at Tilly’s home and a very happy little boy was opening the front door before she’d even reached the doorbell. He was wearing his swimsuit, dry flippers and goggles on the top of his head.
‘Hi, Phoebe! Have you got your bathers?’
‘Bathers?’ she asked as she walked up the paved entrance towards him.
‘He means swimsuit,’ Tilly said as she invited Phoebe inside. ‘In Australia we call a swimsuit bathers. You’ll get used to our funny expressions soon enough.’
Phoebe smiled at her hostess, then turned her attention to Oscar, ‘Yes, I have my bathers—so I hope you’re wanting to swim, because in this weather I do!’
Phoebe didn’t hear the three text messages from Heath because she was splashing in the pool with his son, and Melissa and Jasmine were excitedly screaming from the sidelines behind the child-safe fence, blocking out all other sounds. Oscar’s floating armbands were in place but Phoebe didn’t let him go for even a second. They’d had a lovely morning, stopping only for some juice and freshly cut fruit, after which Oscar walked Phoebe around the garden, collecting insects in his bug catcher.
‘I only keep them for a few hours, then I let them go back to their daddies … and their mummies. I think some of them have mummies too.’
‘I’m sure some of them have both, and some just have a mummy or a daddy,’ Phoebe said, then fell silent as he continued walking, collecting and talking.
Oscar suddenly seemed very deep in thought for a five-year-old, and it worried Phoebe a little.
‘My mummy died when I was very little.’
Phoebe felt herself stiffen as he delivered this news. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Oscar.’ She paused to gain some composure as her heart went out to the little boy. ‘I’m sure she’s looking over you every day.’
Phoebe had not considered the prospect that Heath might be a widower. She wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to her, but now she knew it did go part way to explaining why he was such a serious man, who appeared only to lighten up around his son. Losing his wife and the mother of his child would have been a life-altering tragedy.
‘I was very little. I couldn’t talk or walk and I don’t remember her. But I know her name was—’
‘Hello, you two.’
Heath’s deep voice suddenly called from the back door, interrupting their conversation and making them both turn abruptly.
Phoebe felt her stomach drop. Then it lifted, and then spun as her heart fluttered nervously. She’d thought she had her reactions to Heath under control, but suddenly she discovered she didn’t.
But she had to.
Somehow.
‘Hello, Daddy!’
‘Hi, Heath.’
Heath quickly crossed to them and dropped to his knees. ‘I’m sorry, Oscar, but I’m going to have to take Phoebe to work with me.’
‘But we’re having fun, Daddy, and I want her to stay. She showed me how to swim like a bug and …’
‘Swim like a bug?’ Heath asked, turning to Phoebe with a curious look on his face.
‘The butterfly stroke,’ Phoebe said as she looked at this man whom she now knew had suffered the tragedy of losing his wife. It did put a different filter on the way she saw him, but she didn’t want him to know that. He seemed too stoic to want pity—in fact she suspected pity would drive him into a darker place.
Despite what she now knew she didn’t want it to colour her feelings towards him. She wasn’t looking for love and he was obviously still grieving. Although she was grateful for the insight, as she would understand his motives a little better and make their working relationship easier. She just had to get her emotions under control. And he was dressed again, as he had been the night before, so it made it easier to concentrate.
‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked, trying to mask how sad she felt for them both. And how equally drawn she was to the father and son.
‘Well, you didn’t answer your phone, so on the off-chance that my sister had convinced you to visit I called her and she said you were swimming with Oscar. Unfortunately I’ll have to cut that short and ask you to head back to the surgery with me.’
‘Like this?’ She looked down at her swimsuit covered by a sarong. She had chosen not to wear her bikini that day, and had slipped the one-piece swimsuit under her sarong before she’d left her house. ‘But if the air-conditioning isn’t running maybe this is the right thing to be wearing.’ She tried to be lighthearted. Friendly. At ease. Everything she wasn’t feeling.
Heath had tried not to look at her body, but he couldn’t help but notice how stunning she looked. He definitely didn’t want to be alone with her at the practice in the outfit she was barely wearing.
‘Perhaps not,’ he replied, trying to avert his eyes from her petite curves. ‘I can drop you home to change, if you’d like.’
A little while later, after a quick stop at her house for a change of clothes, they sat reading through the patient notes in the cool surgery. The newly repaired and efficiently running air-conditioner was working perfectly, but Phoebe had the distinct feeling that this activity wasn’t really essential. They were straightforward records that could easily have been read through prior to her meeting with each patient.
She wondered if it wasn’t so much her being at the practice that was important but perhaps more her not being at Tilly’s house with Oscar. She wasn’t sure why but she said nothing, and continued to concentrate for the next two hours on the records that Heath was explaining in great detail.
Occasionally she would glance at the man across from her. His chiselled jaw, with a light covering of stubble, was tense. There was no half-smile. She realised there was no chance of a full smile and she knew why. Despite her resolve to keep it professional, still she felt her heart pick up speed a little when their eyes met by accident. And at that time, they both paused for only a moment in silence. She didn’t know how he was feeling or what he was thinking but there was something Heath was keeping to himself.
And she suspected it was his heart.
Finally she left to go home. It was a short walk, and she wanted the time to clear her head. She now knew that Heath was still suffering from the loss of his wife and although she also knew that Oscar had been little when his mother had died she wasn’t sure exactly how long ago it had happened. Three years? Four years? Even five?
But there was one other thing she knew. Heath must have loved his wife very much, and if it had been half as much as he clearly loved Oscar then, although her life had been cut short, his wife had been a very lucky woman to have known that deep a love and commitment. It was something that Phoebe knew she had never experienced. And probably never would.
‘Why don’t you guys move here permanently?’ Tilly asked, sitting down and pouring herself a cold soft drink after dropping Oscar back at her father’s later that day. Paul had arrived at her home to mind the twins for a little while. ‘I adore Oscar, and I’d love Mels and Jazzy to grow up with their big cousin to keep the boys at bay. I think it makes complete sense.’
