to keep the information to yourself?’
‘Ah…’ Technically, Zac had made the call before Don had requested confidentiality but he’d known that he shouldn’t be doing it. ‘Sorry, Don… I thought it was the right thing to do. That your daughter should know that…’
‘That your dying wish was to see me again?’ Olivia was shaking her head. ‘But that’s not actually true, is it?’
Don’s eyebrows rose and then lowered even more as he scowled at Isaac. ‘You said that?’
‘I don’t remember saying exactly that,’ Zac admitted. ‘I was a bit riled up on your behalf, though. After seeing all those letters that Olivia had refused to read.’
‘I didn’t refuse to read them.’ Olivia was sounding pretty riled up herself now. ‘I never received them. I’m not sure I even believe they exist.’
Zac couldn’t help glancing up at the shelf where that filing box was sitting. When he looked down again, he found both Olivia and Don glaring at him and the similarity in their gazes almost made him smile. Clearly father and daughter still had things in common.
‘They don’t exist any more,’ Don muttered. ‘I put them through the shredder. But even if they were still in that box, they’re just ancient history. Totally irrelevant.’
If he hadn’t still been watching Olivia so closely, Zac might have missed the way she swallowed hard just then. Those letters had been important to her, hadn’t they? Maybe she was telling the truth and she hadn’t known they existed and maybe she’d wanted to see them. There was something about the way she was taking a breath that made him think she was struggling with this. That, despite her very put-together and poised outward appearance, she was actually feeling quite vulnerable. The shrug of her shoulders was definitely defensive.
‘I really don’t care,’ she said. ‘But I do believe that seeing me before you died wasn’t something on any list of priorities you might have. After all, you’ve had more than twenty-five years to do something about that. The real reason I came was to tell you it’s not fair…’
Yes…there was a tiny wobble in her voice that made Zac wish he’d never made that call. What right had he had to interfere in someone else’s life and upset them? And Don was looking alarmingly pale, as if he could collapse at any moment. If he did, it would be entirely Zac’s fault. Olivia Donaldson was looking a bit pale herself. Old wounds were being opened here. Deep wounds.
‘It’s not fair to let people think it was me who rejected you,’ Olivia continued. ‘When it was totally the other way round. What kind of father just walks out of his kid’s life and never looks back?’
He was looking back yesterday, Zac wanted to say. He was looking back and crying… But he kept his mouth shut and said nothing. Because he’d said too much already.
‘The lousy kind,’ Don said. ‘And I don’t blame you for hating me. I just don’t understand why you’ve bothered coming all this way to find me.’
‘Because someone suggested that I might regret not taking the last chance I’ll ever have to see you.’ Olivia’s chin rose. ‘And I decided I wanted to tell you face to face what I thought of you. It’s not much, actually. Not as a father. Or as a husband, for that matter. Mum told me how little support she got from you with her career choices. I’m not sure I think much of you as a doctor, either, when you’re not even getting proper medical treatment. What kind of example is that to your patients? How can anyone trust you to do what’s best for them if you won’t even do it for yourself?’
Zac sucked in a breath. Wow… He might have wanted to say something similar to Don himself, but he’d never have delivered it with that much…passion. There were deep feelings there that were showing themselves in anger but he could feel something very different beneath what was showing. He could almost see a small girl who was bewildered and hurt because her father had abandoned her.
What on earth had made Don do something so appalling? There was a part of him who wanted to step in and simply give Olivia a hug. But he could imagine how unwelcome that would be. He shouldn’t even be in this room. This was none of his business.
Don must have been reading his mind.
‘This is none of your business,’ he growled. Except that he was talking to Olivia, not Zac. ‘I didn’t ask you to come here. You shouldn’t have come. You don’t belong here, any more than your mother did. Why don’t you just get out while the going’s good?’
Oh, no… Zac found he was holding his breath. Could things get any worse?
Apparently, they could.
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Olivia was already turning on her heel. ‘That’s precisely what I’m going to do.’
Zac had to steel himself to meet Don’s gaze as the door slammed behind his daughter. He knew he was going to be facing a man who had every right to be very angry with him.
Except he didn’t look angry. He looked…as sad as anyone Zac had ever seen.
‘You can go, too,’ he said quietly. ‘Just leave me alone, okay?’
Her hands were shaking so much that it took two attempts to get the rental car started. And then Olivia found that her vision was blurred by tears so she had to pull over, not far from where she’d stopped not so long ago, near the fire station. She swiped at her face and hauled in one deep breath after another as she tried to calm down. Why on earth was she so upset? Had she expected anything else from the man who’d walked out of her life when she was far too young to understand what might have driven him to do that? Had she had some deeply hidden hope that she might discover that her father did still love her, like that stranger had suggested in his phone message?
Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t expressed any desire to even see her before he died. That was simply a flight of fancy by someone who’d had no business interfering. Stirring up things that would have best been left alone. And, yes, it hurt but it was a pain Olivia had had plenty of practice dealing with. She’d had it nailed by the time she was in her early teens so nothing had really changed. She’d made a mistake by coming here, that was all, and the best that she could do now to repair the damage was to get away from this place as quickly as possible and try to just forget about it. At least she’d left the township behind now. There was farmland on either side of the road and she was heading towards the narrow, winding road that led through the gorge.
Not that it was going to be easy to push those stupidly intense minutes out of her head, she realised a few minutes later. It wasn’t just that horrible conversation with her father, because she was already pushing that into the part of her brain where everything else to do with Donald Donaldson had been buried. No… There was another man whose image it might be even harder to erase. The troublemaker. Some kind of irresponsible bad boy who’d fallen into a forgotten corner of her life and had decided to wreak havoc.
It was quite possible she was going to be thinking about Isaac Cameron for a rather long time. Wondering why she’d never felt anything quite like that kind of tingle deep in her belly before and whether she would ever feel it again. That pull of sheer…desire that even thinking about the man could generate.
Good grief… Olivia shook her head. It wasn’t just an electrical jolt she could feel in her
