rested on his kilted knees while she carefully examined each blister, cleaned it, lifted out tiny shards of wood with a pair of tweezers-and then anointed each one with iodine.
‘You should have a bullet to bite on,’ she told him, and he looked down at her mop of auburn curls and thought he wasn’t even near yelling. He was hardly thinking about pain.
She was intent on his hand. She was so…simple, he thought, but maybe that wasn’t the word. She’d changed from the clothes she’d worn at the fair. Now she was wearing a pair of shorts and a faded T-shirt that was a little too tight. Her legs and her feet were bare. She was wearing no makeup. Her hair was falling forward, stopping him seeing what she was doing with his hand but at the same time distracting him nicely.
She smelt of some citrusy soap, he thought. She’d probably showered when she’d come home from the fair. Maybe she and Rosie had bathed together and the vision of her bathing her baby was suddenly…
Whew. It was just as well Marcia was coming, he thought. A man could get himself into dangerous territory here.
And why wouldn’t a man want to?
The thought was so far out of left field that he blinked and almost pulled his hand away. She felt the tug and looked up in concern, all huge eyes and tousled hair and…and Susie.
‘I’m trying hard not to hurt you.’
‘You’re not hurting me.’
‘Tell me about your job,’ she said, turning her attention back to the splinters as if it was important that she look at anything but him. As maybe it was.
‘My job?’
‘You’re a financier.’
‘Mmm.’
‘You love being a financier?’
‘I guess.’ Did he? He wasn’t sure.
‘I’ve been trying to imagine why,’ she told him. ‘I get such a kick out of planting something and watching it grow. Do you see schemes through to the end? Like if someone comes to you and says please can I build a bulldozer factory, can I have some money, does it give you the same thrill? That those bulldozers would never have got built if it hadn’t been for you?’
‘Um…maybe that’s banking,’ he said uneasily.
‘So you don’t do any hands-on supplying of money for doing interesting stuff like building bulldozers.’
‘No.’
‘So what do you finance?’
‘I guess most of my work is taken up with futures broking,’ he told her.
‘Which is…’
‘Figuring out what money is going to be worth in the future and buying and selling on that basis.’
She tweaked out another sliver of wood. Thoughtful. ‘So you buy and sell money. It seems a bit odd to me but if it makes you happy…’
Did it make him happy? He’d never thought about it. It seemed such an odd concept that he almost didn’t understand the question.
The high-powered finance world was where he’d worked all his adult life. All he knew was wheeling and dealing, the adrenalin rush of vast fiscal deals, the knife edge of knowing it was his brains holding everything in place and if he slipped up…
He thought about his mother’s reaction when he’d told her that he’d been made a full equity partner. For once she hadn’t cried. She’d closed her eyes and when she’d opened them things had changed.
‘Now I can stop worrying,’ she’d said.
Full equity partner in one of Manhattan’s biggest brokerage firms…well, if that was what it had taken to stop the tears, then great. And he was good at his job. It had earned him a lot, and he had no time to think about anything else.
What else was there to think about but work?
The scent of Susie’s hair? That was all he could think about now. That and the feel of her fingers carefully working on his hands. Each blister was being tended with care. It was such a strange sensation. An intimate sensation.
Would Marcia ever tend his blisters?
How would he get blisters around Marcia? He wouldn’t. His biggest risk was of repetitive strain injury caused by using his Blackberry too much.
A cold damp something hit the edge of his bare leg and he hauled himself from his reverie and stared down.
Pup.
‘Whoops,’ Susie said, and laid Hamish’s hands carefully on his kilted knees and scooped up the pup. ‘That’s good timing. Taffy, if you’ve woken up, you go outside straight away. Hamish, don’t touch anything. I’ll be back.’ And she was gone, whisking the pup out into the gathering dusk.
He sat for a bit, not thinking anything, letting his mind go blank. The sensation was almost extraordinary. When had he last done this?
Simply…stopped.
There was always something to do. Always. Reports to read, e-mail to check, constant analysis. If he didn’t keep up then others would get ahead or things could slip by him and, hell, what was the use of being in the heap if you weren’t on top?
His laptop was up in his bedroom. He’d connected briefly that morning, checking things were OK. He should go up now and see…
It was seven at night. Three in the morning New York time. Not a lot was happening over there right now.
The Japanese market would be online, he decided. The yen had been looking pretty shaky when he’d left. It wouldn’t hurt to stay online for a bit and get the feel for…
Susie was out in the garden. With Taffy.
From where he sat he could hear the sea. He could smell the sea.
She’d told him to stay, so he did, sort of. He walked to the kitchen door and watched while she introduced Taffy to the lawn and explained what was required.
As if the dog could understand.
‘There’s no hurry,’ she was saying. ‘I understand it’s all a bit strange and new, and there’s even more strange and new to come, but we can take our time. Me and Rose will be the constants wherever you are, and we’ll always be able to find you a patch of grass. There’s not a lot else you need to worry about.’
What about the Dow Jones? Hamish thought, glancing at his watch and wondering what the financial markets had done in the past ten hours. He always needed to worry about the Dow Jones.
But maybe not now. Maybe worrying about financial indices here was…ridiculous.
Susie was kneeling on the grass. The dopy pup had rolled over onto her back, and Susie was scratching her tummy. She wriggled in delight, her ungainly body squirming with ecstasy on the still sun-warmed ground.
How was she going to cope? Hamish thought. With a baby. With a puppy. She had a lot to worry about. She should be worrying about it right now!
She wasn’t worrying. She lay on the grass herself and the puppy climbed on top of her. The last flickers of light from the tangerine sunset were soft on her face. She was giggling as the puppy tried to lick her cheek. From behind he could hear Rose chirping as she woke from what he presumed was a very late afternoon nap. Susie would never get her daughter to sleep tonight.
But she didn’t care, he thought. She had no sense of order. He remembered his mother if dinner was five minutes late. She’d be almost apoplectic with anxiety.
He thought of Marcia if things didn’t run to plan. What would Marcia do if he gave her a puppy?
Marcia would give the puppy right back. And as for a baby…
Marcia letting a baby having an afternoon nap at this hour? Marcia having a baby?
The idea was so ridiculous that he grinned and Susie looked over and saw him grinning and said, ‘What?’
‘What yourself?’
