‘It appears I’m not,’ he said, a shade grimly. ‘My patients have organised that no one’s sick for the next couple of hours.’

‘Your patients?’

‘The town,’ he told her. ‘The town has donated a massage. To me. Apparently I’m to be your first customer. What you did last night in saving Marilyn has flown round the town and everyone’s fascinated. And grateful.’

‘But…you…’

‘They’re also grateful to me,’ he said, trying not to sigh. ‘It’s the way it is in the country. I get given things.’

‘What sort of things?’

He hesitated. But the tension had to be overcome somehow. Why not try talking?

‘When Rachel died I went overseas,’ he told her. ‘One of the airlines I flew with gave away tiny bottles of some sort of blue liqueur. The bottle caught my fancy. I started looking out for miniature bottles, and when I set up here I organised a dozen or so in a wall frame.’

‘So?’ she said, still with that cautious edge.

‘So my patients knew I was interested in collecting little liqueur bottles,’ he told her, digging his hands deep into his pockets and trying not to sound stupid. ‘As of the last count I have two thousand, three hundred and twenty-five bottles, and that’s not counting the ones that have come in this week.’

She gazed at him in astonishment, and her face creased into a delighted smile of recognition.

‘They used to give Grandpa fish,’ she told him. ‘We lost count of the fishermen who couldn’t afford to pay and brought fish instead. Grandpa and I had a burial ground out the back of the hospital. One day someone will dig it up and wonder what sort of ancient tribe wasted so many fish. Grandpa sneaked heaps into the hospital kitchens, but even hospital patients get sick of fish.’

He grinned.

The tension between them dissipated. A little.

‘So they’ve given you me to massage,’ he told her. ‘Instead of liqueur. And instead of fish.’

The tension zoomed back.

‘Um…what are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘I’m booked for a massage.’

‘Do you want a massage?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever had a massage?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know you don’t want one?’

‘I guess…’

‘They’ll ask,’ she told him. ‘If you were given it as a collective present, you’ll be asked. Boy, were Grandpa and I grilled about our fish. Which one was the tastier? Do you like barracuda better than flathead? What are you going to say about my massage?’

‘It was a very nice massage?’

‘That’s pathetic. You could say that about fish.’

‘Then you tell me what to say.’

‘Nope.’ She pushed her sleeves higher with a determined little shove. ‘There’s only one thing to be done.’

‘No.’

‘If you don’t,’ she told him, ‘then I’m going to be honest. When asked, I’ll tell them that Dr Darcy Rochester was too shy to have a massage.’

‘I’m not too shy.’

‘Too chicken?’

‘And I’m not afraid.’

‘Then what? Do you disapprove of the profession so much you won’t even try?’

‘I don’t disapprove.’

‘That’s what it looks like from here.’ She tapped her foot. ‘You know, it really doesn’t hurt.’

‘I…’

‘And I’ll bet you’re tense as all get-out. I can practically see the tension from here.’

‘I’m not tense!’

‘Yeah, and I suppose you’re raising your voice because you always raise your voice.’

‘Look-’

‘The way I see it,’ she told him, ‘is that people will be watching. The locals saw you come in this door five minutes ago and they’ll expect you to leave in a little over an hour looking nicely relaxed, as if you’ve had a really good massage. So the options are that you can stalk out right now, hurting people’s feelings in the process. You can sit here like a dummy for an hour and a half-and I’m warning you I don’t even have any magazines for you to kill time with. Or you can have a massage. Why don’t you want a massage?’ she asked. ‘Are you scared I’ll jump you?’

His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘No, I…’

‘I’m a professional,’ she told him. ‘I’m a registered massage therapist. I can be struck off for behaving unethically, and jumping you is definitely unethical. Besides…’ She grinned. ‘Strange as it seems, I’m not even tempted. So are you going to accept a massage or are you going to look a gift horse in the mouth?’

‘You being a gift horse?’

‘That’s the ticket,’ she said approvingly, and tossed him a towel from the pile on the warming rack. ‘I’m going upstairs. You need to undress down to your jocks, lie on the table and cover yourself with a towel. I’ll come down when you’re decent. Sandalwood, Dr Rochester?’

‘Sandalwood?’

‘For relaxation. Or something else. Check out the list on the wall before you lie down. Headaches, tension, constipation…you name it I can rub you with something that just might make you feel better.’

‘Constipation?’

She grinned. ‘I won’t take a case history,’ she told him. ‘And if you just happen to choose marigold for premenstrual tension, then I won’t ask any questions at all.’


Darcy undressed. Slowly.

He was feeling really, really weird. This was a bad idea. Stupid.

He lay on her sun-warmed couch and covered himself with her pre-warmed towel. Sunbeams were filtering through the blinds. This was a lovely place for a massage, he thought. She’d known what she was about when she’d chosen her premises.

But then the reasons why she’d chosen her rooms faded, as did any other logical thought. He couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that any minute Ally would walk down those stairs and begin her massage.

He tried again. This was crazy. He should be next door. If he’d known he had cancellations he could have gone out to dress old Martin Pegg’s leg ulcers.

He’d let her give him a quick rub just to keep the locals happy, he decided with the frayed remnants of the senses left to him. Maybe he could go out the back way so no one would see him leaving early. OK, he couldn’t take his car away, but he could catch up on some medico-legal paperwork.

Maybe…

Maybe he couldn’t do this. He’d draped the towel from his waist down but the sun was streaming in over his bare back. He felt… He felt…

‘Ready?’ Ally’s soft voice floated down the stairs.

‘Yes,’ he said, and it came out as a croak. He coughed. ‘Um…yes.’

He was lying face down, his face pillowed by a soft, circular rim that left him clear to breathe. He heard her walk down the stairs and it was all he could do not to get up and run.

‘I don’t think-’

‘Did you choose an oil?’ A soft murmur started behind him-harps with a stream rippling in the background. Oh, for heaven’s sake, how corny was this?

‘Sandalwood,’ he said, and his voice was desperate. He couldn’t see, but he heard her smile in her response.

‘How original is that? And expensive.’ He could hear her smile. ‘I’ll have to charge you an extra dollar if you choose sandalwood.’

‘Can we just get on with it?’

‘Sure.’ She was draping another warm towel over him, adjusting him so he was covered from neck to toe.

‘Just relax,’ she told him. ‘Think of nothing. Sink into the music.’

Her hands came to rest on the broad stretch of his back, and through the warmth of the towel he felt a wide, soft pressure as she gently pressed down. She stayed where she was for a long, long minute, her hands simply resting. Being in contact with him.

Then, ever so gently, she lifted the towel away-the towel that covered his back from the waist up. The other-the one that covered his legs-she left in place.

‘Think of nothing but the water you’re hearing,’ she murmured. He heard her rubbing her hands, warming the oil, he thought. Then, very lightly, her hands returned to his back. Her hands floated downward, barely touching him but sweeping down in long, curving strokes that followed the curves of his body as she spread the warmed oil over his skin.

Over and over.

Her feather touch became firmer, a broad, definite sweep that was doing more than spread the sweet-smelling oil. It warmed him to the core. It made him feel…

He didn’t know how he felt.

Forget asking. Think of nothing.

The strokes became firmer still, rolling up in wide arcs from his thighs to his shoulders. Her hands circled out from the small of his back, under his arms, back to his shoulder blades, sweeping down over his shoulders, warming his neck.

‘It’s effleurage,’ she murmured. ‘Just used to warm and relax.’

It certainly did. He was feeling hazy already.

Then the long strokes stopped. Her hands rested for a moment on his back, as though considering.

Then her magic hands started work again.

‘Petrissage,’ she murmured, and he realised she was explaining to try and stop the tension he was feeling at the touch of her. Turning it into technical terms he could relate to.

She was working on one side, using the whole of her hands, kneading, pulling, working the mass of muscles in his broad back. Her hands weren’t leaving his body between strokes-there was total contact-but she was working him as if he was warm dough.

Then the pulling… Using her entire hand from fingertip to wrist, she pulled up from his sides with alternate hands, carefully overlapping her hands at each pull, so each hand came to rest at the place where the other hand had been.

She kept explaining as she went and her voice was a soft murmur in the background, merging into the sound of the water and the music and the sensation of her hands and the sunlight on his back.

Deep tissue strokes…frictions…thumb rolling…percussion, pummelling, cupping, half-locust leg lifts…

He was close to sleep at one level, but at another he was deeply aware of every move. She rolled him over and he was hardly aware that he’d helped-that he’d moved. She was massaging his neck, and then her genius fingers were rolling in tiny circles from forehead down along his cheekbones to his jaw.