Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor?

Harry attempted to look disappointed. ‘And you?’

‘It really is Bonnie, you know.’ She smiled sweetly. Did she want to spend a whole day with this guy? Or would she spend it by herself, wishing she’d gone with him?

After the call last night this was her last full day and the bike ride sounded ideal. She’d see the countryside after all and she needed to break out of this cloud of apathy she’d been in for the last few months. He was certainly helping there.

It seemed unlikely he’d attempt to race her off in a pack of cyclists. And she had some say in it. ‘What time is this ride and how do I know it really exists?’

‘You do have a nastily suspicious mind.’ He produced a brochure and a mobile phone. ‘But I expected that. You could ring Wayan and ask him.’

She took the glossy pamphlet and turned it over in her hands. The number stood out plainly and she was very tempted to do it. He was daring her now and she couldn’t decide if he was real or fake. He’d be great at poker.

He looked suspiciously ready to go in that open-necked shirt that dared her to peek at the strong column of his throat but she wasn’t going to.

He wore different blue jeans and scuffed joggers that might have been expensive in their heyday, and that watch, which she’d decided was definitely not real. Like him.

There, she’d made a decision. If the watch was fake, he was fake. She’d buy one in the women’s version and this man would know the right vendor on the street. ‘Where’d you buy your watch?’

‘Geneva.’

She wrinkled her nose. There was no deception in the answer. She’d been wrong. Again. ‘What time is pick-up?’

‘Half an hour.’ He was rushing her. He liked to do that but she’d lost the bet with herself so she had to go. For an internal argument it was pretty thin. It was just so darned hard to say no to someone who made her smile. At least on the inside.

The bus had seen better days but the grins of the tour guides were shiny new. Typically Balinese, they oozed warmth and fun and pleasure at the company of tourists and the chance to show off their culture and country. Something a lot of countries could learn from, Bonnie mused as she was helped into the bus.

Four couples made up the bus passengers when they started again—two young female schoolteachers from Portugal, two chefs from France, a fitness instructor and his wife from the States, and Harry and Bonnie from Australia.

Bonnie was jammed against the window, which in itself was a good thing and not only for the view. It was a bit like choosing a window seat on the plane. You could create your own space if you needed. But she could still feel the warmth from Harry’s jeans-clad leg against hers and that wasn’t going away unless she broke the safety glass.

Harry laughed and joked with the others around them about accents and travel mishaps, a different person from the man she’d seen yesterday at the pool. Aloof and cynical seemed to have stayed home today. So why’d he been so threatened yesterday? Interesting.

Bonnie found herself relaxing back with a little proprietorial smile that said she was here—with him—as the little bus ground up the mountain. Until she realised her sin and it slipped from her face.

Then she frowned. Crazy. This was holiday, short-term, transient. Even more transient than she’d anticipated. Enjoy the moment, enjoy the company and most of all enjoy Harry. She was on vacation, for goodness’ sake, and she’d soon be at the new job, wishing she had. This was safe.

Harry saw the moment Bonnie became a part of the group and suddenly the day seemed brighter. She smiled at him and for that moment the sadness he’d glimpsed in her eyes was gone. He felt his breath kick somewhere at the back of his throat and his chest expanded. He’d done that. He’d helped her feel better. And it felt good.

That was when he reminded himself to be careful.

He looked away from her profile, past the itching temptation to study the bones of her face and out the window towards the ancient volcano as it came into sight. Terraced rice fields skirted the mountains like layers on a brilliant green wedding cake and that thought made him shudder.

This wasn’t him. Connecting with women was so not on his programme. He’d been there and the pain was so great he wasn’t climbing that volcano so he could fall off again. He’d pulled himself away from all he knew, bolted home to Bali, the one place where he could drift and nobody would think it out of the ordinary. A place he could drown out the voice in his head that said he didn’t want this empty life but he wasn’t willing to risk more pain.

‘Is that a volcano?’ Bonnie turned towards him and her eyes were like the rice fields outside the window—iridescent with life.

He ran his hand down his face to clear any dumb expression he might’ve been left with. ‘Yes, Mt Agung. We’ll be having morning tea at the restaurant above Mt Batur, at Kintamani—lots of old lava at the base of that one. Then we’ll pick up the bikes at a village and ride downhill until we get to the river.’ He shut his mouth. He was rambling.

‘So how many times have you done this?’

He shrugged. ‘A few.’ Too many. ‘Sometimes I help out when they’re short of supervising riders, and it’s always a great day.’ Brainless, time consuming, just what he wanted.

She tilted her head. ‘You said you were visiting. How long have you been here this time?’

‘On and off, nine months this time.’ She was studying him and he could feel his face freeze with the old barriers at giving anything away.

‘A whole pregnancy,’ she said, and he winced. Great timing. A good boot to the guts like he needed to stop the rot. Ironic.

He turned away and spoke to the Portuguese girl about surfing, blocking Bonnie out, and yet still he felt it when she withdrew her attention and looked back out the window. His breath eased out. The Portuguese girl batted her eyelashes at him but her interest didn’t faze him like Bonnie’s did. Funny, that.

Finally they made it to the first stop. He’d never noticed the trip taking so long before and he felt like shaking himself like a dog to get out of Bonnie’s aura. He’d been mad to ask her out today. Not just mad. Dangerously insane.

For Bonnie, the view from the restaurant overlooking the volcano at Kintamani took her breath, and thankfully her mind, off the puzzle of the man next to her.

From where she stood overlooking the valley, because the restaurant walkway hung over the cliff, the view presented the huge lake and black scarring of the lava across the valley floor. Great gaping inverted cones up the side of Mt Batur showed the force of the volcanic activity.

‘When was the last eruption?’ She asked the question without looking at him. She didn’t have to turn to know he was right there. Her sensory receptors had warned her.

‘Nineteen ninety-four. One of the earlier ones swallowed the temple at Kintamani village. The western slopes are closed at the moment. The seismological institute thinks there’s risk of further eruptions. Pity. It’s a great walk to the rim for sunrise.’

Bonnie looked through the window into the restaurant at the rice and crêpes waiting, very strange morning tea on offer, and glanced at the view again. ‘What’s the lava like up close?

‘Hard and black. I rode across the whole field on a motorbike years ago and it was like jagged corrugated iron. The locals use it for building and you can see the areas where the lava’s been quarried.’

As a guide he was knowledgeable, though distracting from the view, enthusiastic about local history, just not good at being consistently relaxing, and she couldn’t see much of the yoga student this morning.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t his fault because half an hour later, when she followed the others back to the bus and climbed in, it was Harry’s leg alongside hers that she was waiting for. In fact, she could feel little waves of anticipation building as she sat down.

Disappointingly, this time they didn’t touch. Interesting and a little unacceptable, and she wasn’t quite sure how he managed it. As an experiment she allowed her knee to accidentally knock against his while she looked out the window and there was no doubt he shifted further away.

Definite reversal of the forces of attraction. She’d blotted her copybook somehow. Maybe it was the crack about pregnancy.

On her recent history of foot-in-mouth moments he’d probably lost a car full of children too. She sighed and then shrugged. This was why she didn’t get involved with men. Too complicated and distracting. It was a beautiful day and she was going to enjoy it if it killed her. She smiled to herself. Or him.

Wayan, their guide, had spent the last five minutes of travel explaining about luwak coffee and the main export for the plantation they were about to visit, but Bonnie had faded out.

So when the bus trundled into a dusty car park alongside other decrepit buses all shaded by overhanging trees and vines, she wondered if this was where the bike ride started.

She was thinking about the last man she’d fallen for and how that whole fiasco had poisoned her life. How, foolishly, she’d thought they’d planned the whole wedding thing, the first two years of saving, agreed on children, she’d put her savings with his for the deposit on their dream home.

She’d come home shattered from nursing her gran, vaguely aware she hadn’t paid much attention to him for the last hard few weeks, and when she had come back for the comfort he’d promised—he’d been gone, along with her money. Not that she’d cared about that at that point.

‘And it’s the most expensive coffee in the world.’

Well, she couldn’t afford that. Bonnie zoned in again and followed Wayan through the overhanging forest, listening as he identified coffee in various stages, tree types and fruit, aware of Harry at her shoulder not saying anything.

Finally they came to the cage where the luwak slept, incarcerated. Bonnie looked at Harry and whispered, ‘What the heck is a luwak?’ Harry gestured to Wayan and smiled and she tried to catch up.

‘We leave them for one day in the cage,’ Wayan told them, ‘and then set them free again. It is only so you can see the actual animal. Asian palm civets—also known as luwaks here—normally sleep and hide at the time people visit the plantation.’

They all stared into the dark cage and tried to see the small furry animal, which looked a little like a cat-faced possum or smaller mongoose.

She whispered to Harry, ‘I don’t get it. How does it make coffee?’

He tilted his head and studied her genuine bafflement. A slow smile curved his lips. ‘You weren’t listening.’

‘I might have missed a bit.’ She shrugged.

Harry tilted his head and she could feel his scrutiny. Could feel the heat in her cheeks at his amusement. He was laughing at her—not with her—and she didn’t like it.

‘He’s been talking about it for the last ten minutes.’

‘So?’ She held out her hands, frustrated by his teasing. ‘Tell me now.’

Harry grinned. ‘Luwaks are an alternative to conventional coffee processing. They process the beans internally.’ He grinned again as she shrugged and shook her head, obviously not getting it. ‘You don’t pick the beans off the trees—you follow the luwaks around with a shovel.’

‘They poo it?’ Bonnie blinked. ‘You’re kidding me?’

Harry laughed out loud and suddenly the rapport between them was back in full force. ‘I kid you not.’

He patted her shoulder. ‘You get to try some soon. Luwaks only choose to eat the very best coffee beans, and they have a great internal processing unit that still leaves the coffee bean whole when they’re.’ he paused and grinned again ‘… finished with it.’

Bonnie shook her head. ‘No way.’ When had they discussed this? Had Wayan said that in the bus? How would this be the most expensive coffee in the world?

‘They wash the beans,’ Harry said blandly, but she could see the unholy amusement in his eyes. Just looking at him made her smile and boosted her fragile self-esteem that Jeremy had injured so badly. That was the point when she should have run away.

Bonnie screwed up her face and Harry laughed out loud. ‘Double dare you.’

Drink second-hand coffee beans? ‘I don’t think so.’

‘In the States it sells for more than a hundred bucks a pound. Not something you’ll have a lot of chance to try again.’

True. But who’d want to? She followed Harry through to the coffee tables, where the rest of the group were ordering their coffee, and before she knew it she was sitting beside Harry with a steaming cup of black brew in front of her.

And everyone else seemed to be tasting it. Ew.

She looked around again and the Portuguese girls were chatting up the chefs as they sipped, and everyone still looked happy with their experience.

She was the only one not drinking. Even Harry had his cup.

Bonnie took a cautious sip. ‘It tastes a bit like mocha.’

Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that what that is?’

He could tease. She put her cup down. ‘Well, at least I tried it.’

Harry gave up his short-lived attempt to keep his distance with her. She delighted him with her honesty. She couldn’t hide a single thought with those straightforward eyes of hers. Talk about windows to the soul. They telegraphed every thought and emotion like a green neon sign. Scary, and despite her antsy, prickly little exterior he could feel the need to protect her from the world like a growing seed inside him.

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