Except …
Except that one wounded little boy had been failing to thrive within Helen’s noisy throng. Harry had always been quiet and a little introspective, and the loss of his parents, plus the shocking injuries to his leg, had seen him withdraw into himself.
The last time Jack had gone to see him he’d refused to come out of the bedroom he’d been sharing with one of his cousins. Helen had shown him literature on this place. ‘It can’t do any harm,’ she’d told him. ‘I’ll farm the three eldest out and the babies can come with us. Doug won’t mind, will you, darling?’ She’d smiled fondly at her long-suffering husband. ‘We do what we must for each of our children and Harry’s the same.’
Only Harry wasn’t the same. Jack had watched him that night, pushing his food from side to side on his plate, mentally absent from the noise and jostling about him, and he’d made a decision.
‘Let me take care of him for a while. I’ll take a few weeks off work. Maybe he’ll be happier with me.’
Afterwards he hadn’t been able to believe he’d said it. He knew nothing about children—zip. His current girlfriend, Annalise, had been appalled.’
‘Well, don’t expect me to help. Children and me … Darling, I’m a radiologist, not a childminder.
He was an oncologist, not a childminder either, but for the last two weeks he’d been doing his best.
But not getting through.
‘But you will take him to this place,’ Helen had decreed, flourishing the literature at him. ‘I swear, Jack, it sounds just what he needs.’
‘He needs time, not quackery.’
‘If you don’t take him, I will. Jack, I’ll fight you for this. I should make the decisions. You’re not capable of caring for him and I am.’
And there it was, out in the open. They were joint guardians. On the surface they had equal claims to guardianship, but Helen had the home, the experience, the love.
He should stand aside and leave her to it. Only Harry’s desolation prevented it.
Taking him to the dolphin sanctuary had been a test, he thought. Helen—and others—wanted proof he was serious about this parenting role.
The problem was that he wasn’t sure that he was serious about parenting himself, especially as he’d been sole carer for two weeks now and made not one dint in the little boy’s misery.
Until this afternoon, when one bear of a dog had made Harry giggle.
‘I’ll find out about Cathy,’ Helen offered, speaking urgently now. ‘I’ll make enquiries. But unless it’s really awful, you should still give the place a chance.’
‘I told you, Helen, I’ve been here half an hour and already there’s a child dead.’
‘There must be a reason.’
‘A brain tumour,’ he conceded.
‘They do palliative care work as well. You’d expect—’
‘I’d expect resuscitation efforts on a four-year-old.’
‘Give it more than half an hour,’ Helen said urgently. ‘It’s taken me all the contacts we have and then some to get him into the place. Believe it or not, there’s a queue months long. Don’t you dare walk away.’
‘And if it’s dangerous?’
‘You stay with him all the time. Bond. This is what you wanted, Jack. Now’s the time to step up to the mark.’
And he knew it was.
Kate did what she could for Amy and for her little son. Amy’s mother and sister had spent the last week here as well. Other arms enfolded the distraught mother, freeing Kate to leave her in their care. In the end she backed out unnoticed, as grandmother, mother and aunt collectively said goodbye to their little boy.
She put herself on autopilot for a while, filling in forms, phoning the coroner, clearing the way for funeral directors to fly Toby and his family directly back to Queensland, where they’d lived. She headed back to her bungalow and showered. Then she stood on her veranda and stared out to sea for a while, trying to get Toby’s death in perspective. Impossible, but she had to try, just like she always did. Other children needed her. Somehow she’d learned to move on.
She’d learned to move on from a lot, she conceded, and part of that was her history. And her history included Jack Kincaid.
It had been such a shock to see him.
Jack. His name echoed over and over in Kate’s head and she felt ill.
She couldn’t be ill. Jack’s nephew was her next client. Jack Kincaid was waiting for her to finish the formalities with Toby and his mother. Jack Kincaid had to be faced.
But maybe he wouldn’t wait. She’d seen his horror when he’d realised Toby was dead; when he’d seen that she wasn’t fighting to prolong his life.
She might have got Toby back, she conceded. If she’d tried CPR, had had oxygen on the beach, had fought with every medical skill she had, Toby might still be alive. He’d be unconscious, though. They all knew the tumour was massive and unresponsive to any more chemotherapy or radiation. If she’d fought he could have had maybe a week, maybe even longer, on oxygen, on life support, but his mother hadn’t wanted that. No one had wanted it.
She hadn’t had to flinch at the condemnation in Jack Kincaid’s eyes. She had not one single regret over her care of Toby.
But what would she tell him? Jack had been a friend at medical school. If he was still here she needed to give him an explanation. What?
The truth? Did she trust him enough for that?
She might have no choice. It seemed Harry was Jack’s nephew, Jack’s sister’s child. If she’d recognised the name she would never have accepted him as a client, but the booking had been done by a woman with a name as unfamiliar as all the names she so carefully vetted. Harry had been supposed to be coming with someone called Helen.
No matter. Chinks of her old life were bound to intrude sooner or later. She’d known that. It was just … she’d hoped it would be later.
She thought back to the Jack she’d known over ten years ago. He’d been acutely intelligent, intuitive and skilled. On top of that he’d been drop-dead gorgeous. Tall with dark hair and strong bone structure, always tanned, almost too good looking for his own good, and his dark eyes had always gleamed with mischief. Maturity had only added to his looks, she conceded, but it was the Jack of years ago she was thinking of now. If there had been pranks to be played, Jack had always been at the centre. If there had been a beautiful woman to be dated, Jack had been right there, too.
Early on they were allocated as partners in the science component of their course. They suited each other as study mates. Her seriousness didn’t distract him, and his intelligence and humour pleased her. But his dating habits were legend. ‘You should have a harem,’ she told him. ‘That way you wouldn’t have to date one by one. You could have
