Marion Lennox: Storm Haven

‘If you think I ought to,’ Nikki said flatly.

The shop assistant had been watching the proceedings with interest. ‘It does look pretty,’ she said. ‘But have a look at it in the full-length mirror before you buy it. There’s one just around the corner here.’

‘I don’t need to.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Charlotte said, her voice firm. ‘Go and look, Nikki.’ Then she reached forward towards the objects on Nikki’s nose. ‘And look without these awful glasses!’

‘Charlie-’

‘Can you see without them?’ Charlotte demanded.

‘Yes, but-’

‘Then look without them.’ Charlotte firmly removed the offending articles and thrust her forward. ‘Now go and look at what you should be, Nikki Russell!’

Nikki was propelled firmly forward by the shop assistant. The assistant had obviously taken Nikki’s lack of interest as a personal challenge. She stood next to Nikki, chatting cheerfully at Nikki’s image in the mirror.

‘It looks so good, miss. You should wear that colour all the time. Green really suits you.’ She smiled up at her reluctant client. ‘And your friend’s right. You shouldn’t wear those glasses.’

Nikki stared at her reflection and a part of her cringed. She wanted no part of this. To be beautiful… Scott had told her she was beautiful…

‘I’ll get changed now,’ she said firmly.

‘You will take it?’ the assistant said anxiously.

‘Oh, yes.’ Nikki grimaced. Charlotte would give her no peace unless she did, and her friendship with Charlotte was important. Speaking of Charlotte… She looked around. Where was her friend?

‘Charlie?’

‘Your friend must have slipped out.’ The assistant frowned. She looked around the shop, visions of shop-lifting clearly flashing through her mind. People who distracted the shop assistant and left were a worry. Surely not. These two women seemed…well, classy.

But Charlotte had gone.

And then Nikki parted the curtain to her changingcubicle and realised with horror that something else had gone as well. All her clothes. Everything. Her sandals. Even her glasses…

The shop assistant was right behind her. Seeing what Nikki had seen, she gave a nervous but relieved giggle. ‘Oh, dear,’ she offered. ‘Your friend seems to have… to have taken all your clothes.’

‘Charlie…’ Nikki’s voice was an angry wail. What on earth was her friend playing at?

‘I’m back.’ It was the cheerful voice of Charlotte coming back in the door from the street. ‘Missed me?’

‘Charlie, where are my clothes?’ Nikki asked softly. Her tone was low and dangerous.

Charlie grinned, unperturbed.

‘I put ‘em in a rubbish bin,’ she confessed blithely. ‘Actually I put ‘em in about five garbage bins. I put your jeans in one. I put your shirt in another. One sandal per bin. I wish I’d been able to get your knickers and bra. But you will be sensible and buy some more of those, won’t you, sweetie?’

‘Charlotte!’

‘Well, you were going to buy new clothes,’ her friend said innocently. ‘You said you were. And you’d never choose to wear those old things when you have lovely new clothes, now would you?’ Her face assumed an expression of innocence. ‘You weren’t buying these just to humour me, now were you, Nikki?’

It was so close to the truth that Nikki gasped. She opened her mouth to say something and then couldn’t think of a thing to say. Finally she closed her mouth again and contented herself with glaring.

‘That’s better,’ Charlie said. She turned to the shop assistant. ‘You know, this girl has nothing now but the clothes she’s standing in. I think we need at least a couple more outfits.’

The sales assistant choked on shocked laughter. ‘Oh, yes, miss,’ she breathed. She turned to Nikki. ‘We have the loveliest linen suit that you’d look smashing in.’

‘Wheel it out,’ Charlie said firmly.

‘Charlotte, where are my glasses?’ Nikki said awfully, and her friend threw up her hands in mock-fright.

‘Beats me,’ she laughed. ‘Either Mall Litter Bin 36 or Mall Litter Bin 39. Or was that your left sandal?’ She shrugged.

‘Charlie…’

Her friend put her hands on her hips. ‘Nikki Russell, you are my very best friend.’ She smiled, then her face grew suddenly serious. ‘You have been vegetating in Eurong for the past five years with no one to appreciate how lovely you really are. Now I find that one of the most eligible males I know is working as your locum. I’m damned if I’ll let you go home wearing those glasses. I’d be failing in my friendship if I did. Now try this suit on, Nikki Russell, and let’s have no more nonsense.’

‘Charlie, I am not the least interested in Luke Marriott.’ It was almost a wail.

‘Well, that’s fine,’ her friend said simply. ‘All I’m ensuring is that Luke Marriott is interested in you.’

It was a still angry Dr Russell who climbed from the plane at Eurong airstrip the next day. The wind was hot and blustery. The dress Charlotte had chosen hung coolly on Nikki’s slim body, fluttering in the breeze. It felt soft, pleasant and frightening. Nikki’s legs were bare apart from simple crystal-green sandals. Her hair wisped around her face, no longer held back by the rigid frames of her glasses. Nikki’s fingers kept moving self-consciously to her face, but there was no dark shield to hide her. She felt strange, and frighteningly exposed.

‘It’s only until I reach home,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I can change immediately.’ If only she had more glasses…

The pilot had come around to help her from the cabin. As she thanked him he reached down on to the floor and retrieved a package the size of a small suitcase.

‘This is for you too, Doc,’ he grinned. ‘A Miss Cain sent it out to the airport last night. Said we weren’t to give it to you until now.’

Nikki looked down at the package and her lips tightened. The package was emblazoned with the logo of the shop she had visited the day before. She had refused to buy anything more than the dress she was wearing, but she knew already what would be in the parcel. Everything Charlotte had pleaded with her to buy, she imagined.

‘I suppose these are all paid for,’ she said icily, and the pilot grinned as though he too was in on the plot.

‘They’re bought on approval,’ he said.

‘Well, here.’ Nikki thrust the package at him. ‘I don’t approve. You can take them right back.’

‘Not me, Doc.’ The pilot backed off with his hands held up in negation. ‘I promised Miss Cain that they’d stay in Eurong for a least a week. If you don’t want them after that, she says I can bring ‘em back.’

‘But-’

‘You wouldn’t have me break a promise,’ he smiled.

‘Yes.’ Nikki put the parcel down on the tarmac and glared.

His grin deepened and he shook his head in mocksorrow. ‘Tut-tut. What a thing to say. Now, I’m sorry, Doctor, but undermining my moral values is something I don’t hold with. Have it here in a week if you want it returned.’

‘Fine,’ Nikki snapped. ‘I will.’

‘Now, Doc…’ Pete was looking anxious and Nikki sighed and relented. It was no fault of the pilot’s that she had such a scheming friend.

‘Sorry, Pete. It’s just that I’m feeling managed.’

‘Yeah, she looks managing, that Miss Cain.’ The pilot looked behind her across the runway. ‘And speaking of managing…is this your new locum?’

Nikki spun around. She’d been expecting Beattie to meet her, but striding across the tarmac was Dr Luke Marriott. He was walking swiftly towards them, carrying a parcel in his arms.

It was all Nikki could do not to gasp. The change in the man was extraordinary. Instead of the disreputable vagrant of two days ago, this man was well-dressed, arrogant and assured. It showed in his stride, in his immaculately tailored linen trousers and quality open-necked shirt-and in the way his eyes dropped approvingly over Nikki’s figure.