Forbidden Nights With The Boss. Anna J. Stewart

he protested. ‘I thought it was because of the refuge you were employing another doctor. The fortyish woman, remember.’

      He won a slight smile.

      ‘I was employing her—or you—to ease my load at work so I could put more time into this, time for paperwork mainly, applying for grants, and so on. As I told you yesterday, the refuge began with a bequest and the building itself is available to us free of charge, but ongoing funding for residential staff—the people here every day, including the child-healthcare worker—has to come from the government. The government is forever issuing new guidelines and procedures and so-called measurements of success—criteria we have to meet before they’ll give us money.’

      ‘Sounds like the army,’ Cam said, ‘but I thought women being saved from abuse would be counted as successes.’

      ‘You’d think so,’ Jo told him, ‘but they like “projects”.’ She used her fingers to put the word in inverted commas. ‘That’s why a men’s programme would be fantastic, and we could do more work in schools. It would be such a waste to have to close it now, when we’ve come so far.’

      She smiled, but it was a weak effort.

      ‘The thing is, we’ve worked so hard for the women who need us to accept us and on top of that we have the most wonderful local support,’ Lauren explained. ‘People from all walks of life help out in different ways. The local bakery gives us its unsold bread at the end of each day—not to mention buns and bread rolls. We get a discount at the butcher’s and the supermarket, and the fruit shop in town also hands over any produce they aren’t able to sell.’

      ‘Which is a blessing,’ Jo put in, with a far better smile, this time broad enough to gleam in her eyes, ‘given that the back yard has a virtual zoo, with rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens and a duck with one leg that someone gave us. At one stage there was a lamb but it turned into a sheep and the neighbours complained about the noise it made.’

      Cam looked at the smiling woman who did affect his body and regretted mentioning a programme for abusive men. Much better if he moved on at the end of the holidays. He didn’t need to get involved in the problems of the refuge, did he? There were other towns with good surf. In fact, he had thousands of miles of coastline to choose from.

      But no snappish, elfin-faced, green-eyed doctor …

      ‘If there’s a programme up and running in Port, maybe I could go down and speak to whoever runs it,’ he heard a voice say.

      He was reasonably sure it was his voice.

      A buzzing sound made him turn towards the woman he’d been considering, and he watched as she pulled her mobile out of her pocket.

      She walked through the back door and spoke quietly, but not so quietly he and Lauren didn’t hear her end of the conversation.

      ‘I’ll come at once,’ she said. ‘Pack just what you need, and don’t forget any medication and the little bundle of papers that were on the list I gave you. We’ll be fifteen minutes getting there, but if you feel unsafe leave the house now—go to a neighbour and phone again from there.’

      ‘New tenant?’ Lauren asked as Jo came back into the kitchen.

      ‘Jackie Trent, I talked to you about her.’

      Lauren nodded and followed Jo, who was hurrying towards the front door.

      It was a case of trailing along behind.

      Cam trailed, then four of the words Jo had spoken were suddenly clear in his head.

      If you feel unsafe, she’d said.

      He stopped trailing and hurried ahead, reaching the passenger side as she clambered in behind the wheel, his presence obviously forgotten.

      ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.

      ‘You don’t need to,’ she replied, her attention on fastening her seat belt. ‘You can stay and have a coffee with Lauren and learn more about the house—talk about the men’s programme. I’ll collect you later.’

      ‘No, I’ll come,’ Cam told her, fastening his seat belt in turn.

      ‘She’s scared,’ Jo said, not arguing exactly as she started the engine, put the vehicle into gear and backed out of the drive.

      ‘I won’t scare her more,’ Cam assured her, not adding that the woman must have reason to be scared and if she did then Jo, also, should be scared. There was no way he was leaving two scared women with no protection.

      ‘She’s talked about leaving for the last six months,’ Jo told him. What she didn’t tell him was that in her heart of hearts she was very pleased to have his support on this rescue mission. ‘Apparently he’d always arranged every detail of their lives, but Jackie had seen that as part of his love for her, but then, just last year, he hit her. She was pregnant at the time. She fell, and a few hours later she lost the baby. It wasn’t necessarily the fall that caused her to miscarry, it could have happened anyway, but the two things were definitely connected in her mind. She was so upset about it she told me about him hitting her … ‘

      ‘Did you believe it was the first time?’ Cam’s barely disguised anger at the thought of a man hitting a woman was so genuine Jo put the memory of Jackie’s misery out of mind and found a smile. She was only too aware that there was little to smile about right now, but she was pleased her new employee knew enough about abuse to ask the question. Had he always known or was that why the light had been on in the flat until the wee hours of the morning?

      Research?

      ‘It might have been, although while she was in hospital overnight—I did a D and C after it—I met him a couple of times. He straightened everything on the bedside cabinet, ordered her dinner for her, and checked his watch when she went to the bathroom. I realised he was keeping himself under rigid control because I was there, but you could tell he ran her life down to the last detail—a totally controlling man.’

      She heard Cam sigh, and saw him shake his head.

      ‘From what I’ve read,’ he said, confirming her guess he’d been studying up on it, ‘the first thing to do is persuade the men to accept responsibility for their actions. If they can do that, then they can move on to the next step of learning other ways to resolve problems—other ways to handle anger. The depressing thing from my research seems to be that many will never change, is that right?’

      ‘I think a good percentage do, especially those who have ongoing involvement with a group or a mentor,’ Jo replied.

      ‘Even though most men blame the women for their reactions?’ Cam said. ‘“It’s her fault—she started it” kind of thing.’

      Jo smiled.

      ‘You have been reading up on it,’ she teased.

      ‘Of course,’ he said, sounding slightly put out. ‘Wouldn’t you have expected me to?’

      Jo was pulling into Jackie’s street, driving slowly, alert for any parked cars or other vehicles approaching.

      ‘Maybe not quite so soon,’ she said. ‘This is the house. There’s no car here but we won’t park in the driveway. That’s one of the golden rules of a rescue. Don’t make it too easy for someone to block you in. Not that there’s any great danger. According to Jackie, her husband’s gone to indoor cricket so he shouldn’t be home for a couple of hours.’

      Jo turned off the engine and although she was sure Jackie was right, she still made sure the interior light was off before she opened the door and slid out. The evening was still and strangely silent, and suddenly she was very glad to have Cam as back-up, right there just a pace behind her as she walked up the path.

      Jackie was out the door before Jo reached it, hustling her two children in front of her, both of them wearing pyjamas and backpacks, Jackie towing two suitcases.

      Crying.

      Cam