beach and stolen kisses had been all they’d wanted from each other during the shorter holidays, although by October they were sure enough of how they felt to discuss taking their relationship further.
How innocent we were! Sam thought, grimacing at the memories.
Christmas holidays, they’d decided, would be the perfect time for both of them to lose their virginity. They’d have seven weeks together—or as together as they could be. Seven weeks! It would be like a honeymoon—only before marriage, not after it.
But when the day had come, when she’d come bursting into his room, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, he’d wiped her kiss off his lips, told her never to do it again, and broken her heart.
Lost his own at the same time, Sam suspected, for he’d felt nothing for the pain he’d caused his mother over those particular holidays or for the girls he’d kissed and left without a second thought, or for the trail of chaos he’d blazed through the Bay until Meg’s father had stepped in, offering to pay his tuition at a private school in Sydney for his final year at school—finding his mother a job down there so they could be together.
Now, when it was too late to say thank you because Meg’s father was dead, he understood Dr Anstey had done what he had out of kindness, but back then, poisoned by words Ben Richards probably didn’t remember saying, it had served to prove to Sam that Ben’s jibe was true.
He had to explain…
He caught up with her as, breathless from her rush up the steep path, she rested a moment, leaning against the big eucalypt at the top of the track.
‘Meg! I thought you were my sister!’
Were the words breathless because he’d run to catch her, or because of their ridiculous nature?
Meg spun to face him.
‘You thought I was your sister?’ An echo of utter disbelief. ‘How could I possibly have been your sister?’
The answer, though slow coming, was obvious. Her disbelief deepened but with it came uncertainty.
And then pain.
‘You thought my father—My father?’
And now the demon doubt arrived, cutting into her so deeply she had to bend to ease the pain. Was that why her mother had been so anxious to sell the holiday house after her father’s death?
It was all too much for Meg.
‘How could you think that? How could you?’ she yelled, swiping the stick she still carried towards Sam, catching him across the cheek, before turning and racing towards the cottage.
Sam wanted to follow—to explain he no longer thought it—but that wasn’t the point and he knew it. Meg had adored her father, and he her. They’d shared the same hair colouring, quick temper, utter loyalty and soft heart. The careless words—Sam’s urgent need to explain the past—had made things worse, not better.
Though wasn’t he always making things worse?
Wasn’t that his forte in relationships?
Wreaking havoc in the lives of the women he courted, leaving a trail of destruction in his path?
He muttered angrily to himself as he made his way home.
Home! That was a laugh! How could the Anstey house ever be his home—with Meg living in the cottage next door, a constant reminder of how things had once been?
He changed his mind and went back down the track to the beach. Maybe a run would make him feel better. And maybe the huge full moon, rising in orange-gold glory above the waters of the bay, was made of cheese!
He should have followed her—explained it better. He’d have to try again.
Have to hope she’d understand.
Now, why would he hope that? he wondered as he pounded along the beach.
Because one kiss had told him so. One kiss had proved that the fire he’d found lacking in every relationship he’d ever had since that momentous day was still there between himself and Meg.
He sighed again and turned to run back, accidentally obliterating the question mark after ‘Megan’ as he did so.
Accidentally?
He climbed back up the steep slope for the second time that evening, feeling slightly better for the exercise.
Then he saw the ambulance outside Meg’s cottage and his heart didn’t need exercise to accelerate.
Pulse pounding, he ran towards it, then felt foolish as he saw her emerge from the cottage in the fluorescent-taped garments of a paramedic.
‘Don’t tell me you’re an ambo in your spare time,’ he said, hoping she’d not hear the anger he was feeling—anger born of relief that she was OK.
She gave him a frigid glare and he knew she was considering not answering him at all, but she could hardly keep up a ‘not speaking’ effort when they had to work together.
‘SES paramedic,’ she said briefly. ‘State Emergency Service.’
She was climbing into the ambulance as she spoke.
‘What’s happened?’
She frowned before answering.
‘It’s practice night. Phil picked me up in the ambulance because tonight we’re explaining to some new volunteers exactly what equipment an ambulance carries and how we use it all.’
‘I’ll come, too. I’ll follow you in my car—that way I can give you a lift home.’
Was he out of his head? She was barely speaking to him and here he was offering her a lift home?
He had to explain…
‘Phil will give me a lift home.’ And you can go to hell! The words rang unspoken in the air between them.
‘Do I know Phil?’
Sam knew, even before Meg made an exasperated noise, that it was a stupid question, but his head was demanding to know if Phil might be the admirer she’d been thinking about on the beach.
Not, of course, that it was any of his business.
Meg had made that more than clear, even before he’d delivered his killer blow!
But just so there could be absolutely no mistake in his mind, she replied, ‘No, Phil’s new to town. So chances are you never knew his sisters either!’
Ouch!
Feeling foolish, and angry, and frustrated that he couldn’t immediately explain what he’d said earlier, Sam peered at the bewildered Phil. He was relieved to find the young man was barely old enough to shave, then felt even angrier with himself that he was pleased.
But it was stubbornness more than anger that forced him to add, ‘I’ll still come. A local doctor should know about the working of the SES.’
‘Perhaps another time,’ Meg said coolly. ‘Because that’s not my pager beeping, and Phil doesn’t have one, so I assume it’s yours.’
Foolish didn’t come into it! She’d annihilated him. He walked swiftly back to his house, phoned the hospital in response to the page—Benjie Richards had been admitted with breathing difficulties—and Ben was insisting he be discharged.
He arrived at the hospital to find Ben stripping off his monitor leads.
‘Just how do you think Jenny will cope if you have a second attack?’ Sam said to him, and the big man slumped back on the bed.
‘I can’t just lie here like a lump of useless meat while Benjie might be dying in another room.’
‘Benjie’s not dying,’ Sam said firmly, although he hadn’t yet met the little boy or received a report on his progress. ‘Jenny’s with him and she’ll come