‘So we’ll expect you at, say…‘ Nigel McLeod checked his watch ‘…ten-thirty?’
She nodded in resignation, a sigh escaping her lips. ‘Ten-thirty it is.’
Fran put her shopping in the boot of her car but didn’t notice the parking infringement ticket tucked under her left-hand windscreen wiper until she was behind the wheel with the engine already running.
She sucked in a breath and got out of the car. Limping across, she snatched up the ticket, peering at the officer’s signature at the bottom. The handwriting was virtually impossible to read, but she could make out an H and a K without
any difficulty. She seethed with anger as she got back behind the wheel. She had just enough time to take her shopping back to the house before going down to the station to have it out with Sergeant Jacob Hawke.
‘You have a visitor, Sarg,’ Nathan Jeffrey announced via the intercom.
‘Who is it?’ Jacob asked as he lifted the ice pack off his eye, wincing when he saw he was still bleeding high on his cheekbone.
He hadn’t expected Wayne Clark to be quite so aggressive about his bald tyres.
Jacob knew things were tough on some of the locals who tried to make a living off the land backing onto the bay. Wayne was one of them. The rain that fell on the coast didn’t always fall on the hinterland. Like Jim Broderick, Wayne had lost his wife, not from death but from desertion to another man, leaving him with a son who had a record of petty crime and a daughter who had played truant more days from school than she had attended during the last term.
‘Dr Nin,’ Nathan said.
Jacob gave an inward groan. That was just what he needed right now. ‘Send her in,’ he said, holding the pack to his throbbing eye again.
Fran stepped into the office and frowned when she saw the ice pack on Jacob’s face. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.
He looked at her with one steely eye. ‘Nothing that should concern you since you’re so determined not to practise medicine.’
She gave him a slitted-eye look. ‘Which you have very cleverly circumvented by making it virtually impossible for me to refuse to conduct at least one clinic, if not more.’
He leaned back in his chair, the ice pack on his eye like a pirate patch. ‘I take it our hard-working mayor, Nigel McLeod, has been putting the hard word on you.’
She planted her hands on her hips. ‘No doubt at your command.’
He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’
She stared at him, her mouth set in a tight line. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He leaned back and pressed the pack even more firmly against his eye. ‘This town needs a doctor but if you feel you’re not up to the task then that’s fine. The last thing we need around here is someone who is less than enthusiastic or—worse—lacking in confidence.’
Fran bristled, trying to hold on to her temper. ‘I
will
do the clinic but only once and only because there are patients waiting there for me, not because you’ve engineered it.’
He put the ice pack on his desk. ‘I had nothing to do with engineering anything.’
She tried to stare him down but she couldn’t help noticing how the cut on his cheekbone just below his eye was seeping a slow but steady trickle of blood. He was going to have a bruiser, if she was any judge.
‘How did you get that?’ she asked.
‘One of the perks of the job,’ he quipped. ‘Believe me, today has been a good day.’
She rolled her eyes before she could stop the impulse. ‘You should get that checked. It might need stitching.’
He leaned back even further in his chair, the leather creaking in protest. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said, reapplying the cold pack as he crossed one ankle over his muscular thigh. ‘Now, what did you want to see me about?’
Fran slapped the parking infringement notice on the desk
in front of him. ‘If this is how you do things around here then you’re going exactly the wrong way about convincing me to commit to this community,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect a police officer of your rank to be so petty.’
His eyes briefly scanned the notice before meeting hers. ‘You do the crime, Dr Nin, you pay the fine.’
She ground her teeth and, snatching up the notice, tore it into shreds, letting them scatter like snowflakes on his desk. ‘So book me, Sergeant Hawke,’ she challenged him.
Jacob put the ice pack on his desk and, pushing back his chair, got to his feet. ‘You seem pretty convinced I wrote that ticket,’ he said, holding her stormy gaze.
She curled her top lip at him. ‘You’re going to deny it?’
‘I am not the only cop in town, Dr Nin,’ he reminded her.
She tilted her chin, her eyes still flashing at him. ‘Maybe so, but I bet there isn’t another J. Hawke, is there?’
‘No, there’s not,’ he said. ‘There is, however, a John Hank.’
Her blue-grey eyes widened for a second before dropping to the little snowstorm on his desk. ‘Oh…’
‘I can ask him to show you the duplicate,’ Jacob offered. ‘But either way, if you parked in the wrong zone you need to pay the fine.’
Her eyes slowly came back to his, her tongue sweeping over her lips in a tell-tale movement of discomfiture. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just when I saw the J and the H and the K, I assumed it was your signature.’
‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ he acknowledged.
Her eyes went to the shredded ticket on his desk again. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. ‘I’ll clean this up for you. It won’t take a—’
Jacob put his hand down over her smaller one, pinning it to the desk. ‘Leave it.’
Fran looked into his unusual blue eyes, her heart giving a little stumble. She glanced down at the desk. His hand dwarfed hers, his long fingers warm and dry and determined. Her mind began to wander…to imagine how it would feel to have his long, strong body pinning hers beneath his, to have his warm, beautifully sculpted mouth feasting hungrily on hers, to have his hands shape her breasts, each one in turn, exploring the tightly budded nipples, bringing his hot, moist mouth down, licking, stroking, sucking on her until she writhed with pleasure.
‘Um…I should go now…’ she said, trying to slide her fingers out from under his.
Like right now.
‘Wait.’ The pressure of his hand was firm but not brutally so.
Fran could feel the slightly rougher skin on the pads of his fingers, as if he was no stranger to manual work. She suddenly thought of each of her past boyfriends, none of whom had seemed able to change a toilet roll, let alone a tyre.
Sergeant Jacob Hawke looked the sort of man who could do just about anything, like make her think thoughts she had no right to be thinking. Dangerous thoughts, thoughts of furnace-hot kisses and sensually stroking hands…
‘Forget about the parking fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort it out with Senior Constable Hank.’
She looked back into his eyes, her lips feeling as if his dark-rimmed gaze had scorched the moist surface of her mouth. God knew what would happen if his lips touched hers, she thought, glancing at his mouth as the tip of her tongue quickly darted out to moisten her own. She would probably sizzle like a fried egg on a hot tin roof.
‘Er…that’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘But I don’t mind paying my dues, really. It’s the law, as you say, and I did stay
a bit longer than the time on the sign…or at least only a couple of minutes but I’m used to parking meters in the city so I guess things are different down…down…here…’
Fran lost track of what she was saying. The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding but she could see the slight swelling around his eye, a hint of a bruise already making its way to the surface of his tanned skin.
‘Um…would you like me to dress that for you?’ she asked. ‘It’s stopped bleeding but it probably needs cleansing to avoid infection.’
‘There’s no need,’ he said, removing his hand from hers. ‘I’ll see to it myself.’
‘Fine then,’ she said, readjusting her handbag strap on her shoulder as she stepped back from the desk on legs that felt like those of a string puppet’s. ‘I’m…er…sorry to have taken up so much of your time.’
‘Not at all.’
There was a silence, broken only by the sound of the clock ticking on the wall behind Jacob’s desk.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
‘Do you fancy a drink after work this evening?’ he asked.
Fran blinked. ‘Um…pardon?’
‘A drink at the pub after work,’ he said. ‘You and me and two glasses, usually with something alcoholic in them, but it’s not mandatory—the alcohol, I mean.’
She continued to stare at him. ‘You’re…you’re asking me on a…on a date?’
His expression and his tone seemed to communicate a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, which irked her.
The last thing she needed was a date with a man she didn’t
even like. Attractive he might be, but unlike some of her peers she was not interested in casual dates to fill in the time. She could just imagine what he would expect from her at the end of the evening, but that was one game she wasn’t going to play. Perhaps he thought she was desperate for a date on account of her limp. When she’d first come out of hospital a workman had called out something rude to her as she’d hobbled past a building site on her crutches, and ever since she had struggled with her self-esteem, seeing every man’s interest as pity rather than genuine interest.
Fran straightened to her full height which, without heels, meant she had to crick her neck to meet his gaze. ‘Actually, I am busy tonight,’ she said, and stood there, waiting for him to suggest the following night, but he said nothing.
The ensuing silence throbbed for several seconds, as if an invisible finger had reached up and stopped the second hand on the clock.
Fran felt the heat begin to crawl like a slow-moving tide from her neck to her cheeks. ‘Um…I’d better go,’ she said. ‘I apparently have patients waiting for me.’
He gave a nod without saying anything, his arms now folded against his chest, his hips leaning against the filing cabinet, the gunbelt around his lean waist like a menacing third presence in the room.
‘Have a nice day, Sergeant Hawke,’ she said as she turned to leave.
He didn’t say a word.
Not a
single
word.
Damn him.
Triple damn him.
Fran closed the door and walked past Nathan Jeffery with a stiff smile pasted on her face. ‘Have a nice day, Constable.’
‘You too, Dr Nin,’ he said with a friendly smile. ‘It’s great you’re filling in down at the clinic, by the way. My girlfriend is booked in to see you this morning.’
‘I’ll look forward to meeting her,’ Fran said, and with another tight smile left.
As soon as Fran turned off the engine outside the clinic she felt her body break out in a cold sweat. She looked at her hands where they were still gripping the steering-wheel, each of her knuckles looking like they were going to break through her skin. She tried to control her breathing, in and out, slowly, thinking of peaceful, calming things, but nothing helped. She felt nauseous, hot and clammy and, winding down the window, she gulped in some fresh air.
Still sitting inside the car, she looked at the clinic, taking in its cottage-like appearance, which should have been of some comfort but unfortunately wasn’t. The clinic was painted white with grey trim and a small recently painted white picket fence surrounded the block. A peppercorn tree provided some shade on one side and a wattle tree on the other. There was a pair of magpies chortling to each other in the wattle tree and a soldier bird was picking at some crumbs near the rubbish bin at the side of the cottage. It was as far away from a frantically busy city A and E department as could be, and yet Fran’s heart was beating like a drum in staccato.
After a few more minutes she opened the car door and eased her legs out, taking her time, mentally taking the steps to the front door.
She could do this.
It would be hard but she could do it.
She had to start somewhere. This was going to be a lot easier than a busy city hospital. Way easier.
As she stood, waiting for her legs to steady enough to negotiate the pathway to the front door of the clinic, she saw a police car take the corner at breakneck speed, the blue light flashing and the siren blazing as the vehicle sped past the clinic, whipping up a cloud of dust in its wake.
The flashing lights and piercing siren of the volunteer fire engine that came around the same corner at a slightly lower speed did nothing to help Fran’s already jittery nerves. Her brain exploded with flashbacks, zigzags of light blinded her, she could hear raised voices, screaming voices, one louder and higher and more terrified than the rest. And then there were the footsteps racing down the corridor, squeaky nurses’ shoes, and heavy ones…
She clutched at her chest where her heart seemed to be intent on pushing its way out of her body, her eyes clamped shut against the images that haunted her.
Breathe.
All she had to do was breathe and it would all pass…
‘Dr Nin?’ a female voice called out to her from the pavement.
Fran opened her eyes and vaguely registered a middle-aged woman looking at her with wide-eyed concern. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said, swallowing back nausea. ‘I…I have the most appalling headache. I…I won’t be able to do the clinic…I’m so sorry…’
She stumbled back to the car and got behind the wheel in a tangle of limbs that was as ungainly as it was painful.
The clinic receptionist—or at least that was who Fran assumed it was by the uniform and name badge the woman was wearing—rushed to the driver’s door. ‘Do you really think you should be driving, Dr Nin?’ she asked, frowning. ‘I can get someone to take you home if you like.’
‘No…Please,’ Fran insisted, pulling down the seat belt, strangely comforted by the security it offered in her disordered state. ‘I’m fine. It’s not far. I wouldn’t have driven at all except…well…I’m sorry…I have to go…‘
‘You take care of yourself, dear,’ Linda Brew said, patting the window panel. ‘The patients will understand. I’ll make another booking for another day. How about tomorrow, is that all right?’
Fran was beyond thinking of going through all this again and mumbled something in reply as she started the car. She backed out and drove back to Caro’s house as slowly as she could without drawing too much attention to herself.