The Man with the Locked Away Heart

‘School is often an issue for boys,’ Gemma said. ‘A lot of the boys out here drop out. It’s sad to see the waste of potential.’

‘What sort of social problems do you have out here?’ Marc asked.

Gemma toyed with the last of her food, pushing it around with her fork as she thought of the heartbreaking situations she had handled in the short time she had been in town. ‘The usual stuff,’ she said, ‘drinking and violence and vandalism. It’s a real problem with the indigenous youth. They’re caught between two worlds. They don’t really fit in either one at times. Some make it, like Ray Grant, for instance, but others don’t. But it’s much the same for the whites. The youth around here are bored as there is simply nothing for them to do if they don’t work on the land. I try not to be overwhelmed by it but sometimes it’s hard not to get involved. Clinical distance works a lot better in the city when you don’t see past the name on the patient information sheet. Out here you know the patient personally and their parents, and the brothers and sisters. They’re not just patients. Most of them become your friends.’

‘You sound like you really care about your patients.’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘Being a doctor in a small community is a huge responsibility. People depend on you in so many ways. But that’s what I like about the job. You get to make a difference now and again. It’s very rewarding when that happens.’

Gemma realised she had poured her heart out much more than she would normally do to a person she had only met just hours ago. It made her feel a little uncomfortable. He had much more information on her than she had on him. ‘What do you love most about being a cop?’ she asked.

‘The long hours, the crappy pay, the criminals and the cold coffee,’ he said.

She gave him a droll look. ‘Very-funny.’

His mouth tilted slightly. ‘Did I mention the endless paperwork?’

‘You didn’t need to,’ she said. ‘It’s the same in my profession.’

He put his knife and fork together on the plate in the correct I-am-finished position. ‘Serving the public in law enforcement is always a challenge,’ he said, his gaze momentarily focused on the wine in his glass. The light went off again. A shadow drifted over his expression, like a cloud over the face of the moon, but then he blinked and the shadow disappeared as he picked up his glass to add, ‘You can’t fix everything that needs to be fixed. You can’t solve every case that needs to be solved.’

Gemma fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. ‘So why Jingilly Creek?’ she asked. ‘Why not some resort town on the coast or somewhere more densely populated?’

His chocolate-brown eyes met hers, but apart from a tiny tensing movement in his jaw his expression remained unreadable. ‘I felt like I needed a complete change,’ he said. ‘It seemed as good a place as any.’

‘Did you throw a dart at a map?’ she asked.

That brought a flicker of a smile to his mouth, softening his features for a moment. ‘Just about.’

Gemma wondered if there was much more to his move out here than he was letting on. He had an air of mystery about him; an aloofness she suspected went much further than him simply being a cop. ‘So you’ll be the one in charge now at the station?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Constable Grant can now resume his regular duties.’

Gemma wondered how the new broom was going to fit in the broom cupboard down at the small station. In remote areas more junior officers often had to take on more senior positions due to the chronic shortage of staff. There would most certainly be an adjustment period. Jack Chugg had been strict but fair with the locals before he’d retired. Ray Grant had a much more laid-back approach, especially when dealing with other local indigenous people with whom he had blood ties. It would be interesting to see if Marc Di Angelo adopted the same live-and-let-live approach that Ray did. ‘You might have to feel your way a bit,’ she said. ‘Ray’s been used to handling things his way.’

‘I’m here to do a job,’ Marc said. ‘Not win a popularity contest.’

Gemma studied his expression for a moment. ‘It would be nice to do both, though, don’t you think?’

He gave her a cynical look as he leaned back in his chair. ‘Maybe I should take some lessons from you, Dr Kendall, on how to charm the locals,’ he said. ‘Who knows what bonuses might be out here for me to collect?’

Gemma set her mouth and began to rise to gather up their plates. Marc’s hand came down over her wrist and held it to the table. The smile fell away from her mouth, her heart picking up its pace until she could hear it instead of the ticking clock. She felt the slow burn of his touch in his long strong fingers, so dark and masculine against the soft creamy texture of her skin.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me clear away. You cooked. It’s only fair that I get to do the dishes.’

She slipped her hand out from under his, her face so hot she felt like she had stuck it in the oven on full fan-forced heat. ‘Th-thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some coffee. I don’t have any dessert. I mean, nothing I’ve made especially. I have fruit and yogurt, if you’d like?’

‘Coffee is fine,’ he said.

Gemma let out the breath she was holding as she opened the fridge to get out the ground coffee. The kitchen suddenly seemed far too small with Marc Di Angelo standing at the sink with his wrists submerged in hot, soapy water.

The domestic scene made her feel as if she had stepped over a boundary way too soon. It was intimate and yet he was a perfect stranger. She was sharing this big old house with a man she didn’t know and yet for some reason she didn’t feel frightened, or at least not in a physically threatened sense. She did feel on edge but that had more to do with her reaction to him: his touch, for instance. What was that all about? Why had her heart started to race like a greyhound when his fingers had pressed down over her wrist? His dark brown gaze had locked her just as firmly in place, those bottomless eyes that saw so much and gave away so little.

She made a business of preparing the coffee when in reality she would normally had settled for a teaspoon of instant. But Italians loved their coffee, right? She breathed in the fragrant aroma as the percolator did its job, her mind wandering as she thought about how long the sexy sergeant would be in town.

In her house.

Sharing the kitchen, the living spaces, the cutlery and crockery, his lips resting on the rim of the same cup she might have used the day before, his lips closing over a fork she had put in her mouth previously. It had never felt like this when Gladys had had guests staying before. The middle-aged couple from Toowoomba, for instance. They had stayed for two weeks and not once had Gemma thought about the towels that had wrapped around their bodies in the bathroom, or the water that had cascaded over them in the shower, or the sheets that had covered them while they’d slept.

The mere thought of Marc Di Angelo in the shower had sent her pulses soaring and this was only the first day. What would it be like in the morning? Would she hear him shaving, or perhaps singing or humming to himself, or was he one of those grumpy types who didn’t properly wake up until ten in the morning or until a double shot of caffeine hit his system?

‘Where do you want these put?’ Marc asked, jolting her out of her reverie.

‘Oh …’ Gemma said, flustered again and unable to disguise it in time. ‘Um … the cutlery goes in that top drawer over there and those plates in the cupboard above.’

She watched as he reached up and stacked the plates, his arms so tanned, so strong, so arrantly male. She swallowed when he turned his head and locked gazes with her. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked with a quizzical look.

She shook her head, running her tongue out over her lips. ‘Um, no, not at all,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking how I have to stand on tiptoe to get into that cupboard.’

His hand closed the cupboard while his gaze remained centred on hers. ‘You seem a little uptight, Dr Kendall.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said, folding her arms across her middle but just as quickly unfolding them as she realised how her body language was contradicting her denial. ‘Why would I be uptight? This is a guest house. You are a guest.’

‘Maybe you should call me Marc as we’re going to be living together,’ he said.

Gemma felt her cheeks heat up again. Did he have to make it sound so intimate? Had he done that deliberately, knowing it would unsettle her? It worried her that he was seeing so much more than she wanted him to see. Those eyes of his were so penetrating and dark, his expression so level and composed, while she was sure she was giving off all sorts of clues to her discomfiture. ‘Marc, then,’ she said, forcing a stiff smile to her lips.

‘Am I your first house guest since you inherited the property?’ he asked leaning his hip against the counter.

Gemma reached for the coffee cups, embarrassed at how she betrayed herself yet again by allowing them to rattle against each other as she put them on the bench. ‘Yes, the first since Gladys died, that is. We had a run of guests a few weeks before she went downhill. The rains we had in the spring brought a few extra tourists our way to see the wildflowers.’

‘Do you mind if I call you Gemma?’

Hearing her name on his lips sent a shower of sparks down her spine. It was like a rolling runaway firecracker bumping against each and every vertebra. ‘Um … of course not,’ she said. ‘No one stands on ceremony in Jingilly Creek.’ She picked up the tray she had put the coffee and cups on. ‘Would you like to have this outside on the veranda? It’s probably nice and cool out there now, or at least cooler than inside.’

‘Sure, sounds good,’ he said, and took the tray from her.

Gemma stepped back, her fingers burning where his had brushed against hers in the handover. She told herself to get a grip, but it didn’t really work. Her eyes kept going to the taut shape of his buttocks as if drawn by a magnet as he walked out to the veranda.

He set the tray down on the table between the two wrought-iron chairs, politely waiting until she sat down before he did so. The sound of Flossie’s toenails clipclipping along the floorboards as she came out to join them was the only sound in the still night air.

The night sky was dark as ink, thousands of stars peeping through the velvet-blanket canopy. An owl hooted from one of the sheds and a vixen gave her distinct bark in the distance as she signalled for a mate. Flossie pricked up her ears but then gave a long drawn-out too-tired-for-all-that-now sigh, and rested her greying head back down on her paws.

Gemma shifted forward on her chair. ‘How do you have your coffee?’ she asked.

‘Just black, thanks.’

She poured it for him and handed it over with a wry smile. ‘Sorry I haven’t got any doughnuts.’

The light coming from inside the house was soft but it was enough to see the glint of amusement reflected in his gaze. ‘Not all cops live on coffee and doughnuts,’ he said.

She sat back in her chair, carefully balancing her coffee cup in her hands. ‘It’s a tough job,’ she said after taking a sip. ‘It must be awfully stressful and heart wrenching at times.’

He paused before he spoke, and again she saw that fleeting shadow pass across his gaze before it shifted from hers. ‘Yes, it is but no one forced me to do it. I chose it. And I will stick with it unless it becomes obvious there is nothing left for me to achieve.’

Gemma gave her coffee an unnecessary stir. His statement seemed to be underlined with implacability. There was a steely determination in his character she found both attractive and a little unnerving. She couldn’t think of a single person she had met before who was quite so determined, quite so focused and quite so disturbingly, dangerously attractive. She could imagine him working on a case, uncovering information that others would surely miss. His sharp intellect and his ability to read people and situations would make him a formidable opponent for any criminal deluded enough to think they could outsmart him.

The owl hooted again, the swish of its wings as it flew past the veranda on its way to the shearing shed sounding exaggerated in the stillness of the night.

‘This seems a rather quiet appointment for someone who has worked in a busy city homicide department,’ Gemma said. ‘We haven’t had any murders out here for decades.’

He took another leisurely sip of his coffee before he spoke. ‘I am sure I’ll find plenty to do to pass the time.’

The sound of the phone ringing indoors brought Gemma to her feet. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’d better get that. I’m waiting for news of Nick Goglin’s progress.’

Marc put his cup down, stood up and walked to the edge of the veranda. Leaning on the railing, he looked up at the twinkling stars of the Milky Way. At the funeral he had heard one of Simon’s relatives tell his little boy Sam that his daddy would always be watching out for him up there in the night sky, no matter where he went. ‘Which one are you, mate?’ Marc asked, but of course there was no answer.

CHAPTER THREE

‘GEMMA.’ One of the volunteer ambulance officers, Malcolm Gard, was on the other end of the line. ‘We’ve just got news of a roll-over out on the Bracken Hill Road. A passing motorist called it in. We’re on our way now but it might be best if you meet us out there. It sounds bad.’

‘I’m on my way,’ she said, and hung up the phone.

Marc came in from the veranda with his mobile phone up to his ear. ‘Right, I’ll go with Dr Kendall,’ he said, and hung up.

Gemma snatched up her doctor’s bag and mobile phone, which she had been recharging on the kitchen bench. ‘Was that Ray?’ she asked.

‘Yes, he’ll meet us out there,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to drive?’

‘No, I’d better drive. I know the road better than you do,’ she said. ‘Flossie, come in, girl.’

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