Someone needs to keep an eye on Sienna for today at least. She’s been discharged but even mild concussion can be uncomfortable for some time to come.
Sometimes being a doctor came with obligations. It was not possible to turn his back on anyone in need.
Sienna is not an obligation.
Then what the hell was she, apart from an annoying neighbour, a good patient, and an attractive woman who had him asking too many questions of himself about her? Was the petrol tank of his vehicle full? He could go to Taupo for the day. Stay the whole weekend even. He wasn’t back on duty until Monday.
‘I’m ready.’ A soft but firm hand touched his arm.
Stepping back from that light but intoxicating touch, he growled, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Anna means well.’ Sienna was wobbling on her feet.
Putting his hand over hers to keep her there, and balanced, Harry said under his breath, ‘Sounds like you believe that,’ then louder, ‘I’m sure she does.’
‘We’ve been friends since university when she fell in love with one of the students in my class. Our friendship has lasted while her marriage didn’t.’
Why was Sienna telling him this? It wasn’t anything he needed to know. Unless she thought he was interested in Anna. ‘Sorry to hear that.’
Have you ever been married? Got a brood of kids somewhere?
There hadn’t been any sign of ankle-biters around her place, but she could be the career woman while the father took care of them—alone. ‘You weren’t attracted to anyone in her class?’
‘No.’ Tension rippled off her.
Best leave that line of conversation alone. ‘Are you Auckland born and bred?’
‘No.’
‘Where are you from, then?’ He’d go with ignoring the tension, try to lighten the mood that had overtaken her.
‘New Zealand.’
Give me a break here.
‘Right.’ The lift doors slid open and he stood back to let Sienna in first.
‘I was born in Whangarei, had my second birthday in Invercargill, my third in Christchurch, fifth in Pukekohe, ninth in Waihi. Went to high school in Napier, so that covered five more birthdays. University in Auckland.’ There was no bitterness or joy in that statement. ‘We lived in a house bus.’
She’d been on the move most of her childhood. What about other friends? A shudder rocked him.
There wouldn’t have been any when she was young.
Nor things like sports teams to join and stay with year after year. ‘You’ve stayed in Auckland ever since?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Sienna was staring at the floor, seeing something he could only guess at. ‘Returning to the same place, the same things, every day, is important to me. Don’t get me wrong. Being on the road all those years was fun, and I have some wonderful memories, but I prefer the sense of belonging that I get from my own home.’
Even he with his diabolical mother couldn’t imagine not having some place to call home growing up. Not that he had his own home as an adult, but that was his choice and one he could change any time he chose. ‘Your parents stopped moving around for you to go to high school?’
‘I demanded they did—said I’d run away otherwise.’ She suddenly looked very small. ‘Mum had home-schooled me up till then, but she couldn’t teach me algebra and physics and all the subjects required if I was going to become a doctor.’
Obviously it’d hurt her to make that demand. Determination must’ve been her middle name, though, if she’d stood up to her parents so adamantly.
Go, you, Sienna.
Now he understood her question to him about being a wanderer. Not that it mattered. His lifestyle suited him because he didn’t want to settle down, be held in one place to make someone else happy. Sienna was safe from him. Now he understood he wasn’t in danger of falling for her wiles because no woman was going to put her foot down and demand where he stopped, where he lived, what he did. Sienna had done that with her parents, she knew it worked, she’d do it again for something she believed in. She was absolutely the wrong woman for him—if he’d been looking for one, which he wasn’t. Where was the relief of knowing that? It should be shoving aside these silly niggles of interest in who she was behind that professional façade she wore too easily, making him let it go. But he couldn’t. ‘Where are your folks now?’
They’d reached his four-wheel drive. Harry pinged the locks and opened the door for Sienna, helped her up onto the seat, saw her swallowing when she knocked her ribs. He also swallowed. When he’d taken her elbow to help her up he’d been hoping to save her from added pain.
It wasn’t until he was on the road heading towards their apartments that she told him, ‘Mum’s still in Napier, living in her own home. She has a friend, Bill, to share occasions with, but not her house, while Dad’s travelling all over the South American continent,’ she said, sadness thickening her words.
‘Last night you said he’d told you to spread your wings. He doesn’t understand your need to be settled in one place?’
‘He understands all right, he just doesn’t agree. Says I’m missing out on too much. To some extent that’s true, but I’m also winning in other ways.’ She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, her hands tight balls on her thighs. ‘I’m getting to watch my trees grow.’
‘You have to do what’s right for you, not live according to someone else’s ideas. Not even your father’s.’
Very wise, Harry.
But it was what he did. Lived alone, worked wherever a job came up, didn’t have a house to call home, though he did own a string of properties he rented out. Didn’t do anything to abide by his mother’s edicts.
‘Yeah,’ was Sienna’s answer to that gem of wisdom.
CHAPTER FIVE
SIENNA STOOD BY her kitchen bench, waiting for the kettle to boil, and wiped up splashes of water on the counter, rinsed and dried the teaspoon Harry had dropped in the sink when he’d made her a coffee earlier and placed it in the drawer, handle to the right. Now what?
There wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t ache, and downright hurt in some places. Especially the ribs, because she’d forget and put her arm out to reach for something, and ping, pain would stab her. Bed was the best place to be, but it felt alien in the middle of the day. Alien, and uncomfortable, and rendered her useless.
So here she was, wondering what to do with herself, apart from swallow some more painkillers. The problem with those were they weren’t soothing what really ailed her. The accident had rattled her more than it had any right to do. It was all very well deciding it had been the wake-up call she’d unconsciously been waiting for. Quite another to know what to do with it.
Write a list.
What would a list of things to occupy her when she wasn’t being a doctor, over-zealous house-tidy-upper person, or cyclist achieve? Apart from frustration at learning how insular she’d made her life? Her bike was now scrap metal, leaving two of those options to fill in her time. Doctoring was out for a couple of days. Not a week as Amy Roberts had recommended. Two days of hanging out around here trying to come up with ideas she didn’t have a clue about would test every shred of patience she had. She wasn’t familiar with relaxing in a sit-and-read, or do-a-jigsaw-puzzle, or cook-a-fancy-meal kind of way. This was her haven in that it was her front door that opened into her home filled with her furniture, and outside were her trees, but as far as doing random fun activities here? It didn’t happen.
Her head ached enough as it was without her having to think. The short sleep she’d had on top of her bed after Harry left to go fetch her car hadn’t improved her mood.
He’d out and out ignored her when she said she’d arrange for someone to get her SUV. At least she hadn’t been stupid enough to say it could stay where it was until she was fit to drive. She did like having four wheels and all the windows intact. Titirangi was a good neig
hbourhood, but not all hooligans knew that.
Harrison. Her finger tapped her wrist. An enigma. Today he’d guided her not only to her door when they got back from the hospital, but had taken the key from her shaky fingers, unlocked the door and, hand on her elbow, walked her inside to the kitchen, where he’d pushed her gently onto a chair and proceeded to make coffee and toast. Who did he think he was? This was her territory. She got to decide who came through her front door, and what they did once inside.
Tell that to someone who believes you. You enjoyed every moment of it—couldn’t find reasons to keep him at a distance.
True. All of it.
The moment he’d gone she’d tossed the toast down the garbage disposal and the coffee down the drain. The hospital breakfast was still firmly lodged somewhere between her mouth and her stomach and nothing was getting past. Or was that because of nerves about her neighbour? Harry had a cheek taking over as though he owned the place, but he’d also acted as a friend. Like Anna usually did, before she had a brain fade and decided Harrison Frost was the man to be seeing to her needs. Sienna had a clear idea what needs Anna was thinking about. It was not happening. Even if her skin tingled and her fingers warmed whenever he was near.
The kettle whistled, clicked off.