in mentioning his brother’s death. She eyed the cushions, then the settee, which had taken on the appearance of a throne as she’d approached. But he waved his hand towards it, so she sat, then regretted it when he remained standing, putting her at an immediate disadvantage.
‘My mother’s asthma? It came on suddenly?’
If a discussion of his mother’s health was all he wanted of her, why was she feeling uneasy?
Because there’s an undertone in his voice that sounded like—surely not suspicion …
She was imagining things.
Yet the sense that this man was judging her in some way persisted, making her feel uncomfortable, so her reply was strained-hurried.
‘I work for a clinic that does—I suppose you’d say house calls—to hotels on the tourist strip of the Gold Coast. About four weeks ago, the clinic had a call from the hotel where your mother was staying. I was on duty and I found her breathless and fatigued, and very upset, which wasn’t so surprising as it was her first such attack.’
‘You treated her?’
An obvious question, yet again she heard some underlying emotion in it.
Putting her silly fancies down to tiredness, not to mention an inbuilt distrust of men as handsome as this one, she explained as concisely as she could.
‘I started with an inhalation of salbutamol, then a corticosteroid injection. Her breathing became easier almost immediately, but I put her on oxygen anyway, and stayed with her. The next day, when she was rested, I talked to her about preventative measures she could take to prevent another attack. I explained about having a management plan for the condition.’
‘I can imagine how well she took that,’ the man said, and Alex thought she caught the suggestion of a smile lifting one corner of his lips. Unfortunately, it drew attention to his lips, so well shaped an artist might have drawn them. Something that wasn’t apprehension fluttered inside her. ‘Not one to take even a mild painkiller for a headache, my mother.’
Alex nodded, and forgot her suspicions, and the flutter, enough to smile herself, remembering the battle she’d been waging with Samarah to convince her that prevention was better than suffering the attacks.
‘You’re right, although after the second attack I think I was gaining some ground.’
Her smile changed her face, Azzam realised. It lifted the tiredness and smoothed out the lines that creased her brow, making her not exactly pretty but—
She was speaking again. He had to concentrate.
‘Unfortunately, when the news of her son’s death came, it triggered the worst attack. She was desperate to return home, but I couldn’t in all conscience let her travel without medical care. A competent nurse could have handled it, but Samarah had come to know me as I’d called in most days over the weeks since I first saw her. I suppose she felt safer with me beside her, so I flew here with her and her friends. As you know, we broke the journey in Singapore, stopping over for the night so she could rest.’
‘And now?’
Azzam knew he’d spoken too abruptly, his voice too cold, too remote, but once again the past seemed to be colliding with the present—Clarice’s insistence she fly to Al Janeen with him—this woman coming with his mother.
The woman’s smile gave way to a frown as she responded.
‘February is our most humid month at home. Although your mother was in a hotel, she’d had the air-conditioning turned off in her suite and she insisted on walking on the beach beside the surf every day. I am assuming it was the humidity that triggered the attacks and now she’s back in the dry air here, she should be all right, although with adult onset, the asthma could persist, and she did have a mild attack on the first stage of the flight.’
Again Alex paused. A woman who thought before she spoke …
‘I believe she has a niece who is a doctor and who normally takes care of her health, but apparently she is away.’
Was she angling to stay on?
His mother would like her to—he already knew that—but previous experience suggested the sooner the stranger was gone the better. His mother would settle down with her friends, he’d get on with the mammoth task of learning his new role, and everyone would be happy.
No, happy was definitely the wrong word, but life could begin to return to normal—a new normal, but still …
‘So?’
The word came out like a demand, unintended, but she was disturbing him in ways he couldn’t understand. So quiet, so shadowy.
Insidious?
But if his mother needed someone to keep an eye on her, which she obviously did, then this woman …
‘I suppose it’s up to you,’ she said. ‘But I won’t leave Samarah without competent care. Is there someone else who could keep an eye on her until her niece returns?’
Alex wanted to suggest he do it himself, despite Samarah’s protestations, but there was something forbidding in the stern features of this man.
And what features! They drew her mesmerised gaze as a magnet drew iron filings—the high sculpted cheekbones, the deep-set eyes, the slightly hooked nose—a face that looked as if the desert winds she’d heard of had scoured it clean so the bones stood out in stark relief.
Hard as weathered rock …
She was still cataloguing his features when he replied so she missed the early part of his sentence.
‘I’m sorry?’ She was so embarrassed by her distraction the words stumbled out and seemed to drop like stones onto the carpet where Azzam was pacing.
‘I asked if you feel my mother should stay on preventative medication now she has returned home.’
Was it suspicion she could hear in his voice? Was that the note bothering her?
Or was it pain? He’d lost his brother, his twin—his world had been turned upside down …
Realising she should be speaking, not thinking, and relieved to have an easy question to answer, Alex now hurried her reply.
‘Probably not in the long term, but for a while perhaps it would be best if she continued to take leukotriene modifiers. I’ve been monitoring her lung capacity with a peak-flow meter daily and prescribing preventative medication as needed, but she is reluctant to use the meter herself and to take control of the illness.’
To her astonishment, the man smiled. Smiled properly, not just a lip quirk. And it was a smile worth waiting for, because it lip up his stern face the way sunrise lit the highest peaks of a cold mountain.
Alex gave a little shake of her head, unable to believe the way her mind—not to mention the fluttering thing inside her chest—had reacted! Sunrise on a mountain indeed! She was losing it!
Tiredness, that was all!
She looked at a point a
