Rescue Heat (23 page)

“There you are.” Carrie had pounced on her as their parents were claimed by other guests. The music went up a notch. Through the hidden speakers came old favourites her parents enjoyed and that everyone could hum along to, or dance to.

Ryan stood beside Carrie.

“Hi.” Grace smiled. He really was nice. It would be heaven to relax with a nice man like Ryan and let the stresses of the day just float down the river.

“We’re not making the announcement yet,” Carrie lowered her voice, but the joy bubbled through it. “It’s a total secret till Dad and Kylie have been toasted, but … Ryan and I are engaged.”

Grace couldn’t forgive herself that she’d physically flinched. Sure, she’d been tired. It was no excuse for such a self-betrayal. No one needed to know that she’d woven dreams around — her stomach roiled — Carrie’s fiancé.

In the whirling universe, a hard arm slid around her waist. She looked up blindly and saw Saul. Watchful, powerful Saul who’d been like an older brother to Carrie. But he was beside Grace now, holding her up. She leaned into his strength, unable to trust her own. There was concern in his eyes and she felt protected. For once, despite everything, she felt as if she belonged in the loud, gregarious Wharton clan.

“Now, there’s a coincidence,” Saul drawled. “Grace and I are engaged, too.”

“What?”

But she barely heard Ryan’s exclamation. Her eyes were on Saul, stunned. She searched his expression and the final blow fell. The floor under her feet opened with agonising shame.

The expression on Saul’s face was pity.

She tore herself out of his arms. “We’re not engaged.” Her voice rang out. Heads turned. “There’s no way we could ever be.”

And though she didn’t run, no one had stopped her determined exit.

A giggling teenage Wharton cousin later told her that Saul and her drama had definitely upstaged Carrie’s announcement.

“Everyone thinks we broke up and I’ve driven you out of the family,” Saul said now. He lowered his voice till it stroked over her skin like a caress. “I never thought you were a coward, Grace.”

Nor had she. But she’d faced the truth that night and every day since. Not only was she not engaged, she wasn’t in love, had never been in love, and couldn’t bear the kindly meant intrusion of her family.

She’d been an A-grade focussed student and was a dedicated doctor, but being a woman seemed to have eluded her. Where Carrie flirted and beguiled, Grace withdrew to focus on her own goals: education, independence and career ambition. Since high school she’d striven to become a GP. Now she was nearly there — and it wasn’t enough.

She wanted to be the centre of someone’s world, and she wanted to give them that same gift. She wanted to build a life with a man who would laugh with her in the good times and hold her in the bad.

“The family missed you at Christmas and New Year,” Saul said.

The Wharton clan gathered at Eagle Bay every summer holiday. They’d been going there for years, before it became fashionable. When her mum married Stuart, she’d joined them. She’d gotten used to the lazy summer idleness, a short break in her determined study schedule.

“I was busy at work,” she said. “Christmas and New Year are peak times for the Emergency Department.”

“Yes, your mum repeated your excuses.”

“They’re not excuses.” Her temper flared up. “I’m not Carrie,” she said nastily. “I don’t flit around like a butterfly doing pointless make-work. I have responsibilities.”

The scorn in Saul’s eyes stopped her.

She dropped her gaze, ashamed. Carrie had never been anything but kind to her. Her kindness had been of the careless variety, but it had been genuine. She’d done nothing to justify this attack on her. Nothing except…

“Carrie didn’t steal your precious Ryan,” Saul said. “He fell in love with her.”

“I know.” Grace slipped off the arm of the leather sofa and curled into its seat. She didn’t need Saul telling her she wasn’t loveable.

“You’ve got to face them some time.” He sat beside her on the sofa.

“Why do you care?”

He stretched his long legs in front of him. “Like I said, everyone thinks I’ve driven you away. If you come down to Eagle Bay with me this weekend, they’ll see there’s no strain between us. You’ll make Gran and your mum happy. They both worry about you.”

Her guilt became tinged with suspicion. “Why do they worry about me?”

“All work and no play make Gracie a workaholic.” He tugged at her hair.

She flicked it away. “I planned to stay here and … do laundry.”

He laughed. “The laundry can wait. What’s the good of a long weekend if you use it to be sensible?”

“Spoken like a playboy.”

“I’ve never been that.”

But she ignored his sudden seriousness. She frowned, recalling his assumption that she had the whole long weekend off. How had he even known she’d be home this morning?

“You pack your bags and I’ll pick you up early tomorrow morning. I’ll fly us both down to the bay.”

“Saul, why are you assuming I have the whole weekend off work?”

“Because I checked with your supervisor.”

Her eyes widened at his gall. “You didn’t.”

“You bet I did. Gran’s donating a whole wing to that hospital, in Pop’s memory. The least they can do is tell me your schedule.”

She bounced up from the sofa. Her hands went to her hips. The old yoga pants she wore had slid down. She angrily hitched them up. “You arrogant, manipulative … You didn’t just ask for my schedule, did you? You made sure I had the whole weekend off.”

Infuriatingly, he relaxed into a grin, holding his palms up in a gesture of innocent, misunderstood goodwill.

“Ooh.” She picked up a cushion and threw it at him. She’d spent years proving that she was herself, and not Stuart Wharton’s stepdaughter. She’d worked for everything she had. But with Saul throwing his weight around the hospital, they would all look at her differently.

“It’s not so bad, Grace.” He put the cushion aside and stood. “The family wants you at the bay, and you look like you need a holiday. Come and celebrate Australia Day with us. I’ll pick you up at six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

She fumed silently.

“And the two of us will show everyone we’re the best of friends,” he continued remorselessly. “Pack your bathing suit.”

“I won’t go surfing with you.”

“Then you can sit on the beach and admire my style.” A finger tapped her nose.

She nearly went cross-eyed watching it approach and retreat.

He grinned and let himself out of the house.

Emma was only in Connor’s life for as long as he was asleep. The moment he opened his eyes, figured out where he was and remembered who was to blame, he’d cast her out.

Again.

Her guilt shadowed her from room to room, slept beside her in bed. She’d taken up a daily vigil of suffering in the hospital alongside him. For as long as he was here, she would be.

As he slept in the recovery ward, she waited in the cafeteria. Cutlery scraped against ceramic, chairs groaned over the tiled floor and people spoke quietly, ever mindful of where they were and what that meant. Sickness lingered in the air, mixed in with the scents of food, cleaning products and people. Everything about Zouki Café offered an attractive distraction, from the roof tiles that looked like puzzle pieces to the letters carved in the backs of the chairs, but it couldn’t make people forget…especially when a man shuffled to a table wearing a white gown, dragging after him an IV stand on a mobile pedestal.

Emma turned from one of the many televisions to watch him. He held a mobile phone with both hands, clearly waiting to receive a call. He shifted every so often, checked the screen. Sighed quietly. She wished she knew his number.

It was raining outside and everyone within the walls of the Royal Melbourne Hospital appeared to know it, even if they hadn’t seen the sky in days. It was a long, wet Sunday and some people had tried everything on the varied Zouki menu by now. People like Emma.

Today she’d packed lunch. She couldn’t face another slice of cake or stuffed croissant and all the hot food was starting to look and taste the same. She’d been coming here too long. Long enough, in fact, to know which seats caught the sweet aromas of the flower shop down the hallway. Roses, gerberas, Australian natives. She’d bought a bunch yesterday and taken them home. Connor wouldn’t have wanted them. Or even known they were there.

Just as he wouldn’t know about the horrid purple bear sitting on one of the visitor seats, or the naff ‘Gone but not Frog-otten’ card that his colleagues had signed. If he could open his eyes he would cringe. They were an eyesore and an insult to taste.

“Are you still thinking about that bear?” her best friend Affni asked.

Emma spooned a scoop of yoghurt into her mouth. It tasted sour. “That purple hurts my eyes.”

“It could have been worse. She could have bought the blue.”

Emma conceded this point with a nod. The blue was infinitely uglier.

Four nurses seated themselves at the table beside them. Each looked weary, and Emma wondered how many hours they had been tending the sick. One of the women began to speak in fractured English, gesturing wildly with her hands. Spanish slid in and out of her sentences as the others listened on, eating their meals and cradling their coffees. The man in the gown struggled to his feet and left. His phone hadn’t rung.

“This place is sucking the life out of me,” Emma grumbled. “Everyone’s waiting for something. Waiting to leave, waiting to die.”

Affni’s fingertips brushed against her wrist—mocha against vanilla. “You’ve been here every day for a fortnight. Maybe you should take a day off. Recharge.”

Emma shook her head. “I shouldn’t complain.”

“You’ve every right to. He won’t know, Emma.”

“I’ll know.”

Affni squeezed the back of Emma’s hand then began cutting up her schnitzel. She hid her eyes behind her liquorice-coloured fringe, but Emma didn’t need to see them to know there was judgement there. Affni didn’t approve of Emma’s guilt.

They ate quietly for a time, then Affni said, “I saw Asha in the gift shop again.”

“Maybe she bought him a pillow with his name on it today.”

“Maybe.”

Emma pushed her yoghurt aside and snapped open her container of carrot sticks. They didn’t taste good either.

A grey-haired woman in a white patterned dressing gown walked past, a loaded plate of stir-fry in her hands and two chattering friends in tow. The three sat down and began discussing grandchildren, a neighbour called Maggie and Donna’s crook hip. Combined they had the appetite of ten men.

“What will you do when he wakes up?” Affni asked. She kept her head down, her focus on her lunch.

Emma stopped chewing and considered. That question had haunted her since the accident, and her answer had changed every day. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just buy one of those God-awful cards from the gift shop and apologise in that. Should I even be here?”

Affni looked up. “I don’t know, Em.” She poked at her potato, as if unsure whether to continue. “Not because it’s your fault, but because of who you are.”

“Explain it to me again,” Dana insisted.

Emma struggled to control any sign of her impatience. She didn’t have time to repeat herself; a truckload of steel would be turning into Southbank Boulevard any minute, and she still needed to brief the Auditorium’s General Foreman. But pushing against the client wouldn’t get her out of this meeting room faster, so she took a steadying breath and started again.

Dana Vickers watched her through narrow pink-rimmed glasses. Her hair tumbled about her face in a kind of controlled chaos, and the enormous peacock broach on her collar winked and glittered in the light. It had been distracting Emma for over an hour. Dana took notes as Emma spoke, her handwriting utterly illegible to Emma’s eye, and made soft sounds in her throat whenever she agreed or understood something. Ten minutes later Emma had heard that sound only twice.

People around them were beginning to fidget, and some were bold enough to check their watches. Dana was unmoved.

“If the subcontractor proceeded on the assumption that the technical drawings were unchanged, then they are clearly at fault. The cost should not be absorbed by the project.”

Emma nodded, not in agreement, but to show that she had listened. “Be that as it may, it is a dangerous step to punish NJK for attempting to keep up with the fast-track program. It sends a bad message. The subcontractors are taking risks for us to keep things moving. If we slam a twenty k bill on their heads for their trouble we could lose a lot more in the long term. Dana, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to wrap this up. I’m happy to discuss this offline with you but right now I have somewhere I need to be.”

Dana angled her chin. The woman might have been twenty years her senior, but she didn’t have the authority to question Emma’s priorities. She nodded, and fifteen chairs slid back from the table.

Another weekly consultant meeting out of the way, at last. Emma hurried to her desk, hoping to intercept Mark before he headed over to site. She dropped her notepad and pen next to her keyboard, scanned her unread email subjects for anything that couldn’t wait, then seized her phone and dialled Mark’s number. It rang in her ear and on the desk nearby. She cursed and ended the call.

Connor had never left his phone behind—it had been practically grafted to him—but his replacement had a tendency to forget things, like his phone, safety glasses or reporting structure. Whatever her feelings towards Connor, he was good at what he did. Mark was not. So the sooner Connor dragged himself out of bed and back to work the better life would be for everyone.

Emma hadn’t had a chance to slip out of her high-visibility vest since first putting it on at seven o’clock this morning. She added a hardhat to her ensemble and hooked her safety glasses around the back of her neck.

A single beep made her turn. Mark stepped through the security door, returning from the toilets, and spotted her. His expression was neutral as he approached. At twenty-eight, Emma was ten years younger than Mark, and she suspected that he was loath to report to her, but that had not yet come up between them. She supposed that her being a woman was a source of consternation for him as well, but he wisely kept this to himself, save for the odd disparaging look or long-suffering sigh.