‘Would you not like to get away, Lily?’ Gualberto asked her, serious now, pushing for an answer. ‘Truly, Lily? In your heart?’
‘I don’t… I don’t…’
‘You do,’ Ben said. ‘You’re desperate for a break and you know it. Benjy needs time with you. Just say yes, my love.’
‘I’m not your love,’ she whispered, dazed.
‘Of course not,’ he said ruefully. ‘I meant…Lily. Just say yes, Dr Cyprano.’
‘A farm?’ Benjy whispered. He’d been trying desperately to keep up and he thought he had it now. ‘We can go to a farm, Mama.’
‘Just say yes,’ Ben repeated, and Gualberto smiled at them all and made to leave.
‘I think the yes is already spoken,’ he said gravely. ‘Lily, for the next few weeks you’re forbidden to practise medicine anywhere on this group of islands. We love you as our own but for the next few weeks you belong to yourself. Take your son and go. And now…’ He smiled, a world-weary smile that still managed to hold a hint of real amusement. ‘I’ll move on to the next problem, but I believe I don’t need to worry more about this one. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Dr Blayden.’
Ben stayed on. She asked him to leave but he simply shook his head and started making dinner.
‘I can do this,’ she told him, but he shook his head. She was sitting, stunned, at her kitchen table while this big man in army camouflage took over her life.
‘I’ve found three casseroles in the refrigerator,’ he told her. ‘The one that looks best says it’s red emperor in spicy coconut cream broth.’ He grinned at Benjy, man to man. ‘Red emperor’d be fish? I reckon that’d be guaranteed to put hairs on your chest. How about it?’
Benjy looked at Ben and then cautiously at his mother. Then he tugged the neck of his T-shirt forward and looked down at his hairless tummy.
He glanced again at Ben-who grinned some more and flipped a couple of buttons open, baring his chest to the waist. Definitely hairy.
‘Like me,’ he said. ‘There’s a heap of fish and coconut cream gone into this manly chest.’
‘You’re mad,’ Lily said faintly, trying to block out the vision of a body any young boy would think was enviable. Though who was she kidding? It wasn’t Benjy who thought it was fantastic. She so wanted to…
No. She wouldn’t listen to her hormones, she told herself fiercely, while Benjy agreed that maybe he did want some of the casserole.
They ate together. Mostly they ate in silence, though occasionally Ben would direct a remark to Benjy, which Benjy would consider and answer with a monosyllabic reply. Ben didn’t appear put out by the lack of conversation. He attacked the truly excellent casserole with relish, then cleared away while Lily sat, still stunned, seemingly unable to move.
Ben’s farm, her mind was saying. No.
But… Get away, her heart was replying, and it sounded so desirable it was like a siren’s song. Where were earmuffs when she needed them? And as well as that…
Ben’s farm. That suddenly wasn’t her mind talking. It was her heart.
Ben could be there at the end of their stay, just for a little. Benjy might get to know his father. At the end of the time she’d come back here and get on with the rest of her life, but Benjy might have established a relationship. Which he needed to have.
This was crazy. She couldn’t leave. These were her people.
Benjy slumped in weariness almost before he finished his dinner. Trying her best to ignore Ben-she didn’t know what else to do-she carried him through to bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. She gazed down at his small face for a long moment and then turned to find Ben watching.
‘You must let him have a break,’ Ben said gently. ‘You can’t move forward from this as if nothing has happened.’
‘You’re a psychologist?’
‘I’ve talked to psychologists.’
‘What gives you the right-?’
‘He’s my son.’
She drew in her breath, but it was as if she didn’t find any. Once more that disembodied feeling came over her, as if she was floating, out of control.
Maybe she swayed, she didn’t know, but all of a sudden he was right before her, lifting her into his arms, holding her against him for a brief, hard moment, letting her feel the strength of his body against her-grounding her-and then lowering her gently onto the bed beside Benjy.
She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why. But it worked. The awful dizziness faded and she felt the pillow soft and cool against her face. For one crazy moment she considered giving in to this man-doing what he said-letting him take a control she no longer had.
It was a crazy thought, but right now she didn’t have the capacity to fight it.
‘Do you know how close to collapse you are?’ Ben growled, and she thought about that, or tried to think, but things were a bit fuzzy. He was so…male, she thought inconsequentially. Nice.
Tomorrow she’d be sensible and tell him what he could do with his preposterous idea, she decided. Tonight… Tonight he was glaring down at her, concerned, and she thought how wonderful it was to have someone concerned about her. It was her whose job it was to be concerned about everyone on this island, and on every other island within boating distance. Now the tables were turned.
‘I’m not close to collapse,’ she managed, and Ben’s gorgeous brown eyes crinkled into laughter, the laughter she’d always loved.
‘Of course you’re not,’ he agreed. ‘You could run a ten-mile race right now.’
‘Maybe ten yards?’ she said cautiously, and he chuckled.
‘Maybe not even one foot from your pillow. You’re going on this holiday, my lovely Lily. I’ve set it up for you. The islanders have agreed. There are people to take over your work…Lily, have you ever had time off with Benjy?’
How could she think about that when his eyes were on hers and the pillow was soft and Benjy was warm against her and Ben was…Ben was there?
‘I don’t-’
‘That’s what I’ve been told,’ he said, and his smile faded. ‘Don’t fight me on this one, Lily. Tomorrow we’re putting you on a helicopter out of here. We’re taking two of our injured back to Sydney Central and then the pilot will take you to the farm. It’s en route to base so there’s no problem. Rosa and Doug, my farm managers, are expecting you. You’re to spend the next few weeks healing our son and healing yourself.’
Our son.
Lily gazed at Ben for a long moment. Our son.
She should resent the words, she thought, but instead… It seemed as if she was handing over control. That was something she’d vowed never to do, but now it was happening it wasn’t the void she’d feared. The lightness was with her again but instead of making her feel ill it suddenly felt like there might just be a sliver of joy in all this.
‘No argument,’ Ben told her.
How could she argue? She couldn’t even raise her head from the pillow.
‘You’re so done in,’ Ben said ruefully, and he knelt by the bed and touched her cheek with his forefinger. It was like a caress, a gesture of warmth and strength and caring. The feeling was an illusion, she thought, but for now she didn’t care. She’d take her comfort where she could find it.
‘No argument for tonight,’ she whispered.
‘That’s great.’ He sounded relieved.
She thought dreamily, Why was he relieved? As if she could ever argue with him.
But, of course, she could. She must. But not tonight.
‘I’ll argue tomorrow,’ she whispered, and he smiled.
‘It won’t help. But you’re welcome to try. Goodnight, my Lily,’ he said, and he bent suddenly and kissed her, hard on the mouth, as she remembered being kissed all those years ago. She should push him away. She should…
But she didn’t. The kiss lasted for as long as she wanted, a delicious, languorous indulgence in sensual pleasure that surely should have had her running back to her tightly controlled world. Men were dangerous. Ben was dangerous.