He didn’t, but it was never going to get easier. Another night like last night and it’d be impossible.
His life was waiting in Sydney. Or…the chance of a new life?
‘He’s going.’ Unnoticed, Amy had come up behind them. She smiled at David, who’d driven in to the nursing home specifically to find his son. ‘He’s being kicked out of his lodgings, so he must.’
That was news to Joss. ‘I’m being kicked out?’
‘Yes.’ Her face was strained and pale but somehow she summoned a smile. ‘It’s far too crowded with two people, one dog and only ten bedrooms. Someone has to go. I drew straws and Joss is it.’
‘Will you keep Bertram?’ Joss demanded suddenly. He couldn’t bear to think of her in that mausoleum alone. But she shook her head.
‘Of course not. He’s your dog.’
‘I’ll buy you a pup.’
‘Thank you, but no.’
And into his head came a faintly remembered line. ‘I want no more of you…’ Where had that come from? Schoolboy Shakespeare? Wherever, it was apt.
It was time to go. He couldn’t commit himself to this woman. At least…not yet.
He still had almost a week of leave left. He could stop at Bowra and then…
‘You look like you’re aching to get back to Sydney already,’ David said, watching Joss’s face. He smiled at Amy and explained. ‘Joss always gets this far-away look when he’s making plans, and he’s making plans now. What’s on back in Sydney?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Joss said slowly. ‘I won’t know until I get there.’
There was one more heartbreaking moment as Joss stood in front of the little Volkswagen ready to leave. Bertram was sticking his head out the window and wagging his tail in anticipation, waiting for Joss to say goodbye.
This was no aching farewell of two star-crossed lovers. Star-crossed lovers didn’t get a look-in at Iluka, where everyone’s life was everyone’s business.
David and Daisy were there, plus almost every nursing-home patient and close to every Iluka resident as well. In these few short days Joss had won Iluka’s heart.
As they’d won his heart. He could see why Amy couldn’t leave.
‘Come back soon,’ they called, and he looked at Amy’s ashen face and thought not.
Not until some of those plans came to fruition.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JOSS spent the first night in Bowra. First there was a long appointment with Henry, Malcolm’s father. To his relief Henry was no Malcolm. The old lawyer was intelligent and interested, and once he learned what Joss intended he couldn’t do enough to help.
‘God knows, that woman has suffered enough,’ the old man told him. ‘When I think of how my stupid son has treated her… And now there’s Charlotte, of all women. I know Charlotte-she’s the daughter of friends of mine. How the hell he managed to keep their relationship secret…
‘By the way, you needn’t worry about Charlotte,’ the old man added grimly. ‘I’ll see to it that Malcolm marries the girl if that’s what she wants. And if she decides not to-and who could blame her? Well, Malcolm will provide for her anyway. He’ll do it if I personally have to cut off his inheritance to see it done.’
‘I think we’ve had enough of inheritances,’ Joss told him, and the old man agreed.
‘Well, let’s sit down and see what can be done about this one. This idea of yours… I never thought- It’ll take courage.’
‘More than courage,’ Joss told him. ‘But do you think it can be done?’
Then there was a meeting with Doris, the Bowra doctor, who greeted him at first with suspicion and in the end with excitement.
‘If you can pull it off…’
Another person wishing him joy.
His father was working on the Iluka council members, and as Joss left Bowra and headed for Sydney he rang David on his cellphone, pulling over to the side of the road to take the call.
‘Here are the figures you asked for,’ his father told him. ‘Hell, Joss, it looks good. It looks great.’
‘And the bridge?’
‘We reckon we can do it.’
Now there was only the medical side to contend with, Joss thought as he steered the Volkswagen back onto the road. And the bank.
And the government authorities.
Only.
It was a month before Joss returned. He’d hoped it would be sooner but his plans had been extensive. No half-measures would do and he wanted to be sure.
Now he was as sure as he could be. The old lawyer in Bowra was chuckling to himself in huge delight. Amy’s stepfather would be turning in his grave, he decreed, and he couldn’t think of a better fate for the man.
Joss’s father had taken the train to Sydney and was following behind in the pink Volkswagen. Joss was driving something better.
The rebuilding of the bridge hadn’t been started yet-they still needed to use the ferry-but once the work started Amy would guess what the plan was and he wanted to be the one who did the telling. He was as sure as he could be that they could pull this thing off. It was time she was told.
So Joss put his brand-new Range Rover-with a strange new sign on the driver’s door-on the ferry, and then drove it around the cliffs where he’d crashed a month before and pulled up outside the Iluka nursing home. Bertram was out of the car the moment he opened the door, flying in to find all the friends he’d made on their last visit.
Joss followed.
Amy was in her office. She heard the twittering from the living room, she heard the mah-jong set clatter as it hit the floor, and then the big red dog burst into her office. He came bounding up to greet her, his paws landed on her shoulders and she darned near fell over.
Bertram!
David will have brought him back from Sydney, she told herself, fighting down the sudden surge of stupid hope. David and Daisy had told her they were going to Sydney to collect the Volkswagen. What could be more sensible than them bringing the dog back home for a visit?
Joss wouldn’t be here.
She glanced out the window to see a gleaming new Range Rover parked at the entrance. It had a sign on the door. ILUKA
HEALTH RESORT.
It didn’t make sense.
But before she could fully take it in, Joss was standing in the doorway. He had an absurd expression of hope on his face, like he was Bertram and he wasn’t sure whether he’d be kicked or hugged.
‘Joss…’
Her voice faltered. She’d made such resolutions. He’d come back to visit his father occasionally, she’d told herself, and she had to greet him as a friend. Nothing more.
But he was still looking at her, his expression was just the same and it was too much. She was across the room and hugging him, kissing and being kissed, welcoming him with all the love in her heart. ‘Oh, Joss.’
‘Amy.’ He was beaming and beaming, putting her away from him so he could take her all in. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’
‘You’ve only been away for a month.’
‘I thought you might be pregnant.’ There was a gasp behind them and Joss’s beam widened. ‘Hi, Kitty.’
‘H-Hi.’ The secretary rose on feet that were decidedly unsteady. She was choking on laughter. ‘Pregnant, huh?’
‘I am not,’ Amy told him indignantly. ‘After one night-what do you think you are?’
‘You reckon it’ll take more than a night? What a good thing I’m back.’
‘Joss…’
‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’ Kitty managed, and sidled out of the door. She very carefully didn’t close the door behind her.
‘Amy.’ Joss kissed her again and from outside the door there was a collective sigh. Iluka’s residents en masse.
‘Um…’ Somehow she pushed him away.
‘Um?’ He was smiling down at her, with the smile that had the capacity to make her heart do handsprings all on its own. ‘Is that all you can think of to say?’
But she was recovering, just. Friends. She had to greet him as a friend. What she was feeling was the way of insanity.