‘There’s nothing out there that I can see.’
‘No. It’s kind of like that feeling you get when you’ve gone on holiday and you’re on the plane and then you suddenly wonder if you’ve left the iron on, or a tap running or something.’
Ruth laughed. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever worried about an iron. We’re lucky to get enough hot water from solar power. Clothes stay wrinkly in my house.’
The laughter broke the shared unease.
‘My mother used to tell me off for worrying too much,’ Abby confessed. ‘She said I was a born worrywart and I was never happy unless I had something to worry about and if there wasn’t anything real, I’d just make something up.’
And that was definitely a truthful statement.
Of course she was an expert in the mental game of finding potential causes for a premonition that something bad was going to happen. She’d been doing this kind of thinking since she was three years old. Imagine a disaster, think of every possible reason for it to have happened and then take steps to make sure it didn’t actually happen.
It was why she’d come to Kaimotu Island in the first place, wasn’t it?
Why she hadn’t even tried fighting to keep the man she absolutely knew would prove to be the love of her life.
‘Maybe it was that earthquake a few weeks ago,’ Ruth suggested. ‘It was enough to get everybody a bit on edge and old Squid hasn’t helped with his forecasting doom and gloom about the “big one” being so imminent. There’s a few people upset at the way he chased off the last of the summer tourists.’
Abby laughed. ‘And then all we get is that tiny tremor the other day that most people barely noticed. I hear that poor Squid’s been getting a hard time about that being the “big one”.’
Ruth grinned. ‘Squid says they’ll all be laughing on the other side of their faces soon enough.’
Abby shook her head. Even the larger of the two tremors had been pretty minor. Certainly not enough to make anyone take any more notice of what the island’s oldest fisherman, Squid Davies, had to say about it being a warning of the kind of quake his grandfather had experienced here. It had just been a bit of a rattle. The kind anyone who’d grown up in New Zealand was familiar with.
‘Jack said it was really fun at school the next day. They got to practise their “Drop, Cover and Hold” emergency drill. I think the kids all thought it was just as good as a game of sardines, squeezing in under their desks.’
She snapped off the top of an ampoule and put the needle of a tiny one-mil syringe in to suck up the contents.
‘Ahh….’ Ruth was nodding. ‘That’s what it is.’
‘What what is?’
‘Why you’re on edge and staring out the window so often.’
Abby raised her eyebrows. She was all set to give Daisy her shot now but she stood there for a moment, holding the kidney dish, waiting for Ruth to elaborate.
‘Jack’s only just started school and he’s your only child. I remember what that was like, wondering if anyone else could take care of your baby as well as you could.’
‘I’ve been working since Jack was three. He’s been in day care and play groups for half his life, just about.’
‘Yeah, but he’s off on the big junior school trip today, isn’t he? My Brooke and Amber have gone, too. The hike to the shipwreck this morning and then the visit to the old copper mines after the picnic?’
‘Mmm.’ Abby bit her lip. ‘I would have gone as parent help but I’d already organised this clinic and I couldn’t postpone it when I was out there trying to persuade everyone to come.’
Ruth was right. Anxiety about her precious little boy was undoubtedly the cause for her underlying sense of unease.
Abby’s sigh was part relief, part exasperation. Enough of this.
She could hear a child crying in the waiting room outside and had to hope people weren’t getting too impatient. It would be disappointing if some of them changed their minds about being here after all her hard work of talking to parents at the local schools and playgroups recently. Ben’s younger sister Hannah was in charge of keeping them all organised and entertained but there was only so much a seventeen-year-old could do to manage a room full of youngsters.
Ruth was exactly the kind of result Abby had wanted when she’d embarked on this project. Kaimotu Island, being so isolated from the mainland, attracted people who wanted to live an alternative lifestyle and Ruth and her husband Damien lived with their six children in a converted train carriage out on the edge of the bush. They supplemented their self-sufficient lifestyle by making pottery that they sold to the influx of visitors in the summer months.
Totally against the idea of vaccination, Ruth and Damien had had a huge fright last year when one of their older children had needed urgent evacuation to a large hospital after developing complications from measles.
Thank goodness they weren’t so isolated that evacuation wasn’t a viable option in emergencies. Abby had been in the early stages of pregnancy when she’d first arrived here and potential complications for herself or her baby had been a real worry, to put it mildly. Mix some medical knowledge in with the fervent imagination of a born worrier and obsession was well within grasp.
Reassurance had come from both the impressive skills of the doctor here, Ben McMahon, and how well the clinic was set up to either cope with a serious emergency or stabilise a patient for evacuation. And it wasn’t so far by small plane or helicopter. Only a couple of hours. There was usually an abundance of private aircraft available, too, in case the mainland rescue chopper was otherwise engaged.
Thanks to the stunning scenery and the facilities that some of the vineyards had developed, Kaimotu Island was becoming an increasingly sought-after venue for weddings and honeymoons.
Predictably, Daisy’s eyes widened in outrage at the prick of the needle and then she erupted into ear-splitting wails. Seeing Blake’s bottom lip wobbling, Abby sighed. Why hadn’t she done Blake’s vaccination first? Daisy wasn’t old enough to put two and two together and realise that the nurse was torturing small people in here.
Ruth was offering Daisy her breast in the hope of consoling her by finishing her interrupted feed. Abby took the jar of jelly snakes and put it on the edge of her desk.
‘Me?’ Blake asked hopefully.
‘Very soon,’ Abby promised.
‘No,’ Blake shouted. ‘Now.’
Abby managed a smile but the tension was skyrocketing. Heading for her desk to collect Blake’s file, her gaze snagged on the photo taking pride of place beside the phone.
Taken on the first day of school just a couple of months ago, Jack’s proud grin lit up his little face. A cheeky grin beneath mischievous dark brown eyes and a mop of soft, black curls. Something huge and warm welled up inside Abby and she felt some of the tension evaporate. It was always so grounding to be reminded of her love for her son. The reason she’d come here had been to keep him safe and give him the best possible start in life.
It was great that he was out having a real boy’s adventure today. The teachers and other parents would be looking after him. He wasn’t going to wander off and drown or topple into an abandoned mine shaft. It was ridiculous to even allow the fear of such scenarios to enter her head but they’d been there ever since Jack had started to get mobile and had crawled into his first spot of bother and revealed what a handful he was going to become.
She didn’t need the photograph to remind her of what hovered in the back of her mind every single day. It was more than looks. It was a whole personality.
Jack was the