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he knew her. Tasha Raymond? He’d met her as Tasha Blake.
‘Tasha,’ he said, and she managed a smile and struggled to rise.
‘Tom. I didn’t think you’d recognise me.’
Fair point. Tasha was his half-brother’s widow but he’d only met her once, at Paul’s funeral four years ago.
He’d attended because he’d thought he should, not because he’d thought he was wanted. His stepmother had made it clear she’d prefer it if he stayed away. He’d gone, though, and had stayed in the background, and then one of Paul’s climbing mates who knew the family background had decided to intervene and introduce him.
‘Tom, I doubt if you’ve met Tasha. Did you know Tasha and Paul were married?’
The news that Paul had died trying to scale Everest had come as no huge surprise. Paul had spent his life moving from one adventure to another, taking bigger and bigger risks along the way. The knowledge that he’d found time to marry had been a bigger shock.
But the slight figure surrounded by Paul’s climbing friends had seemed almost a ghost. He’d told her how sorry he was, but he’d only had time for few perfunctory words.
For of course his stepmother had moved in. Afterwards he’d never been able to figure if her contempt was only for him, or if it had included Tasha. Tasha had been a pale figure huddled into someone else’s greatcoat to protect her from the icy winds at the graveside—and maybe also from her mother-in-law?
There’d seemed little point in pursuing the acquaintance, though. And after giving his condolences he’d left.
Four years ago.
Why was her face etched on his memory? Why was recognition so instant?
The notes in his hand said she was Tasha Raymond. She was obviously pregnant. Had she remarried? Four years was time to have moved on.
Rhonda was looking from Tom to Tasha with bright interest. Rhonda was the world’s worst gossip—well, maybe apart from her twin sister. Tom employed them both. Rhonda was his receptionist and Hilda was his housekeeper. The widowed, middle-aged sisters were excellent at their jobs but to say they were nosy was an understatement.
‘I can manage from here, Rhonda,’ he told her, smiling at Tasha with what he hoped was a brisk, professional nod. ‘You can go.’
‘Oh, but Mrs Raymond—’
‘Mrs Raymond is my late half-brother’s widow,’ he told her. He might as well. Rhonda would have asked Tasha to fill in a patient form and she’d have probably figured her history before he had. ‘I imagine she’s here on family business. There’s no need for you to stay.’
* * *
Rhonda reluctantly gathered her belongings and departed.
Tasha was left with Tom. She felt ill.
What was she doing here?
She knew what she was doing here. She was here because she was desperate. She had to have help.
I can manage alone. It had been her mantra when her parents had been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan when she’d been in her teens. It had held her up when Paul had died on Everest.
Two days ago it had crumbled.
Paul had been big-boned and muscular, his tall frame made larger by pushing himself to the limits of endurance in every possible physical endeavour.
This man was his half-brother and she hardly knew him.
Tom’s hair was a deep brown, like Paul’s, but sun-bleached at the tips as if he spent time in the surf she could see outside his surgery window. He was taller than Paul, six feet two or three. His blue eyes were creased at the edges and his skin was tanned. He was lean, muscled, taut. Another who pushed his physical limits? Who thought risks were fun?
She couldn’t help it. She shuddered.
She was here because she needed him. Needing another Blake? The thought made her feel ill.
‘Tasha,’ he said softly, and his attention was all on her. ‘How can I help?’
It would have been a shock to see her, she thought. It had been a surprise to meet him at Paul’s funeral. This man and Paul had never been permitted to be brothers.
‘My mother would disown me if she ever caught me talking to that side of the family,’ Paul had told her. ‘Which always seemed a shame. When I was a kid my father took me on a holiday, supposedly just father and son. Unbeknown to my mother, he invited my half-brother, too. Tom’s four years older than me and I thought he was cool. Kind, too, to a kid who trailed after him. But of course Mum found out and hit the roof and as a kid I never saw him again. We met a couple of times later on with Dad, but then we lost touch. In an odd way, though, it’s always seemed like I have a brother. If anything happened to me, Tasha, I reckon you could go to him.’
If anything happened to him. Like being crushed by tons of ice on Everest.
She hadn’t needed Tom then, though, and she’d made a vow. She’d never need anyone again. Not like she’d needed her parents or thought she’d needed Paul. Paul had made her world crumble even before he’d been killed.
So what was she doing now, asking for help from another Blake? Paul and his father had both been charming, undependable womanisers. Why should this man be different?
Because she needed him? Because she’d taken yet another risk and failed.
Her last risk.
‘Tasha?’ Tom’s voice was still gentle, that of a concerned family doctor. Maybe that was the way to go, she thought. She could talk to him as one medic to another.
Only she didn’t feel like a medic. She felt like a terrified single mum who’d just heard the worst of news.
‘Tea,’ Tom was saying, suddenly brisk, and his hands were on her shoulders and he was propelling her back into her seat. ‘You look exhausted. I’m thinking tea with lots of sugar and then take your time and tell me all.’
‘I should have booked for a long consultation,’ she managed, trying to joke. ‘I only booked for standard. You’ll be out of pocket.’
‘Do you think I’d charge?’ His voice was suddenly strained but he had his back to her, putting on the kettle at the little sink behind Rhonda’s desk. ‘You’re family.’
Family. She stared blankly at his broad back, at the tanned and muscled arms emerging from his crisp, white short-sleeved shirt, at the stethoscope dangling casually from his back pocket.
He oozed competence. He oozed caring.
He was a family doctor. This was what he did. There was no reason for her to want to well up and demand a hug and turn his shoulder into a sodden mess just because he’d said the word ‘family’.
She wouldn’t.
But she needed him and the very thought had her terrified.
So she sat on, silent, trying to keep her thoughts in check.
Tom spent time making tea, checking how she had it, measuring sugar, stirring for maybe longer than it needed, as if he sensed she needed time to get herself together. By the time he set the mug into her cupped hands and tugged a chair up before her so he could sit down and face her, she had the stupid tears at bay again. She was under control—or as under control as she could be after the appalling news of two days ago.
‘Now.’ Tom was smiling at her, his very best patient-reassuring smile, a smile she recognised as one she’d practised as a new doctor. Family or not, she was clearly in the category of new client who may or may not have something diabolical going on.
There was a box of tissues on the side bench. He swiped it surreptitiously forward—or not so surreptitiously as she noticed and she even managed a smile.