“You’ve built yourself a cocoon. If you love, then you get hurt.”

“Oh, please,” she whispered. “What’s with the psychoanalysis?”

“I did it as a minor during med,” he said, suddenly cheerful. “I knew it’d come in handy some day.”

“I’m not your patient.”

“No,” he said, and his voice was serious again. “You’re my love. You’re my Ally. You’re a wonderful doctor and a wonderful massage therapist and a wonderful daughter and karate expert and toast-maker and floor-scrubber. But most of all you’re you. I love you, Ally. Whoever you are. Whatever you do.”

“You’re crazy.”

Dear Reader,

There are so many doctors in the world today—doctors of all descriptions. For example, the lovely lady who massages away the knots that form in my back after a week of writing has a doctor of philosophy degree. I think this could lead to some wonderful mix-ups. Last year, lying on my massage table, half-asleep, I started to dream what those mix-ups could be.

Mix-ups, massage and medicine, and two very special doctors…this book has them all. I had a lot of fun writing The Doctor’s Special Touch. In the interests of research I even learned to give a half-decent massage.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as my husband enjoyed my research!

Warm regards,

Marion Lennox

The Doctor’s Special Touch
Marion Lennox

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

‘ARE you out of your mind?’

Ally’s ladder wobbled to the point of peril.

Until now, the main street of Tambrine Creek had been deserted. At eight a.m. on a glorious autumn morning, anyone without any urgent occupation was walking on the beach, pottering on the jetty or simply sitting in the sun, soaking up the warmth before winter.

Which left Ally alone in Main Street. It was gorgeous even there, she’d decided as she worked. The shopping precinct of the tiny harbour town was lined with oaks—trees that had been acorns when Ally’s great-grandfather had first sailed his fishing boat into the harbour a hundred years before. Now the oaks were at their best, their leaves ranging from vivid green to deep, glorious crimson. They were starting to drop, turning the street into a rainbow of autumn colour.

Which was why Ally had a leaf above her eye right now, caught by her honey-blonde fringe. She’d been in the process of brushing it away when the stranger had spoken.

And shocked her into almost falling off her ladder.

She was brushing the leaf from her fringe. She was holding a paintpot, with her brush balanced on the top. That didn’t leave a lot of hands to clutch her ladder. But clutching the ladder was suddenly a priority. She made a grab, subconsciously deciding whether to drop the leaf or the paintpot.

Which one? According to Murphy’s law, some things were inevitable.

So the pot fell, and it hit street level right at the stranger’s feet. A mass of sky-blue paint shot out over the pavement, over the leaves—over the stranger’s shoes.

Whoa!

Safely clutching her ladder—she’d finally decided maybe she could release her leaf as well—Ally surveyed the scene below with dismay.

The guy underneath was gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous, in a sort of any-excuse-to-put-him-on-the-front-page-of-a-women’s-magazine-type gorgeous. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a lovely strong-boned face. Deep, dark grey eyes. Wavy, russet hair, a bit too long. Yep, gorgeous.

The clothes helped, too. The man was dressed relatively formally for this laid-back seaside village in neat, tailored trousers and a short-sleeved shirt in rich cream linen. The man had taste. And he was wearing a tie, for heaven’s sake—and not a bad tie either, she conceded.

What else? He had lovely shoes. Brogues. Quality. Beautifully streaked now with sky-blue paint.

His shoes seemed to be a cause for concern. Ally clutched her ladder and sought valiantly for something to say.

Finally she found it. She let the word ring around her head a little, just to see how it sounded. Not great, she thought, but she couldn’t think of much else. He’d scared her. Don’t launch straight into grovelling apology, she told herself. So what was left?

‘Whoops,’ she said.

Whoops.

The word hung in the early morning stillness. The stranger stared for a bit longer at his shoes—as if his feet had personally let him down—and then he turned his attention back to her.

Involuntarily Ally’s hands clutched even tighter at the ladder. Whew. She was about to get a blast. His deep, grey-flecked eyes looked straight up at her, and they blazed with anger.

This man intended to let her have it with both barrels.

OK. She knew about anger. She’d lived through it before and she could live with it again. She closed her eyes and braced herself.

Silence. Then: ‘Hey, I’m not going to hit you,’ he told her.

That was out of left field. She opened her eyes cautiously and peered down.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said I’m not about to hit you,’ he told her. ‘Or knock you off your ladder. So you can stop looking like that. Much as you deserve it, there’s no way painting shoes merits physical violence.’

She thought about that and decided she agreed. She agreed entirely. She shouldn’t expect violence, she thought, but she had entirely the wrong slant on the world, and she’d had it for ever.

‘You scared me,’ she said, still cautious.

‘So I did.’ His voice was almost cordial. ‘Silly me. So you decided to paint me in return.’

‘It might come off,’ she told him. ‘With turpentine.’

‘Do you have turpentine?’

‘No.’

He sighed. ‘You’re painting with oil-based paint—and you don’t have turpentine?’

‘I’ll get some. When the store opens.’

‘At nine o’clock. By which time my shoes will be dry. Blue and dry.’

‘But I’ve only just started to paint, so I don’t need turpentine yet. Or I didn’t.’ She gazed up at her handiwork then down to his shoes, and her ladder wobbled again.

‘You know, if I were you I’d come down,’ he told her. ‘That ladder isn’t safe. You need someone holding the bottom.’ Then, as if it occurred to him that she just might ask him to volunteer, he added, ‘Maybe you need to get a different type of ladder.’

‘This one’s fine.’ Though maybe he did have a point, she conceded. It was sort of wobbly. Sort of very wobbly. Maybe instead of one that balanced against the shop front, she should get one that was self-supporting.

How much did a self-supporting ladder cost?

Probably far too much. How much did she have left in the kitty? About forty dollars to last until she got her first client.

But he was still worrying. ‘You’ll kill yourself,’ he told her. ‘Come down.’

She considered this and found a flaw. ‘The pavement’s all blue,’ she told him. ‘I might get my shoes dirty.’

‘Lady…’

‘Mmm?’ She dared a smile and discovered he was trying not to smile back. She smiled a little more—just to see—and the corners of his mouth couldn’t help themselves. They curved upward and the flecked grey eyes twinkled.

Whew! It was some smile. A killer smile.

The sort of smile that made a girl clutch her ladder again.

But the smile had moved on. ‘Whoever’s employing you should be sued for making you work with a ladder like this.’ He gazed up at the sign she’d etched in pencil and was now filling in with paint. ‘And to get back to my first point…’

‘Which was asking me was I out of my mind.’

‘You’re painting a sign,’ he said. ‘Advertising a doctor’s rooms. Right next to my surgery.’

‘Your surgery?’

He pointed sideways. She peered sideways and wobbled again.

He sighed. He caught the ladder and held it firmly on each side, gaining a liberal coating of blue paint on each hand as he did.

‘Get down,’ he told her. ‘Right now. I’m the Dr Darcy Rochester of the small, insignificant bronze plate on the next-door clinic. A nice, discreet little doctor’s sign. As opposed to your monstrosity.’

‘Monstrosity?’

‘Monstrosity. Signs four feet high are a definite monstrosity. And painting them above eye level is ridiculous. For both of us. I don’t want another patient,’ he told her. ‘I’m worked off my feet as it is, and this is a one-doctor town. If you break your neck you’re in real trouble.’

‘I might be at that,’ she admitted. She thought about what he’d said, sorting it out in her head. Figuring out what was important. ‘You’re the Dr Darcy Rochester in the sign?’

‘Yes.’

Nice. She’d been wondering what he looked like, imagining who he could be, and this was perfect. He so fitted his name.

‘Has anyone ever told you that you have a very romantic name?’

‘They have, as a matter of fact,’ he said with exaggerated patience. ‘My mother was a romance addict. She couldn’t believe her luck when she met Sam Rochester. She called my brother—’

‘Don’t tell me. Edward?’

‘Nothing so boring. Try Byron.’ Then, at her look of horror, he grinned. ‘He calls himself Brian and anyone who uses Byron gets slugged. You know, with the amount of paint sprayed on these rungs, if I stay holding this ladder for much longer I’m going to stick here. Get down. Now.’

She didn’t have much choice. She took a deep breath and descended. With care. Another leaf landed on her nose and she blew it aside. It distracted her, but not very much.

He was too near. Too close. And when she took those last couple of steps he was right behind her. He was big, warm and solid, with the faint scent of something incredibly masculine emanating from his person. Like open fires. Woodsmoke.

‘Do you smoke?’ she demanded, and he was so surprised that he took a step back. Breaking the intimacy. Which was good.

Wasn’t it?

‘Um…no.’

‘You smell like smoke.’

‘You smell like paint thinner,’ he told her, trying not to smile. ‘I don’t ask if you drink it.’

‘Sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘Of course. It’s none of my business. But if you’re a doctor…’

‘I have a wood stove in my kitchen,’ he said, with the resigned tolerance he might have used if she’d been a too-inquisitive child. ‘I cook my morning toast on a toasting fork.’

Her eyes widened. That brought back memories. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Cool.’

But he’d moved on. Back to business. ‘You know, I really would like to know what your sign means,’ he told her. ‘We seem to be going the long way round here. You know what I do. You know about my crazy mother’s addiction to romance. You know I cook my toast on a wood stove.’ His voice lowered, and suddenly the laughter was gone. ‘So now it’s your turn. Are you going to tell me why on earth there is a blue sign half written on the building next door to mine saying “Dr A. J. Westruther”?’

She gulped. Dr A. J. Westruther. She’d agonised over whether to use the ‘Doctor’ bit. But she was entitled, and if it meant more clients…

This was a small country town and massage would be a new experience for most. If the label ‘Doctor’ made the locals feel more comfortable—and scared away those for whom massage meant something totally inappropriate—why shouldn’t she use it?

‘Dr Westruther’s me,’ she told him.

This conversation had been frivolous up to now. But suddenly it wasn’t. She wiped her hands on the sides of her paint-stained overalls and thought, Uh-oh. Here goes.

‘You’re Dr Westruther?’

‘Ally,’ she told him and put out her hand.

He didn’t take it.

‘No one’s employing you to paint a sign?’

‘No.’

‘You’re saying that you’re a doctor?’

‘Yep.’

His brows hiked in disbelief. ‘You’re a doctor—and you’re setting up in opposition to me?’

‘Oh, come on.’ She tried to smile but there was something about the sudden shadowing of this man’s eyes that made her smile fade before it formed. ‘You think I’d do that? It’d be crazy to set up in opposition.’

‘You’re a…dentist, then?’ His eyes raked hers, and she saw disbelief that she could be anything so sensible. So mature.

This was hardly the way she’d wanted to meet this man, she thought. If this worked out, she hoped that maybe he could send work her way. That was why she’d rented this place so close to the doctor’s surgery. But when she’d visited the town two weeks ago to organise a rental, a locum had been working in Dr Darcy Rochester’s rooms. The gangly locum who’d been filling in for him had said that he’d tell…Darcy about her, but maybe he hadn’t.

As a professional approach, this was now really difficult. She’d imagined a cool, collected visit to his surgery, wearing one of her remaining decent suits, pulling her hair back into a twist that made her look almost as old as her twenty-nine years, maybe even wearing glasses. Handing him her card.

It hadn’t happened like that. She hadn’t been able to afford cards. She was aware that she looked about twelve. Her overalls were disgusting. Her long blonde hair was hauled back into two pigtails to keep it free from paint, and she was wearing no make-up. And he was angry and confused.

She had to make things right. Somehow.

‘I’m not a dentist,’ she told him. ‘Urk. All those teeth.’ She grimaced and hauled the ladder along past where she’d been working so he could see what the final sign would be.

After the huge, blue sign—DR A. J. WESTRUTHER—was another, as yet only faintly stencilled in pencil.

MASSAGE THERAPIST.

‘You’re a masseur,’ he said blankly, and she nodded. There was something in his voice that warned her to stay noncommittal. Let him make the judgements here.

‘You’re setting up professional rooms as a masseur.’

That was enough. ‘Hey, we’re not talking red-light district,’ she snapped. There was enough disdain in his voice to make it perfectly plain what his initial reaction was. ‘I give remedial and relaxation massage, and I do it professionally. By the way, I’m a masseuse. Not a masseur. Get your sexes right.’

‘Let’s get the qualifications right.’ Anger met anger. ‘You’re calling yourself a doctor?’

‘Yes!’ Her eyes blazed. Heck, she was committed to this profession. She’d fallen into it sideways but she loved it. She loved that she was able to help people. Finally. And she didn’t need this man’s condemnation. It’d be great if he supported her but she’d gather clients without him.

‘It’s illegal to call yourself a doctor.’

‘Phone my university,’ she snapped. ‘Check my qualifications.’

‘Doctor of what?’

‘Go jump.’ She was suddenly overpoweringly angry. Overpoweringly weary. What business was it of this man what her qualifications were? She was telling no lies. She wasn’t misrepresenting herself.

Maybe it had been a mistake to use the word ‘doctor’ in her sign. She’d agonised over it but, heck, she’d abandoned so much. If the use of one word would help her build this new career—this new life—then use it she would.

So much else had been taken from her. They couldn’t take this.

‘Look,’ she said wearily, her anger receding. Anger solved nothing. She knew that. ‘We’re getting off to a really bad start here. I’ve tossed blue paint at you and you’ve implied I’m a hooker.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did. If you check, you’ll find that I’m absolutely entitled to use the title “Doctor”.’

‘You don’t think a doctorate—of what, basket weaving?—might be just a bit misleading when you’re setting up in a medical precinct?’

‘Medical precinct?’ She swallowed more anger. Or tried to. Then she gazed around. There were a total of five shops in the tiny township of Tambrine Creek. Then there was a pub and a petrol station. The oak-lined main street ran straight down to the harbour, where the fishing boats moored and sold their fish from the final shop—a fishermen’s co-op that had existed for generations.

‘You know, we’re not talking Harley Street here,’ she ventured. ‘Medical precinct? I don’t think so.’

‘There’s two premises.’

‘Yeah, two medical premises. Yours and mine. Yours is a doctor’s surgery. Mine is a massage centre. It was a tearoom once, but it’s been closed for twenty years. The owner’s thrilled to get rent from me and the council has no objection to me setting up. So what’s your problem? Do I somehow downgrade your neighbourhood?’

‘There’s no need to be angry.’

‘It’s not me who’s angry,’ she told him, but she was lying. She’d done with the placating. ‘Basket weaving,’ she muttered. ‘I wish it had been purple paint I threw at you and I wish it had hit your head. Now, are you going to sue me for painting your feet? If so, there’s no lawyer in town but I can’t commend you strongly enough to leave town and find one. Preferably one in another state. I need to get on with my work.’

‘You’ve spilled your paint.’

‘Of course I have,’ she snapped. ‘And it was well worth it. Your brogues are drying, Dr Rochester. You need to go find some turpentine.’

‘You’ll never make a living.’

‘We’ll see.’ She stooped to lift her now empty paintpot from the pavement and was suddenly aware that someone was watching them. An elderly lady, a basket on one arm and a poodle dangling from the other, was gazing at the pair of them as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

‘It’s Ally,’ she whispered. ‘Ally Lindford. You’ve come home!’

Crimplene was very hard to escape, especially when Crimplene was intent on smothering you. Ally was enfolded in a bosom so ample she’d never felt anything like it, and it took her a few valiant tries before she could finally find enough space to breathe.

Doris Kerr. How could she have forgotten Doris?

She hadn’t. She hadn’t forgotten a single person in this town.

So who was this Dr Rochester? she wondered from her cocoon of Crimplene. Definitely a newcomer. But maybe not so new. Ally had been away for twenty years.

‘I saw the Dr A starting on the wall when I walked my Chloe last night.’ Doris had decided to take pity on her and hold her at arm’s length. ‘And I said to myself—a doctor? Yes. Just what we need. Dr Rochester needs help so much. But then I saw the pencilling saying massage and I said to myself we don’t need a massage parlour here—that’s the last thing we want in a respectable town like this—and I phoned Fred on the town council before I went to bed. But he said it’s not like I think—it’s a proper nice massage that you get when you hurt yourself and then he told me who it was who’d applied to run it and I was so excited. I thought I’d come down this very morning to see for myself and… Oh, my dear, it is so good to see you again.’

The Crimplene flooded toward her again and Ally managed to give Darcy a despairing glance before she was once again enfolded.

‘Um… It seems you two know each other,’ Darcy said.

‘Mmph.’ It was all Ally could manage.

‘And you’re using your grandpa’s name,’ Doris was saying. ‘Dr Westruther. How wonderful is that? I never did like Lindford. Evil is as evil does and…’ She caught herself. ‘Well, he was your father and he’s long dead so maybe I shouldn’t be speaking ill of him. But if your poor mother had just decided to go back to using Westruther…’ She gulped and hauled back, still hanging onto Ally but beaming across at Darcy. ‘Isn’t this just wonderful? A Dr Westruther in Tambrine Creek again after all these years.’

‘She’s a masseur,’ Darcy said, and Ally glowered.

‘Don’t say it like I’m a dung beetle.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, dear,’ Doris told her. ‘He’s the best thing since sliced bread is our Dr Rochester. Do you know, we didn’t have a doctor for five years before he came. And he’s so nice.’

‘I can see that,’ Ally agreed.

‘I did hold the ladder,’ he told her. ‘And I got blue hands.’

‘You scared me.’

‘Your grandpa was the doctor here?’

‘Grandpa died seventeen years ago.’

‘That’s when Ally left town,’ Doris told him. ‘Her father came and took her away. Nothing we could say made any difference. But…he looked after you, didn’t he, lass?’

‘He looked after me,’ Ally agreed tightly.

‘And now you’re back.’

‘I am.’ She made a determined effort to regain control—to pin a cheerful smile on her face and move forward. ‘And I’m here to stay.’

‘Where are you living?’

‘Here. Above the shop.’

‘You can’t do that.’ Doris seemed horrified.

‘Of course I can.’ How to explain to Doris that it was palatial compared to some of the places she’d lived in? ‘And now I’ve met the neighbour and he’s such a sweetheart.’

‘He is nice,’ Doris said, but she’d caught the tone of Ally’s voice and she was starting to sound dubious. ‘You two don’t sound as if you’ve started off on the right foot.’

‘She threw blue paint at my feet,’ Darcy said.

‘I’m sure she didn’t.’ Doris looked from one to the other—and then to Ally’s ladder. ‘You know, that doesn’t look all that safe to me, love.’

‘Just what I was saying.’ Darcy sounded almost triumphant.

‘Tell you what.’ Doris was clearly thinking on her feet. ‘The fleet’s in at the moment. Old Charlie Hammer’s funeral’s this afternoon so the fishermen can’t go out until they see him buried. And everyone’ll be sober until the wake. Why don’t I send a few of the men up here to finish your painting for you, dear? And anything else you might need doing. You know we all respected your grandpa, and everyone’ll be so pleased you’re back. And a doctor, too.’

‘She’s a masseur.’ Darcy was starting to sound a little desperate and Ally gave him her nicest, pitying smile.

‘Doctors can be massage therapists, too,’ she told him. ‘And massage therapists can be doctors.’

‘Are you telling me you seriously plan to make a living in this town?’

‘Of course.’

‘No one will come.’

‘I will,’ Doris said soundly. ‘I like a little massage. Not that I’ve ever had one, of course, but they sound nice. I was telling Henry only the other night that a rub would do me the world of good. Not like those tablets you have me on, Dr Rochester. I’m sure you’re doing your best, but Dr Westruther’s granddaughter… Ooh, I’m that pleased. And I’m sure Gloria will come as soon as she knows about you—her arthritis is something terrible—and my Beryl, and…everyone. I’ll just go and spread the word. It’s wonderful, that’s what it is. It’s just wonderful. Come on, Chloe.’

And with a tug on the unfortunate poodle’s leash, she sailed away to spread the word.

Dr Darcy Rochester was left staring at Dr Ally Westruther. Speechless. While she stared at him and tried to decide where to go from there.

‘You know, you’d really better go and take that paint off,’ Ally said finally. ‘We don’t want you to stay blue for ever, now, do we?’

‘You’re a local?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re really setting up for massage.’

‘That seems to be the intention.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said bluntly. ‘But take the “Doctor” off the sign. It’s misleading.’

‘Why is it misleading?’

‘I’m the town’s doctor.’

‘And you don’t want anyone else invading your territory?’

‘If anyone else wanted to invade, I’d be putting up the white flag before the first shot was fired,’ he told her. ‘Do you have any idea how big this district is? I’m run off my feet. But you’re not going to help.’

No, she thought bleakly. She wasn’t. But she may as well reassure him that she wasn’t pretending to practise medicine.

‘If anyone arrives with broken legs or snakebite, you can be sure I’ll send them to you,’ she told him. ‘As I hope you’ll send anyone with muscle soreness to me.’

‘You expect me to refer people to you when you call yourself a doctor?’

‘Don’t be elitist.’

‘Don’t indulge in deception.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Look, Ally…’

This was going nowhere. ‘I have work to do,’ she told him. ‘Your paint is drying.’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘Watch me.’ She sighed. ‘You’re just upset because my sign is bigger than yours.’

‘Some of us have ethical standards.’

‘Well, bully for some of us,’ she snapped. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have a sign to write and I’ve just decided it needs work. It needs to be bigger.’

He stared at her for a long moment. But there was no more to be said. They both knew it.

Finally he turned and stalked up to his surgery door. He disappeared, slamming the door behind him.

He left blue footprints all the way.

Ally was left staring after him. What to do now?

Nothing, she told herself. There was nothing she could do. Just get on with it.

‘Whoops,’ she said again. She took a deep breath—and then grinned into the morning sun. Whether she had Darcy Rochester’s approval or whether she didn’t, she was home again and nothing and no one was going to interfere with her happiness.

CHAPTER TWO

THROUGHOUT the next few days Darcy worked on as if she wasn’t there. Well, why not? What did a massage therapist have to do with him?

Nothing.

The fact that the entire population was talking about her was none of his business either.

At least he had work to distract him from a woman who was dangerously close to being distracting all by herself.

In truth, he’d seldom been as busy as he was right now. The fine autumn weather broke the afternoon of Charlie Hammer’s funeral, meaning the fishing fleet couldn’t leave port. The town’s fishermen decided en masse that if they were in port anyway they may as well kill time getting their assorted ills seen to, swelling his already too-long patient lists.

Then the little community in the hills above the town—alternative lifestylers who didn’t believe in getting their children immunised—were hit by an epidemic of chickenpox. As he had three kids with complications and parents who agonised and discussed ad nauseam every treatment he advised—and then refused to let him treat them anyway—he was going quietly nuts. But going nuts wasn’t on the agenda. If he stopped calmly discussing treatments with these parents, if he stopped negotiating that at least they keep track of fluid balances—if he lost his cool—then these kids wouldn’t make it to be insurance salesmen or astrophysicists or whatever else kids of dyed-in-the-wool hippies became if they survived childhood.

Then there was the added complication of the entire town trooping by to see Ally’s much talked-of new premises. While they were there, they remembered they may just as well pop next door to the doctor’s surgery and make an appointment to have their sore elbow seen to, or talk about Mum’s Alzheimer’s—and see for themselves just how Dr Rochester was taking this new arrival.

Doris Kerr had obviously spread the fact that Darcy hadn’t reacted with pleasure to Ally’s arrival. His reaction had gone down like a lead balloon. Every single patient commented on the hive of industry next door to his surgery. Many of the long-term town residents—those who remembered Ally from childhood—took pains to tell him how wonderful it was that a little girl they’d clearly held in affection had finally come home.

And their message was clear. ‘Don’t mess with Ally Westruther. Even if her sign is bigger than yours.’

Fine. He wouldn’t mess with Ally Westruther. He didn’t want to think about her. But not thinking about her was impossible, too.

Even among his staff… Betty, his receptionist, got teary-eyed about Ally at least twice a day.

‘Oh, Dr Rochester, I’m so pleased to think that little mite has finally found her way home,’ she told him. ‘And to have another Dr Westruther in town… It seems so right.’

He grimaced but somehow he refrained from saying, ‘She’s not a doctor.’

He thought it, though.

What had she said? Contact my university and ask.

OK, so she probably did have some sort of doctorate, he conceded, and maybe he’d been being petty, suggesting it was in basket weaving. But you couldn’t get doctorates in massage. He knew that. He’d checked. He’d checked five minutes after he’d unsuccessfully tried to clean his shoes.

So the doctorate she was using to promote her massage business must be in something esoteric—like the mating habits of North Baluchistan dung beetles or the literary comparison of Byron and Tennyson or…or something, and she couldn’t make a living so she’d turned to massage and was using her doctorate to attract patients.

That was a guess, he conceded. Nearly everything was a guess when it came to Ally. As much as the locals were pleased to see her, no one knew what she’d been doing in the last twenty years or so.

‘Her mother brought her home to her grandpa when she was tiny,’ Betty told him, unasked, as she was sorting patient records he needed for the afternoon. ‘There was a really unhappy marriage and her father went to jail. I can’t remember all the details but I know old Doc Westruther wouldn’t speak of him. Her mother didn’t stay very long—she disappeared and no one knew where she went—but when she went she left the little girl behind. Then suddenly the old doc died and her father turned up to claim her. There were so many people who would have taken her in but her father just said, “She’s my kid and she comes with me.” There was nothing we could do about it. No one knew where her mother was. I remember her father dragging her into a beat-up old jalopy and Sue, her best friend, wailing at the top of her lungs. I saw them leave town. Her little face was pressed against the car’s back window and…well, the memory never left me. I wondered and wondered. Her father seemed brutal.’

Brutal. Darcy was trying to concentrate on reading Mrs Skye’s patient notes. Elsie Skye’s gout had been playing up and she was coming to see him for the third time. If the treatment he had her on wasn’t working then he needed to think about reasons. What blood tests were appropriate? This level of gout might even indicate malignancy. He needed to check.

But Ally’s face still intruded. He thought about the way she’d reacted to his initial blaze of anger. She’d flinched. A brutal father? His move to reassure her had maybe been appropriate. ‘That’s dreadful,’ he conceded.

‘So don’t you think you might have acted a bit harshly yourself?’ Betty probed. ‘Doris said you were mean.’

That was a little unfair. ‘I was not mean. She spilled paint over my shoes. They’re permanently blue.’

‘Like you can’t afford to buy new shoes.’

‘Most receptionists,’ he told her, in a voice laced with warning, ‘would be sympathetic to their boss when someone threw blue paint at his expensive shoes.’

She grinned. Betty was sixty years old; she’d been receptionist to the three doctors who’d taken care of Tambrine Creek in living memory; and she knew every single patient’s history backward. She was invaluable and she knew it. So she could give as much cheek as she liked.

‘I’m more likely to be sympathetic to Ally,’ she retorted. ‘She needs it. Her grandpa was a harsh man and we worried that her father was worse. I don’t think she’s had it easy.’

‘She shouldn’t call herself a doctor.’

‘Will you get off your high horse? You know as well as I do that if she puts up a sign saying simply, “Ally Westruther, Massage”, every second fisherman’s lad will take it the wrong way and she’ll be fighting them off with sticks.’

He hadn’t thought of that.

‘And she’s got nothing.’ Betty was pushing inexorably on. ‘The boys have been helping her set up. She didn’t want anyone to help, but this bad weather has everyone bored and they’re more than keen to help. So they’ve insisted. Her room downstairs looks nice now. They’ve painted it and she has a lovely massage table and a big heater and everything you’d want. But Russ Ewing blew a fuse when he was sandblasting her front steps and he had to go upstairs to change it. She hasn’t invited anyone up there and now we know why. She’s sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She’s got nothing.’

Mrs Skye’s medical record was getting less and less attention. Darcy was trying hard to concentrate but it wasn’t working. ‘Maybe her furniture’s coming later.’

‘Maybe it’s not. Maybe she’s broke.’

‘She’s an adult. If she’s been working…’

‘Oh, leave it alone.’ Betty shook her head, as if in wonder that he could be so obtuse. ‘She’s a lovely girl, our Ally, and we’re going to support her every way can. And we think you should, too. Why don’t you recommend that Elsie Skye could use a little rub instead of worrying herself sick about her gout?’

‘She doesn’t need a massage.’

‘Elsie can afford it, she’s bored and she’s in pain. Have you wondered why her gout flares up so much more when her daughter’s in America? I bet our Ally could make her feel lovely.’

‘You don’t massage gout,’ he said stubbornly, and she raised her eyebrows as if he was being thick.

‘It’s only her feet that have gout. Not all of her. And as if Ally wouldn’t know not to massage something that would hurt. She’s a doctor!’

‘She’s not a doctor of medicine.’

‘How do you know?’

Darcy set Elsie’s history down on the desk with a slap. He was already running late for afternoon surgery and now he was going to be later—because he was gossiping about someone he had no interest in. ‘Because if she was a doctor of medicine we’d have that wall knocked out between the buildings in two minutes flat,’ he snapped. ‘And she’d be in here, with a queue of patients stretched almost out the door waiting to see her. As I have. Now, can we get on with it?’

‘Yes, Doctor. Certainly, Doctor,’ Betty said with a mock-serious curtsy. ‘Only will you just think about it?’

‘Will I be allowed not to?’

Her first paying customer.

Treating Gloria Kerr was pure pleasure. She’d walked in and peered around Ally’s newly painted rooms and gasped with delight.

‘Ooh, love, you have it really nice. Doris said it looked a picture and then she said why didn’t I get myself down here? I’ve been gardening for a week—the oxalis has taken over the lawn and I hate using that weedkiller stuff. I reckon it gets into the ground water. But my back…it’s killing me. If you could just give it a nice rub?’

Ally hadn’t planned on opening until tomorrow. Her grand opening—i.e. unlocking the front door and hoping someone came—was timed for nine a.m. She didn’t have the room exactly as she wanted it. But Gloria looked at her with eyes that were big with hope; and Ally had exactly sixty-five cents left in her purse and she really fancied dinner.

So she chatted to Gloria as she warmed the towels, and then asked Gloria to choose her preferred oils. She chose sandalwood for relaxation. Then she spent an hour giving the lady the best rub she knew how to administer.

She was carefully gentle. Gloria was in her late sixties. She had knots of osteoarthritis, where massage could inflame a joint and cause more problems. She had deep varicose veins that had to be avoided. But Ally’s hands moved skilfully, patiently, carefully kneading knotted muscles and easing an aching neck and tired, workworn hands.

‘Your fingers are wonderful,’ Gloria whispered as finally Ally lay warm towels back over Gloria’s body, rested her hands on her back for a moment as a final, lingering contact and then stood back from the table. ‘Magic. Oh, my dear, my hands are so warm and soft. You make me feel amazing.’

Part of it was the contact, Ally thought. Gloria Kerr was Doris’s sister. Gloria’s husband had died just before Ally had left town. Her only son, Bill, was a rough-diamond fisherman who maybe gave his mum a peck on the cheek for Mother’s Day and for her birthday. If she was lucky. That was the only human touch she was likely to get.

Massage wasn’t a substitute for loving human contact, Ally thought, but it certainly helped. She’d warmed and mobilised Gloria’s aching joints. She’d given her time out from her loneliness and she’d listened as Gloria had filled her in on the last seventeen years of town life.

Gloria was happy. She’d sleep much easier tonight because of her massage, and Ally accepted her fee knowing she’d given good service.

It was a start, she thought with satisfaction as she stood on the doorstep and watched Gloria walk off happily down the street. She’d helped.

And best of all she’d been paid. She could eat!

‘You know that Gloria has arthritis?’

She whirled to find Darcy Rochester watching her from the front step of his rooms. He looked as if he was about to go out on a house call. Every inch the doctor, he was carrying a smart black doctor’s bag and he was headed in the direction of his capacious Mercedes Benz parked out on the street.

A brand-new Mercedes, she thought bitterly. As opposed to her ancient rust-bucket of a panel van which looked almost ludicrous beside it.

‘Do you have to keep scaring me?’ Ally demanded, and he raised an eyebrow as if such a notion was ludicrous.

‘What, you don’t have a spare bucket of paint to throw at me this time?’

‘I wish,’ she muttered darkly. ‘And, yes, I do know Gloria has arthritis.’

‘So maybe massage isn’t appropriate.’

‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You know your business and I know mine,’ she said through gritted teeth. She was almost deliriously happy to be here again—in this town, setting up her own business—but this man was threatening to burst her fragile bubble of contentment. ‘I know what I’m about,’ she said, trying to moderate her voice a little. ‘I understand that massaging inflammatory joints can cause damage, and I was extremely careful not to do anything of the kind. I helped.’

‘She’s on medication. If you’ve interfered—’

What was it with this man?

‘I did not,’ she said, again through gritted teeth, ‘interfere with Gloria’s medication in any way, shape or form. I did not imply that she’d be better off taking wart of hog, collected at midnight from the local cemetery in ritualistic sacrifice, than she is taking your boring old anti-inflammatories. I did take a medical history—I’d be stupid not to—but she’s your patient, and aside from rubbing her down with a little sandalwood oil…’

‘Sandalwood’s expensive.’

‘So’s a Mercedes,’ she snapped. ‘I charge to cover my expenses. The sandalwood costs me maybe a dollar. I factor it into my accounts. How much do you charge to cover the cost of running your Mercedes?’

Yikes. That was way out of line. She couldn’t believe she’d just said it. She wasn’t normally this rude—this abrupt. What was it about this man that got under her skin?

But he stood on the doorstep of the place where her grandpa used to practise medicine, and his eyes condemned her.

‘Um…we seem to be getting off on the wrong foot,’ he said, and she blinked.

‘We do indeed.’

‘I’m sure you’re a fine massage therapist.’

‘And I’m sure you’re a fine doctor.’ Her tone was wary.

‘If you’d just like to talk to me about my patients before you treat them.’

‘And your patients would be…who? The whole town?’

‘I guess.’

‘You’d like me to ask permission to touch anyone who comes near me?’

‘There’s no need to be dramatic.’

‘There’s every need to be dramatic.’ She was practically snarling. ‘I’m a massage therapist. Not a witchdoctor. The first rule of a good massage therapist is exactly the same rule as for a good doctor. Do no harm. So, if you’ll excuse me, would you just get into your fancy car and take yourself off to wherever you’re going? Because I have things to do.’

She certainly did. She had a steak to buy. A really big steak. Gloria’s money was practically cooking itself in her pocket.

But Darcy was staring at her as if she’d just arrived from outer space.

‘What?’ she said crossly.

‘I just thought…’

‘What?’

‘Look, maybe we should get to know each other a little better.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘It’s a small town. I gather you’re intending to stay.’

‘You’re the Johnny-come-lately,’ she agreed. ‘I’m the local. Maybe you’ll move on.’

‘It’s unlikely.’

‘Why not?’

‘I like it here.’

‘A big fish in a small pond,’ she said cordially, and watched the frown snap down.

‘Look…’

Maybe she ought to change the subject. She had no idea why they just had to look at each other and they started snapping. Conciliation was her middle name, she thought ruefully, and she had no idea why this man had the capacity to knock her right out of her normal pacifist nature.

But she sort of enjoyed it, though, she decided. Astonishingly. Somehow tossing paint at him at their first meeting had set her free to bounce insults around.

Or maybe it had been that when he’d flared in anger and she’d retreated in fear, he’d made it absolutely clear there’d be no consequences.

Argument for argument’s sake was a novel concept, but she was discovering she could enjoy it. But she did need to move on.

‘Did you get your shoes clean?’ she queried.

‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘I didn’t.’

Honestly, he was irresistible. He stood on the top step all dressed up like a very important doctor, and he was so looking like a bubble that had to be burst.

‘You couldn’t have tried hard enough,’ she told him, and watched the grey eyes widen in astonishment. He wasn’t used to be being teased.

‘I got the pavement clean,’ she continued, watching the amazing wash of expressions on his face. ‘I scrubbed and scrubbed and there’s not a trace of blue paint left. So I can be quite useful. There are also times when I don’t do harm.’

‘I didn’t imply…’

‘Yes, you did.’

He glowered. And then he glanced at his watch and he glowered some more, while she watched with interest. She had no idea why she was goading this man, but she couldn’t stop to save herself.

‘We need to talk,’ he said at last.

‘Why?’

‘We just do.’ His frown faded and suddenly he was looking at her with an expression that was almost a plea. ‘There are problems. Things you should know about.’

‘About every patient in town?’

‘Of course not,’ he conceded. ‘But some. If you’ve got time…’

‘I need my dinner.’

He glanced at his watch again. ‘It’s only five o’clock.’

Yeah, but she hadn’t had lunch. And she had enough for a steak.

‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had lunch…’

Snap!

‘I’m about to grab a sandwich from the general store. Have you ever had chickenpox?’

What sort of question was that? ‘No.’

‘Damn.’

‘I’m inoculated, though.’

‘You’re inoculated?’ Once again there was a trace of confusion. ‘Aren’t you too old to have been inoculated?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Chickenpox inoculation for kids didn’t come through until fifteen years back.’

‘I had it later, as an adult.’ All non-protected doctors did. But what business was it of his?

‘Oh.’ He was looking at her as if she were some sort of puzzle—a puzzle that had a hundred pieces and he was far too busy to put them together. ‘Well, good.’

‘Why?’

‘I was going to say that I’ll buy you a sandwich to keep the wolf from the door, and then take you out to the hills above the town.’

‘Are you propositioning me?’

There was a sharp intake of breath on that one. ‘Are you listening?’ he demanded, and she stifled a giggle. Propositioning her? Maybe not. Did this man know that she was even a woman?

‘I’m listening.’ She put on her demure tone and received a suspicious glance for her pains.

‘I have three really sick kids up in the alternative lifestyle settlement above town,’ he told her. ‘It’s a commune of sorts. They’ve been hit with chickenpox and I can’t bring the really sick ones down to hospital as I’d like. They won’t let me.’ Then, as she still looked confused, he explained a bit more. ‘I have another half-dozen house calls to do before I call it a day, so I don’t have time to talk to you about the problems you might be facing, but I do need to talk to you. It’s a fifteen-minute drive. Come with me and talk on the way?’

She stared at him. She stared at the big Mercedes.

She looked down at herself.

She’d been painting when Gloria had arrived. She’d put clean jeans and a T-shirt on to do the massage but they weren’t exactly the sort of gear this man would expect in any woman he dated.

And their date was with chickenpox?

Plus a sandwich. A free sandwich. And a ride in a very nice car.

‘OK, then,’ she said, trying hard to sound demure and compliant and not truly excited about a free sandwich. ‘I can do that.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have time between clients.’

‘When’s your next client due?’

‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ she told him. ‘Can I have my sandwich toasted?’

Which was how, fifteen minutes later, they were heading north out of town, with Ally wrapping herself around a double round of toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches with double the usual cheese and very thick bread.

Darcy had ordered himself a single round of salad sandwiches—how boring was that? He finished them off while he drove, then concentrated on driving with the occasional sideways glance at her.

She’d added a chocolate thick-shake as a side order. It tasted unbelievably wonderful.

‘Do you have worms?’ he asked, and she almost choked. But didn’t. That would be a waste of sandwich and there was no way she was wasting a crumb.

‘Why would I have worms?’ she demanded with her mouth full, and then added a polite, ‘Doctor?’

‘I’ve never met anyone so skinny who eats like you do.’

‘Then you haven’t lived,’ she told him, and turned her attention to her thick-shake again. Some things required full attention.

‘So you live on your nerves?’

She sighed. She slurped the rest of her thick-shake and thought about licking the rim. She sighed again, this time in real regret, and let it go. A girl had some standards.

‘I don’t live on my nerves.’

‘So you’re bulimic?’

‘Right. A bulimic call-girl.’

‘Hey…’

‘Do we have to get so personal?’ she asked him.

‘I just want to know.’

‘Well, I don’t particularly want to tell. No, I am not bulimic, Dr Rochester. I’m disgustingly healthy. So set your professional concerns aside and tell me why you’re bringing me on this drive to see chickenpoxes. I assume you don’t think they want a massage?’

‘No, I—’

‘Good. Rubbing poxes would make them itch.’

‘You know—’

‘Just tell me what you want me to hear.’

He hesitated. She waited. This car was really lovely, she thought. It must have cost him a bomb. If she set up her own medical plate in the main street of somewhere like Tambrine Creek, then maybe…

Yeah, right.

‘Tell me,’ she said again, and this time there was an edge of anger in her voice that she didn’t try and disguise.

‘There are some vulnerable people in this town.’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he said angrily. ‘Will you just listen? You haven’t been near this place for nearly twenty years.’

‘So you think I’m about to prey on the population.’

‘I bought you a sandwich,’ he snapped. ‘Listen.’

‘Fine,’ she said. She set her empty shake container in the cute little drink holder between the seats, folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead. ‘In payment for my sandwich I’ll be quiet. But only because you let me have double cheese.’ Her voice became totally subservient. ‘Please, sir, I’m paying attention. You can start now.’

Silence. Then a sound from the driver’s side that might almost be…a chuckle?

She ventured a suspicious glance at him and found his lips were twitching. And those eyes…

Laughter did something to him, she thought, and tried very hard to stay looking demure and compliant and good.

‘OK.’ He took a visible hold on his sudden and unexpected flicker of humour, and gripped the steering wheel harder. ‘There are a few people I need to talk about.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Ivy Morrison,’ he said, and there was a touch of desperation in his voice that said that laughter wasn’t too far away.

‘What about Ivy Morrison?’

‘She’s on a pension.’ Laughter faded. ‘She’s a little simple. She buys every new thing that’s going and gets into the most appalling financial mess. She’ll be desperate to see you.’

‘I’ll see her.’

‘Are you listening?’ he demanded. ‘She can’t afford you.’

‘So you’re saying I should say, “Sorry, Ivy, the doctor says you’re too poor to see me”?’

‘No, I—’

‘Because that would be insulting and humiliating,’ she told him.

‘Yeah, but—’

‘What I can do is take her the first time. I’ll only accept cash—which I do anyway as I can’t afford credit facilities—and I’ll tell her that frequent massage isn’t indicated in someone really fit and healthy. I’ll also make sure that the only appointments I have available for her are on the day before pension day. Never the day after. OK?’

There was a silence. Then he said, ‘You understand about pension days?’

‘Of course I do.’ Did she ever. She knew all about eating reasonably in the first days after you received it and starving in the days before it arrived.

But this was no time for reminiscences. Darcy was still watching her curiously.

‘You’d do that for Ivy?’

‘Of course. I’d do it for anyone I thought needed that level of care. This is my home and this is my community. I’m not about to exploit it.’

‘You really feel like that about Tambrine Creek?’

‘It’s the only home I’ve ever known,’ she told him. ‘I’m not about to mess things up by being greedy.’

‘I don’t suppose you are.’ His voice fell away. He was clearly unsure where she was coming from.

As she was.

‘What about you?’ she asked, moving on. ‘You’ve told me you have a very romantic mother and you have a wood stove. What else?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What’s the rest of the story?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You’re not married? Gloria says you share the doctor’s house with two dogs and a bunch of chooks.’

‘Easier than a wife and kids,’ he said with mock seriousness, and she grinned.

‘I guess. OK. Why are you in Tambrine Creek?’

‘I like it.’

‘Most med students could think of nothing worse than heading straight to Tambrine Creek when there are heaps of jobs available in the cities. Gloria said you just arrived here five years ago to practise and you’ve never made any attempt to leave.’

‘I told you—I like it.’

‘But there must be a reason why you came.’

‘What’s the phrase you used?’ he demanded. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out?’

But he wasn’t laughing. Ally looked at his hands on the steering wheel and saw his knuckles were white. There was a story here.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us, she thought wryly. Two of them running from ghosts.

There was no time for more. ‘Here we are.’ He was steering the big car along a dirt track leading from the ridge overlooking the town.

‘They live here?’ she asked incredulously, and he nodded.

‘They do.’

‘This belongs to Gareth Hatfield. Or it did.’

‘Gareth Hatfield? I’ve never heard of him.’

‘He’s…um… His son was a…a friend of my father’s,’ she said, her voice trailing off. Then, realising something more was expected, she tried again. ‘The old man was filthy rich. He bought all the land around here and then sold it off for a vast profit. The locals used to say he’d find some sucker to sell even this place to, and maybe he has. Is there water up here now?’ Tambrine Creek itself was set on a rich coastal plain, but the land up here was rough and rock-strewn. It was so dry it was almost dust.

‘They cart their water up from the river,’ Darcy told her.

She fell silent, staring about her. She could see three rough bush huts set well back into the scrub. The place seemed deserted. The huts were primitive and there were no vehicles parked where the track ended.

‘No one’s here.’

‘They’ll be inside. Between five and six o’clock, the women cook and the men meditate.’

She swallowed. Memories came flooding back. To have such a community here…now… But Darcy was still watching her, waiting for a reaction. She could see she was starting to puzzle him. What had he said? The women cook. ‘Lucky women.’

‘You’d rather cook than meditate?’ he asked, and she struggled to make her voice sound normal.

‘Of course I would. I’d rather cook than do anything. Especially when I get to eat what I cook. Where are the cars?’

‘There aren’t cars. They don’t believe in them.’

‘How do they get water up here?’

‘The women carry it.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘You’re kidding. It’s a half-mile climb.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Meditation’s looking good,’ she whispered. She’d thought, when Jerome had left the country, that such communities were a thing of the past. But maybe it was a lifestyle attractive for a lot of people.

It still horrified her. ‘I’m feeling a really strong bout of feminism coming on,’ she managed.

‘Try and keep it to yourself,’ he advised. He pulled the car to a halt and reached into the back for his bag. ‘Value judgements aren’t wanted here.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’ she demanded, shaking her sense of unreality and trying to haul herself back to the present. ‘You, the very king of value judgements.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A greedy, money-sucking, bulimic call-girl.’

‘OK.’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK. Enough. Truce. You want to come inside or stay in the car?’

‘You’d trust me with real people?’ Then, at his look, she suddenly relented. ‘I may as well. I guess I could hike off home—if the women cart water up here it seems a bit soppy to whinge about a hike of an hour or so—but…’

‘There are still people I want to talk to you about.’

‘More Ivys? More people you don’t trust me with?’

‘Ally…’

She sighed. ‘Oh, goody. It seems I’m going to be insulted all the way home again, too. OK. I’ll stay. I might have to find someone here I can insult in turn.’

‘Please.’

‘I know.’ She shrugged but then she smiled again. ‘Not appropriate. You don’t need to worry. I’ll be good. You’ll hear no value judgements from me. I won’t charge anyone for massage. I’ll do no harm. It was a truly excellent thick-shake and they were wonderful sandwiches, Dr Rochester. They were even worth being good for.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE hut they entered was a shock.

She’d forgotten how appalling it could be. Ally walked through the door and the first thing that hit her was the smell.

Smells. Plural.

There were pigs hanging round the yard, and a pile of dung by the door was attracting flies, inside and out. Smoke permeated the room, with the vague smell of hundreds of past meals—not all of them appetising. And human smells.

There was a lot to be said for deodorant, Ally thought grimly as the stench reached out to hit her. Then she amended the thought. No. There was a lot to be said for washing.

The smell was overpowering. And the sensation that the past was closing in on her.

Unaware of the vast wash of remembrance flooding over his companion, Darcy didn’t pause. Clearly he’d been here before. He didn’t knock—there was no door, just a gap in the timber slabs that made the wall.

‘How are they?’ he asked before Ally even had time to get used to the gloom. There was a fire smouldering in the centre of the hut, and smoke was wisping up toward a rough hole in the centre of the roof. Not all of it was escaping.

It looked like something out of the Stone Age, Ally thought, and had to swallow and swallow again as she fought for control. It was just like…just like…

A figure emerged from the gloom, a woman, skirt to the floor, hair braided down her back, dirty and…a little bit desperate? She’d been sitting on one of the benches that ran around the walls, and from under a bundle of blankets came a thin, despairing cry.

A sick child? It was a little girl, Ally decided as her eyes adjusted to the smoke-filled room. The child looked about six or seven. Her face was colourless and her sandy curls were a tangled mat on the hessian sack that served as a pillow.

The woman didn’t greet Darcy. She didn’t look at him. She stood, her shoulders slumped in a stance of absolute despair, and she stared at the floor. ‘Jody’s worse,’ she whispered.

Dear heaven. Ally was almost overwhelmed with disbelief. That this could be happening again…

Darcy was already kneeling by the child. He motioned back toward Ally. ‘This is Ally Westruther,’ he said briefly. ‘A friend.’

The woman lifted her head for a moment to glance apathetically at Ally, and then she stared at the floor again.

‘I can’t make her eat anything.’

‘Is she drinking?’

‘A little.’

‘Have you been doing the fluid chart?’

‘Yes.’ She pulled a tatty piece of paper from her pocket and Darcy studied it with concern.

‘Hell, Margaret, she’s not even close to even fluid balance.’ He lifted the little girl’s wrist, but even from where she was Ally could guess that the pulse would be weak and thready. Sick kids—really sick kids—weren’t the ones that came into Emergency, crying. They were silent and limp and scary.

‘How long’s she been like this?’ she asked, and the woman cast her a distracted glance.

‘Three days now. The other two are a bit better.’

‘That’s something.’ Darcy was putting a thermometer under the little girl’s armpit. ‘You mean they’re eating and drinking again.’

‘Yes. But Marigold’s arm looks really red—she’s been scratching so much we can’t stop it getting infected. She says it hurts under her arm as well, and in her neck.’

‘Hell, you need to let me give antibiotics.’

‘He won’t let us.’

Darcy sat back on his heels. He waited in silence until the thermometer had had time to register.

A chicken wandered in the open door and started to scratch in the dust around the fire.

He lifted the thermometer free and winced.

‘It’s high, isn’t it?’ the woman said, as if it was a foregone conclusion.

‘She’s had high temperatures for almost a week. She’s not getting any fluid on board. Margaret, she must come to hospital.’

‘No. He won’t—’

‘He has to let her come. She needs an intravenous drip to get fluids on board. She needs antibiotics.’

‘Give her fluids here.’

‘You know I can’t. Margaret, look around. There are reasons the kids’ sores are infected.’

‘I can’t help it. We do our best.’

‘I need to see Jerry.’

‘He won’t—’

‘Jerry?’ Ally froze.

‘Jerry’s the head of the community.’ Darcy was totally occupied with the child but he talked to her over his shoulder. ‘There are three women and four men here, but Jerry’s the head.’

‘We do as he says,’ Margaret whispered.

‘Even if it means someone dies?’ Darcy demanded, and the woman gasped. He hadn’t referred to Jody by name but his meaning was unmistakable.

‘No.’

‘It may well happen.’

‘No!’

‘Then let Jody go to hospital. You’re her mother.’

‘Jerry says no. You know he says no.’

‘I’ll have to bring in Social Services.’

‘You know he won’t let them take her. Last time he went into the bush and stayed there. You know what happened then. And even if you report it…’ Her voice broke on a sob. ‘It takes weeks for them to do anything, and when they come he’s so reasonable and he makes them feel like everything’s under control.’

‘It isn’t though, is it, Margaret?’

‘N-no,’ she faltered. ‘But I’m only one. I can’t… The group decides.’

‘Lorraine’s Marigold is sick, too, and she’s just as upset.’

‘Lorraine won’t fight Jerry. Neither will Penny, and David’s sick, too.’

‘You must. You all must.’ But Darcy’s voice was weary, as if he’d had this argument a thousand times before.

But Ally was no longer listening.

She stared down at the sick little girl and she felt like she might explode.

Jerry. Jerome. Jerome was here?

‘Where’s Jerry?’ Ally asked—casually, but her voice was loaded. This whole situation… She might choke, she thought. After all these years.

‘He’s meditating,’ Margaret told her. ‘The men are. Penny and Lorraine are making dinner in the other hut.’

‘The other kids are there?’ Darcy demanded.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll see them.’ Darcy rose. ‘But when I leave I’m taking Jody with me, Margaret.’

‘You can’t.’

‘If I don’t…’ He glanced down at the little girl who was staring up at him with eyes that didn’t seem to be registering. ‘You know what will happen. It’s happened before.’

‘Sam was an accident.’

‘A burn that got infected. That I wasn’t allowed to treat.’

Ally stepped back and gripped one of the wall supports, leaning heavily against it. The room was spinning. She felt sick. Jerome Hatfield. It had to be him. In this place, after all these years.

And a little boy called Sam had died of burns. Dear God, how much more damage had he done?

‘He’s in the far hut?’ she demanded, and the woman looked at her, startled. The fury in her voice was unmistakable.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said, and wheeled.

Darcy caught her before she reached the door. He’d moved like lightning, reaching her to grip her arm and stop her from going further.

‘Leave it,’ he said roughly. ‘I’ll see him.’

‘Yeah, like you’ve done a lot so far.’ She was so angry she didn’t care who heard her fury. ‘A little boy dead? And now Jody. I don’t believe this. Let me go.’

‘You’ll do more harm than good,’ he said urgently. ‘If you threaten him he’ll take himself off to the bush and take his people with him. He’s done it in the past. When Sam died.’

‘And you let it happen?’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he told her. ‘They watch the road. When Sam was ill I was so desperate I even called in the police. But they couldn’t find them. And now… It’s taken me ages to persuade Jerry to let me come and treat the kids.’

‘But you let the children stay.’

‘There’s been a Social Services hearing,’ he told her, and she could hear years of frustration in his voice. ‘Margaret loves her kids. Social Services knows that. So do Lorraine and Penny. Jerry’s agreed to let the kids be assessed once a month. Hell, Ally.’

Enough. His hands were tied. She could see that. Focus on Jody. Focus on one child’s needs.

Margaret loved her little girl, she thought, watching the woman’s face. But…did she love Jerry more?

Who could possibly love Jerry?

‘Margaret, you can’t possibly want to stay with Jerry when it’s putting Jody in danger.’ She hesitated and moved to face her. She reached out and gripped her shoulders, forcing her to meet her eyes. ‘You can’t.’

‘You don’t know what he’s like,’ Margaret whispered. ‘I’m his. We’re all his. When Sam died, Penny tried to leave but…she came back. He’d find us.’

‘So you’re scared of him?’

‘Of course we are.’

‘There’s no physical abuse,’ Darcy said from behind her. ‘We went through that after Sam died. Margaret might say this now, but if the authorities come in Jerry will have all their support.’

‘Right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I do know what he’s like, Margaret. And I can deal with this. I promise.’

‘How the hell?’ Darcy was looking at her as if she was out of her mind.

‘Bring the rest of the kids and the women here,’ she told Margaret. ‘Things are going to change. Right now.’

‘You’ll destroy…’ Margaret looked appalled.

‘No,’ Ally told her. Once upon a time she’d been terrified of Jerry Hatfield herself, but that was going back almost twenty years. No more. And that these women and these kids—probably the men, too—were going through what she’d faced.

‘I’ve waited a long time for this,’ she said. ‘Trust me. I can cope with Jerry Hatfield. Darcy, give me your phone.’

‘What—?’

‘I don’t have a cell phone,’ she told him, as if he were being stupid. ‘I need it.’ Then, as he didn’t react, she stepped forward and lifted it from the clip on his belt.

She started dialling.

And she started walking.

‘If you want to see what a massage therapist can do when she decides to do no harm, come along and watch,’ she told him over her shoulder. ‘But this tragedy will stop right now.’ And she started talking urgently into Darcy’s cell phone.

He followed. He hardly had a choice.

Whatever harm she did…well, it couldn’t be worse than what was happening, he thought. His intention now was to put Jody into his car and take her down to the hospital, facing the consequences later. There would be consequences. To physically remove a child from her parents…

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. The alternative was Jody’s death, and he wasn’t prepared to have what had happened to Sam happen to another child. Sam’s death had occurred in the first month he’d been in Tambrine Creek and he still felt dreadful that he hadn’t done more. He’d called in the social workers, rather than taking things into his own hands, and it had backfired dreadfully.

But what on earth was Ally about? He watched in stunned amazement as she spoke urgently to someone on the other end of the phone and then stomped furiously across to the neighbouring hut. She was only about five feet one or five feet two. She was slightly built. Her jeans were faded, her shirt had a paint streak down the back and she was wearing flip-flops. Her long blonde hair hung down her back, and it swayed as she walked, accentuating her entire stance of fury.

She looked like David stalking off to face Goliath, he thought, and he quickened his steps to join her.

Should he stop her?

Maybe not, he decided. This situation had reached breaking point. There was no use skirting round the issues at stake, because those issues involved a child’s life.

But what did she know about this? He was under no illusion that her anger was solely caused by one sick child, justified as that was. She’d reacted too fast, too directly.

What had she called Jerry? Jerry Hatfield? The name the group’s leader was using was Jerry Dwyer.

What did Ally know of him?

All he could do was watch. He arrived at the hut door two seconds after Ally did, and by the time he arrived she was already in action.

This was the meditation hut. He’d glanced in here once, but the women had almost seemed afraid of it. ‘We only go in there to clean,’ he’d been told.

The two living huts were putrid but this was lighter and brighter, with a ring of bright candles around the perimeter sending a golden glow over a group of four men kneeling on prayer mats in the centre.

But the glow was fading. Ally was kicking every candle over, pushing its wick into the dust.

She was ignoring the men.

‘What the…?’

Jerry was the first to rise.

The other three men were spineless. Darcy had decided that early in his encounters with the group. Acolytes who didn’t have the courage to stand up to Jerry, they simply did as he said in all things. It was Jerry who called the tune.

Jerry was in his late fifties or early sixties, a huge bull of a man, habitually dressed in a vast purple caftan with his beard and hair falling almost to his waist. He seemed a bit mad, Darcy had decided. His people were afraid of him, and even though there’d been no proven physical abuse, he guessed there was good reason for their fear.

Ally didn’t seem afraid of him, though. She kicked over the last candle and then stalked over to face him.

‘Jerome Hatfield,’ she said in a voice that was rich with loathing. ‘I can’t believe it’s you.’

‘I’m Jerry Dwyer.’ The man was off balance. He obviously didn’t recognise the woman in front of him and he hadn’t a clue what was going on.

He hadn’t noticed Darcy standing by the entrance, and for the moment Darcy was content to merge into the shadows. And wait.

Maybe he should take the child now while Jerry was distracted, he thought, but then…he could hardly abandon Ally. And Margaret would never let him take her surreptitiously. He intended to take Jody, but he’d have to face Jerry as he did it.

‘You’re Jerome Hatfied,’ Ally was saying. ‘Jerry if you like, but it makes no difference. Don’t lie to me.’

‘I have no idea—’

‘You have every idea,’ she spat. ‘I can’t believe you had the nerve to come back here. After all this time. If your father knew…’

‘My father has nothing to do with you,’ Jerry said, in the great booming voice he used so well to intimidate everyone who came within hearing. ‘Get out of my prayer house.’

‘I don’t know who you’re praying to,’ Ally told him, lowering her voice to almost a whisper. It was an incredible contrast to Jerry’s booming vocal, but it was every bit as effective. Just as menacing. ‘But I tell you now. Nobody’s listening. Why would anyone listen to your prayers, Jerome Hatfield, when you don’t even listen to the people around you? When you let children die.’

‘Get out.’

‘You know,’ she said, suddenly switching her attention to the three men still crouched in disbelief on the prayer mats, ‘if I were you guys, I’d get out now. Consorting with a known criminal is an offence all by itself.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Oh, yes, you are.’ She kept the hush to her tone. There was no need to raise her voice. Even the chickens seemed to have stilled to listen. ‘You left this country seventeen years ago, while you were on bail for assault, forgery, bigamy, theft…you name it. You left a trail of destruction in your wake, including two wives. The police tracked you down twelve years ago and found you doing the same thing in the States. But you ran again, before you could be deported. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of you then, but suddenly—guess what? A man called Jerry Dwyer is living on a barren bush block that no one ever comes near. It’s unsaleable land. Your father owns it and you know he’s written it off as unusable. So you come back, pick up another lot of vulnerable people and start all over again.’

‘You don’t know—’

‘Of course I know,’ she said wearily. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I’m Ally Westruther but, like you, I’ve changed my surname. Try Ally Lindford for size.’

‘Lindford.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, almost pleasantly. ‘Tony Lindford’s daughter.’

He stared as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Tony’s… You’re Ally?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Tony’s dead.’

‘Of course he’s dead,’ she agreed, almost cordially. ‘You don’t care about that, though, do you? Like you didn’t care about my mother and like you didn’t care about any of your people. You’re a liar and a sham.’

He took a deep breath. Searching for control. ‘Get out of my house,’ he boomed.

She ignored him. ‘This man…’ she said, almost conversationally, and Darcy was suddenly aware that there was a cluster of women and children behind him. ‘This man sucks people for everything he can get. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. This man will have control of all your pension books. You’ll all have been on pensions when he met you. That’s why he chose you. He’ll give you nothing. You’ll be half-starving, you’ll work like slaves for him and he’ll never be pleased. He’ll control every aspect of your lives and he’ll never let go. Ever.’

‘These people want to be here,’ Jerry snarled, and Ally gave him a look that would curdle milk.

‘These people have been so brainwashed they don’t know any better. You prey on desperate people when they’re at their weakest. But there is better. There’s welfare services where we can get everyone emergency accommodation. There’s free medical treatment for the kids.’ She motioned down to one of the men and her voice softened. ‘As for you, that’s a skin cancer on your face. If you don’t get it off soon, it’ll be so deep that you’ll be scarred for life. Even now I’d imagine you must be in dreadful pain. You desperately need a skin graft.’

The man put a hand to the side of his head. The wound looked angry and inflamed—incredibly painful.

‘I’ve told him—’ Darcy started, but she cut him off.

‘It doesn’t matter what you told him,’ she said. ‘No one can listen. Not when Jerry overrules everything you say. He’s blocked their ears. But you all need to listen now.’

‘Get out!’ The big man was practically screaming, and he made as if to lunge at Ally. Darcy took a step toward her, but she sidestepped neatly—as if she’d done it many times before?—then turned again to face Jerry.

‘I was deathly afraid of you,’ she told him. ‘Once. But I escaped. And now you all can. This man is nothing but a liar and a thief and a con merchant. And if you listen you might be able to hear a car in the distance. It’s the police. They’re coming, Jerry. I just phoned them. You have outstanding warrants in at least two countries. I’ve contacted them and told them where you are. They’re coming to arrest you right now.’

‘I…’ He was almost speechless. He whirled to his men. ‘Get up. Move!’ Then to the women. ‘Move, now. Out the back way. We can leave.’

‘But I know where all your caves are, Jerry,’ Ally told him, almost pleasantly. ‘They’re a great labyrinth to hide in, but not if the searchers know the way. So you can go where you like and I’ll send the police after you. But as for the rest of you…’ She softened again and faced them all. ‘I know what this man is like,’ she told them. ‘I can help. Believe me, I can help, and so will Dr Rochester. Your kids are ill. You know that. You’re ill yourselves. If you trust us, stay here and let us help. Or trust Jerry as you’ve trusted him for years and see where that gets you.’

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