an ill-fitting suit borrowed from a neighbour. Her appearance had stunned him.
But social differences were dumb, he’d told himself. Suddenly it had seemed vital to his seventeen-year-old self that they stay together for ever.
Surely she could change her plans to study medicine in Sydney, he told her. He planned to be a doctor, too. There was a great medical course in Auckland and he’d won a scholarship. If he worked nights he could manage it, and surely Ginny could join him.
But the seventeen-year-old Ginny had smiled—quite kindly—and told him he was nuts. Her life was in Sydney. The tiny New Zealand island of Kaimotu was simply a place where she and her parents came to play. Besides, she had no intention of marrying a man who called her Carrots.
That had been twelve years ago. Ben had long since put the humiliation of adolescent love behind him, but now there was a more important question. Ginny had been back on the island for six months now. She’d signalled in no uncertain terms that she wanted privacy but Ginny Koestrel was a doctor and a doctor was what the island needed. Now. Which was why, even though looking at her brought back all sorts of emotions he’d thought he’d long suppressed, he was asking yet again.
‘Ginny, I need you.’
But the answer would be the same—he knew it. Ginny was surrounded by grapevines, armed with a spray gun, and she was looking at him like he was an irritating interruption to her work.
‘I’m sorry, Ben, but I have no intention of working as a doctor again. I have no intention of coming near your clinic. Meanwhile, if these vines aren’t sprayed I risk black rot. If you don’t mind…’
She squirted her spray gun at the nearest vine. She wasn’t good. She sprayed too high and lost half the mist to the breeze.
Ben lifted the spray pack from her back, aimed the gun at the base of the vine and watched the spray drift up through the foliage.
‘Vaccination is one of my many medical skills,’ he told her, settling a little, telling himself weird emotions were simply a reaction to shared history, nothing to do with now. They both watched as the spray settled where it should, as emotions settled where they should. ‘There’s a good vine, that didn’t hurt at all, did it?’ he said, adopting his very best professional tone. ‘If you grow good grapes next year, the nice doctor will give you some yummy compost.’ He grinned at the astounded Ginny. ‘That’s the way you should treat ’em, Carrots. Didn’t they teach you anything in your fancy medical school?’
Ginny flushed. ‘Cut it out, Ben, and don’t you dare call me Carrots. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s auburn.’ She hauled her flaming curls tighter into the elastic band, and glowered.
‘Ginny, then.’
‘And not Ginny either. And I’m a farmer, not a doctor.’
‘I don’t actually care who you are,’ Ben said, deciding he needed to be serious if he was to have a chance of persuading her. ‘You have a medical degree, and I’m desperate. It’s taken me twelve months to find a family doctor to fill old Dr Reg’s place. Dr Catherine Bolt seemed eminently sensible, but she’s lived up to her name. One minor earth tremor and she’s bolted back to the mainland.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I’m not kidding.’ He raked his hand through his hair, remembering how relieved he’d been when the middle-aged Catherine had arrived and how appalled he’d felt when she’d left. He really was alone.
‘Every New Zealander has felt earth tremors,’ he told Ginny. ‘We’re not known as the shaky isles for nothing. But you know Squid’s set himself up as Forecaster of Doom. With no scientific evidence at all he’s been droning on about double flowers of the pohutukawa tree and strange tides and weird bird behaviour and every portent of catastrophe he can think of. There’s something about a shrivelled fisherman with a blackened pipe and a voice of doom that gets the natives twitchy. ‘As well as losing us our doctor, I now have half the islanders demanding a year’s supply of medication so they can see out the apocalypse.’
She smiled, but faintly. ‘So you want me on hand for the end of the world?’
‘There’s no scientific evidence that we’re heading for a major earthquake,’ he said with dangerous calm. ‘But we do have hysteria. Ginny, help me, please.’
‘I’m sorry, Ben, but no.’
‘Why on earth did you do medicine if you won’t practise?’
‘That’s my business.’
He stared at her in baffled silence. She was a different woman from the one he’d proposed to twelve years ago, he thought. Well, of course she would be. His mother had outlined a sketchy history she’d winkled out of the returning Ginny, a marriage ending in tragedy, but…but…
For some reason he found himself looking at the elastic band. Elastic band? A Koestrel?
Ginny’s parents were the epitome of power and wealth. Her father was a prominent Sydney neurosurgeon and her mother’s sole purpose was to play society matron. Twice a year they spent a month on the island, in the vineyard they’d bought—no doubt as a tax deduction—flying in their friends, having fabulous parties.
The last time he’d seen Ginny she’d been slim, beautiful, but also vibrant with life. She’d been bouncy, glowing, aching to start medicine, aching to start life. Ready to thump him if he still called her Carrots.
In the years since that youthful proposal he’d realised how wise she’d been not to hurl herself into marriage at seventeen. He’d forgiven her—nobly, he decided—and he’d moved on, but in the back of his mind she’d stayed bouncy, vibrant and glowing. Her mother had carefully maintained her fabulous exterior and he’d expected Ginny to do the same.
She hadn’t. The Ginny he was facing now wore elastic bands. Worse, she looked…grim. Flat.
Old? She couldn’t be thirty, and yet…How much had the death of a loved one taken out of her?
Did such a death destroy life?
‘Ginny—’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve come back to work the vineyard, and that’s all.’
‘The harvest is long over.’
‘I don’t care. I’m spraying for…something, whatever Henry told me I had to spray for. When I finish spraying I need to gear up for pruning. Henry’s decided to retire and I need to learn. I’m sorry, Ben, but I’m no longer a doctor. I’m a winemaker. Good luck with finding someone who can help you.’
And then she paused. A car was turning into the driveway. A rental car.
It must be Sydney friends, Ben thought, come over on the ferry, but Ginny wasn’t dressed for receiving guests. She was wearing jeans, an ancient windcheater, no make-up and she had mud smeared on her nose. A Koestler welcoming guests looking like a farmhand? No and no and no.
‘Now what?’ she said tightly, and she took the spray pack from Ben and turned to another vine. ‘Have you brought reinforcements? Don’t you know I have work to do?’
‘This isn’t anyone to do with me,’
