New Doc in Town

‘There are no drugs kept on the premises,’ Jo told him, pointing to a large sign posted on the glass door.

‘Do people actually believe those signs?’ the stranger asked, and though she knew people probably didn’t, Jo defended her sign.

‘Of course they do! And we’ve got cameras.’ She pointed to the camera angled downward from the corner of the building. ‘Now, if you’d just move your vehicle, I can put up the chain across the car-park entrance. We’re not open at all on Sunday. I was doing some tidying up.’

Stupid thing to say—now he’d know there was no one else around—although he’d probably guessed that when he’d seen her locking up. Maybe it was because the man wasn’t sending out scary vibes that she’d been prattling on to him.

She still had her fingers on the key and the key was in the lock and she was pretty sure she could get inside before he reached her if he did make a move in her direction.

Cam studied the woman who was resolutely—and foolishly—guarding the clinic entrance. She was a midget—five-three at the most, slim built but curvy for all that, and with a wild tangle of pale red hair—yet she was standing her ground.

He’d driven in on a whim, noticing the sign—Crystal Cove Medical Clinic—at the last minute, wanting to see the place, not expecting anyone to be there on a Sunday morning. It hadn’t been until he was out of the van that he’d seen the woman. Now he was trying to look as non-threatening as possible, arms hanging loosely at his sides, joints relaxed, although there was no way he could minimise his six-three height.

‘I’ll be going,’ he said, keeping his voice as soft and low as he could. ‘I noticed the sign as I was driving past and thought I’d take a look. I’m coming to work here, you see.’

Even across the car park he saw the woman turn so pale he thought she might faint, while her loss of colour made a wash of faint golden freckles stand out on her skin.

‘You’re coming to work here?’ she demanded. ‘You’re coming to work here?’

‘That’s right,’ Cam told her in his gentlest, most encouraging tone. The one he usually used to calm barking dogs and tearful small children.

And women who maybe weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. This one had had to repeat his words a couple of times before she got the picture.

‘I’m the new doctor,’ he added. After all, people were usually reassured by doctors. ‘Got the job through Personal Medical Recruitments in Sydney.’ He offered another smile. ‘Not exactly looking the part at the moment, I’ll admit, but I polish up okay.’

‘You can’t be the new doctor,’ the woman wailed, and shook her head so bits of hair flew everywhere. ‘You can’t possibly be! You’re a man!’

Well, he could hardly deny the man part, but he was definitely a doctor, so Cam waited for more.

It wasn’t long in coming.

‘I asked for a mature woman,’ she continued, ‘preferably over forty, with counselling experience and a motherly manner, not for some overgrown adolescent male with a painted van and three surfboards and probably the counselling skills of an aardvark.’

Cam bit back an urge to ask if aardvarks had any counselling skills and if so how she knew. This wasn’t the moment to make light of the situation.

‘Maybe I was all they had,’ he suggested, although he was well aware he’d conned the woman at the medical recruitment agency into offering him this particular job, using every bit of charm he could dredge up because the surf at Crystal Cove was reputed to be some of the best on the east coast. Geographically, the spot was a perfect stopping-off place on his planned surfing safari. A high, rocky headland reached out into the sea, so if the southerlies were blowing the sheltered north cove would have good surf, while leaving effective swells on the open beach a few days later.

He’d thought he could fill in a few months here quite happily, working and surfing. The working part was important, as he knew there’d be times he couldn’t surf—flat sea, bad weather. He didn’t want to have long days doing nothing because doing nothing left him too much time for thinking, too much time for remembering the horrors he’d seen. ‘And I’ve not only done extra courses on counselling, but I’m good at it.’

His gut twisted as he said it, and it took all his skill at closing the many doors in his mind to shut away memories of the kind of counselling he’d done. He smiled to cover the momentary lapse.

Jo finally turned to face the man she’d been talking to over her shoulder, although she left the key in the lock. Living in a community where just about everyone rode the waves on one kind of board or another, she was used to seeing men with their over-long hair turned to, mostly temporary, dreadlocks by the salt, so this man’s brown, matted, sun-streaked hair wasn’t so unusual. Neither was his tanned face, which made his pale eyes—he was too far away to see a colour—seem paler, and his teeth, now he smiled, seem whiter.

The smile was good, but he was probably the kind of man who knew that—knew the power of a charming smile.

Charming?

Was it that good?

She’d certainly relaxed!

Annoyed by this self-revelation, she stiffened her resolve.

‘I’m sorry but I really don’t think it will work out. I didn’t ask for a woman on a whim, or because I can’t work with men—in fact, the former owner of the practice was a man and I worked with him for years. It’s just that … ‘

She couldn’t begin to list all the reasons this man would be an impossible employee.

‘Just that?’ he prompted, smiling again but helpfully this time.

‘Just that it’s impossible!’ Jo snapped, but even as she said it, she realised how stupid this was, to be having the conversation across half the parking lot—the man standing where he’d emerged from the van, she on the surgery steps. ‘Oh, come up to the house,’ she added crossly, then shook her head. ‘No, show me some authorisation and identification first—something from the agency, your driver’s licence, anything.’

He reached back into the van and brought out a quite respectable-looking briefcase, tan leather, a bit battered, but in not bad condition. He opened it and withdrew a file.

‘It’s all in here,’ he said, walking towards her.

He walked well, very upright, yet with an unconscious grace. She could picture him on a surfboard, cutting across the face of a wave, a conqueror of the ocean, sun glinting off the water droplets on that chest …

Jo gave herself a mental head-slap—a reminder to stay with it, although the longing that had come with the thought of riding the sea remained like a bruise in her chest. The man was still a stranger for all he knew the name of the agency she used to recruit staff, and held himself in an unthreatening manner. Reading body language was something she’d had to learn, but he, too, could have learned it.

He stopped a reasonable distance from her and passed her the file, then stepped back. Yep, he’d done the same body language course! Maybe he was the genuine article. but she’d wanted a woman.

She opened the file and stared at the photo it contained. Surely the gorgeous male with the short back and sides hairstyle, the dark arched eyebrows over pale blue-grey eyes, the long straight nose and shapely lips quirked, in the photo, into a slight smile wasn’t the surfie type standing right in front of her.

She looked from the photo to the man and saw the eyes, blue-grey, and then the same quirky, half-embarrassed smile, although the beard stubble she could see now he was closer to her hid the shapely lips.

‘Fraser Cameron?’

A quick, decisive nod.

‘I’m usually called Cam. I’d just got out of the army when they took the photo,’ the man explained. ‘I had an interview with the agency, put in my résumé, promised to keep in touch by phone and went surfing for a while. Nothing like a few years in the desert to give you a longing for the ocean. Deserts and ocean—well, they have sand in common but that’s about all.’

As job interviews went, this wasn’t going too well. Cam had realised that from the start. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the young woman in front of him was his boss-to-be, and she didn’t seem too happy about any aspect of him, even apart from the fact he wasn’t female.

Not that he could blame her. He should have had a shower at the beach and washed the salt out of his hair—at least run a comb through it. But until he’d seen the sign for the surgery and driven in on a whim, he’d been intent on finding a caravan park and having a proper hot shower and shave for the first time in, what—four days? He rubbed his hand across his chin—no, maybe only three. He’d stopped in Port Macquarie and had a shave there …

She was reading through his résumé, glancing up at him from time to time as if trying to fit the printed words to the unshaven man in front of her, and the fact that she was occupied gave Cam the chance to study her in turn.

The wild hair was probably the bane of her life, untamed curls that would refuse to do what she required of them. Today she’d tugged her hair into some kind of clip thing on the top of her head but, like Medusa’s snakes, strands were curling out from the containment and glinting a vibrant red-gold in the sun. Her skin went with the red hair—pale and freckled, almost milk white at her temples and so fine he could see the blue line of a blood vessel beneath it. Would he feel the throb of her heartbeat if he kissed that blue thread?

The thought startled him so much he took a step backwards, just as she looked up, clear green eyes fixed on him—still shooting darts of suspicion in his direction.

‘I guess you are who you say you are,’ she muttered, so obviously put out at having to make the admission he had to smile.

‘But still not a woman,’ he reminded her, the temptation to tease her too strong to resist.

She shot him a glare that might have affected a lesser man, but he’d grown up with three sisters, all of whom were good glarers, so he met it with a smile, although he knew—also thanks to his siblings—it would make her angrier.

‘The house is this way,’ she said, leading him across the front of the clinic building then along the side of it to where steep steps climbed towards a house that must look north over the ocean. From the bottom of the steps he could see how the clever architect had cantilevered the building out from the steep slope, and he could imagine the magnificent view of the ocean whoever lived in the house must enjoy.