The Honourable Army Doc. Emily Forbes
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She wasn’t expecting anyone and the light from her room spilled out into the corridor like a beacon against the darkness of the rest of the clinic, highlighting her presence to whoever had just entered the building. Ali heard two footsteps, light, not heavy, and her heart missed a beat before lodging itself in her throat.
‘Hello?’ The footsteps were accompanied by a voice. Quinn’s voice. For a solidly built man he moved lightly.
Ali’s heart skipped another beat. Her fight-or-flight response was in top gear thanks to the adrenalin that was kicking around in her system, but now the adrenalin transformed into a flurry of excitement instead of fear.
She stepped out from behind her door.
‘Quinn, what are you doing here?’
He was casually dressed in old, soft jeans and a blue woollen jumper that made his eyes gleam as the light from her room shone on him. His jeans stretched firmly across the muscles in his thighs. His legs were muscular, powerful and very male. Ali blushed as her gaze swept across his groin. Very male. Quickly she averted her eyes and lifted them to his face, hoping he hadn’t noticed her transgression.
‘I wanted to drop off a few things and get myself a bit organised before I start consulting tomorrow.’ In his arms he held a cardboard archive box. ‘Am I disturbing you? I didn’t think anyone else would be here.’
Ali shook her head. ‘No, I was just finishing up.’ She followed him into his room and watched as he dropped the box onto his desk. It sounded heavy. He’d made it look light. ‘Would you like some help?’ she asked as he began to empty the box. She’d trailed after him without thinking about what she was doing and only now did she realise he might not want company.
‘Sure. Do you want to find a spot to hang this?’ he asked as he handed her his framed medical degree.
There was an empty hook to the left of the window, above the desk, and Ali hung the frame there, right where patients would be able to see it. If he was bothering to unpack, did that mean he was thinking of this as more than a locum position?
When she turned back to Quinn he was still pulling certificates from the box. She looked at the certificates as he stacked them in an ever-increasing pile on the desk. Trauma, underwater and hyperbaric medicine and chemical and biological defence followed his traditional medical qualifications. She had suspected he was over-qualified for the job but she hadn’t realised by how much.
‘You carry these around with you?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Quinn shook his head and grinned at her. ‘They’ve been gathering dust in Julieanne’s attic. The army moves people around so often it’s been easier to store stuff with her,’ he replied, as he picked up the pile of frames and put them on the floor, leaning them against the wall.
Ali wondered where he’d been but before she could ask she was distracted by a photograph of two girls that he was lifting from the box.
‘Are these your daughters?’ she asked as he set the picture on the desk. ‘They’re twins?’
Quinn nodded. The girls were identical from what she could see. With white-blonde hair and Quinn’s extraordinary blue eyes, there was no doubting who their father was, but they were older than she had expected. She knew they were at school but she’d imagined them as only just old enough. Judging from the photo, they’d been at school for a while. ‘You got an early start.’ She’d learned from her mother that Quinn was only thirtytwo. Six years older than she was.
Quinn ran his fingers along the top of the photo frame. ‘They caught us by surprise. They turned nine a few months ago.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Beth and Eliza.’
His voice was soft and Ali could hear the love as he spoke his daughters’ names and her heart ached with loneliness and loss. But she couldn’t stop to dwell on her own feelings right now. She couldn’t afford to be swamped by disappointment. She suppressed those feelings; she’d deal with them another time. She was getting quite adept at that. She knew she needed to address the issue, she couldn’t just continue to ignore it, she knew that wasn’t healthy, but she didn’t have the strength to do anything else. Not yet. So she continued to talk, keeping the focus on Quinn.
‘Pretty names,’ she said. ‘Which one is which?’
Quinn smiled. ‘It’s hard to tell in a photograph unless you know them, but Beth is the extrovert, she’s usually the first one to talk and she’s just cut her hair. Or, more correctly, Eliza has just cut Beth’s hair. Beth said she was tired of people not being able to tell them apart so she convinced Liza to chop it off. Of course, then they had to go to the hairdresser to fix it and Beth now has a bob, I think they call it.’
She looked again at the photograph. Even though they were older than she’d expected, they were still far too young to be going through this nightmare. ‘How are they coping with everything that’s going on?’
‘Better than I am, I think.’ He sounded sad.
‘You probably know more about Julieanne’s condition than is good for you,’ she told him. ‘Sometimes ignorance is bliss.’
‘It’s not Julieanne I’m struggling with. It’s parenting.’
Ali frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I haven’t spent much time with the girls. I was still studying when they were born and then the army has kept me busy, then the divorce. Julieanne has been the constant in the girls’ lives so far and I’m on a pretty steep learning curve.’
‘You didn’t share custody?’
‘I couldn’t. The girls were here, I’ve been in Queensland or overseas.’
‘Peacekeeping missions?’ Ali knew that army medics would have to accompany soldiers on any mission.
‘Some.’
His answer was vague enough to arouse suspicion. ‘War zones?’
Her heart was racing at the thought of Quinn being in danger but he was grinning at her, his blue eyes sparkling as he replied. ‘That’s classified.’
‘What, you could tell me but then you’d have to silence me?’ She found herself smiling in return.
‘Something like that,’ he teased. ‘Let’s just say I’d much rather be here.’
Did he mean in Australia or right here, with her? Ali’s mind was turning in circles, trying to decipher what his smile, his dancing azure eyes and his words all meant.
He laughed. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been thinking about you and you’ve been under my nose all this time.’
He’d been thinking about her. ‘What do you mean, “all this time”?’
‘The night we met, at the bar,’ he explained, ‘the phone call I got was from my mother-in-law, telling me about Julieanne. I had intended to come back to you, I wanted to come back, but everything else took a back seat. I flew out the next morning, straight down here.’
‘So that’s why you didn’t give your keynote address.’
Quinn nodded.
‘You’ve been here since June?’ Ali asked.
‘I’ve been up and back to Brisbane a few times but I’ve been here for a few weeks now.’
She thought back to all those fleeting glimpses, all those moments when she’d thought she’d caught sight of him. Perhaps it hadn’t been her fanciful imagination. She couldn’t believe he’d been here all that time. Not that it would have made any difference had she known. Despite his intentions, she was sure his priorities would have been elsewhere.
‘If I’d known you were here I would have searched for you,’ he said.
‘Why?’