Secrets In Sydney: Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom's Redemption

Say no now to avoid problems later. ‘Sure.’

‘Great.’

He started to move so he could stand up for her, but she said, ‘There’s a stroller wedged in behind you. Have you eaten?’

He welcomed her matter-of-fact tone of voice and how she’d just slipped in the information quietly without making a fuss and then continued with her conversation. ‘I had the eggs Benedict.’

‘Ohh, fancy. I’m going for straight grease today with an extra side of hash browns. It’s crazy but sometimes I dream about these breakfasts and when I do I think it’s my body telling me that I need some salt and fat.’

He remembered her delectable curves and how he’d appreciated them, unlike the feel of a woman who fought with food. He grinned. ‘Sounds reasonable to me.’

She quickly gave her order to the waitress and sighed.

‘Problem?’

‘No, not at all.’ She sounded relaxed and happy. ‘It was a catching-my-breath sigh.’

He knew what she meant. ‘I used to do that here.’

‘Used to? Simple deduction tells me you’re still doing it.’

He shook his head. ‘Today’s the first time I’ve been here in over two years.’ He expected his words to be greeted with an embarrassed silence due to the indirect reference to his accident. Instead, he heard the creak of her chair as she moved in it.

‘I love coming to this café and here’s a perfect example why. There’s an elderly couple walking hand in hand along the pier. They’re deep in conversation and wearing hiking boots so I guess they’re going to walk to the next cove along the cliff-top path. To your left, on the beach, there’s a little boy about three and he’s trying to wrestle a bright red ball from his toddler sister.’

He heard a high-pitched squeal. ‘I gather the sister doesn’t want to give up the ball.’

Hayley laughed and the rich, smoky sound carried both the warmth and softness of velvet. ‘No, she’s holding on tight and he’s just sat on her. Their mother, who’s on her mobile phone, hasn’t paused her conversation for a second. She’s just picked him up by the back of his T-shirt and he’s flailing his arms and legs about.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Just behind you is a boy who looks about eighteen. He’s got heavily tattooed arms, piercings on his face, but he’s cuddling a puppy as if it’s the most precious thing in the world.’

Tom instantly remembered the dog he’d adopted as a child and how devastated he’d been when it had died. His father had taken off when he’d been a baby and had never made contact again. Although his mother had loved him, she’d loved the contents of a bottle more. The dog, however, had loved him unconditionally and he could understand why the tough-looking young man was showing the puppy affection. The animal was probably the only thing in his life that gave him positive vibes. ‘What sort of dog is it?’

The screeching scrape of the chair legs against concrete sounded and then he heard Hayley saying, ‘Excuse me. Could we have a look at your puppy, please?’

He tensed. ‘Hell, Hayley I didn’t mean you to—’

But Hayley ignored him and starting talking to someone he assumed was the tattooed young man.

‘Oh, he’s just gorgeous,’ she cooed. ‘He’s going to be a huge dog if he grows into those feet. This is my friend, Tom. He’s blind but he wanted to know what sort of dog it is.’

‘Do you wanna hold him, mate?’

Tom suddenly felt the wriggling, warm softness of a puppy being shoved into his lap and he quickly brought his hands up to support and contain the dog. Its heart pounded hard and fast against his hand, and a wet tongue licked his thumb. He smiled as he traced the outline of its big, silky ears.

The waitress’s brisk steps hurried to their table and with a clanking slam a plate hit the tabletop. ‘Here’s your big breakfast and no dogs are allowed in the café.’

‘Technically, we’re outside and this young man is on the beach so he’s not in the café,’ Hayley replied mildly. ‘And Tom’s blind so by law you have to allow his dog.’

Tom stifled a laugh at the ludicrous argument and heard the waitress’s sharp intake of breath.

‘That’s not a seeing-eye dog.’

‘Not yet.’ Hayley had that tone in her voice that dared the waitress to prove her wrong. ‘A great deal of training happens before a dog is old enough to wear the harness and it all starts when they’re this young. It’s important that they’re out and about amongst people.’

Somehow Tom managed to keep a straight face and nod as well, adding gravitas to what was an outright lie. ‘We have to see if we get along.’

The puppy laid its head against his forearm as he stroked the length of its back.

‘Just keep it contained, okay?’ The waitress walked away, her shoes slapping the ground crossly.

‘Can I have me dog back now?’ the young man asked.

‘Sure.’ Tom held the puppy out toward the voice. ‘Thanks. I enjoyed the cuddle.’

‘No worries. See ya.’

‘Bye,’ Hayley said with a smile in her voice.

Tom leaned forward, propelled toward her by a lightness of being he hadn’t experienced in years—if ever. ‘So tell me. What sort of a mutt were you trying to pass off as a potential seeing-eye dog?’

Her laugh matched his. ‘What sort of dog did you feel?’

He thought about the picture he’d painted in his mind. ‘Drop ears, wide head, long snout, strong legs, big paws, short coat and a healthy wet nose.’

‘Exactly.’ He heard the scratch of cutlery on china and a soft sigh of delight as she tasted her food. ‘You wanted to know what sort of dog it was and now you’ve seen it.’

A spark of frustration flared. ‘I have no clue of its colour.’

‘A gorgeous golden blond.’

Her perfume eddied around him and he realised she’d leaned forward. He fought against the distraction and thought about the dog and its short coat and immediately ruled out a golden retriever. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. That dog was actually a golden Labrador?’

‘I know you want to cast me as a con artist and, granted, I was pushing the envelope, but technically that dog could have been a trainee guide dog. Besides, you looked happy and we weren’t upsetting any customers. I would have said the same thing if it had been a Jack Russell.’

He fought the traitorous cosy feeling of being cared for by using the stark reality of abandonment as the weapon. Experience had taught him not to let himself be tricked by caring because it always let him down. A long sigh shuddered out of him. ‘Hayley.’

She responded with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Tom.’

It made him want to smile, but it was time to be frank. Time to lay his cards on the table and kill any illusions she might have about the two of them. ‘About the other day. You do know it wasn’t the start of anything between us. I’ve never done relationships and I don’t intend to start now. It was what it was. Great sex.’ He heard her put her cutlery down and he braced himself for her reply. He’d had this conversation before.

‘I’m glad we agree. It was great sex. Nothing more and nothing less so now you can stop worrying that I’ve booked the church and put a deposit on a dress.’

He wished he could see her face—see if her expression matched her voice, which sounded very normal and without the strain of a lie. But he wasn’t totally convinced. Before he’d lost his sight he’d never met a woman who hadn’t held a hint of hope in her eyes that a relationship would grow from a casual fling.

Her hand settled over his, her fingers stroking the back of his hand. ‘I can see you don’t believe me, but you should. I like you, Tom, but I’ve got exams looming and my whole life at the moment is work and study. I hardly have any time to sleep, my parents have taken to visiting me in the cafeteria at The Harbour because I can never manage to get home to see them, so if I can’t even manage that, I know I don’t have the time or the energy to give to a relationship. But …’

The ‘but’ worried him. However, her touch had his pulse racing and it took every bit of willpower he had not to link his fingers with hers. ‘But what?’

She doodled lazy circles around each knuckle. ‘You remember what it was like just before you qualified?’

Through the growing fog of desire that was building inside him, he located a memory. ‘Sheer hell.’

‘Exactly. Stress city, and it’s well documented that sex releases tension and I have a very stressful time coming up.’

Was he hearing right? He didn’t dare to believe it so he asked, ‘Are you saying you want to have sex without the relationship part?’

Her other hand linked fingers with his. ‘Ever heard of friends with benefits?’

He had. ‘I didn’t think it really existed.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, it does. It works well for busy people. Unlike a relationship, we’re not at each other’s beck and call, but when it suits us both we get together. A sort of win-win situation.’

She’s right about the final year of surgery. There’s no time for anything other than work.

There’ll be a catch. Women don’t suggest this sort of thing. Guys do.

But the memory of being buried deep in Hayley was so strong and the thought of being there again was so tempting that it stampeded over the faint echoes of his concerns.

‘When do we start?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I SHOULD go.’ Hayley sat forward, having spent the last twenty minutes leaning back on Tom’s chest as he sat propped up against a tree.

Two weeks had passed since she’d run into Tom at Café Luna. Seeing him sitting alone in the café had brought up a mix of contrary emotions, starting with shocked surprise, moving into relief and then finishing up with something that made her feel unexpectedly bereft at the thought of not seeing him again. That had propelled her to suggest being ‘friends with benefits’. It was the perfect solution. Obvious even.

She knew what she was getting into and it wasn’t like she’d never done it before. It suited her and if the past fortnight was anything to go by, it was the best decision she’d made in a long time. Not that they’d seen a lot of each other, but when they could coordinate their schedules, the sex had been as wondrous as their first time. Still, as amazing as the sex always was, it was times like the hour they’d just spent having a picnic in the park close to her cottage that she was really starting to treasure. They could talk for hours about all sorts of things and equally she could sit in companionable silence with him and not feel the need to talk. She hadn’t experienced anything close to that sort of ease with someone since Amy.

Tom’s arm, which had been resting casually across her chest, tightened against her and he nuzzled her neck. ‘Come back to my place.’

She turned and pressed her lips to his, loving that she could do that whenever they were alone. ‘Later. First I have to do another three hours of study and then you’re my treat for working hard. Will you be home about seven?’

‘Tonight, yes.’ He stroked her hair. ‘It seems I’m surrounded by people who are studying.’

‘How’s Jared going?’ She’d enjoyed helping the young man with the chemistry and had appreciated his rough but honest manner.

‘He’s working hard.’

It was the perfect segue to ask the question she’d long pondered. ‘How did Jared go from being your patient to your friend?’

The edges of Tom’s mouth tightened a fraction. ‘I don’t really know, but it was probably because he wouldn’t go away and now I’m stuck with him.’

But although he might think he sounded resigned and put upon, she saw his affection for the young man shining clearly on his face. ‘What’s the real story?’

The doctor moved to front and centre. ‘I clipped an aneurysm in his brain two months before I left for Perth. He came through Outpatients as a public patient and he was a bright kid, but, like a lot of kids from the western suburbs, life wasn’t easy and he had a massive chip on his shoulder. I don’t think I got more than grunts out of him before the operation.’

She smiled. ‘And let me guess, you chatted to him just like you talked to Gretel.’

Two deep lines carved into a V at the bridge of his nose. ‘I talked to him like I talk to all my patients.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe you think you did, but I find some patients are easier to deal with than others. You might not realise it but you have a knack with young people.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yeah, you do. Look at the medical students. It’s standing room only at your guest lecture spots.’

‘Only because they’ll be failed if they don’t turn up.’

She dug him in the ribs with her elbow—half joking and half serious. ‘That’s not the only reason and you know it. You’re a good lecturer because you speak to them, not at them.’

A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘I’d rather be operating.’

She flinched, absorbing the hit of his pain, but then she took the reality road—a path she’d always taken with him because she knew the ‘if only’ road was a dead end filled with unrelenting despair. ‘I know you’d rather be operating, but you can’t so why not embrace this avenue of medicine? You enjoy young people’s company, you must or you wouldn’t have Jared over at your place so often.’

His shoulders rose and fell. ‘I think I must have seen something in Jared that reminded me of myself at a similar age. That and the fact he lives five streets away from where I grew up.’

She recalled the comment he’d made about her Northern Beaches upbringing. ‘And that wasn’t the Northern Beaches?’

His laugh was harsh and abrupt. ‘As far from there as you can possibly get.’

She wanted to know. ‘Where?’

‘Derrybrook Estate.’

She’d heard of it, but had never been there. ‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s got the highest unemployment rate in the city, is a hub for crime and drugs, and most kids drop out of school by sixteen.’

She thought about his polished veneer and how whenever he was angry or stressed it cracked, exposing the rough edges he’d obviously worked hard at smoothing over. Now it all made sense. She found herself imagining a struggling family with a bright son. ‘Studies have shown that no matter the economic circumstances, if a family values education that’s the one thing that makes the difference.’

He flinched and his high cheekbones sharpened. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. The fact I stayed at school had absolutely nothing to do with my family.’

His words stung like a slap. ‘Oh. I just assumed that—’

‘Yeah, well, don’t.’ He flattened his spine against the tree as if he wanted to move away from her.

‘I’m sorry. Obviously, though, you not only finished school, you went on to have a brilliant career.’

‘Had.’

‘Do.’ She didn’t realise she could sound so much like a school teacher. ‘The fact it’s different doesn’t make it any less.’

‘If you say so.’

She knew he didn’t believe her and she ached for him because for some reason he didn’t seem to recognise that he was a great teacher. ‘Can you just answer my original question, please?’

The stubble on his now drawn-in cheeks made him look thunderous and she wondered if he was going to say anything more. She’d just about given up when he spoke.

‘You’re not going to stop asking, are you?’

‘No.’

He sighed. ‘At fourteen, I hated school. I was bored by every thing and I was heading straight toward the juvenile justice system. Ironically, the fact I was acting out saved me.’

She wanted to know everything but all parts of her screamed at her to go slowly. If she rushed him for information, he’d clam up. As hard as it was to stay silent, she managed it, but only just.

His haggard expression softened. ‘One night the football coach caught me on the roof of the school with cans of spray paint in my hand. I was seconds away from graffitiing the windows. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in trouble, but instead of calling the police, he held it over me and made me go to training. I hated him for it, but at the same time part of me wanted to go. I hated being there but I missed it when I wasn’t, and it confused the hell out of me. The fact Mick put up with my smart mouth and gave me more than one chance was a miracle and once I started to achieve in footy, I started to settle at school and attended regularly.’

‘But I don’t understand. With your brain, why were you bored by school?’ The question slipped out before she could stop it.

He snorted. ‘You went to an all-girls private school, didn’t you?’

His accusatory tone bit into her. ‘I did but—’

He held up his hand. ‘Don’t give me “buts”. You had teachers who cared, parents who valued education and facilities that weren’t broken or falling down around your ears.’

She sat up straight, propelled by a mixture of guilt and anger. He made her childhood sound idyllic and what it had been was so far from that it didn’t bear thinking about. ‘By the sounds of things, you had a teacher who cared.’

‘Yeah. I had a couple.’ He sighed. ‘Mick’s wife, Carol, was a maths and science teacher. Looking back, I now see what they really did for me. What I thought was a casual invitation of “come home for dinner” after footy training was really “we’ll give you a healthy meal, a quiet place to study and any help you need”. They’re the reason I passed year twelve and got into medicine. That, and a burning desire to prove the bastards wrong.’

His pain swamped her and she instinctively pressed her hand to his heart. He’d not once mentioned his parents. ‘Which bastards?’

The set of his shoulders and the grimness around his mouth reminded her of the first time she’d met him when he’d been practising navigating around the hospital. ‘Everyone who ever told me I wouldn’t amount to anything because my mother was drunk more than she was sober. Her drinking started when my father took off, leaving her a single mother at seventeen and gradually got worse after every other man she’d tried to love did the same thing. Everyone who’s still telling kids from the estate the same thing.’

‘I bet Mick and Carol were really proud of you.’

He swallowed and seemed to force the words up and out from a very deep place. ‘Mick never saw me graduate. He died when I was in fifth year, taken out hard and fast by a glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumour a person can have.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ But she suddenly understood. ‘And that’s why you drove yourself to be a neurosurgeon.’

He nodded as if he was lost in the clutch of memories and then his lips formed a quiet smile. ‘For Mick first and then for the Ferrari.’

She smiled and slid her hand into his. ‘Proving the bastards wrong?’

He gripped it hard. ‘Hell, yeah.’

Her own heart swelled as she glimpsed the man’s giving heart that he seemed to want to hide more often than not. ‘So now you’re paying it forward and giving Jared the same sort of support that Mick and Carol gave you?’

He shook his head. ‘Carol was born to help, but I’m no saint, Hayley. I didn’t seek Jared out or offer to mentor him, like Mick did for me. Jared tracked me down in Perth and then refused to go away.’

‘But now you’re helping him. He probably tracked you down because of how you related to him when he was sick.’

The admiration in Hayley’s voice couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, but Tom didn’t want to hear it. Their conversation had taken him far too close to the memories of his mother. Hell, he hated thinking about her because it took him back to a place he’d fought so hard to escape. Hayley had no clue about the eroding nature of abject poverty. How it slowly ate away at self-esteem and corroded hope, making the seduction of alcohol and drugs so tantalising as a temporary escape.

Only it wasn’t an escape at all. It was an extension of the poverty trap, which then gripped people like his mother permanently until death claimed them. Her death had been her release and he ached that she’d wanted death more than she’d ever wanted him.

He shivered as he pushed the memories away and then realised the wind had changed. He reached out his hand for his cane. ‘Feel the cold in that wind? What does the sky look like?’

‘Gunmetal.’ She shivered. ‘Oh, it’s really spooky.’

He heard her tossing things into the picnic hamper as the sun vanished. The temperature plummeted and the south-buster wind picked up speed. Dust made his eyes water and he could imagine the leaves and any debris being tossed every which way by the ferocious wind that howled around them.

He stood up and wished he knew the area better. ‘We need to find shelter.’

‘My place is less than two blocks away.’

He shook his head. ‘I know storms like this and we don’t have that much time.’

As if on cue, huge drops of rain started falling, but the violence of the wind blew them horizontally, stinging his face.

‘Ouch.’ Hayley caught his hand. ‘Since when does rain hurt?’

‘When it’s sleet. I was here in 1999 for Sydney’s most expensive hailstorm ever and this feels like the start of that.’ He yelled to be heard over the wind. ‘Get us to the nearest shelter. Now.’

Thunder cracked around them and Hayley squealed. ‘Sorry.’ She jammed his hand on her shoulder. ‘There’s a bandstand a hundred metres away.’

As they started walking, the sleet became hail—stones of ice that dive-bombed them with sharp edges, and stung, bruised and grazed any uncovered skin. It was the most painful hundred metres he’d ever walked and he hated that his blindness meant Hayley had to endure it too instead of being able to run to safety.

‘Three steps,’ Hayley yelled over the noise of the hail on the bandstand’s tin roof.

He navigated the steps and he knew he must be inside the bandstand, but they were still being pummelled by hail. Bandstands generally had only hip-height walls, which gave scant protection when the wind was driving the hail in at a thirty-degree angle. ‘We need to get down and huddle.’

‘We can sit on the ground wedged in against the seat. That puts us lower than the height of the wall.’ She moved his hand and he felt wooden slats before he lowered himself down and sat cross-legged on the wet and icy concrete.

Another crack of thunder seemed almost overhead and Hayley’s arms wrapped around his head so tightly he risked neck damage. He reached out and wet strands of her hair plastered themselves against his palm. ‘I gather you don’t like thunder.’

She shivered against him. ‘I think I must have been a dog in a previous life.’

‘Get the picnic rug out and we’ll use it as extra protection.’

‘Okay.’ She sounded uncertain but she pulled away from him.

He heard her cold fingers fumbling to untie the toggles, followed by the emphatic use of a swear word he’d never heard her say. In fact, he’d never heard her swear, not even in the OR when she’d been operating on Gretel. She really was scared. The next minute she scrambled into his lap and her whole body trembled against his as she wrapped the rug around their shoulders. ‘I hate this.’

‘I’m getting that impression, but usually storms like this are over quickly.’ He stroked her wet back as an unfamiliar surge of protectiveness filled him and then he pulled the rug over their heads to protect their faces.

Her fingernails instantly dug into his scalp as sharp and as tenacious as a cat’s claws. ‘Hell, Hayley, what are you doing?’

But she didn’t speak. Instead, her chest heaved hard and fast against his and the next moment she’d torn back the rug and was panting hard.

He reached out his hand, trying to feel the rug. ‘We need the protection.’

‘You have it.’ She threw the rug over his head and he immediately blew it away from his mouth. The instinctive action made him think. ‘Are you claustrophobic as well as scared of the dark?’

There was a moment’s silence before she said, ‘It’s easing. The hail’s turned into rain.’ She grabbed his hand. ‘Let’s go to my place. Please.’

The pleading in her voice both surprised him and propelled him to his feet. ‘Lead the way.’