Our Kind of Love (26 page)
‘A little harder than you thought, huh?’
‘Fuck.’ Joe shook his head in amused disbelief. ‘Let me loose on a keyboard and I’m lethal. But give me one of those guns that dispenses the post-mix drinks? Absolutely useless.’
Lizzie patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. ‘I know it’s not Sydney, but the job is yours for as long as you want it. Give it a week and you’ll get the hang of it, I promise.’
She stood, clearly knowing him well enough to leave him alone to wallow in self-pity. Lizzie looked around the empty space at the rear of the pub, the area that had come to life over the summer as The Market and which had been the place Ry and Julia had got married.
‘There’s a fresh uniform for you in my office if you want it.’
Joe glanced down at his shirt. ‘No worries. I’m almost dry. Can’t say the same for Shorty and Reg at the bar. Are those blokes here every day?’
Lizzie folded her arms in front of her and smiled. ‘Every day at three o’clock. They’re like those old blokes from
The Muppets
, the ones who sit up in the balcony. What were their names?’
Joe chuckled at the memory of all the times he and Lizzie had laid flat out on their stomachs on the shag pile carpet, watching those old movies on VCR. ‘Statler and Waldorf.’
‘Yeah, those two. Their wives died within a month of each other a couple of years back. They don’t have the Rotary Club or Apex or the church or bingo. They have this place.’
Joe thought about that for a while.
‘Can I get you anything? A beer, maybe?’
Joe laughed. ‘No, I’m fine. And Lizzie?’
She turned, stopped just before she was about to pull open the back door.
‘Yeah, Joe?’
‘Thanks.’
She’d ruffled his hair and then turned to go inside.
Joe reached out an arm in the small bathroom and pulled a towel from the bamboo hook on the back of the door. He gave his hair a cursory swipe and then wrapped the towel around his hips. He needed to throw on some clothes that didn’t smell like beer and then collapse on to the sofa, maybe catch the ABC News on TV if he hadn’t missed it already.
He stopped in the doorway to his bedroom and let out a tired sigh. Yep, that was the sum of his plans for the entire evening. Hang out his sodden clothes and watch the news. Yeah and that other thing. Try not to think too much about Anna Morelli. In the dark of last night, when he’d gone to bed alone, all he could smell on his sheets was her perfume and damn it if he didn’t want her all over again.
But she was back in Adelaide, having driven off in that crazy red sports car of hers saying she needed time to think. Joe believed thinking was highly overrated. Sometimes, you just had to go with your gut. Sure, you needed smarts to back you up. But thinking too much led to over-thinking, which led to being paralysed by choices.
Not that this was his problem at the moment. He didn’t have too many and the one he’d chosen had turned into a spectacular failure. If only he didn’t still smell faintly like beer, he might have wanted to pull the top off one. Instead, he grabbed a pair of boxers from the drawer and then spotted his favourite jeans in a crumpled pile on the floor. He dragged them off the carpet and shook out the legs to slide into the worn denim.
That’s when he saw it.
Anna’s necklace. It caught the overhead light and glistened on the carpet. Joe crouched down to pick it up and slowly stood, holding it up to the light to make sure. It was hers all right, the slim chain with the delicate round medallion hanging from it. He dropped it into his palm and clenched his fingers tight.
‘Well, waddya know.’ He found his glasses on his bedside table and slipped them on so he could see more clearly. The clasp was still intact, but the fine chain had broken an inch away from it. It must have happened sometime during the night when they were sleeping.
Or when they weren’t
, Joe thought with a smile.
Joe didn’t believe in signs. The zodiac. Religion of any kind. Long-range weather forecasts or political opinion polls. But surely, this had to be a sign. He felt his face crease in a smile and he could have sworn there was some warm inner glow happening in his chest, one that usually followed the consumption of lots of fine scotch. He slipped the necklace into the small pocket on the inside of his wallet, pressed the flap down, and decided then and there what he would do with his next day off.
It took Joe more than an hour and a half to make it from Middle Point to Anna’s surgery, even though he was heading in the opposite direction to most of the Saturday morning traffic. Cars were filing past him on the opposite side of the road in droves, all heading down to the McLaren Vale wine district or the south coast to take in a sunny autumn day.
He laughed to himself at the thought of a one and a half hour commute. In Sydney it took people that long simply to get to work. In Adelaide, an hour and a half’s journey from smack bang in the middle of the ’burbs and you could be dipping your feet into the waters off Middle Point with a cold beer in your hand.
Not that he’d had much time to do any of that lately. He hadn’t even managed to squeeze in a surf in the morning before work. Lizzie was slowly getting him into the swing of working at the pub, and he’d managed to leave work every day that week relatively unscathed. She’d given him the weekend off, saying she didn’t want to risk the pub’s reputation by slotting him behind the bar on a Saturday night.
‘The netballers will eat you alive,’ she’d warned.
He’d made a phone call to Anna’s surgery to find out what her consulting times were, booked the last appointment of the morning under the name ‘John Holmes’ and driven away from the beach.
‘He’s doing beautifully, Sarah, and I swear he has the chubbiest cheeks and blondest hair I’ve ever seen.’
Anna smiled at the new mum sitting at the side of her desk and then turned her attention back to baby Max. She found his soft toes and gave them another tickle, which elicited giggles of delight. Anna smiled at him, his blue eyes smiling back at her, and her belly tightened. She saw lots of babies in her practice, had lost count of how many over the years, but today this little man was getting her right where it hurt.
‘Is it normal for him to want to feed every two hours? He’s so hungry all the time.’
‘Perfectly normal. He’s putting on weight, he’s sleeping. He’s doing everything a baby should. And you’re doing everything a new mum should be doing. You’re doing brilliantly, Sarah.’
Sarah shot Anna a teary-eyed look of relief. ‘Thanks, Anna. It’s all a bit overwhelming, really.’
Anna reached out her arms and snatched him for a cuddle. She held Max in front of her, laid him on her legs and bent down to give him a big, fat raspberry on his tummy. Max laughed and giggled some more and opened his big blue eyes even bigger.
‘He loves that,’ Anna sighed, ‘Look at him.’
Sarah laughed as she stood up and hefted her enormous baby bag over her shoulder. ‘He’s the best thing to ever happen to me. Besides his father, of course.’
Anna stood, cradling Max in the crook of her arm and followed Sarah out the door to the reception area. ‘You are both very lucky to have this beautiful little—’
Anna stopped. Sarah turned to see what had happened. Grace popped her head up from the reception area and both of them exchanged uncertain glances.
‘—man.’
It was Joe. All man, all handsome, all denim jeans and T-shirt. All grinning. All quirking that one delectable eyebrow into his sandy blond hairline.
‘Good morning,’ Anna said and hoped like hell she still sounded like a doctor instead of someone who remembered seeing him naked. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ Anna dug down deep and found her professional cool. ‘Lovely to see you, Sarah. And you too, Max.’
Anna must have clutched the baby tighter without realising it or he’d picked up on the nervous tension that had shuddered up her toes and into her hairline, because he began to whimper. Sarah gave Anna an understanding smile and took her son from Anna’s arms.
‘Sometimes bubs just want their mums, don’t they?’
‘I’ll see you soon for his next vaccinations.’
‘See you, Sarah,’ Grace called from the desk. When the front door to the surgery had closed with a squeak, Grace handed Anna a new file. On the back flap of the folder, she could clearly see the name: ‘Holmes, John’.
She turned to Joe again and tried not to let the tremble in her chest come out in her voice. ‘Mr Holmes?’
The grin on Joe’s face had her toes tingling and suddenly feeling too big for her high heels. She nodded her head to indicate Joe should follow her and she gave Grace a quick glance.
‘Isn’t he …?’ Her sister looked totally confused.
As soon as Joe entered her consulting room, Anna closed the door and leaned back against it, clutching the patient folder in front of her. He hadn’t sat down on the chair by her desk as her other patients always did. He was one foot in front of her and getting closer.
She planted one flat palm on his stomach. The hard muscle underneath sent her pulse soaring. Her hand didn’t seem to be much of a shield because he didn’t budge. In fact, her touch seemed to have the opposite effect.
‘Hello, Dr Morelli.’
She took a long glance at the file in her hand. ‘John Holmes?’
‘It’s my spy name.’
‘So Mr Holmes, what seems to be the problem? Not enough blood supply in your body to sustain an erection?’
Joe smiled and
wham
. ‘I’ve never had complaints on that score. Unless you have one?’
‘No.’ Anna trembled at the memory.
‘Good to know. But I do need some medical advice.’ He reached out and leaned his hands on the door, on either side of her shoulders. His head dipped and his lips were a whisper away. God, he smelled good. Like soap and, strangely, like Middle Point.
‘Would you like to take a seat and tell me all about it?’
Joe shook his head. ‘I can do it standing up.’
Anna remembered. ‘Do tell.’
‘I have an ache right here.’ Joe pressed against himself against her. He was hard as a rock. ‘And it won’t go away.’
‘Really?’ Anna murmured. She liked his closeness, the way he seemed to be all around her, even if her neck did ache from craning her neck up to look at his face. And although it sounded serious downstairs, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from his lips. His full bottom lip, moist and full. The top half in shadow and teasing her with the way it moved when he spoke.
‘That sounds serious. We may need to amputate.’
‘God, I hope not. It’s still quite useful, you know.’
Joe leaned in and pressed his soft lips to Anna’s mouth and she wondered if the sound of her knees knocking could be heard through the closed door to her surgery and in the reception area. She kissed him back with just enough enthusiasm to let him know she appreciated it, but not enough to deepen it. She was, after all, still at work.
‘Is there actually anything at all wrong, Joe? Or did you just happen to be driving by, an hour and a half from Middle Point?’
‘Thought you might be missing something.’ Joe took a step back and Anna watched as he fished in his pocket. He produced his wallet and for half a second Anna wondered if he was going to pull a condom out of it. He carefully reached inside the small flap and withdrew her necklace, like a snake charmer might summon his creature from its ceramic pot.
‘Oh God.’ Anna slipped the folder under one arm and held out her cupped hands. She sighed deeply as the gold chain pooled there. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘It was on the floor.’ His eyebrow danced and Anna felt a blush glow in her cheeks. ‘In my bedroom.’
‘Thank you so much for bringing it back to me. This is …’ She was happy, relieved and speechless.
‘Every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been wearing it. And twisting it around in your fingers. It looks like something special.’
Anna swept by him and walked, dazed, to her desk. She flopped down onto her chair.
‘It is special. My Nonna – on my dad’s side – gave it to me for my First Communion.’
‘Is that some churchy thing?’
‘A big churchy thing. I haven’t taken it off since I was eleven years old.’
Joe could see happy tears in Anna’s eyes and felt like a superhero. He sauntered across the room and perched himself on the edge of her desk.
‘And how many years is that exactly?’
‘Twenty-four years. It’s twenty-four years since she gave it to me and twenty-four years since she died. You see, it was hers. Not the chain, but the St Christopher’s medal. I was the first grandchild and I was named after her.’
He could see by her expression how important it was to her, this link to her family. ‘Now I’m really glad I didn’t trade it for cash at the pawn shop I passed on the way here.’
Anna smiled and sniffed, then wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘Thank you, Joe. I’m so relieved. I thought it might have been washed out to sea and been eaten by a fish.’
‘Here it is, safe and sound.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
Joe leaned forward. ‘I do.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘Tell me, Dr Morelli. You stopped thinking so much?’
Anna gulped. All she’d done since that weekend down at Middle Point was think. About Joe. How she felt when she was with him. ‘Maybe.’
‘Decided anything?’
‘Not sure.’ Anna’s fist was clutched tight and pressed against her heart.
‘Here’s a question for you then. Do you believe in signs?’
‘I was raised a Catholic and I’m Italian. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a sign, your necklace. I think it’s the universe telling me that we should spend some more time together. What are you doing tonight? I’m up here for the whole weekend.’
Anna stared at him for a moment, like she was trying to remember which day it was.
Let go. Stop thinking so much
. ‘Tonight’s good.’
Then Anna slapped a palm against her forehead. ‘Damn it. I have an engagement party tonight.’
‘Okay, Joe said.
Anna stopped, stared at him for a long minute.
‘You don’t happen to have a suit with you, do you?’
Joe looked down at his jeans and T-shirt. He did have some rather nice numbers, including a decent black tux that he’d worn to the Walkley Awards three years ago, but they were still in his wardrobe in Sydney.
