Steve didn’t say anything about it. Not then. Not for the next few days. And he didn’t kiss her.
He had more than one opportunity. Terry and his wife were still away, but the rest of Narralee’s small medical community gathered to welcome her at a barbecue at Linda and Rob Gardner’s on Saturday evening. She enjoyed meeting everyone, and laid some tentative foundations of friendship.
As Terry had predicted, Linda was going to be nice. She had a no-nonsense haircut, a chunky build, a throaty laugh and a wicked sense of humour. She was down to earth in her opinions, happy with her career and open in her love for her children and her even more down-to-earth husband.
Getting over her jet-lag, Candace stayed until ten o’clock and drove herself home, then saw Steve’s car breeze past her house as she stood on the deck, watching the moonlight over the water.
He glanced across, saw her there, slowed down and waved. She almost wondered if he would come over. They’d had a long conversation at the barbecue. Lots of laughs in it, and some quiet moments, too. If he did come, she would offer him tea or coffee, while secretly quaking in her shoes…
But, no, he didn’t show up.
The next morning, they met on the beach. Candace hadn’t swum in the ocean in years, but loved it again at once. Taylor’s Beach was patrolled and flagged in the Life-saving Association’s colours of red and yellow, so she felt very safe swimming between the flags. Had no desire to go out as far as those surfers, though, in their slick black wet-suits.
One of the surfers was Steve.
She didn’t recognise him until he came to shore with his creamy fibreglass board tucked under one arm, and he didn’t see her until he’d put the board down, pulled his wetsuit to his waist and towelled himself.
He did this with rough energy, like a dog shaking off the water, then he caught sight of her, slung his towel over his shoulder and came over. Dropping her gaze, she was treated to the sight of his bare, tanned legs still dripping with water from the knees down, and his feet, lean and smooth and brown, covered with sand.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘You’re not afraid of sharks out there?’
‘Only when I see a fin.’
‘You’re joking, right?’
‘We get dolphins here sometimes. They like surfing, too.’
‘Now you’re definitely joking!’
‘No! Their bodies are perfect for it. They catch fish around here, too.’
‘I’m going to look out for them. Still don’t quite believe you…’
‘You’ll see them,’ he predicted. ‘If you spend any time on these beaches. The shape of their fin is different to a shark’s, and so is the way they move in the water, but when you first glimpse one, before you’ve had time to work out whether it’s shark or dolphin every hair stands up the way it does on a cornered cat. I tell you!’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘Yes, a couple of times I’ve been damned scared!’
He was still a little breathless. His hair stood on end and looked darker than it did when it was dry. The coarse plastic teeth of the zip on his wetsuit had pulled apart to just below his navel. She could tell by his six-pack of stomach muscles that he kept himself fit, and by his tan that he didn’t always surf in his wetsuit.
My God, he’s gorgeous! she thought, her insides twisting. Who am I kidding, that he’d want an affair? With me? Sitting here in my plain black suit. He’d probably flirt like this with my grandmother. Oh, I mean, was it even flirting? It was only friendliness. He was making me welcome very nicely, as Terry would have done, and I—Oh, lord, I’m so raw, right now, I actually felt nourished by it. Totally misunderstood it, obviously.
A girl in an extremely small orange bikini wandered past. She was as blonde as natural silk, sported a tan the colour of fresh nutmeg and looked about twenty-five. For one crazy moment, Candace was tempted to reach out, haul her across by a bikini strap and park her right in front of Steve.
Here you go. Much more suitable. My apologies for trespassing on your personal space by even contemplating that you and I might have—
‘Ready for another dip?’ he said. He had taken no notice of the orange bikini, or the body inside it, and now the girl had gone past.
‘Um. Yes. Lovely.’ Oh, hell! ‘That would be really nice.’ She tried again, and managed a more natural tone. ‘I’ve been pretty timid on my own, but it’d be great to get out beyond the point where every wave dumps a bucket of sand down my front.’
He laughed. ‘OK, let’s go.’
Then he reached for the plastic zipper and peeled the wetsuit down even further.
He was wearing a swimsuit, of course. Board shorts, in fact. Black, with a blue panel on each side. Beneath the wetsuit, they’d ridden down below his hips. He had his back to her now, and she could see the shallow hollow just above the base of his spine. Like the rest of him, it was tanned to a warm bronze, and was dappled with tiny, sun-bleached hairs.
A moment later, he had hauled casually on the waistband and pulled the board shorts back to where they belonged.
They swam together for an hour, then she went home for lunch and he put his wetsuit back on and returned to the outer boundaries of the surf. She didn’t see him when she went back to the beach for a walk late in the afternoon, didn’t see him when she walked past his house on the return trip, although his car was in the driveway and a sprinkler was spinning round on the lawn.
Definitely, he was just being friendly.
And I appreciate that, she realised. Maybe that’s the problem. I appreciate it, and I need it too much at the moment. I’d better get the rest of it under control.
Candace didn’t see Steve again until Tuesday, when she had her first surgical list, consisting of three patients. Steve was scheduled to handle the anaesthesia.
She’d seen each of her patients the day before for a brief chat, and had gone through their reports from the preadmission clinic. No danger signals. Chest X-rays and cardiograms all normal. Blood pressures within the acceptable range.
First was a scheduled gall-bladder removal on a fifty-three-year-old woman, followed by two straightforward hernia repairs, both on older men. Blood had been cross-matched for the gall-bladder patient as there was a higher risk of bleeding during this operation. All three of the patients were here on a day-patient basis. After the surgery, they’d make use of the ‘political beds’—those reclining chairs that Terry had been so cynical about.
Preparing for surgery was like coming home. The OR—Theatre One, which sounded odd to her ears—was a place in which she was used to possessing undisputed control. She loved this environment, and the way everything was geared towards a single focus. One patient, one operation and six people who knew exactly what they were doing.
The scrub sinks were different—old-fashioned porcelain, with long levers on the faucets which you flicked on and off with a quick touch. She was used to stainless steel, and foot pedals. Theatre One had washable vinyl walls and the hard, antistatic floors which she knew only too well. They were murder on backs and legs after you’d been standing there for more than a couple of hours.
Candace was the last to scrub, and everything was ready to go now that she had arrived. She briefly greeted the other staff and the patient. Mrs Allenby looked a little nervous, of course. Years ago, Candace had had to fight the instinct to give her patients a reassuring pat, but now it was second nature to keep her gloved hands