, that was making him think things he shouldn’t think. He should go across to the hospital to see the patients they’d admitted, but he knew someone would have phoned him if he’d been needed and, besides, he was reluctant to leave the house without letting Lauren know where he was.

Somehow the sleeping woman and boy had become his responsibilities, and he, who’d shied away deliberately from any responsibility outside his work, was finding it strange but no less binding for that.

They’d have to stay—

‘Good morning? Have you been standing there all night? Scared one of us would wake up and pinch the silver while you slept?’

He looked down to see Lauren smiling up at him, golden hair tousled around her head, looking so unutterably beautiful and desirable his body did its unacceptable reaction thing again.

‘Well?’ the beautiful desirable woman on the floor prompted.

‘I just poked my head around the door to see if anyone was awake. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’

He had to move, get away, stop looking at her, so he hoped she’d say yes to liquid refreshment, but instead she shook her head, said a brief, ‘No thank you,’ then sat up and checked Bobby as she spoke.

‘But we do need to talk,’ she added quietly, standing so the nightdress hem fell down to cover those long, slim legs most discreetly, and walking quietly towards him.

He led the way into the living room, knowing she’d want to stay within earshot of Bobby.

‘So talk,’ he said, and smiled when she stared at him, confusion in her beautiful eyes.

‘Well,’ she finally said, frowning at him now, ‘I’m not sure where to start. Bobby first, of course, and probably we don’t have to talk about him because Mike might have found some relatives but I’d be—I’d be unhappy about letting him go into care if there are no relatives—not right now anyway. And I know I’m not making much sense but Bobby’s had a rough time of things lately, and somehow I’d like to think that even though he’s lost his mother, once he’s over that initial grief, his life might get better.’

The rush of words stopped abruptly and she looked directly at him, her gaze so deliberate Tom wasn’t altogether surprised when she asked, ‘What happened to you? Back when you were Bobby? Will you tell me? It’s not idle curiosity, I hope you know that, but if you’ve been where he is now, then maybe your experience will help.’

Lauren guessed immediately that he wasn’t going to tell her. It was as if he’d lowered shutters on his face, right there while she was watching him.

The memories must be bad—really bad for him to shut her out like that—and a tremendous sense of guilt that she’d pried swept through her.

Without further thought, she got up from her chair and went to sit on the arm of his, resting her hand on his shoulder.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she assured him. ‘I should have known better than to ask. It was just that Bobby—well, you don’t have to say anything and maybe I will have a cup of tea and if you don’t mind staying here to listen for him, I can probably find my way around your kitchen and fix it for myself, would you like one?’

The words rattled out, her uneasiness added to by the tension she could feel beneath her fingers, Tom’s muscles as tight as steel hawsers. But as she stood, desperate to escape the terrible atmosphere in the room—the atmosphere she had caused—he caught her hand and pulled her back and she landed in his lap, her face close enough to see the lines of tiredness in his face and read memories he didn’t want to think about in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, touching that ravaged face.

‘Don’t be,’ he said, then he put his head down on her shoulder, slipped his arms around her body, and just rested there, holding her, until she felt his body relax and his lips, surprisingly, move against the skin on her shoulder in what felt like a kiss.

He lifted his head—it couldn’t have been a kiss—and looked her in the eye.

‘Do you believe in fate?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘well, not entirely. I don’t think every single thing in our lives happens for a reason, if that’s what you mean by fate.’

‘Neither do I, but with Bobby coming into our lives right now, I have to wonder.’

Our lives? Lauren thought, but she didn’t query it out loud. Tom had something he wanted to say and she didn’t want to divert his train of thought, although ‘our lives’ had brought her tremors back again and, given that she was still sitting on his knee, the tremors were likely to get the wrong idea.

‘My parents and my older sister were killed in a car accident when I was six. I survived and was taken in by Children’s Services until a relative was found—a grandmother I’d never met because my parents had been cut off from their families. Cue violins for real Romeo and Juliet family feud scenario but they didn’t die tragically young, my parents. They lived on to have two children then died.’

Lauren rested against him, wanting to hug him as she’d hugged Bobby, wanting to hug the six-year-old orphan Tom had been, but she held back, wary of distracting him from a story that sounded rusty, as if it was a long time since it had been told—if ever …

‘It didn’t work out with Grandmother, so Children’s Services were called in again—and again, and again, and again. I wasn’t the kind of kid foster-families liked—not quiet and biddable and appreciative of all they were doing for me. I was rebellious and loud and full of hate and denial. When I was fifteen I finally got lucky with some foster-parents who ignored all the horrible bits of me, and concentrated on some glimmer of good that no one else had found. Perhaps I hadn’t had it earlier, I don’t know. They were kind people—all of them were kind, in fact—but these two encouraged me to put all my anger and energy into my school work, hence the doctor you see before you.’

Long pause.

Should she break the silence?

But how?

Her mind had gone on strike back when he’d said ‘Grandmother’ and Lauren had envisaged a stern, upright woman who didn’t know how to handle a bereft little boy …

A granny or a nana might have known—would have known for sure—but a grandmother?

Unable to think of a single thing to say, Lauren rested against this man she’d never known existed inside the Tom she did know, and hoped her closeness might ease some of the pain this delving into his past had caused.

He didn’t seem to object. In fact, his arms tightened around her and they sat in warm, comfortable silence, and maybe would have sat like that all day had Bobby not let out a yell from the bedroom, which sent her scooting off Tom’s knee and hurrying in that direction.

‘Hi, Bobby,’ she said as she walked into the bedroom, her heart aching as she looked at the sleep-rumpled little boy.




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