‘Yeah, but he only uses it on the river. I’ve never known him to take it out to sea. It just doesn’t make sense.’

‘He must be missing you enormously.’

‘And that doesn’t make sense at all.’

‘Why not? Isn’t the man in love?’

She thought about that. She looked like a sparrow, Joss thought, with her head to one side, thinking while concentrating at the same time. She was using tiny stitches-this would be the prettiest scar known to man.

He’d be able to look at it and remember Amy…

And that was truly ridiculous.

‘I guess he must be,’ she said, and he had to think about what he’d asked. Right. Isn’t Malcolm in love?

Of course. He had to be.

But Amy was still considering. ‘It’s so out of character.’

‘He’s not prone to over-the-top declarations of passion?’

‘He’s sensible.’

‘Well, what he did today wasn’t sensible in the least.’ He felt peeved, he thought, and he couldn’t figure out why. She’d tied off the last stitch and had lifted a dressing from the tray. ‘Leave this,’ he told her. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘I-’

‘You go back to Malcolm,’ he said, and if he still sounded peevish he couldn’t help it. ‘He needs you.’

‘Nope.’ She had herself back in hand. ‘I’ll dress this and then I’m putting you to bed.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You’re having a sleep.’

‘I am not.’

‘You’ve risked life and limb, your leg’s sore, you’ve got half a dozen nasty bruises that I can see, and if I peered closer I bet I’d see more.’

‘You would not.’ He hauled his hospital gown closer.

‘And don’t tell me you didn’t nearly pass out in Theatre.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Marie, Mary and I all reckon you did. That’s three against one. And we hold the ace.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

She swooped and lifted the bundle of still damp clothes from where he’d dropped them. ‘I’ll take these to the laundry, so if you’re going anywhere you go in your hospital gown. And I’d check the mirror for your view from behind before you take that option. You’d be shocked to the core! Meanwhile…’

‘Meanwhile?’ He sounded stunned. He felt stunned.

‘Meanwhile, we’ve put Malcolm in the bedroom at the end of the hall. It’s a double room with a spare bed. You take yourself down there and get between the covers. Marie’s asked Cook to make you an omelette and a cup of tea and then the order is to sleep for the rest of the afternoon.’

He was eyeing her cautiously. She was one bossy woman and he was a man who didn’t like to be bossed. By anybody.

But this was Amy and she was laughing at him, and he was…

Damn, she was right. He was shell-shocked. He’d thought it was just his emotions but it was more than that. He tried to stand but his legs felt distinctly odd.

Maybe he quite liked to be bossed.

Maybe the order was changing.

‘You’ve had enough,’ she said, and she moved to support him. His arm came around her and he held on.

He held on for too damned long-but neither wanted to let go.

This was crazy. She was engaged!

‘I’ll go,’ he said at last.

‘You’d better,’ she whispered, and they both knew what she meant by that.

He’d better-or they weren’t prepared for the consequences.


Lunch-or maybe it was dinner, it was halfway between the two-was great, but by the time he’d finished eating his head was heavy on his shoulders and he was prepared to concede that Amy knew what she was talking about.

Mary was watching over Malcolm, who lay in the bed beside him. Damn, why wasn’t it Amy? It wasn’t and he had to be content with Mary clearing his plate and tucking him in. Like he was a four-year-old.

‘Now, you sleep,’ she said sternly-and, like it or not, he slept.


When he woke it was dark and someone was in the room.

For a moment he was confused, trying to remember where he was. The room was in darkness. A nightlight was shining from under the bedhead, and he could just make out someone framed in the doorway.

A woman?

Charlotte.

What was Charlotte doing here?

He opened his mouth to speak but her whisper cut across the room. This must be what had woken him.

‘Malcolm?’ It was an urgent whisper and brought a whisper in response.

‘Charlotte.’

Charlotte glanced at Joss but he didn’t stir. As far as she was concerned, he was one of the several old men in the nursing home, settled down early for his routine bedtime.

Joss wasn’t settled at all. Charlotte knew Malcolm?

The plot thickened…

He fixed his eyes firmly shut, told himself to ignore the itch on the end of his nose-itches only seemed to happen when you had to be still-and strained to listen.

‘Are you OK?’ She was shuffling forward. She’d only been out of bed a couple of times since the Caesarean and her stitches would be pulling. She moved awkwardly forward with another nervous glance toward Joss.

Joss tried an obliging snore and wuffled a bit, like he was eighty.

‘No.’ That was Malcolm from the next bed and Joss could hear the pain in his voice. ‘I’m not OK. Hell, it hurts. I damn near killed myself. Of all the…’

‘Why did you come?’

‘I had to see you, of course. I wanted to make sure you didn’t tell…’

‘Didn’t tell Amy?’ Charlotte’s voice broke on a sob. ‘Of course. I was stupid to think you must want to see me.’

‘I did.’ Joss could hear him making an effort to placate her and he could imagine the man putting a hand out to touch the woman as she reached his side. They were so close…

He could just reach out and tweak the curtains…

The curtains around the beds gave an illusion of privacy. Behind them the two could imagine they were alone. As they did. Maybe Malcolm didn’t know he was here, and Charlotte believed that he was asleep.

‘I wanted you so much,’ she was saying.

‘So I came.’

‘You almost killed yourself.’

‘Yeah, I was a fool. But I wanted to see our daughter.’

‘Not a fool. Oh, Malcolm…’

Yeah, he’s a fool, Joss felt like saying, but he showed great forbearance and didn’t. Sheesh, the weather was easing! The ferry could be up and running by morning. He’d needed to see his daughter, so he’d risked her being fatherless?

He’d risked Joss being lifeless!

And… Malcolm was the baby’s father?

But something else was bothering Malcolm. ‘You didn’t tell Amy?’ The guy was in deep pain, Joss thought, listening to his voice. He should pull back the curtain and check his obs and give him pain relief.

Not yet.

‘I didn’t tell Amy,’ she repeated dully. ‘I wanted to. That was why I came here in the first place. I was sitting outside her house, waiting for her to come home. I knew, you see. I asked at the post office and they said she knocked off at two and came home for a couple of hours. I’d come too early so I had to wait, because I wasn’t brave enough to come here. Only then I went into labour and panicked and tried to drive home. And I crashed. Then…when I was here and Amy was so nice…I couldn’t tell her. I tried to but I couldn’t. I’d thought…if I could only get her alone, I could explain.’

‘Explain what?’

‘That we’re in love,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘That I was carrying your baby. That we want to marry.’

‘But we don’t want to marry. We can’t. Not yet.’ It was an urgent demand. Charlotte must have completely forgotten that there was someone in this bed-or else she didn’t care-and Malcolm surely hadn’t realised.

‘Of course we want to marry. You have a daughter. Surely you want to acknowledge her. And you don’t love Amy.’ She was verging on hysterics.

‘Charlotte, remember our plans. I’m engaged to Amy and it’d be stupid to break it off. I’m all she has.’

‘But you love me.’

‘I can’t break off the engagement with Amy. You must see… That’s why I came the way I did. I thought no one would be at the harbour mouth in this weather. I’d park the boat by the old moorings and come in when Amy wasn’t around. Sunday afternoon there’s always so many old folk visiting I wouldn’t be noticed. I could avoid the staff and just ask one of the oldies where you were. I had to stop you from being stupid.’

‘Stupid-to tell her we’re in love?’

‘Charlotte, no.’ The intensity was too much for Malcolm, Joss thought. He could hear the desperation in the man’s voice. He should get up and stop this-tell Charlotte that Malcolm was in no state for visitors.

He did no such thing. Not yet. He waited.

‘It’s the money,’ Charlotte said flatly, and Joss heard Malcolm draw in his breath. The money. Of course. ‘You still think she’ll marry you and then you’ll get a share of all the money she inherits. That’s why you panicked and rode that damned speedboat into the rocks. You didn’t trust me to be quiet. When you rang last night and I was so upset… I might have known you’d do something stupid.’

‘You weren’t being logical last night,’ he told her wearily. ‘You weren’t making sense. Charlotte, this is all about our future. Our baby’s future. Amy’s worth a fortune and if I marry her, if I support her for the time she’s trapped in Iluka… Charlotte, it’ll set us up for life. Even if I only get my hands on ten per cent of what she’s worth, it’ll be enough. It’s only at weekends. You know she can’t leave Iluka. During the week we can be together, like we always have been.’

‘And our baby?’

It was too much. Malcolm gave a grunt of sheer exhaustion. ‘Charlotte, I can’t think. Not now… Please.’

It was time for the physician to call, Joss decided. He might be riveted to this conversation but he didn’t want Malcolm to collapse.

The sciatic nerve was a hell of a nerve to insult. Malcolm would be in pain for months, and Joss thought it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. He took a deep breath, rose and twitched back the curtain.