Bride at Bay Hospital

Sam’s face closed. Someone else, standing in front of him, might not have noticed the wiping of all expression from a face that didn’t give away much in the first place. But Meg had seen it happen before—often enough to recognise that whatever minor truce might have existed between them for a few minutes was now over.

Not that she should be worried about it—Sam Agostini was none of her business.

Though not yet late—just after seven—it was dark by the time Sam drove back up to the Point and along the road to his house.

His house?

In his mind it was still the Anstey house.

He glanced towards cottage but there were no lights on. No doubt Meg was still performing one of her seemingly limitless roles at the hospital. Family counselling it had been when he’d called in to check on Ben Richards late that afternoon and had found Meg there with Jenny and various other family members who all remembered him—and registered their surprise he wasn’t in jail—but were strangers as far as he was concerned.

He parked his car and walked up the front steps—hoping the removal men had successfully completed the unpacking for him. I don’t care what goes where, he’d told them, sure they’d be better able to place furniture and stack cupboards than he would be.

He wondered what they’d made of the drawer full of feminine underwear in the main bedroom.

On the front veranda, he stopped and turned towards the view, seeing the sweep of the bay and far out a faint twinkle of light from the island. A fisherman on the beach? Someone camping in the sand dunes?

His chest began to ache again and a savage anger swept over him as he realised Meg had been right.

He hadn’t thought through his return to the Bay.

Oh, he’d considered all the practical aspects of it—the business side of things, the opportunities it presented—the reasons he’d had to come. But if he’d considered any emotional impact, it had merely been to remind himself he was older now—a mature adult—and in spite of what an interfering, psychiatrist ex-girlfriend had once said about him carrying emotional baggage, he’d been totally convinced that all the past was right where it belonged—safely in the past.

A movement down on the beach caught his eye, and though the moon had not yet risen, there was enough light reflecting off the water for him to see it was a woman. A woman with a longish stick in her hand—writing in the sand.

He moved without thought, back down the steps, across the road, easily finding the grassy track that led downwards through the tall gum trees to the park, across it to the beach.

But once there he hesitated. Megan—and he’d known with an inner certainty it was her—had moved on so she was almost at the point. If he waited just a minute, she’d be out of sight.

As would he be of her…

He paused in the shadows until he could no longer see her then walked towards the water, which splashed with tiny, sloshing waves against the gritty sand. The tide must be going out, for the words she’d written hadn’t been washed away.

Megan Anstey, in beautiful curly cursive script. Meg’s hair might have darkened to a rich auburn, and her gangly figure filled out with womanhood, but her writing hadn’t changed.

He followed the big letters to the end and found that after them she’d written ‘Megan Scott’.

Megan Scott?

Sam frowned at the surname.

‘Megan Anstey’, written on the beach, used to be followed by ‘Megan Agostini’.

But that had been thirteen years ago!

Didn’t stop him frowning.

Was Megan married to this Scott, or just in love with him?

Engaged?

He didn’t need to know.

It was none of his business.

So why was he still following the writing?

‘Megan Anstey’ again.

Without knowing why, Sam felt immeasurably better, though the next name jolted him.

Not so much a name as the word ‘Megan’ then a question mark. Was there someone in Meg’s life she was thinking of marrying?

Why wouldn’t there be? She was young, attractive, vibrant, sexy—

Sexy?

Had he ever considered that word and Meg in the same breath?

‘Reading other people’s mail?’

He looked up to see her barely ten feet away, the sand having dulled any sound of her return.

‘Sand writing’s like postcards—fair game,’ he reminded her, staring at her shadowed figure and wondering if perhaps his ex-girlfriend had been right and he did have an excessively large load of baggage from the past.

He certainly felt as if he was carrying something heavy right now. Heavy enough to make his chest feel tight and his muscles bunch with tension.

‘Were you looking for me?’

For the last thirteen years, a voice inside his head responded, but he knew this wasn’t true. He’d thought of Meg from time to time, but—

‘No. I just wandered down for a breath of fresh air before going into the house to see what kind of a fist of unpacking the removal men have made. I paid for the whole job—packing and unpacking.’

This is a ridiculous conversation, his inner voice mocked, but Sam was surprised he’d managed an almost rational reply.

‘Money no object, then?’ Meg asked, in a voice he didn’t recognise as her’s. Meg had never been snide or catty but, then, that Meg had been a girl. Thirteen years was plenty of time to find a bit of snide and catty!

‘It was more a matter of time. I wasn’t due to start up here for another month, then I had an SOS from an old friend who was coming up as the medical super at the hospital. She couldn’t leave Brisbane and, knowing I was heading this way, asked if I’d step in for her.’

It was still a ridiculous conversation to be having with Meg, but at least it was keeping his mind away from thoughts of Meg the girl.

And the sand writing.

From Megan Question Mark?

Almost keeping his thoughts away…

‘You were coming anyway? When Bill said acting super I thought maybe you’d bought the house as a holiday home and were just here for however long you were acting.’