Emily Forbes - Reunited With Her Brooding Surgeon

Or maybe he should take up the challenge he could see in her eyes. She gave off an air of not being one to back down. Of having the courage of her convictions. That didn’t appear to have changed. He remembered more about her than he cared to admit. She’d been loud and boisterous, full of energy; he’d always known when she was around and he suspected that hadn’t changed in twenty years. He wondered what had.

The idea of putting a flame to her wick just to see what would happen was strangely exciting but he resisted the temptation. He didn’t want to bring unnecessary attention to the two of them. He didn’t want anyone asking awkward questions. Going under the radar was always best. He’d learnt that from experience.

But what did she want? What was she after? What did she remember of him? What secrets could she spill?

He hoped not many.

As a child he’d been quiet, shy and nervous. The complete antithesis to Grace. He’d been nervous around the kids at school and nervous around his father. His life had been unpredictable and devoid of routine but it hadn’t been until he’d been at boarding school as a teenager that he’d realised that not everyone’s lives were like that. He’d never experienced anything different. Most of the time he’d just tried to get from morning to evening without being noticed. It had seemed his presence had irritated people—his classmates and his father—and he had never been sure about what was going to happen, how people were going to react to him, although more often than not it had been unfavourably. He’d learnt to keep his head down, to try to be inconspicuous, but that had never been easy when he’d looked so different.

Thanks to his Caribbean mother he wasn’t white but he wasn’t indigenous either. He was part black but not the black that was common in Toowoomba. There wasn’t another person in the town who had the same genetic mix as him and, if that wasn’t enough to make him stand out, his family history and his unorthodox father had certainly made sure that everyone had singled him out.

His mother had disappeared when he’d been six, leaving him behind with a father who had chosen to develop a relationship with alcohol instead of with his son. His young life had been full of disappointments and he’d learnt early on not to ask for or expect much, and that the only person he could count on not to let him down was himself.

He’d been determined to escape a miserable childhood and to avoid all memories of his past. He’d worked hard over many years to forget who he was and where he came from. He didn’t want to be remembered as that boy. That wasn’t him any more.

And he didn’t want anyone to remind him of it either.

Which made Grace the last person he wanted to see.

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