lot—the man standing where he’d emerged from the van, she on the surgery steps. ‘Oh, come up to the house,’ she added crossly, then shook her head. ‘No, show me some authorisation and identification first—something from the agency, your driver’s licence, anything.’
He reached back into the van and brought out a quite respectable-looking briefcase, tan leather, a bit battered, but in not bad condition. He opened it and withdrew a file.
‘It’s all in here,’ he said, walking towards her.
He walked well, very upright, yet with an unconscious grace. She could picture him on a surfboard, cutting across the face of a wave, a conqueror of the ocean, sun glinting off the water droplets on that chest …
Jo gave herself a mental head-slap—a reminder to stay with it, although the longing that had come with the thought of riding the sea remained like a bruise in her chest. The man was still a stranger for all he knew the name of the agency she used to recruit staff, and held himself in an unthreatening manner. Reading body language was something she’d had to learn, but he, too, could have learned it.
He stopped a reasonable distance from her and passed her the file, then stepped back. Yep, he’d done the same body language course! Maybe he was the genuine article. but she’d wanted a woman.
She opened the file and stared at the photo it contained. Surely the gorgeous male with the short back and sides hairstyle, the dark arched eyebrows over pale blue-grey eyes, the long straight nose and shapely lips quirked, in the photo, into a slight smile wasn’t the surfie type standing right in front of her.
She looked from the photo to the man and saw the eyes, blue-grey, and then the same quirky, half-embarrassed smile, although the beard stubble she could see now he was closer to her hid the shapely lips.
‘Fraser Cameron?’
A quick, decisive nod.
‘I’m usually called Cam. I’d just got out of the army when they took the photo,’ the man explained. ‘I had an interview with the agency, put in my résumé, promised to keep in touch by phone and went surfing for a while. Nothing like a few years in the desert to give you a longing for the ocean. Deserts and ocean—well, they have sand in common but that’s about all.’
As job interviews went, this wasn’t going too well. Cam had realised that from the start. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the young woman in front of him was his boss-to-be, and she didn’t seem too happy about any aspect of him, even apart from the fact he wasn’t female.
Not that he could blame her. He should have had a shower at the beach and washed the salt out of his hair—at least run a comb through it. But until he’d seen the sign for the surgery and driven in on a whim, he’d been intent on finding a caravan park and having a proper hot shower and shave for the first time in, what—four days? He rubbed his hand across his chin—no, maybe only three. He’d stopped in Port Macquarie and had a shave there …
She was reading through his résumé, glancing up at him from time to time as if trying to fit the printed words to the unshaven man in front of her, and the fact that she was occupied gave Cam the chance to study her in turn.
The wild hair was probably the bane of her life, untamed curls that would refuse to do what she required of them. Today she’d tugged her hair into some kind of clip thing on the top of her head but, like Medusa’s snakes, strands were curling out from the containment and glinting a vibrant red-gold in the sun. Her skin went with the red hair—pale and freckled, almost milk white at her temples and so fine he could see the blue line of a blood vessel beneath it. Would he feel the throb of her heartbeat if he kissed that blue thread?
The thought startled him so much he took a step backwards, just as she looked up, clear green eyes fixed on him—still shooting darts of suspicion in his direction.
‘I guess you are who you say you are,’ she muttered, so obviously put out at having to make the admission he had to smile.
‘But still not a woman,’ he reminded her, the temptation to tease her too strong to resist.
She shot him a glare that might have affected a lesser man, but he’d grown up with three sisters, all of whom were good glarers, so he met it with a smile, although he knew—also thanks to his siblings—it would make her angrier.
‘The house is this way,’ she said, leading him across the front of the clinic building then along the side of it to where steep steps climbed towards a house that must look north over the ocean. From the bottom of the steps he could see how the clever architect had cantilevered the building out from the steep slope, and he could imagine the magnificent view of the ocean whoever lived in the house must enjoy.
‘Wow!’
He could say no more for the stairway ended on the wide deck of the house he’d admired from below, and the sweep of beach and ocean, the high headland protecting the corner of the bay, and more ocean beyond it simply took his breath away.
‘You would have seen the whales migrating north at the beginning of winter, but they’re heading south now with their calves, on their long journey home to Antarctica.’
He glanced at the woman who’d offered this titbit of information. She was standing not far away, and he knew from the expression on her face that no matter how often she looked out at this unbelievably beautiful view it would never pall for her. Just seeing it had softened her mood enough for her to share her joy in the annual whale migration.
Softened it enough to accept him as an employee?
‘I gather you are Dr Harris?’ he said, wishing he’d asked more about his prospective employer when the woman from the agency had discussed the job. In truth, from the moment she’d mentioned Crystal Cove, he’d been so busy convincing her he would be perfect for the job he’d barely asked a question.
She was smiling now, the petite redhead on the deck with him, smiling and shaking her head.
‘Ask that question of anyone in town and they’ll say no. Dr Harris was my father, but I am a doctor, Joanna Harris, Dr Jo, or just plain Jo to the locals, most of whom have known me all my life. Some of the older ones are still, though I’ve been back for five years, a bit dubious about trusting me to diagnose their problems or prescribe medication for their ills. It’s because they did that dandling me on their knee thing years ago and can’t believe I’ve grown up.’
‘You took over your father’s practice?’ It was stupid to be asking the obvious but there’d been tension in Joanna Harris’s voice and he wondered if it was simply to do with the locals not accepting her entirely, or to do with something else.
‘His practice, his house, his life,’ she responded, sounding happier now, even smiling. ‘My mother died when I was young and Dad brought me and my sister up, then, whammo, two years ago he met a woman who sailed in here on a yacht, and he fell in love. His life is now with her, wandering the world, it’s wonderful!’
Faint colour in her cheeks and a shine in her eyes told Cam she was genuinely happy for her father, so why the tension earlier?
And did it matter?
He was coming to work for this woman, he didn’t need to know what made her tick.
‘But taking over his practice? Was that not so wonderful?’
Okay,
