She didn’t think the whole family liked each other.
‘So let’s find him.’
‘Dusty, he won’t want to see us. He’s probably grouchy like your grandpa.’
‘No, but we could see him,’ Dusty said. ‘It’d be like an adventure. Just … looking. I might be able to take a picture with my zoom lens. Then when Mike asks I can say he’s a secret and we had to sneak a look …’
And it’d be something to talk about, Jess thought. A game …
‘I’ll look him up on the internet,’ she promised. ‘I’ll see.’
‘It’s all I want for Christmas,’ Dusty said, belligerent. ‘To see my dad’s brother.’
‘What about a skateboard?’
‘Not even a new gaming console,’ Dusty said grandly. ‘And looking at an uncle would be cheap.’
Sneaking a photograph of this uncle wasn’t going to be cheap. It was free.
With Dusty in bed, she searched the internet and up he came. Ben Oaklander.
Nate’s brother was in Australia, and information about him was everywhere.
Apparently he was a doctor, an obstetrician, just as she was, only this guy was seriously good. He was five years older than she was, but about twenty years older in terms of career.
She remembered the first time she’d met Nate. He’d been studying law, and she’d been in first year medical school. Her friend introducing her as ‘my friend, Jess, who’s just started medicine.’
‘What, a save the world do-gooder like my sainted brother?’ Nate had snapped, but then he’d looked at her, focused, apologised for his bad manners and set himself out to be charming. Which had been very charming indeed.
His brother had hardly been mentioned again.
And here he was. Nate’s brother.
A do-gooder?
Not so much.
She was at a site advertising a conference being held in December, at somewhere called Cassowary Island off Australia’s Queensland coast. Keynote speaker, Benjamin Oaklander.
A biography.
One of Australia’s most eminent obstetricians. Youngest professor … Contributor to three texts, author of thirty journal articles. Top of his field. Highly regarded researcher.
A picture. He was dark where Nate had been blond. He was about the same height, though, standing tall among a group of colleagues at an award ceremony, and he had the same lovely eyes, a deep, azure blue. He was smiling straight at the camera, and that smile …
She remembered that smile. Dangerous.
But this would do, she thought. There was no need for sneaky zoom lenses when she could show Dusty this.
She closed the computer with a snap.
But then she thought—it wouldn’t do. She knew Dusty. He didn’t see the internet as real. He wanted real contact.
Maybe when he was older she’d try and contact this man.
She opened her laptop again.
That smile …
She was so over that smile. Just looking at it … the arrogance, the lies, the deceit. ‘I’ll take care of you for ever …’
Well, she’d looked after herself, she told that smile. There was no way any insidious smile could breach her defences. Once was enough.
‘Mum …’
Ouch. She flicked the backward arrow on the internet. It wouldn’t do to show Dusty a blank screen. He came up behind her, rubbing sleepy eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t ask questions,’ she managed, trying to sound Santa-Claus mysterious.
But he was already behind her, looking. ‘Oh, yum,’ he breathed. ‘Is that an island?’
She looked then—really looked. Cassowary Island, close to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A small research centre dedicated to cassowaries, with a privately run, wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary attached.
Nothing else, apart from an international-standard conference centre with eco-resort accommodation. Miles of glorious beaches, turquoise waters, rainbow coral, multicoloured fish, turtles, dolphins … Resort mantra: ‘Take only Photographs, Leave only Footprints.’ Oh …
‘Oh, Mum,’ Dusty breathed. ‘Are you thinking about holidays?’
‘Just dreaming,’ she said.
And suddenly she was. How long since she’d had a proper holiday?
She’d gone over her head into debt to finish her medical training. Then her mother’s health, always precarious, had failed even further. She’d died two months ago. This would be their first Christmas without her.
Christmas without her mother didn’t bear thinking of.
‘We might go somewhere,’ she said, glancing wistfully at turtles.
‘Why not there?’
‘It’s the other side of the world.’
‘It’d be warm.’
‘I guess.’ She could even afford it now, she thought. She’d been earning for a while now and with the sale of her mother’s small house … Maybe she could.
‘It says there’s an obstetric conference happening.’ Dusty’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Is that why you’re looking? The nineteeth to the twenty second of December. Mum, that’s cool. School finishes on the fifteenth.’
‘You don’t want to go to a conference with me.’
‘I bet we can’t afford to go unless it’s for work,’ Dusty said wisely. ‘You never do anything not for work. Or for Gran. Or for me.’
‘Maybe I can make an exception. We could find lots of places that are warm. Maybe you could ask for that for Christmas instead of finding out about your dad.’
And her son’s face closed. ‘I want to find out.’
‘Dusty, we can’t.’
‘You said we’d have two weeks’ holiday for Christmas. I bet we could find something out in two weeks.’
‘I’d rather go somewhere warm.’
‘Then let’s do sleuthing and then go somewhere warm,’ Dusty said, sliding his hand into hers. ‘We can sleuth really fast.’
‘Dusty …’
‘You have to help,’ Dusty said, smiling his gorgeous ten-year-old smile; the smile she’d disconcertingly just seen on the screen before her. ‘I bet you’d like photos, too. It can’t be nice not having any pictures of Dad. I’m sure you want some.’
She didn’t.
But then … she knew where Dusty was coming from. Her own father had died when she was twelve. The albums filled with pictures of her father holding her, playing with her, had assumed almost supernatural importance.
She tucked her son back into bed. Threatened him with no Santa if he didn’t stay. Went back downstairs and stared at a stranger’s smile; a smile that she knew like it was part of her.
Kill two birds with one stone? It looked a great conference.
She could ‘just happen’ upon Ben there, tell Dusty who he was, then they could have a week on the island when everyone left.
She glanced through the window into the night. Sleet was slashing the frozen streets.
Tropics.