Sleep had eluded him for hours, although that was probably just as well, given the aforementioned flimsy wall. He would have hated to have awakened her with his nightmares.
He tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Jo asking Ellie to phone Amy to make the arrangements, then, as Ellie and Kate left the room, he turned to the woman who’d so disturbed his sleep.
‘Can you afford to be paying Ellie to do the sleep programme? Will you charge the parents of the baby? Are such things covered by government subsidies?’
She turned towards and smiled—second smile in one lunch-break, not that he was counting.
‘Worried I won’t be able to afford your salary?’ she teased, then the smile slid off her face as she added, ‘I’m sure there are government subsidies, if I wanted to research them and then do the paperwork, but I can afford to pay Ellie for her time. If this works, we can find out about possible subsidies for the future, but for now, if we can provide four good nights’ sleep for Amy and Todd, I’m happy to cop the cost. If it succeeds, well, it’s worth more than money to the Bennetts.’
‘Four uninterrupted nights’ sleep,’ Cam said, wondering if he’d ever reach that blissful pinnacle himself. And thinking of that goal, he was less guarded than he usually was. ‘Are there sleep programmes for grown-ups as well as kids?’
She looked startled at first, his boss, then he read such compassion in her eyes he knew if he wasn’t very careful, he could easily drown in those green depths.
‘I wondered that myself after my sister died,’ she said softly, then offered him a third smile, and though it lacked the spark of the earlier smiles, it affected him more deeply than either of the earlier ones had.
She rested her hand on his arm.
‘For me, it did get easier in time and I’m sure it will for you. Are they nightmares you suffer? Dreams so vivid and horrific you really don’t want to sleep?’
She didn’t wait for a reply, simply tightening her fingers on his arm as she added, ‘That cliché about time being a great healer isn’t just a trite expression—we know that in our work.’
Cam looked down at the small hand, pale against his tanned skin, and felt an urge to hold it for ever—to let it haul him out of where he’d been and into hope and life and …
Love?
Surely not.
They’d finished seeing patients by five in the afternoon, making Jo remember the time when she’d worked with her father, the pair of them taking turns to have free afternoons, he to sail with Molly, his new-found love, while she had worked with Lauren on plans for the refuge.
‘So, surfing lessons for the little boys?’ Cam suggested as they left the surgery.
Jo considered protesting but with daylight saving they had three full hours before sunset, and the sun still held enough heat to make the thought of hitting the surf very attractive.
Not that she’d surf, just help the boys as they tried the boards in the water—teach them how to balance on the boards.
‘I’ll phone the refuge and speak to Jackie,’ she told Cam as he strode up the steps beside her. ‘The key to the storeroom padlock is—’
‘Above the door?’ he guessed, and she felt her face heat.
‘I know it’s stupid—I’ll stop doing it. It’s just that growing up here, no one locked their doors and if you drove down the road for a bottle of milk, you usually left your keys in the car while you popped into the shop. Small towns were safe places.’
‘For everyone?’
She knew exactly what he meant. Violence against women in some form or another had probably been around for ever.
‘Probably not, although I wonder if the more hectic pace of life that we lead now and the expectations we put on ourselves might not have made abuse within relationships more prevalent.’
‘Who knows? But it would be interesting to find if there’s documented history of it anywhere.’
Jo smiled, suddenly seeing a different side of the man who’d come to work for her, a side not unlike a side of herself—the bit that always wanted to know more, to delve deeper.
‘I think I’ll concentrate on the now—on keeping the refuge open—and leave the history for my retirement.’
His reply was one of his quirky smiles, lighting up his face, easing the strain that lined it in repose.
‘I’ll change and get the boards,’ he told her. ‘Say half an hour? Will we need to collect the boys or will someone drive them to the beach?’
‘I’ll get them—well, we’ll get them—silly to take two cars. I can put the boards, your board as well, on the top of my car. I think the southern beach will be the best this afternoon. It will be less crowded and there should be some white wash close to the shore. That’s best for beginners.’
Cam’s smile widened, but this time it wasn’t anything to do with their previous conversation—more to do with his passion for riding the waves.
‘Great—I haven’t surfed there yet.’
‘You’re going there to teach the boys,’ Jo reminded him, although when she’d seen the smile and heard the passion in his voice she’d felt a pang of longing.
‘I’ll have to show them, too,’ he reminded her, before turning to unlock the storeroom and retrieve the small boards.
How had he inveigled her into this? Jo wondered as she drove Cam and two excited little boys down the track onto the southern beach, then along it on the hard sand near the water, looking for a spot that would be good for the lessons?
‘Do I need a permit to drive my van along here?’ Cam asked. ‘I checked out the beach near the headland, where it’s accessible, and saw vehicles driving south, but didn’t know if anyone could do it.’
‘You need a permit but they’re easy to get. You can apply at the local council office.’
She pulled up where a lagoon had formed close to the beach, the surf breaking on a sand bank further out. The little boys tumbled out of the vehicle, their faces white with sunscreen, rash shirts covering their chests, arguing over who got what board the moment Cam lifted them down onto the sand.
‘We start on the beach,’ Jo told them. ‘Board on the sand, then lie on it, rise up to kneel on it, then stand and balance on it. The fin will make it a bit wobbly but not nearly as wobbly as it will seem on the water. Left foot in front, right foot behind unless you’re goofy footers—’
Both boys laughed, pointing at each other and calling each other goofy footers while Jo explained the term for surfers who put their right foot forward.
‘Now, feet in place, knees bent to keep you balanced, arms held out like this.’
‘Here,’ Cam said, dropping his board in front of her, ‘if you’re being Teach, you should show them.’
He was so close—his nose, too, white with cream, his chest, at the moment, modestly covered with a tattered T-shirt, but so big, so male!—she felt a shiver of pure, yes, lust run through her. But could lust be classified as pure?
She stood on his board, demonstrating the stance, thinking that if she’d brought her board she could have used it on the sand and Cam could have surfed—well away from her. But the image of the water droplets on his chest came vividly back into her head.
Just