Autumn Dreams at Mermaids Point, page 16
Linda shifted her weight and for a moment Nerissa thought she was going to hug her, but she settled for a gentle touch to her arm. ‘Lovely. And thanks for coming with me today. I don’t think I would’ve done it without you.’
‘That’s what friends are for.’
17
Tom ripped the tape off the last of the boxes he’d emptied, balled it up and tossed it in the bin, then unfolded the box and propped it against the wall with a sigh of satisfaction. His office looked like a small bomb had gone off, but he reckoned another couple of hours after lunch and he’d have everything squared away. He’d originally planned to use one of the spare rooms in the living quarters as an office, but decided having the flexibility of a second guestroom would be better. Alex had headed back to London that morning, but he’d left most of the things he’d brought with him in the main spare room, saying he’d be back again in a couple of weekends time. If he was going to lay claim to that space, they might as well keep the second one for things like the children’s birthdays and the Christmas holidays when his dad and Philippa might want to visit as well. He’d hung onto one of the old bedframes Malcolm hadn’t wanted to take with him, so all it would need was a new mattress and a few soft furnishings – something even Tom could manage to sort out. Besides, he mused as he wandered back down the corridor towards the connecting door to the house, one of the reasons he’d moved here was to get a better work-life balance. Keeping everything to do with the surgery behind this door would be a good start.
The kitchen was empty, as was the lounge when he poked his head around the door. Max had gone to a new friend’s for the morning but was supposed to be home for lunch. The plan was to make a start on a project they’d been assigned at school, but Tom secretly hoped they were working on their budding friendship more than worrying about schoolwork. His mobile started to ring at that very moment, an unknown number. ‘Hello, Tom Nelson.’
‘Dr Nelson, hi, it’s Miranda, Ben’s mum.’
‘Hi Miranda, please call me Tom. Is everything okay?’ He perched on the arm of the sofa and hoped Max hadn’t got into any mischief in the couple of hours he’d been gone.
‘Oh, yes, Tom.’ She gave that embarrassed half-laugh new people often used when he encouraged them not to use his title. His was one of those jobs some folks found hard to look beyond. ‘Everything is fine. That’s why I’m calling, actually. The boys are having a blast together, so I thought I might keep Max here for lunch, if that’s all right with you?’
Tom sighed in relief. ‘That’s great, really kind of you, thanks. I appreciate the invitation in the first place.’
‘Well, we were all new at some point, weren’t we?’ She laughed. ‘Well, not us because I was born and bred in the Point and so was Freddie, but you know what I mean.’ Tom nodded, though of course she couldn’t see that through the phone. ‘Ben was a bit anxious about going up to the high school, so I was glad when he mentioned he and Max were sitting next to each other on the bus. He has his friends from the village school of course, but he said he didn’t want Max not to have anyone to sit with.’
‘That was very kind of him. I’ll be happy to have him over anytime. I’m keen for Max to settle in as quickly as possible.’
‘That would be great. And we’d like to have you over for supper one evening soon as well. We’ll invite some other friends so you can get to know a few people. Nothing fancy.’
Tom’s gut sank like he’d swallowed a rock because he’d learned the hard way what those words often meant from well-meaning friends of his and Anna. ‘Thanks.’ It was the most non-committal response he could manage.
The line went silent for a moment and then Miranda laughed. ‘Oh God! I’ve just realised how that must have sounded. Don’t worry, I don’t have any single friends that I’m looking to hook up with the handsome new doctor.’
Tom coughed at the comment, wondering how many rumours were flying around the village about the ‘handsome’ new doctor, then laughed. ‘Then, in that case, I’d be very happy to accept. Just text me a date and I’ll make sure I’m available – emergencies aside, of course.’
‘Lovely. We’ll drop Max off later. Take care, Tom.’
‘You too, and thanks again for the invites – plural.’
‘My pleasure, bye!’
Smiling to himself at the idea that just maybe Max wasn’t the only one who’d made a new friend today, Tom tucked his phone away and headed towards the stairs. He was a bit hot and sweaty from humping and dumping boxes in his office, so a quick shower before lunch would probably be a good idea.
‘Em?’ he called as he started up the stairs. ‘I’m making some lunch in a minute if you want anything?’
He checked her room and found it empty. Pausing to fold over the rumpled quilt, he picked up a couple of items of clothing that had been chucked on the floor and laid them over the stool in front of her dressing table. The clutter of bottles, tubes and bits of make-up spilling across the top he left for her to sort out. At least she was making herself at home.
He crossed to the window but couldn’t see any sign of her in the back garden. Frowning, he pulled his phone out again and was relieved to see a little red ‘1’ on the WhatsApp icon.
Taken the dog for a walk with Bas.
Wondering who the heck Bas was, but resisting the urge to start messaging a barrage of questions, he sent a quick ‘OK’ back as he wandered across the hallway into his own room. He chucked his phone on the bed, then pulled his grubby T-shirt over his head as he toed off his trainers.
He’d just bent over to pull off his socks when he heard Nerissa calling. ‘Hello? Emily, can you give me a hand a minute?’
‘She’s out walking the dog,’ he called out without straightening up.
‘Oh, sorry! Sorry!’
Tom peered under his arm to see a red-faced Nerissa hovering in the doorway of his room dressed in nothing more than a figure-hugging wetsuit. Her long curls hung in thick wet strands around her face. As he straightened up, she spun on her heel so her back was to him. Suppressing a grin at her display of modesty, he grabbed his T-shirt and tugged it back on, not bothering to tuck it in. ‘I’m decent.’
She spun to face him once more. ‘I’m so sorry to barge in on you like that.’
‘No harm done. Is everything all right?’
Nerissa stared at her toes for a moment before glancing up at him through her lashes. ‘I was rather hoping Emily might be around to help me.’ She held up a long strip of black material, very similar to the fabric of her wetsuit. ‘The tag came off.’ Her cheeks reddened once more.
Confused, he looked from the strip in her hand to her wetsuit, then back again before it dawned on him. The front of her suit was completely smooth, meaning it must be one that zipped up the back. ‘Are you stuck?’
She nodded, then blew out a breath. ‘Completely. I’ve tried for about ten minutes, but I can’t get hold of the end of the bloody zip now the tag’s come off.’
He could picture her huffing and puffing and getting more and more stressed out as she wriggled around trying to grab it. Not hiding his grin this time, he motioned with his hand for her to turn around, which she did. As he stepped up behind her, she swept her hair away from her neck, the long, wet curls dangling from her fingers, leaving the delicate column of her neck exposed. He’d seen hundreds of necks in his time, and much more private parts of many, many people, but that was in a medical context and this suddenly felt much more intimate. There was something about the juxtaposition of her pale skin against the harsh black of the suit. The fact the rest of her body was hidden beneath the padded neoprene only emphasised the vulnerability of the exposed patch of skin.
He rubbed the pads of his fingers together, feeling suddenly awkward at the unexpected awareness that he’d not been this close to a woman who wasn’t Anna for over twenty years. Cervical spine, not her neck. The mental correction helped him reach out and take hold of the zip. He gave it a tug with just the tips of his fingers, but it didn’t budge. Damn.
‘You might need to hold the material at the top to give it some tension.’ Nerissa’s voice was low, husky almost, and Tom found himself swallowing down a laugh because there was already enough tension to cut with a knife – at least on his part.
‘Hang on a sec.’ He had to pull at the tight material to get the fingers of his left hand underneath the neckline enough to grip it. A shudder rippled through her, shocking Tom out of his stupid daze. The poor woman was freezing! ‘Here we go.’ He tugged the zip down a couple of inches. ‘How’s that.’
Nerissa scooped her hair into one hand and scrabbled behind her back with the other. ‘A little more?’ She flashed him a quick, embarrassed smile over her shoulder. ‘I must have T-Rex arms or something.’
He laughed then, the last of the tension breaking, and he tugged the zip down towards the base of her spine, revealing a column of silky skin – well, it might have been silky had it not been pebbled in goosebumps. At least the suit was tight enough that it stayed in place, because if it had started to slip he wasn’t quite sure what he might have done about it. Fingers itching from the need to soothe the chill from her skin, he forced himself to take several steps back. ‘There, that should do it.’
She reached behind once more to check she could manage on her own, then all but sprinted from the room. ‘Thanks,’ she called, her feet already pattering on the stairs leading up to her suite of rooms on the top floor.
Tom heaved a deep breath, then another, before deliberately crossing the room and closing his bedroom door. He shucked his T-shirt, jeans and underwear and strode quickly for the shower in his en suite bathroom. Setting the dial several notches cooler than he normally preferred it, he stepped under the stream before the temperature had even adjusted and recited the anatomy of the spine from the C1 Atlas vertebrae to the coccyx until he could stop thinking about the possibility Nerissa had shivered from something other than the cold.
Half an hour later, he was sitting down to enjoy a massive doorstep cheese and pickle sandwich when the kitchen door opened and in bowled Toby, all wagging tail and happy barks.
‘Hello, you mad thing,’ Tom said, taking one hand off his sandwich to knuckle the top of the dog’s head. When Toby leaned against his thigh and gave him the most pleading expression on his face, Tom laughed as he lifted his sandwich higher out of the way. ‘Not a bloody chance.’ With a disappointed sigh, Toby abandoned his fleeting begging attempts and wandered over to his basket in the corner, leaving a patch of drool staining the leg of Tom’s jeans as a parting gift. ‘Great.’
Abandoning his food, Tom went to the sink and sponged the mark, then washed his hands again for good measure. It was only as he retook his seat that he noticed the murmur of conversation drifting in through the open door – Emily’s familiar light cadence and a slightly deeper, definitely masculine responder. Curiosity piqued, Tom leaned a little closer towards the door, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. At that moment, Nerissa walked into the kitchen dressed in a pretty summer dress – one of those floaty things that always looked so cool and comfortable. Tom immediately raised a finger to his lips.
Nerissa paused, frowning for a moment until the voices drifted in once more from outside. A knowing grin spread across her lips and she pointed towards her floral tote bag which was hanging over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, before she tiptoed towards it. Carefully opening the flap, she pulled out a little notepad and scribbled something before sliding it towards him.
Going to the café for lunch, do you need anything from the shops?
Tom shook his head, then reached for the pen.
Who’s Bas???
Nerissa took the pen back and wrote:
The lad who cleans for us. You met him briefly yesterday. Good boy. V smart.
Tom pictured the smiling young man he’d seen in the waiting area the previous evening as he’d come out to welcome his last appointment of the day and nodded to Nerissa to indicate he remembered.
Nerissa gathered the notepad and pen and stowed them back in her bag, before hooking it over her shoulder. ‘Right,’ she said in a loud, bright manner. ‘I’m off to meet Linda and Sylvia for lunch. If you think of anything you need from town, just send me a message and I’ll pick it up.’
The pair outside had fallen silent.
Tom grinned at Nerissa, then said in an equally loud voice, ‘Thanks. Max is out at a friend’s and I’m not sure what time he’ll be back, and I need to finish sorting out my office, so take your time and enjoy yourself.’ He spoke the next words in his normal tone, deciding Emily and her new friend had more than enough warning. ‘Shall we just have something lazy for dinner?’
‘Sounds good.’ Nerissa crossed over to the fridge and tugged it open. ‘There’s plenty of salad left over from yesterday, I could pick up a couple of fresh pizzas from the deli to go with it?’ She cast the question over her shoulder at Tom.
‘Great. Any flavour, as long as there’s no anchovies.’ He gave a shudder. Horrible, hairy little things, he didn’t know how anyone could eat them.
Nerissa closed the fridge and headed towards the back door. ‘No anchovies. I think I can manage that.’
She was almost outside when Tom suddenly remembered he hadn’t given her any money. ‘Hang on.’ He bolted from his seat, pulling his wallet from his back pocket to fish out a twenty-pound note. ‘That reminds me,’ he said, holding it out to her. ‘I need to go online and sort out that housekeeping account. I’ll do it this afternoon.’
Nerissa accepted the cash. ‘Thank you. No rush on the account, I know you’ve got a lot of things still to sort out. I’m keeping a record of everything anyway.’ She stepped over the threshold. ‘Right, well I’ll see you later.’
Tom tucked his hands in his pockets, conscious he’d all but chased her to the door. ‘See you.’
He waited until she’d greeted the two lurking teenagers and moved away before poking his head around the doorframe.
‘Hello, sweetheart, I didn’t realise you were there.’
Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Could you be any more obvious, Dad?’ She turned to the dark-skinned, tall boy leaning on the wall beside her. ‘Sorry. If we ignore him, he’ll go away in a minute.’
He might well have done just that if she’d kept her smart mouth shut, but though he knew there was an element of bravado and showing off for her new friend, there was no way Tom was letting that pass. Instead of returning to his lunch, he stepped fully out into the garden. If she was going to accuse him of being embarrassing, then he was more than willing to deliver it up in spades. Meeting Emily’s scowl with a smile that showed more teeth than a shark, Tom took up sentry opposite the pair. ‘Why don’t you introduce me to your new friend, poppet?’ She bloody hated it when he called her that.
Seizing the initiative and winning a massive amount of respect from Tom, Bas straightened up and offered his hand. ‘Sebastian Donovan, Dr Nelson. We didn’t get a chance to meet properly yesterday.’
Tom shook his hand, liking the direct eye contact as much as the firmness of the boy’s grip. ‘Of course. Sorry, I meant to catch up with you afterwards, but I got called away to a home visit. Nerissa tells me you’re a really hard worker, and I must say I’ve been impressed with the little bit I’ve seen so far.’
Bas ducked his head briefly, a smile of what Tom hoped was pride breaking out. ‘Cheers, Dr Nelson.’
‘You can call me Tom.’
Bas laughed. ‘Not anywhere my mum can hear me I won’t!’ He glanced at the smart watch on his wrist. ‘Speaking of which, I better be getting back to look after my sister.’ He offered his hand again to Tom. ‘Nice to meet you, Dr… Tom.’
‘Dr Tom works for me and shouldn’t get you any grief from your mum,’ Tom said with a grin as he shook the boy’s hand once more. ‘See you soon.’
‘I’ll be in Monday evening,’ Bas confirmed, then turned to Emily. ‘Think about it and let me know, yeah?’ And with that he turned on his heel and walked away in that long, loping stride of a boy-not-quite-a-man who was still growing into his final frame.
Tom watched him go for a moment before turning to face Emily. Without Bas there she’d shrunk a little in upon herself and Tom hoped she was reconsidering her earlier attitude. He didn’t want to be constantly butting heads with her. ‘Do you want some lunch?’
She nodded and followed him into the kitchen.
His long-abandoned sandwich had started to harden so Tom rescued the slab of cheese from inside and chucked the bread in the food caddy. He cut himself another couple of thick slices from the fresh baked loaf and a pair of thinner ones for Emily. ‘Nerissa’s going to grab some pizza for dinner, if that’s all right with you?’ he asked his daughter, who was stretching up to lift a glass down from one of the cupboards.
‘Fine with me.’
He watched her silently add a dash of squash to the glass before filling it with water, but that was all he was getting, apparently.
Swallowing a sigh of frustration, he opened the fridge and perused the shelf. ‘Cheese, ham or there’s some tuna mayo already mixed?’
‘Tuna’s fine.’
Fine. He might have to ban the bloody word.
Tom spread the filling on the bread, slapped the two slices together and tossed the sandwich on a plate. He set it down on the table in front of Emily with perhaps a little more force than was required, then took his own seat opposite. They ate in silence. No sign of the chatty, sparky girl he’d overheard speaking in the garden just a few minutes earlier.
He knew better than to pry but the protective urge got a bit too much to resist sometimes. Bas seemed like a decent young man, but Em was still so vulnerable. Doing his best to sound casual, he asked ‘So, what was Bas talking about when he left?’
Her shoulder lifted, her gaze remaining fixed on her plate. ‘Nothing, really.’
