The Shining Of Love

The light tropical suit he wore was as classy as the rest of him, quality fabric, restrained style. He didn’t need ostentation to stand out from a crowd. He had the air of being master of any hand he wanted to play.

Suzanne sensed he had been tipped slightly off balance in the last few moments. As she was. By some odd link between them.

Psychic?

Sexual?

As Suzanne hastily rejected this last thought she saw a sceptical gleam emerge in the piercing green eyes, mocking either her or himself. It evoked a wave of prickling heat that owed nothing to the high temperature of the day. She was suddenly and embarrassingly conscious of acting like a morbid gawker in the face of a man who had been forced into the public limelight by tragic circumstances.

“Can I help you, Mr. Carew?” she asked in a sympathetic rush.

His grimace expressed a weary resignation at her ready identification of him. His gaze flicked to her nurse’s uniform, making another assessment of her before he replied.

“You work here?”

“Yes. Most of the time.”

“It’s a fine service you people give to the outback community,” he remarked appreciatively.

Suzanne smiled. The medical centre was attached to the Royal Flying Doctor Base that served the remote outback cattle stations and the aboriginal settlements of inland Australia. It was a unique medical service that always impressed visitors.

“Someone has to do it,” she said with a touch of pride in what was achieved here, despite the difficulties that had to be overcome.

“Few would volunteer.”

“It depends on what kind of life you want.”

“Is it the life you want?” he asked curiously.

Suzanne considered for a moment before answering the question seriously. “It has more personal rewards than working in a big city hospital.”

“What about your private life?”

“It’s all I want.”

“Is it?” The soft challenge in his voice was reinforced by a suggestive simmer in his eyes.

Jolted by the overt sexual interest he was showing, Suzanne instantly retreated into formality. “Is there any way I can help you, Mr. Carew?”

The reminder of his business at the medical centre drew a grim mask over his expression. “I’m here to see a Dr. Forbes. Could you show me where to go?”

“I’ll take you straight to him,” Suzanne offered, unnerved at finding herself uncomfortably conscious of being a woman in the presence of this man.

He exuded a powerful masculinity that he was at ease with, and was apparently well aware of its effect. “Thank you,” he said with a knowing look that increased Suzanne’s disquiet.

He was used to women going out of their way for him, she thought with another hot feeling of mortification. She turned quickly, welcoming the cool air of the lobby as the entrance doors slid open automatically. She half wished she had only offered directions to Brendan’s office, but it was petty to let Leith Carew’s attraction sway her from a more sympathetic course.

It was bad enough that he had to suffer being in the public eye at a time of private grief. His mission here this morning certainly had nothing to do with capitalising on his good looks. Nevertheless, Suzanne felt a distinct unease as she led the way down the corridor to the administration offices.

Her initial response to Leith Carew should have been one of instinctive compassion. Why had a more personal feeling blocked that out? Even now she was far more tuned to the vitality of the man walking beside her than to the dreadful sense of loss that must be eating at him. It put Suzanne completely out of sorts with herself.

Her rap on the chief medical officer’s door was unnecessarily sharp. With an assurance that no-one at the centre would question, Suzanne did not wait for an answer. She opened the door and poked her head around it. Brendan lifted his attention from the stack of paperwork on his desk and shot her a warm welcoming smile.

It should have made her feel happy and secure. This was the man she loved for a host of good reasons. But quite unreasonably Suzanne was more aware of the man waiting behind her in the corridor, and somehow that awareness stopped her from returning Brendan’s smile.

“I’ve brought Mr. Leith Carew to see you,” she said bluntly.

Brendan was instantly all business, the smile wiped from his face as he rose from his chair to come and greet the visitor. Suzanne opened the door wide and ushered in the man who was still profoundly disturbing her.

“Mr. Carew.” Brendan offered his hand in sympathetic respect.

“Dr. Forbes.”

Suzanne watched them size each other up as they went through the formalities of establishing a professional rapport. They were approximately the same age, but Leith Carew was the taller, bigger man, his wider and more worldly experience of life somehow dominating this encounter.

Suzanne felt a stab of disloyalty at the comparison. Leith Carew’s harder edge did not diminish Brendan’s quiet assurance. Besides, it was the heart of a man that mattered more than anything else. There were always kindness and compassion in Brendan’s soft brown eyes, and while he might not be so handsome as to turn women’s heads, he had the type of face that inspired trust and confidence.

Brendan Forbes was a good man with a big heart. As big as Zachary Lee’s. And any man who measured up to her eldest adopted brother’s heart was number one with Suzanne.

His eyes flashed a message that she understood only too well as he spoke to her. “Would you tell reception to hold over all calls to me while I’m with Mr. Carew, Suzanne?”

Painful business, best handled without interruption. She nodded and started to withdraw, pulling the door shut after her.

“Suzanne...”

Leith Carew spoke her name as though rolling his tongue around it, tasting it, savouring it. It sent a shiver down her spine. She instinctively squared her shoulders, fighting off his unwelcome effect on her. Courtesy demanded she acknowledge him one last time. She looked, meeting a green-eyed gaze that held a determined promise he would find her again at a more opportune time.

“Thank you,” he said.

She bit down on the automatic response, “You’re welcome.” He wasn’t welcome. He had twisted the indefinable link that had leapt between them into something totally wrong and unacceptable.

She gave a brief nod to satisfy Brendan’s sensitivity to the situation, then firmly shut the door, leaving the two men to get on with what had to be done.

The post-mortem reports, most likely, Suzanne thought, wincing over the horror of hearing the grim results of what could have been avoided if only Ilana and Hans Bergen had understood the terrain they had travelled.

Tourist brochures billed the Australian outback as the last frontier, an adventure into a primitive timeless landscape that defied the encroachment of civilisation. The dangers involved in setting out without an experienced guide were well publicised, but every year there were people who believed they knew enough and were properly prepared to meet and beat any possible mishap on their own. And every year the outback took its toll of them.

Ilana and Hans Bergen had decided to travel the Gunbarrel Highway, so named because the track had been bulldozed in a dead straight line across the desert by a geological survey team. It was not maintained and was barely negotiable by the hardiest four-wheel-drive vehicle. What had drawn the Bergens off that track no-one knew. Perhaps the mirage of a lake. The area where they were eventually found was nicknamed the Dunes of Illusion.

The outcome was easy enough to piece together afterwards. They had driven over high spinifex, which had been caught up and compressed under the metal guards of their Land Rover. Since spinifex was full of combustible gum, it ignited against the hot exhaust.

The couple had obviously panicked and tried to put the fire out with their water supply. They were left with little or no water and an undriveable vehicle. Their fate was inevitable. In the Gibson Desert temperatures could reach fifty degrees Celsius at midday.

Suzanne delivered Brendan’s message to the receptionist and retreated to her own office. She automatically filed cards on the aboriginal families she had seen that morning. Although there was nothing of a serious nature to report, she was meticulous about keeping records. One never knew what might be important some day.

It was the lack of any records on her father that had made tracing any family impossible. Not that it really mattered now, Suzanne told herself. After all, she had been brought up in the greatest family in the world, fourteen lost children taken in by the kindest and most loving parents, who taught them how to blend together and support each other. She was proud to be one of the James family.

They had all been encouraged to be achievers in their own individual ways, and Suzanne had found a very real fulfilment in her nursing career. Brendan was the perfect partner for her. In that sense, Leith Carew had nothing to offer her, and she had nothing to offer him.