The Secret Doctor (10 page)

‘I think he's working on something,' Lacey told her. ‘When he's working he gets so absorbed in what he's doing that everything else falls by the wayside. I took him a tray of food… I doubt we'll see anything more of him tonight.'

Grace smiled. ‘At least he stopped long enough to say hello.'

‘True.' Lacey sampled the crispy lettuce and red peppers. ‘We should plan some outings for you now that you're down here. We could try a trip in a glass-bottomed boat—I expect the children will love that.'

‘Yes, they will, if Tom can stay still long enough and not fall overboard,' Grace said with a meaningful look in his direction. ‘He's a terror these days…into every
thing. I'm having a job keeping a lid on him…he's so exuberant.'

She said it with vehemence, but Lacey knew she thought the world of her offspring, all the same. Grace had always been serene, much like her name in character, and motherhood hadn't changed that. She had fair hair and beautiful blue eyes, and her temperament was easygoing, with love of her children shining through.

‘Obviously, he gets that from his father,' Lacey chuckled. ‘They even share the same colouring, with brown hair and grey eyes. Matt was always a go-getter, wasn't he? What's he up to now?'

‘He had to stop off in Miami for business meetings, and then he's going to Key Largo to set up the new offices. He's aiming to join us by the end of the week, but he wants me to go over there on Friday to meet up with a few of his colleagues and their wives.' She frowned. ‘I said I'd try, but it will be a little difficult with the children in tow. I suppose I could arrange for them to go to a supervised play centre for a while.'

‘Or they could stay with me,' Lacey offered. ‘I'm not working on Friday, so there's no problem there.'

Grace gave her a hug. “You're such a good sister to me. I love you to bits.'

Lacey grinned. ‘Of course, I might not be so keen to offer another time, once I've spent a few hours on my own with them. They were much younger and easier to manage last time I did that.'

They talked for a while longer, watching the sun sink down below the horizon. The children came back at
intervals to help themselves to food, and it was only after their third foray into the garden that Lacey realised the dog was no longer with them.

‘Toby, come back here,' Grace called. She was frowning. ‘He doesn't usually stray far from Tom's side. I hope he hasn't managed to get himself caught up in the mangroves. Honestly, sometimes that dog is every bit as inquisitive as Tom. He's always getting into scrapes.'

The children went off in all directions, calling the dog, but even though they waited a while, he didn't return.

‘I'll go and look for him,' Lacey told Grace. ‘Let me have his leash so that I can bring him back. Do you want to stay here with the children? I'm a bit more familiar with the layout of the place. Anyway, he might come back to you while I'm off searching.'

‘Yes, that's true.' Grace handed over the leash. ‘The children can go and set things out in their room.'

‘I'm going with you,' Tom said, looking at Lacey. ‘I want to see Toby. He doesn't know his way around and he might be frightened.'

Grace nodded. ‘All right. You go with Lacey. I'm sure he's just enjoying the sights and smells around here. I'll go and help Cassie unpack.'

Lacey and Tom hurried off in search of the dog. They called him and shone torches into shadowy corners, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Then they heard a faint yelp, followed by a barrage of excited barks.

‘The sound's coming from over there,' Lacey said, turning towards the woods. ‘He's probably found a gecko, or something like that.'

‘Or it might be a baby turtle near the water.' Tom's grey eyes lit up. ‘Toby flips them over on their backs so they can't go away. I think he wants to play with them, but they just wave their legs in the air and I have to turn them over again.'

‘I can see Toby's a dog to be reckoned with,' Lacey murmured. Two of a kind, wasn't that how Grace had put it?

‘Let's go and see what he's up to, shall we?' They walked quickly in the direction of the noise, but Lacey was dismayed to find that Toby had followed a trail that led unswervingly onto Jake's land. There was a break in the fence where he must have slipped through, and as they approached the border between the two properties, the barking became louder.

Then Lacey heard Jake's voice. ‘Stay there,' he said in a sharp tone, and for a moment she thought he was talking to her, until she realised that he couldn't possibly see her through the greenery.

‘
Leave it
, I said.
Stay
.' Jake was beginning to sound exasperated. ‘Don't you know any commands at all?
Sit.
'

Lacey ventured through the gap in the fence, lifting the wire so that Tom could follow. They walked along a winding path until they came upon a small copse, and beyond that was a cultivated area, filled with flowering shrubs whose fragrance floated on the air.

Hibiscus petals lay all around among the trampled debris of several shrubs and Jake was standing on a crazy-paving path, glowering at the dog. Toby, though, appeared to be completely nonchalant about the situa
tion. He was far more interested in a green iguana, about two feet long, which was facing him. There was clearly a stand-off between the two animals.

Feeling cornered, the iguana extended and displayed the dewlap under its neck. It stiffened and puffed up its body, hissed and began to bob its head.

Toby took a step nearer, and Jake said briskly, ‘I said,
Stay
.'

Toby looked uncertain for a moment, panting excitedly, his attention clearly divided between Jake and the iguana. The iguana won. The dog moved towards it once more, and the iguana, backed into a corner by a nearby outcrop of rocks, lashed its tail and bared its teeth. The hissing became more and more aggressive and Toby began to bark loud enough to wake the people in the next county.

Annoyed now, Jake moved swiftly and grabbed his collar. ‘You're an idiot dog,' he said tersely, dragging him away from the enemy and putting a healthy distance between them. ‘Carry on like that and you'll end up at the vet's surgery with teeth marks all over your foolish hide.'

‘He's not an idiot!' Tom exclaimed in an indignant tone. ‘You're nasty. I don't like you.'

‘Really?' Jake's gaze focussed on the boy. ‘I take it this is your dog?'

‘Yes, he is. You're a bad man. You shouted at my dog. He doesn't like being shouted at.'

‘And I don't like my shrubs being trampled and eaten and my fences broken down,' Jake answered briskly.

Lacey watched the new stand-off between man and boy. The iguana, she noticed, had slipped away into the night once the danger was over.

‘Tom,' she said quietly, as she clipped the leash to the dog's collar, ‘I think Toby might have been hurt if Jake hadn't stopped him.'

‘I still don't like him,' Tom answered, his face screwed up into a belligerent scowl.

Jake looked at Lacey, frustration showing in his taut features. She made a faint grimace.

‘He was trying to keep Toby away from the iguana,' she tried again, looking at Tom. ‘Iguanas are fine unless they're cornered, but if they feel threatened they might attack.'

‘I don't care about that,' Tom said in a fierce tone. ‘He said Toby's an idiot and he said he doesn't know anything.' He stabbed a finger in the air towards Jake. ‘
He's
the one who doesn't know anything. Toby doesn't eat flowers.
Iguanas
eat flowers.'

‘Do they?' Lacey frowned.

‘Duh!' Now Tom was exasperated, and Lacey tried to hide a smile. She turned away slightly but Jake caught her expression and a glimmer of amusement showed in his eyes. He began to relax and his shoulders lost their stiffness.

‘I'm sorry about this,' Lacey told him. ‘We'll keep Toby under control from now on, I promise, and I'll fix the broken fence.' She hesitated. ‘I'd better get back. They'll be wondering what's happening.'

He nodded. ‘Okay.'

She turned and started to walk away.

‘I don't like him,' Tom muttered, giving his dog a hug. ‘I love Toby and
he's
a bad man.'

‘D
ID
you manage to fix the break in the fence?' Grace asked. ‘I know you were up and about bright and early this morning.'

Lacey nodded. ‘I made a temporary repair. There are still several other gaps in the boundary fence, but none of them lead onto Jake's land, thank goodness. They mostly go towards the woods and the mangroves.' She folded laundry and put it into a basket. ‘I've arranged for someone to come and do the repairs for me, but he can't manage it until next week.'

‘We'll have to keep an eye on Toby,' Grace murmured, ‘and if we go into the woods we'll have to make sure he's kept on a leash.'

‘Yes…we need to be careful with the deer out there. They wander about freely, and I suppose he could startle them and cause a few problems.'

Perhaps it was a deer that had trampled the boundary line and had made her fearful the other night. Lacey's brow knotted. The whole incident still nagged in a corner of her mind, but for now she tried to push it
aside. The plain fact was she had to get used to that sort of thing if she was to live on contentedly in this house.

‘Tom's still grumpy about the neighbour…though I suppose you can't blame Jake for reacting the way he did, with his shrubs mangled and a strange dog invading his property.' Grace was ironing T-shirts for the children. Tom had already managed to cover two shirts with grass stains, twigs and sap from various plants, and he'd only been here for a few hours.

‘I think the problem was that Jake had other things on his mind, or he might have been a bit more amenable. He'd had a bad day, going out to the diver who was sick, and it perhaps wasn't the best of times for Toby to decide to break in and challenge the iguana. We're very lucky things ended the way they did.'

Grace nodded. ‘I suppose so.' She put the T-shirts to one side and switched off the iron. ‘Shall we take a walk through the woods this morning, and see if any of the deer are roaming about?' She smiled. ‘Cassie wants to try out her new camcorder—I'm sure she thinks she's going to work in the film industry like Rob one of these days.'

Lacey smiled. ‘Yes, I heard Rob giving her a few tips before he left for his meeting with Jake.' She looked fondly towards the children, who were playing tag outside in the garden. ‘She was fascinated, and he said he'd take a look at anything she videoed while she was here.'

‘Then he's made a friend for life. Cassie's very loyal, once she's made up her mind about someone.'

They set off for the woods half an hour later, with Tom and Toby leading the way and Cassie aiming the
camera at everything that moved. Beyond the woods were the mangrove swamps, where small, reddish-brown deer fed on their leaves, and supplemented their diet with palm berries.

‘Look, Mum,' Cassie said in a hushed voice, ‘there's a fawn. Isn't he lovely?' She captured his image on camera. He was tiny, with long, spindly legs and white markings.

‘He's gorgeous,' Grace agreed. She laid a restraining hand on Tom's shoulder. ‘Don't go too close, because the daddy deer will protect his family. He's watching us, to see what we'll do.'

‘They've got funny white tails,' Tom said, watching the fawn graze on the edge of the group. He patted Toby's head while his other hand held more tightly to the leash. ‘You can't go near them. They've got great big antlers and they might hurt you.' Toby whined softly in response.

Later, they walked back through the trees to where rocks jutted out against the skyline. There were lots of craggy inlets here, overgrown by ferns and other vegetation, and Tom and Cassie went to explore the numerous crevices along the way.

‘They're like little dens,' Tom shouted. ‘Can we play here?'

‘Perhaps another day, when we don't have Toby with us,' Grace answered. ‘He's probably getting thirsty, and we should be starting back now.'

Rob was at the house when they returned some half an hour later. Jake was with him, going over the film schedules that Rob had worked out, and as soon as Tom
saw him his mouth flattened in an expression that said he was ready for battle.

‘You're that man who shouted at my dog,' he said, his eyes accusing him.

Jake's gaze was rueful. He nodded. ‘You're right. I'm sorry about that. He wouldn't stay where I told him and I was afraid he was going to be hurt.'

‘Well, you still shouldn't shout.' Tom was obviously not ready to be placated.

‘No. I shouldn't.'

Jake looked Tom in the eye, gauging his response, while Tom returned the gaze in equal measure.

‘You don't know much about dogs, do you?' Tom was frowning.

‘No, I don't.'

‘And you don't know much about iguanas either.'

‘That's true.' Jake gave him a thoughtful look. ‘I wondered who'd been eating my hibiscus flowers. I guess they make a good meal for an iguana, don't they?'

Tom grinned. ‘Yeah… They ate all my mum's flowers, back home. She was mad as mad.'

Jake chuckled. ‘I'll bet she was.' He glanced briefly at Rob, who was busy keying things into the computer. ‘Are you okay with sorting all that if I leave you to it?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Good.' Jake looked back at Tom. ‘I want to make a peace offering,' he said. ‘How about you all come over to my place and spend the afternoon in the pool? If your mother and Lacey agree, of course.'

Tom thought about that. He frowned. ‘Will Toby be able to come as well?'

Jake nodded. ‘Of course. He'll be the guest of honour.'

Tom gave a beaming smile and turned to look at his mother. ‘Can we, Mum? Can we go and play in the pool? It's really hot and it'd be awesome to go in the water.'

Grace glanced at Lacey. ‘What do you think? Do we have plans for this afternoon?'

Lacey shook her head. ‘Sitting by the pool sounds fine by me.'

‘Then that's settled.' Jake smiled. ‘I'll see you over there as soon as you've had time to get yourselves organised.' He glanced at Rob. ‘What about you, Rob? Are you going to join us?'

Rob shook his head. ‘I'll give it a miss, thanks. Work to do.'

‘Okay, I'll leave you to it, then.'

Lacey watched Jake walk away. There was a spring in his step, and she was pleased to see that he had bounced back from his dejected mood of the day before and was now his usual self.

She went with Grace to put on a swimsuit, topping it with a wrap-around beach dress that would keep the sun from burning her skin. The thought of spending time with Jake was already making her pulse quicken and causing nervous excitement to pool in her abdomen.

‘You like him, don't you?' Grace asked, as she tied up her fair hair in a soft, cotton-covered band. ‘I can see it in your eyes when you try not to look at him.'

Lacey gave a husky laugh. ‘Is it that obvious?'

‘Only to me, perhaps.'

Lacey made a face. ‘I was trying to keep it a secret. I don't want him to get the idea that I have any feelings at all for him. If you give Jake an inch, he takes a mile, and I've learned the hard way to be cautious.'

‘Well, I can see how you might be worried about getting involved with a man like him. They're used to having it all, aren't they? And we tend to be just one of any number of women who fall for their chat-up lines.'

That was truer than Lacey cared to admit, but she couldn't help but look forward to spending time with Jake. She missed the way his arms had curved around her, and her lips still bore the imprint of his kiss. It had been such a fleeting moment, but it stayed with her, and if she closed her eyes and thought about it, her lips tingled in delicious expectation.

But it wasn't to be, was it? She and Jake would never be a couple. Jake didn't ‘do' the family thing, children and responsibility, and all that went along with it…everything that was vitally important to her. He still had issues to work through over putting his career aside for a life of devil may care, and Lacey had to be on her guard. She had been hurt once, and it was all too clear that she could be badly wounded all over again if she let Jake into her heart.

They trooped over to Jake's house some half an hour later, armed with floats, a beach ball and inflated armbands for the children. Lacey took with her a bottle of sparkling white wine, soft drinks for the children, and
a small selection of snacks. She didn't want to feel that Jake was being left to provide everything. He might be ultra-wealthy, but with Lacey it was a matter of pride.

Cassie and Tom took to the water instantly. They played in a shallow header pool that led to the deeper, adult one, while Toby watched from the tiled edge, panting, running up and down and trying to work out how he could get to them without getting himself wet.

‘Come here, Toby,' Jake said. Lacey studied him briefly, her mouth going suddenly dry. Jake was wearing swim shorts beneath an unbuttoned cotton shirt. His skin was lightly bronzed, glowing with health, and she had to fight an overwhelming desire to lightly run her hands over his chest. It made her hot and bothered, just looking at him, and all at once the prospect of cooling off in the water seemed enticing.

Jake, thankfully, was not paying any attention to her just then. He made the dog sit, and then, after glancing at Grace for confirmation, he placed a chew-bone in Toby's eager mouth. ‘Go and gnaw on this for a while. That should take your mind off what they're doing.'

Grace watched him and smiled. ‘You learn fast, don't you?'

‘I guess it's a case of having to, where young Tom is concerned.' He gave a wry smile. ‘I've already crossed him once, so heaven forbid I should do it again. Jane picked up the bone for me from town this morning.'

Toby could scarcely believe his luck. Just in case anyone should try to take it from him, he slunk away, taking his coveted prize over to the grassed area beneath
the palms, some distance away. He kept a watchful eye on things, ready to move on if anyone should make a move to come near.

Lacey glanced at Jake from under her lashes. Yesterday's trouble with Tom and the dog had obviously made an impact on him since he had thought carefully about how to make amends. The chew bone was a definite start, and she wondered all over again how much she really knew this man. Everything she learned about him made her heart squeeze that little bit more. It would be so very easy to fall in love with him.

She turned her attention to the children. Their shrieks of delight filled the air as they tossed the ball to one another in the pool, and after a while, she and Grace decided they could be left safely enough while the adults took a dip in the deeper water. Lacey sat on the edge of the pool, ready to slide down into the water, watching Grace as she swam towards the children.

‘Come and join us,' Jake said, coming towards her. He reached for her, putting his arms around her waist and tugging her gently down into the water. As she slowly slid into the pool, her soft curves were crushed against his long, male body, her legs tangled with his, and a wave of heat ran through her in an instant from head to toe. He was lean and muscled, with strong arms and thighs, and his whole body was honed to perfection. The way that his hard frame fused with her feminine softness had a stunning effect on her. It went straight to her head. It was intoxicating.

Unfortunately, Jake knew exactly what effect he was
having on her. Flame glimmered in the depths of his eyes, and he held onto her for just a fraction longer than was necessary. Then as he released her, his touch was a fleeting caress along the rounded line of her hip.

It was more than enough to leave her yearning for more and she berated herself inwardly for her weakness…but the soft stroke of his hand on her body was tantalising, a sweet invitation for her to move closer to him and lose herself in his embrace. Of course, she couldn't let that happen, and perhaps he knew it. Perhaps he'd meant all along to tease her.

She pulled in a deep breath and slipped away from him, going to join Grace at the far end of the pool.

It was a glorious afternoon. The sun burned high in a cerulean sky, and the water cooled her hot skin. She made a deliberate effort to keep out of touching distance of Jake from then on, fearful of igniting the lava stream that bubbled just below the surface.

They alternately swam, sunbathed and chatted about this and that, until the children decided that they were hungry and came to nibble on the snacks that were laid out on the poolside table.

Tom looked thoughtfully at Jake. ‘My mum said you used to go out and find sunken treasure,' he said, sitting on a chair by the table and swinging his legs while munching on potato chips. ‘Did you see lots of dead bodies down in the sea?' His eyes lit up in eager anticipation. ‘Did you see skeletons?'

‘Uh…no, thankfully, I didn't.' Jake was obviously a bit nonplussed by Tom's direct manner. ‘Luckily most
of the people managed to escape on longboats or small sail craft when their ships went down.'

‘My dad has a wrecked ship in his fish tank back home,' Tom persisted, sticking to his theme. ‘There's a skeleton in there as well, and a treasure chest, and the fish swim in and out.' He thought about that for a moment or two, and then confided, ‘
I
think Skelly was looking for the treasure and then things went wrong and he died.'

‘It's not a real skeleton, silly,' Cassie said, her green eyes crinkling with amusement. She was fair-haired, like her mother, a pretty girl, and wise for her six years.

Tom stuck out his tongue. ‘You don't know nothing, Cass. I think he found the gold and the jewels and they was too heavy for him to take back up to the top of the water, so he laid down and died.'

Cassie started to laugh. ‘You're so funny.' She danced around and began to chant. ‘
Skelly-welly lost his jewels, had to make do with jelly. Rubbed his belly, couldn't watch telly, that was the end of Skelly-welly.'