‘I never said I didn’t want to come back.’
‘You didn’t have to. You look like a deer stuck in headlights.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, and concentrated on his steak again.
‘So how about you?’ she asked as they ploughed through their massive plates. ‘How come you look like a deer caught in headlights as well?’
‘I don’t.’ He glanced up at her, startled, and then caught himself. His expression regained that careful control she was starting to recognise for what it was. A shield.
‘I’m the one who’s afraid of the commitment Madison might mean,’ she said softly. ‘But when you’re forced to be near her I see exactly the same fear. Only worse. At the funeral you acted as if you were afraid of coming close. So what’s happened in your past to drive you here, Dr Reynard?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You know almost everything there is to know about me,’ she went on, suddenly angry. ‘Yet you keep yourself hidden. There’s a child in there somewhere, isn’t there? A tragedy?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Yet my life is your business.’
‘That’s different. Your brother-’
‘Is your patient. Yes. But I’m not your patient. It doesn’t stop you poking your nose in. Not that I’m not grateful,’ she said hurriedly, as he looked up from his steak. ‘You know I am. I’ve really appreciated the work you’ve given me over the last couple of weeks-and the freedom. But it’s feeling really lopsided. I’m feeling like I’m wandering in a void and part of that is your fault.’
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Gee, thanks.’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said softly, and met his gaze directly over the table. She’d been trying not to think this for two weeks but it had been there, like it or not, and suddenly it had to be brought out into the open. ‘You feel it, too, don’t you? This thing…’
‘You mean I want to jump you,’ he said, and the ears on the other side of the bar almost stretched to where they were sitting. ‘Is that the thing you mean?’
‘I might not have put it quite like that.’ She hesitated and then she smiled, tension easing. ‘Do you? Want to jump me?’
‘Yes,’ he said promptly. ‘You want to jump me, too?’
‘Fergus…’
‘They taught me at medical school to say it like it is,’ he said, suddenly cheerful, attacking his steak again with zeal. ‘Never prevaricate. If you need to tell bad news then spit it out ’cos otherwise the patient will guess anyway and won’t thank you for quibbling.’
‘So is this bad news,’ she said, after a moment’s stunned pause. ‘That you want to jump me.’
‘Depends on lots of things,’ he told her.
‘Like?’
‘Like I’m not in the market for a permanent relationship.’
‘You think I am?’
‘I know you’re not,’ he said, his voice softening so that for the first time she was sure the audience on the other side of the bar couldn’t hear. ‘Relationships have been beaten out of you the hard way.’
‘So how about you?’ She placed her knife and fork together over at least half her steak, and at the door Dorothy sighed her disappointment.
Fergus devoured the last mouthful of his steak, hesitated and looked thoughtfully at Ginny’s unfinished plate. ‘Go right ahead,’ she told him, and Dorothy brightened again.
Fergus switched plates in one smooth slide and kept right on eating.
‘That doesn’t let you off answering the question,’ she said. ‘If I were to agree to being…jumped…’
‘Gee, that’s romantic.’
‘I’m not sure how else we can put it,’ she said. ‘A relationship with no involvement.’
‘Let’s not call it anything.’
‘Fine, but I need to know the background,’ she retorted. ‘You’ve been married?’
‘Yes, but-’
‘Who to?’
‘Katrina.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘She’s a professor of pathology at a very large hospital in-’
‘Katrina Newry,’ she interrupted, awed. ‘I’ve heard of her.’
‘The world’s heard of Katrina.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘It’s-’
‘Only my business if you want to jump me,’ she agreed equitably. ‘Which you’ve just agreed you want to do. But I don’t go to bed with strangers.’
There was a hushed ripple from the other side of the bar and Ginny thought, Gee the acoustics in here are good. Or terrible, depending on what angle you wanted to look at them from.
‘Can this wait until I finish my steak?’ Fergus asked, and she knew he’d realised the same thing.
‘Fine. Only it’s my steak. I’ll have coffee while I wait.’
‘You don’t want pudding?’
‘After a steak that hangs over every side of the plate? You have to be kidding.’
‘I never kid.’
‘I don’t want pudding,’ she retorted. ‘I want history.’
‘You-’
‘Just shut up and eat,’ she told him kindly. ‘And then shut up and talk.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You know what I mean.’
So he finished his steak, they both had coffee and then they walked outside. Fergus had driven them there in his truck-cum-ambulance-it was parked in the car park-but the night was lovely and, of course, the pub had been built to face the lake. There was a track leading down to a spit of land where you could watch the moonlight glimmering on the lake below. Lovers’ walk, the locals called it, and Ginny knew every person in the pub would be watching as they turned away from the car park and headed down the track.
It seemed Fergus knew it, too. ‘You realise your reputation is shot,’ Fergus said morosely. ‘Even if we turn and head up to the car park now, they’ll assume we were just very, very fast.’
‘I’m not fussed about my reputation in this town,’ she retorted. ‘It’s the least of my worries.’
‘Because after Richard dies you’ll never come here again.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Life was pretty bleak here?’
‘What do you think?’
He nodded, then caught her hand as they made their way along the track. It was a simple gesture-boy-girl contact-but it felt good. Dangerously good, Ginny thought. Because she didn’t want a relationship and this was teetering remarkably close to feeling…
Close.
Dumb. She didn’t do close. Neither did he, apparently.
She needed to find out his reasons. Maybe they could reinforce hers.
‘You turn away from Madison like you’re in pain,’ she said softly into the stillness of the night, and she felt the sudden tension in the link between their fingers. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t-’
‘I’m right. There was a child, wasn’t there?’
‘I-’
‘Tell me about her.’ They’d reached the spit now. There was a seat-a vast gum tree that had fallen sixty years
