Emma Darcy - The Shining Of Love

His face tightened. His mouth compressed in frustration with her outright rejection. The appeal in his eyes hardened to an arrogance that challenged her decision. “Tell me what arrangements you’ve made and I’ll speak to the person or persons concerned.”

He was not used to being refused. Suzanne offered him an ironic little smile. “You misunderstand me, Mr. Carew. I am not free. I have a husband. And you’ve just been speaking to him.”

He stared at her with a look of stunned disbelief. “You’re married...”

“To Dr. Forbes,” Suzanne finished for him with quiet dignity.

Leith Carew visibly shuddered. His gaze dropped to the paperweight in his hand. His fingers tightened around it, and from the way his knuckles gleamed white Suzanne thought he would have crushed the glass to powder if it was possible.

His tension stirred the same unease he had evoked earlier. Suzanne’s sympathy for him was stretched thin. Although his meeting with Brendan could never have pleasant associations for Leith Carew, surely he realised that was not Brendan’s fault. She resented the look of repugnance on his face.

“How long have you been married?” he suddenly shot at her.

Surprised by the question, she answered automatically. “Almost three years.”

“And the magic hasn’t worn off yet?”

The mockery in his voice suggested a soul-deep cynicism, and there was a flare of savagery in the eyes that slashed at hers. Suzanne recoiled both mentally and emotionally from all he was projecting at her, yet even as a cutting retort leapt to her tongue, she bit down on it. He was reacting like a wounded animal. She had disappointed him. It would be wrong to hit back at him for lashing out at her.

“Our marriage doesn’t depend on magic, Mr. Carew,” she said calmly, her eyes holding his with steady, heartfelt conviction. “It’s based on commitment to each other.”

“Till death do you part?”

“Yes. That’s how it is for Brendan and me.”

He challenged that contention for several angry moments before the feral glitter in his green eyes faded into a bleak sadness. He looked at the paperweight, then slowly replaced it on her desk.

“That’s how it was for Ilana and Hans,” he said with bitter irony.

“I’m sorry,” Suzanne murmured, compassion spearing through the turbulence he had stirred.

He gave her a twisted smile. “Forgive me for trespassing. And thank you for your time.”

He turned and walked to the door. Suzanne was riven by the sense of unfinished business between them, yet she knew she couldn’t answer the need that he had opened to her.

“Goodbye, Mr. Carew,” she said softly, hoping he would find solace for his pain with someone else.

“No. Not goodbye,” he rasped, then looked at her, his eyes burning with a conviction that defied barriers. “We’ll meet again, Suzanne Forbes. The timing isn’t right, here and now, but the day and the hour will come when it is.”

His words seemed to thump into her heart. He had felt it, too, she thought dazedly.

“ Au revoir, Suzanne,” he said with very deliberate emphasis.

He closed the door on this encounter and walked out of her life. Until their paths crossed at another time and place. But when? And why? Suzanne wondered. Her hand reached out and picked up the solid glass paperweight. His fingers had dulled its natural gleam. It felt cold. She shivered and thrust it away from her.

I love Brendan, she thought fiercely. I’ll love him all my life. Leith Carew can’t change that. Nothing ever will.

A surge of totally irrational feeling made her snatch up the paperweight again and drop it into the bottom drawer of her desk. Out of sight.

THE PROBLEM of Leith Carew did not go away. Suzanne wished she had not met him. The memory of his powerful presence and personality kept sliding between her and Brendan, intruding on the natural intimacy they had built up between them.

Normally she talked to Brendan about everything of interest that happened at the clinic or the centre, but something held her back from relating the details of Leith Carew’s private visit to her. She even affected a disinterest in Brendan’s comments on the man, quickly turning the subject aside in favour of a less disturbing topic of conversation.

Rightly or wrongly, she felt Leith Carew was somehow a threat to the happiness of her marriage. He had left her with a sense of inevitability that could not be denied or repressed. The day and the hour would come when they would meet again. Suzanne was afraid of what it might mean to her, so she did her best to deny him any space in her life.

Three days after his visit to the medical centre, Leith Carew was on the evening news. His strong face leapt out at her from the television set, making her heart skip a beat. She could no longer view him as a two-dimensional person.

“I’ll start putting on dinner,” she said, leaving Brendan to watch the news alone while she raced off to the kitchen to busy herself with their evening meal.

He followed a few minutes later. “They’ve called off the search for Amy Bergen,” he said with a grimace that expressed his repugnance for any unnecessary loss of life.

“Why?” Suzanne cried in dismay. Her mind told her there had been no hope of survival for the little girl, yet as long as she wasn’t found, hope persisted anyway.

“They’ve recovered a piece of her clothing.”

“Not the child?”

Brendan shook his head. “Only the clothing. But it was close to a dingo’s lair.”

“Oh, God!” It instantly recalled the Azaria Chamberlain case, when a nine-week-old baby had been taken by a dingo from the camping site at Ayers Rock. “But Amy Bergen was two years old,” Suzanne protested. “Surely...”

“The police think it’s conclusive.”

“No other trace of her?”

“Apparently not. It’s hardly to be expected after this length of time, Suzanne,” he added softly.

Her shoulders slumped. “No. I suppose not.”

“Leith Carew isn’t prepared to accept it. Understandable enough.”

“Yes,” she bit out, concentrating fiercely on tearing up lettuce leaves. The Leith Carews of this world weren’t good at accepting anything they didn’t like. But he had to, she thought grimly, when he had no other choice.

Whether that triggered the next thought that came into her mind, Suzanne did not stop to consider. She turned impulsively to Brendan and the words spilled from her lips. “I think it’s time we started a family. Are you ready to be a father, Brendan?”

The change in his expression lifted Suzanne’s heart. His grin was a glorious beam of delight and his eyes sparkled with happiness. “More than ready if you are, my darling,” he said as he swept her into his arms.

There followed a night of sweet plans and intense loving that comprehensively wiped Leith Carew from Suzanne’s mind.

The idea of having a baby was still a warm glow inside her the next morning as she checked the progress of the babies brought to the clinic by their proud mothers. Suzanne had always loved this part of her work at the community services complex.

It had taken a while for the aboriginal people to accept her as someone who could give helpful advice on health problems. It had probably been easier for her than for any other nurse, because both she and Tom James had been adopted into the same family, and although there was no blood link between them, she was accorded the status of his sister.

They trusted Tom. It was he who had persuaded the government to build this facility, and he had been the driving force behind establishing the progressive programs that not only focussed on their present and future welfare, but kept their ancient culture a positive and proud force in their lives.