Praise for Marion Lennox:

‘Marion Lennox’s RESCUE AT CRADLE LAKE is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Best of 2010: a very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.’

—Dear Author on CHRISTMAS WITH HER BOSS

MARION LENNOX was a country kid, a tomboy and a maths nerd, but whenever she went missing her family guessed she’d be up a gum tree reading romance novels. Climbing trees and dreaming of romance—what’s not to love? But it wasn’t until she was on maternity leave from her ‘sensible’ career, teaching statistics to undergraduates, that she finally tried to write one.

Marion’s now had over one hundred romances accepted for publication. She’s given up climbing trees—they got too high! She dreams her stories while she walks her dog or paddles her kayak or pokes around rock pools at low tide. It’s a tough life, but she’s more than ready for the challenge.

A Secret Shared…
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader

Right now my family is in the midst of restoring a fisherman’s cottage that’s protected by so many heritage restrictions it makes my eyes water. But when bureaucracy gets the better of me I head to our local ferry, which takes me over the treacherous Rip to the entrance to Port Phillip Bay and Melbourne beyond. Why? Well, my favourite cake shop is on the other side of the Rip—though the trip does make for expensive cake! But as well as cake I get to see dolphins. If I’m lucky they’ll surf in the ferry’s wake, leaping in and out of the water, joyously celebrating the fact that they can beat the boat twice over. They’re smart, they’re funny, and I defy anyone to watch them and not forget red tape and rotting roofing iron.

So it was with interest that I read of a dolphin sanctuary in the US where traumatised kids are offered time out, swimming with these gorgeous creatures as a type of therapy. So what if …? I thought as I watched the dolphins surfing alongside the boat. What if …? are my two favourite words. They send me off on another book almost as soon as I think them. What if my heroine finds a way to reach wounded kids with the same dolphins that make me smile? But what if she’s hiding secrets? What if she’s wounded too?

My hero is truly heroic—isn’t he always? But in A SECRET SHARED … Jack needs all the help he can get to win his lady and to share the secrets that guard her heart.

The dolphins are just the guys to help him!

Marion

Dedication

To Ray and Deb, with thanks for making our dream a reality.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Marion Lennox:

About the Author

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU WANT TO save your kid with mantra-chanting and dolphins that eat our fish, go ahead and waste your money. Dolphin Sanctuary plays you for a sucker, and you’re walking right in.’

This was exactly what Dr Jack Kincaid didn’t want to hear. He glanced at the white-faced child in his passenger seat and hoped Harry wasn’t listening.

The little boy’s face was blank and unresponsive, but then, it always was. Harry had hardly spoken since the car crash that had killed his parents.

‘The sanctuary seems to be building a good reputation,’ he said, which was all he could think of to say. He didn’t want to be here but he needed petrol. The pump attendant, fat, grubby and obviously bored, had wandered out to have a word.

It was no wonder he looked bored. There’d be few cars along this road. Jack was three hundred miles from Perth, heading for one of the most remote parts of Australia. Dolphin Bay.

Dolphins. Healing. He thought of the hundreds of schmaltzy, New Age healing-type posters he’d seen in his lifetime and he felt ill.

What was he doing here?

‘So your kid’s crook?’ the attendant asked, and Jack flicked the remote. The car windows slid up soundlessly, ensuring Harry couldn’t hear.

Harry didn’t react. He didn’t seem to notice he was being cut out of the conversation. He never seemed to notice.

‘He was injured in a road accident a while back,’ he said. The pump was snail slow and this guy was intent on an inquisition. He might as well accept it.

‘You’re his dad?’

‘His uncle. His parents were killed.’

‘Poor little tacker,’ the man said. ‘But why bring him to Dolphin Bay? What’s the point? You’re being conned, mate. Fishing used to be good round here, but not any more. New Age hippies have even got permission to feed them, encouraging them in from the wild.’

‘How long have they been using them for healing?’

‘Since that Doc Kate came. Before that it was just dolphin saving. The place’s full of animal do-gooders and weirdos who think meditation’s more useful than facing life straight on. If you want to know what I think, the only good dolphin’s a dead dolphin. If they’d only let us shoot …’

But, praise be, the fuel tank was full. Jack produced his wallet with relief. ‘Keep the change.’ He wanted to be out of here, fast. ‘Use it for fish bait.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ the man said. ‘But if I were you I’d book into the motel and take the kid fishing. Much better than messing with hippies.’

That was so much what Jack was thinking that he had to agree. ‘I’d go fishing in a heartbeat,’ he admitted. ‘But I don’t have a choice.’

‘You look like a man who knows his own mind. What’s stopping you?’

‘Women,’ Jack said, before he could help himself. ‘Isn’t that what stops us all?’

Four-year-old Toby Linkler’s death was sudden, heartbreaking—and a deep and abiding blessing.

One minute Kate was watching as Toby’s mother, Amy, stood in the shallows, holding her little son close. Together they’d watched Hobble, the youngest of the trained dolphins, swim around them in circles. The little boy’s face, gaunt from illness, racked from months of chemotherapy, was lit from within. He’d even chuckled.

And then, as Hobble ducked underneath and almost propelled Toby out of the water with a nudge under his backside, Toby’s gaze suddenly turned inward.

Kate was four feet away and she moved fast, but by the time she reached him, the little boy was gone.

Toby’s mother sobbed with shock and horror, but she didn’t move. The dolphin’s circles grew wider, as if standing guard. How much did the creature know? Kate wondered. This moment couldn’t be intruded on and it wasn’t, even by the dolphins.

‘He’s … he’s gone,’ Amy sobbed at last. ‘Oh, Toby. The doctors said … They said he might …’

They had. More than one doctor had predicted seizures with the possibility of sudden death. Kate had studied Toby’s notes as thoroughly as she read every patient’s history. Four years old. Brain tumour. Incomplete excision twelve months ago. Chemotherapy had shown some shrinkage but eventually the growth had outstripped treatment. The last note on the history said: ‘If tumour maintains its present growth rate, prognosis is weeks, not months. We suggest palliative care as required. Referral back to family doctor.’

But Amy hadn’t taken Toby back to her family doctor. One of the other mums in the city hospital kids’ cancer ward had told her about Dolphin Bay Sanctuary’s therapy programme. Kate had had to squeeze to get them in.

Thank heaven she had, she thought now, and her thoughts were indeed a prayer. Toby had spent most of the last few days ensconced in a tiny wetsuit, floating with the dolphins that had entranced him. Kate had four dolphins she’d trusted with this frail little boy and in the end all four had been allowed to play with him. They had played too, making him laugh, nudging his failing little body as he’d floated on water-wings, tossing balls high in the air so they’d landed near him, retrieving them themselves if he hadn’t been able to.

He’d still needed painkillers, of course, and anti-seizure medication and drugs to try and stop the massive buildup of calcium leeching from the growing tumour, but for six glorious days he’d been a little boy again. He’d experienced fun and laughter, things that had had nothing to do with the illness and surgery he’d endured and endured and endured. At night he’d slept curled up with Maisie, Kate’s therapy dog. With his mum by his side, he’d seemed almost joyous.

Today he’d woken quieter, pale, and his breathing had been shallow. Kate had known time was running out. In a normal hospital she might have ordered blood tests, checked the cancer wasn’t sending his calcium levels through the roof, maybe even sent him for another MRI to check how large the tumour had grown, but given his history there was little point. Toby’s mother had made her choice and, weak as he’d been, Toby had been clear on the one thing he’d wanted.

‘I want to swim with Hobble.’

He had, and as his mother had cradled him Toby had felt the rush of the dolphin’s sleek, shining skin as he’d circled.

‘He’s my friend,’ he’d whispered.

And now he was gone.

There was nothing to be done. There was no call for heroics here, no desperate attempt at resuscitation. There was just the searing agony of a mother losing her child.

It was gut-wrenching. Unbearable. A void never to be filled.

But: ‘I’m so glad,’ Amy managed to whisper, as her racking sobs finally eased, as Kate stood waist deep in the water and gave her all the time she needed, and as Toby’s body settled deeper into death. ‘I’m so glad I brought him here. Oh, Kate, thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me,’ Kate said, hugging her close and drawing her gently out of the water. ‘Thank my dolphins.’

‘Dr Kate’s running late.’ The pleasant-faced woman in Reception was welcoming, but apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ she said, and Jack felt a jolt of surprise. The woman was addressing his nephew instead of him. ‘This is Maisie,’ she told Harry, gesturing to a great bear of a golden-haired retriever snoozing under her desk. ‘Maisie, this is Harry.’ She prodded Maisie with her toe and Maisie looked up in polite enquiry. Me? You mean me?

‘Maisie,’ the receptionist said sternly, as one might chide a recalcitrant employee. ‘Say hello to Harry.’

The dog rolled onto her back, stretched, sighed, then lumbered up, strode across the room, sat in front of Harry—and raised a paw.

Harry stared. The dog sat patiently, paw outstretched, until finally, tentatively, Harry took it. Jack noticed, with quiet surprise, that his nephew almost managed a smile. It wasn’t quite, but it was close.

‘Dr Kate is in the water, doing therapy,’ the receptionist told Jack as dog and boy shook hand and paw for the second time. ‘She should be finishing now. Would you like to pop down to the beach? Please don’t disturb them but if you stay beyond the high-water mark you’re welcome to watch.’

Jack would very much like to watch. Despite Harry’s instant relaxation—he was now solemnly shaking the big dog’s paw for the third time—Jack’s guard was still sky high.

Why was he here? His home was in Sydney. Harry’s home was in Sydney. What Harry needed was continued therapy for healing leg fractures and a decent child psychiatrist who’d finally crack his wall of traumatised silence.

But he’d found Harry some very good child psychiatrists, and none of them had made a dent in his misery. This was desperation. It had been his Aunt Helen’s idea, not his, but she had been prepared to relinquish Harry into Jack’s care if he agreed to bring him.

Was it worth the risk?

‘Would you like to go to the beach or stay here with Maisie?’ the receptionist was asking Harry, and Harry looked at Maisie and nodded. This was a miracle all on its own. He’d been limp since the car crash, simply doing what the adults around him ordered. Three months ago he’d been a normal seven-year-old, maybe a little cosseted, maybe a little intense, but secure and loved and happy. Now, without his parents, he was simply … lost.

‘You’re sure?’ Jack asked, and of course there was no response. But Harry was kneeling on the floor with the dog and the dog was edging sideways. Jack could see what she was doing. There was a ball, three feet away, and Maisie was looking at it with more than a canine hint.

Jack nudged it close and Maisie grabbed it and dropped it at Harry’s feet. Then she backed two feet away, crouching, quivering and staring straight at Harry with all the concentration a golden retriever could summon.

Harry stared at Maisie. Maisie stared at Harry. The whole room held its breath.

And then Harry very tentatively picked up the well-chewed ball—and tossed it about four feet.

Maisie pounced with dramatic flourish, reaching it before it hit the floor, but she wasn’t content with a simple retrieval. She whirled three times, tossed the ball upwards herself and caught it again—and then came back and dropped it at Harry’s feet again.

And, unbelievably, Harry giggled.

‘I’ll buy the dog,’ Jack muttered, and the receptionist grinned.

‘She’s not for sale. Kate values her above diamonds. Go and watch her if you like. Harry and Maisie are safe with me.’

They were. Jack watched the little boy a moment longer and felt himself relax, which was something he didn’t think he’d done once, not since his brother had died. The dog was taking care of Harry and the relief was immeasurable.

‘Go,’ the receptionist said gently, and her message was unmistakeable. It’s better if you’re not here. Let these two bond.

She was right. Harry didn’t need him; since the accident he hadn’t seemed to need anyone.

If one dog could make a difference …

He’d tried a puppy; he’d tried almost everything. But now … Whatever this crazy dolphin-mantra place was, this dog was breaking through.

Dr Jack Kincaid didn’t need to be told again.

He went.

It was time to leave the water; time for the reality of death to hit home. As wonderful as this place was, it was simply time out. Toby was dead. His mother now had to start facing a world without him.

Kate’s arm was around Amy’s waist as they made their way from the shallows. The world was waiting. Officialdom would move in and there was nothing Kate could do to protect Amy from it.

But at least she’d had this time. At least the week before Toby’s death hadn’t been filled with hospitals, drips, rush. Her dolphins had helped.

She turned for a moment as she reached the beach; they both did. Far out in the deep water, Hobble still seemed to be watching them. He was doing sweeping curves at the outer limits of the pool. At the far reaches of each curve he leaped from the water towards them, and then dived deep, again and again.

‘Thank you,’ Amy whispered toward him, and who knew if the dolphin could understand. But no matter what their level of understanding, the dolphins had helped ease one little boy’s passing.

Kate had more patients waiting. She needed to move on, but what had just happened had eased the pain around her own heart a little as well.

Jack walked over the ridge of sandbank just as the two women turned to walk up the beach. Two women and a child. The women were dressed in plain blue stinger suits. The child was in a wetsuit.

The child was dead.

Jack Kincaid had been a doctor long enough to sense it even as he saw it. The child was cradled in the shorter woman’s arms, the woman was sobbing, and every step they took spelled defeat.

What the …?

He broke into a run. If the child had gone underwater, it might not be too late. Why wasn’t anyone doing CPR? Had they tried and failed? In children there was sometimes success when all hope was lost. He had his phone out, hitting the emergency quick-dial, thinking paramedics, oxygen, help …

‘Don’t phone.’ The taller woman’s voice was a curt command, urgent enough to make him pause. The other woman was sinking to her knees, still cradling the child. ‘What the hell …?’

‘It’s okay.’

What sort of crazy was this? He reached them and he would have knelt by the child but the woman held him back.

‘I’m Dr Kate,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry you had to see this but, believe me, it’s okay.’

‘How can it be okay?’

‘Toby’s had cancer,’ she said, softly so as not to break into the other woman’s grief. She took his arm, drawing him away a little, giving woman and child space. ‘He’s had brain metastases. He was terminally ill. This afternoon he’s been playing with the dolphins, he had a seizure and he died. There was nothing we could do.’

‘Did you try?’ Jack demanded, incredulous. A seizure … He thought of all the things that could be done in a major city hospital, the drugs that could stop a seizure, the resuscitation equipment. ‘Surely …’

‘Amy wanted it this way,’ Kate said. ‘She has the right to make a choice on behalf of her son and I think it was a good one.’ She hesitated and then glanced at her watch. ‘You’ll be Harry’s guardian,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’m running late but you understand …’ She gestured to woman and child. ‘Some things have to take precedence. Has Maisie settled your Harry?’

Maisie … the dog. She was depending on her dog to settle a new patient?

But, then, Maisie had settled Harry, better than ever he could have.

‘Yes,’ he conceded, dragging his eyes away from the distraught mother and child.

‘I’m glad,’ she said, and she smiled.

And in that moment time stood still. What the …?

He knew this woman! He knew her very well indeed.

Dr Catherine Heineman. They’d been students together. Tutorial partners. Friends.

He hadn’t seen her since … since …

‘You’re … Doctor Kate?’ His tone was incredulous.

‘I’m Kate Martin,’ the woman said simply. ‘Dr Kate Martin.’

‘You’re Cathy.’

Her face lost its colour. She stared up at him and took an instinctive step backward.

‘What nonsense is this?’ He’d read the blurb for the dolphin sanctuary. The healing part of it was run by one Dr Kate Martin, this woman. According to the blurb she had qualifications in physiotherapy and counselling. Deeply suspicious, he’d checked, but the qualifications had been conferred by one of the most prestigious universities in New Zealand.

That didn’t fit at all with what he was seeing here now, with what he knew. This woman was in her early thirties maybe. He’d last seen Cathy in her early twenties but it didn’t stop him knowing her.

‘You’re Cathy,’ he said again, and he saw her flinch.

‘I can explain.’

She’d better. Counsellor with training in psychology? Physiotherapist? Had she abandoned her medical degree and retrained in another country? Under another name? Why? Had she been struck off the medical register?

He stared at her and saw shadows. She was five feet eight or so, and a bit too thin. At university he’d thought her attractive. Very attractive. Now she looked … gaunt? Her chestnut hair was tugged into a practical knot. Her blue all-in-one stinger suit was deeply unflattering. Her green eyes, which had flashed with laughter when he’d messed up a lab trial or someone had made a joke, didn’t look like they did much laughing now.

Unregistered? Hiding? Why?

Drugs? Drug-taking was the most common reason for doctors being deregistered and instinctively his gaze fell to her arms, looking for track marks. The sleeves of her stinger suit were pulled up. Her forearms were clean, but she saw where his gaze went and stepped back as if he’d struck her.

‘It’s not what you think. I can explain.’

‘You’d better.’ If he’d dragged Harry all the way across the country to have him treated by an unregistered doctor …

‘I can’t now.’ She closed her eyes for a millisecond, that was all, but when she opened them she seemed to have recovered. The look she gave him was direct and firm. ‘I need to stay with Amy and Toby. Yes, I’m Cathy but I’m also Kate. I’d ask that you keep that to yourself until you hear my explanation.’ She ran her fingers wearily through her hair and the formal knot gave a little, letting a couple of chestnut tendrils escape. It made her look younger, and somehow more vulnerable. ‘Could you bring your nephew and Maisie down to the beach? Build a sandcastle. Give me some time. Please?’

And then she was gone, heading back to the woman and her child, stooping to help the mother lift the lifeless body of her son. Together they carried him up the beach and away.

Jack was left staring after her.

CHAPTER TWO

HE COULDN’T BELIEVE it. Kate Martin, physiotherapist and counsellor, medical director of Dolphin Bay Healing Resort, had transformed into Cathy Heineman who’d shared his undergraduate student life.

Cathy had been his friend, and in truth he wouldn’t have minded if she’d been more than that. She’d been vibrant, fun and beautiful. But she’d also been a little aloof. She hadn’t talked about her private life and she’d laughed off any advances. Friendship only, she’d decreed, though sometimes he’d wondered … When they’d stayed back late, working together, he’d thought there had been this attraction. Surely it had been mutual.

But it obviously hadn’t been. In fourth year she’d turned up after the summer holidays sporting a wedding ring.

‘Simon and I have been planning to wed since childhood,’ she’d told him, and that was pretty much all she’d said. He’d never met her husband—no one had. Neither had the student cohort seen much of Cathy after that. She’d attended lectures but the old camaraderie had gone.

She hadn’t even attended graduation. ‘She requested her degrees be posted to her,’ he’d heard. Someone had said she’d moved to Melbourne to do her internship and that was the last he’d heard of her.

And now … His head was spinning with questions, but overriding everything else was the knowledge that he would not expose his nephew to treatment by anyone who was dishonest.

The Cathy he’d known had been brilliant.

The Cathy he’d just seen had been helping a dead child from the water. She was in a suspect place doing suspect things, and his nephew’s welfare was at stake.

Get out of here now.

His phone rang. It’d be Helen, he thought. The road here had been almost completely lacking phone reception. There was only the faintest of signals now. Helen wouldn’t have been able to ring him for hours. She’d be frantic.

‘Where are you?’ Her tone was accusatory.

‘I’m at the dolphin sanctuary, of course.’

Helen’s breath exhaled in a rush. ‘You made it? Is it good? Oh, Jack, will it make a difference?’

‘So far I’ve seen a dead child and a doctor who’s not who she says she is,’ he said bluntly. ‘Helen, do you remember Cathy Heineman? She was a med student with Don and me. She faded from the social scene after fourth year. Remember?’

‘The clever one you did your lab work with,’ Helen said. Helen had five children under ten. She was still mourning her brother’s death, but her mind was like a steel trap. She’d done dentistry while her brother, Arthur, had done medicine with Jack. Arthur and Jack had been mates, and in turn Helen had become best friends with Jack’s sister, Beth. Arthur and Beth had married, bringing them even closer. They’d all been at university together and they knew each other’s friends.

So she knew Cathy. Kate.

‘The whisper was that the guy she married was possessive,’ she said, turning obligingly thoughtful. ‘He wouldn’t let her out of his sight. No one saw much of her after her wedding and not at all after we graduated.’

‘She’s here. She’s practising as a physiotherapist and counsellor. The whole place smells fishy.’

‘Well, it is a dolphin sanctuary.’

‘Helen …’

‘Look, you promised to give it a go,’ Helen said bluntly. ‘Kate, Cathy, who gives a toss what she calls herself if it has a chance of working? You know I’d be there with him myself but I’d have had to bring the babies with me.’

She would. That was what this whole disaster was about. Helen was an earth mother, parent of five noisy, exuberant children, generous to a fault. She and her amiable husband had been more than ready to take their newly orphaned nephew into their expanding brood.

It had seemed the perfect solution. Helen was Harry’s aunt, she loved him to bits, she was married and stable and able to take care of him.

Jack was Harry’s uncle but he was single. He was a rising star in his chosen field of oncology, he had little intention of settling down, and there was no reason that he should take on his seven-year-old nephew.

Except …

Except that one wounded little boy had been failing to thrive within Helen’s noisy throng. Harry had always been quiet and a little introspective, and the loss of his parents, plus the shocking injuries to his leg, had seen him withdraw into himself.

The last time Jack had gone to see him he’d refused to come out of the bedroom he’d been sharing with one of his cousins. Helen had shown him literature on this place. ‘It can’t do any harm,’ she’d told him. ‘I’ll farm the three eldest out and the babies can come with us. Doug won’t mind, will you, darling?’ She’d smiled fondly at her long-suffering husband. ‘We do what we must for each of our children and Harry’s the same.’

Only Harry wasn’t the same. Jack had watched him that night, pushing his food from side to side on his plate, mentally absent from the noise and jostling about him, and he’d made a decision.

‘Let me take care of him for a while. I’ll take a few weeks off work. Maybe he’ll be happier with me.’

Afterwards he hadn’t been able to believe he’d said it. He knew nothing about children—zip. His current girlfriend, Annalise, had been appalled.’

‘Well, don’t expect me to help. Children and me … Darling, I’m a radiologist, not a childminder.

He was an oncologist, not a childminder either, but for the last two weeks he’d been doing his best.

But not getting through.

‘But you will take him to this place,’ Helen had decreed, flourishing the literature at him. ‘I swear, Jack, it sounds just what he needs.’

‘He needs time, not quackery.’

‘If you don’t take him, I will. Jack, I’ll fight you for this. I should make the decisions. You’re not capable of caring for him and I am.’

And there it was, out in the open. They were joint guardians. On the surface they had equal claims to guardianship, but Helen had the home, the experience, the love.

He should stand aside and leave her to it. Only Harry’s desolation prevented it.

Taking him to the dolphin sanctuary had been a test, he thought. Helen—and others—wanted proof he was serious about this parenting role.

The problem was that he wasn’t sure that he was serious about parenting himself, especially as he’d been sole carer for two weeks now and made not one dint in the little boy’s misery.

Until this afternoon, when one bear of a dog had made Harry giggle.

‘I’ll find out about Cathy,’ Helen offered, speaking urgently now. ‘I’ll make enquiries. But unless it’s really awful, you should still give the place a chance.’

‘I told you, Helen, I’ve been here half an hour and already there’s a child dead.’

‘There must be a reason.’

‘A brain tumour,’ he conceded.

‘They do palliative care work as well. You’d expect—’

‘I’d expect resuscitation efforts on a four-year-old.’

‘Give it more than half an hour,’ Helen said urgently. ‘It’s taken me all the contacts we have and then some to get him into the place. Believe it or not, there’s a queue months long. Don’t you dare walk away.’

‘And if it’s dangerous?’

‘You stay with him all the time. Bond. This is what you wanted, Jack. Now’s the time to step up to the mark.’

And he knew it was.

Kate did what she could for Amy and for her little son. Amy’s mother and sister had spent the last week here as well. Other arms enfolded the distraught mother, freeing Kate to leave her in their care. In the end she backed out unnoticed, as grandmother, mother and aunt collectively said goodbye to their little boy.

She put herself on autopilot for a while, filling in forms, phoning the coroner, clearing the way for funeral directors to fly Toby and his family directly back to Queensland, where they’d lived. She headed back to her bungalow and showered. Then she stood on her veranda and stared out to sea for a while, trying to get Toby’s death in perspective. Impossible, but she had to try, just like she always did. Other children needed her. Somehow she’d learned to move on.

She’d learned to move on from a lot, she conceded, and part of that was her history. And her history included Jack Kincaid.

It had been such a shock to see him.

Jack. His name echoed over and over in Kate’s head and she felt ill.

She couldn’t be ill. Jack’s nephew was her next client. Jack Kincaid was waiting for her to finish the formalities with Toby and his mother. Jack Kincaid had to be faced.

But maybe he wouldn’t wait. She’d seen his horror when he’d realised Toby was dead; when he’d seen that she wasn’t fighting to prolong his life.

She might have got Toby back, she conceded. If she’d tried CPR, had had oxygen on the beach, had fought with every medical skill she had, Toby might still be alive. He’d be unconscious, though. They all knew the tumour was massive and unresponsive to any more chemotherapy or radiation. If she’d fought he could have had maybe a week, maybe even longer, on oxygen, on life support, but his mother hadn’t wanted that. No one had wanted it.

She hadn’t had to flinch at the condemnation in Jack Kincaid’s eyes. She had not one single regret over her care of Toby.

But what would she tell him? Jack had been a friend at medical school. If he was still here she needed to give him an explanation. What?

The truth? Did she trust him enough for that?

She might have no choice. It seemed Harry was Jack’s nephew, Jack’s sister’s child. If she’d recognised the name she would never have accepted him as a client, but the booking had been done by a woman with a name as unfamiliar as all the names she so carefully vetted. Harry had been supposed to be coming with someone called Helen.

No matter. Chinks of her old life were bound to intrude sooner or later. She’d known that. It was just … she’d hoped it would be later.

She thought back to the Jack she’d known over ten years ago. He’d been acutely intelligent, intuitive and skilled. On top of that he’d been drop-dead gorgeous. Tall with dark hair and strong bone structure, always tanned, almost too good looking for his own good, and his dark eyes had always gleamed with mischief. Maturity had only added to his looks, she conceded, but it was the Jack of years ago she was thinking of now. If there had been pranks to be played, Jack had always been at the centre. If there had been a beautiful woman to be dated, Jack had been right there, too.

Early on they were allocated as partners in the science component of their course. They suited each other as study mates. Her seriousness didn’t distract him, and his intelligence and humour pleased her. But his dating habits were legend. ‘You should have a harem,’ she told him. ‘That way you wouldn’t have to date one by one. You could have them all together.’

‘I’d rather that than be stuck with one person for ever from sixteen,’ he retorted. She finally told him of Simon’s existence when he … When they … Well, late one night things got a little out of hand and she had to tell him the truth. That she had a boyfriend. That she’d had a boyfriend for years so she couldn’t be attracted to Jack.

‘Monogamy for life from sixteen?’ he mocked. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

Later, when his words proved true—for it seemed that she had indeed been out of her mind—she’d lie awake in the small hours and think about how different life could have been if she hadn’t been a good girl. How it could have been if she’d been able to forget family obligations. If she’d given in to the attraction she’d surely felt.

Move on, she told herself harshly. The time for regrets was well and truly past. What she needed to focus on now was calming Jack down, persuading him to either let her treat his little nephew or tear up the contract and leave.

But whatever way he went, she had to gain his silence.

On impulse she headed indoors and hit the internet. Jack Kincaid.

Professor Jack Kincaid. Head of Oncology at Sydney Central. Research qualifications to make an academic’s eyes water. Medical practice extraordinary. His early promise had been met and more; this man was seriously skilled, seriously qualified. More, as she flicked through the site she found links to patients’ opinions of the man who’d treated them.

Seriously good. Seriously kind. Empathic. A workaholic by the look of it.

But he’d booked in here for two weeks. Two weeks of this man’s time looked to be an incredible commitment.

Okay, she was impressed, but she was also scared. This wasn’t a man to be deflected with weak excuses. It’d be the truth or nothing, if he decided to stay.

She headed back to work, and found herself almost hoping he’d decide to leave. That’d make her life a whole lot less complicated.

They had to wait for over an hour, and every minute brought fresh doubts.

He took Harry for a walk around the resort. There were a dozen bungalows built on the beachfront, with dolphins painted on their front doors. Wind chimes hung from their verandas and brightly coloured hammocks hung from the veranda rails.

Sand spits covered with stunted eucalypts reached out from both sides of the resort, the spits forming a secluded bay. A great sweep of netting enclosed half the cove. That’d be a pool for what the information sheet told him were the captive dolphins. These, according to his sheet, were either dolphins who’d been injured in some way or who’d been raised in some form of captivity and brought here in an attempt to rehabilitate them to the wild.

Some dolphins could never be rehabilitated, the sheet said, and these were the dolphins trained to interact with the resort’s clients. Their injuries were so bad or they’d learned to be too dependent on humans to ever survive in the wild.

Jack and Harry wandered down to the beach again, hand in hand. Harry had fallen back into silence as he always did. For the last three months he’d simply done what he was told.

He still walked with a heavy limp—his left leg still needed to be braced. He stumped along and Jack’s heart twisted for him.

One stupid moment of speed and carelessness. Metal on metal. Lives changed for ever.

There was a scattering of people on the beach, well away from the netted area where Toby had died. These must be more of the resort’s clients, he thought, as this place was too far for tourists to come. There were gay little beach shelters scattered about for whoever wanted or needed shade. A couple of kids were in beach-tyred wheelchairs. A few kids were playing in the shallows. Parents were playing with them, talking among themselves.

He had no wish to join them. Did he have any intention of staying?

‘Maisie,’ Harry said, dragging his thoughts back from introspection, and he glanced back to where the little boy was looking and saw the big golden retriever bounding down the beach towards them. Carrying a ball. She raced straight up to them, dropped the ball at Harry’s feet, then bounced backwards and beamed with a full-on canine beam.

‘Toss it,’ Jack suggested. Harry hesitated but Maisie was practically turning herself inside out with ball-need.

Finally Harry picked the ball up and threw it all of three feet.

The big dog pounced, but before bringing it back she raced towards the shore, dropped it into the shallows, quivered and then brought it back to them. Her message couldn’t be clearer. Throw it further. Throw it into the sea.

‘You throw it,’ Harry whispered, and such a command was almost unheard of from Harry.

So Jack threw it, to the water’s edge. The dog retrieved it with joy but this time she took it further into the shallows before bringing it back.

Once again her message was clear. ‘Throw it even further.’

‘She wants you to throw it deep,’ Harry whispered, so Jack did. He hurled the ball out to where the waves were just breaking.

Maisie was on it like a bullet, streaking through the water, diving through the waves, reaching the ball …

But then not stopping.

The reason the waves were so shallow here, why the beach was so safe, was that the outer spits curved around, protecting the inner bay. At low tide the spits would be connected to the land but now, at high tide, the sand spits formed long, narrow islands. The island looked beautiful, sand washed and untouched, apart from a host of sandpipers searching for pippies or crabs or sand fleas—whatever sandpipers ate.

And now Maisie was headed for the spit island as well. She swam strongly until she reached it, then raced onto the sand, sending sandpipers scattering in alarm.

But then she turned and looked back at the beach. She looked at the water between herself and the shore.

She looked at Jack and Harry. She dropped her ball at her feet—and she shivered.

She was maybe fifty yards from them, through breast-deep water. She’d swum out with ease but her demeanour now was unmistakeable. How have I got here? Uh-oh.

‘She’s stuck,’ Harry gasped, appalled.

‘She can swim back.’

‘She’s scared.’

She couldn’t be. Jack stared at the dog in exasperation. She’d swum through the shallow waves with ease. Of course she could get back.

He glanced along the beach, hoping someone official might appear, but it must be time to pack up. The few people left on the beach were two or three hundred yards away, gathering belongings, packing up the beach shelters, heading up through the sand tracks to the resort.

What was he supposed to do? Stand and yell, ‘Help, the dog is stuck, save her’?

‘Maisie,’ he yelled, in what he hoped was his most authoritative voice. ‘Come.’

The big dog quivered some more—and then as the last of the beachgoers disappeared over the sand dunes, she started to howl.

‘Help her,’ Harry said in horror. ‘Jack, help her.’

And there was another first. Not once in three months had Harry called Jack by name. Not once had he asked for anything.

Jack, help her.

‘She can swim back herself.’

‘She’s frightened,’ Harry whispered. ‘What if a big wave comes and washes her off?’

‘Then she’ll have to swim.’

‘But she’s scared.’ And as if confirmation was necessary, Maisie’s howls grew louder. She squatted on the sand and shivered, every inch of her proclaiming she was one terrified mutt, stranded on a desert island for ever, doomed to starve to death or drown on an incoming tide.

‘Jack …’ Harry whispered. ‘Jack!’

And a man had to do what a man had to do.

‘If I swim out and fetch her, promise you won’t move from here,’ Jack told his nephew, and Harry nodded.

‘Hurry.’

Maisie was now crouching low, as if the sand was about to give way beneath her. Her howls had given way to whimpers. Loud whimpers.

‘Promise out loud,’ Jack demanded of Harry.

‘I promise.’

The kid had talked. Even if he took him home now, the barrier of silence had been broken. Great, he thought grimly. Now all I have to do is rescue one stupid dog.

He hauled off his shoes, shirt and pants, thanking fate that he was wearing decent boxers. He hesitated for a moment, thinking he really didn’t want to leave Harry on the beach, but Harry met his gaze head on.

‘I promise,’ he said again, and it was enough. The two words were a joy all by themselves. They were almost enough to make him turn to the water with enthusiasm, to plough into the shallows, to dive through the waves, to swim the twenty or so strokes it took him to reach the island spit.

Finally he hauled himself out of the water and headed for Maisie … who waited until he was less than six feet from her and then bounded to her feet, grabbed her ball, launched herself back into the water and headed for shore.

Jack was left standing on his island in his boxers, staring helplessly after her.

Maisie made it back with no effort at all. She bounded up the beach to Harry, dropped the ball at his feet and turned to stare out at Jack.

Her tail was whirring like a helicopter. Even from where he was Jack could sense the grin. This was a great dog con.

She walked over the sand hill and saw Jack in the water.

She could see at a glance what had happened. Maisie the jokester dog. This trick almost always worked. Occasionally a parent reacted with anger but usually it was laughter, and Kate could see Jack’s laughter from where she stood. He watched the dog paddle effortlessly through the shallows to the beach and she saw his shoulders shake.

She was smiling as well. So the humour remained.

She’d liked this man.

She’d also thought he was gorgeous—and he still was. He’d stripped to his boxers. He stood in the sunlight, the late afternoon rays glinting on his wet body. Even from here she could see the power of the man. He must work out at some time in his seriously impressive schedule, she thought. He looked ripped.

She watched as he headed back into the water, diving into the shallows, diving under, taking a few long, strong strokes before he caught a wave that took him all the way to shore.

Harry and Maisie were waiting, Maisie tail-wagging as if she’d pulled off the world’s best joke, Harry looking worried.

Jack strode out of the water, lifted his small nephew and swung him in a big, wet circle.

‘She fooled us,’ he told Harry. ‘Don’t look so worried. The doggy fooled us both. Isn’t she clever?’

Harry gave a tight little smile. His rigid body didn’t unbend, however, and after a moment Jack put him down.

‘This is a very strange place,’ he told Harry. ‘Do you know, I think it might even be fun. I’m not sure yet, but maybe we should give it a try.’

To be fooled by a dog was one thing. To be fooled by a woman you didn’t trust was another. He set Harry down, looked up, and Cathy was there. Or Kate. Whichever, both of them were laughing.

‘I’m sorry. Donna should have warned you. Maisie always tries that on.’

‘Donna?’ he said dangerously.

‘Our receptionist. She’s supposed to warn everyone. This is Maisie’s favourite party trick to get adults into the water. Strangely, she never tries it on kids. Only adults. She’s so clever.’

‘Right,’ Jack growled. To say he was feeling at a disadvantage was an understatement. He was dripping. He was in his boxers. On the other hand, Kate had obviously cleaned up after her time with Toby. She was wearing a soft blue skirt and white blouse. Her hair was neatly curled on top of her head. She looked fresh, professional … and deeply amused, but …

‘Maisie saved herself,’ Harry pronounced, and he was talking again. That was almost enough to make Jack forget about Kate. Almost. Her chuckle had him entranced.

Kate wasn’t his type. She’d never really been his type, he conceded. Yes, there had been that initial attraction but he liked his women cool, sophisticated.

Kate was cute rather than classically beautiful, he thought. She had freckles. Lots of freckles.

She looked like the girl next door, he thought. So why was he looking at a pair of laughing eyes and thinking … thinking …

He didn’t need to think in that direction. She’d always had secrets and he didn’t like it. This woman had some hidden agenda and Harry’s welfare was at stake. He needed to find out what was going on.

But Kate was no longer looking at him. She’d stooped to crouch before Harry.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Kate, Maisie’s mother. I hear your uncle has brought you here to stay for a few days so you can meet Maisie and my friends, the dolphins.’

Harry was back to saying nothing. Kate, however, didn’t appear in the least bit disconcerted. She rose, headed over the sandhill and came back carrying a bucket. Of fish.

‘I dumped these when I saw your uncle saving Maisie,’ she said, returning to them. ‘Wasn’t he brave? But isn’t Maisie clever to trick him? Jack, would you like to go and get dry while Harry and I feed the dolphins? Would you like a little time out?’

It was exactly what he’d like. He was feeling … exposed. He was bare chested, bare legged and a bit chilly now the sun was sinking low, but he still had reservations about this woman. He wasn’t about to leave her alone with his nephew until he knew more.

Harry was still not speaking, but he was peering into the bucket. Fish!

‘These are a snack for the wild dolphins,’ Kate said, talking exclusively to Harry. ‘We feed the dolphins in the healing pool, but every now and then we give our wild dolphins a treat. Some of the wild dolphins are ones we’ve treated here for injuries and let go, but most are just free dolphins who come to say hello. If we encourage them to stick around, when we have an injured dolphin who’s better we can release him into a group of friends. Do you think that’s a good idea?’

Harry nodded.

Jack had resolved not to trust this woman, but every ounce of Kate’s attention was focussed on Harry. He thought, It doesn’t matter if I trust or not, but if Harry trusts …

He had to stick with him. He wasn’t going as far as letting this woman take over but something seemed to be working. He hauled his shirt over his still-damp torso and took Harry’s hand.

Harry didn’t respond. There was never a moment when those small fingers curled around his. He trusted no one.

‘Where do you feed them?’ he asked, and she motioned to where the net divided the free bay from the pool.

‘At the boundary. I feed those in the pool and out so they see each other.’

‘But the pool ones can’t get out?’ Harry asked, and once more Jack held his breath.

‘The ones in the pool all have something wrong with them,’ Kate said, starting to walk down to the water, leaving them to follow if they willed. And, of course, they willed. Harry was moving even before Jack led. ‘If we let them out into the ocean they’ll die. But we’ve made the pool enormous and we try and make them feel as free as we can.’

They reached the netted boundary. She walked into the water—she might look professional from the knees up but she had bare feet—and she lifted a fish out of the bucket. She slapped the surface a few times with the fish and she yelled.

‘Grub’s up. Come and get it.’

He was as fascinated as Harry. They stood on the shoreline and watched as far out a fin appeared and then another and another. And then there was a line of eight dolphins, surfing in on a wave to reach the shallows. They paused as a group in about two feet of water, and a couple reared back as if standing on tiptoe, watching.

And in the enclosure four more dolphins assembled and did the same, so Kate had a dozen dolphins at attention.

‘Now, the trick is, one fish each,’ she told Harry. ‘And they’re very tricky. Every time one gets a fish he pretends that he hasn’t. So the ones who do the most jumping up and down and pleading are the ones who’ve had a fish. The others know I’m fair and if they wait their turn they’ll get one.’

She lifted the fish—a fish Jack thought was a good breakfast size—and tossed it to the first wild dolphin. He caught it with dexterity. She then tossed a fish to each wild dolphin in turn. She was right, the ones who’d been fed became sneaky but Kate was sneakier still, and not one dolphin got more than his share.

‘If we feed them too much they won’t bother to hunt themselves,’ she told Harry briskly, as she moved from the outer rim of the pool to the inner. ‘And that’d never do. Now, would you like to give one of my tame guys a fish?’

Without waiting for an answer, she delved in the bucket, snagged a fish and held it up. ‘This would make a good meal for me. Our dolphins get very well fed. Harry, if you’d like to meet my friends, the closest is Hobble. The next one is Bubbles. Then we have Smiley and Squirt. If you and your uncle decide to stay here for a while then you’ll meet them close up. They like playing with a ball just as much as Maisie does.’

But it was enough. Harry closed up, as he’d closed up for months. Jack felt him withdraw, felt his small body clench with tension, felt his hand become rigid in his clasp.

Did Kate know how much progress he’d made in the last hour? he wondered.

‘Maybe we need to stop …’ he started, but Kate was there before him.

‘Only if you want, of course,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You decide, but if you stay you’ll have a nice little bedroom overlooking the sea. Some people who come here stay in bed the whole time and every now and then they peek through the curtains at the dolphins. That’s all they want to do and it’s why we call it a sanctuary. Everyone here is allowed to do exactly what they want to do. Now, I gather Donna has shown you your bungalow? It’s the yellow one, and your bedroom is all yellow, too. If you want you can go there now. Dinner’s in the dining room in half an hour but if you want to you can have it in your little house. There’s a menu on the wall. We have everything from sausage rolls to pizza to great big hamburgers for your uncle. But you decide. Harry, I’m going to feed the rest of my dolphins now, but you can do whatever you want.’

It was exactly the right thing to say. Harry didn’t move. The tension was still there but he’d been given an escape route. The pressure was off and if he wanted he could still stay and watch.

He didn’t say a word but neither did he pull back, retreat, head for the safety of the cute little bungalow that was to be their home for the next two weeks.

Instead, he stood silent. His hand was still in Jack’s, not responsive, not clinging but not pulling away either. They watched in silence as Kate waded into the pool and spoke to her four tame dolphins. She showed each of them a fish and asked them to spin three times and do a belly roll before she handed them—formally, it seemed—their supper.

Then she backed out of the water, waved to the dolphins and waved to them with the same cheer.

‘See you later,’ she said. ‘Have a good night. Harry, the sausage rolls are great and the pizza’s better. If you see me when you’re peeking through your curtains tomorrow, can you give me a wave?’

And she was gone, clicking her fingers so Maisie fell in behind her. She was a formal, professional … doctor? A doctor with bare feet, an empty fish bucket and a bedraggled, soaking dog.

What sort of place had he landed himself in?

What sort of woman had Cathy … Kate … become?

He didn’t know. All he knew was that the tension had once again gone out of his little nephew.

‘I need to take a shower,’ he told Harry. ‘I’m all wet.’

He didn’t expect an answer but it came. ‘The dog made you wet,’ Harry said.

He grinned. ‘She certainly did. Would you like pizza?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry, and Jack knew that whatever Cathy/Kate was, whatever she’d become, he needed to take a chance on this place.

He needed to take a chance on her.

CHAPTER THREE

HARRY RETREATED AGAIN into silence. Jack ordered via the cabin phone for them both—pizza and orange juice for Harry, a hamburger and beer for himself. A cheerful lass with a strong Canadian accent arrived at their bungalow fifteen minutes later, chatted happily to Jack and Harry, didn’t seem to mind that Harry didn’t respond, left their dinner and left them to the night.

They sat on their little balcony, a table between them, and watched the sun set over the ocean. They could see the dolphin pool from here. From time to time a dolphin broke the surface, the ripples spreading as if dispersing the tangerine rays of the setting sun. The gentle hush-hush of the breaking waves was all the sound there was.

No pressure, Jack thought. If Harry was at Helen’s right now, the whole family would be pressuring him to eat. Even Helen’s kids knew Harry didn’t eat enough, so every time he took a bite was cause for family celebration.

Not here. Jack was taking a leaf out of Kate’s book, backing off.

During the journey he’d insisted Harry eat, playing the heavy-handed uncle.

‘I don’t care if you don’t want it, Harry, but you’ll get sick if you don’t eat. Six mouthfuls or you’re not leaving the table.’

Now, at this place, it seemed less urgent. This seemed the time when they could both start again.

He ate his hamburger—extremely large, extremely good. He drank his beer and watched the sunset and didn’t say a word, and as he finished his food a small hand snagged a piece of pizza. He didn’t comment and when the lass came to collect the empty tray neither did she.

‘Dr Kate says she might drop by later to have a chat,’ she told Jack cheerfully. ‘There are forms to fill in. Boring. She says there’s no need to stay up if you don’t want. It can wait until morning, but she’ll drop by anyway.’

And Jack figured what this was about, too. Their formal appointment this afternoon had been missed. Kate would come—he’d expected it—but by forewarning them both, Harry would be reassured. If the little boy woke and heard voices he’d know what was happening. Harry needed no surprises, no shocks, no worries. He needed his world to stabilise again—if it ever could.

To lose both his parents in the one appalling moment … Jack could hardly imagine the black hole it had created. To be seven and to lose so much …

A shadow emerged from the trees, sniffing up the steps as the girl removed the tray and prepared to leave.

‘Maisie,’ the girl said. She smiled and turned to Harry. ‘Harry, Maisie’s very fussy,’ she said. ‘Every night she decides who she’d like to sleep with. It seems tonight she’s chosen you. If you don’t want her, I’ll take her away with me now. She has her own bed with Dr Kate. We don’t want her to be a bother.’

Harry didn’t answer but it didn’t trouble Maisie. The big dog proceeded ponderously up the steps and put his great head on Harry’s knee. And sighed.

Her message couldn’t be more clear. No one in this world understands me. You’re my only friend. Please let me stay.

She put her paw up in silent entreaty. Harry cast a covert glance at Jack and then back at Maisie.

‘C-can she stay?’

‘Only if she sleeps on your bed,’ Jack said sternly. ‘I don’t like dogs snoring on mine.’

‘D-does she snore?’

‘Sometimes,’ the lass said cheerfully. ‘Will I take her away?’

‘N-no,’ Harry managed, and the thing was settled. So half an hour later boy and dog were tucked up in bed. Harry’s arms were firmly around Maisie’s neck and Harry was fast asleep.

Helen had a dog. They’d also tried him out with a puppy but they’d got nowhere.

This dog, though, knew all the right moves. She knew just how to wriggle her way under a small boy’s defences.

Like Kate was doing?

He’d walked into this place and felt deeply suspicious. What kind of a healing centre didn’t try to save a child? Even if the explanation of terminal illness was true, why was no doctor in attendance? Kate was listed in the resort’s advertising as being a physiotherapist and a counsellor. There was no mention of her being a medical doctor. Something must have gone horribly wrong with her career. He didn’t trust her, and yet somehow he’d agreed to stay. By reaching out to Harry, she’d wriggled under his defences and he was left feeling more than a little vulnerable.

He didn’t like it. Jack liked control. He had no kids himself. Now he had one small nephew who’d managed to touch his heart and leave him exposed. To charlatans? To a woman who called herself Kate but who wasn’t.

‘Jack?’

The voice was so soft he hardly heard it, but he’d been waiting.

Kate? Cathy.

The sun had sunk over the horizon; the merest hint of colour tinging the point where the sea disappeared towards Africa. The night was warm and still. No sound came from other bungalows. What sort of resort was this when by eight o’clock everyone seemed asleep?

‘Hi,’ Kate said, as she reached the steps. ‘I have some forms for you to fill in, and some questions I need answered. Is now a good time?’

She was casually dressed, in jeans with a slouchy windcheater over the top. Her feet were still bare. The only hint of professionalism was the two thick envelopes she carried.

She’d let her hair out, he thought inconsequentially. It was curly and bouncy and touched her shoulders. Nice.

Um … don’t go there. This is Harry’s welfare, he told himself. Be professional.

‘I need to throw you more questions than you throw at me,’ he growled. ‘What are you playing at?’

She was halfway up the veranda steps and she paused. ‘You sound angry.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be angry? This is my sister’s child. I’m responsible for him. You’re not who you say you are. I don’t want anyone messing with his welfare.’

‘Do you think I could possibly hurt Harry?’

‘I don’t know what game you’re playing …’

‘No game,’ she said stiffly. ‘This place represents me exactly as I am. I’m Kate Martin, counsellor and physiotherapist.’

‘You and I both know that’s a lie.’

‘It isn’t a lie. I trained at university in Auckland. Years of study. My qualifications are real.’

‘You’re a doctor, or you were. Have you been struck off?’

‘No,’ she said flatly, defiantly. ‘I haven’t. But it’s my choice whether I advertise my medical degree or not. With my counselling and physiotherapy qualifications, I don’t need to add the medical stuff.’

‘That makes no sense—and then there’s the small issue of your name.’

‘You’re treating me like a criminal.’

‘You’re acting like one.’

‘It’s not a sin to change your name.’

‘People don’t change their names unless they’re hiding.’

‘So I’m hiding, but my reasons are personal and nothing to do with my professional ability. I ask you to accept that.’

‘So if I ring the medical board and enquire …’

‘I’d ask you not to do that.’ Her face was pale but resolute. She stood halfway up the steps, holding onto the rail as if she needed it for support. ‘I’ve taken a great deal of trouble to ensure there’s no link between Cathy Heineman and Kate Martin. One phone call could destroy that. One phone call could mean I need to walk away from all I’ve worked for.’

‘You mean the medical board—’

‘Couldn’t care less,’ she snapped. ‘I have my change of name recorded. Believe it or not, I’m still a registered doctor with no blemish against my name. I still accrue my professional training points and I keep my registration up to date. But the receptionist who receives notes of my continual professional training updates Kate Martin’s file. I did the name change carefully with only a couple of trusted friends helping. I want no link.’

There were a couple of moments of silence. Intense silence. She was gazing straight up at him, unflinching. Defiant even. Still, she was pale.

One phone call could mean I need to walk away from all I’ve worked for …

This was personal, he thought. He shouldn’t ask.

But this was Harry.

‘Cathy … Kate,’ he said at last. ‘Harry’s lost his parents. He has no one to protect him except me and his very bossy aunt. Helen demanded that I bring him here. I did so with reservations because alternative medicine makes me wary, and the first thing I saw was a dead child. That was followed by a doctor using an assumed name. Your defensiveness might be valid from your perspective but for Harry’s sake I need an explanation.’

‘You can’t just let Maisie and the dolphins do their own work without probing into my past?’

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Harry’s too important for that.’

‘You were my friend,’ she said. ‘You trusted me.’

‘I trusted you not to break a test tube,’ he said. ‘And they were the university’s test tubes. This is Harry.’

She bit her lip. Her gaze faltered for a moment. She stared down at her bare toes and then she raised her chin again. She met his gaze with that same defiance, but touched with the defiance was a hint of fear.

‘I don’t tell people.’

‘No.’

‘Can I trust you?’

‘You can trust me not to tell anyone else. You can’t trust me not to pick up Harry and walk away.’

‘Fair enough.’ She sighed and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘There’s wine in your refrigerator. I’m off duty. If I don’t charge you mini-bar prices, will you pour me one? You can have a free beer as well.’

‘Bribing as well?’ he asked, but he smiled to soften the words and she managed a smile back.

‘I’ll do anything I need to stay hidden,’ she said simply. ‘Handing you access to your mini-bar is the least of it.’

She was settled in the deck chair on Jack’s veranda. Jack had nearly finished his beer and she was halfway through a glass of wine.

She’d expected him to push, but he didn’t. He seemed content to wait, giving her the time she needed.

And she needed time. Her story was simple and bleak and it was something that had happened to a woman called Cathy Heineman, not to her. She was Kate Martin and she’d moved on.

But Jack was still waiting. If he was to trust her, he had a right to know.

‘You know I married,’ she said.

‘I did know that.’

‘Fourth year. I was twenty-one. A kid.’

‘We seemed pretty old and wise at the time.’

‘We did, didn’t we?’ she said, and tried for a smile. ‘But I was still a baby. Still living at home, the only child of elderly parents. Ruled by a loving despot. My father’s health was precarious and my mother was terrified. Dad had two heart attacks while I was in my teens, and Mum’s mantra was Don’t do anything to upset your father.’

‘So?’

‘So that was the way it was,’ she said. ‘Simon was the son of Dad’s best friend and business partner. Almost family. I was sixteen when we first dated. Simon was twenty four and the excitement our parents felt was amazing. The assumption from that first date was that we’d marry.’

‘But you obviously liked the guy.’

‘Oh, yes. But he was just … an extension of my family. He was older than me, good looking, powerful, and he fed my teenage ego no end. And suddenly I was in too far to get out. When I started university I started getting itchy feet, but by then Dad’s health was failing even more. The pressure was on for us to marry before he died. Simon was pressuring me too, saying he was fond of my dad, we should do it. So I did.’

She said it almost defiantly, as if it was a thing that needed defending.

He stayed silent. There was more coming; he knew it.

‘Only, of course, then I was a wife,’ she said slowly. ‘Before I’d been a girlfriend, almost a casual girlfriend as Simon had let me go my own way—as indeed he went his. He was training to take over our parents’ business. He was an only child too, so we’d both inherit and the business—importing quality wine—was brilliant. Both families were wealthy, but Simon wanted more.’

‘Is that why he married you?’ Jack asked.

Kate stared into her wine glass for a long moment before she answered. Then: ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course it was, only I was too naïve to see it. All I saw was that he was a nice guy, and my father was desperate for the marriage. I think … maybe even then I was thinking if it doesn’t work out, after Dad and Mum go I can divorce. I was only twenty one. I had my medical career to get off the ground. I didn’t intend to have babies for years.’

‘But?’ he said gently, and she swirled her wine some more.

‘But,’ she said heavily. ‘But.’

‘If you don’t want to tell me, I can get the picture.’

She glanced up at him then and managed a smile. ‘So little, and you’ll trust?’

‘I assume you’re running from him?’

‘See, in his eyes I’m not Cathy or Kate,’ she told him. ‘Divorce or not, I’m his wife. I’m the other part of Simon’s inheritance, and Simon doesn’t give up possessions lightly.’

‘I see.’

‘You probably don’t. The fights we had … First he wanted me to give up my medical studies. After we married he couldn’t see the point. I fought him on that, you can’t believe how much I fought, and I won but at a cost. And after that … every little thing meant a fight. If I defied him, heaven help me. He wanted total control. And then Dad died, Simon’s father went into care with Alzheimer’s and the whole thing crashed.’ She faltered. ‘It seemed … Simon gambled. No one knew. No one suspected. But he’d mortgaged the business. He’d forged signatures so my half as well as his was forfeit. I knew then why he’d married me and I knew why he had to stay married. But after one vicious fight too many I walked away, and then, after what happened next, I ran.’

‘Cathy—’

‘I’m Kate,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m Kate Martin. Cathy Heineman is divorced and has disappeared because Simon still thinks he owns her. Simon went to jail because he signed contracts using my mother’s name and mine. My mother died in poverty because of him. His own parents are penniless. Simon is a lying, thieving thug and I’m glad my parents are dead because they never had to see …’

She caught herself. ‘No. It’s not necessary to tell you all the gruesome facts. Just that I didn’t take forgery and theft lying down. It wasn’t just me he robbed but I was the one who sent him to jail. So Simon still hates me and he’s lethal. Ten years on, he’s been in and out of jail and I’m still afraid of him. His hatred is out of all context, off the wall. So I’m Kate. I changed my name. I scraped together enough from our assets to go overseas. I worked as a waitress while I retrained as a physiotherapist. I did some psychology too—in some ways it helped with the stuff that had happened to me. The university in Auckland was supportive. My medical degree meant additional qualifications were fast-tracked and I qualified with my new name.

‘Then I heard about this place. Even though it was back in Australia, a dolphin sanctuary three hundred miles from the nearest city seemed perfect. I can vet clients before taking bookings. If there’s a familiar name I can say we’re full up, as we nearly always are. It’s only because Harry was booked in under his aunt’s name that I missed you.’

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